Challenge: The story must involve a magical grimoire in it. During the story, a character is attacked.
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“How much trouble will get in for this?” Liam whispered to me.
I slipped my hand into the cabinet, reaching for the grimoire. “None. Unless we get caught.”
My fingers brushed the leather book, and ran into the problem. “Shit. It’s warded. It’ll set off an alarm if I move it.”
“Try the Indiana Jones trick. Replace the weight.”
“That’d be a great idea, if I had a bag of sand.”
I examined the warding. Tripping the alarm was inevitable, but...
“Can you go invisible?” I asked.
Liam glanced at me. “Sure. Why?”
“I’ll give you the grimoire. You go invisible and get it out of here.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll be right behind you.”
Liam faced me. “That’s what people say before they get trapped and killed. You don’t know what the spell will trigger, Derek. The book belongs to an ancestor of Poseidon. They aren’t exactly subtle types.”
I looked at my little brother. “If you have another idea, I’m all ears.”
He frowned. “How about not ditching you and running? Screw Isaacs orders. This isn’t worth it.”
“The longer we stay here, the riskier it is. I’ll cloak myself, so get ready.”
I moved before Liam could keep arguing. I lifted the grimoire out of its cabinet, feeling the warding snap and triggering the alarm. I shoved it into Liam’s hands. He took a deep breath, then completely disappeared. I turned to leave the room, ready to cloak myself, and was staring straight at the witch I’d just stolen from.
He formed a circle in his hands, clear blue water forming between his palms as he created a ball of water. It happened so fast that I didn’t couldn’t do anything but pull on reactive adaptation.
When the water hit my chest, the adaptation kept me on my feet. Then the witch moved the water up my neck towards my face.
It started to freeze as it slipped into my mouth, biting its way down my throat into my lungs. I threw a blast of soulfire at him, hoping to scare him off with my fire magic. He stepped to the side, completely missing the fire. He held out his hand and manipulated the ice I was choking on.
It tightened sharply in my throat. I would’ve gasped, but I couldn’t get air into my lungs. I was going to suffocate.
A blast of fire came out of nowhere and slammed into the witch, making him scream. His scream ended when something hit him in the head, knocking him out before he hit the ground. Liam dropped his invisibility spell.
The ice in my lungs and throat was melting, though I still felt like I’d been eating snow. Liam walked over to me and wasn’t satisfied until I straightened up and showed him that I was all right. He frowned.
“Dude, never say ‘I’ll be right behind you’. How many movies do I have to make you watch until you get that?”
When Liam’s right, he’s right.
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I like doing these little shorts. As soon as I read the challenge, I take a couple seconds and think of a scene, and away I go! I'm still working on a couple ideas for the Hollow Hill universe, but I'm hoping to have those done by today or early next week. I'm also thinking about what sort of brief posts I should put on the blog during November, other than progress updates. Leave a comment if there's something you would like to read up on!
Amy
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