Dreamwalker (Stormwalker #5) - Allyson James Page 0,96

slim body and smooth face was restored, along with his suit. Why he cared about looking like this, I didn’t know, but if I’d learned nothing else about Emmett, I’d deduced that he was severely vain.

He attacked. No waiting. Magic bolstered by Gabrielle’s Beneath power sliced directly toward me and Mick.

Mick saved me by the straightforward method of tackling me to the ground. The Beneath magic slammed across the room and rendered the wall between the saloon and lobby rubble.

“Damn it!” I yelled as I came to my feet. “I just had this place redone!”

Emmett threw another bolt at me. The last time I’d fought him, out at Chaco Canyon, he’d conjured up all kinds of dark, malevolent spells designed to tear us apart from the inside out. Now he blasted away with Beneath magic alone, as though he’d used it all his life.

I anchored myself with the coming storm and reached inside to release my own Beneath magic, letting it flow up in a protective bubble around me and my friends. Emmett, without hesitation, began to hammer it down.

But I’d learned something from Flora and her spell—that magic was stronger if mages banded together. Hence the reason I’d bolstered myself with two dragons, an excellent witch, and a strong Changer. Touching their magic, especially that of the dragons, helped ground me against my Beneath powers as well.

Cassandra, seated at one of the tile-topped tables, Pamela protectively behind her, used her fingers to draw invisible sigils. I felt the air change, growing colder, flowing around her as though she created her own storm. Air and fire, Flora had called Cassandra’s magic. A wonderful combination.

I let Cassandra get on with it and turned back to Emmett.

Mick and I had a strategy—we’d decided that pointing and shooting wouldn’t work, but distraction and combining forces might. I reached for lightning that had come ever nearer the hotel, fed some of it to Cassandra to bolster her spell, and whacked Emmett with the rest of it.

He batted the crackling energy aside. Drake and Mick, coming at him while he focused on me, sent fire at him, which Emmett again batted aside. Without waiting, I sent another strike of storm magic at him, followed by a ball of white Beneath light.

Emmett opened his hands, gathered all the energies we’d thrown at him, and shot them through the roof Drake had just paid to refinish. I bit back a scream of frustration—those molded tin ceilings were expensive.

Emmett brought his hands back down, a shield of magic between him and me, Mick, and Drake. “You can’t win this way,” he said calmly. “I’m too strong. Surrender, and I might be merciful.”

Cassandra now sent the spell she’d been conjuring. It didn’t fire like my magic or the dragons’; it seeped around Emmett’s barrier and into him while he was focused on me.

Emmett’s eyes widened, and his gaze shot to Cassandra. His shield weakened, and he flinched, his face graying.

“Nice,” he said to Cassandra. “Turning my own blood to poison—diabolical and clever. No wonder Christianson wanted to hire you.”

Emmett dragged in a deep breath. He closed his eyes, balled his fists, then opened his mouth and expelled an inky black mist. The mist hit his wavering Beneath shield and vanished.

Drake hadn’t waited for him to finish. He shot fire into Emmett as soon as the black mist had dispersed, and Emmett again flinched.

Then he opened his eyes, rage flaring, and slammed Drake with Beneath magic coupled with a spell.

Drake countered with a wall of fire, but he was thrown upward, slammed into the magic mirror, hit the top of the bar, and toppled forward to the floor. He staggered up, then roared as Emmett’s spell sliced into him. Drake’s hands went to his face, the dragon tatts that clasped his throat and neck fading.

“One down,” Emmett said. He pointed at Cassandra, and she rose into the air, Pamela reaching for her in alarm. Cassandra clutched her chest, gasped out a string of odd-sounding words, and fell again, breathing hard. Pamela caught her and gently eased her back into the chair, then turned a snarl on Emmett.

“Maybe two,” Emmett continued. He easily tossed aside the magics Mick and I hit him with as he’d focused on Cassandra. “Is this the best you can do, Janet?”

The door to the kitchen swung open to reveal Elena framed in its doorway. She raised her hands and began to chant.

The language was ancient Apache, I assumed, at least, far older than what the White