The minotaur didn’t bother to snap at me that I would do what I had to. He could see that realization moistening my eyes and making tears trail down my cheeks.
We suddenly had to duck to the side as the window beside us shattered. A concierge couldn’t get to it in time. This groping hand made out of dark clouds shot toward me. The minotaur got in its way. With a grunt, he thrust forward, opened his arms, and let magic spill over his form. He counteracted the darkness, holding it back. It was so hard that he could only just move his head. I heard it creaking as if it was attached to an old tree that was about to snap under a violent wind.
“No,” I spluttered. I shoved a hand out to him, my knuckles shaking as my entire body strained.
“The transport node is in the primary office. Go.”
I didn’t move fast enough, so he roared until the entire floor shook. “Go.”
I turned. My face was now completely covered in tears. I shrieked as another window beside me shattered. Before one more of those groping black cloud-like hands could reach my way more staff members came.
Everyone was... everyone was sacrificing themselves for me.
I could barely see through my tears. I kept running. I didn’t know where the office was, but I could judge it was somewhere in the middle of the building. Sure enough, I came across a big red door that could only lead to one place. It jolted open, and more staff members threw themselves out. It seemed that every single one of them was content to risk their lives.
I turned. The corridor behind me was virtually nothing but windows. Hundreds of staff members were protecting them. The storm outside boiled. It looked like death itself come to life. As I watched it sweep in low over Berlin, it gobbled up every other light. I could barely see the towers and stacks and buildings. All there was was destruction.
With one last tear, I squeezed my eyes closed, turned, and threw myself in through the door.
The office was a large, expansive place. You would think, based on the age of the tunnel system and the sheer importance of this building, that this room would be styled in an old opulent design. It wasn’t. It looked more like some kind of command hub from a transport substation. There were consoles everywhere, blinking computers, and lines of magical light connecting them. There was a massive screen on the far wall that appeared to show the condition of the vaults. Unsurprisingly right now it was glowing red, and a warning sign was flickering over it in German.
There was virtually no one left in the control room anymore.
I didn’t need to ask anyone where the transport hub was – that was obvious. It was demarcated by a permanently glowing line of magical light in the middle of the room.
I heard more screams from outside. I closed my eyes briefly, tears trailing down my cheeks. “It’ll all be over soon. I promise.”
I went to throw myself at the transport node, but that would be when the entire floor shook. It was so violent, I had no way to keep myself standing. I was thrown hard to the side. Though I tried to leap, I wasn’t in time. My leg banged up against the sharp side of one of those consoles.
I went to shove up, but that would be when something shoved up through the floor instead. It wrapped around my ankle in a perfect replay of what had occurred in the vault system.
As my eyes snapped wide open, I realized the vault system was cracking.
I jerked my head up to see one of those priest hands. It was completely covered in dark, dancing light. It snaked through the veins, ran around the wrist, and infected the nail beds until it looked as if they would crumble to ash.
I tried to kick the hand off, but it just held me harder. It distracted me as yet another hand burst up from behind. It grabbed my shoulder.
No damn way. I was not going to go down like this. Not when that repenting priest had lost his life to save me.
With a roar splitting my lips and spittle covering my chin, I jerked up. I used a blast of magic. It sailed high around my form, lighting me up like a candle. With a grunt, I shoved forward and broke both of the grips of those shadowy hands. I instantly rolled. I did not stay on the floor. Nor did I lurch toward the transport node. I didn’t have time. A priest was rising through the floor just in front of it. He was clad in this black arcing magic. It looked like lightning – a strike that, paradoxically, had no light.
By the time he had manifested in full, he quickly opened his hands. Energy spun around him. It was strong enough that I swore it was sucking the air out of the room. My hair was dragged over my face and whipped in front of me like a wet sheet.
I darted up one of the consoles to my side. I flipped when a priest appeared right behind it and grasped for my wrist.
I landed on another console. I smashed it up, my heels indenting the small screen and sending a crack running through it.
I could now count at least five priests. It was only just the beginning. Behind me, the primary view screen was now blinking with so many warning lights, it was as if it was telling everyone Armageddon was on its way. And as far as these tunnels were concerned, it was. Because the pocket space had been breached.
I’d assumed that in attacking here, Hilliker’s darkness spell had just been after me. But it was trying to kill two birds with one stone.
The massive priest who’d appeared in front of the transport node cracked his knuckles. That black energy danced around him far more violently. It arced high, spun around in a clockwise circle, then changed direction. Then in a snap, it jerked toward me.
I just managed to dodge. But that meant I had to land back down on the floor. A mistake. Two shadowy priest hands instantly broke through the surface of the floor and snagged my ankles. I tried to jerk away, but they held me too tightly. I fell down on my face with a bang.
Gasping for air, I tried to jerk back, but that would be when something wrapped around my mouth. A priest had jolted in from behind. He had something clutched in one of his hands. I started to see stars. As his pernicious magic sank into me, I began to black out. But just before I could, the fear of the situation caught up with me. I swore I saw the faces of every single person I’d lost. They stood there, lined up in front of me, telling me I had to keep trying, because if I didn’t, I would never make up for not saving them.
