Choking and writhing in midair, Dru tried to scream for help. But no matter how hard she struggled, she couldn’t force any sound past her lips.
Her mind raced. Who was this attacker? What was she after? How could she use so many different crystals at once, when most sorcerers could barely handle one at a time? Except for Dru, of course, but that was her particular talent, and she’d never met another crystal sorceress with those abilities.
Until now.
Apparently done with Dru for the moment, the sorceress turned her attention back to the safe. She held up the hand with the glowing rings as if she’d forgotten about it, and her magic held tightly onto Dru, dangling her in midair. There was no escape.
The woman ran the fingers of her other hand around the edges of the safe, as if searching for some flaw in its surface. But Dru had taken great pains to make the safe as secure as possible, not just against physical break-ins but magical intrusion as well.
Dru had guarded each interior corner of the thick steel safe with a grid of protective crystals. Then she’d borrowed Ruiz’s industrial diamond-tipped etching tool and used it to carve a meticulously researched string of sorcio glyphs around the inside edge of the door, creating a spell of invulnerability. Finally, Dru had hidden the safe behind Ming the Merciless, and inside that picture frame, she had carefully slipped a fragile 1,900-year-old Egyptian papyrus containing an obfuscation spell that prevented any magic from locating the safe or discerning its contents.
Or so she’d thought. Apparently, things hadn’t exactly worked out that way.
All of these precautions were absolutely necessary because this safe contained the most diabolical artifacts Dru had ever unearthed. Things too powerful to destroy, and so creepy and dangerous that they had to be kept locked away for the safety of the general population.
Among other things, the safe contained the fabled Dread Stone, an ordinary-looking, baseball-sized lump of gray rock. Being a geode, its hollow center was crusted with hidden crystals, which in this case held the souls of untold sorcerers it had imprisoned over the centuries.
The safe also contained the so-called Goblet of Perspicacity, a gem-encrusted silver cup from the Carolingian Empire. Anyone who drank from it would find their mind insidiously filled with the darkest impulses of human nature, until they were ultimately driven into a paranoid homicidal rage.
There was also the Devourer of Kamang, a necklace of bone charms carved into the shape of tiger beetles that would come to life in the middle of the night and consume the flesh of its wearer, leaving nothing behind but a glistening skeleton.
But that wasn’t the worst.
The worst was the Amulet of Decimus the Accursed, an ancient Roman sorcerer who was so evil that his enemies had smothered the entire city of Pompeii under searing volcanic ash in order to kill him. Up until recently, Dru had also possessed one of the biotite crystals that had caused that particular cataclysm, and she had used it to blow up half the netherworld. The amulet, she had to assume, was even more powerful than that.
The artifacts in that safe were far too dangerous to be let loose upon the world. Throughout history, they had caused immeasurable misery and suffering. Dru had done everything she could possibly think of to keep them locked away.
It wasn’t enough.
Whatever this intruder planned to do next, Dru had to find a way to stop her, and fast. But suspended in midair, unable to touch any of her crystals, there was nothing Dru could do. She looked around for any loose rocks she’d forgotten to put away lately.
On a side table by the door to the stairs sat a disk of iron pyrite, looking like a miniature gold record that some music mogul would hang on his office wall. Pyrite, once energized, was excellent for creating an energy shield. There was a chance she could use it to reflect the intruder’s spell back at her. If only she could reach it.
But the pyrite was halfway across the room, and Dru was hovering in midair, fighting just to breathe. Black specks pounded at the edges of her vision. Her pulse thudded in her ears. She prayed she wouldn’t pass out.
Still pinning Dru with her spell, the sorceress used her free hand to draw a handful of crystals out of her pocket. In her open palm, the crystals began to glow in different colors—sapphire blue, bottle green, fluorescent yellow—and they gradually floated up in the air, spinning around one another like subatomic particles orbiting the nucleus of an atom.
Moments later, a single pinpoint of red heat grew in the center of the safe’s door, brightening until it was white-hot. Sizzling cracks of light zigzagged out in all directions across the metal. With a bone-jarring sound like fracturing rock, the safe door shattered into a thousand glowing sparks. They streaked through the air, leaving scorched afterimages in Dru’s vision.
