The Box Omnibus #1 (The Box, The Journal, The Sword) (44 page)

I tap Rose on the shoulder and point her toward Sin’s room. If she can get around to there, she should be able to get a decent view of the area beneath the staircase. Plus
, it will put her closer to the portal, so she might have a chance of stopping anyone from trying to use it.

She nods her understanding and silently makes her way around the top of the stairs. She pauses for a moment as her attention is caught on something below and then she books it the rest of the space until
most of her body’s positioned behind the door. She mimes to me what she saw.

Two. Hand gun.

Cops. She must have seen two cops. No one else would be using guns. At least no one interested in the portal or me. Victor must have had them watch the place after all. They must have seen us come through the front door. I’d been looking for wizards, not normal people. They could easily have been staking the place out and I was too eager to be right about Victor to notice them.

They
’ve probably already called Victor to let him know we’re here. If not him, then Fitzroy for sure. After all, he was the one working directly with the cops before.

Why didn’t I think of them
?

The one good thing about the fact it’s police and not wizards is at least they don’t have magic. Unfortunately, they do have guns. And I don’t have enough magic to be throwing up protection for us ever
y few seconds to block their bullets.

Some Kevlar would be great right about now.

I need to be able to see their guns in order to be able to focus my magic on them. Otherwise I’m throwing my magic around wild, hoping to reach the guns, and wasting all of my power in the process.

Another creak tells me
at least one of them has started to climb the stairs. I can wait in here for them to come in and shoot me, or I can go out there and stop them.

I know being put in jail should be the least of my worries right now, but I can’t help it. I’ve been told all my life what I’m about to do is very wrong.

If only Sin were here. She’d love to see me attack a police officer.

I gather my courage and dash forward. The moment I start to move, Rose reacts as well by slamming her door shut, drawing the attention of both the officers.

Time to work fast. I grab my magic and toss it at the guns. Every moving part within the weapons clogs with my power. There’s no way they’ll be able to shoot.

One of the officers notices me and pulls the trigger. I flinch, afraid my magic might fail. And then nervous laughter bubbles out of me. It worked. His gun is useless.

But my joy doesn’t last. I may have got one of their weapons, but apparently they’re carrying back-ups. He draws the small gun from his boot with lightning speed. I don’t have enough time to gather my magic and throw it again. He’s going to kill me and all I can do is watch.

As his finger pulls back on the trigger, silver flashes by his head and he turns at the last second, missing my head by
inches. I take enough time to spot the dagger embedded in the wall beside the cop’s head and Rose ducking back behind the door before I run back down the hall to find some kind of shelter.

More gun shots, though this time they seem to be aimed at Rose. Her wicked aim and awesome timing must make her more of a threat
to the cop than me.

The two officers split up. One for each of us. Another bullet misses me as I
skid into the bathroom at the last second. Panting, I wait for him to come. He’s going to spin into the room, his finger ready on the trigger. I’m going to have seconds to react. If I don’t move fast enough, I’m dead.

If I had the magic, I’d protect myself with a bulletproof wall. But by the time I got it up and held it long enough for him to come at me, my already low magic would be almost empty. I can’t afford the extra protection. I’ll have to trust I’m faster than him.

He sees me the moment he spins into the room, and in less than a heartbeat, he has the gun at my head. I’m faster. By the time he pulls back, I already have the gun clogged and under control.

When he pulls the trigger and nothing happens, he doesn’t hesitate to spin the gun in his hand to use the butt as a bludgeon.

My taekwondo training kicks in and I kick his wrist. Hard. The resulting spasm forces the weapon to the ground, but he keeps coming. I grab the closest towel and toss it in his face first so he can’t see me coming, then a boot to his shin followed by a punch to the side of his head and finally a foot to his stomach hard enough to make him stumble.

And yet he still stands.

I grab the top of the doorframe for balance, and just as he’s shifting his weight for a punch of his own, I thrust my foot up as hard as I can into his jaw.

I’d never be able to get enough weight behind an upper
cut punch to knock him out, but I can do wonders with my legs.

He drops. The old wooden floor
below him trembles from his weight.

Another two blasts from a gun remind me the big guy
isn’t alone.

I don’t hear any screaming, so I can only hope Rose hasn’t
been shot yet. But there are only so many places to hide in Sin’s room.

I can’t see the cop from down the hall and around the corner, so I need to get closer. I inch along with my back pressed against the wall in order to keep my cover for as long as I can. Just as I’m about to poke my head out to see where they are, the cop shouts out in pain.

When I duck around to see what’s happened, I notice one of Rose’s daggers lodged in the officer’s thigh. She must have thrown it just as he kicked in the door to Sin’s room.

He raises his gun to shoot wildly in the direction the dagger was thrown, so I do the only thing I can think of. I shout
.

