The Box Omnibus #1 (The Box, The Journal, The Sword) (39 page)

And then in an instant, he’s broken away. He takes several steps back, stumbling over some rubble while keeping his arm up as though to block me from
coming any closer. His eyes are alight with amusement and something else much more primal.

“Enough,” he says. “This is not going to end well.”

“Really?” I try to appear as innocent as I can while thoughts about how tight his clothes seem to have become run through my mind. “I thought things were starting to get fun.”

“Fun is bad.”
He takes another step back to keep the gap between us as I move toward him. “Fun ends with me stealing your power and you in a state between life and death.”

“You won’t take my magic,” I say. “You didn’t before.”

He backs into the wall as I move forward. He keeps his hand up so I won’t be able to move any closer than arms reach to him. I press my body into his hand and watch his resolve melt away.

“I…” His eyes shift to my chest and his hand moves from trying to stop me to tracing the curves of my skin above the low neckline of my dress. “You are so beautiful.”

I freeze and our eyes meet once again. This time all playfulness is gone, replaced by a burning I’ve never seen in any movie or television show and definitely not in real life before. When I try to respond, my voice catches.

He cups my chin with his hand for a moment and then drops his arm to his side.

“I’m going to take a walk,” he says. “To make sure the building is still safe. I’ll be back.”

I watch him go without a word.
I feel more deprived, lonely, and happy than I have ever felt before. And all of my emotions are hitting me at once.

Sin and Rose arrive back at the same time Al returns to the room. I wonder if he didn’t time it like this on purpose.

The smell of food from the grocery bag she’s brought back with her causes my mouth to water. Without a word, she starts handing out subs and water.
As she passes one of each to Al, her attention is drawn to her circle in the middle of the floor.

I follow her gaze and cringe. As some point Al and I must have stepped through it, scraping the dus
t away to break the circle in several places. Our footprints are pretty good indications it was us and not some freak breeze inside the building blowing the dust around.

“What the hell were you two doing?” she says while walking the circle to examine every inch of the damage. “Do you know how long it took me to do this? The spell is completely ruined now. I’ll have to start from scratch.”

I refuse to look at Al, knowing I won’t be able to hold back a blush if I do.

“Sorry,” I say. “It was my fault. I’ll help you fix it.”

“Yes, you will,” she says. “And you’re going to help me make it stronger. I need to know what’s happened to my Farah and Nyx.”

“I said I’ll help.” Her obsession with the creatures is more annoying to me right now than usual. Then again, I might just be easily annoyed after what happened, or didn’t happen, with Al earlier. “But I’m going to eat first, if you don’t mind. And we need to figure out how we’re going to take back the portal and Gran’s house.”

“And help Loraine,” Rose says.

“I hate to say it,” Al says, “But right now the portals are more important than my sister.”

Rose’s look of disbelief and horror causes Al to look away from her.

“I’m sorry, Rose.” He adds in a quieter tone, “I am so sorry.” He continues by
looking at the wall behind us, I suspect because he doesn’t want to deal with meeting any of our gazes. “Loraine is alive and she’s not in any pain or immediate danger. Fitzroy’s warped belief he cares for her is actually keeping her safe for now. The same can’t be said for the other sorceresses they have trapped.”

“Other sorceress?” Sin asks. “You mean
Rilla?”

“Who?” Al asks.

“The sorceress working with Victor,” Sin says.

I add, “She’s attached to him the same way Loraine is attached to Fitzroy.”

“I see.” Al goes quiet for a moment as he thinks about what we’ve told him. “No. She’s not the one I’m talking about. The sorceress I saw was not attached to a wizard. The magic being ripped from her to feed into the portal was clear of any contamination. She had to be.” He turns to me. “That’s why I needed to take your magic earlier. I couldn’t let them use you. And I knew if I ended up losing control and taking too much, Sin would do what she had to in order to bring you back.”

“Damn straight I would,” she says, causing Al’s lips to twitch in an almost smile.

It doesn’t matter to me why he did what he did. I knew it was the best way to deal with the situation, and it gave me the opportunity I needed to be able to help him fight the contamination inside him.

