Emerald Blaze

by Ilona Andrews

  A translucent fiery shape coalesced around Tatyana. Her hands sprouted foot-long ghost claws. A monstrous luminous head formed over Tatyana’s face. Spikes grew from her back. It was as if a demon made of fire and glass enclosed her.

  Hellspawn. A House Pierce high spell.

  Tatyana grinned, her eyes pure fire, and the demon grinned with her.

  The Breaker pushed through the flames.

  Tatyana opened her mouth and vomited a torrent of white fire.

  The front of the Breaker sagged, melting. The four people on top of it went up like human candles. Molten metal dripped. The Breaker swayed, tried to back up, and collapsed into the dark water.

  “Welcome to hell,” Tatyana roared in a demonic voice.

  I had the whole outer band left. I couldn’t watch anymore. The chalk was a small nub in my fingers. I dropped it and pulled a second stick out.

  “Crush her,” Cheryl howled through the drone speaker. “All of you, now. Forward!”

  The inner boundary. The intersecting lines. The air smelled of soot and burning plastic. I didn’t have time to watch.

  “Bug, what’s happening?”

  “A lot, Catalina. There’s a lot going on right now.”

  “Be more specific?”

  “Tatyana keeps spitting fire. Cheryl is sending her monster constructs in. Tatyana melts them, but they keep re-forming. Minus the poor bastards that were on them. Behind us a man is running around on water slicing monsters into pieces. It’s Armageddon. ”

  The Hellspawn was immensely powerful, but Tatyana couldn’t keep it up forever.

  Sweat drenched my forehead. Just a bit more time.

  The island shook. I looked up. One of the constructs made it through, stomping through the buildings. People screamed.

  “Where are you?” Alessandro asked, his voice like a bucket of icy water.

  “Almost done. Just a little longer.”

  “Shit!” Bug swore. “Four more constructs and three armored transports coming down the bridge. I think we’re fucked.”

  I drew the last line, stepped into the circle, and sent a pulse of magic through it. A pale green glow ran through the chalk lines, sending little puffs of dust into the air.

  Work. Please work.

  The small circles inside my design turned, realigning. The glow dashed through the chalk, but there was so much ground for it to cover.

  In front of me the island burned. Pillars of black smoke streamed into the sky. A half-melted mechanical monstrosity rampaged through the island, dripping molten metal. A stream of white fire smashed into it, as if a mythical dragon had emptied its belly. Molten metal ran, but the construct kept going, flailing its metal arms into the buildings. Debris flew. Concrete exploded. Bug was right. This was Armageddon.

  “Tell me when,” Alessandro said. He stood in his circle, loose and ready. The pattern around his feet stretched to cover nearly half of the roof. I’d never seen anything like it.

  I pushed my magic, trying to claim the circle faster.

  The fire wall around the island sputtered and died. Either Tatyana ran out of magic or she was dead. The troops from the armored transport flooded onto the island on foot. Gunfire crackled. It had to be now.

  The outer boundary of my circle shone.

  Magic punched me, so much magic. I reeled, trying to absorb it. For an agonizing second it felt like trying to hold a jerking fire hose, then suddenly, the current and my power snapped together into one steady stream.

  The Pit opened before my mind’s eye and I saw everything in a fraction of a second: the bright magenta star of Cheryl’s mind in front of me; the duller white glow of Tatyana, all but extinguished; the sharp pale radiance of Stephen behind us; the faint purple smudge that was Marat; the collection of weaker lights among Cheryl’s private army; Alessandro’s supernova, so powerful it took my breath away; and the glowing nebula of the Abyss, wrapping around us and stretching far back into the Pit.

  The Abyss’ presence brushed against me, eager. Visions of dying humans floated over my mind. I tested the circle and felt the impenetrable barrier of null space.

  “Now,” I said.

  Orange light ran through the lines of Alessandro’s design. A whirlwind of magic and orange sparks wound around Alessandro, lifting him off his feet. He leaped up and hung suspended, the magic spinning around him faster and faster, a maelstrom ready to be unleashed. The building underneath us shook.

