The Last City

by Nina D'Aleo

  ‘Don’t leave us!’ someone screamed.

  He knew he didn’t have time to help the captives, but couldn’t bring himself to leave them all trapped. Running to the closest cage, he used his blade to prise open the lock. The prisoner, a human-breed woman, pushed out through the door.

  ‘Give me something. I want to help,’ she said to him.

  He handed her a smaller knife and she worked beside him, freeing more captives, as the screaming and smashing from the laboratory room intensified. Eli cringed at every sound and cried for Ev’r. Some of the prisoners burst out of their cages, others stayed hunched inside grasping the bars. The captives helped each other to drag out the reluctant.

  When enough of the prisoners were freed to help the others to escape, Eli said, ‘I have to keep going. Do any of you know where the witches took an Androt by the name of Kry 939993?’

  ‘Yes, I do.’ A machine-breed stepped forward. ‘Through there.’ He pointed to the wall beside them. Eli ran to it and shone the torchlight over solid bricks.

  ‘There must be a hidden door,’ Eli said. ‘I don’t know how to access it.’

  ‘Let me,’ an Ar Antarian said. He pulled back one metal fist and smashed it into the bricks over and over again. The wall started to crumble and all the captives pressed forward, helping to pull away the bricks. The spectral-breeds among them, now able to access their skills without the binding bands around their heads, whispered Cos magics to lift the rocks and dump them against the opposite wall to reinforce it. When there was a gap big enough, Eli pushed through and almost slipped as the ground shifted under his feet. He grabbed the wall to right himself and shone the torchlight downward. He was standing on an enormous pile of books that covered the whole floor.

  ‘Be careful – the ground is unstable,’ he told the others as they climbed through behind him.

  ‘I can hear something,’ a human-breed woman with feline bloodline marks said. ‘Through there.’ She pointed to the wall ahead of them, where a glowing outline of red light revealed another hidden entrance. Eli could hear a faint chanting and saw the shadows were flowing in through the wall. He shivered, feeling like spiders were crawling all over his skin. He forced himself forward, trudging through the books. The prisoners behind him coughed, suffocated by the dark magics smothering the air. He turned back to them.

  ‘You should all leave now. Go down that tunnel for as far as you can and be careful. War has broken out above us.’

  He looked back to the wall and heard the shuffle and slide of books as the people moved away. Terrible feelings of aloneness and terror threatened to overwhelm him. He blinked sweat out of his eyes, lifted his blade to the stone wall and tried to prise open the door. In his mind he whispered a constant prayer to the Khaiti God – please give me strength.

  The door refused to budge no matter how hard he shoved and pushed it. He strained, shaking from the exertion, and eventually slid to his knees, panting. He leaned his forehead against the rocks. He just couldn’t do it alone. A shadow fell over him and he raised his head. Caesar K-Ruz and a mass of other bosses and gangsters had surrounded him. Some of the prisoners had also stayed back. Caesar nodded to him and Eli rose on trembling legs. Everyone pressed their hands against the bricks and he felt them shifting. The door swung open. As it did, a blast of red light and chanting voices shoved Eli back. He shielded his eyes and blinked into an area lined with old prison cells and packed with Skreaf all facing the end of the block. In the last cell, Eli saw the struggling form of the Androt Kry tied down to a bench. A Skreaf stood over him with a knife. The demon’s eyes locked onto Eli and every Skreaf in the room spun his way. There was half a second of absolute silence in which Eli heard his heart thud twice, then a yell exploded behind him and he was barged aside as the gangsters and captives stormed the room. They wielded bricks and weapons, smashing into the stunned Skreaf. Chaos broke out as the witches fought back.

  43

  Silho clung to Copernicus’ back, just below the surface of the plateau. She could hear Bellum’s demon voice muttering curses above them. The sound sent shivers through her body. She strained to see above the ledge. The High Witch, cloaked and hooded, was moving among the prisoners, selecting her next victim. The chanting of the Skreaf masses had risen to a feverish pitch in anticipation. The whole chamber trembled. The witch passed close to Diega and paused. Bellum’s sunken stare locked onto the Fen and the Skreaf’s jagged knife blade caught the light.

