Page 76 of Soulbound Shadows: Part 2

We watched until all the guards had disappeared into the scrubby plants that covered the side of the slopes, then picked our way carefully down the side of the caldera. I followed the hum of magic, although I didn’t have to. Someone dramatic enough to make their evil lair on an old volcano would clearly make the entrance in the very middle.

And there it was. A massive black door set into the pillars, layered with so many spells, it was hazy if you looked at it out of the corner of your eye.

“Shield spell,” I said. “Just like we planned.”

Marcus and Isabella fell into place on either side of the door, as far apart as they could manage with the columns. The shield they formed together rose up in a dome big enough to cover our battlefield. Isabella’s magic looked like sturdy blue-black traceries, and Marcus’s was a shifting kaleidoscope of color. Their magic combined created a stained-glass window out of lava lamps. The sunlight cast the flowing rainbow of colors down over all of us, a stark contrast with the angular gray stone surrounding us. If everything went according to plan—and that was a big if—then this would be where Morgana made her last stand, trapped inside this magical bubble with all of us.

I reached forward and tangled my hands into the thick, cobwebby layers of protection and warning spells on the door. Then I pulled, and they came apart in shreds. The magic of the wards spasmed and flailed. Their caster would not be able to ignore it.

The door flew open, and Morgana glided out of the darkness within. With the way her long, dark hair blended into her long, dark robe, it looked like a shadow had detached and the darkness inside was part of her. She cocked her perfect, pale face to the side.

“Evangeline Summers,” she murmured. “And Gabriel De Montclair. Oh, and all of your little friends. What a pleasure.”

I shuddered. I hadn’t seen her since she’d tortured me, and my eye radiated with phantom pain as she sliced her nails through the air.

Later, I would wish I’d said something clever—something intimidating. I didn’t. Instead, I threw a ball of fire at her.

Of course, it didn’t hit Morgana. She sliced it out of the air with a precise blast of wind, and the flames hit the shield on either side of her, the magic rippling. Her lips curled into a smile, and in the next moment, she threw herself at me.

It wasn’t a pretty fight. Even with all of us against her, we were barely holding our own. Every time one of the vampires was about to land a blow on her, she shifted and blurred into a different shape, suddenly far away from where their weapons were going to hit. She fought like it was a game, like we were so unthreatening to her that she might as well have fun with it. The air blurred as she flickered around it with inhuman grace and speed. I threw spell after spell at her, and even the ones that hit barely had any effect. I had my own magic, and the magic of two incredibly powerful witches.

She had the magic she’d stolen from uncountable creatures.

Gabriel was the only one who could come close to matching her in terms of speed. Once, he managed to grab her and slam her back against the ridge of one of the columns of stone, but then she blurred again, transforming into a snake that lunged at him with its fangs bared.

When I was a kid, my parents read me a story from a big, illustrated book of fairy tales from around the world. In the story, a witch’s apprentice had done something to piss her off. When they’d fought, they’d done it as shapeshifters. No matter what the boy had turned into to run away, she’d had a form to counter him. He turned into a hare, so she turned into a hunting dog. He turned into a bird, so she turned into a bigger, nastier one. Fighting Morgana felt like that. Every time we managed to hurt her, she became something else.

I threw up defensive spell after defensive spell, trying to shield the vampires as Morgana lunged at them. As soon as I put them up, she tore through them. My saving grace was Gabriel in the back of my mind, keeping me calm while giving me constant updates on where everyone was. We could see the battle through two sets of eyes, process it with two brains. The vampires were starting to flag. Vic was getting slower, and Morgana had slashed a brutal wound into his shoulder, making it impossible for him to lift his dominant arm.

Theo fought like a wild thing, but they were angry, and it was showing. They rushed across the battlefield, war hammer raised high, just for Morgana to slip away from them again and again. This time, Morgana let them get a bare inch away before sprouting a huge pair of leathery wings and flying out of the way. She hung in the air, laughing, and when I threw a bolt of magic at her, she batted it away with ease. She deflected it straight toward Gabriel, and I shut it down moments before it could hit him in the chest. It had gotten way too close for comfort. My heart thundered, and I was almost dizzy with relief.

Damien ran up to me, streaked with sweat and ash from a fire spell gone astray. “This isn’t working!”

“She’s starting to get tired,” I said. Her spell work was starting to get slower, but it wasn’t happening nearly fast enough. The vampires would be exhausted long before she was.

Damien shook his head impatiently. “It’s not enough. I have a plan, but I need your help.”

“Of course,” I said.

“The shield bubble doesn’t go down into the ground, right?”

I shook my head.

“I didn’t think so. Look, if you can destroy the ground under us and then cushion our falls, I can stun her long enough for you to use the wand.” His eyes were wild, his grip on my shoulders hard.

I stared up at him, running through the spells in my head. “I can do that, but if her hideout’s underneath us, it might give her the upper hand. You’re sure this’ll work?”

“I’m sure,” Damien promised.

I hesitated, then shook my head. I couldn’t believe I was about to do this. “Fuck it. I’m trusting you with this, Damien.”

I reached my mind out to Gabriel’s with a warning that the ground was about to collapse, and he shouted a few words to the other vampires in a language I didn’t understand. If they reacted, I was too busy to pay attention. I was only vaguely aware of Gabriel and Damien moving to flank me, ready to defend me if needed. I built the spell, feeding power into it. A few days ago, the amount of power I fed into the spell would’ve exhausted me, but I had put my trust in Gabriel, in the ritual that had linked us together. His presence by my side was solid and comforting. He thought I could do this, and I had to hope he was right.

I slammed my hands down onto the stone below us, and lines of golden light darted away from me, finding the spaces between the columns until even the flat ground beneath us was covered in the hexagonal lines of gold. Then I heaved, and the ground beneath our feet disappeared.

I plummeted into the darkness of Morgana’s lair, with Damien on one side of me and Gabriel on the other. The others had gotten clear, then. Good. Right now, the fewer of us falling, the fewer I would have to catch. Far above, I could make out the sound of her laughter, but it was faint with the wind whistling in my ears. I reached for my magic, but I’d miscalculated how much strength it would take to tear apart the ground. I was tapped out, and my reservoir of magic was refilling slower than I’d hoped. One second, two seconds, three, with the ground below getting closer and closer and the air rushing past us, and then I finally, finally had enough energy to slam down a cushion of air beneath all of us in the nick of time. Our descent slowed, and we landed gently on our feet.

We were in a massive obsidian cave. The slick, black rock had an oily gleam in the lights Morgana had set up. They illuminated what looked like some sort of laboratory, with rows of magical and medical devices lining the walls, and tables with built-in restraints dotting the space. I took it in distantly, too focused on the small, black shape of Morgana far up above us, still trapped in that glimmering, stained-glass dome. The only way for her to go was down.

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