Sorcerer: Witch's Woes: Power of Air (Book 3) (6 page)

Tara shook her head, “I’ll break the wards first…”

She was interrupted by Todd walking in, “So, what did I miss. 
I kind of lost track of time.”

He looked a little sheepish, he was supposed to be shadowing
and learning from Sierra right now. 

Tara said, “We’re going after the ritual space the spell was
cast from.  Anyway, I can break the wards first, we don’t want to enter another
coven’s ritual space without doing that first.  Even a temporary one.”

Sierra asked, “Are you sure you can do that?”

Tara smiled, “Yes, because most of the coven’s power is tied
up in the spell.  If I go after the wards they will eventually go down, unless
the coven cancels the spell themselves, in which case we’ll still do what we
set out to do, and also have one of the coven members trapped within.  Plus,
I’m pretty sure Ben can smash the wards all by himself.”

I thought about that a moment, if the spell was within my
sphere of influence, I could hit it with fire and air magic.  I had the
strength to do it, the question was if I could burn away the earth magic
without seeing it.  It should work, maybe some kind of rolling wave.  I’d have
to see.

Todd asked, “So what should I do?”

Sierra ordered, “You’ll come with us, when Carrie and Gerald
get back.”

Sierra pulled out her phone, and made the call.  They
probably wouldn’t be happy having their rest interrupted, but Carrie should be
fine to take the wards back long enough for us to find and kill the spell. 
That part should go pretty fast, I hoped so anyway.

Sierra hung up, “They’ll be here in a half hour.”

Tara grabbed a satchel and started to throw things in it,
preparing for a fight no doubt.

Friday, June 3
^rd
, 2016, 10:43 PM

We were still waiting on Carrie and Gerald when I was hit
with a wave of anger, fear, and worry.  It made me wince, because Diana was
still pissed at me, but all the fear and worry was also on my behalf which
meant… my life was so damned complicated.  Either way, the time was now.  It
could have been worse, at least we hadn’t attacked the coven’s spell site yet. 
Still, it could’ve been better.

I stepped away from Sierra and muttered, “Got to go,” as I wrapped
the power of air around me and went to wherever Diana was, my magic knew
because I was connected to her.

I took in the situation with a glance.  We were west of the
city in a large field.  I wondered for a moment how that came to be, but for
right now it wasn’t important.  Ceara and Diana were dressed in the same kind
of tight leather clothes, and they were trying to pin down Christopher who was
doing the same avoidance type crap, depending on his fire sorcerer to make the
actual kill.

The fire sorcerer was directing a shield of fire around
Ceara, who must have sensed it because she moved faster than I could track
before it could solidify and trap her.  Obviously the fire sorcerer wasn’t
messing around this time by throwing fire, and was trying a more direct
attack.  I would call him foolish for waiting before bringing his A game, but I
did the same thing all the time.  Throwing balls or blades of air, as opposed
to just crushing an opponent with the air already around them, felt more
natural for some reason.

He looked at me, and this time his attack on my emotions
went awry, and he didn’t get through my shields.  Wrapping the fire element
with air seemed to have worked and removed the bridge he used to get passed my
defenses.  He could probably overpower it, but I didn’t give him time to add
more power behind it.  I ordered the air around me to starve his fire.

It was partially effective, but he was still much more
powerful than I was, and my access to the fire element was greatly lessened,
since his control over the area overlapped and overshadowed my own power.  He
gathered fire and focused on me, while I surrounded him with air.

Ceara was attacking Christopher with ferocity, but he seemed
to be completely focused on defense and was able to dodge, duck, and weave
around those attacks. 

I jumped behind the fire sorcerer as I felt his fire start eating
into my shields, having the air move me immediately out of danger.  There was
no way the air I’d focused around him could get through his shield, I was like
a toddler fighting a grown man, although a toddler that was much faster. 

