“Run? I wouldn’t have a chance of getting away from him—”
“Then use that.” He nodded at my chest.
Was he referring to the remnants of the Santini charm? I’d already cast it.
I turned my head down, and there I saw that filigree cross I’d picked up from the crypt in Prague.
I’d clean forgotten about it.
Sonos’s eyes widened in a particular way as he stared at it. It told me that whatever this cross was, it was no mere decoration.
“What—”
“Remember, Hilliker is possessed,” Sonos cut in. “All possessed creatures, fundamentally, must pass through the gates of Hell. I will buy you a chance – but Eve, you must run and not look back.”
“What about you?”
He smiled. That was it.
“And then the music stops,” he whispered.
He let go of my hands. I tried to clutch hold of him, but immediately I started to fall backward through this world.
As darkness opened up behind me and I started to see a glimpse of that hospital, I became more desperate to clutch hold of him, but I couldn’t. He was already out of sight. “Sonos,” I screamed one final time.
It was too late. I was back in the real world.
I was no longer in Hilliker’s grip. He was down on his hands and knees, searching through the water as if I’d become so small that he couldn’t differentiate me from a single drop of it. But as soon as I landed down, right in front of him, recognition blasted through his eyes. He threw himself at me, his wide-open, groping hands immediately going for my throat.
Without pausing, I grabbed the snow globe from beside me, threw it into my subspace pocket, then settled a hand on my cross.
“I call on the light of God to protect me from the possessed,” I screamed quickly as I jolted back. I knew from experience how fast Hilliker could move. Even if I turned and tried to run, he’d grab me long before I got to my feet. I managed to force those words out just before his fingers locked around my throat.
He jolted.
His eyes sliced down to my cross. Somehow, he hadn’t seen it before. Maybe he’d been so possessed – both by the Banished and the thought of killing me – that he hadn’t been observant. Or perhaps his life as a priest had taught him – stupidly – to ignore and overlook the symbol of that which he had once served.
He suddenly became stiff.
Sonos had told me to run, but wasn’t there a chance that I might be able to defeat Hilliker myself? If this was a powerful cross – and reason told me it must be, considering how I’d come across it – then—
“Run,” I heard a deep, throaty voice rumble from my side. It was Sonos.
I heard the sound of his wings unfurling. He pulled himself to his feet. I hadn’t seen him before. He’d been consumed by the shadows at the side of the room.
He let out another growl, called his sword to his hand, then pounced toward Hilliker.
Hilliker tried to reach me again, but I kicked away his fingers as I kept hold of my cross, chanting that I needed the Lord’s light to shine through this possessed.
Sonos wrapped a bleeding arm around the back of Hilliker’s throat and held him to the spot. He lifted his head and stared at me directly. “Run,” he said once more.
A dark expanse opened up behind Sonos. He tipped backward into it without a single scream.
As I opened a hand and thrust it toward him, I realized it was a Hell gate.
“Sonos,” I screamed.
It was too late – he was far out of sight.
I jolted forward – not knowing what I intended to do. But the Hell gate closed all too quickly. A few of the very last fragments of glass from above hailed down. One or two managed to slip through the doorway, then the rest simply fell onto the puddle-covered floor.
For too long, I sat there, shaking, my hand still locked around my cross. But then I heard this hissing. I wasn’t sure if it was breath or some old pipe letting off steam. I knew I couldn’t wait around to find out. Sonos had sacrificed himself for me.
Thrusting up, my whole body jerking as if wave after wave of electric shocks were blasting down my spine, I turned my head up, judging if I could make it through the ceiling. Then I saw those dark clouds racing in once more. I knew that the rain would pick up again. I remembered how it had felt like groping, opening hands and biting, ripping teeth. So I reluctantly pushed up. Staggering, my body refusing to work properly, I made it out of the way of that broken window before the deluge began. As it sliced down from above, wherever the rain struck, steam escaped. This was no mere vaporized water. It was black, and just like every droplet, it writhed as this dark energy within begged to be let out.
This unholy smell started to pick up through the room. It smelled like thousands of rotting corpses. As I locked the back of my hand against my mouth, trying to block out the stench but failing, I turned hard just as that hissing became louder.
I staggered toward the main door but quickly thought better of it. I still had a hand clutched around my cross. Maybe I was making this up, but it felt as if it was directing me – like Sonos’s hand was on my shoulder.
I turned to the side and saw a hole in the wall to my left. It was large enough that I could see through to the room beyond. It was a storeroom. I caught a glimpse of its door. That led out to a corridor. I headed toward it without pause. Because that corridor had the one thing I needed now more than ever – light.
I thrust toward it as fast as I could – acting like a woman possessed. As soon as I thought that, I shook my head. I had never – and was never likely – to ever see a possession the likes of which Hilliker had undergone. It had been complete.
I punched toward the wall, rounded my shoulder, and let magic blast across it until it was bright enough that I could have burned down the entire hospital.