However, what does bother me
is what he said about the sorceress and the portal.

“You saw them feeding magic into a portal?” I ask. “But why would they?”

“It’s Victor’s plan.” Al picks at the edge of the wrapper around his sandwich, but doesn’t open it yet. “He wants to close the gap between our worlds. He thinks by doing so, he’s actually saving them. But he doesn’t understand or care it’s been too long since the two worlds were one. If he succeeds, everything not exactly the same in both worlds will be destroyed. The result could kill thousands.”

“Millions,” Sin says.
Everyone turns to her to find she’s gone white with fear. “If what you’re saying is true, it’s been thousands of years since the worlds were separated. Do you think both worlds have suffered the same earthquakes and volcanoes and other shifts in the land as each other? If the worlds are brought together, all of those things will happen at once in order to correct itself. Our huge city buildings won’t survive the shock of the two worlds colliding. It will be…” Her eyes shift nervously back and forth as she tries to find the right words to describe what would happen. Her shoulders rise in a fearful shrug. “It would be the end of our worlds.”

I hate to state the obvious, but no one else is saying it, so I’ll have to.
“We can’t let that happen.” Not even Sin makes a sarcastic remark. “How can we stop them?”

“The only way,” Al says, “
would be to break the link between the sorceresses and the portals. But we would need to get past however many wizards and defenders of The Sword they have guarding each location.”

“Never mind the fact we don’t know where any of them are,” Rose says.

“True,” Al says. “But we do know Fitzroy’s guarding one, and then there’s the one at Sin’s house. We can start with those two and go from there.”

“There was a portal at the jail?” I hadn’t felt it at all. Though with everything going on at the time, it’s not a huge surprise I missed it. “Did they have a sorceress?”

“It wasn’t Loraine, was it?” Rose asks.

“No,” Al says quickly in order to reassure her. “Not Loraine. They
have someone else. I didn’t know her.”

“You saw the spell,” Sin sa
ys. “You must have some idea how to stop it.”

Al shifts uncomfortably, his hand subconsciously going to his sword to touch the hilt.

“I’m not sure,” he says. “The spell was beyond anything I’ve ever seen before.”

Both Rose and Sin accept his answer, but I know better. I also know why he didn’t want to say anything. He didn’t want to frighten me.

The only way to stop the spell is to kill the sorceress.

“There might be a way to figure it out,” Sin says after taking a moment to think. “
You’d need to tell me every detail you know about the spell, no matter how insignificant. Maybe from what you give me I can figure out a way to counter it.” She gives Al a doubtful look. “We would need to do a communal meditation. You’d have to open your mind to me.”

He takes a step away from her and shakes his head. “It’s too dangerous. You might
get infected by the darkness. I won’t risk it spreading to you.”

“I could help,” I say. Al continues to shake his head after I’ve spoken, but Sin seems to be listening. “I was able to clear your mind this much. There must be more I can do.”

“The circle.” Sin points her thumb at the mess on the floor. “When you help rebuild it, you can add some of your magic to make sure everyone stays nice and sane. Easy.”

Al runs his hand through his hair and I try not to
be too distracted by the way his shirt falls around his flexed muscles. “Everyone seems to be forgetting in order to clear my mind earlier she drained her magic. That was only hours ago. I’m sorry Lou, but as much magic as you have back, it’s not enough to properly protect Sin from me.”

“He’s right.” I hate admitting how weak I am. I feel like I’m somehow letting everyone down by not having the power I need to fix everything. “I need time to recover.”

Sin frowns, though it looks to be more out of concern than anger. Although it can be hard to tell one way or the other with her.

“Fine,” she says. “It’s late anyway. We’ll try tomorrow. Al and I will go through some things
we’ll need to do in order to prepare. You two should go sleep in the other room.”

I don’t like being dismissed, but I know if I refuse to leave she’ll just take Al into another room to talk to him in private there instead. While I’m still considering the option of telling her to screw off and let me in on whatever they’re going to talk about, Rose gets up and leave
s. With her gone, I lose my last excuse to stick around.