But he made another mistake, by ignoring that air I’d
focused around him, assuming he was invulnerable to my attack, he disregarded
it, instead of using fire to consume it.  The truth was, it was a good
assumption, any attack I made with the power I’d surrounded him with would
fail.

But I didn’t attack him, it wasn’t part of my plan. 
Instead, I bade the air magic to move him, shield and all… to California.  He
disappeared from the field in a flash, now moving incredibly fast toward the
west.  He was completely out of sight in less than a second.

I felt the magic I’d surrounded him with die however, as he
burned the travel spell away with ease.  I’d never believed I’d get him all the
way to California.  Yet, those two seconds of travel was enough to move him
several miles west.  As far as I knew, fire couldn’t travel nearly as fast, if
at all.  If there was a way to travel with fire I didn’t know how yet, of
course, there was a lot I didn’t know so I took that with a grain of salt.

I looked down at Christopher who was still moving around
like a damned jumping bean, and congealed the air around him as I lowered to
the ground, which slowed him significantly.

Ceara growled and took his head quite easily at that point,
so I released the magic around his body that was holding it up, and let his
body fall to the ground.

“Good morning ladies,” I said brightly.

Ceara asked curiously, “You defeated Jaben?”

“Jaben?” I asked stupidly, the name had completely thrown
me.

Ceara explained, “The fire sorcerer, the bastard introduced
himself right before you got here.”

“Oh, no, sorry, I just tricked Jaben.  I moved him about
five miles west.  I’m hoping now that his employer is dead he’ll just move on. 
He could have prevented it, by burning my magic away, but he was too confident
in defeating an attack, so when I didn’t attack him and moved him instead, it
took him a couple of seconds to escape.  Even then, when he burned my magic
away he was moving very fast, over two miles a second fast, so I wouldn’t be
surprised if he got hurt when he landed.”

I looked around again, “How did you wind up out here?” I
asked curiously.

Diana replied, “Thanks for the help, we got a tip on their
location, there’s a vampire coven near here.  No doubt it was another trap for
us all, but this time we were ready for it… we’ll deposit your money when we
get back.”

I could feel her confusion, she wanted to be mad at me, but
she also wanted to jump me, and I hated the invasion of privacy.

“Should I remove the link?” I asked, perhaps a bit too
hopefully.

Ceara shook her head and answered, “Let’s wait and see what
happens.  Jaben might just leave, on the other hand he may want revenge on us
for you damaging his pride, and getting the better of him.”

I sighed, “Very well.  Just let me know when, and if Jaben
comes back I’ll answer Diana’s call again.  I’ll also keep you updated if I run
into him, chances are if he wants revenge it will be against the one that
tricked him.”

They both nodded at me, and then took off going east towards
the city, fast.  I guess the conversation was finished.  I was worried about
more than Jaben simply coming back, what if he spread word of a new air
sorcerer in Chicago?  Aitheria protected me from my enemies finding me through
arcane means of knowledge, but that wouldn’t do anything against word of
mouth.  But then, sorcerers weren’t the sharing types, so maybe it would be
fine.

Either way, I was done here and needed to get back to our
other issue.  The dark coven needed to be stopped.

I wrapped myself in the power of air, and moved myself to
the back room of Tara’s store.

I realized immediately there was something very wrong. 
Sierra was in wolf form and growled at me until she saw who it was.  Todd was growly
as well, but still in human form.  Tara wasn’t in range of my air magic and
when I reached for her location with my power, I was predictably blocked.  It
didn’t take a genius to realize they must have been watching the shop, and made
a move as soon as I left.

“What happened?”

Sierra whined and Todd growled, “Vampires.  They took us by
surprise and hit us with Tasers instead of magic.  Knocked us down, grabbed and
injected Tara with something that knocked her out, and ran out before we could recover. 
It happened seconds after you left.  Where’d you go?”

I frowned at his accusing tone.  If he’d been here instead
of flirting with Aiya he’d know I where I was. 

I said shortly, “To kill a vampire, and piss off a fire
sorcerer named Jaben.”

