*****
Mandy
"No!"
The spray of Greg's blood splashed into the pool, scarlet witch blood spreading across the blue blood of the wildfae. As Mandy watched, a thread of scarlet slipped over the lip of the well and down toward the Guardian.
"No!"
The floor of the cavern trembled. Witches, squids, and the mer prince staggered. The crystals lining the cavern shivered and rang with a high pitched sound as if the rock itself were screaming. Fragments of crystal, sharper than knives, rained from the ceiling. Mandy fell to her hands and knees.
The sound of scales scraping on stone hissed up from below, accompanied by a growl so far into the bass register that Mandy more felt in her bones than heard it with the ears. She raised her head and looked toward the gaping hole in the floor. With her mage-sense, Mandy saw the silver-blue glow of power bubble up from the Well of Deeps. The Guardian was rising.
Mandy scrambled to her feet and raced toward Greg. The witch who'd been shielding her tried to stop her, but Mandy was desperate to reach her husband. She dodged the outstretched hand and, with a flicker of power, propelled the other woman away before she could touch her. Dashing through the pentacle felt like running through a wall of fire, but Mandy barely noticed the pain. She skidded on the wildfae's blood as she went to her knees beside Greg. Dormolon stood over them, but his entire attention was on the Well of Deeps. The cave chimed again, and more shards rained down. Mandy threw herself over Greg to protect him. A huge shard of crystal just missed her right arm and embedded itself in the earth beside them.
"Greg!"
How badly was he hurt? What could she do?
"Get out of here, baby," he said. But his command was delivered in a voice breathy from pain.
"No, I won't leave you."
Mandy felt Greg's blood, his magic, his life draining out of him. She pushed at the wound on his chest with her hands, trying to stop the bleeding, but the slash from the athame was too wide and too deep. His blood poured over her hands. Her own heart pounding in terror, she tried to grab his magic. If she could hold onto it long enough, maybe she could use her ability to move things to close the gaping hole in his chest. But Greg was too weak, so suddenly too near death.
"How touching," Dormolon sneered, noticing them at last. He looked down at the stone knife in his hand, the blade still red with Greg's blood. "But nothing can stop this now. The spell is cast. The Guardian is rising."
Mandy ignored Dormolon. She'd deal with him later, if there was a later. She had to save Greg first. Desperate, she tried again to stop the flow of Greg's blood, but already the Guardian was drinking her husband's magic. A long, red, forked tongue flicked over the blood that pooled around them. As she watched, the Guardian's snout rose from the Well of Deeps, followed by its whole head and at least fifteen feet of snake-like neck. The dragon's scales were golden, iridescent, and flickered with subtle color in the light of the tall altar candles that still blazed at the points of the pentacle. Slit-pupiled green eyes bigger than her head looked down at them without blinking. Mandy's breath caught in her throat The Guardian was beautiful. It was terrible. It was here.
"Mine," the dragon hissed, and lapped again at the pool of blood and magic with its forked tongue.
Mandy felt Greg's magic slide down the Guardian's throat. She and Greg were so closely tied now that she felt the Guardian tug at her own magic, as well. It felt as if part of her soul were being pulled away from her.
"They're all yours, Great One," Dormolon said with a wave of his arm toward Mandy and Greg and the rest of the captives. "All of them, as I promised. Take them all, and then give me what I want. Give me a sea realm of my own!"
"No," Mandy said for the third time, anger rising in her, hot and unstoppable. "No, you can't have them."
But she wasn't strong enough to heal Greg herself, and Greg was too badly injured to give her his power. She couldn't move him. The witches couldn't fight so many enchanted Humboldts at once. The wildfae were dying. Her great-aunt, the weres, even Sennusi, were helpless. What could she do? She needed power, a lot of power, more power than she'd ever imagined wanting. But where could she get it? Where?
Inside her head, the pendant spoke, "Take what you need. Use it as you will."
Take? Take from where?
The Guardian hissed again. Its tongue flicked toward her, toward Greg. Oh, yeah, Mandy thought, regarding the dragon through narrowed eyes. Now, there was power! She followed the trickle of Greg's magic, magic that the Guardian had swallowed, and she found more power than any witch had ever imagined possessing. So much power that drowning a world at the request of an idiot mer prince was something that could be bought for what the dragon regarded as a few minor snacks. So much power that she could do anything she wanted—if only she possessed it.
But she could move things. That was her gift. With Greg's power she'd been able to move them both to safety. She'd been able to strip the enchantment from three of Dormolon's squids. She could move magic itself!
Mandy threw her will into the thread of magic that led deep inside the Guardian. She drew in everything she'd ever been taught, everything she was; she drew on the potential within her that she'd never admitted to herself that she possessed. She drank the Guardian's magic. She drank and drank until she was full. Then, she drank in still more magic, until it felt as though she might burst. Still, Mandy took in the magic. Fueled by fear and anger, she ripped power away from the dragon. Power flowed into her in an explosion of magic that threatened to destroy her. But she wanted it! She needed it! And she took it.
