Chariots of Wrath

by R. L. King

  Boo-hoo, Selene, I’m gonna mess up your art project. Sorry not sorry.

  As I reach the circle’s edge, I risk a glance up. Selene is pulling herself back up, but slowly. She still looks dazed. Slugger, that’s what they should start calling me. Slugger Broome. It has a ring to it.

  On the other side, the shadowy half-dome is breaking apart, flowing away from a swaying Nick—but it doesn’t look like it’s retreating. Instead, it slides across the floor and, as I watch in horror, heads straight for me and Twyla.

  Panting, heart thudding, feet skidding on the concrete floor, I try to pour on more speed—but adrenaline only goes so far. I’m slowing down, and Twyla’s getting heavier. I dart my gaze around in desperation—there’s got to be something in here I can use as a weapon—but I don’t see anything.

  After all this, it’s going to get us, and there isn’t a damn thing I can do about it.

  I let Twyla fall to the floor and raise my hands, focusing as hard as I can to bring the magic. Anything. I’ve got to do something. There is no way I’m going down without a fight.

  Magical energy flowers around my hands, and for an instant I think maybe I’ll be able to do it. That maybe whichever gods look out for half-trained mages in desperate situations might smile on me, just this once.

  But then I lose my focus, the energy flickers and dies, and I’m left there holding my one hundred percent non-magical hands up like I’m trying to ward off a speeding freight train with a folding chair.

  My only hope is to get to Nick, and hope his glitch power will run it off again. But he’s all the way on the other side of the room, and there’s no chance I can get there fast enough even if I was willing to abandon Twyla and make a run for it.

  In short, it’s not looking good for Slugger Broome and the home team.

  The looming black shadows have almost reached us now. I clutch Twyla close and glare at Razakal, fighting to summon a magical shield around us. It’s another spell I learned early in my apprenticeship—I was never very good at it, and I have no idea if I can even do it now, but maybe if I can hold him off long enough to drag Twyla over—

  The shield pops up around us, faint and shimmering—but then immediately goes down again as the black shadows flow into it. Magical feedback drives a spike into my brain, and I drop to my knees. A quick glance over my shoulder reveals Nick lying on the floor—whatever that black dome did to him, he’s either unconscious or dead, so there’s no hope of him getting to us, either.

  “Sorry, Twy,” I whisper in her ear. “I tried…”

  And then, suddenly, as the black shadows are inches away from us, something grabs hold of me. My shoulders feel like a huge man with an iron grip has just clamped onto me, but nothing’s there.

  “Hold on to her!” yells a voice.

  It takes me a second to figure out whose voice it is. I tense with shock. Selene?

  She’s kneeling in the center of the dead circle, her face bone white, bright red blood running down the side of her face where I clocked her. Her gaze is fixed on me, and her hands are raised. Her eyes plead with me.

  I have no idea what she’s up to, but there’s no time for analysis. I snake my arms under Twyla’s, locking my grip an instant before both of us are snatched off the floor and flung sideways.

  It’s not a gentle toss, but a mad, desperate throw. I twist in the air, trying to protect Twyla as we both crash down. My back lights up with pain, and I barely avoid smacking my head on the concrete floor.

  Across the room, Razakal is rumbling again, louder, the rocks-against-rocks sound full of rage. Red lights flash around the black shadows.

  Why is he still there?

  Why isn’t he coming after us?

  And then I get it.

  Selene didn’t just fling us away.

  She flung us next to Nick.

  We both lie on the ground, twisted up with each other, less than a foot away from him. He’s struggling up now, still looking bewildered—whatever that shadow did to him must have stunned him.

  But that’s okay. I break my grip on Twyla and fling one arm around Nick, pulling the three of us together. He’s clearly confused, but obligingly throws his own arm around both of us.

  The enraged rumble grows louder, until it echoes around the soundstage’s high ceiling. The shadows flow toward us, but stop before they reach us.

  He won’t come near us!