With a roar that could’ve broken the earth in two, I smashed through the priests holding my ankles. That was no overemphasis. There were bone-shattering cracks as I snapped the priests’ hands.
As for the guy who’d tried to grab my mouth – as he began to manifest, I head-butted him. It was a strong move, and as lines of magic spun around my head, they sank into his, knocking him out in one sweet moment.
I jolted up in time to see the major priest in the middle of the room starting to chant. It sounded Latin – if Latin had been dipped in poison. The entire room reacted to it. The floor began to shake so badly, the whole surface cracked. As dust erupted everywhere and I was forced down onto my knees, I tried to get a handle on how many priests there were. At first there were 10, then 20, then 30. Granted, this room was large, but it couldn’t fit a whole army in it.
“Move in,” that main priest snarled.
All of the other priests jerked toward me. All I could do was watch their hands. They lost all of their own light. It now had been completely consumed by those lines of chaos force. As their hands opened, I got this deep sense of unreality. It was as if for a minute I thought I was back in a dream. They tried to convince me not to take this fight seriously – as if this was nothing but an illusion and all I had to do was ignore it. But do that, and they would snap my neck.
At the last moment, I shrugged down, condensing in on myself, falling into the fetal position at their feet. But this was not me giving up. This was me contracting and getting ready to explode. With a scream that could have torn through my throat and everyone else’s, I blasted up. Magic sailed around me. It threw the priests off, chucking them against the far walls.
A few of them were down and out, but not all of them. That central priest final
ly moved. He was clearly protecting the transport node, but as he watched me mow through his priests as easily as a samurai sword to a blade of grass, he finally took a menacing step forward. He pushed his hands out of his long sleeves. If I’d thought the other priests’ appendages were bad, then I had another thing coming. His hands... they weren’t hands anymore, let’s put it that way. They appeared to be extensions of black holes. Just by looking at them, I saw that there was no life left in them. There was nothing but the dark promise of chaos.
While I’d dispatched some of the priests, the rest were picking themselves up.
I couldn’t fight on every front at once. Something the central priest well knew. While he didn’t have hands anymore, he still had eyes. They were hollowing out in front of me, and it looked as if unreality was picking up in the pupils like imminent explosions, but they were there for now. He smiled, the slight move cracking across his lips like water across a forever-desert. He opened his lips once and said a single word. “Now.”
Something happened to the room. Specifically, the space began to warp. I’d been in some pretty confusing situations over the past week. I’d been down to the Deep, for God’s sake. I’d survived Purgatory. I’d even crossed that event horizon into the condensed pocket space of the tunnels. But this was something else entirely.
In a blink, he turned gravity off. And in a blink, he appeared to turn off every other physical property of matter, as well. There was suddenly no light, no heat, no nothing. All there was was me and him.
If you were wondering how I could locate him considering all of the physical properties of space had been removed, the one thing that remained was sound. I heard his hissing breath. It was right in front of me. I thought he wrapped his hands around my throat, but I wasn’t even sure I had one of those anymore. I went to scream, but I couldn’t force it out of my lips.
As he tightened his force around me, I could feel Hilliker’s need spreading through me. It made sense that Hilliker could possess his own men – just as it made sense that they were stupid enough to allow themselves to be possessed. If you were a true adherent of the church, you would understand that as soon as you allowed yourself to be possessed – whether it be by the light or dark – you would forsake yourself. For in possession, you freely give away your soul, and you are meant to retain that for God.
This guy was way past caring about breaking the central tenet of his religion. I heard his breath right by my cheek as he hissed in satisfaction.
I felt his fingers around my throat – but it only lasted a few seconds. In a few more, I wasn’t certain I had a throat anymore.
I knew I had to fight him off. If I didn’t.... Everyone had been telling me that I couldn’t allow myself to be killed again. Do that, and I would reduce in power only for Hilliker and his men to grow exponentially.
I closed my eyes. I channeled my power within. I could not clutch my rings nor my cross. There was nothing around me.
So all I had were my memories, my hope, my mind, and that little part of myself that always kept going, no matter what. It’s her that I clutched for.
I’d told myself that I had no idea why Sonos would have made a wisdom parchment based on my 16-year-old self, but as I momentarily realigned with her, I realized why. She had been so determined. She had been a fighter – way more than I was now. She had known what she was on this earth to do, and she had studied and pushed herself to do it. It didn’t matter that I had subsequently forgotten that. I was ready to channel her once more. With a scream, I accessed that power, and I let it blast out of me. I didn’t direct it in any way. I let it do what it needed to. As it sailed out, there was a splutter and a bang. It smashed into the priest and wrenched him off me. It did something to whatever unreality hex he’d cast, and the illumination came back in a snap. I saw myself down on my knees in front of the transport node.
He’d been blasted back several meters.
I jolted forward. I reached the transport node and slammed a hand down into the middle of it, letting charges of magic escape from my skin and activate it.
But the priest wasn’t done yet. Just as I activated it, he grabbed my ankle. He was pulled down with me.
