Myths and Gargoyles by Jamie Hawke (interesting books to read in english txt) 📕

flames could no longer exist. Next, I reinforced those areas with stone from where I could find it, ensuring any flames that happened to escape my attention at least couldn’t go far.

From what I could tell, it worked. To be safe, I noted a water pipe nearby and caused it to separate long enough to provide some extra attention, then reconnected it.

I stumbled away from the wall, exhausted. Ebrill caught me, one arm around me, her other hand on my forehead as she chanted a healing spell.

“Thank you,” I said, although I wasn’t entirely sure her spell did much. Healing spells were great when it came to physical exhaustion and injuries, but not necessarily an overuse of magic.

“They’re still going to be out there wondering,” Steph said. “Now, probably more than ever.”

“As far as they know, the flames suddenly went out,” ‘

The driver and the other guards stayed with the cars, or were going to, when I had an idea.

“Lead them away,” I told one of the drivers. “Can you do that for me?”

“Yes, sir,” he replied. “Any more details?”

I indicated one of two remaining cars that had belonged to Gertrude. “Take the blue Mustang, along with two guards in case there’s trouble. We still have a magic battle to deal with above, but I want to see if we can get the media and bystanders’ eyes off us for a few minutes.”

“Roger that.”

Without waiting, he and two others were in the car, taking off through the normal garage.

“Get to the rooftop,” I said, indicating the stairs.

“Shortcut?” Ebrill asked.

I shook my head. “I have… other plans for my magic. I don’t think I’ll have enough energy for both.”

She nodded. They took off for the stairs, leaving the other driver and two remaining guards down below. Meanwhile, as the garage door closed, I put my hands to the house walls again, waiting. When I heard the roar of the engine outside, I counted to three and then went to work.

Basically, all I had to do was change the structure of the house—to make it appear that there was no house, that the other nearby houses simply extended toward each other, not much room between.

It was a major undertaking, but hey, I had transmutation magic. In that moment, I believed I could do it, and therefore it was possible. Odd, how that worked. As much as I tried to ‘believe’ that I had bigger muscles, it simply didn’t happen. This, however, made sense to me—hell, there was cinematic precedence for houses that could exist but be invisible like this.

My bet was that anyone who claimed to have seen a house here would be deemed insane. Just to be sure, I tapped into the runes below the house and added a confusion spell. Anyone who got too close would either forget why they came, think they were trying to get to the next house, or maybe simply turn around and walk away. I know it sounds ridiculous, but I needed us and the house to be left alone, at least for now.

“You’ll be fine down here,” I told the guards. “Head for the kitchen, get some food and water. Be ready for anything.”

Stepping away from the wall and feeling completely exhausted, I turned to the stairs and bolted up them to join the others.

130

My magic energy was starting to come back to me by the time I reached the roof, although I was physically exhausted from the climb. To my surprise, Shisa came charging up a moment later—straight out of one of those dog movies where they come find you miles away. My team had already formed a wedge, wings forming a protective screen from projectiles, although the battle hadn’t reached them, yet.

At first, I couldn’t tell who was fighting. The explosions of light were going on around a flowing circle of blackness. A blast went off and then a figure flew out—Yenifer, unless my eyes deceived me in that split second—and then the darkness reached and pulled her back again, engulfing her in the sphere.

“It’s her,” Megha said, hand to her head.

“Sensing a connection?” Aerona asked.

Megha simply nodded, then glanced toward the sky as her eyes glowed. A moment later, a being arrived in front of her, or rather, in front and beneath her. Not like the one from before. This one was long, like a shadow that moved in water, but almost like a winged eel with tendrils floating off around it. In spots where it caught the moonlight, it was translucent with rainbow glows. A beak formed at its mouth, giving it a bird-like quality.

Her hands were, naturally, inside the creature’s mind. As soon as it was less of a shadow and a more fully-formed creature, she was up, flying to penetrate the dark sphere. Watching her fight like that reminded me of an old Tank Girl image, although in that one she had been riding a rocket, not a weird shadow monster.

A slew of strange creatures flew out, landing on the roof around us. They were spindly little things, stark white in a way that made me think of Halloween decorations, but when they attacked it was with a mist that engulfed us, making it hard to breathe or move. I countered with flurries to catch them off guard, while Ebrill did her healing and the rest attacked in a way that left us clear of them in a matter of seconds.

Still, my skin itched until Ebrill got me with a second healing. Yenifer flew back out again, growled our way—skin partially stone, I saw—and then she charged back in for the fight.

“Contain the sphere!” Aerona said, and I noticed that she was already working to do so. I threw my flurries at it when I was certain Megha was out of the way, then cast “Tarian” and “Carreg” to up my defenses. I figured that if Yenifer had a stone skin thing going, I would need it, too.

But, the darkness of the sphere shot out, engulfing us