  “He’s afraid of your power!” I yell to Nick. “Hold on tight and don’t let go!” I dart my gaze around the soundstage, suddenly grateful there’s nothing here Razakal can throw at us.

  But then another truth dawns: He doesn’t want us dead. He wants our souls.

  And as long as we’re near Nick, he can’t take them.

  I tighten my grip around Nick. He yelps in pain, but I don’t care. They only thing that’s saving us now is staying as close to each other as we can.

  For a few more seconds, the swirling black shadows pause there, moving back and forth twenty feet away from us. The red flashes arc back and forth, faster and faster, as the enraged rumbling rocks get louder. The blackness swirls and writhes, taking on a form that’s almost but not quite humanoid, big and wide and menacing.

  My breath quickens. I’m shaking, and so is Nick. Has Razakal figured out a way around our last, desperate plan?

  But then, just as I think I can’t hold on a second longer, the figure whirls away.

  Toward Selene.

  She figures out what’s happening an instant after I do. Still kneeling there on the ground, her eyes get huge. Her mouth opens wide in a shrieking scream. She rears back, flinging her arms up. Her scream joins the rumbling rocks to form a sound so horrible I know it will haunt my nightmares for the rest of my life, but I don’t dare break my hold on Nick and Twyla to cover my ears.

  I wish I hadn’t watched what happens next, but it’s over before I can look away.

  The hulking black shadow-form slides across the floor toward Selene, spreading its arms wide. Her scream, if it’s even possible, pitches higher and louder as the shadow engulfs her.

  Something flies out of her mouth: something as black and sinuous as Razakal’s own form. It writhes there in the air for a moment, then streaks toward Razakal and disappears inside him. Another image flashes through my mind: Twyla’s description of her dream, of how something flew from Mara’s body as she died and entered the largest form on the other side of the circle.

  The one behind Selene.

  She’s still screaming.

  Oh, gods, he’s taking her soul!

  And then her scream cuts off abruptly as her body explodes.

  There’s really no other way to describe it. One second she’s kneeling there, terrified, waving her arms and trying to ward Razakal off, and the next, it’s as if someone had planted a series of bombs inside her and set them all off at once. I clamp my eyes shut, but too late.

  And then, silence.

  For several seconds I remain there, eyes closed, not caring if Razakal is still there. I clutch Nick and Twyla to me, resting my chin on Nick’s shoulder, and shake. Nick’s still shaking too.

  Under my hands, Twyla finally stirs.

  I’ve got to do this. I’ve got to see. Swallowing hard, I crack my eyes open and look toward the circle.

  The scene looks like something out of a war zone. There’s blood everywhere, obscuring the circle itself and spreading out beyond its edges. I don’t see a single identifiable body part. Whatever Razakal did to Selene, it must have been thorough.

  I don’t see any sign of Razakal, either. The shadowy form is gone like it had never been here. I look around quickly, trying to see into the soundstage’s corners, glancing up in case he’s lurking near the ceiling, but I already know he’s gone. There’s a subtle change in the air, or maybe in the magical ambient. I can’t tell for sure, but I trust it.

  “Can we let go now?” Nick asks. His voice is muffled against Twyla’s shoulder.

  “I…think so.” Tentatively, I break
my grip around them and slump back on my knees, trying to let the tension drain out of my shoulders.

  “Holy shit…” he whispers. He nods toward the spreading spray of blood. “Was that…?”

  “Selene. Yeah. I think when Razakal couldn’t have our souls, he took hers instead.”

  From next to me comes a sob. Twyla’s eyes are open now, and she’s staring at the scene with an expression of pure horror. She flings her arms around me, burying her face in my shoulder, and continues sobbing.

  I pull her close. “It’s okay, Twy,” I say softly. “It’s over. It’s gonna be okay now.”

  “Hey, somebody in here?” calls a loud male voice. “Nick? Bron?”

  It takes me a second to recognize it, but when I do, I slump in relief. “Max…” I murmur.

  The door on the far side of the room slams open and Max strides in, followed by a bunch of other people I don’t recognize. Quentin Happenstance isn’t with them.

