Blood of Egypt (Witch Fairy Book 8) (15 page)

Chapter 26

We move from the stairs to in front of the door.  I want to see into the room clearly.  While no one on that side can see out here, it’s obvious that Kallen feels my magic.  I can tell by the grim look on his face as he stares at the spot he knows my magic is affecting.  The little crinkle in his brow tells me he doesn’t know exactly what I’m doing and that has him worried. 

I can see the majority of the apartment from my little ‘window’.  It’s about what you’d expect it to look like, based on the outside of the building and the hallway.  It’s small, basically one room with a kitchenette.  The walls are cracked and peeling and there are yellow stains here and there near the ceiling.  Since this isn’t the top floor, I don’t even want to contemplate where the stains came from.

A faded yellow table and two chairs are positioned near the kitchenette.  On the opposite side of the room, there’s a dingy blue, flowered couch with a floor lamp next to it and a battered yellow chair off to the side.  That’s it for furniture. 

On the couch are two very frightened people who are bound and gagged.  The woman’s skin is a golden color and her hair is dark brown with a slight wave to it.  Her eyes are a deep brown like dark chocolate and they’re open as wide as they can be, but it’s still possible to see the delicate cat-like shape to them.  Even with the gag in her mouth, it’s easy to see that she’s beautiful.  She looks to be a bit younger than Agent Amman, maybe ten years or so.  The young girl is probably six or seven and she has tears streaming down her cheeks.  Her hair has a slight wave to it like her mother, but she has stronger features than her mother’s delicate ones.  She looks more like her father   and the look in her eye as she glares at her captors has his strength behind it, despite the tears.  Good for her.

There are three men in the room besides Kallen and Agent Amman.  They are dressed similarly to the man in the hall, wearing jeans and tunic style shirts all in dark colors – one brown, one black and one dark blue.  Must be their ‘I’m a criminal’ uniform.  Two of the men, the ones in brown and black, have guns trained on Kallen and the agent and the other, who must be the main guy, is pacing back and forth in front of them saying something.  Why didn’t I think of adding audio to my spell?

It’s pretty obvious what’s being said, though, even if we don’t hear the actual words.  He’s promising revenge, torture, death, etc.  From the look in the agent’s eye, he’s planning on killing the guy the second he gets a chance.  Can’t say that I blame him.  Wow, where did my morality go?  There’s no need to kill them, there are prisons here for bad guys.  Though, he did kidnap the agent’s wife and daughter and from the looks of it is promising to do terrible things to them if his hand gestures mean what I think they do.  My morality is just going to have to take a hit on this one.

“That is amazing,” Eliana whispers.  “I can’t believe you have the magic to do all this stuff.”

I shrug and sigh.  “Yeah, me either.  I shock the hell out of myself pretty much every day.  When I’m not almost killing someone I love, that is.”

“Um ladies, I think it’s about to hit critical mass in there,” Josh says.

He’s right.  The pacing man has dragged Agent Amman’s daughter from the couch by her hair and has a knife ready to cut her neck.  It’s easy to see that it’s taking every single ounce of willpower on the agent’s part not to attack the man and rip his heart out, literally.  But that would simply get them all killed.

Something changes about the knife.  I’m not sure what it is, I can’t see it that clearly.  His back is to me.    Zoom would have been a nice addition to this spell as well. 

It looks like Kallen has flipped the knife around so the handle is against the girl’s neck and the blade is in the man’s hand.  The man drops the knife to the floor and blood is dripping from his palm.  He’s stunned for a moment and the two gunmen are looking at him like he has suddenly lost his mind.

Anger takes over and the man pulls his own gun from the waistband of his jeans.  The barrel is placed against the girl’s temple.  His finger is a little shaky on the trigger; probably from the pain in his hand.

“That’s not going to happen,” Eliana says as she heats his gun as she had the door guard’s earlier.  The man drops it to the ground looking at his burned hand.  Angry and terrified at the same time, he roughly shoves the little girl back towards her mother.  Since she’s still bound and gagged, she falls and hits her head on her mom’s knee.  She’s openly sobbing now.  Her mother does her best to try to comfort her but with her arms behind her back, she can’t do much.

The man stalks towards Agent Amman with murder in his eyes.  I know I should do something to end the situation but I have to admit, I’m a little nervous.  These are humans, not magical beings.  If my magic goes awry, they would be a hell of a lot more defenseless against it.  Plus the guns.  I know I can protect against them, but if one goes off accidently from being kicked around or something, one of those humans in there could die before Eliana or I could heal them.

While I’m having my inner dialogue, the man grabs a gun from one of the other men and has it pointed at Agent Amman.  I feel Kallen let go of some of the magic he has drawn from the earth and it bursts out towards the man, forcing him back and making him stumble.  His trigger finger jerks and the gun fires towards the ceiling.  Oh god, what if there’re people up there. 

My reaction is instantaneous.  A magical shield covers the ceiling and the bullet ricochets from it, falling back to the ground.  All three gunmen look at each other wondering what in the world just happened.

Mostly what happened is that the main guy is even more pissed off than he was and that’s quite an accomplishment.  He was already homicidal.  Where do you go from there?

