by W. J. May
Gabriel’s shoulders fell with a quiet sigh, officially taking the most precious thing he had in the world and placing it safely in Julian’s hands. “Good. And…thank you.” He extended his hand.
Julian stared at it for a moment, before reaching out to shake. “You still have to come back, you know,” he said suddenly, fixing Gabriel in his wide, clairvoyant eyes. “This doesn’t change that.”
Gabriel’s lips twitched up in a half-hearted smile. “I said I would, didn’t I?” Julian shook his head, but Gabriel nudged him towards the door. “Go. She’s waiting for you.”
With a look of extreme reluctance, Julian stared at Gabriel for a second more before turning on his heel and heading outside. Molly and Luke were quick to follow. And Devon, after that.
He cast Rae a parting glance, looking like there was something he wanted to say, before dropping his eyes and heading out into the dark.
Leaving Rae and Gabriel alone once more.
“So…” she said the second they were gone, staring up at him in the dim light, “is this some kind of suicide thing, or what?”
His hair spilled into his face as he chuckled. “You know me too well. I’ve been waiting for this moment all my life. The moment to end it. Short of there being any bombs to fall on, I decided to do this—”
Rae slapped him sharply across the cheek. “You think this is funny,” she breathed. “I can’t believe it. You’re about to die, and you’re trying to make it into some huge joke.”
His eyes dilated as they stared down at hers in the moonlight. “What makes you so sure I’m going to die?”
She simply shook her head. “Don’t play games. Aside from Devon, the only people that Cromfield has a personal interest in killing are you and Angel. And while she’s making a concerted effort to keep her distance, you volunteer to go walking right up to him.”
Gabriel stared down at her for a minute, a moment that seemed to last a thousand years, before his lips curved up in that same sad smile. “Well, you see, the girl I’m in love with kind of made that her plan as well. I can’t exactly let her go alone.”
Rae had been wrong.
It seemed Gabriel hadn’t entrusted the most precious thing in his life to Julian. It seemed the most precious thing in his life was standing right here.
“Gabriel,” she murmured, dropping her eyes to the floor.
“Don’t.” He tilted her chin up with a smile. “You don’t have to say anything. I know the way you feel. Just…let me do this one more time.”
Her lips parted in a silent gasp as he leaned down and kissed her, his hands cupped delicately around her face. Little trails of warmth radiated out from his fingers, and the smell of sweet citrus drifted down from his hair.
Then, before she could even shut her eyes, it was done.
And he was gone.
Even the taste of him melted quickly away in the cool night breeze.
It was a kiss unlike any she’d had before.
A kiss that meant one thing.
Goodbye.
Chapter 13
“It’s time, Rae.” Devon’s voice carried softly in the wind so only she could hear.
In the king of all ironies, the air tasted sweet.
The colossus where Cromfield had holed up with his minions used to be a sugar factory, Rae realized as she peered out over the bluff. Little bits of candied dust still lingered in the air, mixing with microscopic shards of rust and decay. With the magic of ink in her eyes, she was able to see every glistening particle as they tinted orange and gold with the setting of the sun.
Her family stood beside her. All two hundred and fourteen of them.
A family of tatùs and hybrids.
A clan of ink and non-ink alike.
A people of all shapes and sizes. All levels and skills. All manners of mind and thought and persuasion. Perhaps the unlikeliest of families. But a family nonetheless.
One worth protecting.
One worth dying for.
Even if dying wasn’t an option for everyone.
Rae hadn’t told Devon that Gabriel kissed her. Although she wouldn’t be at all surprised if he knew. Neither had they discussed the conversation she’d overheard, about her immortality that he’d had with Julian, even though she knew he was aware of that.
As strange as it might sound, because both of those topics ranked high on a list of relationship priorities, neither one of them could have mattered less.
They were here now. They were doing this. Whatever came next, they would deal with it when the sun came up.
That is, assuming the sun would rise, and everyone lived to see it.
As Rae tore her eyes away from the saccharine mist and glanced around at the determined people beside her, she was forced to acknowledge a terrible truth.
Some of them wouldn’t make it through the night.
Her heart tightened a little more as she looked at each one in turn.
Luke had an AK-47 strapped over one arm, and his other arm around his girlfriend. Molly had one hand placed protectively over her belly as the other crackled with anticipatory sparks. Both of them were an absolute pillar of focus. Neither one had room for anything other than that.
Julian and Angel stood close behind. Whatever had transpired between them, it appeared that things had settled down—at least for now. In reality, they were probably in the same kind of fantastical stand-still that Rae and Devon were. Just waiting to see who made it to morning before deciding their next steps.
Beth and Carter were holding hands, having what had to be the worst honeymoon in the history of the universe. And yet, there was a strange peace about them. The man they had battled so long—the evil shadow that had torn their lives apart—they were about to face him head on. Win or lose, it was a fight they had both been waiting for longer than anyone could imagine.
While Rae couldn’t see him, she assumed Kraigan was standing somewhere in the lineup as well. In light of his particularly dangerous mission, he must had been lent a tatù from the Privy Council’s resident chameleon, a virtual camouflage expert named Jesse. It was possible that Rae could have been looking at him straight on, and still wouldn’t have known where he was. She hadn’t spoken to him; she’d just assumed that was what he was going to do.
