I didn’t answer him, but escalated my aggression in response. My threads hammered against his shield until I thought it could take no more. Marcus spun out of the way as my thread smashed into the remains of an office, sending a desk and filing cabinet spinning out into the city scape. Marcus landed several metres away his feet skidding along the uncertain surface of what remained of the office block.
“We’re never going to get another chance at this,” Marcus urged. He was still trying to get me to attack Victor. He must have known it was pointless by now, he must have known that I was never going to join him.
“Don’t make me do this, Devon.” He threatened as several droplets of rain hit my shield.
The rain started slowly at first, but quickly became more severe. It was as if the city were attempting to clean itself from the stain that we had inflicted upon it. The water pooled down the side of the building and into the artificial chasm that we had created in the side of the building. This was going to be the mother of all storms when it hit properly.
The deluge blanketed the city in a wave of water and cloud, covering over the hundred murders and evils that had been perpetrated this night. It would have to cover one more. One more man would die – Marcus Devereaux. His death wouldn’t be a murder though. It would be an execution.
Victor’s ghostly words echoed throughout my skull, “You will kill Marcus Deveraux.”
It didn’t matter that he was the father of my lover, it didn’t matter if he was more powerful than I was. It didn’t even matter there was a good chance he would kill me. If necessary I would take him down with me.
“You will kill Marcus Deveraux!” the compulsion howled. The words were getting stronger as my own will bent the compulsion towards my ends. I would kill Marcus Deveraux and I would do it today.
Marcus may have tried to talk again, but I didn’t listen. I struck him. My strike had all the fury that I was able to summon. It sent him staggering. Several more strikes in quick succession struck against him before he was able to bring his powers to defend himself. The reality of this hit home immediately – I was faster than he was. The knowledge sent shivers of delight through my soul.
“Devon, wait!” he gasped as he ducked under another thread.
“Why? Why should I wait?” I snarled. “Did you wait before you murdered my sister?”
“There was no coming back for your sister, she was too broken. Victor had almost completely rewritten her personality. She was too broken! It was a kindness!”
“Lies!” I snarled as I struck again, “all you’ve told me is lies!”
Marcus let my strike pass harmlessly above him as he dropped from the side of the building. Cursing I ran forward to see him land gracefully onto a building below. The building he had landed on was still under construction; scaffolding and support beams surrounded the main structure. I launched myself down at him with all my fury, sending threads down to try to strike him from the face of the building and also to steady my landing.
I landed on a large concrete slab in the centre of the building. It cracked under the pressure of my assault and my shield complained at the abuse, but I didn’t care. I immediately lashed out to strike at Marcus. It happened so quickly that Marcus was forced to throw himself from the concrete slab to avoid my attack. If I was going to win this I would need to utilise my speed against him.
Marcus had obviously realised this too and had leapt to the far side of the construction site. He was now perched on an awning. With a wave of his hand he tore several metal beams from the floor and sent them barrelling towards me. The beams would easily have knocked me from the concrete slab had they hit me and sent me tumbling down into the city below.
This couldn’t be allowed. I simply reached out my hand and I stopped them. I saw his face blanch as I wrapped my power around the metal and brought it under my control.
He shuddered as I slowly and surely moved them to one side. The noise of them hitting the concrete echoed across the worksite. It took several seconds before we both came to the same realisation. I was not only faster; I was also stronger.
There was nothing standing against me now. This man had no power over me and he knew it. He cursed as he attempted to climb deeper into the construction structure of the building to flee. Seeking to hide himself amongst the scaffolding and nets that littered the site. That wasn’t going to save him.
Fortunately for Marcus I was suddenly blinded by a harsh light from above. A helicopter hovered above the skyline level with a spotlight centred on the two of us. Where the hell had that come from? I had been so focused on my prey I hadn’t paid attention to my surroundings.
“Get down on your knees” a voice blared from the helicopter. “We will fire upon you if you do not comply immediately.”
That didn’t bother me. I could take rifle fire. I ignored them. The helicopter swung around revealing a side-mounted machine gun hanging off the side. Oh shit, that was a little bit heavier than an assault rifle. This could be a problem.
I considered backing away when I heard the whine of the machine gun powering up. It was strange that I could hear it over the all the other noise, but I swear I heard the whine of the gun spinning before bullets flew in my direction.
I didn’t have enough time to properly prepare myself. I threw everything I had into my shield as the concrete before me exploded into small shards of rubble and dust. I didn’t even have time to leap out of the way it happened so fast. The impact knocked the wind out of me and sent me skidding across the ground. The sound through my shield was staggering and each blast felt like I was being hit with a sledgehammer. How was my shield absorbing this?
Unable to control myself under the constant stream of fire I found myself flung from the concrete slab and falling into the darkness below. I reached out to steady myself but the thread was too weak. I must have hit a dozen beams on the way down and I don’t remember landing.
My shield must have failed when I had landed, but it had absorbed the worst of the damage. I blinked several times as I checked myself, looking for bullet holes. I seemed to have come through relatively intact if somewhat bruised.
