The Box Omnibus #1 (The Box, The Journal, The Sword) (40 page)

While Al takes his time to deconstruct the protective wall between us by using as little magic as possible, I focus on my own power. I spent more than I like on the shields I created and even more on the teleport to get rid on his sword. Nothing I can do about what I’ve lost. I need to focus on what I have.

I feel the wall
dissolve under the pressure of his magic. At the same moment I grab hold of five drops of my power and fling them forward. The second they land in a circle around Al, I force them to connect. A line of magic spreads between each of the blobs and creates a five pointed star surrounded by a circle. Al tries to lift his hand to point it at me, but the star’s magic has already taken hold, grounding him to the floor. He can’t move.

He glances down at the floor before smiling at me. “You’ve been practicing.”

“Impressed?”

Although his laugh is cruel and rings through me like the wrong note in a familiar song, there is some genuine amusement behind it. Al’s starting to regain control.

“It won’t hold me long,” he says.

“I don’t expect it to.” I touch the closest point
of the star with my mind to connect it to my magic. I now have complete control over the symbol. “Do you know what this mark represents? Sin told me all about it, so I’m sure you must know.”

“It’s a pentagram,” he says as though teaching a small child something as simple as the alphabet. “Each point represents an element, with the top one representing magic.”

He doesn’t understand yet. I can tell by the way he’s barely putting any effort into trying to escape. He’s still trying to conserve his power, thinking this will be an easy fight.

I wink at him. “Exactly.”

Every element blasts from the pentagram at once. One moment he’s smiling as though this is the most fun he’s ever had, the next he’s using up all of his magic to keep himself from suffocating, drowning, burning and being buried alive, all at once. My magic wraps around it all, keeping the elements contained within the circle.

It doesn’t take him long to break from my trap. When he does, he takes the most logica
l step which is to move forward.

A
nd into Sin’s circle.

Overwhelmed with anger at having been caught in one trap, he doesn’t notice the
new one around him now. He uses his magic to rush at me fast enough I shouldn’t be able to see him move. But I do. Because instead of reaching me at alarming speed, he smashes into the wall I’ve created around him.

He falls to the gro
und, dazed, clutching his head. I’ve walked into a glass door before. I know he must be hurting. Plus he was going much faster than I was when I hit the glass.

He’s angry and embarrassed, and he’s going to throw his largest spell at me yet. What I don’t realize is we’re no longer alone in the room.

It’s only because I’m watching him so carefully I notice his attention shift from me to the door I’m standing in front of.

His magic slides past me and reaches for the person at the door. The intention of his magic is unclear. I can’t tell if it’s meant to grab the person
or kill them. All I know is they’re in trouble.

I spin and throw my magic to protect them, but I’m too slow. Rose’s eyes widen as she stares at me, and then she slowly clutches her chest and
folds over.

In turning to help her, I’ve left myself open to an attack
from Al. There’s nothing I can do as he tosses me like a doll across the room and into a wall. All of my breath pushes out of me in a single cough and my sight darkens and twirls as I lose consciousness.

“What the hell?” Sin’s voice forces me to remain conscious. And then all grogginess snaps away as Sin sees what’s
happening and roars with rage.

She’s going to try to attack him. And he will kill her.

This time I don’t attempt to block the attack I know he’s going to throw at her. Instead, I go straight for Sin myself.

I grab her, toss her out of the room, and slam the doors closed. A touch of magic and the doors are locked beyond her ability to open them. I can only hope she takes the hint and uses up her energy
trying to help Rose rather than break down the door.

Al pushes himself to his feet and turns to face me. He makes no effort to try to pass through the circle, and I can see why. The dark corruption is losing control and my Al is fighting
back. He cannot be happy about being the one to hurt Rose, and he’s probably doing everything he can to seize his body.

It take
s me a minute to find the strength to stand, but eventually I manage to get up and walk toward the circle. There’s no smile from him, good or evil, as I step over the debris to place myself directly in front of him. I put a hand on his chest before he tries to grab me or do whatever he has planned next.