The Guardian roared in outrage. Enormous claws scored marks on the edge of the Well of Deeps. More crystals shattered and fell from the ceiling in deadly shards. Tiny fragments scored stinging cuts across Mandy's face, her arms. Still, she drank magic. She felt the utterly alien force of the Guardian's mind. It was a creature that barely noticed the life of this world. Only the power of Dormolon's spell had called it here. It had no conscience, no sense of doing right or wrong. How could it care about the feelings of a snack? Might as well wonder whether a bag of chips wanted to be eaten. But this snack could bite back.
"What are you doing?" Dormolon demanded.
He'd let go of every everything except the spell that let him breathe air. His skin was gray scales mottled with silver patterns that gleamed in the light of the altar candles. He bared his teeth at her, a double row of pointed fangs that looked as though they belonged in the mouth of a shark.
With a fraction of her mind, Mandy noted that it was the first time the mer prince had addressed her directly. Too bad for him, she thought; too little attention, paid too late. She was about to ruin all his grand schemes.
With a last effort, Mandy tore away a huge chunk of the Guardian's magic. The roar turned into a scream. More crystal fell. But the Guardian wouldn't leave, couldn't leave. The spell that Dormolon had worked required an exchange of power. Mandy had taken plenty of power from the Guardian—far more than it wanted to give—but the spell could not end until the Guardian received its payment.
There were only two ways for this to end, she realized. Either complete the original spell and give the Guardian the magical beings that Dormolon had intended to sacrifice, or let the spell rebound on the spellcaster. Could she bring herself to give the mer prince to the Guardian? Could she destroy another living being, no matter how selfish, no matter how destructive? Mandy glanced around at her great-aunt and the others, trapped in their nets. She saw that the two wildfae were nearly dead. One of the four combat witches was lying immobile on the cave floor and, as she watched, she saw another go down under three Humboldts. Yes, she thought, she could do it, and she would do it. Now.
With a flick of stolen power, she shoved the mer prince toward the enraged dragon. Dormolon's scream was lost in the Guardian's roar. The long, red tongue flicked out once again and wrapped around the mer. Sacrifices or summoner, either would satisfy the dragon and end the summoning. Dormolon had t
o have known that when he cast the spell. It just never occurred to him that things might not go his way. That didn't stop him from hacking at the Guardian's snout with the athame, but the blade only bounced off the dragon's scales. One last scream ended with a crunch that made Mandy's stomach lurch, and the huge head and neck disappeared back into the Well of Deeps. The withdrawal of the dragon ended the spell, and the well closed with a sound like a strangled earthquake. Then it was just a hole in the cave floor, one with the blood of the wildfae and Greg dripping slowly over the edge.
Mandy still cradled her wounded husband in her arms. His eyes were closed, and the only color on his face came from the scarlet smears of blood where she'd touched him. Both wildfae were down, laying in a pool of their own deep blue blood. Abigail's eyes were closed, her face ashen. Sennusi made gasping, choking noises, her air-breathing spell had failed her at last. The weres and the selkie still struggled in their nets. The remaining Humboldt's and witches still fought. The world had been saved, but they had not. All of them could still die here in this cavern—would die unless she did something about it.
The magic she'd ripped from the Guardian still burned within her like liquid fire, threatening to annihilate her. No, she would not let that happen. Not when they'd come so far. Not when they were so close to safety. Not when she had even the smallest hope of a chance to prevent this disaster.
She looked inward, and it was like falling into the sun. The Guardian's magic was so bright, so powerful, so explosive; she had to tame it before it destroyed her. She felt herself stretching, expanding in all directions.
And she swallowed the sun.
It wasn't all of the Guardian's magic. No mortal, no matter how determined, could hope to take all of that power, but no witch had ever controlled so much magic before. Mandy reached, and threw the Humboldts back into the Sound. With Dormolon's spell stripped away, they fled into the deeps, natural creatures once again. She sent Sennusi after them. No need to let the mermaid choke to death on the thin air of dry land.
She poured the stolen magic over Greg, willing him to heal, to be well, to be hers. He gasped and jerked in her arms. Goddess, no! Was she too late? But the terrible wound in his chest was closing. Even as she watched, the flesh knit up, whole and without a scar. Greg was healed, but there was still too much magic inside her.
It spilled out as she healed the wounded witches. She healed the near dead wildfae. She destroyed the nets that held the rest of the sacrifices and restored Abigail and the two weres and the selkie to health. And still the magic roared inside her.
A brilliant white light was inside her head, blinding her. Yes, she had swallowed the sun, and it was burning her up!
"Mandy!"
She heard Greg call her name, felt his arms around her. He was strong. He was well. That was all that mattered. She felt herself start to dissolve into the light.
"Mandy! Give it to me! Give me the magic, baby! Let me hold it for you!"
As if from far away, the words reached her through the roaring chaos in her head. Give the magic to Greg? Could he hold all this? But the magic seemed to have a will of its own, and that will was to move, to flow. The force poured through the bond that bound her to Greg. She heard him gasp as the magic slammed into him. Mandy struggled to slow the surge, but she might as well have tried to stop a river with her bare hands. More and more of it spilled out of her and into Greg. But he took it in, all of it. She could feel inside his mind. It was as if the boundaries of his ability to hold magic were defined by the boundaries of his love for her. And that love was immense!
"Home!" Greg demanded. "Mandy, take us home!"
And with a last, powerful surge of magic and will, she gathered Greg and all the other witches, the selkie, the weres, and the wildfae and brought them all to Queen Boudicca's court.