Biet drained more of my blood than she had from the others. I felt faint, and didn’t know if it was from blood loss or shock—or a reaction to the vile potion I’d just ingested.
Bartlef’s eyes met mine unwaveringly as he put the cup to his lip and swallowed.
I fought back another gag and tried to think of something to say.
But before I could force any words out, the central doors leading into the auditorium flew open with a crash.
Three figures came striding down the aisle, their wings stretched out behind them in full view.
Everyone craned their heads to see what was going on.
I recognized them a second before Bartlef did; it was Mason, Josh, and Josh’s father.
“What are you doing here?” Bartlef demanded. “This meeting is closed.”
“This meeting is a farce, Roger,” Mr. Bevington said, his voice ringing clearly through the theater. “You’re trying to use a young girl to gain power.”
“And to be honest, Abba,” Mason added, “it’s making you look like an old pervert.”
Despite my continuing nausea, I couldn’t help but grin. Leave it to Mason to go straight to the sex comment.
“There’s absolutely nothing you can do to stop this,” Bartlef said.
At that, Josh stopped dead in his tracks, threw his head back, and laughed out loud. “You stupid old man,” he finally said when he caught his breath. “You have no idea what you’re dealing with.”
Given the fact that Bartlef was the one who had just forced me to drink icky blood gunk, I was a little less optimistic than Josh. But I have to admit, it made me feel a little better knowing that Bartlef’s threats just made him laugh.
Josh continued to stride toward the stage. The other demons in the audience watched with interest, and I wondered how many of them might be on our side if it came down to a fight. Not many, I suspected. The tension in the room was still fairly high, but most of them had just avid curiosity on their faces; they didn’t look ready to jump in and join either one side or the other.
Josh’s little group had reached the bottom of the stage. They stopped and stared up.
“Quentin?” Josh said, his voice full of horror.
The thin boy raised dull eyes toward Josh at the sound of his name.
Sarah was crying, tears running down her face and dripping off her chin. “I’m so sorry,” she kept repeating over and over again.
Mason’s eyes were glued to the other group. A deep flush started on his neck and moved up toward his face.
“Kayla?” His voice sounded strangled. “Are you okay?”
Kayla started to answer, but clamped her mouth shut at a glare from Sims.
“You see,” Bartlef said, “this is what happens when children misbehave. Our People must be protected at all costs. You don’t know what you’re doing here, boy,” he said to Josh. “And you,” he said disdainfully, turning to Josh’s dad. “You don’t even belong here. This is a Kinsha of the true People, not meant for some Powerless half-breed.”
Mr. Bevington laughed, too, and he and Josh looked at each other, their eyes gleaming.
“And that’s where you’re wrong, Roger Bartlef,” Mr. Bevington said. Then he and Josh joined hands. Mason came up on the other side of Josh and took his hand as well.
All three of them began to glow with a bright silver light. And then, without moving their wings, all three of them floated up into the air above the stage.
* * * *
That’s when the rest of the demons in the auditorium decided to get involved. It started as a mutter rising up from the audience, but soon it turned into a full roar as fairies from both towns leapt out of their seats and tried to rush the stage. They were more effective at it than humans would have been, too, what with their ability to fly. But each side was also trying to keep the other from reaching us. What began as a rush quickly became a brawl.
Onstage, Bartlef shoved me behind him and turned to face the trio of glowing figures landing lightly a few feet away. Bartlef raised his hand and began chanting. I felt my stomach clench as the ether rushed in and coagulated around his upraised palm.
I didn’t think, just acted on instinct. “No!” I shouted, and reached around him to grab his hand and pull it down.
Biet slammed her body into mine, pushing me away from the old man, but not before I’d broken his concentration and caused him to falter.
I stumbled back and lurched into Sarah. She and Quentin fell into a heap with me on top. I frantically yanked away, desperate to untangle myself to see where Josh and Mason were. When I finally stood up, Oma Raina was standing in front of me, tugging at my arm. “Come with me, child,” she hissed.