Apparently, back to the hostages to do god knows what since he has started walking towards them.  Eliana isn’t going to stand for that.  A strong wind picks up in the apartment, causing alarm amongst the kidnappers.  They look around wildly trying to find the source and it takes them a moment to realize that the tornado like wind is only affecting them, not Kallen or Agent Amman and his family.  I give a questioning look to Eliana.

“My magic doesn’t affect the people I care about when I do something like this,” she explains.  Nice.  How do I get that clause written into my magical contract?

The wind has turned into a deafening roar that we can hear clearly from out here.  Even the door across the hall opens a crack and one eye peeks out trying to figure out what the noise is.  When the eye sees us, the door is immediately closed and we hear the sound of dead bolts engaging and the chain being slid into the locked position.  Yeah, this is a seriously bad neighborhood.

Valiantly, the leader again tries to reach the hostages by battling the tornado like wind which is now ripping at the walls and tearing the furniture.  The agent’s wife and daughter continue to be untouched by the wind as they watch him barely take a step before the wind sends him sailing backwards, landing hard on his back on the disgusting carpet.  One of his cohorts tries to help him up, but the wind has him pressed securely to the ground.  His ‘help’ almost dislocates the guy’s shoulder before he gives up.

The man still holding a gun towards Kallen and Agent Amman is having a hard time focusing on his job.  The sole, already cracked window in the apartment has shattered and pieces of glass are flying everywhere, cutting at his face and hands.  Finally, he decides it’s not worth it and drops the gun to the floor so he can cover his face and head trying to minimize the damage.

Kallen and Agent Amman are ready and as soon as the gun drops to the floor, they each have a hand wrapped around a guy’s throat.  Kallen has the gunman who just gave up and using his strength instead of his magic, he punches the guy so hard it renders him unconscious.  I smile despite the violence of the action.  He had it coming.

Agent Amman subdues the other gunman in a similar manner.  He may not have quite the same amount of strength as Kallen, but his methods are just as effective for rendering the man unconscious.  Now, there’s only one left.

The man still being held to the floor by a magical gale force is struggling against its weight.  He sees the agent coming for him and he feels around on the floor for the gun.  Agent Amman gets to it first and kicks it from the man’s reach. 

The cool, collected agent has become a husband and a father seeking revenge for his family.  He is pounding on the man with both fists until he’s bloody and unconscious.  I have to look away because my stomach is churning from the sight.  Kallen has already unbound his wife and daughter and the woman is shielding her daughter’s eyes from the horror, as well.

When it becomes evident that he’s not planning to stop until the man’s dead, Kallen wraps his arms around the agent and pulls him off the man.  Agent Amman struggles at first, and I’m convinced he’s going to take his need for a pound of flesh from Kallen until he looks over at his family.  The fight leaves him instantly.  When Kallen is sure he can trust him, he lets the agent go and Agent Amman rushes to pull his family into his arms.  The room becomes quiet as the wind dies down to nothing.  We did it.  We saved Agent Amman’s family.

Twisting the doorknob, Josh opens the door and we’re inside.  I wrap my arms around Kallen and he hugs me back.  “I’m fine,” he whispers when he feels me shaking.

“I know,” I say.  I don’t really know why I’m reacting like this.  We’ve been in more danger than this, but I still feel this is somehow different.

“Thank you,” Agent Amman says to all of us.  “Thank you for saving my family.”

“I do not understand,” Agent Amman’s wife says, “who are these young people?”

Agent Amman smiles down at her, love and relief streaming from his eyes and glowing on his face.  “You and I will have a long discussion this evening about that.”  He looks up at Eliana.  “Assuming you are fine with that.”

Eliana returns his smile.  “Of course.”

“I hate to be the harbinger here, but what of when these men regain their wits?  What will stop them from coming for you again?” Kallen asks.

I look at Eliana.  “I think we can come up with something to assure that never happens.”  She nods and I suspect the determined gleam in her eye matches mine.

Kallen binds the three men with magical ropes and then I use magic to slap the unconscious men until they awaken.  I don’t even feel badly that it takes several slaps for that to happen.  Not even for the guy who Agent Amman beat.  When their eyes open, they widen in shock as they try to escape their bindings.

“Uh uh,” I say and combine my magic with Kallen’s to tighten the bonds.  “The more you struggle, the tighter they’ll get.  With murder in their eyes, all three men stop struggling.

I kneel down in front of them not wanting to think about what could be crawling around in the carpet.  “We’re going to make a deal with you,” I say now that I’m eye to eye with them.  “You aren’t going to tell anybody we were here and we’re going to let you live.”

The main guy decides the appropriate response to that is to spit at me.  I’m not close enough for it to actually hit me, but still, that’s disgusting.  Kallen isn’t any happier about it than I am and he uses magic to bang the guy’s head against the wall.  I’m afraid he’s going to lose consciousness again, but he doesn’t.

I stand up and put my hands on my hips.  “You really don’t want to keep pissing us off,” I warn the guy.

“You never know what could happen,” Eliana says and a line of fire begins to dance its way towards the three men.  It splits off into three sections and closes in on each of them.  I have to take their voices away to stop their screaming.  Well, their screaming doesn’t really stop, but we can’t hear it now and neither can the neighbors.