by Rob Cornell
“Heal from this, asshole.”
I hurled two blue fire bolts, one from each hand, at him. They streaked through the air like comets. And right when they should have hit, they evaporated with a tiny fizz.
Movement further down the hall caught my eye. I snapped my gaze up and saw Annabelle sauntering toward me. She wore an open robe that didn’t cover much of her naked body underneath. Her belly was smeared with something red, something I assumed was blood. She shook her head and tsked.
“Oh, you cute little sorcerer. Time to stop playing with the doggie.”
She held her hands up then thrust them outward as if pushing me from a distance. Which is pretty much what she did.
A shockwave of magical energy struck me like a semi going one-fifty down a straight highway. I flew off my feet, sailed clear across the living room, and smashed through the large bay window into the open air three stories above the street.
Chapter Fifty-Four
My senses swirled like paint dumped into water. The exhaust smell ofthe outside air. The cold wind rippling my clothes as I dropped in an arc toward the pavement below. The tinkling sound of flinging glass around me. My stomach dropping as I fell. The stimulus crowded out any chance of a clear thought.
Except for one.
I was going to hit the street, and the impact would break me to pieces, maybe even kill me, depending on how I landed.
But instincts didn’t require thought. My lifetime as a sorcerer had taught me many ways to protect myself. I drew on my magic and commanded the air. I turned the wind upward and tripled its force. I could have done more, but while I felt like I was falling in slow motion, I really only had seconds before I went splat.
My redirected wind slowed my descent, but couldn’t stop it. I still hit the pavement hard. I landed on my left arm and heard it crunch under my own weight. Pain zapped through my shoulder and straight to my heart. Something screamed in the night, its voice echoing down Ferry Street.
Glass rained down, some shards caught in the last whirl of my wind and glinting in the streetlight as the wind whisked them away.
It wasn’t until I lay on my back, bruised and less broken than I could have been, that I realized that scream came from me. I could feel the rawness it had left in my throat.
“Oh my God,” someone shouted.
I groaned while pain pulsed through me in time to my heartbeat. The light of the city washed out any sign of stars in the sky.
Mom stuck her head out of the window I had blasted through and looked down at me. “Sebastian?”
I tried to tell her to get out of there, but my landing had knocked the breath out of me, and all I did was wheeze.
“Someone call 911.” The frightened voice came from beyond the dark edges of my vision.
Something seemed to yank Mom back into the apartment. I heard her shriek. A loud crash. Then the howl of a wolf.
Footsteps crunched in the glass nearby.
I rolled up onto my knees, still gasping for breath, then raised the fist of my unbroken right arm and set it alight, ready to turn whoever approached into their own funeral pyre.
A dark-skinned teen in a North Face parka shuffled to a halt on the street a half-dozen feet from me. His gaze went to my flaming hand, and he scrambled backward, slipped on the glass, and dropped to a seated position. “Your…your hand.”
I opened my hand, released the magic in the flame, and it went out.
“Sorry,” I pushed out behind a strained breath.
The kid twisted around into a sprinter’s pose and took off without any need for a starter pistol.
More crashing and howling came from the Maidens’ apartment above. I glanced up, feeling useless down here, not knowing what was happening up there. My left arm dangled at my side. The agony of the fractured bone (or bones) seemed to reach clear down to my toes. But adrenaline took the edge off just enough.
I stood, wincing from lacerations across my knees from the glass shards.
Green light flashed three times in quick succession in the Maidens’ apartment. Mom, still fighting.
Spurred by this, I braced my broken arm against my side and ran into the building.
Angelica stood naked in the lobby, sigils freshly carved into her skin from ankles to wrists. The cuts still had red lines of blood in them, but none were oozing, and any blood that had run from them had been wiped clean.
Her eyes were solid black.
She opened her mouth impossibly wide, and a swarm of yellow jackets flew out from the depths of her throat. The wasps buzzed in an angry cloud toward me.
