Destined

Chapter 5

The blast threw Tamani to the floor and shattered the security chain with a metallic zing. As Laurel spun from the stinging spray of debris, she saw the back of the apartment burst apart. Window glass and drywall skittered across the floor as the most massive troll Laurel had ever seen came crashing through — a lower troll, like the one she’d seen chained in Barnes’s hideout. The misshapen, pale monstrosity thrashed about in an attempt to dislodge Aaron, who clung to the knives he’d embedded in its shoulders. The struggling pair rolled further into the kitchen, disappearing from sight.

As she turned back to Tamani, Laurel was horrified to see a bouquet of roses arcing through the air from the front door, shedding crimson petals like drops of blood as it floated almost leisurely toward Yuki’s prison. The instant stretched to eternity as Laurel realised that in about half a second the roses were going to breach the salt circle, Yuki was going to be free, and if Shar was to be believed, there was a good chance she would kill them all.

A diamond-bladed knife cut through the air, pinning the paper-wrapped bouquet to the wall not an arm’s length from the salt barrier that was keeping them all alive. Shar was already pulling another blade from a sheath at his waist as Yuki screamed in frustration and Laurel turned to the wrecked front door and the figure framed in it.

“Callista!” Shar exclaimed as Klea raised her face into the light.

A shadow of recognition passed over Klea’s face and she looked at Shar, though her guns were pointed squarely at Tamani and Laurel. “Captain! Serendipitous.”

“I watched you die fifty years ago,” Shar said, disbelief heavy in his words. And then, “You’re Klea.”

“Shar!” Aaron stumbled in from the kitchen, flecked with debris and covered in troll blood. His left arm hung limp at his side. “There’s more on the way; we tried to hold them back—”

Horror froze his features as his eyes lit on Yuki’s rumpled blossom. “Goddess of Earth and Sky. Is that—?”

But the troll lunged at him from behind, and the two went crashing through another wall.

“I told you to cut that damn thing off,” Klea snapped at Yuki. The gun in Klea’s hand shook — almost certainly with anger rather than fear — but Laurel didn’t dare move. “Now look what you’ve gotten yourself into.”

Klea raised a defensive hand as Shar whipped another knife through the air. The blade knocked away one of her guns with a clang, but she turned the other at Shar and fired. Its sharp retort echoed in Laurel’s ears and Shar staggered back, clutching his shoulder and slumping against the wall.

Seizing the moment, Tamani sprang at Klea, but she sidestepped his lunge and caught his wrist in her free hand, flipping him in the air and slamming him to the floor.

“Tam!” Shar’s voice was strained as he struggled to stand.

But Tamani was already back on his feet, a long silver knife in his hand; Laurel hadn’t even seen him draw it. Klea lunged at him with liquid speed, her movements so graceful they might have been a dance. She wove through Tamani’s swipes untouched, then whipped the butt of her pistol across his face, leaving a ragged gash along his cheek. She landed another blow against his wrist and Tamani’s knife seemed to leap into her hand as if of its own volition.

Tamani retreated two steps, evading most of Klea’s jabs, but with nothing to parry her blows his shirt was soon a mess of ribbons, wet with sap from the shallow cuts accumulating on his arms and chest.

As Laurel looked for an opportunity to dive for Klea’s dropped gun, something at the corner of her vision fluttered on ruby wings. With a sick twisting in her core she realised a petal had fallen from the skewered bouquet — drifting like a — feather, its circuitous route was a ballet of twists and twirls in the breeze that wafted through the apartment. In moments it would enter the circle and then, under Yuki’s power, the soft, innocent bit of flower would become a deadly weapon.

And Laurel was too far away — she’d never reach it in time.

“Shar!” she called, but he was between Klea and Tamani, wielding a chair as an improvised shield.

“Get her out of here!” Shar shouted, a kick from Klea twisting the chair from his grip. ’Now!”

The world spun before Laurel’s eyes as Tamani’s arm clenched around her waist — rolling her straight to the destroyed wall — and then they were falling. A scream escaped her lips but was cut off as they hit the ground and the air was pushed out of her chest. They tumbled together along the ground and when they came to a stop, for a moment it was all Laurel could do to look up breathlessly at the hole Aaron’s troll had made in the wall, three metres above them.

“Come on,” Tamani said, pulling Laurel to her feet before her head had completely stopped spinning. She followed him almost blindly, her hand tight in his as he wound around the back of the apartment building.

