Chapter 2

I screamed. No sound came out. Nor did anyone on the street come to my aid. Not that I blamed them. The Terin had sucked all my magic out like it was a pixie straw on Halloween night. I was unable to budge, and I couldn't cast a counterspell. All of my body felt like it was being yanked through a hot press. Pain shot through me with every inhale. Even my wand…billy club…didn't escape her siphoning. Her gray hair blew back from a wrinkled face. My zenyar magic illuminated her features like she was on a glamour photo session. It even made her black jagged teeth appear shiny.

My head still throbbed from where I had head-butted her. Little good that had done. Look at me now, paralyzed and being drained by a magic sucker. Prickling anger snaked through my veins. If this was how I was to die then I was taking this bitch with me.

So I slammed on the brakes of my power, but nothing stopped. Somehow I had to escape this trap. A plan of holding on until the last second and then cease resisting came to me. I'd never tried this before and it would either buy me time or send me into a magical coma that I'd never wake from. I took a shaky breath and, using all the strength and will I had left, I tied off my zenyar like yanking a thick rubber band back. Terin's power leaped closer, seeking the origin. She frowned, her brow knitting together.

I had to time this right or she might decide to rip out my spine and have a snack right here on the sidewalk. When she snarled like she would kill me, I let my zenyar go. The blue haze sprung forward and knocked her back a couple of steps.

With the break in contact, I stumbled away from her spell. I gulped air like I'd been underwater for too long. My knees nearly buckled from fatigue, but I planted my feet and snatched my billy stick before she could touch me again.

“You've little power left,” she snorted. “Probably enough to squash a gnat before you pass out.”

Exhaustion washed over me and I struggled to keep my eyes open and focused. Who cared that the bitch was right? I still had one trick left before I hit the cement.

“Got enough juice to pound you into the ground.” Goodness, I was tired. Couldn't even come up with a good retort.

She chortled and took a step toward me. Two more and she'd be too close. I couldn't let her touch me. Adrenaline pumped through me and my hand shook as I pointed my black stick at her.

“Reveritera Oblin Osa Torhri,” I yelled and wobbled back several steps as the zenyar I had buried inside my wand for emergencies sprang to life. It would take me a week to recharge after this attack if I lived through this. And a month to load my baton back up. But this was my chance to put her down before I ended up devoured, and I had to take it.

The Terin's eyes widened, but the spell struck her in the chest and she backpedaled, before disintegrating into a pile of smoldering ash.

But my spell kept going with fragments of her residue floating along with it. Son of a bitch! I had to stop my zenyar!

“Run!” I screamed at the people standing in shock a few feet away. “Cern Drunghai!” The spell yanked the last of my strength. I collapsed onto the pavement, pain radiating through my hip and head. My black baton rolled from my fingers, but I was too late. The power in the wood had sensed my distress and it came to my aid. It burrowed across the ground in a web-like pattern.

It wasn't stopping with one enemy, it judged everyone nearby as a threat. Individuals screamed as it hit them.

No! I yelled in my mind and held out a trembling hand to pull the zenyar back into me, to reverse the spell's flow. It might fry my brain, but at least everyone else would be safe. I already had my parents' deaths to carry, and I didn't need more bodies on my conscience. The magic curled around my fingers like static electricity, making the hairs on my arm stand on end.

I jerked on the remaining strands of zenyar. They slammed into me like an electric current. Involuntarily, my teeth clenched together until I thought I'd crack them all. Every part of me sizzled like I had been tossed into a hot frying pan. Still, I tugged on the zenyar, trying to coax more of it back, concentrating, imagining it rolling into my center, where the magic bloomed from me being a witchard.

My hand shook as the web slowly recoiled, inching back into me. That's it, keep coming. Sharp pains pummeled my gut, but I kept drawing in the excess energy.

“Stop, Regan!” a voice bellowed down at me and I flinched.

Couldn't he see that's what I was trying to do?

A boot stomped on my arm, crushing my fingers.

“Fuck!” My connection to the wand's powers was severed and with it the people's lives it had contact with. “Bastard, you killed them all!”

He yanked my head up by my hair. “No, I didn't Regan, you did. Your magical stench is all over the street.” His breath smelled of cheap beer and spearmint. “A half a dozen ASH members, including myself, just watched you murder these people.”

“Terin!” I kicked, trying to get away from him. My body was sluggish as if I waded through mud. Panic squeezed my chest. What if they didn't believe me or, like me, had never heard of Terin before?

What would've happened if I hadn't been able to escape? Would all traces of me have vanished… like my parents? Was that what had killed them, and why, after all these years, I hadn't found out what had happened to them? I swallowed the spiked lump that formed in my throat at their memory.

“You are under arrest,” he answered, wrenching my arm behind my back. I stepped on his foot and, when that didn't make a difference, I twisted away from him and fell.

Scrambling up, I took two steps backward. “And why didn't any of you help?”

All the ASH officers looked at each other, then me. Had they not seen the Terin burst into soot?

I shook my head. Guilt and sadness careened through me as I pictured the people being blasted into charred bones. “This wasn't my fault.” I trembled and nausea punched my stomach. Two officers wrestled me to the ground. A tangle of arms and legs, I kicked and punched. Someone snatched my billy stick from me. I grunted as an elbow clipped me on my jaw and a knee struck me in the stomach.

My arms were wrenched behind my back and zenyar cuffs snapped on my wrists. “No, you're making a mistake! The Terin did this!”

Killing the Terin had caused my magic to backlash, and now all those people had paid the price for not getting far enough away.

The ASH cops hauled me upright and dragged me to their van.

“No, listen, it wasn't me. I didn't do this!”

“Save it for the judges,” one of the officers said. “Your zenyar signature is all over the place… no one else's.”

Three judges ruled on every case that came into ASH headquarters. The good news was with that many, stalemates were possible, and another three judges were assigned. However, if two of the three judges decided for the guilty, then no appeals. Ever.

“My magic was ensnared by the Terin! It caused a chain reaction when she died that I couldn't stop.” Oh goddess, how I had tried. All those people's deaths were on my head.

They shoved me into the back of the squad car. I'd be lucky if I even got a lawyer before they strapped me down and gave me a magical lobotomy before killing me for harming humans.