I jerked my sword free and backed up quickly. I knew fire safety basics. With no air, the fire would extinguish. Duo would be pissed.
Seconds passed and the only motion in the tense silence was the gentle lapping of the waves against the shore.
Slowly, the sand began to crumble away, first in trickles then in chunks. Duo's scorched face, all red and black, emerged from the cocoon.
He raised a hand to casually pop his nose back into place and turned to face me. His brown eyes were no longer empty— they were full of rage. “You've erred for ill.”
My heart skipped a beat at the terrifying look on his face. I backed up slowly, but he stayed perfectly still with those burning eyes locked onto me.
I had to do something before he did, but what on Earth could a mouse do to a mountain?
The bracelet jangled on my wrist. What could I do? I had fire, water, air, telepathy, healing, and mimicry at my disposal. Surely, there was something I could do. I just had to breathe.
The ocean. I had an entire ocean fifteen feet away and water at my command.
As the waves broke against the beach, I sent the water farther up to whip around his ankle.
His eyes widened ever so slightly and he turned his head to look down at the sea where it remained locked around his leg. As soon as he was no longer watching me, I made a break for it.
I aimed to duck around the next copse of rocks, just out of sight twenty feet ahead. He wouldn't be able to see where I was or be able to tell that I hadn't kept running. Held in place as he was, I'd be safe from him for a few moments.
I vaulted over the edge of the rocks and collapsed into the sand. What the hell was I going to do? I couldn't run and leave Lexie and Liam behind.
Water seemed to be working for me right now. I could try drowning him. It wouldn't kill him permanently, but it didn't have to. He just had to be out cold until I could dig Lexie and Liam out of the sand and escape in the boat.
Plan made, I took a deep breath and climbed out from behind the rocks to meet those baleful brown eyes. His hands kept twitching, like he wanted to move them, but they were tied.
Pulling with everything I had, I drew more water around him to engulf him. The water crept up his torso. It was heavy and getting increasingly difficult to pull up his body.
A hard knock to my back sent me tumbling down the rocks. Pain burst from my wrist as it smashed against a rock. I pushed my back against the rocks and used them to pull myself up.
He still stood— partially encased in seawater— staring at me. His hands began to move more urgently, thrashing against some invisible bindings.
I squeezed the hilt of my sword with my good hand. He was just watching me.
What was going on? I didn't get it. When he battled with Liam yesterday, the sand around him moved so fluidly with virtually no movement on his part. He could crush me before I could blink, but he wasn't.
I pulled the water further up his body, edging it up to his elbows before another hit knocked me to the ground. My eyes squeezed closed against the sandy grit. Quickly, I tried to wipe it away.
Water splashed me in the face. I opened my eyes to see that Duo had broken free.
Lurching to my feet, I stumbled back from Duo as he took slow, jerky steps toward me.
I sent a punch of water to his jaw. One of his sand tentacles whipped from the beach to block the blow.
Another hit to the back of my leg sent me to my knees. Hot wetness tickled my calf as burning pain radiated up my whole leg. I risked a glance back to see a gaping hole in the back of my calf.
A crunching sound from inches away brought my eyes back to see the hem of Duo's trench coat. He seemed to vibrate with frustration as he stared down at me. He clenched and unclenched his fists.
Help!
That one desperate word echoed in my mind as I stared into his eyes. It was Duo's voice.
Help me!
Duo lowered himself to my level, balancing on the balls of his feet. Pain exploded from my stomach and I collapsed forward onto the ground. I howled in pain, but managed to roll onto my back. If death was coming for me, I was going to watch it.
He didn't move. I was completely disabled, but he wasn't doing a thing.
I focused my healing magic to repair the whole he'd pierced in my abdomen. If he kept standing there like a creep for long enough, I had a chance to fix this and get back up.
My blood and little dark pieces of something dripped from his hand. Duo froze, transfixed at the sight. His body quivered— just barely at first, but growing in intensity until his whole body shook like an epileptic leaf in the wind.