I waved a hand through the air as if wiping a chalkboard clean and painted the air in front of me with flames.
The whole swarm mindlessly tried to buzz their way through the screen of fire and were incinerated for the effort. When the last of their number were charred to nothing, I let the flames dissipate. But the warmth they had brought to my face stayed in my skin.
I smiled. “That’s pretty gross. You ought to watch what you eat.”
Angelica’s lips peeled back. She threw a hand out toward me, fingers clawed, then swung her arm wide.
I felt an invisible force grip me around the torso and hurl me aside. I bounced off the lobby wall and dropped to the floor. My broken arm screamed with pain. I gritted my teeth to fight the pain back as the edges of my vision closed in. This left me vulnerable long enough for Angelica to repeat her trick.
This time I flew in the other direction, crashed into the wall on the lobby’s opposite side, and slammed onto my back. The air gushed out of my lungs. I tried to suck in a breath but only croaked like a dying bull frog. The pain in my broken arm had reached such a height that my nerves didn’t have the capacity to feel it. I was shocked into numbness.
If I didn’t turn this fight around, that numbness would become permanent.
I gathered my power and called on the air. This time, I hardened the air around me right before Angelica magically tossed me across the lobby a third time. But with my air shield, the impact didn’t rattle my body. It did leave a big dent in the plaster, though.
I landed on my sliced up knees, smearing blood on the floor tiles.
The protection the shield provided gave me enough time to straighten out my senses for a counter attack. I released the shield and redirected my magic once more into fire. I could only draw fire to my good hand, so I would only have one shot before Angelica could hit me again with her magic.
I went straight for the blue flame, using my pain, my fear, and my worry for Mom and Odi to cook up one hell of a fireball. I launched it at Angelica and had enough time to watch her eyes go wide before the flame blasted into her and threw her off her feet.
She landed on the stairs. I heard bones break upon her landing, and my blue fire chewed away at her so quickly, Angelica’s chest cavity caved in before my eyes. Her limbs twitched and shook while the fire continued to char away her flesh. A few seconds later, she fell still.
I swiped a hand through the air and killed the flames so that they wouldn’t spread when they’d finished with her.
Then my shock cracked and let the pain back in.
I threw my head back. My scream echoed in the stairwell. As my vision closed in, I felt myself falling, falling, falling…but I landed on something soft, warm, and lined with orange fur with black stripes. I felt the vibrations of a deep purr.
I had landed on a tiger.
Chapter Fifty-Five
This sounded crazy, but the tiger smelled like Fiona.
As I hung draped over her back, slowly losing consciousness, I laughed. My life was so totally absurd. Then I heard the distant, muffled sound of a wolf howling.
I clenched my teeth and willed myself to stay awake. I concentrated my power on suffocating the pain cutting through all sorts of places on my body, but mostly from my broken arm. Driving back that much pain exceeded my normal abilities. Tamping down a broken finger, sprained ankle, a deep cut, even a dislocated joint, I could manage for a whi
le. But only one wound at a time. Numbing several wounds like the ones I had sustained all at once? That was a healer’s domain, and I sure as shit was no healer.
I could feel the excessive amount of energy needed to sustain my magical morphine sluice out of me, and I suspected what remained wasn’t more than a shallow puddle.
When I finally pushed back the pain enough to bear, I slid off of Fiona and backed away from her. My legs wobbled like a pair of crooked stilts. I shambled to the stairs so I could use the railing to hold myself up. The smell coming from Angelica lodged in my throat as if I’d tried to swallow an anaconda, and the anaconda’s head sloshed around in my stomach. I had to pinch my lips closed to keep from puking.
Fiona sauntered over to me, the fur on her back undulating as she approached. She nuzzled against my thigh.
I didn’t have the coordination to shirk away. Her touch felt like poison to me.
She must have sensed as much because she backed off.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
Of course, in tiger form, she couldn’t answer me. She didn’t have to. Someone answered for her.