I
silently leave the room, unable to think of anything else to say. One last glance back and I see they already have their heads together and are quietly discussing things without me. Looks like all I can do is try and rest so tomorrow I’ll be useful once again.

At some point during the night, Sin must have gone for more food, because when I wake up, there are muffins and juice added to the bag of left over sandwiches and waters from yesterday. I eat one in as few bites as I can manage without choking and am glad Al’s still asleep and doesn’t see me spill crumbs all over myself.

When I’m done, I take a look at the
room with Sin’s circle. With the others still asleep, I have the place to myself. No distractions. I step into the center of the ring and sit down cross-legged like Sin does when she’s meditating.

The moment my eyes close, I’m comfortably inside myself and next to my
source of magic. I have less than usual, but the tuneless song rising from the pool reminds me of the third bag I opened. With it in mind, I take a closer look and realize my power has actually built back to the same point it usually is first thing in the morning. The difference is the pool containing it is bigger than ever. I’m now capable of holding more magic than I ever could before. The fact it’s not brimming over right now is a sign I’m still not a hundred percent recovered from yesterday.

Nevertheless,
I have more than enough to complete the task before me. Without opening my eyes, I feel for Sin’s wrecked circle and begin to weave my magic through what’s left of the mixture of rubble and magical dust. Any areas scuffed away by our footprints I rebuild by pulling the dust from the rest of the room toward me and perfectly align it with the circle.

As I
work, a part of my mind recognizes another source of power enter the room. Al. He’s awake and watching me. I barely pay any attention to him at first. But the longer he stands there, the more attention I begin to pay to his magic.

The contamination has spread into the
power I’d given him, and the darkness surrounding the light I created has grown. My eyes snap open as the darkness flares toward me. I meet Al’s eyes, except it isn’t him who stares back at me. Not really. It’s whatever he becomes when the wizard part of him takes over. And he looks mad.

A tendril of the darkness snakes toward me
, but the moment it touches the circle I’ve rebuilt, it sizzles and fades.

“Al.” I stand, careful not to disturb the circle.
“This isn’t you. Don’t let it control you.”

More tendrils snake out to touch the
circle, this time trying to find a weakness from all sides at once. The magic within the debris flares and each one of the tendrils sizzle away. I know the only reason I have any protection at all is because he’s sending out such small amounts of magic. If he attacked with anything stronger, he could easily break the protection and cause me direct damage. So why doesn’t he?

“You cannot stay in there forever,” he says in the sinister version of his voice. “Why not step out so we can play
?”

For a moment,
the magic I planted within him flares and forces back the darkness. Al blinks and for a moment he looks confused and frightened.

“Lou?” He starts to take a step toward me
, but stops when I flinch. I don’t mean to, but until I’m a hundred percent sure he’s back to being my Al, I’m not able to trust him. “I’m so sorry. I must have lost control. I don’t remember.”

The darkness he managed to push back shifts inside him, and eats away at
the lightness faster than before. His eyes widen as he realizes what’s going on.

“Whatever
happens,” he says. “Don’t let me hurt you.”

Once again I’m
gazing at the full wizard version of Al. His expression contorts into something between a smile and a grimace. From the way the darkness stretches to completely encase anything light inside him, I know I won’t get any more help from Al. I need to figure out how to destroy the darkness inside him now before he turns my own power against me to kill me, or worse.

But
how? I gave him everything yesterday and the effect lasted less than a day. All I managed to do is push the darkness aside, allowing it to come back stronger than ever.

There has to be something in the fact he hasn’t used his magic to blast the circle apart, but what? All it would take is a little more power. It would barely use any of his magic at all.

Oh. Stupid me.

Of course the darkness came back. It was never really gone. The only difference
was I stuffed enough of my untainted magic in him to allow him to function normally for a while. But just like every other piece of sorceress power patched together inside him, it’s being connected to the rest of his magic by the darkness. All it takes is one bit of corruption to remain for it to take over entirely.

But there is a way for him to be rid of the darkness. And it explains why he isn’t using any more magic against me th
an absolutely necessary right now. He needs to use up all of the dark magic. Drain it from his system. Once it’s gone, just like any magic within a wizard, it’s gone for good. It can’t rebuild like mine does.