He fell to his knees and bellowed, his face flush with rage. He plunged his hands into the sand and began to paw at it with a maniacal fervor.
“Get it off,” his raw voice shrieked to the earth.
He whipped up to face me with the saucer-like feral eyes of a rabid animal. He crawled on his shaky hands and knees to me, stumbling into the sand every other step. Picking me up by the shoulders, he shook me and shouted, “Make it stop!”
The pain of my broken ribs sliding against my surely pulped internal organs took my breath away so I couldn't even scream. A wave of soft sand came up behind me and he gingerly set me against it so I was almost sitting up.
He dropped his head to my shoulder and kept it there. For long, terrifying moments, he took deep breaths in and sobbed them out. Finally, he croaked in a thick German accent, “Please, by Rhytha's heart, I need you to kill me.”
Duo pulled his head back to look me in the eye. For the first time, there was something in them— a light, a soul. “I am in control for now, but I cannot hold him back for long. You have to do it now.”
At a total loss for words and still reeling from his sudden change, I could only stare at him and try to hold my intestines in place.
He looked down and suddenly became almost sheepish. “I apologize for my inconsiderate actions.” Opening his trench coat, he fished out a vial containing a pink liquid. He popped the top and brought it to my lips.
Moaning in protest, I turned my head to the side. There was no way anything good could be in that.
“On my honor, it is only a healing potion.” The solemnity in his voice made me turn back, but I still couldn't trust him enough to drink the Kool-Aid. Honor? I had a hard time seeing any honor in the monster who had killed my grandma, burned down my house, and kidnapped and killed an innocent woman just to scare me.
He made a strained sound as he flinched like something had punched him from the inside. “Either you drink this now and kill me or you damn the both of us.” No longer gentle, he grabbed my jaw, forced my mouth open, and tipped the contents inside. He kept one of his big hands over my mouth until I swallowed the sugary concoction.
My wound heated and began to tingle, just like it did when I used my healing magic. And when Grandma had given Liam a healing potion, it had also been pink.
Had Duo really just healed me?
“I pray you to forgive my brother's actions, though I know they are inexcusable.” Duo crawled across the sand to retrieve my sword. He placed the hilt in my right palm.
I clenched my fingers around the soft leather, wanting to swing it at him, but knowing it wouldn't reach him.
He leaned forward to examine the mending hole in my stomach. “You are almost finished healing. My brother may be ein Dämon, but he is not frugal when it comes to stocking good potions.”
“Why are you doing this?” I had to know. Why would he go so far to get me only to back off now and beg me to kill him? Something was off here.
“Because I believe you can put a stop to my brother and his allies.”
“What?”
A sad smile crossed his face, softening his features. “My brother and I have shared a body since we were born.” He opened his coat and unbuttoned his shirt to reveal a mass on his stomach. It was a twisted, fleshy thing that grew from his own pale skin to encompass the majority of his abdomen. From the mangled chao
s, a sort-of face was barely distinguishable. He stroked the mass with affection. “We have always been as one, but we are not equal. His spirit has always been the dominant one and I am relegated to the background— always watching the terrible things he does and not being able to do anything to stop him.”
I couldn't help but be a little queasy, though whether that was because the scrunched eyes on his belly button were staring at me or because there was still a hole in my stomach that was oozing caustic acid onto the rest of my guts, was impossible to distinguish.
Duo closed his jacket, drawing my gaze back up to his. He wrapped a hand around mine where it was clenched around the hilt of my sword. “I have been fighting my brother for you, Stone Mage, because I believe you can end my pain and stop the Eight's evils.”
“Why?” Why would he of all people believe in me when all I did was let down the ones I loved most?
“You are unlike anything I have ever seen in my four hundred years of living. You are much stronger than you seem to think.” Duo stood up and offered me a hand.
I stared at his hand in front of me, the hand of an irredeemable monster. The hand that had killed my grandmother. The hand that had burned my childhood home to the ground. The hand that brought even more trauma to my mother's heart.
