Chapter 23

Chapter

Twenty-Three

M y mouth dropped open and I stared. Hugo, still on the ground but clearly conscious, also raised his head. The sorcerer stopped in mid-rune, while Hester and Otis were astonished enough to fly out from their hiding place and join me.

‘What the fuck is she doing?’ Hester grabbed hold of my earlobe and tugged it hard. ‘Stop her!’

I cleared my throat. ‘Rose!’ My voice wasn’t loud but I knew she had heard me. ‘Lady Rose! Get inside!’

Baltar didn’t look at me as he flicked out a surge of earth magic that was more than enough to send me flying down to the ground once more. The thud sent a jarring bolt of agony through my bones and finally forced Gladys from my hand. The strength of my fall also meant that the brownies were jolted backwards through the air.

While I fought against the pain, Baltar yelled at the sorcerer. ‘Why have you stopped? Get back to work and break that fucking ward!’

I caught a glimpse of the sorcerer gulping hard and turning to his work again. Lady Rose didn’t look at him; her attention was wholly on Baltar.

‘You wanted me,’ she said. ‘So I’m here.’

‘I don’t want you ,’ Baltar replied. ‘You know that.’ He raised a hand to strike her.

I surged forward on my hands and knees but Lady Rose was already ahead of me. ‘Go on then,’ she said. ‘Hit me. Let’s see how Athair will react when he finds out you hurt me.’

‘He doesn’t care about you,’ Baltar laughed.

Lady Rose raised an eyebrow. ‘Why don’t you smack me around and we can test that theory?’

Despite the gravity of the situation and my confusion about what was really going on, I was impressed by her attitude. Lady Rose was, without a doubt, utterly terrified but she was standing up to Baltar. In fact, she was looking damned heroic.

An old quote drifted into my head: Courage is not the absence of fear but the triumph over it. Lady Rose certainly looked triumphant – apart from the fact that she was confronting a fiend and quite possibly was about to be struck down dead for her efforts.

I looked again at Baltar. To my astonishment, he lowered his hand. ‘Very well,’ he snarled. He pointed at the open front door. ‘But this isn’t over until you give me what I came for.’

Lady Rose turned her head towards me, and a strange smile of pure sadness lifted the corners of her mouth. Then she returned her attention to Baltar. ‘Take me to Athair first. I want to negotiate with him before this is over.’

‘Negotiate?’ Baltar threw his head back and laughed. ‘You don’t negotiate with a fiend. You certainly don’t negotiate with Athair!’

Her expression didn’t alter. ‘If that’s true,’ she said calmly, ‘then why are you here? You’re looking to bargain with Athair. So am I. ’

She was trying to draw Baltar away. If they left together and I stayed here, I’d be able to get inside the mansion and find whatever it was the fiends were after. But I didn’t understand: what was so important that she’d sacrifice her life to protect it?

A fleeting thought flashed into my head but I pushed it away at haste. No. Not that. It couldn’t be that.

Otis hissed from behind me. ‘Daisy, do you think that?—?’

‘Shut up, Otis!’ Hester interrupted him. ‘This isn’t the time!’

Baltar’s mouth pursed, as if were considering Lady Rose’s proposal. Whether he’d have taken the bait or not, however, we’d never know because that was the moment that the sorcerer gave a croak of strained delight and stood up. ‘I’ve got it,’ he said. ‘I’ve broken it!’

My stomach dropped with sickening velocity. Lady Rose stepped back, her hand rising to her mouth as a beaming grin of triumph spread across Baltar’s face.

I looked at the vast mansion. It appeared to be turning blood red. Its walls looked as if they were pulsating and there was a nasty smell of burning. Then the air was filled by a long continuous chiming sound, and I knew the sorcerer was telling the truth.

‘I’ve done what you asked!’ the thin man shouted, his success making him bold. ‘You promised you would leave my family alone if I did what you wanted!’

Baltar looked from the building to the sorcerer. ‘I never keep my promises. Your family are dead. And so are you.’ Before anyone could make a sound, he zapped out three lightning bolts in the sorcerer’s direction, each one striking him in the heart.

The sorcerer keeled over; he was dead before he hit the ground. Baltar didn’t watch his collapse; instead, he glanced at Lady Rose. ‘I don’t need you now,’ he said with considerable glee, and he marched towards the open front door .