The magic I gave him yesterday has only made what I need to do much harder.
I gave the darkness more power to feed off. The only thing I can do now is hope I can survive long enough for him to use up as much of the tainted power as possible.

I slice the air pocket at my side and
draw my sword. His smile increases as I take the time to stretch out my shoulders and neck and take a long breath to shut down the nervousness in my stomach.

Stay alive. All I need to do is stay alive.

I step out of the circle, my sword arm relaxed at my side.

For a moment, neither of us moves. He’s a strong fighter. He’s had more training than me, and worse, there’s no con
science inside him to force him to hold back. There’s no reason for him to play by any rules, while I have to deal with my inner voice constantly reminding me this is Al, as though I’ve forgotten. I can’t fight him. What if I hurt him? I could never forgive myself.

And then
, in one smooth move, his sword is drawn and swung at me. I spend a fraction of a second too long thinking about how I should block rather than actually blocking, and end up being too slow getting my sword up. The tip of his blade nicks my arm, causing a shallow cut and some blood, but nothing to be concerned about.

He laughs. “You need to be
quicker. We don’t want this to end too soon, or else how will either of us feel properly satisfied?”

His words shouldn’t cause an excited thrill to run through my body, but I can’t help the way I feel. This is still Al. And the way he’s speaking, evil or not, is full of more desire th
an has ever been shown to me before.

I force myself to stop thinking
so much as he moves toward me. However, instead of the sword fighting skills I’ve been working on for the past year and a half or so, I start using skills drilled in my head for much longer. I begin to dance. Each step he takes, every time he moves his arm, I predict it, and respond with my own move.

But as useful as dips, spins and steps
are for avoiding attacks, what I need is to be on the offensive. So long as he has his sword, I can’t. He can cut through any spell I might use against him and I can’t bring myself to do anything more than a couple of wide swings at him with my blade. I don’t feel like I have enough control not to hurt him if I did somehow manage to get past his defenses.

He moves again, his sword
smashing against mine, knocking it to the floor. His free hand catches me in the chest and slams me against the wall. My body becomes hyper aware of the heat coming from him as he crushes his own against me, pinning me in place.

“You disappoint me,” he
says. “I expected more from you. This is just sad.”

“Sorry,” I say. While trying not to focus on the way his chest feels against
mine, I reach for his sword. “But this isn’t over yet.”

With a quick burst of magic, I surround his sword and teleport it out of his hand. I don’t
waste my magic by making it go far. Instead I focus on moving it to the other room where Sin and Rose will be able to keep it safe.

Another blast of magic, and I manage to force him to release me. He stumbles back a few steps, but doesn’t lose his footing for long. In a flash he’s after me again, trying to
force me back against the wall. This time I use magic to block him. Not a lot, but enough to make him use his own power to break my shield.

H
e’s angry. I tricked him out of his sword, and he’s furious about it. He throws more magic into his next attack than necessary. In the time between him breaking my shield and throwing a bolt of black lightning at me, I see the darkness attacking my magic within him recede a tiny bit. I might have questioned what I’d seen if it weren’t for what I hear. For a moment, the nails on chalkboard sound of his magic trills a few clear notes. It’s working.

I don’t have time to congratulate myself for figuring thing
s out. I’m forced to dive out of range of his attack. I slap the ground as I fall, and push myself over in a summersault. Within a breath, I’m back on my feet and running to avoid becoming an easy target. Blast after blast follows me. He comes so close I can feel the electricity of the attack charge the metal of my bracelet. It gives me a sharp zap.

I change my speed just enough to throw him off. And then stop suddenly. His magic hits the wall in front of me, smashing a
dark hole into the next room.

“Run as much as you like,” he says. “I will catch you.”

I throw my hands in front of me and produce a thick wall of invisible stone between us. It will take more than a simple bolt of electricity to blast through it.

“I’m getting a little tired
of running.” I press my hand over my chest to pretend like I’m trying to catch my breath. Really, I could run like this for hours, but I’m afraid he’s not using up his magic nearly fast enough. “Besides, it’s your turn to be the hunted.”