Could I take that hand? Could I take his life?
Finally, I reached out and placed my hand in his. His cool fingers closed around mine and pulled me to my feet. The pain was gone. I ran a free hand over my stomach, now whole again.
Duo smiled and glanced at my sword. “It is time, Miss Flynn.” He knelt in front of me. A shaky breath escaped his lungs. “Strike true.”
I took a deep breath and hoisted my sword over my head. Staring down at Duo's prone neck, I switched my hands and squeezed the hilt.
How should I even hold it? How should I swing to cut his head off? Should I hack like a lumberjack or something? He was so asking the wrong person. He might be better off trying to decapitate himself.
My arms went limp and my sword fell into the sand. “Oh God, I can't do this.”
Duo punched his fist into the sand. “You must. Think of what horrible things my brother has done to you.”
“No, I mean, I don't know what the hell I'm even doing with a sword.” I threw my hands up and paced to keep my internal quivering from becoming external.
Duo made a sound in the back of his throat, half laugh and half whimper. His head drooped even more. He muttered something that sounded like, “Rhytha have mercy.” He roughly cleared his throat. “It doesn't matter.”
“It-it does! What if I miss?” When I was studying Medieval Europe at Brown, one of my professors told us about how noble families would hire their own highly-paid executioners when one of their own was condemned, rather than trust the local. They did this because skilled executioners could carry out the sentence in a single stroke, sparing their loved ones as much pain as possible.
Duo kept his gaze down. “It… can't matter what happens to me. You must do it now.” A tentacle of sand rose from the beach and nudged my hand which held the hilt of my sword.
Swallowing the lump in my throat, I took it and once again raised it over my head. My whole arm was leaden and numb. I bit my lip until it bled. Duo was just kneeling there, begging me to kill him. The other Duo was a monster, but this one was innocent.
If I did this, there would be more innocent blood on my hands.
If I didn't do this, the other Duo would retake control. He would kill Liam and drag Lexie and I back to Octavius. Who knew how many more people he'd kill after that?
Was I really rationalizing murder with a pros-and-cons list?
Patience gone, Duo yelled, “Do it now!”
“Oh, God,” I chanted over and over again between chattering breaths. With every passing second, my sword arm grew shakier. I squeezed my eyes shut.
Finally, I slammed it down as hard as I could. A thick, meaty whack sliced through my ears and a warm spray of blood misted over my exposed skin.
Duo screamed and cursed.
Shocked, I opened my eyes. He was hunched over on the ground with white knuckles buried in the sand. Blood poured from a deep gash on his shoulder.
He shouted something in German. “Again! This time do not miss.”
My stomach did a back flip. I struck again with my eyes open this time. More blood pelted my face, spraying into one of my eyes. Automatically, I dropped the sword and wiped at my stinging eye with a gritty hand.
Duo gagged and gasped on the ground.
He was in pain. I had to finish this. Every second I wasted was another that he would have to endure.
I snatched my sword from the sand and with two hands, brought all the force my body could muster onto his neck. With each blow, more blood coated me. It got in my eyes, my nose, my mouth. As if the sickening sounds of bone and sinew separating weren't bad enough.
After the first three blows, Duo stopped choking. On the sixth, a fountain of blood erupted. On the eighth, my blade struck only the thick, wet sand.
Bile surged up my throat and I lurched away from Duo's body. I got all of three steps before my knees gave out and the contents of my empty stomach exploded from my mouth. My chest constricted painfully between the heaving contractions in my stomach.
I wanted to scream, but there just wasn't enough air in my lungs. All that came out were pathetic sobs.
15
From behind me, I heard a loud rushing sound, followed by Liam coughing even louder. I peeked back to see that Liam and Lexie were free of the sand. Liam was on all fours, hacking the sand from his chest while Lexie was just sitting on the ground trying to shake it out of her hair.
Another round of retching took my eyes back to the growing pile of my own vomit in front of me.
