was another nondescript gray hole, just like the one underneath the Grays’ B & B. Only this one pulsed with an insane amount of magic.
When I was on the ground, I lit a few more mage balls. When nothing happened, I shouted up to Blondie that it was safe. I felt the rope go slack when she dropped it, and then it fell to the earth in a serpentine coil while I busied myself getting out of the harness. Meanwhile, she apparated herself next to me.
“So, what do we have here?” she asked, looking around the dark cave. She lit a few more mage lights, but it didn’t help much except to reveal that the ceiling above us was domed, with the now tiny-appearing hole at its apex.
“Can you feel that magic?” Blondie breathed, shutting her eyes as if enjoying a tune only she could hear. A shudder racked her body, and she clenched a hand over her belly.
“I can feel it,” I said, but I could also see that I wasn’t feeling it the way she was. She kinda looked like she might come in her pants. I just felt power.
But then I felt a whole different type of power altogether.
“Shit,” I swore, pulling Blondie back toward one of the cavern walls.
“Huh?” she said, woozily, as if drunk off whatever she was sensing.
“We’ve got company!” I shouted, pointing at the hole just as one dun figure darted through, to be followed swiftly by another. The harpies swirled around the hole as Phaedra appeared, lowering herself down on a column of earth magic.
Fucking Phaedra, I thought, as Blondie and I set up shields.
Once the Alfar was on the ground, one of the harpies darted back up through, only to appear again towing Graeme. Fugwat must still have been on enforced vacation in Abu Dhabi. Phaedra’s entourage fanned out behind her, the harpies together on one flank and Graeme defending Phaedra’s other flank.
“I would ask you why you were doing my job for me,” the bald little woman drawled, her face split by that wretched little moue of a smile that I’d come to loathe so much. “But, frankly, I could care less.”
“Do you really think you can take me?” Blondie asked, her question wonderfully rhetorical as she stepped forward and simultaneously lit herself up with mage fire.
Meanwhile, my eyes darted around the cave, trying to discern where there was a tunnel, or another hole, or something that would get us through to another room. Because while the cavern had suddenly gotten rather crowded, it wasn’t with anything we wanted to find.
Just evil Alfar and their sadistic cronies, I thought, as Graeme eyed me from behind Phaedra. I felt that squicky mental power of his reaching out, but this time I was able to use what I’d learned from studying Blondie work on Fugwat to shut down the incubus. It wasn’t elegant, and it wasn’t controlled, but I squished his mental power flat with a well-deserved pummeling of force. At which Graeme blinked and shook his head slightly, as if it had hurt him.
If I can use those channels to hurt him, maybe I can use them to get in his head, too? Unfortunately, Graeme was no fool. He wasn’t going to let himself be walloped again that easily, and I felt his mental probes reverse backward into the safety of his own shields.
And that’s when the fight really started. Just like last time, Blondie and Phaedra blasted at each other while the Alfar’s entourage pumped power into her shields.
Only this time, I didn’t take a back seat. Instead, I went on the offensive. The ocean was right above me, after all, pumping its power through the cavern ceiling, as well as trickling in on the rivulets of water that swirled around our feet. I was also still ridiculously revved from my time in the Sow. Unworried about getting depleted, I let rip with my own fierce barrage of mage balls. Only I ignored Phaedra completely.
Instead, I concentrated on her people. After all, if they were putting all their power into shielding Phaedra, they couldn’t be shielding themselves very well.
I let rip a maniacal cackle as I saw my mage balls buckle Kaya and Kaori’s weakened shields, and then felt them scramble to pump their magic back into their own shields at the expense of Phaedra’s. In response, the little Alfar’s blood-red eyes grew wide, and Blondie responded with an even fiercer barrage. I kept the pressure on the harpies, which