Page 81 of Wicked Warlock
I used to fight against him when he got like this, but they were right—my actions were stupid. “I’m sorry.”
He opened his mouth to argue with me then closed it again. “Okay, then.”
“Okay.”
Across the way, Nylore climbed from the building. He pointed his sword at me and then made a slashing motion across his throat. He then lifted the sword and roared. Again, his troops instantly responded.
“No, Zinnia, stop him! He’s going to make the cut!” I pointed toward Nylore.
Her silver tendrils lashed through the air toward him. He swung his sword, cutting through her magic before it could even touch him. Then he spun around and cut a jagged line right in the air that he ripped open. Instantly, the warriors were all sucked out through it and Nylore with it, like he flipped the switch on a vacuum and out they were sucked.
Zinnia growled, “Damn it! We really have got to get the walls back up! We can’t keep doing these random attacks. There’s no gain here.”
Catherine ran to her side and stood there breathlessly unrolling the scroll. “We will, now that we have this.”
She unfurled the scroll and that old parchment looked so delicate that I didn’t want to touch it. It was a faded white with dark brown writing scrolled across it in a language or style I didn’t understand. “Does anyone know how to read that?”
Everyone gathered around and they all shook their heads. Zinnia took the scroll from her mother and began to roll it back up. “We can’t read it. But I know someone who can.”
Chapter 39
Astrid
“Are you sure this is the place?”
Adrienne nodded and stood outside the golden gates. At the top of each of the gate pillars stood a statue of an owl. The entire property was surrounded by the golden gate. Just beyond it stood a home that reminded me more of the New York Public Library. Three towering archways stood side by side and were only separated by hefty white columns. Two wings extended out to the side—each of them was lined with beautiful, oversized windows that matched the shape of the archways. Stairs ran the expanse of the front of the building, and it made me want to grab lunch or a good cup of coffee and sit there for a while and watch the world go by. But this wasn’t New York, and there was no world to watch. We were in the middle of a meadow that was surrounded with waving fields of golden wheat. The only thing to see here were the miles and miles of blue skies and swaying golden ocean.
This would all be so beautiful, so elegant, if it weren’t for one thing. “Adrienne… why is everything covered in spider webs?”
Gorgeous dark marble exterior was covered from top to bottom with webs that ran from archway to archway and covered most of the windows. They hung off the building and drifted on the cool breeze. Adrienne signed. “My mom, well, she kind of invented spiders.”
“So, she is the one to blame?” I hated spiders so much. With the eight legs, and the billion eyes, and the pincher things that wanted to sink into my skin. I didn’t care that most of the time I was a hundred times bigger. Those little demon spawn were not what I wanted them to be. Which was dead, mostly dead.
“Yeah, totally.” She shoved open the gate and it glided soundlessly until it wacked into the other gate.
She held up her hand and pulled down some of the webs to clear a path for us to walk through. I followed behind her with Beckett just behind me. The others had to stay behind to keep watch for more confusing Nylore attacks. I shook my head, clearing my mind of thoughts of him. We needed to get this scroll translated and get the walls back up. If we didn’t, there was no telling what he would do to us all. As we walked up the stairs to the front door, things scurried in my peripheral vision—big things—but they never came into full view.
“Did you grow up here?” I tried not to sound so skeeved out, but I couldn’t help it.
“Yeah.” She shoved open the front doors and we stepped into a long dark hallway with even more webs than the exterior. Wooden paneling ran from the floor up to the rounded ceiling. She reached out and pulled down more of the webs as she went. They stuck to her hair and wrapped around the bottom of her jeans. “It’s kind of creepy, I know.”
Kind of? No, it was really freaking creepy. The sound of scurrying critters filled the walls, and I wanted to just turn around and go back out the way I came. “No, it’s kind of… interesting.”
The haunted mansion had nothing on this place. Beckett chuckled under his breath. “You sound so convincing.”
“Spiders,” I hissed under my breath back at him. “That’s all I have to say.”
Adrienne spoke to us over her shoulder. “Don’t worry too much. We’ll just go into the library and talk to my mom. I’m sure…” Her voice wavered with nerves. “I’m sure she’ll help us.”
She didn’t sound so sure. A whirling cranking sound came from just ahead of us. Adrienne jumped to the side and pressed herself against the wall. “Move!”
We dove to the walls and flattened ourselves. A wooden panel swung down from the ceiling and right past us. Sharp spikes jutted out from it and hurled through the air, waiting for something to get caught on them. When the panel smacked back up into the ceiling, more webs fell down toward us, covering my head and shoulders.
“Gross.” I pulled them from my hair and off my jacket.
Adrienne turned to face us. She had a pile of them sitting on her head. “You get used to it after a while.”
She waved for us to keep following her down the long hall. We crept in silence. Up ahead, a set of double doors stood waiting for us to open them. Again, that whirling sound came, and Beckett and I jumped to press ourselves up against the wall.