Something cool gently stroked the back of my neck. I flinched until Lexie's voice shushed me. She collected my hair and held it at the base of my neck.
“Usually this is the other way around.” The laughter that followed was as weak and shaky as her voice.
The second I sat back, Liam called out to us.
“Come on,” Lexie urged, offering me a hand up even though she looked as unstable as me. “We've got to get out of here.”
I nodded and got to my feet on my own. Lexie and I held hands as we hurried to the boat.
Liam— steady as a rock— guided both of us into the boat. He pushed us into the water and started the engine roaring.
As soon as we were on our way, he rubbed a hand on my back. “You did good,” he said, just loud enough for me to hear him over the engine. Lexie, sitting at the bow with her face to the wind, couldn't hear.
I wrapped my arms around my chest, trying to ignore the stickiness that coated my skin. “I don't feel that way.”
“You did the right thing,” Liam said firmly. Warmth and the scent of old leather and cedar enveloped my chest. He'd draped his jacket over my shoulders.
His dark gray eyes carried all of the reassurance that his voice didn't.
I averted my gaze to look down at my feet. “Thou shalt not kill.”
“It's actually 'Thou shalt not murder'.” He let out a heavy breath. “And that sounds nice, but when you've lived as long as I have, you come to realize that sometimes the greater sin is leaving someone alive.”
“I still killed another person.”
“You did what you had to.”
“No.” I shook my head. “I could have run away, but I murdered him.” Inner Duo would have let me escape.
“Even if you had managed to get away, we would still have been trapped.”
I was silent. They might have, had evil Duo taken back control. If I'd thought of that earlier, maybe I would have swung my sword sooner. But when inner Duo was on his knees and begging me to end his life, all I could think was that I didn't want to hurt anyone anymore.
But there was also a chance that maybe inner Duo could have retaken his body. If there'd been time, maybe we could have found some kind o
f spell to keep his evil side internalized. I might have been able to save him, but instead I chopped his head off.
“Maybe.”
“Maybe?” Liam scoffed. “Duo was the most powerful and ruthless assassin I've ever seen. I have no doubt that you saved our lives today.”
Silent, I turned my face to the cold ocean mist that sprayed my face with each wave that crossed the bow. After a few waves, seawater began to trickle pink down my face.
We were all quiet as we ventured farther out into the Rhode Island Sound. Soon enough, the shoreline was a distant memory.
It was nearly twenty minutes before Lexie called out to Liam, “Are we there, yet?”
“Almost.” He pointed to a white boat on the horizon.
“How do you know which one it is?” she asked. She had a good point. This whole area was popular for recreational boating and that boat wasn't the only one around.
“Because they sent a vessel they knew I'd recognize.”
Lexie looked dubious, but amazingly didn't pester him to elaborate.
Soon, that little white dot became a big white yacht, bobbing in the water right in front of us.
As Liam steered our little dinghy alongside it, a rope and wood ladder came tumbling down the side of the ship to dangle just above the water line. I looked up to the deck, but there was nobody there. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end and I looked to Liam.
He appeared calm as he cut the engine and grabbed hold of the ladder. He gestured to Lexie for her to climb up. He noticed me staring and raised an eyebrow in question.
“This doesn't feel odd to you?” I asked.
“What feels odd?”
“The ladder coming down on its own.” I said in a hushed voice, not wanting to spook Lexie, who was already halfway up the ladder. “And shouldn't there be more people on board? This is a big boat.”
“Don't worry. I know the captain. He's not the meet-and-greet type of fellow and every ship he runs is always on a skeleton crew. He's at the helm, waiting for us to come to him.” Liam put his hand at the base of my spine and urged me up the ladder when Lexie made it to the top.
Something still felt off to me. Liam's confidence was a strong reassurance since he was a professional badass and if something were truly amiss, he would probably know, but I still couldn't shake the feeling. It was probably the aftereffects of an adrenaline overload.
Duo (Stone Mage Saga Book 2) Page 15
