Blackbird Crowned (The Witch King's Crown #3) - Keri Arthur Page 0,52
me. I might not need them to use the inner lightning, but there was something very comforting about their weight in my hands.
I pressed back against the rock and stared down at the entrance. Nothing came out of it. Not for several unbelievably long minutes.
Then Mo raised a hand and reached for the wind. As she did, a screaming black mass swept out of the cavern’s entrance, split into two, and attacked.
They were bats.
Or rather, Darkside’s version of them.
A cloud of leathery wings, sharp claws, and even longer teeth flew at me. They tore at my clothes, my hair, and my face, their red eyes gleaming with malevolence and hunger. A scream that was part fear, part rage tore from my throat, and I raised my hands to protect my face even as I called to the lightning. It erupted from my fingers and lashed at the striking swarm, burning one after another after another. Embers swirled around me, and the air became thick with the smell of burned leather and flesh. The bats didn’t seem to care. They just kept on coming, kept on attacking, their number seemingly endless.
Then, abruptly, they were gone, wrenched away by a whirlwind of air that took them god knew where.
I blinked but didn’t immediately release the lightning pressing at my fingertips.
“Sorry,” Mo said into the silence. “That took far longer than I expected.”
My gaze jumped across to her. She leaned back against the rock, her face pale and covered by numerous scratches. She plucked the broken body of one of the wretched things from her coat, dropped it to the ground, and then stomped on it. “But at least I discovered what the shielding on the island does—it prevents the use of magic in the area, including mage.”
“You did get past it, though, so that’s something.”
“Yes, but it took a lot of effort, and had it been humanoid demons rather than bats, we might well both be dead.”
I sucked in a deep breath and released it slowly. My head was aching, and a faint trickle of moisture leaked from one eye—which was definitely an improvement over both of them bleeding—but overall, I felt surprisingly okay.
Which didn’t mean I wouldn’t fall in a gigantic heap once we got back to the hotel room.
“So where did the wind take them?”
“I shoved them deep in the water and drowned the bastards.”
“Good.” I dragged out my phone, then squatted in front of the cave’s entrance and shone the flashlight into it. It plunged so steeply down into utter darkness that even if the gateway had been close, it wouldn’t have been visible. “Do you think they deliberately drew us here to test their shield?”
“Given the range of magics included, no. It’s simply a means of protecting the gate against all of our witches.”
“Why here, then? Why this one? It’s not particularly large or well positioned.”
“I think it safe to say this would not be the only gate that’s now protected.”
I pushed upright. “That surely means they’re getting ready for a big push.”
“Lincoln’s council won’t be the only ones on their hit list.”
“Then we need to get a warning out.” I glanced down at the gate again. “Darkside has to have a means of tracking the viability of the gates if this one has only just opened.”
“That wouldn’t be surprising, given they rely on Earth for much of their sustenance.”
Something I didn’t want to think about, especially given how close we’d come to being that sustenance. I thrust a hand through my hair, shaking loose bits of ash and leather. “What are we going to do now?”
“I’ll ring Barney—he can put out an urgent alert to all the local councils. The High Council will also have to be informed.”
While she made the phone call, I took off my shoes and socks and then pressed my toes into the ground. The earth’s pulse was a distant echo—something I could hear, but not reach. I frowned and glanced around. Darkside magic might be darker in both tone and design than ours, but from what I’d seen of it, it followed the same basic principles. Which meant the shield would have a base—something onto which the spell was anchored. With a shield this large, there’d have to be at least three of them. If I could find those anchors, I might be able to destroy it. But even if that wasn’t possible, finding them would help us understand the spell’s construction. Knowing that would allow us to create a counter.