Page 123 of Gemini Hunted
I’m only half demon, I can’t summon fire or steal souls. But this is one infernal magic I’ve fucking perfected. Cuz this shit’s useful.
My bones soften. My blood thins. The molecules of my body spin apart and dissolve into vapor. And everything I’m holding dissolves with me.
In a silent commotion of energy and magic, the subatomic particles of our joined souls—Zara’s and mine—swirl through the grate into the expanse of open water beyond. The blurred golden glimmer of torchlight pulls me toward the surface.
I gather our mingled essence like a net and sling us toward the light. Fiercely, Iwillour cells and atoms and molecules to separate and reform. Iwillus to take shape. To return to the natural order of our corporeal forms. Iwillmyself to be Mordred, the pulsing heart of ancient witchcraft to be the Horn of Ceres, and Zara to be Zara.
That’s when we trip the spell.
The spell that wards the Academy Vault.
That’s when my soul rips apart.
The last thing I hear before my eardrums rupture under the crushing vise of a pressure curse is my girl.
Zara.
Screaming.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Zara
I shoot for the surface using every spark of levitation witchcraft I possess. All thrusters firing like I’ve got a fucking jet engine strapped to my ass. Towing Mordred’s thrashing body behind me by the hand I have wrapped around his thick ankle. The crushing force of the pressure curse drops away beneath me as we ascend. But the pressure still threatens to pulverize my legs.
Feels like a deep-sea submarine dive… without the submarine.
I don’t even wannathinkabout what all these extra atmospheres of magical pressure are doing to Mordred. He’s under me, where it’s worse, and he’s upside down. His poor head. Beneath my grip, his ankle softens and flexes into a thick rubbery tentacle.
That’s his kraken, manifesting under stress.
As my face breaks the surface into open air, I suck in a starving lungful of precious oxygen. Chest burning, throat raw, I barely remember to scream the word that deflects theotherspell, the one we knew about in advance, the one Vasili taught me to counter.
The ossification curse.
My hoarse yell triggers the protective counterspell that guards me against the Vault’s bad juju—that curse that locksdown the whole Vault and calcifies any intruder’s flesh into bone. Like an instant Medusa effect.
But V’s potent counterspell snaps into place around me. I stay nice and fleshy. I don’t ossify.
How. Ever.
Mordred doesn’t have a mouth right now, just a beak. He knows the magic word, but he can’t say it. The tensile flex of his tentacle slips from my desperate grip. The vast weight of his body falls away beneath me into the deep.
Still levitating for all I’m worth, my body explodes from the water like I’ve been fired from a cannon.
Alone.
I don’t have a lotta control right now. Plus levitation’s still new for me, I’m not Vasili, I haven’t been flying like Peter Pan since my tweens.
I catch a wild glimpse of a bare stone altar rushing toward me, set between two tall torches, with some kind of massive statue rearing behind. I shoot between the flaming torches, skid across the altar’s surface, and land on hands and knees.
Hard.
My palms abrade and my knees scrape against stone.
Ouch.
A pained yelp slips out of me. But I’m still too winded from oxygen deprivation to give the good yell I need to express my feelings. My empty scuba tank and mouthpiece are gone, along with my flashlight, but I’m still wearing my bra and panties. The Horn swings forward in its pouch around my torso and hangs suspended under my tummy.