With a grunt, the plaster crumbled out from around me. I staggered down to my knees but immediately pushed up. I didn’t bother to brush off the blood or dust from my hands. I ran. That hissing continued to fill the hospital – apparently coming from every damn crack in the floor and walls. I thought I heard scuttling, too – even the flapping wings of bats. While Sonos had seemingly taken Hilliker down through a Hell gate, that didn’t mean he didn’t have power over this hospital. Plus, his contingent of priests would be somewhere – just waiting for an opportunity to attack.
Speaking of the Devil – I ran around a corner only to see two priests waiting for me. These guys were no joke. They had white robes on – but it could not detract from the black symbols marching across their faces and down to their hands. They were interspersed with white.
Any fool knew that if you wanted to live a good life, you had to balance the light and the dark. For both exist in reality for a good reason. My acceptance of that fact did not mean that I had suddenly become a Hell groupie. Nor did it mean that I ultimately didn’t care that I had turned out to be a child of the dark. What it meant was that the true power of nature came from balancing both sides. Only the greatest practitioners ever truly took this to heart and ever managed to practice both branches of magic at once.
One look at these guys and it was damn obvious, however, that they had not integrated their shadow and light sides. They had simply found some way to use both streams of power at once.
They smashed their fists together, and magic spilled up over their knuckles like splattered blood. It remained hovering in the air for half a second until it flattened back down onto their protruding veins, followed them, and wrapped around their wrists and shoulders. They screamed and punched their hands forward, opening their fingers at the same time.
I tried to hide behind my arm, but there was nothing I could do as white and black strands of magic burst out of their veins and shot toward me like chains. They instantly struck my wrists and tied them together.
I quickly recognized the magic. The feel of it was exactly the same as the compulsion that had gotten me to this hospital in the first place.
Obviously these priests had access to my compulsion charm.
I was dragged forward. Though I tried to sink my heels into the floor and hold myself on the spot, there was nothing I could damn well do. I screamed – but that achieved nothing.
Both of the priests, still acting in unison, smashed their hands to the sides, their fists still protruding. More white and black strands shot out of their veins, this time blasting into the walls beside them. They were not trying to take the hospital down around their ears. They grabbed hold of the plaster and dug it out of the walls. They could use those strands of magic like whips and lassos. Keeping hold of the plaster, they sent it spinning around me, the chunks disintegrating until they created this fine particulate cloud. I breathed it in – there was no way for me not to. It filled my lungs, and instantly my head jolted back. I could feel the magic within me now. Those same dark and light strands tried to tie me up from the inside out.
This was a visualization of the compulsion charm. The same thing had been happening to me earlier – I just hadn’t been able to hear it or see it.
I tried desperately to clutch my cross, but I couldn’t. The majority of the control charms had settled around my hands, fastening them closed like boxes under lock and key.
Both of the priests began to wave their arms. It was beautiful and almost looked like tai chi but certainly didn’t have the same calming effect. I could feel more of those particles escaping into my lungs and, instantly, their compulsion magic taking hold of me.
There was nothing I could damn well do.
“Kill her,” one of them said. “Feed the bishop power so he can return.”
Though – ostensibly – no one should be able to be fed power if they’d been taken through a Hell gate, I knew the rules were different when Hilliker was involved. I also knew that if I allowed myself to be used to give him more power, then Sonos wouldn’t have a chance.
I still didn’t know what I felt about Sonos – if I would ever truly eke out the anger in my heart – but I knew I couldn’t let him die until I understood everything.
I briefly thought of calling on my snow globe again, but I realized that would be even worse than allowing myself to be killed. Right now Sonos would be locked in a deadly, bloody battle for survival with Hilliker. If I used the snow globe, I would be drawing on the power of Sonos’s soul just when he needed it most.
So I had to get through this myself.
That mantra repeated in my mind even as the magical strands within me tightened. I could feel my very organs being strangled now.
I had a little magic at my fingertips, but that was it. And it would not be anywhere near enough. These priests were acting in unison – and when two things truly became in sync, they started to share reality. They started to become one another.
“Now,” one of them said.
Unholy energy slice through me. It settled around my heart. They were trying to squeeze it right out of my chest.
I threw my head back and screamed. Death was inevitable. The resurrection light began to surge around me, but at the last moment, I wouldn’t let it.
Sonos kept telling me that I should be more powerful than this. He promised that none of this would be happening if only I’d been strong enough to capture Hilliker myself.
Now, as I was on the edge of death, was no time to search through my soul for the last dregs of my strength, but I did it anyway. I dug right in, shifting deep, going deeper then going even deeper.
Though I had celebrated my power most of my life, to begin with, I’d loathed it. It had terrified me. It had set me apart at the orphanage, long before the resurrection curse had befallen me. And before that... it had killed or thrust away everyone I’d loved.
Though I’d like to think I’d gotten over my fear of my power, I hadn’t. It was still within me, beating in my heart, shadowing my every thought.
