Malignant Magic Page 17

  In order to get answers, we needed Ariel to come around. And without knowing what was wrong with her, it was not going to be easy to get her up. I needed to evaluate her, but first, we needed to get away from the shifters.

  Aron guided us onto the highway and slammed on the gas, shooting us forward. We put distance between us and the shifter, and I began to relax.

  “I think we managed to get away,” I said.

  Aron nodded, his expression still grim. “Hopefully, but I’m troubled by all of this.”

  “You didn’t like the fact that you got beat?”

  Aron arched a brow at me. “You know that it’s not.”

  I smiled and allowed myself to relax and lean back.

  We crashed into some invisible wall. I jerked forward, looking over at Aron as he wrapped me in magic that was better than any airbag.

  “What was that?”

  “We hit something.”

  “I can tell we hit something, but what was it?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t see anything.”

  There didn’t appear to be anything we could have crashed into.

  I was slammed forward again, and this time I struck my head on the dash. I bit back a swear and looked over to see Aron shaking his head.

  There wasn’t anything in front of us, which meant something hit us from behind.

  I twisted in the seat, looking behind us, but didn’t see anything.

  “Gran?”

  “I will see what I can find,” she said.

  She crawled over the middle seat and moved so that she was next to Ariel. She groaned, letting out a soft swear. “It seems as if we still haven’t outrun this shifter,” she said.

  “How is that possible?” I asked.

  “It shouldn’t be,” Aron said.

  He continued to stomp on the accelerator, but I had the sense we were going as fast as the car would take us. Despite that, the shifter still managed to keep pace. I could tell how much that worried Aron from the tight lines of tension around the corners of his eyes.

  “You wish you had your car?”

  “I would be able to go quite a bit faster with the car,” he said.

  “We could pull over.”

  Aron frowned at me. “Pull over and do what?”

  “Fight. If he’s going to keep slamming into us, we challenge him.”

  “Kate, if he’s a Great One, then the four of us won’t be enough to overpower him.”

  I’d seen the way that he simply ran through Gran’s magic, ignoring it as if it were nothing. And he moved quickly enough that he could run as fast as the SUV. We wouldn’t be able to outrun him easily. And only my magic had seemed to slow him. Fighting him was the only thing I could think of, but Aron didn’t want to do it. Were there any other alternative, I would gladly have taken it, but seeing as how we needed to get Ariel to safety so that we could help her, I didn’t know what choice we had.

  “I might be able to help,” Gramps said.

  “How?” I asked.

  “I’m not incapable with my spells, Katie,” he said.

  “Gramps, I wasn’t saying—”

  He smiled, shaking his head. “I know that you weren’t. I’m not necessarily powered the same way as your grandmother, but I have my own particular talents.”

  “Veran—”

  He smiled. “What choice do we have, Cyn? We need to get away from here.”

  “You can’t use that spell.”

  “Why not? What kind of spell is Gramps planning on using?”

  Gramps didn’t answer and pressed his hand down on the floor of the car. Power began to build from him, but there was a different sensation to it than what I had felt from Gramps before.

  All of a sudden, we surged forward.

  It felt similar to when the shifter slammed into us, but this had a little different quality to it, as if whatever Gramps had done had powered us in a way that spell had not.

  Aron glanced over his shoulder but said nothing. It seemed as if he wanted to but didn’t.

  “Katie, see if you can’t redirect that shifter.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Use your sword.”

  I leaned out the window, holding out the sword, and aimed it at the shifter. It was approaching, but not with the same speed it had managed before.

  Power came through me, starting slowly and building. As it did, I sent it toward the shifter. It slammed into him and he rolled, tumbling behind us.

  Gramps placed his hand once more on the floorboard of the car, and as before, we went surging forward. My sword was out the window, and with the sudden acceleration, my arm jerked and the sword went flying behind us.

  “Aron. We have to go back.”

  Aron shook his head. “We can’t go back. We can’t risk going after him.”

  “But my sword.”

  He looked over at me. “It was never your sword.”

  I couldn’t help but stare out at the window, watching as the shifter prowled toward the sword. Aron and my grandparents might not believe that to be my sword, but it was mine, and without it… I wouldn’t be able to reach nearly the same type of magic as I could with it. Which meant that I no longer would be able to help.

  I stared out the window, the sword—and the Great One—growing ever more distant.

  13

  It felt like hours had passed by the time we finally pulled into the city, although I knew that not to be the case. My body ached and I hadn’t been able to move past losing the sword. Without it, the magic I could draw was limited. Facing a creature like the Great One, we’d need every bit of power we could manifest.

  “Where to?” Aron asked. He had been mostly silent since we managed to escape from the shifter and the rest of the pack, but then again, all of us had been mostly silent.

  I had expected my grandparents to have said something to try to reassure me, but they hadn’t. Then again, why would they have? They didn’t agree with my use of the sword in the first place, feeling as if it only put me in danger. They didn’t understand it, not the way I did, and they didn’t understand the sword had protected us—protected me.

