Heart of Vengeance (Alice Worth #6) - Lisa Edmonds Page 0,111

my palms against the doors of the vault. “Discindo,” I commanded. Divide.

My earth magic, only partially tuned to this world and therefore wild, blew the building apart. The shades erupted from the ruin. Thousands of them flew screaming toward me, full of rage and hunger that could never be sated.

With my blood magic and dark magic, I gripped them as if with talons and tore them apart. Their screams nearly deafened me.

When I’d used my dark magic whip to kill the werewolves at Hawthorne’s, each death had transferred power and life energy from the shifter to me. The shades had no life energy, but they were full of power. As they discorporated, that power became mine.

I sensed other shades throughout the town, stranded in homes and other buildings like the one we’d encountered in the first house we entered. I tore them apart as well. Finally, no more shades remained anywhere within the radius I could sense.

I pulled my magic back. My skin and bones hummed with new power. I felt better than I had in days, because I’d let off steam and done what I could to keep the shades from harming anyone else.

Something warm bumped against my hand: Daisy’s head, nudging its way under my palm.

“Alice?” Malcolm asked from somewhere behind me. He sounded worried.

With my back to them, I sensed rather than saw that Ronan and Lucy had their blades raised.

I turned, switching hands on Daisy’s head. Lucy and Ronan stood about ten feet away. Malcolm floated between us, watching me.

“I found where the shades were holed up,” I said, scratching Daisy’s head. “Decided to just take care of that for you.”

Lucy’s blade didn’t move. “You just killed thousands of shades by yourself.”

“They were already dead,” I pointed out.

“You know what I mean.”

I lifted one shoulder—the one that didn’t have a cat-dragon sitting on it—in a half shrug. “I told you I’m kind of a badass. What, you didn’t believe me?”

“No, I believed you.” She studied me, then lowered her sword. “Are there any shades left in Walliston?”

I shook my head. “All gone.”

“Good. So now all that’s left is to find that open door and close it.”

“Yes,” I said. And I would, but not until I found Mariela and dragged her back here to answer for what she’d done.

Ronan had watched me while Lucy and I talked, his face expressionless. When I said I intended to close the door, the shape of his glacier-blue eyes changed. He knew I wasn’t telling Lucy the truth about what I planned to do.

Another emotion flashed in his eyes: comprehension. I wondered what he’d figured out, or thought he’d figured out. Then it was gone, and he was impassive once more.

Lucy glanced at him. “Something to add, Ronan?”

I wondered if he’d tell her what he’d realized about my plans. Instead, he returned his sword to its sheath on his back in a smooth motion. “I suggest we leave Walliston before you call this situation in to your superiors, or we’ll be stuck here dealing with League bureaucracy.”

Her eyebrows went up. “Where do you suggest we go?”

He glanced at me. “Alice?”

“We go to the door,” I said. “We can’t let any more of these things get loose up here.” I took the obsidian rock from my pocket. Its dark magic called to me now more than ever, but I couldn’t sense whatever trace Daisy was following. Someday soon I hoped to understand how Daisy was tracking the scroll, but that could wait.

I looked around at my cat-dragon, Malcolm, Lucy, and Ronan, then down at my wolf. “The Avengers are assembled, Daisy. It’s time to take us to the door.”

Daisy showed us her teeth, turned, and ran.

22

We followed Daisy for nearly twenty miles—Lucy, Malcolm, and I in the jeep and Ronan behind us on his Harley.

My beautiful golden wolf ran like the wind, her paws never quite touching the surface of the road. The jeep’s speedometer hovered around forty miles per hour, which was about as fast as we could travel on the narrow, winding road. Daisy kept to the road, as if understanding our vehicles couldn’t cut through fenced land and thick woods.

I tensed when we passed vehicles coming the other direction, but either the drivers couldn’t see Daisy or they were unperturbed by the sight of a glowing golden wolf flying past them. The former seemed more likely.

As she drove, Lucy radioed in a quick report about what we’d found in Walliston, minus the information about how I’d dispatched the shades.