“We’re backup, you idiot.”
Rachel marched through the front door. A maroon robe flowed around her as the wind whooshed in behind her. A half dozen necklaces and medallions hung around her neck. They clicked and clinked while she moved. Her hands barely poked out from her robe’s wide sleeves, but I could see a ring or two on every finger, including her thumbs.
She jerked to a halt at the sight of Angelica on the stairs. The crater in the witch’s chest still smoldered. Rachel’s wild gaze turned to me. “What the hell is going on here?”
I grimaced as I tested my legs without the railing. I managed to stand, but walking still seemed dicey. “Couldn’t wait,” I said. “They already had the ritual in play.”
“And you didn’t think to call us before charging in? You might have some kind of death wish, Sebastian, but how could you put your mother in danger like this?”
I narrowed my eyes. “How do you know she’s here?”
Rachel’s gaze flitted to Fiona. She didn’t need to say a word.
“You were still having me followed?” I pointed at the tiger. “By her?”
Rachel had that cold, hard expression going. Her stare was as chilly as the wind blowing in from outside. “And with good reason, as it turns out.” She cut a flat hand through the air. “Enough of this. What is the situation?”
“Werewolf upstairs. And one of the mothers either not participating in the ritual, or…”
I glanced at Angelica with all those sigils carved into her skin. She hadn’t been participating either.
Could they have already finished?
Rachel read the question in my eyes. She whirled around and strode outside.
Fiona cocked her tiger head at me.
“Shut up,” I said, and followed Rachel on unsteady legs. “Where are you going?”
I found her in the street along with six others. A couple men were dressed like Rachel, in robes and adorned with all kinds of magical bling. Three others, two women and a man, wore street clothes and looked like anyone who might have wandered over from the gathering lookie-loos, only they exuded a massive hum of magical energy. Sorcerers.
The sixth one, a man almost seven feet tall, wore bib overalls with dirt stains on the knees and a rumpled red cotton shirt underneath. A long wisp of white hair stuck up from his head like one of those troll dolls. He had a craggy face and lips so thin they almost didn’t exist. He carried a gnarled staff with some kind of blue crystal embedded at its top.
I pegged him for a wizard. If so, those thin lips of his could speak some of the most ancient and secret words this planet had ever heard.
As far as backup went, I could not complain.
I looked up at the Maidens’ front window. The curtains flapped in the wind. But I didn’t see any more flashes of green. The only sounds I could make out were the awed mutterings among the gathering crowd and the sigh of traffic over on Cass Avenue.
The silence from above turned my blood cold.
“We need to get up there.”
The tall wizard looked down at me as if he had found me on the bottom of his shoe. “And do what?” His voice was deep and watery.
Rachel grabbed my arm (my good arm, thankfully) and wrenched me around to face her. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“I can tell you my Mom and Odi are up there and it’s too damn quiet.”
“Don’t screw with me, Sebastian. What is really going on here? How are they so far ahead on this?”
I clenched my teeth. At this point, I couldn’t hide it anymore. She needed to know what we were truly up against.
“Short version,” I said. “I traded with the Maidens to get my friend’s soul back.”
Despite her stoic face, her eyes showed her anger. “Traded what?”
“I think you know what.”
Her expression broke into a full on angry display—lips peeled back, eyes fierce, hands in fists. “You idiot!”
“I know.”
“I’ll see you executed for this.”
“Fine,” I said. “But can we go up there and help my mom and Odi first?”
Her angry gaze rose to the Maidens’ shattered front window. Then she looked back at me, pointed a finger in my face. “Whatever happens up there is on you. You have—”
A quick crack rang out as if we stood in the middle of a thundercloud. An instant later, a shockwave of magical energy burst out from the apartment building. It struck me hard enough to stagger me and set my ears ringing.
Startled cries came from the surrounding crowd.