  The construct battle kept going, Arkan’s people disembarking, oblivious to the breathtaking storm building up on the roof.

  Alessandro raised his head. His skin glowed and his eyes overflowed with magic. It spilled out of him, radiating like a corona from the sun. He looked like an angel, a furious, majestic creature, filled with astonishing power and sent down to punish.

  I forgot to breathe.

  A blast wave of pure magic tore out of Alessandro and rolled through the Pit.

  The constructs collapsed. Their hulking metal forms split into components and tumbled down. The tentacles still swirling through the water disintegrated, falling apart. Refuse blanketed the surface of the mire. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Stephen fall into the water with a splash and disappear under the surface.

  In my mind’s eye, the area around us turned dark, as if a glowing city suddenly lost all power. A third of the Abyss vanished, and what remained crawled away from us.

  All went silent.

  Oh my God. He’d nullified their magic.

  A hoarse high-pitched scream made me turn. Cheryl stood in the middle of the parking lot, Tatyana slumping a few feet away. Cheryl balled her fists and shrieked, wailing. It was the sound of pure panic.

  We were born with magic. We felt it in ourselves and others. We used it, the way we used our eyes and ears. Every mage down below must have felt as if they had gone blind and deaf all at once. Only Alessandro’s magic remained, burning like a sun.

  So there it was, the true power of the antistasi.

  Alessandro landed in the circle, the light of his magic suffusing him, his face beautiful and terrible all at once.

  All traces of the man I knew had vanished. He wasn’t the Artisan. He wasn’t even human. He was a force determined to slaughter.

  Alessandro raised his hands. Two blades of pure magic formed in his fingers.

  He sprinted to the edge of the building and leaped out of sight.

  Fear slapped me. “Bug!”

  “On it.”

  The drone moved to me, hovering outside of my circle’s boundary. On the screen Alessandro fell on Arkan’s troops. His left blade carved through the first man like he wasn’t even solid. A woman on his right died before she knew what was happening, her chest split in two by a magical sword.

  In my mind’s eye the glowing cloud that was the Abyss compacted, crested like a wave, and surged toward us. Oh, no. I spun around to face the swamp.

  A horrible deep bellow tolled through the Pit. Constructs poured out of the mire, swimming through the water toward us, dozens and dozens of constructs, the hounds, the hunters, the strange creations I didn’t know how to name. Tentacles slithered between packs of Razorscales, and behind it all, an enormous mass of flesh, metal, and plant surfaced, its own island in the Pit. Alessandro had hurt him, and the Abyss had unleashed his army.

  On the little island, Stephen, soaked and dripping water, wrapped his arm around Marat. The summoner looked on the brink of collapse, the corpses of arcane beasts he must’ve summoned littering the ground around him. They were directly in the path of the Abyss’ horde.

  There were too many. Even if Alessandro slaughtered all of the attackers, the Abyss would overwhelm us.

  It was my turn.

  I sent a focused thought out. No.

  The Abyss answered. MINE.

  Images bombarded me. People dying, Alessandro dying, Linus dying, constructs of plant and metal rising, flooding out of the Pit onto the streets, and me, sitting in a protective bubble of magic, safe and imprisoned in
the mountain of flesh now rolling toward me. The Abyss wanted to kill. He loved the power of it. It was central to his being. That’s what he lived for. That’s what he was made for.

  Offer him what he wants, and he will bring his people to you to get it . . .

  “Catalina, get out of there!” Bug screamed. “Get out!”

  I thought of Nevada’s baby. A tiny little baby, helpless and just drawing his first breath. I thought of my sisters and my mom. I thought of Alessandro.

  No. I would stop this Armageddon. My family wasn’t going to fuel the Abyss’ army. Nobody else would ever end up as a brain and a spinal cord wrapped in foul magic. I would end this now.

  I pulled the power from the circle. It poured into my wings and they burst out of me, huge and glowing. I opened my mouth and my song erupted, full of power, a siren’s call beyond anything I had ever imagined. Power surged out of me, no longer spiraling in delicate shoots, but flowing like an ocean tide. My feet had left the ground, but I barely noticed.