  Silho moved on instinct. She grabbed the edge of the plateau and dragged herself up off Copernicus’ back, ignoring his urgent whispers to stop. Bellum pushed Diega to her knees and stood in front of her with the knife raised. Silho stepped out from the shadows of the Mazurus into sight and Diega’s eyes widened, the colours of her skin flashing vibrant. Bellum whipped around towards Silho and hissed dark-words. Both she and Copernicus, who had climbed up after her, flew upwards then crashed down on their backs on the plateau. Their bodies strained under the crushing weight of the curse. Bellum stood over them, her face stretched tightly over the demon behind it and her mouth twisted into a ghastly grimacing snarl as the demon smiled.

  ‘You’re just in time, my dear,’ she croaked.

  Silho blinked into light-form and strained to lift her hands, but Bellum just cackled and said, ‘You’re weak. You’re nothing.’

  The witch snarled a curse that lifted Silho’s body into the air and slammed her back down onto the rocks, again and again, until she almost blacked out. Behind Bellum, the Mazurus made a coughing sound, stopped shaking, then started up again, a louder hum rising from its centre. Two wings of magnifying lenses folded out from either side of the machine.

  ‘Ah, our Lord, Morsmalus, has answered us and made ready the device,’ Bellum said.

  Silho gritted her teeth, realising Shawe must have actually removed the replica metal band from the machine and replaced it with the original, which the commander had been carrying all this time.

  ‘It’s time,’ Bellum screamed to the mass of Skreaf, the call answered by a roar of demon voices. They surged closer to the edge of the abyss and started up a new chant.

  Silho struggled against the debilitating curse, but was completely powerless against it. Bellum took the jagged-edge dagger from her cloak and moved towards the altar where Jude lay prone. Diega gave a muffled cry behind her gag. Silho could only watch as Bellum stopped beside the rock structure. She raised the dagger above Jude’s heart, murmuring the same chanting curse as the other demons. But before she had the chance to plunge it into his flesh, Jude ripped up out of his chains and knocked the High Skreaf back with a powerful swing of his metal fist. He stood to his feet, electric blue eyes clear and blazing. He tore one of the magnifying wings off the Mazurus Machine and smashed it over his leg. He clutched the broken glass as a weapon. Bellum rose up and shrieked a curse. It hit Jude hard, and he staggered back, but recovered immediately. His half-Androt blood gave him strength against the demon words. Seeing her curses had little effect, Bellum lunged at him and they fought hand to hand.

  With the High Skreaf’s concentration on Jude, Silho found she could move again. She tried to sit up and a terrible pain shot through her body. Beside her, Copernicus lurched to his feet and charged at Bellum. He shoulder-barged the witch and she stumbled forward. He kicked her to the ground, but she flew straight back up and slammed him backwards with a curse. He smashed against the side of the Mazurus and slumped unconscious to the ground, red blood pooling around his head. Bellum seized Jude, digging her nails into the flesh of his shoulder. He cried out, weakening. Silho dragged herself to her hands and knees and crawled to Copernicus. Raine’s face appeared in the shadows beside where the commander lay.

  ‘Use her dark-words against her,’ the Wraith hissed. She pressed the compacted mirror into Silho’s hand. Silho stared at it, unsure of what Raine meant, then she saw her own reflection in the mirror, remembered what had happened in the underwater laboratory, and understood.

  ‘Tell Diega,’
she whispered to the Wraith.

  Silho watched Raine vanish into the ground and reappear where the Fen stood with the other few remaining prisoners. The Wraith removed the gag from Diega’s mouth and whispered in her ear. The Fen’s eyes swivelled left to right as she comprehended and she nodded to Silho. Silho lifted up a chunk of rock, gathered her strength and rose to her feet. She threw it at Bellum where she stood over Jude, now lying prone on the ground. The rock smacked hard against the Skreaf’s head and Bellum rounded on her.

  ‘It’s time,’ Silho said.

  Bellum’s mouth stretched hideously wide, her eyes gleaming blood red. The witch took in a deep breath and raised her hands, shaking from the terrible power she was summoning to send at Silho. As Bellum released the death-curse, Silho opened the compact in front of herself and Diega yelled, ‘Xpel!’

  The small mirror stretched back into its original size and shape of the shield Eli had designed. The force of the curse struck the mirror and was reflected back at Bellum. The witch screamed as her mirror-image was ripped and contorted, the damage spreading to Bellum herself. She stumbled back, her face melting into her hands. Her demon fought to get out of the disintegrating body. She tripped over a rock and almost toppled into the abyss, just managing to keep her balance. She teetered on the brink, using what was left of her power to hold herself there.

