I pressed back against the rock and stared down at the entrance. Nothing came out of it. Not for several unbelievably long minutes.
Then Mo raised a hand and reached for the wind. As she did, a screaming black mass swept out of the cavern’s entrance, split into two, and attacked.
They were bats.
Or rather, Darkside’s version of them.
A cloud of leathery wings, sharp claws, and even longer teeth flew at me. They tore at my clothes, my hair, and my face, their red eyes gleaming with malevolence and hunger. A scream that was part fear, part rage tore from my throat, and I raised my hands to protect my face even as I called to the lightning. It erupted from my fingers and lashed at the striking swarm, burning one after another after another. Embers swirled around me, and the air became thick with the smell of burned leather and flesh. The bats didn’t seem to care. They just kept on coming, kept on attacking, their number seemingly endless.
Then, abruptly, they were gone, wrenched away by a whirlwind of air that took them god knew where.
I blinked but didn’t immediately release the lightning pressing at my fingertips.
“Sorry,” Mo said into the silence. “That took far longer than I expected.”
My gaze jumped across to her. She leaned back against the rock, her face pale and covered by numerous scratches. She plucked the broken body of one of the wretched things from her coat, dropped it to the ground, and then stomped on it. “But at least I discovered what the shielding on the island does—it prevents the use of magic in the area, including mage.”
“You did get past it, though, so that’s something.”
“Yes, but it took a lot of effort, and had it been humanoid demons rather than bats, we might well both be dead.”
I sucked in a deep breath and released it slowly. My head was aching, and a faint trickle of moisture leaked from one eye—which was definitely an improvement over both of them bleeding—but overall, I felt surprisingly okay.
Which didn’t mean I wouldn’t fall in a gigantic heap once we got back to the hotel room.
“So where did the wind take them?”
“I shoved them deep in the water and drowned the bastards.”
“Good.” I dragged out my phone, then squatted in front of the cave’s entrance and shone the flashlight into it. It plunged so steeply down into utter darkness that even if the gateway had been close, it wouldn’t have been visible. “Do you think they deliberately drew us here to test their shield?”
“Given the range of magics included, no. It’s simply a means of protecting the gate against all of our witches.”
“Why here, then? Why this one? It’s not particularly large or well positioned.”
“I think it safe to say this would not be the only gate that’s now protected.”
I pushed upright. “That surely means they’re getting ready for a big push.”
“Lincoln’s council won’t be the only ones on their hit list.”
“Then we need to get a warning out.” I glanced down at the gate again. “Darkside has to have a means of tracking the viability of the gates if this one has only just opened.”
“That wouldn’t be surprising, given they rely on Earth for much of their sustenance.”
Something I didn’t want to think about, especially given how close we’d come to being that sustenance. I thrust a hand through my hair, shaking loose bits of ash and leather. “What are we going to do now?”
“I’ll ring Barney—he can put out an urgent alert to all the local councils. The High Council will also have to be informed.”
While she made the phone call, I took off my shoes and socks and then pressed my toes into the ground. The earth’s pulse was a distant echo—something I could hear, but not reach. I frowned and glanced around. Darkside magic might be darker in both tone and design than ours, but from what I’d seen of it, it followed the same basic principles. Which meant the shield would have a base—something onto which the spell was anchored. With a shield this large, there’d have to be at least three of them. If I could find those anchors, I might be able to destroy it. But even if that wasn’t possible, finding them would help us understand the spell’s construction. Knowing that would allow us to create a counter.
I walked across to the other side of the clearing. The earth’s pulse remained distant, suggesting the barrier I couldn’t see extended well into the trees. I cautiously continued on, trying to avoid anything prickly or sharp even though it was extremely difficult to see, given the darkness and the thickness of the leaf litter on the ground.
The gentle lapping of water against the shoreline soon filled the silence. I paused, placed one hand on a nearby tree trunk for balance, and then dug my toes into the leaf litter and dirt. The earth’s pulse was stronger; I had to be getting near the end of the barrier. I pushed on. The forest thinned out, and from directly ahead came the shimmer of moonlight on dark water. Surely they wouldn’t bother extending the protection out into the lake—
The earth’s pulse jumped into focus so abruptly, a squeak of surprise escaped my lips. I swallowed heavily and took one step back. The earth muted again. I’d found the shield’s edge.
I turned and followed its line, one foot on either side as a guide. About twenty feet further along, an odd sort of awareness crept across my senses, making the hairs at the back of my neck stand on end. There was no change in the pulse of the earth, but up ahead something was definitely off. I paused and scanned the shore, but it was nigh on impossible to see anything beyond trees and the large cluster of boulders that blocked my path.
I walked to the pile of boulders, then gripped the top of the nearest stone and climbed. The stone was cold under my feet, which was odd given that—up until now—the rocks had run with the earth’s warm pulse. Did it have something to do with the anchor? Was its presence somehow altering the earth’s voice? Or perhaps even my perceptions of her as I drew closer?
Mo would undoubtedly be able to tell me, but she was still talking on the phone—I could hear snatches of her conversation drifting on the breeze.
I slid down the other side of the rock and walked on. The earth’s pulse resumed, and the creeping sense of oddness began to fade. I stopped and turned around.
The boulders were the anchor point.
I walked back. The creeping oddness returned. I scrambled up to the top again and then looked around. It was unlikely they’d use the whole rock pile as an anchor, if only because it’d be far too obvious to any witch who might be out on the lake boating or fishing. Making them small made them easier to conceal and harder to find. I might not be able to spell myself, but I’d certainly learned all about the intricacies after years of watching Mo, and even Mia, create them.
There were numerous fissures between the various boulders that would provide the perfect hiding spot, and there was no way known I was going to stick my hand down any of them. Not without first peering into each one with a light to ensure the demons hadn’t left any additional nasty surprises.
What I could do was pin down a location by using the ebb and flow of that weird awareness.
I carefully scrambled around the boulders and, after five minutes or so, had narrowed the possibilities to two—the first was in what appeared to be a hairline fissure in the largest of the top boulders, and the other a gap between it and the next.