Page 44 of Dishonor Among Thieves
An illusionist.
I immediately fisted my knife in front of my face, the blade pointed away from me. If there was mage, a sorcerer of some kind in the room, he was controlling Rain and Gia with magic… But since Neo was free and I felt unaffected, it wasn’t powerful enough to control all of us at the same time.
“It’s a woman,” Odile cried, trying to explain. “She disappeared when you kicked down the door. Vanished! I can’t see her, but she’s here. She’s still here!”
“You’ll tire, and then I’ll have your godforsaken head!” Neo swore, his voice seething with fury. His eyes blazed with murderous fire. He grunted and swung his arms, stabbing his sword and wildly slashing every inch of the air in the room, trying to strike the invisible enemy.
Holding my knife in front of my face, I closed the mostly intact doors behind me, trapping all of us inside. If she was here but had cast a spell that prevented us from seeing her, at least I could keep her from escaping. Or we would know exactly where she was if she tried to leave this room. I knew magic like this. Had grown up with it. I could taste its metallic funk in my mouth, and it made my furious. Enraged. I hardly knew the bounds of my own emotions as I fully took in what was being done to these people. This family.
“Stoooooop!” I screamed at the top of my lungs, the single word scraping past my throat with such force that I swear for a moment I saw a flicker in the room.
“Neo, there!” I pointed, and he lunged, but just as soon as it happened, it was over. The shadow of the woman’s form disappeared again.
Odile, her red face drenched with tears, her shoulders powerfully shaken by sobs, pointed too. “I saw it! She’s there! She was right there!”
Neo’s movements reached a frenzied pace, and I screamed and screamed, my teeth bared, my mouth hanging open as saliva flew from between my lips. The only way to overpower this kind of magic was to break the concentration of the mage, forcing her to focus on so many threats at once that she couldn’t maintain her illusion of invisibility.
But that momentary glimpse of her gone, she renewed her magic, meeting my rage with her own. She increased the force she used to control Gia and Rain. Gia’s eyes rolled back in her head, and her lips began to turn blue.
“Gia!” I cried, but no matter what, I would not move away from the door, would not give her access to escape.
While Gia trembled, locked in her silent restraints, Neo lunged forward and must have struck something. Both Gia and Rain suddenly dropped to the floor, released from their invisible bonds. Odile left Elgit, dashing to her sister and lifting her floppy limbs from the hard tile. “Sister,” she cried, and in that moment, something inside me turned dark. Cold.
I felt tendrils of invisible power, its energy turned not on Gia and Rain, but on me. Icy vines snaked around my throat, it razor-sharp thorns pricking into my neck. An unseen force slammed me back against the door and tried to shove me aside, but I grabbed the doorknob and would not let go.
I saw purple behind my closed eyes. My throat was raw, scraped from screaming, collapsing from the invisible power that sought to strangle the life from me.
It’s not real,I told myself.It’s an illusion. She’s making me believe something that isn’t really happening to my body. Keep breathing.
I fought hard, squeezing my eyes shut to focus all my concentration on resisting the illusion. But instead of fighting it, behind my closed lids, images of home taunted me. My real home, my mother, weakened my heart and my resolve to fight. Grief and loss and memory curled around my head, luring me to look deeper, to walk toward the mist of memory.
I will die if I give in.
I wrenched my eyes open and gasped, dropping my throwing knife as I released the doorknob to claw at my throat. There was nothing to claw away, but I still couldn’t breathe, couldn’t bring enough air into my lungs. My mother’s face disappeared from my mind, and I could make out through the choking terror the faces of Gia. Rain. Neo.
But my mind and body couldn’t connect, couldn’t work together to drive away the vines that closed a fatal coil around my throat. I fought against myself, wrestling and twisting against the power that tried to suffocate me while slamming my rear end back against the door to prevent her from escaping.
“Don’t…let…it…out,” I wheezed, my eyes rolling back in my head. I couldn’t focus on Neo, couldn’t see anything. It was like someone had picked me up by the throat and was turning me upside down and around, trying to toss my body like an out of place broom away from the door.
I was losing the fight. I couldn’t hear anymore, couldn’t keep my eyes open for more than a few seconds. Blinking took so much effort, but I knew I couldn’t let her escape. With the last bit of strength I could muster, I stretched my arms wide and pressed myself flat against the door. She’d have to get past me to get out. She still had a corporal form, still had a body, even if I couldn’t see it. She was hidden in plain sight, just like the thorns around my neck were only real in my mind. The effect they had on me was real, but that was her true power. Making me believe something that only she controlled.
I would not give in, and coughed, gagging as I tried to beg Neo. “Hurry…”
Rain staggered to his feet, grabbed a poker from the fireplace, and followed his brother. His fangs out and his eyes ablaze, Rain spun through the room, whipping the poker high and low, side to side, hoping to strike the unseen enemy. Neo’s eyes locked on mine just as I felt my knees weaken. I was exhausted and struggling for air, but if the mage escaped, we’d never find her. She might even remain in the manor, controlling us with an illusion which would allow her to remain invisible until she chose to reveal herself. Or until we were all dead.
“Get her,” I whimpered, closing one eye, hoping that it would be easier to control just one. My muscles burned with my effort, my arms weakening as the entire room turned shadowy and dark. I desperately searched for Neo’s face, trying to draw any strength I could from his powerful presence. I’d never seen him like this, even though what I was doing could hardly be called seeing him. Glossy panels of hair flew as he stabbed the air, his eyes brilliant crimson, his lips parted in a predatory snarl. I squinted and listened, straining to stay awake even if I was uselessly weak. If I closed both eyes, if I gave in to the fatigue…
“Die!” Neo shrieked, surging toward my wrecked body.
She must have been close to me, concentrating all her power on me alone, because suddenly, it stopped. I collapsed on the floor, free of the invisible bonds. I grabbed my neck on instinct and gasped hungrily for air, looking up as Neo’s blade made contact with something neither of us could see. A small shriek pierced the air, and a stream of blood stained the tip of his blade. I looked up, exhausted but unharmed, just in time to see Neo about to plunge his sword toward the mage’s back.
“No… No…” I stumbled to my feet and slammed my back against the door. My hands behind me, I fumbled for the doorknob, unable to believe what I was seeing. The room began to spin, but this time, I was certain it was not the effect of magic. This was no illusion. The mage before me was real. I knew her. I knew her face. And it was as real as it had been every day of every year I’d lived in the foundling home.
“Neo!” I screamed at the top of my lungs, my throat chafed raw. “Stop!”
I twisted the knob and threw open the sitting room door. Gray light from the hall streamed into the sitting room, and I became vaguely aware of Odile comforting Gia. Elgit on the settee. Neo and Rain before me, poised to kill.
The door open, the figure disappeared again. Neo lurched toward the space where she’d stood and stabbed his sword into the air. I heard a sickening groan, and fresh blood fell in the hall as the invader fled the manor, past the prone forms of Antonia and Dale, and out the front door, leaving a trail of crimson droplets behind her.