Her heart sank. Everything was going from bad to worse.
On the bookshelf behind Dru sat a thick candle holder, currently unlit, carved from a massive pink salt crystal. Doubtless the candle holder was heavy enough to be used as a weapon, but Dru had a better idea. Crystalline halite, otherwise known as rock salt, held the power to dissolve patterns of energy. Such as the invisible spell currently bruising Dru’s ribs. If she could make physical contact with the crystal candle holder and energize it, there was a chance she could short out the intruder’s spell.
Dru’s upper arms were pinned tightly to her sides, but below her elbows, she found she could move more or less freely. As surreptitiously as she could, she stretched her fingers toward the candle holder. It sat tantalizingly out of reach.
The redheaded sorceress put away her glowing crystals and reached into the smoking remains of the safe. With elaborate care, she pulled out a decades-old orange-and-brown Tutti Frutti Candy box. One of her thin eyebrows quirked up.
Dru had placed the evil flesh-devouring Kamang necklace inside the old box years ago, and she had honestly hoped never to set eyes on it again. But if this evil intruder happened to put on the necklace and had to suddenly fend off a hundred chomping beetles carved out of chicken bones, that wouldn’t have been the worst thing ever.
No such luck. After shaking the candy box briefly, the intruder showed no further interest in it. She dropped the box to the floor and reached back into the safe.
This time, she pulled out a small faded red box with the crude outline of a yellow mushroom cloud drawn on it. Old block lettering decorated the sides: Atomic Fire Ball, Red Hot, 1¢.
Dru’s stomach turned acid. That was the artifact she had feared the most.
She could only watch helplessly as the sorceress opened the candy box and pulled out the chunky gold chain that held the Amulet of Decimus the Accursed. The amulet itself was the size of Dru’s palm, formed of concentric rings of cast metal glyphs surrounding a single eyeball-sized gem of faceted painite, the rarest crystal on Earth. Although the gem appeared to be pure black, full daylight revealed that painite was actually the darkest shade of rusty red. Like dried blood.
Over the years, Dru had done exhaustive research on the cursed amulet, but she’d never turned up much. No one really knew how powerful the artifact was, or exactly what it could do. All Dru knew for sure was that it had been the greatest creation of one of the most evil sorcerers of antiquity. That pretty much guaranteed it a spot on the no-fly list.
Whatever this sorceress was planning on doing with the amulet, it had to be seriously bad news. Dru had to shut her down. But how?
Teeth gritted with effort, Dru stretched toward the candle holder. But no matter how hard she strained, her fingers couldn’t quite reach it. In desperation, Dru bent her leg back and reached her bare foot toward the crystal, silently thankful that at long last, those yoga classes were finally paying off. Twisting, she bent her leg back farther and farther, until her big toe just barely brushed the cold, chalky surface of the crystal.
Blotting out everything else, Dru squeezed her eyes shut and focused all of her attention on the crystal. She imagined it becoming an extension of her body, her thoughts, her force of will. She became one with the crystal, sensing the power that lay locked in its depths, waiting to be unleashed.
Like a hot flush across her skin, the magic connection swept over her. Energy poured out of her and into the crystal, rewarding her with a hot glow that seeped through her tightly shut eyelids. The air around Dru trembled as the halite radiated resistance toward the spell that clutched her.
In all likelihood, the intruder had sensed the interruption and would quickly do something to fight it, but Dru didn’t dare open her eyes to see. Instead, she focused on pushing as much of her energy into the halite crystal as she possibly could.
The glow grew brighter. The air grew hotter. With an electric sizzle, the intruder’s spell broke, releasing the pressure on her rib cage. Dru dropped to the floor in an undignified heap, gasping for breath.
At that moment, the door to the stairs flew open. Greyson burst in, his eyes glowing red. “Dru!”
Across the room, the intruder was busy stuffing the amulet into her pocket. She brought out her atomic-looking crystals. They whirled to life, glowing bright.