Which left the two men standing on either side of Rae.
Her beloved fiancé. And the man determined to tear them both apart.
Rae took a deep breath as Devon’s hand slipped silently into hers. Their eyes met for the briefest of moments, and, despite the blanket of tension hanging in the air, he gave her a soft smile.
“Are you ready?”
Rae gritted her teeth and forced her eyes forward. “I’m ready to take the bastard down.”
As for whatever happened in the aftermath, they’d just have to wait and see.
Gabriel’s hand slipped into her other one for the briefest of moments before he pulled away.
“It’s time,” Carter called, waving an arm towards the factory.
In unison, the silent army flooded in from behind. Their walk quickened to a jog, which accelerated into a sprint as random members began to split off, taking to the ground or taking to the skies as flashes of sparks and color burst forth in little explosions—a generation of magic coming to life.
Rae was the first one inside the main entrance, which was open and ready. It should have made her pause, but she burst through the door, and, as such, she was the first to see the host of people waiting for them. For a split second, she almost turned right back around.
Fodder had heard that it was about a hundred. This looked like almost three times that. She blinked and, in that millisecond, her training kicked in and she shot out a wave of blue fire, the likes of which the world had never seen.
A horrific chorus of screamed and shouts erupted, and the battle was officially underway.
While the fire was able to take out a good fifteen to twenty people who were standing in front, someone had managed to conjure a force f
ield in time to barricade the rest. By the time the shimmering walls came down, the other side was firing back. And hard.
There was a sharp cry beside her as one of the Knights Rae had been training the last week stumbled to the ground. Blood poured from his abdomen where what looked to be a scythe of some kind had sliced right through. As Rae’s eyes shot up, she saw the woman who had thrown it. Her arm was still stretched out in front of her as a smug smile stretched across her face.
Then their eyes locked, and her smile soured with a flash of fear.
She took a step back and conjured another weapon, but it was too late. Rae was already sprinting straight for her, trailing a streak of blue flames into the air. The woman raised a spear, but when Rae was just a few feet away she turned suddenly invisible, sliding down the slick stones. By the time she reappeared, she was standing directly behind her opponent.
“Boo.”
The woman whirled around with a curse, but not before Rae had conjured a spear of her own. With a fierce cry, she slammed it straight through the woman’s shoulder and into the wall behind.
One down…
When she turned around to see what had become of the Knight, he was slumped forward on the weathered stone, his eyes staring lifelessly at the sky.
But one of ours, too…
“Kerrigan!”
As Rae looked up, a stinging splash of what felt like acid struck her on the shoulder, burning through the leather and sizzling its way down through her skin. She ripped off her jacket with a piercing cry, her body switching automatically into Charles’ healing tatù as a man who was easily ten feet tall stormed towards her across the courtyard.
She managed to fire off a shockwave of electricity, but the acid was eating its way to the bone, and her body switched involuntarily back to repair itself. The electricity hardly slowed him down. The man had to have a bit of giant in his blood, and as she stumbled backwards a few steps, clutching her damaged shoulder, he raised another handful of the stuff. This time aiming it directly at her face.
“I’m glad I’m the one,” he breathed, a look of wild triumph lighting his eyes. “I’m the one who gets to put you in the—”
A blood-curdling growl ripped through the air as a giant wolf flew in between them.
Rae fell back in shock as Andy, a shifter she’d gone to school with, sank his razor-sharp fangs deep into the man’s throat and tumbled him to the ground. It didn’t take more than a second for the massive man to go suddenly still, the bloody wolf still standing on his chest.
For a second Rae just stood there, a random thought looping through her head.
We had calculus together…
Then she pulled herself together and flashed him a tight smile.
“Thanks, Andy.”
He gave her an affectionate bark before launching himself back into the fray.
By now, anyone who would have gotten picked off in the initial wave was gone, on both sides. And the fighting grew dirtier.
There was a muffled gasp beside her as Haley, another Guilder alumni, fell to her knees in a deadly chokehold. The raging wind that circled around her lessened to a gentle breeze as a tall man squeezed the life slowly from her eyes.
Without stopping to think, Rae switched into a tatù that had once belonged to her old mentor, Jennifer Jones. It was a leopard. Nothing but pure, primal strength.
She grabbed the man’s hair and jerked his head back, forcing him to release Haley in the process. While he was still gathering his senses, she punched him four times in quick succession, before whirling around in the air for a flying kick to the jaw.
There was a sickening crunch as he fell to the ground, spitting out a mouthful of blood and teeth. But with Haley coughing desperately in the background, Rae didn’t wait for him to recover. Before he could get up, she lifted him herself, spinning him once through the air before using every bit of strength she had to hurl him into a wall.
…through a wall.
The ceiling above crashed down atop him, effectively sealing his tomb.
“Rae…” Haley gasped, clutching at her throat. “Th—thank…thank…”
“You can thank me later.”
