Authors: Natalie Herzer
Ivory Guard (28 page)
“Get away from the window!” I shouted a moment before glass shattered and sliced through the air.
I looked for Viviane. She was still in the doorway, the tray at her feet. I ran to her, and pulled her inside.
The magic hit.
Oh God, it hurt. Screams, of pain and of wild beasts, echoed throughout the forest. It was like touching a high-voltage power line. My blood was singing with magic, scolding hot with it, and I wanted to scream with the pain and power suddenly flooding me. The magic was molten lava in my veins, my insides a ball of fire. My heart was ready to burst, and suddenly I wasn’t sure whether I would make it, whether I could withstand it. It hurt so goddamn much. I tried to calm myself but found I couldn’t breathe.
The ground beneath my feet still trembled, and then a chunk of it opened and shot up, throwing me aga
inst the kitchen counter. My ribs took most of the brunt. Aw, fuck. I slid to the floor, my eyes searching the room as my vision was fading. Darkness crept up on me.
I thought I got a glance of Pauline.
A ball of fairy dust, a swirl of golden flakes surrounding her. Through it I could make out her eyes wide with shock, her mouth open in mid-scream. I couldn’t see Viviane. Only a gray mass, like a tornado with a wind and life of its own.
The magic was squeezing my lungs, while I wanted to explode. White-hot pain seared my wrist and I looked down. The gargoyles’ magic bit me there, marking me with
the coat-of-arms of the person I had sworn to protect. I didn’t get a good look at it, but was sure I saw wings. The different magics - the one flooding our world and calling to my own and the gargoyles’ - were too much for me. All of it wanted inside of me while my body wanted to turn inside out. I closed my eyes when the pain became too much to bear.
I must have passed out. The moment my eyes opened I knew something was seriously wrong. Silence greeted me – though nothing was exactly calm around me. Screams and shouts echoed through the woods, but at least the earth was quiet. After shocks vibrated through the ground, but the inhuman screeching and groaning that had made my ears and heart bleed had mercifully stopped.
Something was wrong with my eyes. Well, either that, or the world had bled a little color and was suddenly a bit more...gray. The rest of my body felt weird and I decided to take stock slowly. I tasted the metallic bite of blood in my mouth; probably bit my tongue in all the chaos. For whatever reason, everything felt weird – off.
Two pair of bare feet step
ped inside my frame of vision and I looked up.
Pauline was nearly naked, strategically placed flowers and greenery that almost looked like a tattoo on her skin or body paint curled and swirled along her skin covering her private parts. Her flaxen curls were wild around a face that was dominated by large, intensely violet eyes. She had been utterly beautiful before the Turn – now she was earthly, ethereal magnificence personified.
Viviane was dressed in an old-fashioned, simple white gown and oozed power. Her eyes were filled with it, swirling green and gray reminding me of mist covering rich green hills. The Lady of the Lake.
Both looked at me with an expression I really didn’t like.
“Oh my,” Pauline breathed which didn’t help my nerves at all.
I wanted to tell her that much, but when I opened my mouth, it didn’t form words. A bark came out instead.
Oh shit. Oh no. This couldn’t happen.
I looked around me and noticed my clothes were lying on the floor. Fear and a very bad feeling of apprehension held me in a tight grip as I started to look down at my body. I saw the paws first.
One white, the other a reddish brown. Then turned my head to discover more reddish brown fur covered my body which ended in a white-tipped tail.
A tail.
A whine escaped me.
“Honey, everything will be alright.” Viviane tried to soothe me.
“You look so cute,” Pauline added and I growled. I didn’t want to growl, would have preferred a little sarcastic comment actually, but apparently that was the only way to make my feelings known in this new form of mine.
Movement drew my attention and I caught my reflection in a big piece of glass. A dog, I was a freaking, red-and-white Welsh sheepdog. With ears slightly folded at the tip and a patch of white ran down from between my eyes to my snout and broadened towards my paws and belly.
I sighed – well, whined was more like it – and shook my head. As a human I was the Patroness of Paris, protecting innocents, and in my animal shape I was a herding dog. Go figure.
“Maiwenn!” a deep voice yelled.
Kylian. His voice was a little rougher and hoarse but I recognized it instantly.
“Get your ass out here.”
Right, who was I to think I would get a little reprieve after a giant magical shift.
A wild roar filled the air and the house shook. “I could really use a hand.
Now!”
I snorted. Ha. Sorry pal, but I only got four paws.
***
Natalie Herzer is a twenty-six year old indie author living in France. Much like her travel bug, the love for words has always been there, and after "rewriting" some books in her head she finally decided to give it a shot and to write her own.
She is the author of
The Patroness
, an urban-fantasy series, and
Snapshots
, a collection of short stories.
For more information and news visit
