13. Rehan

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

REHAN

N ot again.

I’d felt this once before, as a child.

Tingles ran up my arm.

“Rehan!” Jay yelled, bolting forward.

The tingles became waves of pure energy engulfing me from head to toe. The taste of salt water filled my mouth. Jay’s fingers clasped around my wrist, and then I was hurtling through space with my eyes tightly shut.

No wings, no magic, no control. Once again, I was a little kid who’d touched something I shouldn’t.

“Control it!” Jay’s voice barely reached my ears, and her grip on my forearm tightened painfully.

I couldn’t be that kid again.

I forced my eyes open. Air and power stung them. I squinted and blinked into streaks of color zooming past us. Pods of withering, sickly fluorescent-green blotted the light, demons, thousands of them still growing in the Ley Lines’ power. I forced my gaze onto Jay’s glowing face, her big green eyes willing me to act. The metallic scent of blood filled my nose. Bone-deep fear burst in my chest. We needed to get out of this. I bent my arm, Jay still in my grip, and pulled her into my chest. Someone’s body part bumped my shoulder and my hip. I didn’t know how many of us had reached her, but I wasn’t alone.

I searched deep within myself. Hearing my grandad’s voice, passing down his spells, then Og’s voice as he and Jay, via paper and pencil, talked about the Ley Lines.

The Ley Lines are energy. Magic is nothing without the will to power it.

I’d powered this by touching those runes. So, it had to be mine to control.

A ball of silver, so different from the streaks of light, caught my gaze. I reached out and closed my palm around it.

Pain like I’d never experienced before locked my grip. The colors zooming past us slowed, and the energy tingling my skin crawled to the other side, sending waves of agony through my muscles. I screamed, and the sensation of falling took over my world. I called on my wings, but they wouldn’t come. I wasn’t falling through the air, but space and time.

And then, I wasn’t falling anymore. The jolt from my essence coming apart, to not even a hint of pain, made me sway on my feet. Jay shifted in my grip, and the two of us went crashing to the ground. At least two more grunts joined us.

“I thought you were heavy last night,” Jay moaned under me.

My stomach rolled. I kept my eyes squeezed tight and scooted off Jay, only to land on someone else who grunted. My brain sloshed around in my body of wet spaghetti. Even my hardest leg day at the gym hadn’t left me this wobbly.

The body under me tilted, “Rehan, dude, can you just…” Lux begged.

I scooted again, hitting a hard, cold stone wall but freeing Lux and coming up to a seated position with my hands supporting my head. I still hadn’t opened my eyes, and I was honestly worried if I did, I’d blow chunks.

Jay’s scent reached my nose as she leaned against me, rubbing my shoulder. “You changed our direction mid-travel. I’m surprised you're conscious.”

I grunted, wishing I wasn’t.

“What the feck happened?” Tyson asked.

“And where are we?” Ogden added.

Lux grunted. “Here or back at Scalehive?”

“Both,” Ogden and Tyson said at the same time.

The cold stone at my back radiated through my tank top. Sweat I hadn’t noticed covering my body rapidly cooled, easing my queasy stomach. I opened my eyes. It wasn’t that much brighter with them open. I sat on gravel, and I was pretty sure the ceiling above me was domed, made of layers and layers of flat rock, held together like a giant puzzle pieces. Like the larger stone I rested against, a row of much larger, vertical stones made up a long passage where the hint of light emanated.

Tyson crouched in front of the entrance, already alert. I growled, not willing to be weaker than the fire prince, and forced the last of my panic down.

Jay’s eyes glinted in the dark. “We’re in a prehistoric passage tomb, I’m pretty sure. I won’t know which one until we leave.” She pointed up at a light bulb. “But it’s got lights in it, so it’s probably a tourist attraction now. As far as what happened.” She squeezed my shoulder again. “That portal was keyed into the very shields around the island, and Rehan’s a natural. Not only did he activate someone else’s portal, but he pulled us out before we made it to the final destination.”

“Is that good?” I asked.

Jay pursed her lips. “Good is a bad word.” She winked. “The portal would have taken us wherever the mage who made it came from… either their home or some safe location of their choosing. We would’ve arrived in a heap, me still magicless, and set off whatever defensive spells they had waiting, which could have killed us on sight.” Jay scratched her chin. “On the other hand, as the portal was still active, whoever made it was definitely not home. So if we had lived, we might have learned something.” Jay tapped her palm. “Or, the maker might have traps set up. We could have been spit out into reinforced prisons to be added to a demon army.”

“We get it,” Og said.

Jay bit her lips together. “Whomever this fucker is, he has to have almost god-like magic to create that many demons. I doubt he forgot that portal existed. It was there for a reason.” She squeezed my arm. “Never take a strange portal because you have no idea what’s on the other side. If I had my magic, I would have pulled us out. You did good, Love.”

