“Where do you come from, wizard?” Isaac demands, his face paling a few shades.
My smirk turns into a mischievous grin.
“Fucking Kansas,” I say, and then I sweep my hands together again, intending on starting the whole summoning lightning process over. Instead, a huge gust of wind whirls around us, grabbing rocks, sticks, and other bits of debris that fly toward Isaac like bullets.
The old man moves like an Olympic athlete, dodging the projectiles with relative ease. The expression on his face, however, says he doesn’t like where this is going. Something about me scares him.
Not the first time, really. I had plenty of kids scared of me at my school in Kansas. Pretty sure I’d gotten a reputation for being some sort of dark witch/goth/anarchist. In reality, I just hate people and want to be left alone.
“Careful, Oz,” Taavi warns. “A cyclone like the one you called before will bring too much attention.”
“Isaac isn’t a bad man,” Stryker says, almost sadly. “If it’s possible to let him live, I think I’d prefer that.”
“Right,” I say, dropping my hands to my sides. That doesn’t stop the wind; it howls and swirls around us, stirring my hair around my face, my skirt around my thighs. “I’m okay with stopping, so long as you are. What do you say, Isaac?”
The man says nothing, studying me and Taavi with that penetrating blue gaze of his before stepping back into the shadows and absorbing his flaming blade into his palm.
“Oz, the Great and Terrible,” he says, his voice just barely audible above the sound of the wind. “I’ll remember that.”
And then he takes another step back and vanishes.
As soon as he’s gone, the winds around us disappear, and debris crashes to the ground. I exhale and shake out my hands, looking down at my palms and tingling fingers. It feels like I’ve just stuck my nails into an electrical outlet, like the power’s coursing through me with nowhere to go.
“I have to say, I’m impressed,” Stryker says, nodding toward me. “For a Wizard from Kansas, you’re not bad. You managed to chase Isaac off with just a small show of effort. Likely, he hasn’t seen a Wizard with your caliber of power since Ozma.”
“Ozma?” I ask, and Taavi’s eyes close, as if he’s in pain.
“Ozma, your mother,” he whispers, and Stryker’s eyes go wide.
“You’re Ozma’s daughter?” Stryker chokes out, sliding a finger under the collar of his jacket and then frantically undoing the top three buttons. “It all makes so much sense now …”
“My mother’s name was Hadassah,” I say caustically, but the look Taavi gives me says he knows I know better.
“Her name was Ozma, but she changed it when she fled to the H.W. Your father was Jewish, so she chose a Hebrew name …” Taavi pauses, lifting his nose to scent the air again, and then curls the edge of his lip up in a growl. “More scarecrows are coming. If we get a bit further into the forest, we should be able to shake them.”
“That, and it’s highly likely that Isaac will be back with reinforcements. We really should make haste, shouldn’t we?” Stryker suggests, looking at me like he’s seeing me for the first time all over again. He surprises me by speaking up. “Thank you, Oz, the Great and Terrible. I didn’t expect to live through the night, to be honest. And I really would love to see my guardian again. At the very least, I’d like to rescue him before the faerie queen decides he’s too much trouble and eats him.”
I can’t figure out if he’s being literal or figurative, but I decide it doesn’t matter. I can hear skittering and hissing in the darkness, and to be quite frank, this place creeps me the hell out. I just want to find somewhere to fall asleep.
Shaking out my tingling hands, I nod, because I’m not sure what else to say.
“Don’t worry too much about it, okay?” I tell him, our eyes meeting and sending another zing of energy through me. Ugh. At least now I know it’s magic and not some fucked-up hormonal attraction, right? Better than being attracted to my dog, I guess. “Let’s haul ass.”
We start off along the Y.B.R. again, Stryker’s glowing orbs following along to light the way. We each keep to our own thoughts, lost in the darkness. Every now and again, I see another one of those bright lights zipping through the forest, but if this place has taught me anything in the last two days, it’s that nothing is safe.
I’m not about to go chasing after one into the dark woods.
Hours later, when my feet are burning, and my head is pounding, and I’m this damn close to curling up on the ground to sleep, Taavi pulls me off the path.
“We need to stop. The later it gets, the darker the creatures are that inhabit the forest. I’ll find us a safe place, but you have to trust me.”