A strangled cry of desperation escaped from Lady Rose, then she straightened her back, spread her arms wide and closed her eyes. Almost immediately, intricate red shapes started to spread across her pale skin, her body bulging in several places in a sickening manner. She was conjuring up blood magic – but even if such spells could halt Baltar in his tracks, it would bring her eventual destruction. Using blood magic twisted your psyche – and your body. If she kept this up, before too long Lady Rose would turn into a fiend too.

‘Daisy!’ Hester yelled. ‘Do something!’

I heaved myself upright once more, ignoring the stabbing pains in my body. Then I did exactly as Hester commanded.

I threw out a burst of air magic, making the front door of the Assigney mansion slam shut in Baltar’s face just as he reached it. While Lady Rose’s body continued to bulge and twist, I followed up with a blast of fire, scorching the ground around the fiend’s feet.

Despite his sprawled position, Hugo did the same. Then the idiot called out to Baltar. ‘Come and get me, you fucker!’

Genuinely angry, I glared at Hugo. This wasn’t his fight; it couldn’t be.

Baltar, however, had already realised that. He turned his back on Hugo and faced me. ‘Really?’ he asked. ‘You’re really coming back for more?’

I answered him with a blast of water. It wasn’t a simple sphere designed to annoy him, not this time. Now I was doing everything I could to harm him. The force of the water made him stagger backwards and drenched Baltar from head to toe.

Before I could do anything else, Lady Rose moaned and flung out her arms towards him. Whatever invisible power she’d invoked slammed into Baltar’s body and finally he fell – though his collapse didn’t make him defenceless. Far from it.

Even as his golden body thudded down, he sent several scorching zaps of lightning towards me. Chillingly, I knew that there were two good reasons why he was attacking me and not Rose, although she was the greater threat. He wanted her to use more blood magic, he wanted her to twist herself into the same evil space that he occupied. And if that didn’t work, he wanted to hand her over to Athair while she was still in one piece.

I rolled and dodged each bolt but several fell perilously close. I couldn’t afford to be struck again. The sorcerer had been dead by the time the second lightning strike had hit him., and the same would probably happen to me if I wasn’t careful.

Baltar wasn’t my only problem, however.

‘Stop it!’ I roared at Rose. ‘Stop conjuring up blood magic! This is what they want. This is what Athair wants, and this is what Baltar wants!’ I gestured to the brownies. ‘Get to that bloody woman and force her to see reason!’

I didn’t wait for the brownies to react because I knew they would do what was necessary. They zipped past me, their wings beating as fast as they could as they headed straight for Rose. Hugo also picked himself up and, thankfully, made a beeline for her while I focused on Baltar.

He was already standing upright but he was dripping wet, and there was a puddle of water at his feet. His red eyes narrowed. Even from twenty metres away, I felt the full force of his fury. He wasn’t used to being challenged – at least by not by complete strangers like me.

He sucked in a breath, clearly gathering his power. I blinked once and then, before I could begin to do anything else, Baltar magicked up a fireball to fling in my direction. This wasn’t like any magic fireball I’d seen before; this one was fucking massive. And when I sprang to my right, thinking that I could simply dodge it, the damned thing followed me as if were some sort of heat-seeking missile. Cumbubbling bollocks.

Panic lit through me and I twisted left, aware that the vast ball of flame would do the same. I pumped my arms and legs for all they were worth, but I could still feel the searing heat at my back as the fireball drew closer and closer. Baltar’s mocking laughter was audible over its roar and I wished desperately that I’d taken more spider’s silk pills when I’d had the chance. If I’d swallowed several of them in one go, I might have had a chance. Now I would end up barbecued instead.

‘Daisy!’ Hugo yelled. ‘Duck!’

I didn’t think about it, I simply did as he said and threw myself down, face-planting on the ground and receiving a mouthful of dirt for my efforts. As soon as I did so, a cascade of water appeared and extinguished the ball of fire. I rolled, avoiding the hot splatters of steaming water and twisted my head to look at Rose and Hugo. Lady Rose’s skin was no longer writhing with nasty red swirls; it was clear that both of them had sent the water magic in my direction.

Hugo bowed. ‘You’re welcome! That’s another time I’ve saved your sweet arse, Daisy!’

