“I see my wraith has done its job well.” She sounded amused. Bogmall stepped into the bathroom like an ex-druid hexenmeister with a death wish. “You’ve almost destroyed yourself.”
I called to the fire in my blood, but I couldn’t get my hands to flame on. Flippin’ air magic! Zev had said he could still feel it in me, but the aero-craft had replaced my body parts, so there was no blood to borrow heat from. I stepped backward, kicking my shoes off and praying I still had feet. I looked around the bathroom for a weapon or something I could use for a defensive spell. Other than a dirty towel on the floor and hair in the shower drain, it was looking like slim pickings. I wished my grimoire was in there because it was heavy enough that it would hurt the sorcerer if I threw it really hard.
“Don’t try to run away. You’ll only make me hurt you more.”
“Do you practice your evil villain speech in the mirror?”
She laughed maniacally as if to punctuate my point.
“Laugh at this.” I called upon the fire in my blood, at least I had some left in my legs, and kicked my foot up and shouted, “Eat fire, bitch.” Flames sputtered from my toes. I was trying to torch my nemesis, not light a scented candle. “More fire,” I said, shaking my foot. “More freaking flames!” Two feet of orange flames burst from my big toe. Note to self: If I survive this, practice flaming toes maneuver.
Bogmall’s eyes widened, but she didn’t stop smiling. She wiggled her fingers in a way that made me uneasy and recited, “Fire of my foe, my enemy, I command you to come to me.”
The flames twisted around on my toes as if yanked. I windmilled backward into the tub and hit my head on the shower tile.
My traitorous fire flew across the bathroom to land in Bogmall’s palm. “Interesting,” she said as she studied the flames. “You have ignis-craft.” She shook her head and smirked. “The rumors are true. You do have more than one element. No wonder you’re such a hot commodity, and no wonder so many want you dead.”
Her body shimmered, and she changed again to Yolanda, then just as quickly back to herself. Did tru-craft magic act differently in sorcerers, or was Bogmall in league with someone or something else?
“I’m adorable,” I jibed. “No one wants to kill me.”
“There’s a reason your kind have been hunted to extinction, Iris. Those who can hold more than one element are the most powerful witches. There are many creatures beyond sorcerers who would happily kill you in order to absorb your magic. Including other tru-craft witches.”
I frowned as I struggled to get up. The space where my abdomen had been was getting weaker, and it was harder to support myself. Still, I managed to get up to the edge of the tub. “You’ll find I’m hard to kill.”
“Oh, honey. I find that difficult to believe. You’re not that talented. You’re just extremely lucky. And judging by the way your magic is wasting you away, I’d say your luck has just about run out.”
Luck. Mint was for luck, and I had several crushed leaves in my pocket, still, along with a chunk of amber left over from the sound barrier spell. Damn it, I’d had spell ingredients with me the whole time.
“Mom?” I heard Maddie in the hallway. “Everything okay?”
The girl. I’d forgotten about her. Was she one of Bogmall’s cabal of crazy? She seemed awfully young, but that was usually when indoctrination began. Had she been groomed to seduce my son to get to me?
“Wait in the living room, Maddie. I’ll be right there,” Bogmall said.
Maddie didn’t listen. She rounded the corner and saw the blonde sorcerer holding fire in her hands. Bogmall glared at her. “I told you to wait in the damn living room.”
“Who…who are you?” Maddie’s voice quivered. “Where’s my mom?”
Okay, maybe the girl wasn’t in on it. “Run, Maddie,” I ordered the girl. “Go to the garden and get help now.” I concentrated on the amber and mint. Keep it simple, I reminded myself. “Northwind blows, the door to close.”
The door slammed shut.
“Three elements,” Bogmall said. “More and more interesting.” She conjured a curved knife with a fancy jeweled blade. “It’s going to be hard for you to cast spells when I slit your throat.”
“You should be afraid of me,” I said. “It’s dangerous to underestimate me.”
