She fought a scream…
The word clawed its way free while she was distracted by the pain. “Circuitry.”
“Circuitry?” Smoke sounded puzzled. “Like a computer?”
“Our magic… isn’t like yours.” Now that the dam had broken, the words kept flowing, bypassing her will even as she strained to silence them. “We can’t just strike a pose and point.”
“There’s quite a bit more to using Magekind magic than that,” said Morgana, sounding offended.
“Gaia’s magic is like electricity. It must be directed, channeled. Her people had to invent technology to use it.”
“Where did this network come from?” Kel asked.
“Gaia grew it. Molecule by molecule, using the stone in Ulf’s ring as the seed.”
“Why doesn’t your body reject it?” Morgana asked. “In fact, why hasn’t it killed you? That much crystal should interfere with cellular function. The way it encircles your bones should block blood cell production.”
“No, the crystals reinforce the bones, the muscles, strengthens me…” The words seemed to be coming from a long way off, drowned out by the screaming pain in her head. It felt as if she was being crushed out of existence.
Something cold and wet rolled down her cheeks.
* * *
Smoke stared at the girl in concern.
Of course, she wasn’t really a girl -- she was pushing sixty -- but she looked about fifteen, especially with her oval face so pale. Her hazel eyes were huge, the pupils dilated until they looked like black holes surrounded by thin rings of iris. Tears rolled slowly down her face, glinting in the light of the glyphs.
He exchanged a grim glance with Kel, who didn’t look any happier than he felt. “The spell shouldn’t be hurting her like this.” He could literally smell the pain wafting from her skin, an acrid stench underlying her normal human scent. There was an odd tang to it, too. Probably the alien crystal he, too, could see winding through her body now that he looked.
Morgana ignored him. “What are you?” she asked, her green eyes intense as she took a step closer to the circle.
“A failure,” Cheryl muttered softly.
“What does that mean?”
“They’re dead.” Her voice sounded too high. Somehow lost.
“Who?” Smoke asked. Had the dragon creature -- or even Gaia herself -- killed mortals they didn’t know about?
“They died,” Cheryl said in that eerie little voice. “I smell them in my dreams. Decay in my nose, filling my mouth. Ashes and failure.” Her voice rose in a high, thin cry of panicked realization. “I’m dying… dying… dead…”
The eerie note in her voice made his tail bush. Smoke started toward the circle. “Okay, enough of this.”
“She’s fine,” Morgana snapped. “I’m monitoring her. There’s nothing wrong with her worse than that headache. We’re close to getting what we need. If we lose our nerve, her pain is for nothing.”
Smoke glared at her. The Liege of the Majae always had been a cold-blooded little bitch. Unfortunately, she also had a point. If they pulled the plug now, they were back where they’d started. Besides, a headache wasn’t exactly drawing and quartering.
The girl jolted to her feet, staring around, eyes wide and glassy with despair. Whatever she was seeing, he doubted it was the room. “I failed! After everything I sacrificed, I still failed.”
Morgana’s eyes narrowed. “How?”
Cheryl turned toward the witch, then had to take a staggering step when she almost fell on her face. “I was supposed to stop it,” she said in a breathy voice. “But I couldn’t. No matter how many I killed, it was never enough.”
“Who were you trying to kill, and why?” Smoke demanded.
“It was my job. I was the weapon.”
“Of whom? Who were you supposed to kill?” Morgana demanded.
Cheryl said something in a liquid flow of alien words, despair in her voice.
Morgana shook her head. “I don’t recognize that language.” She glanced at Kel, Eva, and Smoke. “Any of you?”
“No.” Smoke frowned. He spoke every tongue of the Sidhe going back thousands of years, along with those of a host of races from mermaids to trolls. Yet he’d never heard anything like that trilling, bird-like language.
He glanced at Kel, who gave his head a single shake. Eva moved closer, her ghostly horns glowing brighter. She blew out a frustrated breath. “Zephyr has no idea either.”
“Repeat that in English,” Morgana commanded.
Fury widening her eyes, Cheryl jolted to the circle’s edge and screamed at the witch, every word incomprehensible.
Face set in stubborn lines, Morgana started firing questions. “Who died? What is Gaia? If the dragon wasn’t Gaia, who was it?”
The girl lunged at her, only to stagger back