Yeah, yeah. I yanked myself up and spun. I looked at Baltar’s wet body, registering the large puddle at his feet once more, and inhaled deeply – then I gave the cumbubbling bastard a taste of his own medicine.

The second the lightning bolt left my fingertips, he gaped. Creating electrical magic out of thin air was the sort of magic that only a fiend could manage. A fiend – and me. Baltar recovered quickly enough to leap to his right to avoid it, but I wasn’t aiming at him; I was aiming at the pool of dirty water he was standing in. He might have jumped away from the lightning, but his feet were immersed in water and that was all I needed. The electrical current conducted instantly through the puddle and into his body.

Baltar’s body jerked as his muscles spasmed and he threw back his head, dark veins pulsating beneath his smooth golden skin. He didn’t make a sound but I knew he had to be enduring colossal pain. Good. I didn’t have a shred of sympathy for him.

I folded my arms and watched until his body gave away entirely and he thudded face first to the ground.

‘Yes, Daisy!’ Hester pumped the air with her fists.

‘You did it,’ Lady Rose breathed. ‘You killed him.’

I shook my head. He wasn’t dead, not in any true sense. Before too long, Baltar would rise again unless I did something about it. I stalked over to Gladys and picked her up, and she hummed happily. Stabbing Baltar in the heart and chopping off his head would do it.

I was more than ready for the grisly task. I lifted my sword – then I froze. Uh-oh. I licked my lips. Actually, uh-oh would have counted as the understatement of the year.

We’d all been so focused on ourselves and our own predicament that we hadn’t noticed the car. Hugo’s parents had driven the length of the driveway from the main road and none of us had seen them – but they had certainly seen us. Lord and Lady Pemberville were staring white-faced from the front seats. I couldn’t begin to imagine what they thought was happening.

Lady Rose glanced over her shoulder to see what I was looking at. When she caught sight of her neighbours, she went white. Hester and Otis also turned, their bodies going rigid. Finally, Hugo checked to see who was there; as soon as he saw his parents staring at him, he turned such a shade of pale that I was concerned he was about to pass out.

Lord Pemberville wound down his window by three inches. The engine was still running and it was clear he was prepared to make a quick getaway if the situation called for it. ‘We were worried, Rose,’ he called out. ‘We thought we’d come back and give the situation another shot. We wanted to see if we could, uh, help you. ’

Lady Rose obviously didn’t know what to say. Her mouth twisted and she whispered a strangled answer. ‘Thank you.’

Lord Pemberville’s gaze drifted to Baltar, who remained prone – at least for now. ‘Rose,’ he said quietly, ‘is that a fiend?’

She swallowed hard. I supposed we all ought to have been grateful that he knew what fiends were; this situation was awkward enough without having to explain that part as well. ‘Yes.’

‘He won’t be dead.’

‘No,’ she said.

He looked at the body of the still-unnamed sorcerer. ‘Is he dead?’

Lady Rose sighed. ‘Yes.’

He shuddered and pointed at me. ‘Who is that woman, Rose?’

Her answer was quiet. ‘She’s called Daisy.’

‘Not Gertrude.’

‘No.’

‘Or Karen?’

I bit my lip. ‘I really am called Daisy.’

Lord Pemberville stared at me for another moment. I couldn’t begin to imagine what was going through his head. ‘We should leave,’ he said finally.

She nodded at him. ‘That’s a good idea.’

He gestured to the back seats. ‘All of us. Get in.’

Hugo’s dad might not understand what was happening, but he had enough of a grasp of the situation to know what to do. Before anyone could react, however, the passenger door opened. Lord Pemberville’s head whipped around. ‘Tash!’ he said sharply. ‘Stop! What are you?—?’

It was too late: she was already out of the car. She wasn’t looking at Baltar, at Rose, at me or the brownies; she only had eyes for one person. Hugo had been right: mothers know. ‘Hugo?’ she whispered.

He shifted uncomfortably then turned his head, seeking me out for support. I bit my lip before nodding. He acknowledged the action and returned his attention to Lady Pemberville.

‘Hi, Mum.’ His voice cracked.

Everyone stared at him except for Lady Rose, who was staring at me. I cleared my throat pointedly. ‘We should all leave,’ I said. As if he’d heard me, Baltar started to stir. I raised my voice. ‘Now.’