I jerked my arm out of her grasp. “Back off, witch!” I yelled. She tottered for a moment, then used her cane to steady herself. I could see a bright silver glow past her, but I couldn’t see what was happening. All around me, wings flapped and voices screeched. The auditorium amplified the sound, turning the entire room into a hell of horrific demonic shrieks.
I shoved the old woman out of my way just in time to see Josh reach for me. And then he was borne down under a pile of writhing, fighting bodies. I dove for his hand, trying to grab him, but an arm caught me around the waist.
“You’re not going anywhere, cutie,” Sims said, his foul breath skittering along my cheek. “Except with me.”
I struggled against his hold on me. Demons dragged Josh backwards, spread-eagling him on the floor. His wings were stretched out above and behind him and I was reminded for one crazy moment of a snow angel, an impression made by a child, silver in the moonlight.
I shook off the image. Several of the demons pinned his arms down while two others moved around and grabbed his wings.
I stood frozen.
“Oh,” said Sims, as transfixed by the image as I was, but for different reasons, “This is going to be good.”
The two groups of demons pulled Josh in opposite directions. He fought against them desperately. I struggled in Sims’s grip, frantically searching the mob for Mason or Mr. Bevington. Sims tightened his arms around me.
And then I heard the ripping sound, like silk shredding. Josh began screaming as his wings tore away from his back, rupturing his skin.
Sims laughed as I fought against his hold and shrieked at him to let me go. He was too busy enjoying the spectacle and trying to hold me still at the same time to see Sarah come up behind him. She was still handcuffed to Quentin, but she was no longer crying. The look on her face was determined. She reached around Sims and let the chain of the handcuffs drag around his neck. Then she clasped her hands together and pulled backwards sharply.
It was enough to make him stumble for just a moment. I was out of his arms and across the stage in an instant, kicking and punching my way through creatures as I tried to get to Josh. They kicked me back and I landed on my knees.
His wings came away in a final hiss of torn satin. Josh screamed again, an agonizing shriek, and the two demons holding his glorious silver wings popped away into the ethereal.
The rest of the demons dropped him on the stage and moved on in search of another target. Josh’s still form lay silent as a pool of blood formed around him. I crawled to him and took his hand.
“Oh, God,” I sobbed, “I’m so sorry, Josh. So sorry, so sorry, so sorry.” I repeated myself over and over as tears ran down my face. Josh’s silver eyes slitted open. His other hand scrabbled around on the floor next to him. He brought it up, covered with blood. When he motioned, I leaned in, and he swiped his bloodied thumb across my lower lip.
“Give me your other hand, too,” he whispered, his voice raw with screaming.
“We have to get you some help,” I said, frantically looking around the room for aid that wasn’t coming.
“Your hand,” he croaked.
I rested my other hand on top of the one already holding his. He covered them both with his bloodied hand.
“Lick your lips,” he whispered.
> “What?”
“Do it,” he said, his silver eyes intent. “You need the blood.”
I shuddered, but I managed to drag my tongue across the lip he’d just touched. To my surprise, the taste of it didn’t make me gag. Unlike the blood in the cup, it tasted clean somehow, cool like silver, with just a touch of salt.
And it wiped the foul taste of Bartlef’s concoction out of my mouth.
“Now concentrate,” Josh said.
I looked down at him, uncertain of what to do. “On what?” I asked miserably.
As I watched, he began to glow more brightly and I realized that, even as the demons had pulled off his wings, his silver light had never entirely extinguished.
He pulled his other arm around so that his hands were now encompassing mine.
“Like this,” he said, and pulled me down toward him. I leaned in and our lips met.
Mason’s kisses had made me breathless. And kissing Josh had made me glow.
But nothing had prepared me for what was happening now.