  “We need to help Ariel,” I said.

  “I’ve examined her while we were driving,” Gram said. “Whatever has happened is not something my magic can repair.”

  I got a sense that she was somewhat surprised by the fact. As powerful as Gran was, that probably was shocking to her.

  “We could take her to the hospital,” I said.

  Aron looked over at me.

  “Jen is working, and if nothing else, we could see if there’s anything physically wrong with her.”

  “You realize doing what you suggest is dangerous,” Aron said. “Think of what might happen if the pack decides to descend on the hospital to pursue her.”

  “You think they will?”

  He shrugged. He had slowed the car considerably when we reached the city, no longer racing with the same crazy speed he had used while on the interstate.

  “It wouldn’t be the first time magic has interfered at your workplace.”

  He was right. It wouldn’t be the first time, especially as we had dealt with dark mages and other sorts of things there already. Was that what I wanted? Did I want to be responsible for bringing in danger into the hospital?

  But it wasn’t so much about bringing danger. It was about helping someone who needed assistance. And this was something I could do.

  “We don’t have to leave her there. We can take her for evaluation, and when we’re done, we can find some other place to go until we figure out what we need to do next.”

  And I had a hard time knowing what that would be. Who would we go to for assistance? The Dark Council had refused. Until we could figure out what ailed her, I wasn’t sure what to do next.

  It depended on what else we were dealing with. We didn’t really know, and without having Ariel awake in order to tell us, we might not know.

  It meant taking her where I was able to fin
d someone who could help. That might be me, but now that Jen knew what was taking place in the city, I didn’t have to do it alone. Having Jen know provided me with the same sort of relief as when Derek had discovered my magic.

  “The hospital,” I said again.

  Aron just nodded.

  He steered us toward the hospital, moving quickly, but not quite as quickly as he usually drove. Every so often, he glanced back, and it seemed as if he watched my grandfather with more suspicion than he had before.

  “What am I missing here?” I asked, turning in my seat so that I could see both Aron and my grandfather.

  “Katie,” Gramps said.

  “Don’t Katie me. I can see that something is going on. What did you do that has Aron on edge?”

  “Your archer friend recognized the spell I used. It’s one that is not necessarily permitted.”

  “What do you mean it’s not permitted?”

  “Just that. The spell isn’t one the council allows to be used.”

  I studied Aron for a moment, watching him for answers, but he gave me none.

  “And why is that spell not permitted?”

  “There are many reasons spells are not permitted by the council.”

  “Even ones that seem relatively harmless?”

  “It’s not harmless,” Aron said.

  “Why not?”

  “A spell such as your grandfather used could be used for other purposes. It’s an enhancement spell, and the council has come down quite firmly on the use of enhancement spells such as that.”

  I started to laugh, not able to help myself. “Are you serious? The council has decided that spell is not permitted? Does the council know spells like that allow their members to get away from dangerous shifters?”

  “Spells like that can be used to enhance the mage, and that is one of the steps that is felt to be on the road toward dark magic.”

  I frowned, unable to believe what I was hearing. “Dark magic? You realize that dark magic users have access to a different type of magic than what you have.” I looked from Aron to Gran and then Gramps. “I might not know a whole lot about the magical world, but with everything I’ve seen, I can tell you that dark magic isn’t the same type as what you have.”

  None of them spoke, and I watched Aron for a moment. I’d been around him enough lately to recognize the strange tension I saw within him, and I started to laugh.

  “Are you okay, Katie?” Gran asked.

  “I just think it’s absurd that Aron is the one you’re concerned about revealing this to. I mean, I’ve ridden with him enough times to know that he drives like a maniac, and if anyone has been using that same spell, it’s him.” He sat rigidly, holding on to the steering wheel. “Is that why the SUV wasn’t going nearly as fast as your normal speed?”

  “Kate—”

  I shook my head. “You guys need to let go of the idea that what you consider to be dark magic is some sort of dangerous force. The dark magic users simply tap into a different energy.”

  We reached the hospital. I glanced at each of the people in the car, trying to get their attention, but none of them looked at me. I supposed I shouldn’t take offense at that, but then maybe I shouldn’t have revealed Aron’s secrets, either.

  “I’m going to go inside and see if I can get help for this injured shifter. You all can sit out here and debate the merits of your magic—particularly the magic that saved us today, and might not have been necessary had you been willing to use it sooner,” I said, looking at Aron.

  I hopped out of the SUV and hurried into the ER. As I did, I looked down to make sure I wasn’t dressed in dirty and destroyed clothing the same way I had been when Aron and I had come here for the shifter the last time. It was early enough that coming in dressed like that would raise questions, and early enough that I didn’t want to deal with answering them. Thankfully, I was in much better shape than I had been the last time. I probably stunk, but there wasn’t much that I could do about that.

  Unsurprisingly, Betty sat at the front desk, tapping away on her keyboard. She looked up as I came in and flashed a quick smile. “Dr. Michaels. I didn’t realize you were scheduled to work today.”