It finally hit me that the magical attacks had stopped, they
must have cancelled the spell right after, which meant my only lead to track
down Tara was about to disappear.  Sierra changed and pulled on her dress and
looked angry as hell at failing.  Carrie and Gerald showed up right before we
were about to leave them behind.

“No time to explain, don’t kill the witch if we run into
one, I need her alive.”

I surrounded us all in air power and took us to the backyard
of the house with the basement.  They all looked pretty surprised, especially
since I hadn’t told anyone I knew where it was already.  I felt the connection
to air diminished inside the house, and bathed the ward in raw fire and air
magic, trying to break through the ward, eat through it actually, but not using
physical fire and air, so I didn’t damage the physical house.

I grunted when it cracked in short order, I wish I’d known I
could do that before now.  I smiled as I felt the witch still in the basement,
through my fire power at least, she was closing down the circle.  I could no
longer detect the vampire, which probably meant he was dead.  Gerald kicked in
the back door and we all piled in.

“Cellar,” I said as I pointed out the door, and rushed down
the stairs.  Luckily the cellar was only halfway underground in this split
level house, and I still had access to air magic from my chest up.  It was a
really weird sensation being half above and half below ground, but better than
being completely cut off from air.

Sierra just grunted, already knowing about my weakness
underground, and ran ahead of me, taking out her frustrations with a lightning
fast right hook, knocking out the witch before she could get a spell off.  It
was ironic timing, because she’d just finished taking down the protections for
the site allowing Sierra an easy takedown.  We trooped back upstairs, Sierra
carrying the witch over her shoulder, and I spent the time burning and scouring
her personal protections from magic with both fire and air.

Sierra asked, “What now?”

The witch was completely unprotected now, and her life was
an open book to me now.  Amber, the witch who had lured the vampire, was very
attractive, and looked innocent while being unconscious, but she was an evil little
thing that cared only about her own power, to the exclusion of any other
considerations.  Such as the need to murder, sacrifice, or destroy others.

Her death would also weaken the coven, maybe even enough for
Tara to fight back.

“I have what we need, Tara’s been brought to a warehouse. 
They wanted the dark grimoire back for the other spells inside of it, but they
already have the knowledge Tara hoped to keep from them by stealing the book, and
they are all set to drain Tara’s power.” 

I felt a little guilty about it, this wasn’t self-defense in
the middle of a fight, this was an execution, and I was naming myself judge. 
What gave me the right?  I could see her whole life, and the kind of person she
was, I had no doubt she would go on killing and destroying others to gain
power.  There was no room for doubt, or simple human error, she was guilty.

In a way I could say it was in defense of Tara, because this
young woman would never let it go.  If I let her live, she would one day attack
again.  I formed a blade of air, and made it quick, no need to torture her. 
She’d even still been unconscious, since that was the only mercy I could afford
to show her.

I still felt sick inside about it, but that only meant I was
still human in my heart, and not a cold blooded killer, but my regret didn’t
mean I was wrong, or anything like the person Amber was.

I sighed, “You ready?  We are going to a warehouse.”

Sierra nodded, “Whenever you are, you did the right thing
Ben, these people are evil.  Killing in defense of yourself and others is not
the same as a person that kills for profit or fun, anyone who believes it is
the same… is a fool.”

Damned werewolf noses, of course she could scent my regret. 
What was that saying?  Mercy for the guilty is treachery to the innocent
victims?  Something like that, but the point was there was no supernatural
jails, serial killers like this dark witch just needed to be stopped.  But that
didn’t mean being the one to bring justice didn’t stain my soul.  Right or not,
it was the way it was and the world I lived in for better or worse.

I just nodded in agreement to her words before I surrounded
us with the power of air, remote viewed an unobserved area around the
warehouse, and had the magic move us there…

Friday, June 3
^rd
, 2016, 11:33 AM

We appeared in an abandoned parking lot.  The warehouse
looked to be about four stories high, the dark brickwork was faded and chipped
in places, and I could tell it had been repainted many times over the years. 
There was a line of windows all the way at the top of the building, dark green
and stained.  The metal door nearby was banged up and stained, and all the
rolling doors at the docks were covered in graffiti, closed up, and padlocked.