I could see the floodlight from the helicopter searching for me, but I was too deep in the structure for it to reach me. The helicopter circled around several times then headed deeper into the city. I guess they assumed that I was dead.
“Don’t do this Devon,” a voice called out from the darkness, “Don’t make me destroy you!”
I couldn’t see him, but I recognised his voice. He must have been lurking behind the concrete deeper inside as I couldn’t even see his Mana signature.
“You can’t!” I snarled as I pulled myself to my feet. The effort was taxing, but no worse than once again raising a shield around myself. Pain echoed down my wrists as I drew upon the Mana to raise the shield. This was one of the first warning signs that I was attempting to use too much Mana. Despite the pain, I felt somewhat relieved now that I had a fresh shield around me. Marcus emerged from the tangle of concrete pillars and construction material. He too had taken the opportunity to refresh his shield.
“It doesn’t have to be this way,” he said. “We can still work together. Help me! Help me to take down Victor. He’s the real danger here. We don’t have to do this!”
I wasn’t listening. The compulsion pounded through my head with fury at the sight of him. Marcus must have realised this too, as he flicked his wrists and his threads burst into the blue flame that indicated Mana Nova. He’d obviously decided that if he couldn’t best me through strength or through speed, he would have to use technique. Mana Nova should be far beyond my abilities. There was only one problem with that assumption – it wasn’t.
I flicked my wrists and staggered as my own threads burned into Nova. The sensation sent waves of pleasure coursing through me as the increased Mana use overtook me. I had figured out the technique after I had seen Victor use it when I had faced him in Poland. It had taken me several hours to locate the theories that Victor had utilised,
they had been buried within one of the most fundamental of our books. Once I found the necessary passages it hadn’t been that hard. I hadn’t had the opportunity or the inclination to use it until now. I had studied it after I had burned myself out in Paris, it had been an exercise to keep my mind focused at the time. I didn’t realise that the study would save my life.
The euphoria caused by the effect was staggering. The power was chewing through my reserves at a great rate but it was nothing like I’d ever experienced before. I had once thought that the rush given when you draw upon a Telekinesis thread had been the ultimate feeling of power. I was wrong. This was. Mana Nova is the ultimate expression of pure unadulterated power and I was now a master of that power.
Marcus’s face fell as our threads collided in sparks, each thread seeking to consume the other in a spectacular shower of sparks and flame. The worksite fared the worst of our fight as we sheered metal beams from their mountings and sent them tumbling down. The noise was tremendous as beams smashed into concrete slabs below us and large sections of concrete were sheered in two. We couldn’t hear each other over the echoing clang of the construction materials hitting the ground. It was amazing we didn’t bring the whole damned building down on top of us.
We rose in fury as each sought the higher ground. Our shields were next to useless against Nova and the only real advantage was height and the limited protection of the concrete pillars. I was reluctant to emerge back into the night sky, but to remain below would give Marcus the advantage and I dared not do that.
I snarled with rage as I cut out the beam that Marcus was standing on and used his fall to leap across to him. He fell several metres before looping a telekinetic thread around a beam to save himself. He landed gracefully on one of the lower levels, but it was too late.
In saving himself he had lowered his Nova. He was vulnerable and I was all too ready to exploit that. With a savage strike my Mana Nova thread smashed against his shield. In seconds the shield was down and it was only luck that the angle of his landing had saved his life. Even so my Nova thread sheered across his left arm and it was obvious that he had been badly burned. His face contorted in pain and fury as he leapt away.
He used his telekinetic thread to send several more beams flying in my direction, I cut them in two with Nova and leapt to engage. Marcus snarled as his thread turned to a Nova again and we met for the third time.
The rain sizzled on our threads as I stared with hate into Marcus’s eyes and blocked out all other noises. My world collapsed into two small pin-pricks of light reflected in the Arch Mage’s eyes. This was the way it was supposed to be. This was my birthright.
Marcus was saying something to me, but I couldn’t hear it. I didn’t care anyway. He had nothing to say that was of any interest to me. His words disappeared into the howling vortex of commands issued by the compulsion. In a desperate gamble Marcus went on the offensive to recast his shield and I was unable to take advantage of his lapse.
With a new shield surrounding him he had hoped to regain some of the lost advantage in this fight. My shield had absorbed several strikes and although it was holding up pretty well, it wasn’t a fresh shield. It didn’t matter much anyway, with Mana Nova the shield only lasted seconds before it was consumed. I saw the truth on Marcus’s face. He was desperate and needed to do something, anything that could save his life. He knew as I did that he was going to die here tonight. It was only a matter of time.
I often wonder if he regretted his decisions. He certainly could have disposed of me when he’d had the chance. I wonder if he had known when he had first met me in that car in Singapore that I would be the one that would kill him. I suppose not. He had saved my life that night by sending me to Victor. Perhaps that alone was cause enough to warrant this execution. Sending me to Victor had been what had started this whole mess. It may have been best had he just let me die. Without me, Allie would never have been found by Victor and we would never be standing in this moment here.