“Would you still like my magic?” I ask.

He doesn’t answer. Behind his eyes, I can see control flicking back and forth between the two sides of Al. A stalemate.

“
Then here you go.”

I
weave my magic into every inch of what’s left of his. And then I set my power on fire, burning away every tendril of darkness within him. There can be nothing left if this is to work. Just like a weed, even a tiny root of corruption will only grow back stronger than ever.

The storage of magic inside of me disappears at an alarming rate as I push further into him. My knees buckle, but I can’t stop. There’s still more. It’s trying to
hide within the corners of his being, trick me into thinking it’s gone. I press harder.

My eyes go blank and I can no longer feel the corruption, but there is still the faintest of bells warning me not to stop.

And then I collapse. Although I know Al’s wrapped his arms around me to keep me from hitting the floor, I can’t actually feel him. I can’t feel anything. I’ve gone too far. I’ve used up too much of my magic.

“Stop.” The word barely registers in my mind. It’s so faint, I can barely hear it. “Please, Lou. You’ve done enough. Stop.”

Al. The real Al. My Al. He’s the one talking to me. But his voice is barely audible. I need to listen. He’ll be mad if I don’t.

I break the flow of magic between us and sigh with relief as I slip into unconsciousness.

Lou’s eyes roll back into her head and her body goes limp in my arms. I should know what to do by now. This has happened so many times, dealing with it should be simple.

I rub her face, p
ushing her hair away from her cheek. This can’t be happening. I didn’t kiss her. I didn’t drain her power. She can’t have forced all of it in me on her own. There’s no way her instinctive need for self-preservation would have allowed it. And yet, the proof is here. She’s gone. I see no sign of magic within her. Not even the tiny spark I left after our kiss.

It’s not possible. She has to be in there. I tap her cheek a couple of times in hopes of getting some sort of reaction. Nothing.

“Listen to me,” I whisper into her ear. “You can’t be gone. Want to know why? Because I told your sister to kill me if I ever hurt you, and I have no interest in dying today.” Nothing. Not a hint of a chuckle.

A drop of water lands on her cheek and it takes me a minute to
understand it must have come from me. I roughly wipe my eyes with the back of my hand and do everything I can to stop the tears.

She’ll be okay. One way or another, she’ll be fine.

“You should have killed me,” I say. “Not saved me.”

I press my lips to her forehead and close my eyes, wishing I could kiss her lips one last time. But then again, there’s nothing stopping me. The worry I might take her magic is gone since she has none to steal. I can’t hurt her any
more than I already have.

My lips linger against hers for a moment as I
embed the memory of her taste in my mind. As I pull away, I imagine her sucking in a quick breath and moaning ever so slightly. If only it were real.

Another moan. This time I’m sure it isn’t my imagination
. I cup her face in my hand and her head rolls into my touch, her lips curling up ever so slightly.

She’s alive. She’s unconscious, but she’s alive.

A throaty laugh pops out of me and I can no longer fight the tears. That was too close. If she ever does that to me again...

As I lean forward to kiss her
again, I remember the others still stuck behind the door. They must be wondering what’s going on. Sin must be furious.

Rose.

I shift Lou out of my arms and into a comfortable position on the floor before leaping to my feet and racing toward the doors. Breaking Lou’s locking spell is easy with the amount of her magic she’s pumped into me. I might as well be breaking one of my own spells.

Rose is curled on her side clutching at her chest while Sin leans over her trying to figure out what’s wrong. The moment she sees me, her worried expression turns to ice and she leaps to her feet.

“What have you done?” She points my own sword at me to make it clear I’m not welcome to move any closer. “Where’s Lou?”

I raise my hands to let her know I have no intention of violen
ce. “She’s in the other room. She’s fine. Just asleep. I promise. Now let me see Rose.”

Sin’s eyes twitch between
the room with Lou and Rose until she decides her sister is higher priority to her. Without lowering the blade, she moves around me, keeping as far away as she can, and slips into the room. As soon as she’s inside, I drop to the floor and reach for Rose.

