by Everly Frost
I exhale, deciding not to push it. “Okay, well, remember that they’re both mages. They don’t have strong magical abilities but they could use their powers against us. Now… they’re at the far-left table. Name the plan.”
Archer says, “The boy is our priority. As much as I’d love to end these guys, his safety is all that matters. Give me a minute and I’ll be back with their room number. Then we can get the boy out of here before we go after the mages.”
I’m not sure how she’s going to get their room number, but I let her go while I casually lean against the marble column, crossing one booted foot over the other in a nonchalant pose.
She keeps to the edges, gliding effortlessly through the crowd, drawing no attention whatsoever. I quietly observe the way she casually assesses the crowd, the way she takes in the exit routes, the clusters of people, and the pathways between them. Her observations are quick, careful, and deliberate.
She moves behind a group of players standing near a table and then… I lose her.
I frown, searching the crowd and all the possible places she could have gone, swiveling from the bar to the table where our targets are playing blackjack. There’s no sign of her until…
Well, what do you know?
She said she didn’t know how to blur, but right now she’s giving off a gentle glow that only I can see, her silhouette like glass, shimmering like a female-shaped waterfall as she creeps up behind our targets, bends to her shoe right next to Scott’s chair, then carefully straightens and backs away. She glides toward me, stepping behind the same group of people before she becomes visible again.
Nobody else saw a thing and our targets are oblivious.
I wonder if she knows what she was doing. She lived her life in the shadows so blending into her surroundings would have been a necessary skill and second nature to her.
Reaching me, she doesn’t stop, pushing a cold object into my hand as she pulls me with her. “Room key. Let’s go.”
Taking the elevator to the fifth floor, we keep our movements quick but calm, ensuring we don’t draw attention as we stride to the room and unlock the door.
“Closet,” Archer says, heading straight for it.
It has two doors, the handles chained together in the middle. She wraps her fingers around the chain and pulls it, snapping the metal with her bare hands. “Normally, I wouldn’t do that in front of anyone, but you already know about me.”
The boy is huddled in the bottom of the closet, knees drawn to his chest, his eyes closed. He’s barely more than five years old, his forehead clammy, his hair plastered to his face. It’s far too hot inside the small space.
“Those animals.” Archer quickly takes his pulse. “Drugged. We need to get him to a hospital. I wish I could fly him there.”
She brushes the hair from his face and picks him up, drawing him gently to her chest. She is so careful with him, I’m reminded of Briar’s description of her as a good person. It makes me wonder what kind of person she would have been if she grew up with her real parents.
I don’t want to leave her, but at some point I will have to take another leap of faith and let her out of my sight. “Actually, if you give him to me, I can get him to the hospital and be back within five minutes.”
She stares at me. “How?”
“If I blur, I can move really fast.”
Her eyes narrow slightly. She’s perceptive, but the boy’s safety must be more important to her than answers, because she carefully transfers him into my arms. “Make sure he’s safe. I’ll stay here and wait for our friends.”
I give her a hard look. “Stay out of sight until I return. Do not engage them. Remember you’re only sanctioned to kill Kurt. Also, mind their powers.”
She gives me a half-smile. “I guess I’ll get myself a drink at the bar then.”
“I’ll meet you there in five minutes.”
I race from the room, blur, and harness my power to give me speed, opting for the fire stairs rather than the elevator. Once outside, I take off from the front steps, ruffling the nearby passersby with the sudden wind from my wings. Heading for the hospital where I took Annabeth’s Mom, I arrive in two minutes flat, materializing at the side of the building before racing the boy inside.
The same nurse from that night runs toward me, quickly calling for help before he takes the boy from me.
I say, “Kidnapped and drugged.”
I give him the boy’s mother’s name, but before I can turn away, the nurse says, “I know who you are.”
