Lupi 04 - Night Season

directed him to use. And all hell rolled up and smashed through him.
    He didn’t channel the entire ley line. No corporeal being could. But the power roared past him—firestorm, earthquake, tornado, flood—following the bend of his body, the aim of his blade. There was no way, no possibility of balancing this much raw energy.
    The backwash was a bitch.
    His muscles spasmed. He couldn’t stop them, couldn’t keep his blade touching the entry glyph. Power spilled—into him, the spell, the room.
    Cullen collapsed to the floor, sinews shrieking, body convulsing. Vision stopped. There was only blackness, pain, and the roaring in his bones. He screamed—maybe not out loud—and Fire answered. There, go there —! He found the entry glyph again and stabbed it with his blade, and the portion of the wild energy that was Fire fled down the knife into the spell.
    Then Earth: Yes, go where you’re told, yes. Repano , he told it, and the rest of the earth magic shouldered past him to sink into the glyphs. He called Water and it answered, a turquoise flood rushing into the spell.
    But Air—fractious, rebellious Air—was beyond him. It rushed around the room, lifting shrieks from the others, tossing hair and clothes, dancing itself into a vortex. He gulped it down and his muscles spasmed again, but weakly. His heart spasmed, too, a hard, hot knot in his chest as his body tried to give up. Which he would not allow. He got an elbow under him, grunted, pushed up—
    â€œGoddammit!” Cynna screamed, on her feet now, her hair whipping around in the interior gale as she pointed at the entry glyph. “Go! Do as you’re told!”
    Air swirled around her once, twice, knocking her back a step. And did as it was told.
    The silence shocked Cullen. He hurt. His right knee was the worst, almost enough to drown out the other aches. Apparently he’d wrenched it while flopping around like an electrocuted fish. His muscles felt like jelly. Slowly he turned his head to look at the spell.
    â€œCullen?” Cynna was halfway across the circle.
    He waved her back. “Hold on a minute.”
    The brilliant colors of Earth, Air, Fire, and Water whipped around the gnome’s spell circle, the lines of power weaving around each other so quickly he couldn’t find the pattern…yet it seemed familiar.
    â€œAre we in danger?” Brooks asked, as if the question held only mild interest for him.
    â€œNo, no,” said the gnome, standing. “Danger over.”
    â€œYou deceived us,” Marilyn Wright snapped. “You said the spell was safe.”
    â€œShould have been safe, but the Cullen Seabourne called up whole entire ley line. I not knowing how he is doing this. But spell is excellent—swallowed all magic very good.” He spread his skinny little arms wide. “Danger over.”
    As the power zipped around, twining in and out of itself, the colors were blending. Blurring. Turning back into the piercing, near-solid intensity of node energy, which wasn’t possible. Magic did not return to its raw state, but this was. “Something’s wrong.”
    â€œNot wrong,” the gnome said happily. “Is working well. Whole entire ley line is much power, very thank you. Kirelashidah! ”
    And the power shook itself and melted out from the spell, ribbons shooting out to lock with other ribbons in a pattern he suddenly recognized. “Son of a bitch!” Cullen shoved to his feet, staggering as his banged-up knee tried to buckle on him. “Get out, get out! It’s a gate! It’s a fucking gate!”
    The gnome shouted something unintelligible. Cullen slashed at the nearest power ribbon with his athame, sundering it. The loose end whipped around like a fire hose jetting water, and the center of the floor vanished.
    So did the altar. And Cynna, who’d been standing next to it.
    Cullen howled, gathering himself to leap across the widening chasm and kill the gnome. The clay-colored man tackled him.
    The guy was strong and agile enough to crack his fist against Cullen’s jaw as they fell. It cleared his head wonderfully. Cullen, too, was strong and agile—and lupus, and very fast, though with a bum knee and jellied muscles. Not good for jumping ten feet or more.
    He belted the guy in the head with the heel of his hand.
    Cullen’s hand damned near exploded, but he’d knocked his opponent dizzy. A shot rang out,