I landed back in Sonos’s library.
Taking the priest with me had not been on the cards, however.
Mr. Fenticle was waiting there for me. But as soon as he saw the priest, his mouth jerked open, and he screamed. He ran for the vault box.
The priest opened his eyes wide and stared at me, but quickly jerked his head around and saw the vault box. Recognition flooded his expression. With a cry, he jolted to his feet. He opened his hands.
He was no doubt getting ready to cast some spell that would help Hilliker break out. As I glanced to the side, I saw that the candle had almost completely melted.
I jerked to my feet. I jolted forward. I reached the guy and wrapped an arm around his throat. I began to chant, every damn spell I knew. He chanted his spells, too.
“Take... take the vault box out of here. The candle too. Close the door. I’ve got this,” I screamed at Mr. Fenticle.
He didn’t question. Scurrying as quickly as he could, he grabbed up the candle, secured the vault box harder under his arm, and ran for the door.
The mansion helped him, opening the door and then slamming it closed once he was through.
The priest hissed right in my ear, frustration and anger building in him. It gave him a blast of power, and he used it to elbow me in the ribs. I fell back, a snap echoing through my chest. I ignored it and jolted up. I flipped to the side. He went for the door. I thrust forward, locked an arm around his middle, and threw him into one of the shelves. Books hailed down everywhere, a few of them magical enough that sparks scattered across the carpet.
He grunted, twisted onto his back, then smashed me in the face with a magic-laced fist.
I took the blow, flipped onto my hands, landed beside him, rounded my shoulder, and smashed it into his chest. I let magic spill out in every direction. It was starting to singe the carpet. Before I’d come here, this library had looked perfect. Now it was a right old mess.
“You cannot delay the inevitable. Maybe by a few minutes, but it will still come.” The priest hissed at me and went for my throat.
I jerked back, kicked him in the stomach, and flipped. As I placed a hand flat on the floor and looked up at him through the scraps of my messy fringe, I sneered. “You just said I can’t delay the inevitable – then you admitted it wouldn’t matter. Pick one.”
He did not pick one. Instead, he selected a hex. He jerked a hand behind him, shoved it into a subspace pocket, and drew out a dried-up eyeball. I had a chance to balk at it before he threw it in the air in front of me. It suspended itself in a cloud of magic. Then the eyelid opened. It blinked once.
I froze. It was a petrification curse.
The priest wasted no time. He jolted into me. He practically climbed me as he wrapped his arms around different parts of me in turn. Then he reached the one thing he cared about. My throat.
I saw his eyes bulge with hatred and greed as he stared at me. “Your death will bring Hilliker right back. There will be no more delays.”
I tried to headbutt him, but he just took it. It was a strong move, and it cut his brow. Blood trailed down – for a few seconds until it turned into black sludge.
He tightened his grip around my throat. I watched as fervor and hatred spread through his gaze like wildfire.
I tried to shove him off. I couldn’t. Fear bolted through me as I lost the ability to breathe.
I could not die again. Dammit. I could not die again.
Acting completely on instinct, I shoved a hand behind me into my subspace pocket. I went to pull out my snow globe. But... it wasn’t there. It was still down in the Deep.
My hands still clutched at whatever was closest nonetheless as my life was taken from me second by second. I grabbed the pen and wisdom parchment.
For just a fraction of a second, his eyes widened. O
bviously he’d been expecting some kind of attack, but as he saw a piece of paper and a pen, he just laughed right in my face. Spittle flew over my cheeks and eyelids. “You lost your last chance. It’s over.”
I gripped the pen. I didn’t have a sword, but this would have to do. I rammed it into his neck. I didn’t honestly think it would break the flesh. He practically didn’t have flesh anymore. He had a loose conglomeration of anger, chaos, and old human skin. But this was no ordinary pen. It was a perfect conduit for my magic. As I rammed it down into his neck, it actually sank in.
He screamed. Light began to spill out of the pen. It blasted up over his throat, across his face, and around his eyes. “What?” he spluttered. “A demon pen?”
Demon pen? He was saying that as if it was one of the scariest weapons out there.
It took half a second, but then I realized it was. This was no mere piece of stationary. Demon pens – especially those that belonged to generals of Hell – presided over contracts. Strong, forever-binding magical contracts. That energy was in this pen.
He tried to grab my throat again, but I just shoved the pen in harder. I gave it every scrap of power I had. As tears streamed down my eyes and my whole body quaked, I pushed my energy in and in and in.
He tried to fight me with everything he had, but the pen was too mighty. More and more of its energy spilled into him. It brought order to the chaos marching over his body. Wherever it met those dark lines of light, it thrust them back.
I watched his mouth open. It was a mistake – because he couldn’t hold it together anymore. His teeth fell out of his jaw. Then his lips fell off. Then the whole lower half of his face.
Fortunately his flesh didn’t splash against me with bloody wet slaps. It just drifted into dust and disappeared in a few finite sparks.
I kicked him in the sternum and pushed him off me. I plucked the pen back just in time to see his eyes roll into the back of his head and his body turned to ash.
Better off Dead Book Four Page 7
