Braving the Elements(44)

The White Mage’s tattoos flared, bright white. Jessiah started to scream, a shrill plea for help as his body convulsed on the floor. I could almost feel the magic as it brushed against the blockage, seeking admittance to my body. I scrabbled at it, my warning butt tingle telling me danger was in the room.
“Tell me what I wish to know, and I will spare you,” the White Mage said softly, bending down toward a panting Jessiah.
“I do-don’t know. I only spoke to my contact about all this. That was all.”
“Did you alert the girl before you ambushed her?”
“No! I swear! She wouldn’t have followed me if she’d known. Nor her bodyguard.”
White flared again, a palpable thing. The room must have been drenched in magic, the power so intense, I could almost taste it. When the pain washed away, Jessiah lay, crying and broken, spilling secrets no one cared to hear. His body bent strangely and blood vessels had burst in his eyes. It seemed like he’d been electrocuted to within an inch of his life.
“Finish him. He’s of no use, as I suspected.” The White Mage straightened up and looked at me, someone else dragging a sobbing Jessiah away.
Terrible fear washed over me as tears dripped down my face. I backed against the wall, shaking and crying, never having seen anything so absolutely violent in all my life.
“What do you know that you aren’t telling me?” The White Mage stalked closer, cornering a trapped animal.#p#分页标题#e#
“Your cape is ridiculous and your face is something not even a mother could love.”
If army men were the gasping type, the room would’ve been stuffed with inhales. I knew, though, that anger made people do stupid things. Rash things. The White Mage would kill me—obviously—so I could only hope I pissed him off enough to do it quickly, or make some other mistake that freed me. Yes, I was grasping at straws, but I couldn’t see any other way.
“He found this place only after I took you and that sniveling wretch into our walls. The missing link exists with one of you, and I am betting on you. You have only a fraction of time to tell me before I feed you to my Dulcha.”
I pushed and yanked at that damn block, trying like hell to get it out of the way. My inner compass on all things danger said to stall. To keep pushing at him. To prompt some sort of response.
I was not having a good day.
“Then what?” I glanced around, noting exits, planning an unlikely escape, feeling Stefan coming, but slowly. So, so slowly.
“Then they will suck the magic out of you, of course. They need to feed, to replenish their magic supply. Humans with power as high as yours don’t come around all that often. You’d be a great treat.”
Another blast, shaking the compound. Pain bled through the link; Stefan had taken a hit.
I forced down the desperation. I had to get the show on the road.
“Bring ‘em on in. You won’t get anything out of me—“
Agony.
Blinding, consuming, soul wrenching agony.
My mind detached and drifted away, shutting off the ripping, tearing, heart-stopping pain. Like pure fire burning every inch of my body while electricity fried my thoughts and peeled away my skin. My hair pulled out one by one. My teeth pulled without drugs. Needles jabbed in my eyes and under my finger nails.
When I distantly realized my body stopped hurting, I floated back into my head gradually, embodying the residual pain enough to laugh like a madman. Blood oozed out of my mouth. I must have bitten my tongue.
“Fuck you, Trek!” I spat, a long red smear on the wood floor. “Bring your useless Dulcha. Before I die, I will kill you.”
My mind drifted away again, closing off into a chamber without pain. A place I knew I couldn’t exist for long without my body dying. But at the minute, my body was dying anyway, might as well cut off the pain.
 

Chapter 9
Stefan stabbed a man through the stomach, then swung his sword around and took off his head. Blood sprayed his body.
The door to the warehouse loomed just up ahead. Their guards were falling one-by-one, unable to counter the excellent fighting of Stefan and his men. At the opposite end of the long, white, rectangular building, Jameson led another crew, trying to divide and force their way in, as well.
Stefan knew very well that heavy magic awaited them inside.
Shock and fear bled through the link thus far, which was fine. It meant Sasha lived. But he’d just felt a body-consuming pain; so much so, he staggered, narrowly missing a dagger to the face. They tortured her, most likely. It meant he had no time.
“Hurry!” Stefan screamed, charging forth. “Give it all you have. We must get through!”
He ran forward, blade swinging, cleaving and felling anyone in his path. Slash to the chest, another to the gut, one more to cut off an arm, and he pushed closer still.