Inside I could feel Tara and the coven like a light echo
because of the strong wards on the building blocking me from accessing the air
inside the building.  That would have to come down before we went inside.  I
attacked the wards with fire and air magic, this time doing something slightly
different.  I tried to subvert the fire and air woven in their spells for my
own use at the same time.  The latter was partially successful, but what
brought the wards down quickly was the raw blast of air and fire magic
consuming the earth and destroying the water.

Information blocks at a distance could withstand my air
magic, but up close and personal, within my spheres of fire and air, the ward
cracked and dissolved under my power.  I could feel the coven better now, Tara
was still kind of fuzzy, and I assumed she was in a circle.  She was still
alive at least, for now.

I nodded and Gerald ripped the door off its hinges, and they
all stripped off their clothes, shorts and a shirt for Gerald and Todd, and in
Sierra’s and Cassie’s cases, simple dresses, and they transformed into wolves. 
For the first time I didn’t give the nudity a second thought.  With a
concentrated effort, I tried to cover them with their own shields of air, as
long as they didn’t get over a hundred and fifty feet away, I should be able to
maintain it with only a small portion of my concentration.

We ran in and I sent a blast of fire and air at the witches,
both magical and physical, and I was careful not to hit Tara on accident.  I
almost faltered when I saw her lying there, she was on the ground in the
circle, unconscious and naked, she’d been beaten and I could only assume she’d
woken up at some point and fought back.  She had some kind of nasty device in
her arm that was bleeding her out.  She was also covered with arcane symbols
drawn in blood over her skin.  I cursed, they hadn’t wasted any time.  I could
see the magic currents, and the coven was trying to absorb her power.  So far
Tara was strong enough to resist it, even unconscious, but I could tell she was
weakening.

My initial attack was deflected by the coven’s personal
wards, and I held back as that was enough time for the wolves to close the
distance, and they jumped for throats with a loud growl.

The oldest one who I recognized as Cyndy, held out a bone
and barked a single word.  The wolves seemed to run into a solid barrier of
some kind.  A lot like my fire and air shields instead of a ward against just
magic.  Cyndy dropped the bone and looked at me with a black hatred that
chilled me, as she yelled for a retreat. 

I hammered the shield of air magic hard, but it seemed to be
interlaced with a touch of all the other elements and was very strong.  I
wondered how long it had taken for the witch to prepare it, as it wasn’t just a
simple ward.

I channeled more magic into it while the wolves stared back
at me as if to tell me to hurry the hell up.  I could swear the three of them
looked frustrated as hell as the witches made their escape out the side door,
and I could even hear their car doors opening and closing as I bore into and slowly
burned away the shield. 

Diana had told me once that a witch prepared for a fight
would be a dangerous opponent, and she was right, I’d underestimated the
witches and they were getting away.  It was only now that they were gone I
thought of erecting a solid wall of air at the door, something I could have
done through the shield.  Still, it wasn’t like I’d had time to prepare a plan,
if we’d taken time to do so, Tara would be dead and the coven long gone. 

The shield fell and the wolves flew out the door.  I didn’t
bother since the coven had long since driven off by now, instead I reached out
with my power and brought down the circle.

The circle ward went down easily compared to that shield
spell.

I knelt down beside Tara, the device was some kind of vein tap,
I supposed it would regulate a blood drain better than slit wrists.  It didn’t
matter, I unstrapped it and tore out the needle, then used a little air magic
to heal the damage.  I looked her over, a part of me painfully aware she was
naked and even more voluptuous and pleasing to the eyes than I’d imagined, and
I had a very good imagination, but most of me ignored that as I tried to save
her life.

To be fair, I am a twenty-one-year-old male, and her body
was…  yeah.

