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“Another one?” I said numbly. “Do they all hurt like that?”
“Not after you’ve done it a few times. The trick is to go limp.” He snapped his fingers and devil dog demonstrated by collapsing against my leg, his long tongue hanging out. “You see?”
“This time we shouldn’t have any pursuers, at least,” Pritkin added. “Individual shields aren’t strong enough to withstand the forces this close to the vortex. Our pursuers should not have been able to follow us—”
He didn’t get to finish his sentence, because a dozen shapes popped out of nowhere, all huddled together in one big, dark blob.
“Unless they pooled their shields,” Marsden finished sourly, and threw the car back into gear.
Luckily for us, the trainees looked about as rattled as I felt. It gave us a slight lead, although a glance be
hind showed that some of them were already starting after us. Marsden suddenly jerked the steering wheel to the right and we roared into the middle of an apple green line. He waited until the mages had followed us and then threw the car into reverse.
We were free and back in the nothingness in the corona of the vortex for a moment, before that awful free-falling sensation took us again. And Marsden had lied, the bastard. Going limp didn’t help at all. And then we were racing through the middle of a world gone red. But it wasn’t the red of a ley line; it was the blinding dazzle of miles of sun-baked sand.
We hit down onto a black snake of asphalt with a jolt, a squeal of tires and a burst of speed. The dark shapes of war mages tumbled out onto the roadway after us—four, no, five—who had managed to keep up with the crazy ride. But they were on foot and we had wheels. Marsden left them in the dust.
We’d hopped to the Chaco Canyon vortex in New Mexico while I’d had my eyes closed. Half an hour later, we jumped to the shimmering blue line that ran through to Nevada and Dante’s. It didn’t take long from there to notice a big black blob on the horizon. It looked somewhat like the barrier the mages had constructed, except that there were no gaps around this one. There were other things, though.
Ragged flutterings of light darted here and there around the edges of my vision. I could glimpse them out of the corner of my eyes but could no longer see them directly. But even so, the sheer number was staggering. They looked like a crystal kaleidoscope, constantly shifting and changing all around us.
I looked back at Pritkin, and the expression on his face was enough to let me know I was right. “Rakshasas,” he murmured. I guess in that quantity, even my eyes could pick them out.
“Where?” Marsden demanded.
“Surrounding the ward. Thousands of them.”
“How did they know we were coming?” I asked, trying to ignore the chills that had sprung to the surface of my skin.
“They didn’t. And even if they had, two of us could never feed so many.” Pritkin gazed around in awe. “This is like the gathering before a great battle. When they expect a harvest of thousands . . .”
“Well, as long as they stay on the outside of the ward, we won’t have to worry about them much longer,” Marsden said, diving straight for it.
“What are you doing?” I screeched as a wall of darkness towered above us.
“The ward is spelled to let you in, is it not?”
“I don’t know!”
“We’ll soon find out,” he said as a swarm of black dots broke away from the base of the main structure. In a few seconds, they were close enough that I could identify them—war mages. It looked like Saunders’ men had called ahead.
Some of them came straight for us, while others stayed at the base of the ward, waiting for us to try to land, I assumed. Pritkin threw a spell that scattered the ones directly in front of us, but they re-formed almost at once and rocked the car with half a dozen spells. Devil dog whined and I sunk my fingers into his fur, either comforting him or holding on, I’m not sure which.
“Jonas—” Pritkin began.
“We’ll make it,” Marsden said calmly.
“Not if they hit us with another combined spell!”
“Yes, but to do that, they’ll have to catch us, won’t they?” The car sprang ahead, headed right for the black tower and the swarm of mages in front of it.
I didn’t care about them. At this speed, there wasn’t going to be anything left for them to attack. We were going to be splattered all over Dante’s ward like bugs on a windshield.
I clutched Marsden’s arm with nerveless fingers, silently begging him to turn around. He glanced at me and patted my hand fondly. “Where are you staying?”
“What?”
“Your room. Where is it?”