“Hey,” I say. “Aren’t you supposed to find the sorceress? Well that’s me. Come and get me.”

His attention is instantly drawn to me and I dive back into the cover of the dark hallway.

Bullet holes form in the wall not far from where my head recently
was. I swallow and try not to think about how close to dying I came. Again.

The cop seems no longer to give a crap about trying to stay quiet. He hobbles toward me, every other step caus
ing the entire top floor to groan as he stomps down all of his weight.

I try to watch over my shoulder so
I’ll know when he gets close enough to see me, but in doing so, I forget all about the dropped body blocking the hall. I trip, smacking the ground hard and injuring my wrist as I land on it wrong. As I turn back to check where the cop is, I see a loaded barrel pointed directly at my head.

No time to recreate the spell I used on the first gun. And not enough magic even
with the time.

I
gulp in a final breath and wait for death to come.

The cop’s finger jerks and he pulls the trigger, but nothing happens. My first reaction is to think he must be out of bullets, but he looks as confused as I am. And I’m sure
those guns can hold more than the four or so shots he’s fired. And then I notice the sparkle of magic covering the weapon, making it impossible to physically pull the trigger. I’m pretty sure I didn’t do that. In fact, I know I didn’t. Something so precise requires way more magic than I have right now.

“I thought I told you no guns,” a woman says from behind the officer.

When the cop turns to see who’s talking, I get a glimpse of a tall brunette I’d seen only once before.

Rilla
.

“Hello
, Lou,” she says. “So nice to see you again.”

Her mag
ic flashes as bright as the sun.

A
nd then nothing.

My eyes flutter open before I fully understand I’ve regained consciousness. Panic rips through me as I try to rub my eyes, but I can’t get my hands to move to my face. I twist, hoping my arms have simply gone to sleep, though I have no idea how both of them could have gone numb at the same time like this. Sharp pain courses from my shoulders and up through my arms.

I follow the pain up to a chain wrapped around my wrists and attached to the ceiling. While I was out, my entire weight must have been held by
the chain and my arms. No wonder they’re numb.

With the ache comes understanding.
Rilla must have used her magic to knock me out and tied me up while I was unconscious.

Magic.

I reach for the pool of power in my core I’ve become so used to in the past couple of years. It’s almost impossible to imagine a time when my magic wasn’t there, though I’d gone without it most of my life. It’s such an important part of me now.

When my imaginary fingers grasp at the magic and shove it to my physical hands, nothing happens. I try again. This time I can feel the
power slip through my grasp as though trying to scoop up a handful of water with open fingers.

Concentrating on
my center, I attempt to grab hold of it once again, this time slowly so there’s no chance of messing up.

Nothing. I can feel the magic inside me,
what little is left, but no matter what I do, I can’t grab a hold of it.

And then I notice it. The trickle of magic sliding up my arm and into the chains. But it doesn’t stop there. The chain is screwed into the top of a door frame and surrounding the metal is a symbol pulsing with the light of magic.

Part of my mind recognizes the frame right away, but I push it aside as I focus on the magic being drained from me. Not just up, but also down. Another symbol at my feet. But the panic I feel has nothing to do with the symbol and everything to do with the two storey drop I notice next to me when I look down.

I scramble away from the edge
, but I can’t move far with the chains locking me in place. Even though I’m trapped, the fright does clear my mind a bit. I’m able to recognize where I am. Gran’s house. Second floor. In the threshold of the hidden door.

Where the actual door has gone is unclear. It looks like it has been torn off its hinges, or more likely blasted away by Victor, or
Rilla.

“How do you feel, my dear?”
Rilla steps out of the shadows of my room so I can better see her. “You’re not in too much pain, are you?”

Male laughter fro
m Sin’s room makes me turn from the sorceress. Victor walks out dragging Rose by her hair.

She struggles, but she doesn’t have a chance. He’s got her beat in both strength and magic and she’s out of knives, unless she has more hidden away somewhere.
I doubt she does. She’d have used them by now if she did.

I fix my attention on
Rilla, unable to watch as Victor slams Rose down against the floor and steps on her hand hard enough for bone to crack and her to scream in pain.

“This isn’t you,
” I say to Rilla. I know she’s under the control of Victor’s magic, but maybe there’s some hope she might be able to gain some command over him if she tried. “You’re a sorceress, and you have a wizard stealing your magic. You can’t let him. You must know you’re stronger than him. All you need to do is fight. His magic is nothing compared to yours.”

“Why would I want to fight?” she asks.

He must be controlling her mind as well as her magic. It makes sense. Why else would she stay by him and help him out the way she has?

