Olga by C.T. Adams

Author:C.T. Adams
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tor Publishing Group
Published: 2010-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

4

Eyjafjallajökull is a beautiful place. Then again, I’ve always liked Iceland, and volcanoes are as beautiful as they are deadly. Alex and I were close to the vent. Not in it, no. He’d flatly refused, stating he didn’t have enough knowledge or strength to keep the two of us shielded for the long hours of the ritual if we were actually inside the eruption. I had to take his word for it. Even where we were, a mile away, the power was awesome. Overhead a spray of lava, joined by a “dirty thunderstorm,” raged. Electrically charged particles were forced through the vent into the atmosphere, and I could sense the impact of chunks of ice, some as big as my head, against Alex’s shield. The shield muffled the noise as well, so I didn’t hear the cracks of thunder or the rumbling of the very earth itself.

It had been about 3:00 p.m. when we’d left New York: 12:00 noon LA time and 7:00 p.m. at the glacier. Alex swore he could keep track of the time. Good, because there was no way I would be able to. Then again, I had enough to think about.

I paced out a circle in the snow, marking each point of the interior pentacle with a spot of my blood before setting a brown candle onto the ground and lighting it. Brown for earth energy. If I’d been an air mage, I’d have used white; blue for water. But brown it was. I’d taken the candles from Nadya and Roger’s personal stash.

Tears stung my eyes that had nothing to do with smoke and ash. The prevailing winds were blowing away from us.

Ritual magic has never been my favorite thing. I’m a restless, high-energy type. It’s hard for me to sit still and empty my mind of all emotions. But now I had no choice. I had to shed my grief and anger at my sister’s death, my fear. Having Alex there was an additional distraction, even though all he was doing was maintaining the shield. Utterly ridiculous, to be distracted by a handsome man at a time like this. But he had impressed me; he had courage and power, and he’d shown me a great deal of kindness and consideration. Stop it. Now is not the time, I admonished myself sternly. But it took longer than it should have to center myself and begin.

I sat in the lotus position, butt naked, in the middle of a power circle, on coarse ice, reciting a rhythmic chant in Russian. My throat was raw from the volcano’s fumes, and my butt was cold. In front of me was a wind-up alarm clock set to California time. It would ring two hours before the duel; I’d need half an hour to wind down the spell. Then I’d have an hour and a half to clean up, file the appropriate paperwork, and get to Old Woman Rock to make my preparations.

Not a lot of time, and all the time in the world.

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