  “Great timing!” I call to him. I’m sure he’ll catch the sarcasm in my tone, but honestly I’m half-serious. If he’d shown up earlier, Razakal probably would have killed him and his whole crew. Not to mention taken their souls.

  He skids to a stop, staring at the blood. “What the hell…happened in here?”

  Nick climbs to his feet. “Long story, man,” he says wearily. “But I hope Grandfather has a cleanup crew handy.”

  Chapter Thirty

  Two Days Later

  “Are you absolutely sure I can’t change your mind?”

  I press myself against the wall, trying to stay out of the way of the crowd of people moving toward the security checkpoint at the terminal. “Come on, Twy. Don’t make this hard, okay?”

  “I’m trying to make it hard. I want you to come home. No offense,” she says to Nick.

  Nick doesn’t reply, but I shake my head. “I get it. Part of me wants to come home too. I’ve already called Mom and set up a visit next month, so I’ll see you then at least.”

  I study her. Aside from a little sadness in her aura, her outward appearance doesn’t betray any sign of what she went through at the soundstage. Her hair and makeup are back to their usual perfection, and her clothes, which she picked up during a shopping trip to the Galleria yesterday, are as chic as ever. We never did find her suitcases or her rental car, which is why Nick’s driven us to the airport again.

  “I guess it’s better than nothing. But we all want you home, Bron. Especially now. There’s nothing keeping you out here anymore.”

  “Except my shop. And Rory.”

  “And platonic crab feeds,” Nick adds. “Though you guys probably have way better crab back where you come from.”

  “You could come too, you know.” Twyla gives him the eye.

  He chuckles. “Yeah, I appreciate the offer, but I like it here. Maddy would be lost without her pet fortune teller, and I like winters where I don’t freeze my ass off.”

  “Well…just think about it,” she says, facing me again. “Promise me you’ll at least do that.”

  “I promise. Tell Nana and everybody I miss them and I’m looking forward to seeing them.”

  “You can tell her yourself. I’m sure she’ll be calling you soon.” Her expression sobers.

  “I’m surprised she hasn’t already.” I’m not looking forward to giving Nana the rundown, but there’s no getting away from it. From what I’ve heard secondhand, the whole family’s in shock about what happened with Selene. I don’t envy Twyla having to deal with the fallout in person.

  “Anyway…I should get going.” She sounds like it’s the last thing she wants to do.

  “Yeah. Don’t want to miss your flight. Unless you’d rather just stay out here with me for a while. My guestroom’s always open, as long as you don’t mind Rory sleeping on your face.”

  “It’s tempting. It really is.” She throws her arms around me in a tight hug. “You take care of yourself, Bron. I love you. And you don’t know how relieved I am to find out you had nothing to do with…”

  “Believe me, I do.” My voice is as husky as hers. “Probably almost as much as I am.”

  She lets me go and hugs Nick, with a little more restraint. “And you—thank you for everything. We couldn’t have done this without you. You two take care of each other, okay?”

  “We’ll do our best.”

  Before he can stop her, she plants a quick kiss on his cheek. Then she smiles at me, waves, and she’s gone, striding quickly through the winding line toward the checkpoint.

  Nick watches her go, staying silent until she takes her place at the end of the line. “I think I’m going to miss her.”

  “Yeah. Me too.”

  “You know, there isn’t any reason you couldn’t go back.” He turns and starts walking toward the exit, moving at a meandering pace as the faster crowds flow around us.

  “You’d think so, wouldn’t you?”

  “You could always open another bookstore back there. And Rory would probably enjoy the trip. Maybe not on the motorcycle, though.”

  There’s something a little odd in his tone, but I can’t make out what it is. “You want me to go?”

  He shakes his head. “Nah, of course not. But I want you to be happy.”

  “I am happy. I’ve got the best of both worlds now.”

  “What do you mean?”

  I shrug. “I got my family back, which is a good thing. But I’ve also got my own life—which is a really good thing. Now, the distance between us is nothing but space.”