“Because he’s using you to try and destroy the worlds,” I say. “Please, you have to listen to me. There must be some part of you that understands what’s happening is wrong. You’re a sorceress. Just like me. And he’s using other
woman like us all over the world in portals like this one. Torturing them. He’d torture you too if he thought it would be more beneficial to him than using you as his slave.”

“Sweetie, I think you’re mistaken,” she says. “He’s not torturing me.”

“Maybe not now,” I say. “But I promise you, if he ever gets the chance, he will. He’s been corrupted by the magic he’s been stealing. All of the wizards have. You need to fight back. You can use the connection between the two of you and fight back.”

She steps up to Victor, her eyes never leaving mine and she puts a single finger under his chin, forcing him to look at her.

“And why would I want to break a connection to the best servant I’ve ever had?”

Any hope I might have
had at surviving disappears as I recognize my mistake. Victor hasn’t been in control at all. This is all Rilla’s plan. There’s no hope for her to break the spell, because she doesn’t want the spell to be broken.

She
will not be saving us.

“Why?” I ask. “Why are you doing this?”

“Isn’t it obvious,” she says. “These worlds are broken. There was a time when I believed if the sorceresses regained power, we’d be able to fix things once again. But I was wrong. Sorceresses don’t have the strength to do what’s necessary to make things right. Most don’t have the strength to fight in the war. Like you, they run and hide and hope they can pretend everything is okay.”

“And that gives you the right to torture us and use us for your own sick plans?”

She wiggles a finger at me and tsks. “Now, now,” she says. “Torture is such a harsh word. I like to think of this as giving you the opportunity to finally use your magic for good. You are helping all of humanity with your sacrifice.”

“By destroying
the worlds?”

I can’t believe what I’m hearing. I thought the corruption of magic was
causing the wizards to go crazy. If that’s true, what’s her excuse?

“So we can rebuild and start fresh,” she says. “When the worlds combine once more, we’ll have a chance no one has had for generations. A chance to start over. Do things right. And of course when I say we, I mean me. Obviously you will be dead.”

I struggle with the chains, hoping they’ll somehow come loose so I can snap her neck. But I’m too weak and my attempts are my most pathetic ones yet.

“You’re insane,” I say.

The floor vibrates. Quiet at first and then strong enough to leave no question in my mind of what I’m feeling. Earthquake.

Rilla
smiles and braces herself against Victor.

“Looks like things are finally getting started,” she says. “This means it’s time for us to leave. Sorry I’m not going to stick around for the final event, but
few places will be safe during the transformation. I’m sorry to say this will not be one of them.”

She wiggles her fingers and a show of lights sparkle
s around both her and Victor.

“Happy death,” she says.

And then they’re gone. Teleported to who knows where.

Clutching her
broken hand, Rose drags herself toward me.

“Stop,” I say before she gets too close. “If any part of you passes into the spell, you’ll be trapped in here with me.”

She stops in her tracks and looks around for a nonexistent solution.

“What should I do?
” she asks. “Tell me what to do, and I’ll do it. I just don’t know enough about magic to break this spell.”

“There’s nothing.” I’ve never felt so
deflated in my entire life. I thought I was helping by coming here. I thought I’d be able to stop this from happening. How stupid and childish of me. “They’ve won.”

“I don’t believe that.” Rose forces herself to her feet. Much like with her
hand, I notice she’s also favoring one of her legs. Victor must have done a number on her before bringing her out to the hall. “There is always a way. Everything I’ve ever read about magic has told me there is a way to break any spell; you just need the right ingredients.”

“Rose.” She doesn’t listen. “Rose, it’s over. This spell is beyond anything I’ve ever seen before. There isn’t enough magic in this house to break the spell.”

“Don’t.” She points at me with her good hand and I can see she’s doing her best not to cry. “Don’t you dare give up. You have no right to. Aldric would never quit on you, so you can’t quit on him. Now be quiet and tell me what to do.”

“I think that’s the very definition of an oxymoron,” an unfamiliar female voice says from somewhere downstairs. “I don’t know if I’ve ever heard one used so perfectly before. Very nice, Rose. I must applaud you for
excellent use.”

Rose leans over the railing to the stairs directly in front of me and laughs. “Loraine? How did you...Are you okay? Wait, Fitzroy isn’t here, is he?”

Al’s sister comes bounding up the stairs and jumps into Rose’s arms before Rose has a chance to react.

“Yes it’s me. I’m not sure what you were going to ask. I’m fine. And no. He’s not here, and I have a feeling we probably won’t be seeing him for a while to come. How are you? You look well.” She backs away and pulls a face. “In a tired, dirty, crying sort of way. Oh, and you got dirt all over me. Lovely.”

As distracting as Loraine might be with her speed talking, it doesn’t mean a thing, because the moment Al comes up the stairs the only thing in the worlds is him.