“Nothing you conjure can harm me, witch.” Her image flickered again. “I’m not actually here. I’m just borrowing the fire witch.” She touched the tip of the blade and pricked a finger on her flaming hand. It began to bleed. “If you damage this body, then you’ll be harming sweet, innocent Yolanda. If you kill me, you kill her.”
The woman was a diabolical psychopath. If Yolanda was an innocent, could I sacrifice her to get rid of Bogmall? I thought of Michael and what would happen to him if I died. If Yolanda was ignis-craft, then Maddie would eventually spark, and she would be left, like me, without a mother to guide her. I couldn’t allow that to happen. I had to find another way.
“How are you doing this?” I asked. “Are you possessing her?”
“Like I’m going to tell you,” she scoffed. “You’re not James Bond, and I’m not Goldfinger, spilling my evil plan so you can foil it.”
“At least you admit you’re evil,” I muttered.
Her eyes flashed with anger for the first time. “You think you are invulnerable, Iris. But you’re not. You have too much power and too little will to use it. I’m going to enjoy taking everything away from you. I’m going to delight in it.”
“If you don’t want to be accused of being evil, you should stop acting evil.”
There was a pounding at the door. “Iris!” It was Keir, and the strange way his voice sounded, told me he’d transformed into a gigantic tarry-eyed and fanged bunny-lope. “Let me in!”
Why wasn’t he busting down the door? “Keir! It’s Bogmall. She’s…She’s found a way to jump into someone else’s body.”
His roar shook the walls.
“By the time the forcefield spell wears off, you’ll be long dead,” Bogmall said, “And I’ll be long gone.”
I wanted to punch the smirk off her face.
So, I did.
With a lunging left hook, I caught Bogmall with a fist to the side of her mouth. I felt bad for whatever that did to Yolanda, but it wasn’t a killing blow. I’d apologize later.
There was a lot of scraping, snarling, and howling going on in the hallway. The forcefield spell was strong if a pooka and an ifrit couldn’t get through.
Bogmall jabbed upward with her knife, and it caught me in the stomach. It penetrated the air magic as if it were my body, but I didn’t feel anything. Small miracles. Bogmall screamed and dropped the knife as I grabbed her hair and bashed her in the face a couple more times with my dirt-made elbow. “Eat dust, bitch.” I smashed her head against the tiled floor, then remembered there was an innocent person in real jeopardy beneath me.
Bogmall thrust her flaming hand at the place where she punctured me, and there was a loud Boom! as my midsection exploded, throwing me back and over the toilet seat.
“Iris!” Keir shouted again. “Iris!”
“I’m alive!” Barely, though. Cripes. I couldn’t sit up. She’d detonated the wild magic in my midsection as if it had been a powder keg.
Bogmall wiped the side of her mouth as she got up from the floor. There was a satisfied, smug glint in her eyes as she stalked toward me.
“Not this time, Iris. Nothing and no one can save you now.”
What was it that the grimoire had said?
To fight what is not there, first, you must harness the air.
Was Bogmall the thing that was not there? But how could I harness the air? Fair Konig had told me that the wind can’t be caged. Maybe I’d been thinking about harness in the wrong way. What else had the grimoire told me?
Bone to earth, blood to fire, with every element the price is higher.
I’d used bone and minerals to bind my terra-craft to me. I’d called on my blood to control fire. With every element, the price is higher…. Could it mean location and not cost? Was it possible that the solution was that simple? But if I tried to tap aero-craft without spelling ingredients, the magic would take its toll on me. The last time, I’d ended up dead for eight minutes. Then I remembered the rest of the grimoires note.
Only fools refuse to use their tools.
Overcome your fear, or you will disappear.
Screw it. If I didn’t do this, I would be dead anyway.
I took in a breath and concentrated on my lungs expanding and contracting.
“No,” Bogmall seethed. “Not this time.” She bellowed and picked up the knife as she charged me, knocking me back, wedging me in the crevice between the toilet and the vanity.