She jerks at my
touch and tries to scurry away. When she moves, the pain overwhelms her until she’s leaning over the floor wheezing.

“I can help,” I say in what I hope is a soothing way. “But you need to trust me. Think you can do that? I know I haven’t earned it lately, but I promise I will do everything I can to fix things.”

I hope she understands it’s not just the magical damage I want to fix. I still have no idea how I can make things right between the two of us, especially now I’ve gone and nearly killed her, but I will figure it out. I have to. She’s my best friend.

Rose struggles against me for a few more seconds, but whatever I threw at her is
making her weak. When I pry her hands away from her chest and force her onto her back, she doesn’t give much resistance. The magic inside her is ugly and dark, starting at her heart and spreading through her body like a weed. It’s made to cause pain to her and latch onto the magic of the person who tries to save her, corrupting them just as I had been corrupted. It was the darkness’ final card, played when it realized Lou was winning.

“Sin,” I call over my shoulder.

She’s closer than I expect when she answers, “What?”

“I need my sword.” I know she’s not going to hand it to me. Not when her sister is lying unconscious on the ground because of something I did. So I’m not surprised when she doesn’t hand it to me right away. “The magic inside Rose needs
to be destroyed. The only way is with the sword.”

“You’re going to stab Rose through the heart?” Sin says.

Rose moans. “Rather not...have…happen.”

I rub Rose’s shoulder to reassure her. “I’m going to draw the magic into an object, and then destroy it.”

“Cause...trouble...” Rose says between wheezes.

“You don’t cause trouble.” I say. “If anyone here does, it’s me.”

“I agree,” Sin says. “You do. But that’s not what she’s saying. I think she’s trying to remind you breaking things filled with magic is what caused this trouble in the first place. Remember Gran’s house and the trapped wizards?”

When Rose nods her agreement, she gets caught in a coughing fit, forcing her to roll
back onto her side. Spots of blood drop to the floor where she coughs. She’s dying.

“One of your phones would do wonders right now.” I hold a hand out to Sin and wait until I feel the cool material in my palm. “Thank you.”

“It cost me two weeks pay, just so you know,” Sin says. “If you tell me later there was a better way to fix this, I will kill you.”

I place the phone on Rose’s chest and watch as the magic naturally pulls away from the foreign material.
I drop a bit of magic within the machine, separating it from the source of magic within me as quickly as possible I do not want to give the darkness an easy route back inside me.

The moment my magic is inside the phone, the darkness reaches for it, greedy to consume and contaminate the new power. I leap to my feet and take a step back, my eyes never leaving the phone or the darkness building within.

“Use your dust,” I say to Sin. She doesn’t move. “Quicker would be better.”

“Why?” she says. “It’s made to create illusions, not trap evil spells.”

There’s no time to explain, but if I don’t convince her to act, Rose will be killed.

“You imbue the dust with the elements, right?” I say. “The elements are needed to complete any spell. I don’t see many other
ways of adding the elements around here, do you? So dust on the phone now please.”

Sin digs into a hidden pocket in her dress and drops to her knees in front of Rose. My sword remains in her other hand. The moment she scatters the dust over the phone, getting quite a bit on Rose in the process, I grab Sin under the elbow and drag her back through the doors.

“Drop the sword,” I say.

She holds on while trying to wiggle free. “What are you doing?”

“The rest is up to you, Rose. Use the sword. Be quick.”

I’m not sure if Sin understands what I’m trying to accomplish, or if she’s just happy I’m not trying to use the sword myself. Either way, she drops the blade next to Rose and allows me to pull her into the room with Lou. I force Sin to leap into the circle, motioning for her to mind her step
, and follow as fast as I can.

I can feel the darkness explode from the phone, its tendrils reaching in every
direction, desperate to find some source of power to latch onto. When it touches the imbued circle surrounding us, it burns and shrivels, until there is nothing left of the darkness but bad memories and a whole lot of guilt.