Their voices faded as I took several steps backward in shock. I could hardly wrap my head around everything Alice had just said. The Warden wished to use our powers to kill our gods… the Great Spirit, Mother Miriam, the Seven Gods… all of them. And when he did that, all hell would be unleashed.
Literally.
I took another step back. Something clinked beneath my feet, like the sound of metal on metal. My feet tangled in the shackles, and I fell over. As I landed, something snapped, and heavy metal teeth clamped around my ankle. I heard the crunch of bone. Pain shot up my leg, and a scream tore from my lungs so loud that it echoed through the room.
“Charlie!” Ava screamed. She rushed over to me, and her fingers curled around some sort of metal trap.
“His leg’s broken,” Kallie murmured as she knelt beside me.
I felt Marcus prop me up from behind. “Shit. He’s about to pass out.”
“They’re down there!” a female voice came from down the hall. Hell, I knew that voice all too well. It wasJaymin.
Ava stilled. “Fuck! They’ve found us!”
Oberi shoved Ava aside.Quickly! There’s no time. We must hide the key.
I was in too much pain to ask what the hell he was doing. Oberi used his paw to dig into my pocket, and I heard the key I’d put thereclinkonto the ground next to my hand. Oberi’s tongue grazed my skin as he snatched up the key in his jaws and swallowed it.
Guards burst into the room. Screw the pain. I lifted my hands to blast them to motherfucking oblivion… but nothing came out. My magic rattled inside of me, but something was blocking it, keeping it in…
I realized in horror that it was the ward. All the disorientation I’d been feeling hadn’t been from the blow to the head at all. It was because I could no longer use my magic to orient me.
“Guys, the power I absorbed from the ward backfired,” I said weakly. “It’s trapped all my natural magic inside of me. I can’t do any spells.”
Ava gave a whimper of terror at the same time Oberi whined. I couldn’t fight back. All I could do was wait to be captured.
CHAPTERTWENTY-TWO
AVA-MARIE
We’d never been so screwed in our entire lives.
Guards poured into the room and blocked the exit. Jaymin stood at the head of them, a stupid, shit-eating grin on her face like she knew she’d won.
She hadn’t won shit. She didn’t know how to play this game, and I had news for her; we were villains, and welovedfighting dirty.
Jaymin carried a pistol. Why the hell did she have a gun? Supernaturals didn’t need them.
Unless she was counting on using it as a quicker way of killing us off than what her Nivita magic was capable of.
“What are you waiting for?” Jaymin cried. “Get them!”
The guards began shooting at us with their noxite guns. I created a huge wall of Fire that spanned up to the ceiling, burning the darts down to nothing but cinders before they even got close. The guards kept firing until their guns began clicking, signaling they were running out of bullets. I kept the wall of Fire up, fueling it as high as it could go so the guards couldn’t reach us.
“Ava, you’ve gotta call the flames off.” Charlie coughed, and I heard Kallie and Marcus gasping for air.
The heat was going to kill the others if I didn’t tone it down, and I’d suffocate if the smoke continued to rise. I let the Fire wall fall. Now that their noxite guns were empty, the guards resorted to magic. A crackling sound filled the room as guards fired off battle orbs, elements, and spells. Kallie created a shield, and we ducked behind it as the spells let loose. Magic slammed against her shield, which vibrated with the force of the guards’ spells.
“We’re not getting out of here unless we can get these fucks out of the way!” Marcus yelled, shielding his head.
“I can take them down,” Kallie promised. She conjured a bow with a quiver of magical arrows that glowed bright blue from her powers. She leaned around her shield and began firing them off at the guards. The arrows exploded on impact, turning guards to jelly and injuring whoever was standing close.
Oberi changed into a unicorn. She shot off bolts of Fire magic with her horn that was aimed at the guards, forcing them to sprint out of the way as her magic exploded.
Marcus sprang out from behind the shield. He shouted an incantation, something that sounded foreboding and ominous. Goosebumps rose over my skin as I watched the corpses and skeletons around the room rise with ghostly groans. They proceeded toward the guards with their arms stretched out, burying them in hordes and ripping out their throats with rotting teeth. Marcus kept the army of the dead going, a menacing green glow overtaking his eyes. Green necromancy magic wrapped up his arms, making the warlock appear all the dark demigod he was.
While Marcus kept the guards busy with the corpse army, I ducked outside Kallie’s shield. I shot off blue fireballs at the vampire guards, who I knew would be the hardest to take down. I was quick, but with their super-speed, they were a lot faster, and I missed my targets often.