  He nods slowly. “So…now that you know that stuff wasn’t your fault, are you going to find somebody out here to teach you the rest of your magic?”

  I hadn’t thought about that. It’s still hard to change gears, to think of myself as a mage again. “Dunno. Maybe. But I wouldn’t know how to find somebody out here.”

  “Maybe somebody in your family knows. Or…” he adds slowly.

  “Or what?”

  “Well…Grandfather’s going to keep trying to teach me to control my glitch thing, and he said when I’m better at it, he’ll find somebody to test me, to see if I have the potential to do anything else. If he can do that for me…”

  “No.” I shake my head and make a slashing motion. “Sorry, Nick, but no. I’m glad Grandpa’s helping you out—hell, if he hadn’t, we’d all be dead now, or worse—but that doesn’t mean I want to put my magical future in his hands. I’ll talk to Nana. She knows people all over the place. Maybe she can find me somebody out here.” I’m surprised at the little thrill that accompanies those words. Maybe I’m more excited about learning magic again than I thought I was. Better late than never, I guess.

  “Fair enough.” He stuffs his hands in his pockets as we exit the terminal and head toward the parking garage. When he speaks again, his tone is reflective. “Bron…”

  “Yeah?”

  “You know Razakal’s not gone, right?”

  The little thrill of excitement subsides, replaced by one of concern. “Yeah.”

  “None of this is over. He’s still out there, still doing his thing, whatever the hell he’s after. Grandfather’s not having much luck convincing the other bosses around L.A. that Razakal’s behind all this, or that he even exists. He says they think he’s trying to pull one over on them.”

  “That’s not good. It is pretty stupid, though.”

  “Yeah—apparently they don’t believe much without proof, though, and we don’t really have any. So Raz is still out there, and we’re the only ones who know about him. You know what that means, right?”

  I stop. “What does that mean, Nick?”

  “That he’s probably after us, too. Or at least that this is going to get worse before it gets better. We still don’t know what his big plan is.”

  “So what you’re saying is that we’ve solved one problem, but now we have a bigger one.”

  “Yeah.” He doesn’t look thrilled about it, either. “And I’m saying that maybe we might have a better shot at staying on top of it if we
keep working together.”

  I flash a quick look at him. Already I’m regretting that his power makes it impossible to use magical sight to gauge his intentions. But in this case, I don’t need magical sight. He looks uncharacteristically serious and concerned—nothing like his usual flippant humor or easygoing flirting. “Together.”

  “Platonically,” he assures me.

  I shake my head in amusement, finally allowing myself to smile. “Yeah, I know. You just can’t get enough of me. You want to get a cup of platonic coffee?”

  “That sounds good. As long as no more cannibal zombies are involved.”

  “That should probably go without saying. I can’t think of any situation that would be improved by cannibal zombies.”

  We get to his car. As he reaches in his pocket for the key, I raise my hand. “Hold up a sec. See if you can shut off your power.”

  He gives me a sideways look, but shrugs and scrunches up his face again.

  I point my finger at the lock, and it pops open with a click.

  “What was that about?”

  “Just thinking—it might not be a bad idea for us to get better at that. You know, if we’re going to be working together. Platonically.”

  “That is a very good point.”

  As I climb in and settle into the passenger seat, I realize I’m a lot less stressed than I should be, given everything that’s happened over the last few days, and everything that’s likely to happen going forward. I’m not deluding myself: it’s not going to be fun. And it will probably be dangerous. But today, all I want to do is go have a nice cup of coffee with a friend and forget about the whole damned thing for a little while.

  In the immortal words of Scarlett O’Hara, tomorrow is another day.

  Nick and Bron will return in

  By Demons Driven: Happenstance and Bron Book 3

  Look for it in Summer 2020!

  Want to learn more about “some guy named Stone up at Stanford?”

  The Happenstance and Bron series takes place in the larger universe of the Alastair Stone Chronicles. With over 20 books and counting, the Alastair Stone Chronicles series includes plenty of magic and mayhem, not to mention unforgettable characters and deep, intricate plotlines.