Dru launched off the floor and lunged for the golden disk of iron pyrite sitting on the end table next to Greyson.
Snarling, the intruder thrust out clawlike fingers. Her crystals streaked toward Greyson as if they’d been fired out of a gun.
“Get down!” Dru threw herself in front of Greyson, barely having time to lift the pyrite before the flying crystals struck. Instantly, Dru’s magic radiated out through the golden pyrite disk, creating an energy shield that reflected the intruder’s attack back at her. A blinding flash rocked the room, thick with the smell of scorched minerals.
With an earsplitting whine, the intruder’s glowing crystals pinballed around the room, blasting sparks off the shelves, ceiling, and floor. Dru’s reflecting spell had somehow confused the crystals, sending them shooting off in random directions. One of them bounced off an ugly plaid armchair, setting the seat cushion on fire.
The intruder scowled at the ricocheting crystals for a moment, then turned and fled through the doorway that led into the front of the shop. Instantly, she was gone, leaving the malfunctioning crystals bouncing around behind her.
Dru cringed as one of the burning crystals streaked past her ear, buzzing like an angry hornet. She held up the smoking disk of pyrite to ward it off, but now the others were coming from all directions.
Greyson went back to the door. Wood splintered as he ripped it from its hinges. When angered, his demon strength grew unsettlingly powerful. A blast of lumber-yard smell washed through the room as Greyson swung the door around, its brass hinges dangling chunks of raw wood.
The strobe-like glow of the bouncing crystals abruptly vanished as Greyson swatted them out of the air, one by one. With a hammering sound, they embedded themselves deep into the heavy wooden door, releasing curls of black smoke.
Greyson used the door to beat out the flames on the plaid chair. But even as he did so, the door jerked and twisted with the movements of the malfunctioning crystals. He threw the smoking wooden door to the floor and jumped on top of it, pinning it down with his boots.
Dru expected some kind of explosion or burst of fire. Instead, the crystals rattled against the underside of the door, trying to break loose. Slivers of multicolored light leaked out as the door shook, threatening to let the still-glowing crystals escape. A campfire smell permeated the room as the wood burned.
Dru’s gaze went from Greyson to the doorway where the sorceress had just vanished, then back to Greyson standing atop the trembling door like some kind of bizarre surfer. Did she dare chase the intruder and try to get the amulet back? Would those crystals burn through the door and do something terrible to Greyson?
He jerked his chin toward the doorway, seeming to understand her thought process before she had even voiced it. “Get her! Go!”
The bell over the front door chimed. The sorceress was leaving in a hurry. But maybe there was still time to catch her.
Dru charged through the shop. As she sprinted past the cash register, she grabbed her dagger-shaped wedge of spectrolite crystal. In Dru’s tight fist, the multicolored spectrolite flared to life, lighting everything around her with a rainbow of colors. She still held the golden pyrite disk in her other hand, like a miniature shield.
She made it out the door just as the intruder slipped behind the wheel of a burly modern muscle car. The engine was already running, and the twin red bars of its brilliant taillights lit up the asphalt behind it. The engine screamed, and the red car launched away into the night, amazingly fast.
Though it was already too late, Dru chased after her. She ran out into the empty street, breathing hard. The thin ruby-red lines of the car’s taillights shrank into the distance. The sorceress was gone, taking the cursed amulet with her. But why? Whatever this sorceress needed the cursed artifact for, it had to be something truly evil.
Behind her, tires squealed and a throaty engine roared. A sleek black muscle car hurtled around the corner of her shop, tires smoking. It was a very familiar 1969 Dodge Charger Daytona, a long wedge-shaped beast with a two-foot spoiler wing rising up from its tail. Black as the diabolical pit that spawned it, Hellbringer was powered not just by the monstrous Hemi engine under its hood, but also by the infernal speed demon that possessed its curved steel.
Hellbringer screeched to a halt next to her. Greyson, eyes burning like hot coals, leaned over from the driver’s seat and pushed open the long passenger door. “Get in!”