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A shriek of pure rage shot through their connection, and Henry took that as a good sign.
“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!” Mab’s voice thundered through the link, and those gathered around Henry leaned away from the intense hatred as her voice shook the ground around him. “I wasn’t finished!”
Henry felt the corruption dripping from the spell she held ready to add to the Global Overlay Spell. It was a far more aggressive and destructive variant of the Fae Wasting Disease the field was designed to protect against! She was going to invert the protection spell to inflict the very disease it was curing. Only this time, the wasting spell would take days to kill its victims, not centuries. It radiated its murderous intent as she tried to force it through the link, but Henry launched another rapidly bound spell of his own at it. Ripped from her mental grip, the malignant spell was quarantined, then rapidly disassembled into harmless base elements and scattered by the current in the Wild Magic.
“NO! NO! NO! You insolent cretin! Who gave you the right to interfere with my divine vengeance!” Mab spat. “You are nothing! I’m Queen of all Fae-”
Henry’s rage against the creature who’d stolen his daughter’s body threatened to ignite. “Not anymore! Now you’re just Mad Mab!” He readied his antivirus spell once more, wondering how it might be used directly against her, but she shrieked in pure fury and vanished.
Shaking with unspent adrenaline, Henry reached for the healing spell and pulled it gently towards him. However, this time, instead of wispy sheets of mist, an intense green light came crashing down on the clearing like a waterfall. The sky filled with more and more green light falling in beams from above.
The current in the Wild Magic was so much stronger now. The green light flooded the clearing and spread out in all directions, linking up with other light falls. Henry and Meixiu, who was returning to them, were the only ones who felt the full pressure of the flow. For the others, it was just light acting like a liquid, which was amazing enough to dazzle them. The Silver People felt their energy increase as the light flowed around them.
As he was standing directly under a torrent, Henry felt his grip slipping on the ground. He was at risk of being swept tumbling away. His strength hadn’t been replenished yet, so, in desperation, he dropped his glamor. His strength surged and he dug his hooves into the forest floor.
Raymond and Eleanor gasped as they looked up at the horned creature standing where Henry had just been.
The four silver people gawked at him in shock, and Minkah looked concerned.All rights © NôvelDrama.Org.
Henry glanced at them and shrugged. “Sorry, I needed the extra strength of my true form.” He felt his connection to his daughter, and the healing spell was firmly linked to him, so he faced Eleanor. “Let’s heal him now,” Henry suggested.
Eleanor just nodded and turned to her husband, who continued to stare at the Satyr. She felt big hands land on her shoulders and she sucked in a breath as the weight of potential settled upon her. She suddenly felt like she had the power to do… anything. She looked down at the bullet wound, then looked closer and closer as her vision revealed new levels of detail she’d never seen before. She reached for forceps and felt them in her hand. She reached into the wound and felt the forceps capture the edge of the slug. The sensations traveled through the instrument even though it was made of light. She gently tugged the bullet back out along the channel it made on the way in.
Once she had it out, she dropped it to the forest floor and released the forceps, watching the light simply fade away. She began to search for the bleeder. The nick was small, but blood was trickling out with each beat of his heart. She looked closer still at the artery and made micro sutures with the green light to close the tear, then ran a line of green light along the torn edge like glue to reinforce it. As she backed her vision out of the wound, she repaired the damage she could. She finally blinked her eyes back to normal and leaned back. She felt Henry pull his hands away and the sudden loss of the power he was feeding her made her sway slightly.
Sitting back on her heels, she gazed down at her husband, who was looking more relaxed. “Are you done?” he asked in surprise.
“Yes,” she said with a smile. She turned her face to Henry, who was rocking on his hooves. He didn’t look so good. “Henry?”
“So tired,” he sighed.
The sound of fighting was quickly getting closer.
“They saw us. We have to go! Do you have a car?” Minkah said tersely.
Eleanor helped Raymond to his feet. He nodded to her. “This way,” she said. They moved quickly through the woods, stealth no longer their priority.
Short seconds later, they came to a fence, and the four Silver People tore through it, leaving a gap for the rest to get through easily. A short distance up the road, they reached the car. Henry switched back to his glamor and leaned against the side of the car panting.
Meixiu moved to his side. “I got a text from Sigrid. Roy is not doing so well against Carl. The man drank so much of your blood and is stronger. He is hurting Roy badly.”
Fear shot through Henry at the thought of losing Roy, his surrogate dad. It was too much. His strength failed him, his glamor reactivated, and he barely registered Meixiu pushing him into the middle of the back seat before his eyes rolled back.