  “Oh, you know me. I can’t get enough of this place.”

  Betty snorted. “You coming through here?”

  I shrugged. “I’ve got a friend of mine who needs help.”

  “What kind of friend?” Betty asked.

  “The kind who needs help.”

  Betty chuckled. “Same kind of friend as you brought in before?”

  “No. This would be different.”

  “That’s too bad. Wouldn’t mind seeing that man again.”

  “Could you call Dr. Stone out for me? Have her meet me outside?”

  Betty shrugged. I was thankful it was her at the front desk. I could trust Betty to be somewhat circumspect, more so than some of the people who worked near the registration area. She tapped a few keys on the keyboard and nodded. “I paged her. If you want, I could call her overhead.”

  “I don’t know if that is necessary.”

  I headed back outside to wait for Jen. I stood outside the car, not wanting to deal with the sense I had from Aron and my grandparents. They all needed to get over themselves, and we needed to get back to trying to help Ariel. We still didn’t know what had happened to her, much as we didn’t know what it would take to restore her. It could be that she was injured badly enough that she wouldn’t recover, and though she was a shifter—and therefore should have the ability to magically restore herself, maybe this injury caused by the Great One was too much for her to withstand. If she didn’t recover, how would we stop the Great One?

  Even if she did, I wasn’t sure I had the answer.

  Thankfully, I didn’t have to wait too long for Jen to appear.

  She was dressed in her dark blue scrubs and she looked tired, though considering the day she had, and after a night like last night, that wasn’t terribly surprising.

  “Kate? I thought that you were…” She looked into the SUV and saw Aron with my grandparents. “Did something happen to them?”

  “Not to them.”

  “Then what?”

  “Remember when I said that we were going to try to help the person up north?”

  She frowned but nodded.

  “Well, we got to her, but she’s injured. And I need to know what’s going on so that we can figure out if there’s anything we can do to help her.”

  Jen made her way around the outside of the SUV, looking in all the windows before stopping at the back. “I take it she’s the hot naked chick in the backseat?”

  “That would be her.”

  “She doesn’t look like a mermaid.”

  I laughed and shook my head. “I wouldn’t tell her that you thought she was a mermaid.”

  “She’s unconscious. What does it matter anyway?”

  We pulled the back of the car open and Jen helped me pull Ariel out.

  “What do you think’s going on?”

  “That’s just it. I have no idea. My grandmother doesn’t think it’s anything magical, at least not that she can detect.”

  “And she’s the powerful one.”

  I nodded.

  “Let’s get her in and get her registered. I can work her up and run a few tests.”

  “If we don’t find anything, we need to take her from here before any others like her get to us.”

  “How many others are you talking about?”

  “Well, we rescued her from her pack, and we were chased by one of the shifters who has more power than he should, so…”

  “So you want to make sure she doesn’t get grabbed by these killer wolves?”

  “Not until we get answers.”

  Jen smiled. “You know, your life is far more exciting than I ever gave you credit for.”

  “I don’t know if I should say thanks or not.”

  “I don’t either.”

  We carried her toward the ambulance bay and Jen swi
ped her badge, opening the door. Once inside, I helped her bring Ariel to one of the trauma rooms. It would attract attention, but it would also make it easier for us to have a quick workup, along with making it easier for us to escape quickly were there the need.

  “I need to get her registered.”

  “Betty is out there.”

  Jen nodded. “Betty will do. She doesn’t ask a lot of questions. She’s usually busy shopping for computer stuff.”

  “Yeah. What’s that about?”

  “You didn’t know?”

  “I wouldn’t ask if I knew.”

  “She mines cryptocurrency.”

  “She does what?”

  Jen chuckled. “Yeah, and to hear her talk about it, she’s done pretty well with it. She tells me there’s lots of money to be made, and while the values fluctuate, she’s done pretty well. She got in early, and she just continues to invest.”

  That was a much more entertaining explanation for what Betty did than anything I’d had. “I just thought she liked to shop.”

  Jen grinned as she grabbed the phone and called out to registration. “Yeah, she found me,” Jen said. “No, it’s not her hot friend again. Yeah, I’ve tried to convince her that she needs to spend a little time with him.… Well, you know her. She’s all about work. Sure. I’ll tell her that if she’s not willing to put the time in with him that you’re more than happy to. I’m not sure that telling him that you’ve got money will make a difference. Fine. Maybe it will.” When Jen hung up the phone, she grinned at me. “I imagine you heard most of that?”

  “Enough to know that Betty has the hots for Aron.”

  “Well, you can’t really blame her.”

  “Don’t tell him that. He already has enough of a high opinion of himself.”

  “A man like that, you kind of want him to.” She shrugged, looking down at Ariel and pulling her stethoscope off. “You don’t want a hot guy like that to be all insecure. You want a man like that to know what he’s doing.” She grinned at me. “Sort of like Johnny. It’s really too bad that he got married. We don’t have nearly the fun that we used to.”

  “By saying that, you mean you still have some fun with him.”