That said, I was more focused on scanning her body and
repairing the damage done, also thanks to the blood, my anger at what was done
to her, and my concern for her life, my body wasn’t reacting very much to her
lack of clothing.  I healed her vein first, then started to repair the tissue
damage, scrapes, contusions, and bruises on her body from the rough handling
and beating she’d endured.

I also found the drug in her system keeping her unconscious,
and burned it out with a judicious application of fire magic.  Outside of a few
gene sequences and part of their brains, witches were pretty much just humans,
with magic, so I had no need of pulling Tara’s particular body information. 
Biology was one of the things I was very sure of nowadays.

I looked up when I was done, and Gerald, Carrie, and Sierra
were all back in human form and dressed.

“Will she be okay?” Sierra asked, and actually sounded
concerned.

I nodded, “I think so, does anyone see her clothes?  Carrie
or Sierra, can you dress her?”

Gerald growled, “The witches got away.”

I almost growled back, thank you Mr. Obvious.  It’d been a
crazy morning so far, and my emotions were obviously raw right now, so I took a
deep breath.

I shrugged as if it were unimportant, as they say, crap
happens.

“But they failed Gerald, and one of their number is dead,
and they’ll be weaker now, perhaps on the run.  We can plan chasing them later,
right now we need to calm down, think, and plan.”

Gerald seemed to lose some of his anger at my matter of fact
calm tone.

Sierra looked around, and said, “I see them, be right back,”
obviously referring to the clothes.

Tara moaned as she came around, and I glanced back down and
caught her eyes.  That’s when it happened, what I saw in the vision.  The lust,
need, and desire that burned through me was completely overwhelming, and I saw
it in eyes as well.  She leaned up and reached out, grabbed my shirt, and
pulled me on top of her violently into a steamy kiss.  Her lips were so soft, yet
firm and demanding, and her generous female attributes were warm as they heaved
and pushed up against my chest.

I could barely think, I wanted to take her right there on
the floor, the blood, Sierra, none of it mattered to me at all in that moment. 

A small part of me, very small, realized something was very
wrong with this, even as I moaned into her mouth and teased her tongue with
mine. 

My shield, I dropped my shield when I was healing Tara.  Then
that little voice in the back of my head screamed, Jaben, I could feel him
enter my range of power, which meant he was almost inside the warehouse.

If I hadn’t been practicing so much, and if it hadn’t been
second nature by now, I never would have been able to concentrate enough to
drop a fire and air shield around the six of us.  But I had, and I slammed the
shield down hard around us and my mind cleared.  I broke the kiss and jumped
up. 

Sierra had an expression of jealous murderous rage on her
face, but that cleared as well to merely a glare.  Apparently my good friend
Jaben had been playing with all of our emotions, from far enough away I had no
idea he was even there.  He hadn’t been in my range, but clearly we had been
inside of his.

Jaben walked in and laughed, “That was entertaining.  How
does it feel wolf, knowing he lusts after the witch?”

I scowled, “Lie, with a small grain of truth.  Why did you
come back Jaben, since you have no reason to be here?  Surely a master of the
element of fire isn’t ruled by petty emotions such as revenge.”

It was also clear to me that he could track us, it was the
only way he could be here as fast as he’d arrived.  I also confess to a little
disappointment, as I’d been hoping he’d killed himself destroying my travel
spell at such a high velocity.  I just had no idea how he had tracked us or
even had an inkling how he could have done so.  I’d been wrong when I suggested
he couldn’t to Ceara.

Jaben snorted, “Of course not boy, revenge is petty and I’d
never let my emotions rule me.  This however, is business.  I can’t have it
known that I allowed some snot nosed newbie to kill my employer, and then ran
away.  I’d be a laughingstock, all the other sorcerers and sorceresses would
make fun of me at the next Christmas party, and then I’d never get another
client again.  That was clever of you though, I suppose I was being a bit
arrogant.  I’m afraid this is the end of the line though.”