  Come to me. Please me.

  The wave of my magic collided with the constellation of the Abyss’ mind.

  I sang. It was an ancient song, full of promises and whispers of bliss, the kind of song that caused seasoned sailors to hurl themselves into raging seas just to get closer.

  Love me. Come to me and love me.

  My magic swept through the nebula of the Abyss’ mind, brushing aside his defenses, all the way to its glowing center. It wrapped around the glowing star that used to be a human mind and saturated it.

  Every construct in the Pit stopped and shuddered.

  Show yourself to me. Come to me. Trust me. I am happiness. I am ecstasy. I am what you desire.

  The constructs charged toward me.

  On the island, Stephen gripped Marat, trying to shield him. The Abyss flowed around them and hurled himself against the foot of the building I was on. The constructs piled onto each other, building a hill of squirming bodies.

  Yes. That’s what I want. More. Show me more.

  The mire boiled. Tentacles thrust out, slapping against the hill of plant and metal growing against the building. The glowing dots of the Abyss’ nodes converged on me. The shining center moved, shifting toward me. The vast mound crept to me like a colossal amoeba, rising as it neared.

  Ten feet high. Twenty.

  Images burst in my mind, like soap bubbles. A huge grotesque monstrosity wrapping itself around the building, begging for my touch.

  I changed the pitch of my song. No. Ugly. Clumsy. Graceless.

  The nebula that was the Abyss convulsed in pain.

  I sent my own image back. Alessandro glowing with magic, moving with elegance and grace.

  Strong. Fast. Beautiful. Worthy. Worthy of me.

  A shudder ran through the constructs in unison. The center of the mound collapsed, sucked into itself. The tiny glowing stars of nodes surfaced from the pile by the building and rolled into the hole in the center of the mound. The constructs on the outer edges fell apart. The nebula of the Abyss’ mind contracted, compacting in on itself.

  Water vapor erupted on the edges of the mound. Chunks of it began to fall away. The Abyss was building something, throwing all of its energy and magic into it.

  The nodes aggregated around the central light, all but merging with it. Tentacles ripped metal from random constructs and hurled it into the hole in the mound.

  Yes, I sang. Glowing. Beautiful. Yes. That’s what I want.

  The mound crept forward again. Its edges decayed. Large pieces broke off and sank, inert. The nebula compacted on itself.

  My vision swam. My heart fluttered in the cage of my ribs. I had channeled so much magic, and my body was giving out. I had to hold on. Almost there. Almost.

  The shambling mound landed at the foot of the hill the constructs built against my building. The nebula was gone now. Only its center remained, condensed into blinding white.

  The mound split. A cloud of revolting stench washed over me and dispersed.

  Giant tentacles surged up in front of me and opened like the petals of a flower. A glowing man stood at their center, a giant with the body of a god made with white metal and radiant flowers, perfect and astonishingly beautiful.

  I looked at his face. Nothing in the world could compare. His eyes glowed with blue light. I wanted to weep and prostrate myself, but then I would have to stop looking at him, and it was beyond me to turn away. I had never seen anything so mesmerizing. I had to keep looking at him. I could spend a lifetime staring.

  Our minds touched and I saw myself standing next to him with a body that matched his. He would remake me. I would be Eve to his Adam. The Pit would be our Eden, no one would cast us out of it, and humanity would serve us forever.

  He smiled. Magic radiated from him and washed over me.

  My body trembled, every nerve on fire.

  He was made of pure power and will. Every node he possessed was in that body. There weren’t enough adjectives in any human language to describe him.

  He opened his arms. His mind brushed against mine. Join me.

  I waved my hand. The circle around me died. I sang to him, a sweet song, filled with love and longing.

  Alessandro screamed my name.

  The Abyss held out his hand.

  In my memories, Alessandro kissed me and whispered, “I love you.” It was the happiest I had ever been.

