Spellbreaker (Spellbreaker Duology #1) - Charlie N. Holmberg Page 0,98

instant.

It was then that Bacchus realized this man was an assassin—the assassin—armed and ready to take out a master aspector. To steal yet another opus.

Bacchus was his next target, and somehow Elsie had known it. Had her shouts called this criminal from his hiding place early?

There was no time to think of it.

Bacchus darted toward the fire and calmed it with another spell, then grabbed a broken chair leg. He armed it with a spell for speed and hurled it at his attacker. The wooden missile whistled through the air like a bullet. The assassin disintegrated it with a burst of lightning and ran forward, closing the space between himself and Bacchus.

The duchess screamed.

Bacchus sprinted to meet the man, causing him to hesitate; Bacchus was by far the larger opponent. Before they collided, Bacchus dived to the ground and pressed his hand to the carpet, willing the floor to open.

It did, but not quickly enough to send Abel Nash into the basement. Nash leapt out of the way and pointed his lightning rod.

It sparked as Elsie collided with him, knocking them both to the ground. The lightning grazed Bacchus’s leg, searing his skin and igniting the fabric of his trousers. He clenched his teeth and snuffed the embers with his hand.

Turning, he saw two servants in the doorway, Master Merton gaping, and Miss Ida still at her side, tugging on her sleeve. “Go!” he bellowed. “Now!”

Master Merton’s gaze flickered from him to Elsie to the assassin. Perhaps she hesitated because she wished to help, but spiritual aspecting would do no good in this situation, unless she had a curse ready and could get close enough to Abel Nash to touch him.

She grabbed Miss Ida’s forearm and jerked her toward the door.

Bacchus looked back just in time to see Elsie take an elbow to her face as the assassin flung her away.

The burning in his leg blazed to fill his entire body.

Flying to his feet, Bacchus grabbed another chair and, bespelling it with speed, flung it at the man. It went wide, but the assassin ducked, nevertheless. The chair bullet crashed into the wall, ruining a portrait as it smashed into hundreds of splinters.

From a kneeling position, Abel Nash aimed his lightning staff and sent a fiery bolt for Bacchus’s head.

Bacchus jumped to dodge, only to realize he was on a path to collide with the dining room table.

His hands touched it first, and the entire center leaf shifted from solid to liquid as his master spell overtook it—shifting it directly to gas would have been the equivalent of setting off a bomb. The lightning bolt soared overhead and cracked as it struck the opposite wall. Bacchus dropped into a puddle of strange woody liquid that was already beginning to resolidify. Pain surged from his head into his shoulders, not from the landing, but from the sudden and extreme use of the spell.

The air prickled. The lightning rod had been activated again, and he didn’t have enough time to escape.

He turned just as the blinding light shot at him—and the familiar silhouette of a woman stepped in front of it.

“No!” he shouted, but the lightning hit—

—and then vanished.

Blinking spots from his eyes, Bacchus pushed himself upright. Elsie’s shoulders heaved with her breaths. Both of her arms stretched in front of her as though frozen there. She stared with wide eyes. So did the assassin.

It took another heartbeat for Bacchus to understand what had happened. She’d dis-spelled the lightning. As it struck her.

He’d never heard of such a thing.

The awe fled Abel Nash first. He flung the staff forward again, a huge serpent of lightning flying for them. Bacchus wasn’t quick enough to tackle Elsie before it hit. She moved her palms up slightly, and the light surged into them—the brightness was nearly blinding, but Bacchus could have sworn he saw a glimmer of blue where light hit skin. A broken rune.

The lightning choked out, leaving them both unscathed.

Bacchus acted immediately. Grabbing a shard of porcelain from a broken dinner plate at his feet, he bespelled it with speed and chucked it. The porcelain zoomed through the air like a bullet before piercing through one side of the assassin’s chest and bursting out the other, spattering blood as it went. It collided with a curtain and hit the floor, breaking into three pieces.

Abel Nash’s knees quivered. The lightning staff fell from his hand and hit the floor. He followed after, dead.

CHAPTER 23

Elsie stared at the bleeding, slumped body of Abel Nash on