I could tell from the weariness on his face and the flinches of pain as he was forced to move his left arm that his strength was fading fast. I wasn’t experiencing the same fatigue, if anything I was growing stronger. My rage had lent me a new level of strength and it was terrifying just how quickly the Mana was responding to me.
Weary and injured though he was, Marcus was still a Master of our kind. He wasn’t going to fall through sheer power alone. He summoned what remained of his reserves and went on the assault. As we fought our battle became a matter of prediction. There was no time to assess your opponent’s strike and raise a counter. The melee was on an instinctive level and Marcus and I were both skilled combatants. I’d experienced this before in my fights with Victor, as if the Mana itself seemed to know where it needed to be to serve our interests best.
The flash of threads before my eyes blinded me as our wills contested. I had fought this way once before with Victor, but the difference was that now I wasn’t the one who was over matched. Now, I was winning.
With a snarl of rage I snapped several Nova threads towards Marcus. He howled with fury as one of them tore through his shield and impacted against his left leg. His knee was taken out and he fell several levels to land gracelessly upon the concrete platform below. He wasn’t moving.
It wasn’t over though, I had seen him buffer his fall. He was alive, the only question was, for how long? He wasn’t like Victor; he wouldn’t heal. Should he survive my next attack he could still die from blood loss. He was bleeding quite badly from his destroyed knee. Death through loss of blood was a serious possibility. That wasn’t what I wanted though. I must be the one to finish him.
I landed next to him and with a flick of my wrist blocked his strike. I had anticipated that he would try something like that. Feigning unconsciousness to strike when your opponent seeks to finish you off was one of the oldest tricks in the book. His attack had been weak, it was easily parried. He rolled onto his back and attempted to scramble away from me.
I’m not sure where he thought he was crawling to, there was nowhere to go and I would strike him down before he could teleport away. There was nowhere he could go that I couldn’t follow him anyway.
“Devon,” he gasped, “wait, you can’t kill me.”
“Yes,” I whispered darkly, “I can.”
“I’m the only one who can rally our kind together against Victor. They won’t follow anyone else.”
The words were barely from his lips when I ended him. A Nova thread through the chest; a look of outrage and surprise on his face. His eyes dulled and his head fell against his chest. He was gone. It had happened so fast.
“You will kill Marcus Deveraux.” The ghostly words of the compulsion were still pounding in my head.
This brought me no joy. There was nothing to be proud of here. I had simply ended a monster who had thought to use me as his own. I had freed myself from the machinations of this man and I had avenged my sister. This wasn’t an achievement. It had been inevitable from the moment he had plotted to use my sister against Victor.
“You will kill Marcus Deveraux”. A last solitary whisper echoed through the confines of my mind before fading into silence. I know. I had already done it.
It hadn’t been the compulsion that had prompted me in the end. I alone had made the decision to kill him. I didn’t linger near his body. I had no desire to gloat over his death. He wasn’t the first person to die tonight and he wouldn’t be the last. At least one more would die tonight – Victor Whittlesea.
This was all going to end tonight. I would finish him tonight or die in the attempt. I doubted that either of us could live in a world where the other existed. If I was being honest I didn’t much care about the other outcome. I had already destroyed my world and I had little interest in surviving the coming apocalypse that this night’s actions would surely bring.
My only care was that if I was to die then Victor will die with me. Nothing else mattered. He was just as much culpable as Marcus in this. He would have
to pay for his part in this too. Once he was gone, the only person who remained in guilt would be me. I would have to live with that. I think that given the outcome that death would have been preferable.
* * * * * *
Victor wasn’t that hard to locate, In fact he was waiting for me. I found him surrounded by destruction and death. At his feet lay the still smoking bodies of the final two Mages who had attempted to bring him down. Had I been thinking clearly perhaps I would have seen this as a warning. But I didn’t.
We were too far past that. Victor knew, as I did what needed to happen next. He knew that we were past words. He knew that there simply wasn’t anything we could do to pull back from the brink. The only way forward now was through the ending of one or the other.
Victor’s eyes passed across me with their usual disdain as I climbed to the top of the building. There was no gratitude for my earlier assistance in saving him from his attackers. He knew that my actions had been self-serving.
Vague hopes that Victor had been sufficiently weakened by his own battles that I would be able to take him crossed through my mind. I quickly rejected them as unnecessary. After all, I had just defeated Marcus on my own merits in a fair fight. I could do this. The only difference between them was Victor’s regenerative skills, but I could counter that. If Marcus has been able to then figure it out, then I could.
“I knew you would come,” Victor said grimly, “I would have been disappointed in you had you run.”
“This needs to end.” I said.
“I agree. But do you think you’re the one to accomplish the task?”
“Only one way to find out,” I snarled as I launched my attack. As expected a shield sprung around him in response to my attack. My thread impacted with a solid thump and sent him reeling back several steps. His shield wavered uncertainly and for a second I thought it might fall. His eyes widened in shock at the strike.
“You have grown more powerful once again,” he murmured grimly and I wondered if perhaps he was foreseeing his death in his words.
Mage Dissolution Page 29