They paused when the squeal of splintering wood filled the air, accompanied by a sudden rush of wind. “Circle’s broken,” Tamani growled. The sound continued as they rounded the corner of the building, where Tamani immediately back-stepped, flattening Laurel against the wall. “It’s crawling with trolls out front,” he whispered, his mouth so close to her ear his lips brushed her skin. “We can’t get to my car; we’re going to have to run. You ready?”

Laurel nodded, the sound of snarling trolls reaching her ears over the deafening storm of splintering wood. Tamani gripped her hand tighter and pulled her along with him. She tried to look back, but Tamani stopped her with a finger on her chin and pointed her gaze forwards again. “Don’t,” he said softly, sprinting across the open ground, slowing only slightly once they reached the relative safety of the trees.

“Will Shar be all right?” Laurel asked, her voice shaking as they ran through woods. Tamani was loping ungracefully, helping her along with one hand, the other clutched at his side.

“He’ll handle Klea,” said Tamani. “We need to get you to safety.”

“Why did he call her Callista?” Laurel asked through heaving breaths. Nothing that had happened in the last few minutes made any sense to her.

“That’s the name he knew her by,” Tamani answered. “Callista’s practically a legend among sentries. She was an Academy-trained Mixer. Exiled before you even sprouted. She was supposed to have died in a fire. On Shar’s watch, back in Japan.”

“But she faked it?”

“Apparently. Must have done a good job, too. Shar was thorough.”

“What was she exiled for?” Laurel gasped.

Tamani’s words were shaky as he picked his way through the trees and Laurel struggled to catch them. “Shar once told me she experimented with unnatural magic, faerie poisons… botanical weapons, basically.”

Hadn’t Katya told her, two summers ago, about a faerie who had taken things too far? It must be her — Laurel’s stomach knotted at the thought of an Academy-trained Mixer who created poisons so evil she’d been exiled for it. Klea was scary enough without magic.

They ran silently for a few minutes, finally finding the faint path Laurel knew Tamani must have taken a hundred times over the last few months.

“Are you sure he’ll be OK?” Laurel asked.

Tamani hesitated. “Shar is… a master Enticer. Like the Pied Piper I told you about a few weeks ago. He can control humans from a distance, and his control is far greater than most Ticers. Way better than mine,” he added quietly. “He — he can use them. To help him fight her.”

“So he’s going to… control them?” Laurel asked, not quite understanding.

“Let’s just say that fighting Shar in a building full of humans is a very, very bad idea.”

Sacrifices, Laurel realised. Human barriers to lie in Klea’s path, or soldiers attacking against their will. She swallowed and tried not to dwell on that, concentrating on not tripping as Tamani continued to run almost too fast for her to keep up.

Soon she started recognising the trees — they were nearing the back of her house. As he ran into the yard Tamani let out a high-pitched, warbling whistle. Aaron’s second-in-command, a tall, dark-skinned faerie named Silve, came bursting from the tree line.

“Tam, they’re everywhere!”

“That’s not the worst of it,” Tamani replied, gasping for air.

Laurel stopped, resting her hands on her knees and trying to catch her breath as Tamani explained the situation — with sputtering protests from Silve at the details Tamani and Shar had kept secret.

“There’s no time for explanations,” Tamani said, cutting Silve off. “Shar needs backup and he needs it now.” The two sentries took only a few precious seconds to outline a plan for dividing forces, and Silve sprang into the tree shouting orders.

Tamani put a protective hand at Laurel’s waist and guided her to the back door, his gaze returning to the trees the whole way.

Laurel’s mom was in the kitchen, a light cotton robe tied loosely at her waist, concern in her eyes. “Laurel? Where have you been? And what…?” She gestured wordlessly at Tamani’s wet, torn shirt.

“Is Chelsea here?” Laurel asked, avoiding her mom’s question. For the moment.

“I don’t know. I thought you were in bed.” Her eyes flitted to Tamani and his pained expression made her face go white. “Trolls again?” she whispered.

“I’ll go check for Chelsea,” Laurel said, pushing Tamani on to a barstool as gently as she could manage.

She hurried up the stairs and cracked open her bedroom door just wide enough to see Chelsea’s unmistakable curly hair spilling across the pillow. She pulled the door shut and heaved a sigh, relief washing over her, melting her down onto the carpet.

She looked up at the sound of footsteps, but it was just her dad stumbling blearily down the hall. “Laurel, what’s the matter? Are you OK?”

The avalanche of events that had buried her life in less than twenty-four hours forced her to blink back tears. “No,” she whispered. “No, I’m not.”