I was dangerous – fundamentally untrustworthy. Something that could not be loved, because inside me was a seed so dark, so chaotic, all eventually fell before it like roses chopped down by swords.
But without my power, I’d be dead. And unless I finally accepted it, I would die, over and over again, for eternity.
“Try harder,” one of the priests said, his angry tone suggesting I should be dead by now.
Though that message wasn’t directed at me, I still took it to heart.
He was right – I had to try harder. I finally had to accept my power and take it to the one place I’d never let it travel – to my heart.
“Try harder,” the other priest screamed.
I could feel their control tightening, tightening, and tightening. But I held on. I finally regained enough control of my hands to lock them into fists. Though my eyes were almost entirely closed, I caught a glimpse of those priests. Their faces paled in recognition.
They couldn’t hold me anymore.
As I dug right down, going as deeply as I could, finding that last grain of strength right within me, I screamed. This time it was no longer in pain and anguish – just strength.
I suddenly snapped the binds holding my wrists. As I jerked my hands to the side, I spread my fingers open. It was the same position I always took up when my resurrection magic pulsed through me – as long as I wasn’t in an enemy’s hands, of course.
I was not succumbing to my curse – but I was giving in to my power. As it raced and pulsed through my limbs, stretching my hands out even further until it looked as if I was trying to embrace the entire world, those priests shot back. They got several meters away then moved their hands around as they tried to grasp hold of the strands of my spell once more. But I was done with them. With my mind, I reached deep inside myself, grasped hold of the last few strands within me, and yanked them out like unwanted weeds. I didn’t simply remove them from myself – I damn well destroyed them. I snapped them off at their roots.
Both priests were still connected to them as they desperately tried to regain control of each magical strand. As I destroyed them, the destruction traveled through the spell and back into them.
They were blasted back as if I’d just shoved bombs down their throats. They fell against both walls, then crumpled until they could move no more.
Slowly I fell down to my feet. Immediately as I put weight on them, my knees cut out. I smashed down onto the floor. It was wet here, too, and murky water splashed up all over my pants and top.
Shaking, I stared at my hand, then pressed it against my eyes, then stared at it once more.
I’d done that. Those priests had been some of the most powerful practitioners I’d ever faced – let alone the fact they’d been able to fight in true unison. But I’d....
Pulling my head up, I stared at them then heard the sound of bats shrieking further into the hospital. I didn’t have any more time. I pushed up. Ignoring the weakness in my limbs, I began to run. My ankle was no longer snapped. All the injuries I had incurred had been wiped away by my resurrection magic and the snow globe. But those priests’ spell had done damage. I felt weak inside. I would hate to think what they’d done to my heart, but it still beat for now, so I would use its every effort to keep me alive.
I reached the end of the corridor. I heard more footsteps.
I had done the incredible and managed to fight back those priests, but I wouldn’t be able to do it over and over again forever.
Sonos was right. It was time for me to get out of here.
Though I could head back to the node that had brought me here, I knew that would be too dangerous. I didn’t know how many priests followed Hilliker, but I knew for a fact that it had to be more than the number I’d seen controlling that woman back at the monastery.
As soon as I thought of that woman, I almost slowed.
There was something about her that was so terribly memorable – though I couldn’t begin to recall exactly how I knew her.
As soon as I thought that, I reminded myself of Sonos’s story. If... if I really didn’t have true memories of the at
tack on the orphanage, then maybe that woman had come from there?
I ran until I reached an elevator. I was not stupid enough to take it. Not only was there no electricity, but as soon as I reached it, I stared down to see that it was just an empty shaft with the twisted remains of what had presumably been the elevator down at the bottom.
I thought I heard the screech of bats behind me. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see their fluttering bodies making their way toward me. They were not real – so they were not constrained by the usual dictates of matter. They flew right through objects – never slowing down.
So neither did I.
I dropped down the shaft. I encased myself with magic. It blasted around me as I landed against the broken remains of the elevator. As more magic spilled over my form, it lit up the walls around me, sending light dancing over each crumpled bit of steel and each snapped cable.
I’d thought that there’d be an open door at the base of the shaft, but there wasn’t. It looked as if it led to a level that had never been built.
“Shit,” I hissed just as the bats made it to the top of the shaft. They hovered for a split second, then they shunted toward me as fast as bullets.
I had no time to waste. Clutching a hand on my cross and uttering the Lord’s Prayer over and over again, I smashed a magic-encased fist against the wall. If there was no way through, I would damn well make myself one. As I brought my fist back and blasted it into the metal once more, the first of the bats reached me. They grabbed my arm and tried to sink their teeth into it. I just let more magic spill over me until I managed to force the bats back.
But more reached me. I continued to punch through the wall until finally I saw a glimpse of a room before me.
The bats surrounded me. They tried to lift me up off my feet. As they moved, I could feel their energy pushing into me. It was insidious – easily the darkest thing I’d ever felt. It was there to rob me of my power – of my will to live.
One or two even reached me and sunk their teeth into my arms and the side of my face.
Better off Dead Book Two Page 8
