Bloodline Alchemy: A Young Adult Urban Fantasy Academy Novel (Bloodline Academy Book 6) - Lan Chan (libby ebook reader txt) 📗

They darted around Kai and began to draw Angelical wards in the brick, in the ground around him, and in the air. An arcane circle in purple, orange, and gold flared in the brick behind Kai’s back. Their magic hummed with a simmering strength that laced around Kai’s body. Threads shackled him by the forehead, by his throat, and all the way down his body so that he was basically a magical mummy.

Somebody pressed a glass to my hand. I looked over to find Sandra squatting in front of me. She lifted up my eyelid with her thumb. “Drink.”

I did so without considering what was in the glass. Luckily it was ambrosia. The Sisterhood were doing the same. Doctor Thorne was patching up Matilda’s hand. A semi-circle of para-human guards were now scattered around us. Some of them had wings, others were decorated all over with scales that reflected the red of the sun. All of them were buck naked. I really couldn’t complain about modesty in the middle of a war but stored it up for later. Lex would get a kick out of it. The moment I thought about her, I knew my mind was trying to latch on to pleasant things to stop myself from drowning in hysteria.

But it was impossible not to want to throw up every second I watched Max clawing his way through the ranks of the undead that just kept coming.

A wall of Fae stood behind the fighters. Their arrows were deadly accurate, but even then, the numbers of undead were not being whittled down. What they needed to do was locate the necromancers. The undead would just keep coming until their masters were taken out.

Our own high-magic users who had some skill at necromancy were trying to stem the tide of the undead. They patched the ground up to attempt to stop the undead from coming. I saw Professor Flint’s grey magic shimmering over the ground while it bulged and undulated.

For a second, I thought it really was too bad that we hadn’t tried to cultivate this field of study. I knew why it was forbidden, but right now, it would have been nice to have some sinister-magic users on our side. It was like I had selective memory and forgot about the things Hugh and Agatha had done. I rationalised it as fear beginning to take over.

I was just about to see if I could do something to help when a loud crunching sound filled the air. The fighting paused for a fraction of a second. I kidded myself that it might be something in our favour. What it turned out to be was the sound of undead teeth and hands as they sacrificed themselves to break the blood wards that had been set up.

The warding was steeped in words of light and Angelical. The first undead that went anywhere near them were instantly disintegrated. But the magic wouldn’t last forever and there were undead to spare. As their bodies turned to ashes, more undead clambered forward until the magic was clearly slowing in its backlash. The first undead to reach the wards intact managed to claw at them before being destroyed. The next ones got a bit farther. The ones after that farther still. I knew it wouldn’t be long before the wards broke and the malachim would be upon us.

In the distance, the red sky was becoming blotted out by a wall of flickering darkness. Somebody swore. Or it might have been so much swearing that my distracted mind couldn’t take the input right now.

My heart was in tatters as Max reached the front of where the undead had gathered. Charles was close behind on his heels. The Nephilim were a blaze of glory in the sky, their angel blades flashing at the ready. When the first blood ward broke, the malachim surged forward, only to be torn to pieces by Max and Charles.

All around us, the high-magic users who were alert enough to do magic were pushing themselves to their feet. Giselle hissed as she did the same. The Evil Three were huddled in a group on the ground close by. They shuffled until they sat in a formation where their knees formed a triangle. When they slapped their hands on the ground in front of them, a white barrier appeared that cut the malachim off in their tracks.

“It won’t hold for long,” Harlow gritted out. Beads of sweat were already pouring down her temple. Blood trickled out of the corner of Winnie’s mouth.

The keening of the undead reached a critical mass. No matter how quickly the high-magic users attempted to repair the wards, the undead wouldn’t be dissuaded. The wards and the soul barrier broke at the same time. It started as small cracks that caused hairline fractures to run across the barrier. I could feel the collective inhale of the supernaturals close to it as they braced themselves for the assault. In the air, Astrid’s white wings were unstable and still bandaged, but stubbornness radiated from her.

If Astrid was here then...I scanned the perimeter around her. Sure enough, I spotted that idiot vampire not far away. He had a circle of undead standing protectively around him. Andrei never did the dirty work unless he had to.

“Work smarter,” he always said to me. He was just lucky that his compulsion was so strong. That one time he had drunk Lex’s blood had done something irrevocable to his strength. And I suspected he might have snuck a drop or two from the vials when I wasn’t aware. Right now, it didn’t matter.

I felt the lurch of blood alchemy when the barriers crumbled to dust and the blood blade appeared in Andrei’s hand. The first malachim to come near him was speared in the chest, its body flickering to become corporeal. A flash of silver sliced through its neck a second later as Astrid dived