I freeze, swivel my gaze in his direction, and assess his earnest brown eyes, before I check my surroundings, looking for threats. The exit is wide open behind me and I’m not opposed to blurring right in front of him. Nobody would believe him anyway.
He says, “Many injured people used to come through these doors. Our streets are safer now. Keep doing what you’re doing.”
With that, he turns away, speaking urgently to the orderlies who hurry up to him with a medical stretcher for the boy.
I race back into the air, a strange warmth filtering through to my heart. By the time I reach the casino, I’ve been gone for four and a half minutes. Long enough for anything to happen…
Archer isn’t at the bar. The men aren’t at their table.
I hover, half-concealed behind an opulent drape as I scan the room for them, trying not to panic. I need Archer for so many reasons, but I won’t deny that she’s finding her way into my heart. I don’t want anything to happen to her. She doesn’t deserve more heartache in her life.
A hand lands on my shoulder—a big, sweaty man’s hand. I grab it, twist, and push. Kurt snarls and tries to wrench out of my grip, his brown eyes glaring at me as I push him straight across the corridor and into an empty gaming room where we are out of sight and a fight won’t draw attention.
The door clicks shut as soon as we pass through it. I push him off me and whirl to find Scott leaning against the door with a big smile on his face.
I guess that explains why Kurt didn’t fight back just now.
Archer is slumped in a chair on the opposite side of the large, round gaming table, her head and shoulders resting on it, her hair spread across its surface. Her hands are bound behind her back and her eyes are closed. It’s difficult to see if she’s breathing, but the color in her cheeks is a good sign. The back of her shirt is flipped up high enough for me to see that her guns are missing.
Hmm. I watched this woman break a steel chain with her bare hands. I’m not sure zip-ties are going to pose a challenge for her once she wakes.
In fact… I’m not convinced that she’s unconscious…
“We thought it might be our turn one day,” Kurt says. “So, we kept an eye out for you, Glass Arrow.”
Scott joins his friend as they prowl toward me.
I back away, slowly rounding the table so I can move closer to Archer.
As they follow me, their movements are so coordinated that I’m surprised they aren’t brothers. Telepathy maybe. I’ll have to watch out for that. Right now, Scott poses the greater threat since there is a lot of wood inside this room. Kurt, on the other hand, carries an abundance of guns, which he isn’t afraid to show me, pulling out a shotgun complete with a silencer. He reveals that he now carries Archer’s weapon tucked into the holster around his waist, along with her tranquilizer gun and three other weapons. I assume that Scott has a similar arsenal under his shirt, but his would consist of knives rather than guns.
Kurt appears a little perplexed. “We thought you’d put up more of a fight.”
I reach Archer’s side, noting the flicker of her eyelashes.
“Oh, honey,” I say to Kurt. “You thought we had a fight already?”
Archer opens her eyes, her arms straining for a second before she snaps her bindings and pushes back her chair.
The two mages freeze in their tracks. It never fails to surprise me how arrogance can cloud a person’s judgment.
Archer rises to her full height. “Well,
look where we are. An empty room. No collateral damage.”
I give her a smile. Nicely done, Archer.
“The only damage will be to your face,” Kurt snarls.
She smiles sweetly. “Yours first. Oh, wait. I already did that.”
Kurt fires his weapon, aiming right at Archer’s eyes, but she’s already on the move, ducking and flipping the table. At the same time, a plume of flame billows from Kurt’s gun, spearing in my direction.
Damn! He can use the spark inside his gun to create flame. That would explain why they are his weapon of choice.
I back-flip out of the path of fire, checking Archer’s position. The table rises into the air, but it’s not Archer’s doing. Scott lifts his arms, pushing his hands forward. The wooden table curves like putty in response to his magic, forming a three-sided cage that crashes into Archer.
She’s ready for it, turning her shoulder to take the impact. In fact, she not only takes the impact, she launches herself at the table.
Crack! The table splinters against her body. My ears pop with the sound.
