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“You really don’t know anything about magic, do you?” Mariel snorted and shook her hand. Blood splayed across the concrete and into the flames. They hissed and recoiled. “It takes time to learn the craft, time to gain strength and knowledge. And time to find what the government had scattered.”
So, it was true. In trying to track down their origins, Helen and the other girls had led a killer to their door. Kirby rubbed her arms, showering herself with sparks that did little to ease the chill from her bones.
“Why? Answer me that. It can’t be all about revenge.” Surely no one, no matter how mad, would go through all this for something as simple as revenge.
“I thought you would know the answer to that.” Mariel hesitated, then shook her head, as if in disbelief. “You felt the power we all raised. How could you not want to feel all that again?”
Kirby stared at her. Was that what this was all about—the need to control? The need to be the most dominant force? Mariel had never been entirely sane. Anyone who raised dead bugs for the sheer fun of terrorizing other children could never be described as sane. But that night, when they’d joined hands and raised a force that had shaken the very foundations of the world around them, they’d obviously destroyed what little rationality she’d had. For one brief moment, Mariel had had a glimpse of the absolute power she’d craved—only it wasn’t hers to control. It would never be hers to control.
Unless she destroyed the circle and sucked its powers into her own being.
“So you went after Helen?” Kirby said, keeping her voice low. Right now, the last thing she wanted was to antagonize the bitch and force her into action. But she needed time to think—to plan. And she needed to know what assumptions Mariel had made.
“At first, I thought Helen controlled the powers of air. But when I killed her and there were no powers there to steal, I knew I had been wrong. Then I knew that she was the binder, and you controlled the air.” Mariel sniffed. “The two of you always were a bit interchangeable, so it’s no wonder I got confused.”
But Kirby could see the sudden flare of rage in her eyes, and knew this was the reason why Helen had been torn apart so brutally; Mariel never had liked being made to look the fool.
“And you didn’t care about her powers of binding?” Kirby hazarded.
Mariel wrinkled her nose. “Why should I? What use are the powers of binding when I will have all four bound within me?” She gave a short, brutal laugh. “I already control two of the four elements. And now I have the final two here, awaiting my gift of darkness.”
Tension ran through Kirby. Her fists were clenched so tight her nails were cutting into her palms. No wonder her name hadn’t been on Camille’s list; she had become a victim in Mariel’s twisted mind only after Helen’s murder.
But Kirby did suspect that Mariel’s assumptions were wrong in one important way. She had bound together the power of four elementals on that one fateful night. She had felt how her powers changed and magnified what was already present. To gain the powers she wanted, Mariel would need the powers of binding—but if Mariel succeeded in killing Kirby, she’d not only get Helen’s power, but become the binder as well. And all the Circle’s worst nightmares would come true.
“I must say,” Mariel continued serenely, and absently waved a hand, “that you’ve caught me by surprise. I was expecting to have to pry you away from the hands of that damn shifter.” She hesitated, smiling again. It was a picture of maliciousness itself. “I set a trap for him, you know. Just how well do you think a shifter can survive a bomb?”
Kirby’s stomach churned, her mind snared by the sudden image of Doyle being caught in flames and imprisoned under a mountain of concrete. Fear rose, threatening to engulf her. She took a deep breath and thrust the images away. Doyle wasn’t dead. She’d know if he was.
She opened her mouth to reply, but the words froze in her throat. The wind stirred, caressing her cheeks. They were no longer alone. Something was creeping up behind her—something that smelled like death.
She spun and thrust out her hand. The pent-up energy surged from her fingers, lashing the darkness, thudding into the chest of the dead man behind her. Fingers of blue-white light webbed across his body, pinning him to the spot and burning him to a crisp in seconds flat. The smell of burnt flesh stung the air, and her stomach roiled.
He’s dead, she reminded herself fiercely. You can’t feel responsible about killing a man who is already dead.
The air behind her boiled with heat, reaching toward her with fiery fingers she felt rather than saw. She dropped, her hands and knees smacking painfully against the concrete. Heat seared across her back, burning her T-shirt but barely touching her skin. She rolled to smother the flames, then saw something glitter out of the corner of her eye, and kept on rolling. Ice exploded against the floor, showering her with shards that tore at her skin and hair.
She flung out her hand, imagined fingers of air wrapping around the knife and flinging it back, deep into the darkness. There was a whoosh, and the knife disappeared. Without pausing, she shifted, this time aiming her net at Mariel. Energy
cut through the darkness, momentarily highlighting the surprise on the witch’s face before she dove out of the way. The lightning exploded against the edge of the fire and scattered the ring of stones. With an odd sort of sucking sound, the purple flames died and darkness swept in—a black curtain she could almost touch.
“Now, that’s just plain nasty,” Mariel commented from the darkness to Kirby’s left. “Do you know how difficult it is to raise one of those fires?”
Trying to get around me, Kirby thought. She slid off her shoes and edged barefoot toward the table. If she could just get Trina down …
Flames shot across the darkness and she cursed and dove away, hitting the concrete again and skinning her chin in the process. She wiped away the blood dribbling down her neck, then yelped as fiery fingers of heat licked toward the soles of her feet. But the flames never touched her, recoiling millimeters away from her feet before dying. She frowned and remembered Helen’s words—she cannot hurt you with what is yours to command. Did that mean the powers of fire could not be used against her? She fervently hoped so, if only because it gave her some sort of chance.
She pushed upright. Thunder rumbled again. The storm was close, so close. She could feel the power of it beginning to thrum through her body, her soul.
Then the wind stirred again, whispering its secrets. Kirby spun, but far too late. Something hit the side of her head, and darkness closed in.
A RING OF DEAD MEN SURROUNDED HIM. DOYLE HESITATED in the parking garage’s entrance, studying the zombies for several heartbeats. There were six of the stinking things. At any other time, it wouldn’t have much mattered. These six didn’t possess the size or the brute strength of the zombie that had attacked him at Rachel Grant’s and, even though he was wounded, generally wouldn’t have caused him much of a problem.
But right now he couldn’t afford any kind of delay. Kirby’s fear was like a blanket, threatening to smother him. She was with the witch and in trouble. Any delay might have deadly consequences for them both.
The zombies lunged toward him. He sprang over their backs and shifted shape, then wrapped an arm around one of the creatures’ necks and twisted hard. Bone snapped, and the zombie went limp. He thrust it into the path of another one, then backpedaled as fast as his injured leg would allow as a third zombie lurched at him. He twisted away from its grasping fingers, and pain shot up his leg. He cursed and limped away, aware of the warmth dribbling down his thigh. The wound had obviously opened a little, but it was nowhere near as bad as before. The creatures formed a pack and ran at him as one. He shifted shape and leapt away, but the grasping fingers of a zombie on the outskirts of the pack caught him, bringing him down before it jumped on top of him. He slashed at the creature’s face with his paws, cutting deep, then shifted back to human shape and smashed his fist into the face of the creature pinning him. Bone shattered, but the blow itself had little effect. Fingers grasped at his neck, seeking to choke him, while others grabbed his legs and feet and pulled, as if intent on ripping him apart. Agony burned through his body, and the rush of warmth from the wound became stronger.
Behind the pack of zombies, the darkness shifted and became Russell’s bandaged form. He picked up the creatures by the scruff of the neck, tossing them back into the shadows as if they were nothing more than unwanted garbage.