  I stepped out of the circle, picked up Linus’ sword, and rested my hand in the Abyss’ perfect fingers.

  He smiled.

  I hammered a spike of magic into the sword and plunged my blade into his chest, where the once-human mind burned with magic. The null space carved through the armored body and pierced the fragile brain.

  The titan fell to his knees.

  I dropped my sword.

  His magic blinked, pulsed with bright white, and died. He had melded all of his nodes to make this body for me. Unified into one, they were no longer capable of survival. I felt them dying one by one. The last one winked out.

  The awe-inspiring body at my feet fell apart. The beautiful, murderous god of the Pit was dead, and I had killed him. The full enormity of it hit me and I screamed my grief and pain into the sky before it tore me apart, because I had murdered something indescribably beautiful and it would never exist again. The magic turned my scream into a song and once the last notes of it died, I had nothing left.

  My legs gave out. I crashed onto the roof.

  Alessandro would live. Everyone would live.

  Behind me a loud hum announced incoming helicopters.

  Chapter 17

  Alessandro came for me, covered in blood, picked me up, and we jumped off the roof while Bug screamed through his drone. I closed my eyes and clung to him, shell-shocked, my mind reeling. It felt like everything was happening to someone else.

  Alessandro loaded me into a helicopter. I held on to him, afraid that he would leave, but he stayed on the seat next to me, his arm around me.

  “It’s over,” he murmured. “It’s all over.”

  All around us, soldiers moved with purpose, but there was nobody to kill. Alessandro had reaped a bloody harvest. None of Arkan’s people survived.

  Linus appeared by the helicopter and studied me, his face concerned.

  “Do you know who I am?”

  I stared at him, blank. Making words was too hard.

  He glanced at Alessandro. “Has she spoken?”

  “No.”

  Linus turned to me, his face tense. His eyes looked . . . afraid.

  “Catalina, say something. Anything at all. It’s very important. Make a sound, but don’t sing. Say a word.”

  I opened my mouth. Nothing came out.

  “Just one word. You can do it. Say no. You say no so well. You’ve had a lot of practice.”

  I struggled to push words out.

  “Come on,” Linus prompted, his voice gentle. “Just one word. Remember, don’t sing.”

  “ . . .”

  “You can d
o it.”

  Something clicked in my brain. “I told my family that I’m the Deputy.”

  Linus exhaled and slumped against the side of the chopper. For a moment he looked old.

  “Don’t kill my family.”

  “That’s fine. Don’t worry. The Baylors are safe. Quite frankly, I’m surprised that it took so long. I thought you would tell them months ago. It’s unrealistic to expect a Deputy Warden’s family to not know their position.”

  It was another one of his tests. Bastard.

  I looked at Alessandro. “Please hurt him for me.”

  “Good job,” Linus said. “Carry on.”

  He went away. I closed my eyes and stuck my face into Alessandro’s shoulder and let the world go.

  I had no idea how much time had passed. At some point we were in the air and then I fell asleep again.

  I woke up because the helicopter landed on a roof. Alessandro gently sat me upright.

  “Where are we?” I asked.

  He smiled. “Come on, there is someone who wants to meet you.”

  We got out and entered the building. He held my hand and we walked down a hallway, took an elevator down, walked down another hallway . . . I was just walking next to him. I didn’t want to be away from him. I loved him so much, and a part of me still couldn’t believe that the Abyss was dead and that this wasn’t a dream. I needed convincing that I was actually here and not sitting in the bubble of the Abyss’ magic, deep inside his mound.

  We stopped at a nurse’s station. Someone put a cap and gown on me. Someone poured sanitizer on my hands and wiped my face with some kind of wipe. It smelled like rubbing alcohol and stung. A nurse told me to follow her. I tried to stay with Alessandro, but she told me he was too bloody. I followed her down the hallway through a door with four guards outside of it.

  In a large comfortable room, Nevada sat on the bed. Connor sat next to her in a chair. I saw Mom and Grandma Frida, Arabella and my cousins. Nevada was holding a bundle of blankets. I came closer, and she offered it to me.