Scott recoils in shock as Archer plows through the explosion of wood and debris, deftly catching a spiraling wooden shard in each hand while she races toward him. He barely has time to get his arms up before she launches herself across the space between them. One spike is aimed for his eye, the other for his heart.
But he’s not her target!
A shout dies in my throat.
At the last moment, she angles the wooden spikes away from his body, spearing them neatly through his clothing instead. The force propels him back against the wall and the spikes thud into it, pinning him.
In the next moment, Kurt is on me.
Like Archer, I’m facing the wrong guy. But unlike Archer, I have my tranquilizer gun. It would be merciless to tranquilize Kurt and allow Archer to kill him in cold blood but I pull up the memory of the boy’s flushed face and my conscience clears.
I race out of the path of Kurt’s bullets, bouncing off a chair onto the wall, then leaping off it while spinning to avoid the spray. He dashes left to narrowly avoid the tranquilizer darts I shoot at him, returning fire as he goes. A plume of flame bursts after me, singing the back of my shirt.
The next ball of fire comes right at me, forcing me to lower my firearm and duck beneath the flames. I take the heat as I opt for a more direct approach, barreling straight at him. He knocks my tranquilizer gun wide and nearly gets off a shot at me at close range, but I come up under his gun arm and push it high. His finger squeezes the trigger in reflex—his second-last bullet; I’ve been counting—and the weapon fires into the ceiling. The bullet hits the ceiling, the plaster ripples, and the projectile disappears without making a mark.
Wait… what?
Only Realm magic can do that.
Is it Amalia? But I don’t smell roses…
Kurt appears as surprised as I am, growling at me as he grapples to wrench himself free from my grip. “What game are you playing, assassin?”
“Only the one that gets you killed.”
Behind him, Scott is pinned to the wall by a string of wooden shards, along with daggers that Archer must have stolen from Scott’s weapons belt.
He quickly frees himself, using his magic to remove the wooden shards and throw them at Archer’s back as she zigzags toward me and Kurt, a dagger clenched in her hand.
Weapon raised, she launches herself at Kurt’s back… her true target.
I grab one of the guns on Kurt’s belt, wrenching the weapon free just in time. Archer is about to plow into him and I don’t plan to be under him when she does. I let go of his weapon arm and slip to the side…
Kurt shouts as Archer hits his back, her dagger meeting his neck in one brutal plunge.
At the same time, I aim and fire three rapid shots into Scott as he launches himself off the wall. He crashes back against it, dropping instantly.
But Kurt’s focus is still on me, the life fading from his eyes as he lowers his weapon arm, falling at the same time as he aims his gun squarely at my heart.
He pulls the trigger one last time.
Chapter Sixteen
A warm object hits me from the side. The floor rises up at me and I crash into it, a heavy weight descending across my torso. The air whooshes out of my lungs and blood splatters across my chest.
The bullet bites the floor beside me.
Everything spins.
I try to catch up with what happened…
Fall, floor, bullet. The bullet didn’t hit me but there’s blood… so much blood…
Slade materializes above me, his torso and one leg pressing down on me. He groans as he pushes himself up so I can see his face. He clutches one arm across his chest. He’s only wearing a shirt and jeans, not protective gear. He must have come straight here. The bullet tore right through him at close range.
He groans. “I wasn’t interfering…”
I say, “I don’t care about the Code. We need to stop the bleeding.”
“I’ll live,” he says, attempting to lever himself off me, but his arm buckles and his eyes squeeze shut. He wheezes, “I might need a moment. I think it tore through my lung. If that bullet had hit you, Hunter…”
Across the way, Archer follows Kurt’s body to the ground, landing with one knee across his back.
Her focus spins to me, her gaze landing on Slade. “Hunter! No!”
She launches to her feet, wrenching the dagger out of Kurt and leaping toward Slade. “Get off her!”