Outside of the nudge and the sound, the magic didn’t seem to have any noticeable effect. Then I watched as Rachel’s eyes rolled into the back of her head, and she collapsed to the ground.
Behind me I heard more bodies thump to the concrete. I turned around. Almost the entire magical crew Rachel had brought with her lay on the pavement. Only the two robed mages remained standing.
“What the fuck?” I whispered.
I dropped to Rachel’s side and gently shook her. Her body moved too easily. She rolled onto her back. Her eyes remained rolled back. I could only see the whites. My gut clenched. I reached for her neck, felt for a pulse.
None.
“My gods, what have they done?”
I shot back to my feet. A fresh dose of adrenaline had pushed some strength back into my legs. I turned to the mages. They both were crouched beside one of the fallen, feeling for pulses, their expressions telling me what I had already guessed.
One of the mages looked up at me with horror in his eyes. “They’re all dead.”
Chapter Fifty-Six
I didn’t have time to think too hard on why the spell hadn’t killed the rest of, or any of the gawkers for that matter. I had a theory, but I tucked it aside for now. I only had one concern. Get to Odi. Get to Mom.
I charged for the building and had to stop when Fiona stepped into the doorway, blocking it.
“Get out of the way. My mom is stuck up there.”
Her tiger’s gaze moved to the fallen behind me. She uttered a low growl.
“Move!”
She backed out of my way, and I bolted for the stairs. I leapt over Angelica’s corpse and took the stairs two at a time. When I reached the Maidens’ floor, I braced my broken arm at my side. I had to shift power away from what I was using to fight my pain. Agony lanced through my arm, but now I could draw blue fire into my hand.
I raced into the apartment, reckless but uncaring. I glanced in both directions and found the werewolf on the floor, his head ripped off except for a hunk of flesh on one side of his neck. I could see the top of his spine protruding, separated from the brain stem. That wolf would never get up again.
I hopped over the wolf and ran into the living room.
Odi knelt on the floor, his face streaked with blood, one of his eyes missing, a small bunch of tendo
ns dangling from the socket onto his cheek.
My mother lay before him, her head cradled in his lap, her body still. Too still.
“No. Nonono.”
I extinguished my fire and hurried over, dropped to my knees opposite Odi. I touched Mom’s face. It felt cold. Blood soaked her blouse, all of it pouring from the shard of wood protruding from her chest.
“Mom. Mom. Please.” I shook her, but she didn’t respond.
“Sebastian,” Odi said, voice thick. “She’s—”
“No!”
I touched her neck like I had touched Rachel’s only moments before. And I felt the same thing.
Nothing.
Creaky laughter came from behind me.
I looked over my shoulder.
Annabelle sat propped against the wall. She had one hand pressed against a hole in her stomach, the edges burnt and blackened. I recognized Mom’s handy work.
My jaw ached from grinding my teeth. I stood slowly, went to Annabelle, loomed over her.
“She got you, bitch.”
“Yeah,” she croaked, smiling. “She’s one hardcore sorcerer. Good thing the kid broke one of the chairs. That piece of wood sure came in handy.”
The edges of my vision turned red. I heard my blood rushing in my ears. I put out a foot and shoved the toe of my boot into the hole in her belly.
She slammed the back of her head against the wall and screamed. Then her eyes flared. A flash of red lit up a pentacle hung around her neck. She held out one hand like a claw and swept it aside.
The next thing I knew, I was flying sideways until I bounced against the wall. I hit the shoulder that I had landed on outside. Pain cut through the magic I’d been using to keep the agony at bay. I dropped to the floor, the breath blasted out of my lungs. I gasped for air, looking up to see Annabelle on her feet.
Odi had moved Mom off his lap and started for Annabelle. She threw her head back and laughed, then jammed her hand out in a fist. That red light gleamed through her necklace again. Odi flew straight back out the shattered window. I heard a collective gasp from the onlookers outside, then the hard crunch of a body hitting pavement.