The move knocked the breath from me. I barely managed to get my arm up as she thrust the knife down in a move that would’ve sent the blade into my chest. I sucked in another breath, calling the air in my lungs, lungs that were made of aero-craft magic, and I blew it out in Bogmalls direction. The wind, much like the tornado I’d created, was strong and unstoppable. It threw Bogmall across the room and pinned her against the wall. I could feel the magic bolstering my strength as I rose from where I was wedged and floated like Storm from the X-men across the small bathroom to where the woman writhed.
I couldn’t kill her. Not without killing Yolanda, but something Fair Konig said gave me an idea. “Air balances all elements,” I said. “It moves mountains, it feeds the flames, it creates the rain because it is the storm.” I hovered close, my face inches from hers. “And it…it makes the spirit soar.” Her cheeks rippled as the wind hit her full in the face. “When I see you next, Bogmall, I will end you.” I took another deep breath as I reached out and forced her mouth wide. Into the opening, I breathed out the words, “Back to your master, soar, spirit, soar. I bind you to her body, your traveling days no more.” I grabbed her by the throat, as fear and rage helped her fight against my spell, until I screamed, “Bend to my will!”
Bogmall’s eyes rolled back until all I saw were the whites, and her body once again became the dark-haired Yolanda.
I dropped to the floor as I eased Yolanda down. She started to cry.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m so sorry. She took me from my coven. I’m from Nevada.”
“The Mojave?” That had been where Lu had lost track of her.
“I tried to stop the sorcerer, but I couldn’t. She’s powerful. So much power. Oh, goddess. What she made me do…I can’t…,” she sobbed. “I couldn’t fight her. She…she threatened Maddie. She would’ve killed my child.” Yolanda shook her head. “Forgive me. Please.”
“It’s okay,” I told her. I knew the lengths I would go to if Michael’s life was on the line. “Maddie’s safe. And so are you.”
The door splintered into thousands of tiny pieces as my giant pooka tore through the frame with his antlers. He looked like the beast of nightmares because he was.
Yolanda screamed, and I put my hand over her mouth to quiet her. I smiled at Keir to reassure him that I was okay and to keep him from killing the ignis-craft witch who had been an unwilling participant in Bogmall’s plan.
He shifted down to mostly human, but his black eyes swirled and bubbled like hot tar pits. “Where’s Bogmall?”
I snatched the dirty towel from the floor so he could wrap it around his waist. “Gone,” I told him. “She possessed Yolanda and was controlling her.”
“How did you get her out?” he asked.
I looked up at him and said, “I finally found my balance.”
Zev and Lu came in after him.
“We couldn’t get inside,” Zev said. “I couldn’t break the barrier spell.”
Lu, whose hair was flying wild, and her clothes dirty and disheveled, looked as if she had gone to war. “Linda tried to take me in through the ground up, but that failed too.” Her eyes widened. “Hey, your arms are back.”
I nodded. “I think aero-craft and I are good.”
I heard weeping from somewhere down the hall. I took my hand from Yolanda’s mouth. “Go to your daughter, Yolanda. She needs you.”
The bruised and battered woman scrambled to her feet and fled past Keir, Zev, and Lu to find Maddie.
Keir tugged me up into his arms. “I was so afraid,” he said as he nuzzled my ear.
“So was I,” I replied. “Until I wasn’t.” I flattened my palm against his cheek. “I’m all right, Keir.” And I knew that it was true. I’d managed to balance earth, air, and fire. And for the first time, I finally began to understand what it was to control the elements. I leaned my head back and went up on my toes. I kissed Keir until my body hummed with energy. Embracing who I was, what I was, felt as if our connection had gone even deeper. When the kiss ended, I smiled at him. “I’m more than all right. I’m really fucking good.”
He pressed his forehead to mine. He grinned, his gray eyes crinkled at the corners. “Yeah, you are.”
Like me, Keir wasn’t afraid anymore. Whatever came next, we would get through it. Together.