His mouth was hot, feverish against mine, and as we kissed, the heat slipped down into the spaces in my body that Biet had frozen. The rest of the world, the dangers surrounding us—it all slipped away. In the moment of that kiss, we were perfect. Complete.
And then it was over. His lips cooled and slipped away from mine. With a sigh, he closed his eyes and laid his head back down on the ground.
I wasn’t sure he was breathing, but I didn’t have time right now to check.
I stood up and stretched my arms out to my side. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see that I was glowing brighter than I ever had before—brighter even than Josh had when he burst into the room with his father and Mason.
I knew what I needed to do, and I knew how to do it.
I didn’t even have to try—my voice boomed out across the auditorium as I spoke.
“Roger Bartlef,” I said. “Pailis. Sangara.” I spoke the words as if I had known them all my life. Deceiver. Unholy. “You bring darkness to your people.” The sounds around me died down and I realized that I was hovering above the stage. I could see Bartlef and Biet, holding down a young demon from Fairy as he tried to fight his way to Mason, who was backed into a corner with Mr. Bevington.
“Turn and face the light,” I commanded. Echoes bounced back to me from all sides of the room.
Bartlef stood up straight, his eyes meeting mine across the stage.
Then he unfurled his giant bat-wings and lifted into the air.
“Oh, child,” he said, his evil smile making his eyes look even colder. “You think you can best me?” His resounding laugh followed the echoes of my voice around the hall.
“Well,” I muttered under my breath. “I guess I’m going to try.”
Chapter Twenty
Bartlef swooped toward me, then pulled up so that he hovered above me, just out of reach.
“Show off,” I muttered. Just because he actually had wings and knew how to fly. Sheesh.
Of course, I was glowing with an eerie silver light and floating even without wings, so I should probably have had a little more confidence. Actually, though, I was terrified. I had called him out, but I didn’t know how I could possibly defeat him.
So I did what any sane person would do. I closed my eyes and wished as hard as I could that he would just disappear.
Instead, when I opened my eyes a moment later, he was right in front of me, still out of reach but now at eye level. His hand was raised toward me, palm out, and he was chanting in the language I had come to associate with demons.
All the fighting in the auditorium had stopped, and demons surrounded us, watching—some from the ground, others hovering around us in the air, and still others I could see sliding behind this world in the ethereal plane.
None of them intervened. I saw Mason and Mr. Bevington still on the stage, blocked from joining me by the demons they’d been fighting moments before. And I could see Josh’s body sprawled below me, pale and perfectly motionless.
Bartlef waved his hand and gathered ether around him so that it formed a barrier between us, solid and cold as ice, glittering in the auditorium lights. I could feel the frigid ether rush past me as it pooled around Bartlef’s hand before leaching into the barrier. And I could feel the warmth of Josh’s kiss still radiating out from the pit of my stomach, where it had warmed the frozen places Biet had touched.
That’s when I knew what I had to do. I knew it in the same way that I had known the demon words moments ago.
I held out my own hand so that it mirrored Bartlef’s, each of us touching one side of the smooth, frozen barrier between us. Where my hand met the coldness of the solidified ether, steam rose into the air.
Bartlef redoubled his chanting, getting louder and louder. I simply hovered in the air in front of him and let my hand burn away the chill of his shield.
With our palms only millimeters from touching, Bartlef suddenly stopped chanting and dropped straight down to land on the stage. He stood directly over Josh’s unmoving form.
Without thinking about how I was doing it, I followed him, not quite touching down.
“Stay away from me, bitch,” Bartlef hissed. He pulled a small, sharp object from the inner pocket of his blazer and held it threateningly over Josh’s chest. “Or I’ll push cold iron through his heart and he’ll die here.”
So Josh wasn’t dead yet. Part of my mind heard that with an inner whoop of joy. And an analytical voice in the back of my mind announced that it was storing that piece of information away for later examination. The rest of me knew I couldn’t be distracted.
