Durance by Lyn Gala Page 0,23

to figure it out later because right now Kavon wanted to make sure that neither of them ended up like those humans from the fragment of memory he’d gotten from Bennu. Those broken bodies with their dead eyes staring up at the sky had been a fairly unambiguous warning about what would happen to people who got caught between battling ifrit.

They were almost at the SUV when Kavon felt his bull ripped away. He turned, his hands up to construct a quick shield. He hadn’t replenished all his power, but using the living magic around them, he could do that much. His bull was flying through the air, his back arched as if some great hand was dragging him away. While Kavon watched, the bull stopped, and then, still in his wooly mammoth form, he fell the thirty or forty feet to the ground.

The attack took place in an unnatural silence. Neither Kavon’s guide or the ifrit monster made a sound, and Bennu’s cries had turned weak and plaintive.

When the creature turned to stare at Kavon, Kavon knew his shield wouldn’t hold the beast more than a few seconds. “Run! Get to the SUV and get it started!” Kavon yelled as he cast his power out. He made his shield resemble a net, something to cling to the ifrit and tangle around him. It would slow the beast down.

The bird monster dove toward him. When it hit the net, Kavon threw all his focus into holding the beast the few seconds it would take Darren to get the SUV started and turned around. If Darren had one ounce of common sense, he would hit the accelerator and leave Kavon behind. But he wouldn’t. Darren would wait for him.

Despite all Kavon’s efforts, the monster tore through them as if they were no more than a cobweb.

“Darren!” Kavon screamed, but it was too late. The bird had the SUV in his claws, and he threw it into the corner of an ultramodern hotel. The side of the SUV caved in and bricks fell from the damaged building.

Kavon couldn’t breathe. Fear squeezed his heart as Bennu drove straight at the creature. It turned that ugly bone face toward Bennu and then it vanished. In the space that existed between two seconds, the storm, the monster, the rain of magic and furious winds all evaporated. The cloud of debris slowly settled back to the ground, and the sounds of car alarms and screaming people filled the air.

Kavon ignored all of it. He ran toward the SUV which was gray with dust from the crumbling edge of the building. The passenger side was crushed and all the windows were blown out. Kavon scrambled up onto one tire so he could reach the driver’s door, praying with more passion than he had since childhood.

He used his own magic to rip the door open, and inside he found Darren unconscious and dangling from a seat belt that was strangling him. But he was alive. Kavon chose to focus on the sense of flickering life he could still feel from his lover’s broken body.

Chapter Nine

Kavon was caught between two instincts. One urged him to pull Darren free of the wreckage and lay him on the sidewalk. The second was an instinct trained into him as a law enforcement officer not to move an injured man. Some shamans had the ability to stabilize patients or even heal them at the scene. However, Kavon had never trained in that sort of medical procedure.

Before Kavon could make a decision, a sedan came screaming up the road, followed by an FBI SUV.

Given the amount of destruction in the area, many people had likely called 911. Kavon braced himself for a confrontation with the anti-terrorism units or a tactical unit. Instead, his team tumbled out of the SUV and rushed into defensive positions around him. Anita, the shaman nurse from the DC Djedi Center, got out of the sedan and rushed to Kavon’s side.

“Where is he?” she asked, her voice full of urgency, but without panic.

Kavon blinked and struggled to form thoughts. “He was driving. It got flipped. He’s hurt.” It was still on its side, and the upper two tires spun lazily.

She cast an evaluative gaze toward the vehicle before nodding. “Okay, give me a second to collect magic, and I can stabilize him.”

Kavon search the sky, and he quickly found what he was looking for. Bennu circled the area still in his ancient form. Kavon touched the tattoo on his hip