  Screams rose from the Skreaf masses as they realised something was going badly wrong, but they hesitated, afraid to act without Bellum’s instruction. Diega spoke, morphing the chains around her body, freeing herself and the other prisoners. She, Silho and Raine stepped towards the witch, past Jude who had dragged himself to Copernicus. The commander stirred and opened his eyes.

  Bellum’s skin started to split. The demon’s hands pushed through her chest. Diega nodded to Silho and Raine and together they lifted the altar stone. They heaved it up and threw it at Bellum. It hit her chest and struck the face of her demon as it broke through. The stone rammed both Bellum and the demon over the edge and they plummeted, screaming, passing through the seal into the Envirious Realm, the dungeons of hell, where pain had a face and a name – Morsmalus.

  As their screams faded, they were replaced by another more terrible screech. The Skreaf had broken rank and were flying through the air towards them.

  ‘Inside the machine!’ Copernicus yelled. He struggled up and kicked in one of the magnifiers. Jude grabbed the pieces of SevenM and lunged through, Diega at his heels and Silho scrambling just behind. The broken glass cut into the skin of her hands, but she barely felt it. Copernicus pushed through last.

  ‘Turn the magnifiers inward!’ he commanded and he, Diega and Jude stumbled around the spherical glass machine, turning as many panels as they could. The Skreaf gathered outside the Mazurus, rocking the machine, trying to dislodge it from the ground and push it into the abyss. Terrible moans rose from the darkness below. Silho stood frozen in the centre of the machine, staring at the hideous Skreaf faces leering in at them. She gasped in ragged breaths, feeling drowned by panic as the Mazurus pitched closer and closer to toppling off the edge.

  ‘Silho, start now,’ she heard Copernicus command. ‘Think of the words.’

  She tried but couldn’t think around the pounding of her head. Copernicus seized her shoulders and said, ‘I’m here. Look at my face. Focus.’

  Silho stared into his dark eyes and started to repeat the words of the enchant, and soon, the screech of the machine and Skreaf chanting died out to silence.

  Copernicus released her. She blinked into light-form vision and squinted against the glow of thousands of Skreaf body-lights stretched out before her. She lifted her hands and drew strength from their lights. With the panels of the Mazurus magnifying her skill, she drew so much power so quickly her skin immediately ignited. She focused on the words Copernicus had taught her, trying to block the pain. The fire spread from her hands to her arms and from her arms to her body as she drew more and more strength from the Skreaf, until she was fully alight. Silho looked through the wavering glow of the fire to where Copernicus, Jude and Diega huddled in one corner of the machine trying to escape the fierce heat of her body.

  ‘Get out!’ she yelled to them, smelling her own burning flesh and hair. The rocking of the structure had stopped.

  Unable to withstand the heat any longer, Diega smashed a panel, and she and Jude dragged the commander out onto the plateau. Silho stood alone, trembling from the great power swelling in her body. She felt like a volcano about to erupt. She fell to her knees, unable to bear the pressure and pain. Her senses dimmed and sight and sound bled together in a blur of droning blackness. She closed her burning eyes and saw, in her mind, her mother and father walking together, hand in hand. Oren’s bloodline marks of flame shimmered a brilliant scarlet-orange in the sun, with the scales of Englan’s firebird dragon mark a cool green in contrast. They stopped and looked back at her, directly into her eyes and she felt them so close. She heard her mother whispering the last words she had spoken to her in the desert: You are the daughter of Oren Harvey. You are the daughter of Englan Chrisholm. You are Silho Brabel.

  Silho’s fear disintegrated. She lifted her head and exhaled a massive blast of flames out of her mouth, the power of the Skreaf masses channelling through her body and out. The glass panels of the machine exploded from the fury of the fire and Silho saw the Skreaf hordes standing frozen, trapped in a glowing light – and then, in an instant, they were gone. Silho collapsed to the ground. The rock rumbled underneath her and the machine slid backwards as the edge of the plateau gave way. From a distance, someone called her name, the voice echoing to silence as her mind slipped into darkness.