When I didn’t answer, Bartlef crouched swiftly and pressed the tip of the object—what I now recognized as a letter opener—against Josh’s shirt.
Still without thinking about it consciously, I flipped my orientation so that I now hung upside down over Bartlef. My hands reached out and grabbed the old man’s arms, pulling him away from Josh. When my hands touched him, silver light flared around us and Bartlef screamed, his high-pitched, gravelly voice echoing through the auditorium.
And the longer he screamed, the stronger I felt. I pulled Bartlef up toward the catwalks over the auditorium, toward the upper stage lights.
His voice gave out, ending in ragged sobs. The light surrounding us flickered, then steadied, burning more brightly silver than it had before I grabbed Bartlef.
When I was as high as I could get above the stage, I opened my hands and let go. Bartlef crashed to the stage, unconscious. He landed with a satisfying crunch, his arms and legs splayed around him in unnatural angles.
I glared around the auditorium, looking for my next target. Everywhere I looked, demons stared back at me with wide, unblinking eyes. They were waiting to see how this played out, I realized.
No one was going to try to stop me.
I scanned the crowd again.
There. Below me. Hazel Biet. She was holding the chalice, swiping her finger through the blood inside it and licking it off frantically. I couldn’t see the knife she’d used earlier.
I dove back down toward the stage, felt the air rush past me and blow my hair out of my face.
Biet dropped the cup, reached behind her and pulled Sarah around to face me. Sarah was still handcuffed to Quentin.
“I’ll kill her if you touch me!” Biet screamed.
I don’t know what I would have done—I honestly don’t know if I could have stopped at that point. But Biet didn’t even give me time to react. She yelled her warning, then she grabbed Sarah’s chin from behind and twisted.
I heard Sarah’s neck break with a pop and a crunch.
And something inside me broke, too.
I screeched wordlessly and grabbed Biet by the hair as I swooped by, pulling her off her feet and throwing her to the ground. I landed on top of her, my hands around her own throat. She stared up at me, her buggy brown eyes wide and her mouth working noiselessly. I loosened my grip on her neck long enough to let her pull in a single, uneven br
eath, then closed my eyes and concentrated on pulling her power into me. Through my closed eyelids, I could see the light around me get brighter.
Like Bartlef, Biet’s voice gave out before she was done screaming, leaving her gasping out rough noises with little relation to normal vocal sounds.
When I let go of her, she slumped to the ground, shoulders shaking.
One more, I thought. One more to go. I turned in a slow circle, rising in the air as I did so. I could feel power crackling all around me, shooting through the silver light as threads of lightning.
All around me, demons backed away. I heard them muttering, heard one word as it passed from one person to the next: “Nala!” I reached out and grabbed the closest demon.
I barely had a moment to recognize Oma Raina, but I didn’t care. She was full of life, full of power. She had participated in the world that had taken Josh’s life and power, so she deserved to die. I don’t know if I would have been able to take her down if I had aimed for her first, but with Bartlef’s and Biet’s power spooled inside me, she didn’t have a chance. She fought, but I held her and pulled the power out of her until she could no longer scream, until she went limp in my arms. Then I dropped her. Like Bartlef’s, her body snapped and crunched as it landed on the stage below.
Sims was next. If I could just find him, I would drain him, too. Leave him in a useless pile on the floor. And if I couldn’t find Sims, anyone else would do.
My heartbeat filled my ears with a thrumming noise.
As if from a distance, I heard someone calling my name. When a hand touched mine, I grabbed it and spun to face its owner. The silver light around me flared.
Mason’s face contorted in pain and he gasped. Still, he didn’t try to pull away from my grasp.
“Laney!” he wheezed. “Laney! You have to stop!”
“I have to find Sims,” I said grimly. I let go of his hand, but he clung to me stubbornly.
“If you’re going to keep doing this, you’ll have to do it to me, too,” he said, his voice uneven.
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