The Destiny of Ren Crown (Ren Crown #5)
Anne Zoelle
Chapter One: Awakening Once Again
The boy loped down the street with the easy, unconcerned grace of a teenager never expecting to encounter danger in the shadows. Spiky hair was weighed down by giant headphones as he bopped his head to an internal beat and hiked his backpack higher on one shoulder. A violin case was securely strapped across his back, and the sharply bent fingers of his left hand syncopated a line of music against his thigh.
He absently scratched the underside of his left wrist against the side seam of his jeans—a motion that had no doubt been repeated with greater frequency as each minute passed.
He was oblivious to the shapes detaching from the long, spiked shadows of the trees.
Being suddenly half surrounded registered fully on his danger index, though, because he jerked to a stop, ripped his headphones down to circle his throat, then took a defensive step backward.
Lightning streaked the sky, sending jagged lights through the unnatural shadows that surrounded the black-clothed men around him.
A combination of jazz, violin, and synthetic beats grew louder—unnaturally projecting from his headphones and becoming a haunting, cacophonous melody that wrapped around the space.
“Definitely him,” one of the men said.
“Definitely me what?” The boy's gaze was quick—intelligence weighing variables and options and trying to make sense of the reality in front of him. “What's going on?”
Where did you come from? The unsaid question was clear in his gaze as he looked toward the lawns on either side of the street.
“Hands where we can see them,” the leader ordered in a graveled voice.
The boy's hands shot into the air, open palms face out.
“Listen, I'm on my way home. Rehearsal ran late—”
“Shut up.”
The boy did, his wary gaze assessing the way the black-clothed men with scanners in their hands were slowly surrounding him. More than one was looking outward, searching the distance. He shifted his body.
“They said she'd be here,” one of the newer recruits complained, a lethal look in his beady eyes. “This was supposed to be—”
“Well, she's not,” the leader said, his eyes not leaving the boy. “And we have a job to do, and a feral to drain.”
“Feral?” the boy murmured and took another step back.
The music grew in volume, turning harsher and more frantic. The boy was going to run. It was obvious from his gaze, his motion, and the burgeoning magic emanating from him that he couldn't yet control.
He wasn't going to survive a standoff—and if he ran, he wouldn't make it home.
We hadn't.
From my vantage point in the trees, the rage started at my toes and slithered up to join the violent tingle in my fingers.
A haze of crimson glazed over my vision threatening to overtake me, but solar lights stuttering to ignite in a neighbor's yard flashed white through the haze, bringing objects more sharply into focus and reminding me of where I was. First Layer. Civilians. Innocents. Life.
“The abomination is only half of it,” the cruel-eyed man said, looking around. “It's not a fully completed job if we don't—”
“Crown didn't take the bait. You'll get your chance to take her down on the next one, Doogin,” the leader snarled. “But this half-paycheck isn't going to neutralize himself.”
He motioned for the men to surround the boy, and they did so with careful movements.
“Now boy, you just stand there, and this will all go much easier for—”
The boy doubled over, half-compressed notes of magic oozing from him, dripping like sweat down his skin.
His sputtering magic opened the allegro of a symphony, and I gripped the notes as my heels lifted, releasing my body from its careful perch. The soles of my shoes started a slow slide down the thick branch into freefall as each note echoed the tapestry of magic that made up this world. I let my breath release steadily and silently as I fell through the air, ticking off each movement I was about to make with each note harshly and vibrantly drumming from the boy.
Magic worked best when joined.
“He's Awakening fully,” the leader said harshly. “Secure—”
I dropped into the circle in front of the boy, and thrust out my palms, letting the boy's musical crescendo flow through the visual patterns I formed in the air. The two figures at either side of us flew backward, impacting with abnormal crunches—one hitting a tree, the other a car. A second set of patterns disabled the men to the front and back, but the remaining ones sprung into motion.
Containers on the belt of the leader clanked together—one filled with defensive spells, another an empty container awaiting the boy's magic.
Never again. Never again would I allow a feral to be drained.
I spun and let my cloak take the brunt of the first hit, and used my momentum to fling sticks to pierce both containers. The containers exploded, the men swore, and magic from the full container abruptly filtered into the First Layer air, even as the grasping magic of the empty container sucked the leader dry.
The boy was hunched over, looking at his fingers, an awed look overtaking his expression. “I feel—”
Additional figures ran toward us, and red descended over my vision like a single shade of old 3D glasses. I pulled the freed magic through the molecules of existence into a riotous whirlwind of colors. Gigantic, autumnal leaves formed in the slowed motion landscape, then shot free of the wind—plastering the approaching figures to the ground and forming hard shells over the top.
Music notes were swirling more wildly around the boy, building to a crescendo. “I feel like I can do anyth—”
I whipped a shield over his body and pulled it tight, tripping him. He crashed to the ground, and I threw out my hand, rolling the pavement over him like a burrito shell and propelling him away from the fight with the last of the free magic in the air.
A jolt of energy hit me from behind, reverberating in my bones, but it was to my benefit—my cloak sucked the magic inside and I pulled it from the coiling conduit in my cloak to rest in my palm.
“You idiot, she can absorb and use our magic. Throw the—”
I threw myself into a tucked roll that opened into a crouched, magically-enabled skid along the concrete as the second man followed the commands of the first. The magic in my hand scraped against the ground and I added just a bit of layer magic to slick a curved path in front of me as Delia's beautifully made, flexible boots attached to the magic I was infusing underneath them.
The same idiot withdrew a device and threw it into the air. I felt the shimmer of the magic as a containment dome mushroomed around me.
Found the new guy.
“No, no, you fool—”