  44

  Eli threw himself to the ground of the cell block with curses flying over his head. People fell all around him as he dragged himself forward on his stomach, towards the last cell where the Skreaf held Kry. The walls shuddered and moaned in a terrible way. Boots thudded onto his back, bricks collapsed in and one of the captives crashed down in front of him. Her face was completely black from a death-curse, the features mashed into each other. He forced himself to crawl over the body, inching closer and closer to the cell, unseen because of his size.

  He reached the cell and rushed to the bench where Kry fought to free himself. The witches had inserted tubes into Kry’s wrists and were draining his blood into glass containers beside the table. Eli touched the Androt’s arm and Kry turned his head and stared down at him. His grey eyes were glazed, his face sickly pale. With the Skreaf distracted, Eli was able to remove the drains from the Androt’s arms and work on the chains binding him to the table. Kry struggled as well and together they managed to break him free. Eli helped him to sit up. The Androt’s eyes widened and he pointed weakly upward to a painting on the ceiling. Gnarled Skreaf hands were reaching out of the painting and one of witches standing in the cell with them was lifting up a jar of Kry’s blood.

  ‘No!’ Eli yelled. He lunged, and, with the incredible speed of his hands, knocked the jar out of the witch’s grasp before the other demons could take it. It crashed to the floor and shattered, spilling white blood everywhere. Some of the blood splattered the roof painting and vanished. The witch Eli had attacked screamed in fury and grabbed him by the neck. She lifted him off the ground. He buzzed his wings, trying desperately to pull back, but couldn’t prise the witch’s claws off his throat. Nelly burst out of his pocket, scurried up his side and sank her sharp little teeth into the witch’s skin. The demon shrieked and flung them both against the wall. Eli smashed into the bricks and crashed to the ground. He shook his head, dazed, and struggled to his knees. Nelly scrambled back into his pocket as the Skreaf and two others strode towards him, their terrible red eyes locked onto his face. Kry jumped up, already recovering, and grabbed the steel bench where he had been tied. He ripped it off the ground and smashed it down onto the witches’ heads with brutal force. Two of the Skreaf turned on him, one trying to restrain him, while the other grabbed another full jar of blood. The third
witch kept coming at Eli. Her face contorted horribly, the Skreaf demon pressing out from behind her skin. She lifted her hand and started a death-curse.

  ‘No, please!’ Eli cried out. He tried to leap aside, but the witch kicked him hard in the chest, shattering his ribs. She smashed his head against the ground and threw him back into the corner. He stared up at her through blood streaming down his face. She re-started the curse and Eli saw there was no escape. His body convulsed and burned inside.

  Through watering eyes, Eli saw the shadows behind the Skreaf forming into a shape, a face, an animal snarl. The pure white wolf he had freed from the house sprang out of midair and smashed into the Skreaf’s back. The big creature grabbed the witch by the neck and shook her. Luther materialised from the shadows in front of Eli. The Midnight Man was unrecognisable, his features now sharp and striking, his body bulky with muscle. He helped Eli to his feet. Behind Luther, Kry was struggling with two Skreaf, who were lifting him towards the grasping hands reaching down from the portal ceiling. They started to drag him through.

  ‘Stop them!’ Eli yelled. Luther launched himself at the witches with the terrifying ferocity of a full-grown Midnight Man. His arm-span shadow spread unnaturally wide. He attacked the Skreaf, flinging them around the cell like an animal killing its prey. Eli tried to heave Kry down from the ceiling. The white wolf leapt up to help him, savaging the demon’s hands. Caesar and the other bosses appeared at Eli’s side and seized Kry, hauling him down. The Skreaf outside of the cell closed in on the bars, their screams becoming a droning chant. Eli blinked as the light of the portal intensified. He felt himself being dragged upwards towards it. The walls of the cell split, and a crack ran along the floor from one side of the cell to the other.

  ‘Luther, get the Androt out of here!’ Eli yelled to the Midnight Man.

  Luther snatched up Kry and tried to dissipate into the shadows, but the dark magics snared them in the cell. The demons chanted louder and louder. Eli yelled as his feet left the ground and an unstoppable force dragged them all towards the portal. Suddenly, a brilliant white light exploded from the painting, slamming Eli’s body back down to the cell floor. The demons started screeching, not with anger or triumph, but with fear. Eli lay flat on the ground with his hands over his head. The lights flared to an unbearable brightness and then zapped backward into the ceiling, leaving them in the relative darkness of the solitary, twitching fluoro light just outside the cell.