counter ward

I nodded once at him, turned, and plunged into the darkness, Rawlins at my back. Screams erupted around us, sometimes accompanied by the sight of stumbling, terrified people. Rawlins nudged them toward the walls, barked at them in a tone of pure paternal authority to stay near them, to move carefully for the exits. The gloom began to press in closer to me, and it became an effort of will to hold up the light in my amulet against it. A few steps more and the air grew even colder. Walking forward became an effort, like wading through waist-deep water. I had to lean against it, and I heard a grunt of effort come out of my mouth.
“What's wrong?" Rawlins asked, his voice tight.
We passed under one of the hotel's emergency light fixtures, its floodlights only dim orange rings in the murk until my amulet's light burned the shadows away. "Dark magic," I growled through clenched teeth. "A kind of ward. Trying to keep me from moving ahead."
He huffed out a breath and muttered, "Christ. Magic. That isn't real."
I stopped and gave him a steady look over my shoulder. "Are you with me or not?"
He swallowed, staring up at the dim circles of light that were all he could see of another set of emergency lights. "Crap," he muttered, wiping a sudden beading of sweat from his brow despite the cold air. "You need me to push you or something?"
I let out a bark of tense laughter, and forced my power harder against the gloomy ward, hacking at it with the machete of my will until I began to chop a path through the dark working, picking up speed. As I did, the sense of the spell became more clear to me. "It's coming from up ahead of us," I said. "The first conference room in this hall."


Proven Guilty Chapter 12, Page 82