My remaining unease vanished, hearing her use the pet name I gave her. She wrapped her arms around my bicep and squeezed, and I drew on her confidence.

“Why are we in a prehistoric passage tomb?” Ogden asked, returning us to the problem at hand.

“I don’t know.” Jay stepped away from me. “But I have a few good guesses, best made not here.”

“I’m hearing voices,” Tyson hissed.

“Hearing voices isn’t a good sign,” Og said. “Did you hit your head?”

Tyson glared at the warlock, who grinned back.

The lights above us switched on, momentarily blinding me.

“Now, keep your wee bumbs here, please,” a woman said in an accent I couldn’t place. “Newgrange is the biggest of our mounds, but the passages are still a wee bit small.”

Jay snickered, and I frowned, trying to figure out what she found funny while pain still throbbed in my temple.

“Make sure ye bags are at ye front,” the woman continued. “And refrain from fingering the walls.”

Jay grinned and mouthed the word ‘fingering.’ The pain in my head eased a notch, and with her childish humor, I found my sudden new surroundings not quite as intimidating.

“Into two groups ye shall go,” the woman continued. “After I check the passage. I’ll be back before you can say ‘Guinness.’”

Jay snorted and lowered her voice. “We’re in Ireland, and we’re about to scare the shit out of a tour guide. Can you stand?”

Lux held out a hand, and I took it. Whatever was coming, we were four dragons. We could handle it, probably.

Holding a flashlight, a woman dressed in brown waterproofs with a green vest walked down the low passageway with her waist bent, utterly oblivious to our presence. Jay grinned, and I felt myself relax another notch.

The woman exited the passage into the round room with us and shone her flashlight directly on Jay’s face.

“Not again!” the woman shouted. “Ye druids aren’t supposed to be in here!”

Jay laughed.

The woman scowled. “Ye won’t be laughing in the clutches of a Garda.”

The woman clicked a button on the walkie-talkie strapped to her vest.

“Run!” Jay said, laughing and darting forward, only to stoop and shuffle through the narrow opening. I dashed, as much as I could, after her, ignoring the woman ranting into her walkie-talkie. Unlike Jay, I had to crawl on my hands and knees. My shoulder brushed either side of the passage, making me feel as if I’d get stuck at any moment. My heart pumped unhappily. However, the further we went, the wider the passage became.

Someone screamed ahead of me, followed by a few boos and the sound of another tour guide shouting into his walkie-talkie.

I managed to come to my feet, still ducking, and shot out into the daylight. The warmth of the sun didn’t sink into my skin. Cool air sucked the heat from me, destroying the last of my motion sickness. Puffy grey clouds filled the sky. Jay leaned against a tall standing stone sticking out of a broad, perfectly trimmed lawn. I slid to stop next to her as the smell of moist soil and rock assaulted me.

“Are you druids?” A woman dressed in a purple wool sweater and tights asked in a perfect American accent. She held her phone out in front of her, moving it up and down as if filming me. “I did not think druids looked like you.” She rubbed her lips together. “Did the spirits of the ancients visit you?”

Jay slid in front of me. “Yes. Druids can be bodybuilders, too. Everyone has a hobby. And, they did not.”

Lux and Og shot out of the passage tomb. The air dragon immediately wrapped his arms around his chest and rubbed his bare skin. Tyson shot out after them, bumping his head with a crack against a low-hanging rock at the entrance.

“Feck,” he swore.

Jay waved at the woman. “Have a good tour!” And took off running.

Our agreement not to blindly follow Jay vanished. Like baby ducks, we followed after her, a man in a dark uniform and two random people with round yellow stickers on their coats hot on our heels.

“Faster,” Tyson hissed.

Jay slowed. “We can’t go too fast.”

I blinked, matching her pace so we didn’t outstrip the men on our heels. A tall hedge line approached, and I sped up, scooping Jay into my arms to vault over it.

“Don’t jump too high, and keep your wings in,” Jay ordered.

I slowed, fighting my instincts to grow both my tail and my wings for balance. For better or worse, it made me wobble, and I let go of Jay at the top to complete my jump. Jay giggled and made a show of rolling through the final edge of the hedge and falling to the other side.

“Fucking lose your footing, Tyson,” she demanded.

Tyson, who’d sailed right over, turned to give her an incredulous look, stopped directly under Lux, and the two went down in a pile.

“Perfect,” Jay grinned. “Down the road, no wings. Not yet, anyway. We’re not on Dragon Island anymore. The rules are a wee bit different here.”

“Rules?” Tyson exclaimed.

“More like guidelines,” Jay answered. “But if we piss off both the human and supernatural community, life will get very hard very fast.”