Oh no…
Slade meets my eyes for a split second before silver light floods his own. He rolls out of the way just as Archer’s dagger descends toward his spine. She retracts her arm, flipping over me so that she doesn’t hurt me, landing in a crouch beside me. Her hand descends to my chest, to the blood seeping across my clothing.
Her eyes are wide with shock and fear. She thinks the blood is mine. “No… Hunter… I promised to watch your back…”
Her head snaps up to Slade.
She screams, “You hurt her!”
Slade steps backward, his power flooding his body in a silver haze, desperately attempting to heal his injury as fast as possible. He lifts his free hand, palm out. He’s trying to heal and speak at the same time but all his energy is being sapped by his body.
I recognize his open palm as a gesture of peace but Archer doesn’t. The moment Slade moves, she pitches the dagger into the wall beside his face and leaps toward him.
I cry, “No, Archer! Don’t touch him—” If she touches him right now while his body is flooded with Valkyrie power, it will kill her.
Slade’s eyes shoot wide as he realizes the danger. At the last possible moment, he shuts his power off.
Archer’s fist connects with his face, knocking him backward. She follows it up with another, hitting him fast, furious. Brutal. Where before her actions were calculated and controlled, she is now a wash of emotions. She thinks she let me down. She thinks it’s her fault.
I roll to my feet, launching myself forward.
Slade blocks her blows but it means releasing the pressure on his chest that is staunching the blood flow. Without his power, he isn’t healing. He is barely conscious. She lands a hard blow to his shoulder, smacking him against the wall where his legs buckle and his chin drops to his chest.
Archer draws her fist back for a final hit.
I’m almost to her, reaching out to stop her, harnessing my power to speed my movements.
Just as I stretch toward her, copper light floods the space around her shoulders. A glimmer of power flickers through her arm toward her hand. A single spark to power her fist.
A deadly spark.
“Stop!”
My hand lands on her shoulder. I meet her power with a spark of my own.
Electricity ignites between us, a force that silences the space around us. Then it explodes.
The impact throws Archer forward and me back. She hits the wall and I hit the floor, sliding across it into Kurt’s body
. I gasp for breath, the world spinning.
I try to stand, wobble, and then drop to the floor again. My legs are numb, no feeling in them at all. C’mon, Hunter. Get up!
Archer lies on the floor, struggling to push up onto her hands, clutching her head with a groan of pain.
Slade slumps against the wall beside her, one shoulder lower than the other, his head dropped to his chest. Even from this distance I can see that he… isn’t… moving.
Oh, please…
I can’t spread my wings, can’t find my power right now, so I drag myself across the floor, fear fueling my actions, giving me strength as I claw my way toward him, my useless legs trailing behind me. I reach his feet, his legs, grappling with the space between us, reaching his side and pulling myself up beside him, stretching for his face, his chest.
“Wake up! Slade, wake up!” I push and pull at him, shaking him, pressing my hands against his cheeks, lifting his head to see his face. His eyes are closed, his skin deathly pale, only the faintest breath of air passing his lips. “Use your power. Damn you, Slade. Use your power!”
He doesn’t move, doesn’t breathe.
Blood flows from his wound. He has already lost too much blood and he deliberately shut his power down so he wouldn’t hurt Archer. He passed out with his power blocked and now… he’s almost gone.
“You are not leaving me. Don’t make me give you another feather, Slade Baines.” I clutch his face and scream at him. “Slade!”
Nearby, Archer pulls herself upright, pressed hard against the wall as if she wants to become part of it and disappear. She glimmers at the edges, on the verge of blurring, her eyes wide, face pale with shock.
“Hunter?” Her gaze shoots between me and Slade. “Slade Baines… what the…? What is going on?”
I don’t have time to explain.
I press my forehead to his, squeezing my eyes closed. The warmth is fading from his body, but he can’t die… not like this…
I couldn’t save William but Slade’s power is still there. Under the surface. Somewhere. It has to be.
I don’t take my time.