Rae’s eyes flicked around as she made a quick assessment of the battle. All in all, neither side was doing that great, but at least everyone she looked for was still standing. Luke stood perched on one of the guard towers, having thrown down the sniper already up there, and was picking people off one by one with precision aim. From a tower just fifty feet away, Uncle Argyle was doing the same thing. When did he learn to shoot like that? Angel and Julian were fighting back to back—aggressive, but defensive as well. Using their combined skill to protect each other while wreaking devastating havoc at the same time. Rae didn’t see Kraigan, of course, but in his case she just did what she usually did and listened for the screams. On the other side of the courtyard, Gabriel was also staying rather true to character.
He hadn’t taking any precautions, and he wasn’t using the slightest bit of cover. On the contrary, he was standing on a wide open platform, an arrogant smile dancing in his eyes as he felled his opponents, one by one. It was almost impossible to believe that it wasn’t his tatù that was allowing him to do this—that it was all natural skill. The way he blurred through the air as he shattered the rib cage of an approaching shifter, the way he flipped backwards to avoid a splash of fire before spinning out into another jaw-dislocating kick. It didn’t seem like it could have come from this world.
Rae caught a woman leaping towards her by the throat, efficiently snapping her spine across her knee as she scanned around for the others.
There was a body count at least two high, leading all the way up a winding staircase on the far side of the facility. Devon was standing at the top, a testament to all the Privy Council’s dreams of glory. It was like watching something out of mythology—an angry god raining death and destruction down on all who stood in his path.
That’s my man. Always leaving breadcrumbs…
Even with Jennifer’s tatù, it was nearly impossible for Rae to make out everything he was doing. He was simply moving too fast. Blurring through the air, swinging over balconies, twisting and fighting with such might that no one who came up against him stood a chance.
He was a one-man wrecking machine.
The only problem, Rae realized, was that the other side had definitely taken notice.
As Rae looked on helplessly from the ground floor, a young boy came up behind Devon. A boy so slight in size and stature that Devon hadn’t yet realized. He broke the leg of a burly commando standing in front of him and threw him over the banister, but just as he was turning around the boy lifted up his hand and blew what looked like a cloud of dust into Devon’s face.
For a second, nothing happened.
Then Devon’s hands clapped around his throat and he fell to his knees.
“NO!” Rae screamed from below, sprinting towards him. “DEVON!”
She threw herself towards the stairs, but four or five ex-members of the Privy Council got to her first, sending her scrambling for cover amidst a wave of fire and bullets. Her eyes shot helplessly to the stairs where the young boy was advancing slowly, pulling out a long knife.
Whatever that dust had been, it wasn’t letting Devon breathe. His arms began shaking with shock and early asphyxiation as he clutched helplessly at his neck, gasping for air. Rae didn’t even know whether he noticed the boy, whether he saw the knife. It wasn’t until the blade was pressed against his throat that he lifted his eyes in amazement to look at his attacker.
“Dev—” Rae screamed again, trying to dart from behind the rock she’d taken cover behind, but falling back once more as another wave of bullets blocked her path. On one of the towers, Luke heard her cry and began picking them off, a grim efficiency on his face. But he was only doing it to help her; he didn’t see Devon and by the time he did, it would be too late.
Suddenly Molly appeared.
There was nothing at all pla
yful about her face as she came up behind the boy. There wasn’t a single hint of the bubbly, exuberant girl Rae had come to know and love. Her eyes flickered with dark, chilling promise as she clamped her hands down over the boy’s head, and fired a thousand volts of electricity straight into his brain.
He fell to the rubble without a sound, and Devon was instantly released.
MOLLY—YES! I love you, girl!!
Devon doubled over, coughing and gasping as the color rushed back to his cheeks. Molly reached out a delicate hand and pulled him to his feet, brushing a bit of dirt and what looked like human bone from his shoulder.
“You okay?” she asked sternly.
It was the kind of tone he’d used a million times on her. The big brother, strained patience that had become their established dynamic over years of sibling-like squabbles. Only now, the tables had turned completely upside-down.
He couldn’t even answer. He just stared at her with wide eyes and jerked his head up and down—pointing, at the last second, to a woman running up behind them, covered in spikes.
Molly barely turned as she fired off another wave of sparks that sent the woman flying straight off the other side of the balcony. When she was finished, she brushed her hands routinely on her jeans and shot him a rather long-suffering glare. “Good. Just keep it that way, alright? Honestly,” she muttered, whipping out a throwing star and lodging it in the face of a man who was advancing on Angel, “I can’t always be looking out for you, you know? It’s like taking care of a child…”
With that, she vanished over the side of the rail, taking off after a man who was shooting off rounds at a cluster of Knights, leaving Devon standing shell-shocked in her wake… and Rae’s mouth hanging open as she’d watched and listened to the scene.
Rae pressed her body against the rock and edged towards getting back into the fight. Devon wasn’t the only one who was having problems.
Camille had performed a mild miracle, sending out a wave of kinetic energy so strong that it collapsed an entire staircase, crushing about thirty of Cromfield’s men in the process. However, the second she did it there was a harsh gunshot and she fell to the ground, clutching her side.