-=-
Meixiu hopped in and pulled the door closed, and put her window down as Minkah got in behind the wheel. Eleanor tucked Raymond in on the front passenger side and got in the back seat behind her husband.
“Where are we going?” Minkah asked.
“Go to VRL in Manhattan,” Meixiu said as she nodded to Sam to make sure he’d heard. Sam smiled as he nodded, and the four Silver People raced away. Meixiu put her window up and lifted Henry’s eyelid. His pupils were tiny, so he’d left his body again. She knew she could pull him back, but she also knew he needed to be where he was going now.
“Say goodbye to Roy for me too, Henry,” she said quietly.
Sigrid’s idea of sniping insults from the sidelines to enrage Carl was partially successful. He did lose his temper, and his fighting did get sloppy, but even with Roy’s devastating surgical strikes against the brute, his endurance and healing speed were superior to Roy’s.
Worse, when Carl did manage to land one of his blows, it did more damage than was being inflicted upon him.
Roy was slowly losing this fight. She’d sent a note to Meixiu after she received one saying they had Henry. She wanted to prepare them for what might happen.
She looked at Carl and he didn’t look that good either. The bastard thought he’d crush Roy quickly, but they’d been fighting for some time now. Each taking time to heal after attacks as they warily watched the other, gauging the time to strike again. They’d just completed a pass, and Roy was looking shaken as Carl had seized the legs of le Brère and used him as a medieval flail against Roy. He killed his own man trying to bludgeon Roy to death. It was just another example of how little he cared for his pack.
Sigrid watched Mary walk up to Roy and say something.
Seeing his opponent was distracted, Carl surged forward.
When Roy grabbed Mary’s legs and swung her into the side of Carl’s head, the brute did a complete cartwheel, feet leaving the ground as Mary’s double fist hammer punch cracked his jaw. Carl tumbled and scrambled back, stunned as his confidence took another blow as well.
Roy released Mary’s legs, and the woman sat up slowly. Apparently, being swung like a club affects the inner ear badly. She wobbled off the floor over to Sigrid’s side.
“Nice try,” Sigrid whispered.
“Shut it. I’m trying not to hurl.”
Sigrid looked back to Roy and froze. Something was seriously wrong. “What-what’s he doing?”
-=-
Michelle Beaumont stood at the window of her condo and stared in shock and dismay at the green light surrounding her building.
She’d been fretting about losing her job and putting Dayshia’s new home at risk.
When the green light fell, she thought it was lovely, at first.
Then she saw someone from her building on the sidewalk below walking home. When the light washed over them, their glamor immediately dissolved. They were caught out in the open in their true shape.
This was a personal nightmare for Michelle, and it was coming true! She cried out, but there was nothing she could do as the being lifted their briefcase to hide their face as they ran the rest of the way home.
Michelle stared at the green light surrounding her and saw it went on as far as the eye could see. She’d never be able to leave the building, but then, she had nowhere to go, now.
-=-
Sam and his friends stopped a short distance from the road and held hands.
“What do we do?” Jeannie asked.
Jake shook his head. “We’re definitely going down the rabbit hole now!”
Sam nodded. “People who can disappear into shadows, turn into big goat people-”
“He’s a Satyr,” Jake clarified, and Sam grinned at his encyclopedic friend before continuing.
“Glass People, Silver People, furry werewolf people, and two big guys with tusks. Not your typical crowd at the Nascar track.”
Brenda spoke up. “Those people back there seemed like they knew what was going on. I think we should stick with them. The pretty Chinese girl invited us.”
Jeannie nodded, as did Jake. Sam smiled at them as he agreed as well. “Okay, we stick with them. The next question is, do we tell our new army buddies about them?”
Jake frowned. “They disguise themselves as human, and I think I can figure out why. How about we just tell them army boys to meet us in Time Square, Manhattan? That way, if something goes sour, we can get their help quickly?”
Sam smiled and nodded. “You go catch up with our new friends while I drop that hint to the Army.”
They sped away, and Sam got closer to the fighting. He wanted no part of that. He spotted the Sergeant and rushed up to her side. She glanced at him.
“Where have you been?” she asked.
“Watching unbelievable stuff. Listen, when you’re done here, meet us in Time Square,” Sam said with a nod towards the battle which seemed to be winding down.
“Time Square? Why there? What’s going on?” Mick turned to ask, but Sam was gone.
She growled to herself. This night just got crazier and crazier.