I sensed Tara with my air magic, she reached out and grabbed
the bone that had fueled the wall, and I heard her start chanting low under her
breath.  I didn’t know what she was doing, but Jaben hadn’t seemed to notice
yet, probably because the bone was room temperature and didn’t really register
to the fire magic.  I also noticed Carrie come over and grab Tara’s hand. 
Whatever it was she was doing, I decided to try and stall.  Mostly because I
didn’t have a clue what to do.

I shrugged, “And what’s stopping me from simply gathering
everyone up in air magic and running for it?”

He laughed, “My fire shield of course, I’m afraid it’s too
far away for you to sense, but if you try you won’t get farther than three
hundred feet.  I’m curious though, just what are you?  Wielder of two elements,
and a little extra?  It will almost be a crime to destroy you.”

Huh, if that’s really his range.  I supposed it was
possible, I knew the volume of a sphere went up more and more the larger the
radius.  At three hundred feet, his power was ten times what mine was at half
his radius.  Even worse, since I was on the ground I only had access to a half
sphere of air, which made him twenty times more powerful.

I wondered if three hundred feet was the limit, in the
beginning when this all started, before I had any grasp on my power, that was
how large my sphere was, that night when my core had taken over to save my
life.  That idea didn’t seem right to me, my core was still a part of me, and I
bet it had a lot to learn itself, but it was my initial goal, I wanted to match
what I’d done that first time.  Either way I was completely outclassed right
now.

“That’s impressive, any pointers before you kill us?  It
really sucks having no one to teach me.”

Jaben laughed, “I like you boy, I felt the same way, get
used to it, we all had to learn on our own, or actually, you won’t have to
worry about it at all anymore.  Shame to kill you and all, but I have a
reputation.”

Ugh, the guy was evil, but at the same time, I kind of liked
him.  I could probably run around inside his shield for a while, but he’d
probably just compress it until I was cornered.  He’d already countered the two
tricks I’d used, and I was having trouble coming up with a third.

My only hope was whatever Tara was up to.  I was about to
make something else up when Tara finished the last few words of her spell with
a firm loud voice.

Immediately I felt my access to fire drain off, I doubted I
could light more than a match at the moment.  It felt like I was literally
under water, the strength of her water ward was impressive to say the least. 
Still, he wasn’t a baby like me, and started to form fire around his hands. 
Still strong enough to kill me.  I moved everyone else outside at the same time
that I shot to the top of the ceiling, about eighty feet straight up.  It
wasn’t as good as a hundred and fifty would have been, but it did increase my
air access by quite a lot.

I sent the raw magic of air at his weakening fire shield,
which still just ate it.  That didn’t stop me from pouring it on, his shield
was lessening with each second.

He growled, “Enough, I’m done playing games.”

He reached out with his fire magic and tried to pull the
very heat from my body, but to both of our surprise, my shield held, while his
was still dimming.  He was having trouble getting heat and fire from the
environment, and beyond the limit of the water ward, he was completely cut off
from the rest of his sphere, much like I had been in the house with the
werewolves twelve days ago.  I realized at that point that meant the shield
he’d put up outside was probably down as well, and that I could grab everyone
and escape, but I also realized I wouldn’t have a better chance to take him
down than I did right now, so I kept it up.

Witches were scary, I’d have to remember that.

He cursed in frustration, and turned and ran for the door. 
No doubt he was trying to get outside of the ward.  He shouldn’t have held back
and played games, but perhaps that was a side effect of being a fire sorcerer,
when he could master all his emotions, perhaps completely mastering one’s own
fear was a mistake.  Some fear was good, it kept you alive and wary.

His shield failed under my assault before he could get outside,
and I ruthlessly sent my air magic into his mind and seized it.  A part of me
wondered if trying to take his knowledge, his power, made me anything like
Amber.  I decided it didn’t.  If he hadn’t attacked me I wouldn’t have done it,
but he did.