by E. A. Copen
I started to answer him but stopped because he’d made a good point. “Victis,” I said, lacing my voice with a seductive command, “raise one arm above your head.”
He did as I asked.
Josiah blinked. “Can you do anything else, Khaleda? Anything at all with your powers besides creating love slaves?”
That was it. If I was going to die tomorrow, I was going to hurt him before I went down. I stomped toward the bed.
“Excuse me,” said Victis.
I stopped. Josiah shifted to face him, head cocked to the side.
He gestured to the window. “This is just glass. We could break it.”
“We’re six stories up, mate. Unless one of you can fly, that’s a bad idea.”
“No need to fly,” Victis said with a shrug. “All we have to do is get into the floor below us. There’s a large enough ledge outside to hang from. I could kick in the window on the floor below us. Then you two just drop down. I’ll catch you and pull you inside. We make a run for it. Their response time is likely to be fast enough we’ll encounter them in the stairway, but it’s only this floor that’s sealed against magic, right?”
Josiah looked at me, surprised. I smiled at him. That’s right, prick. Mine’s more useful than yours. Let’s see your stupid spider get us out of here. Of course, they’d taken Josiah’s bag and everything inside it, including Milly.
No time to be smug. We were on the clock with less than nine hours to go. “Say we do get out of here alive. Then what? How do we stop him?”
Josiah moved to the end of the bed, resting his elbows on his knees. “We know what he’s going to do and why. What we don’t know is how. I need to do some research. See a guy about some surveillance.”
I didn’t miss the part where he left out any mention of retrieving my soul. Danny had it somewhere in that apartment. “And the missing piece of my soul?”
Josiah shook his head. “Without those souls he’s planning on claiming, Danny has no basis to a claim. He’s got no power. He’s just your average everyday wizard with a god complex. He’ll release it once he realizes he’s failed.”
“And if he doesn’t?”
A mask fell over Josiah’s face. “Then we find it. We take it by force. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. Danny will be a tough one to put down.”
We rearranged the room as quickly as we could, bracing the bed against the door. The building likely had an alarm, and once we broke into the next floor, it would go off. The door wouldn’t hold for long against two goons with guns, even with the bed against it, which is why I’d elected to take care of them. I unplugged the lamp and ripped the cord out, winding it around my right hand. They may have taken my knife, but they hadn’t left me unarmed.
Cold flooded the room when Victis opened the window. Snow blew in and melted once it hit the floor, forming tiny puddles. He looked back at me. “Ready?”
I nodded.
He gripped the window sill and dropped as if he’d done it a hundred times. Glass shattered. Alarm bells screeched on the floor below.
Josiah went to the window. He was supposed to dangle himself until Victis grabbed his legs and pulled him through, but he paused to look back at me instead. “I’ll be waiting for you. Don’t make me wait too long?”
Pounding began on the door as they tried to open it and found too much resistance. I barely heard it. I’ll be waiting for you. The words sparked something in my chest that I quickly dismissed. He wouldn’t wait, not for me. He’d run the second he got clear, which meant I had to make short work of the assholes about to come through the door.
“Go, you idiot,” I snapped.
Josiah dropped.
Gunfire erupted, ripping apart the door. I spun to my left, avoiding it and pressing my back flat against the wall. I let the heavy end of the cord dangle from my hand, gripping the section I’d ripped out of the lamp. Hands hidden in tactical leather gloves tore apart what was left of the door, clearing enough space for one of them to stick his head in. I snapped the cord up like a makeshift whip, the metal prongs striking him just below the eye. He fell back through the door with a curse. Bullets ripped through the room, peppering the walls in erratic patterns from the other side.
I threw myself to the floor and eyed the open window just as Josiah’s fingers disappeared from the ledge. Victis had gotten him inside. If I ran for it while they were still firing, I was dead. Had to wait for the reload.
They didn’t. While one of them fired at the wall I’d just been leaning against, another kicked the door hard enough it moved the mattress, pushing it between me and the window. Dammit! The gunfire halted, and both forced their way into the room. They raised their guns.
With a shout, I shoved the mattress back at them. It collided with the one in front, knocking him back into the other. I pushed myself up and ran for the window, dropping to a crouch just as they opened fire again. Something cold impacted my shoulder hard enough to push me out the window.
Before I could process what was happening, the icy sidewalk was suddenly rushing up to greet me.
Pressure closed around my ankles and I jerked to a stop.
“Gotcha,” Josiah grunted. “Pull us up, mate.”
I slid backward and crashed to a wood floor in another apartment. My shoulder hit something hard—a wall, I think—and pain exploded, radiating in every direction.
“She’s bleeding!” Victis shouted.
Josiah pulled me to my feet. “No time. You good?”
I nodded, and we stumbled forward, working our way through an empty apartment in a hurry. Victis jerked open the iron door, and we ran into a hallway matching the one above. The other tenants poked their heads out of their apartments to stare at us. Someone shouted they’d already called the police. That would explain the sirens closing in.
“How are we getting out of this?” I shouted at Josiah as we made it to the elevator. The cab was too far away to make it.
He tapped the down button frantically. “I’m still working that out!”
“Well, work it out quicker!”
The elevator doors opened, revealing four armed guards in formation. They raised their guns.
Victis threw himself into the elevator with a battle cry, tackling the two gunmen in the front. The two in the back shifted their aim on instinct, focusing on him. Except they couldn’t shoot him, not without hitting one of their own.
Josiah barked out a word that made the lights in the ceiling flash and spark and then darted in, twisted a rifle from the hands of the closest guard still on his feet, and slammed the butt into the other man’s face.
One of the men Victis had tackled slipped away and raised his gun to fire. I kicked him in the face, which made the shot go wide. Bullets dented the ceiling. With a loud creaking snap, the elevator shifted downward. He must’ve hit something important. Another kick to the face and he slumped over, blood leaking from the corner of his eye. The gun fell to the floor.
I picked the gun up and pointed it at the soldier Victis was still wrestling with. “Surrender or die, asshole.”
He raised his hands.
I squeezed the trigger anyway and took him out with a perfect headshot. Then I turned and put two in the one I’d taken the gun from. I was about to shoot the last one when Josiah kicked him in the groin and he went down.
“Stop killing people!” Josiah shouted and slammed the button for the lobby.
I lowered the gun. “That’s two less to fight later.”
“Yeah, and two more reasons for the police to call in the FBI or Homeland Security!” He pressed two fingers to the last man’s temples. A short blast of magic filled the elevator car as it crept down, and the man slumped over.
I put a hand on my shoulder and pulled it away covered in blood. Every movement ached. I could feel the bullet inside, just a few inches deep in the meat of my upper arm. It had gone in at a weird angle, stopping just short of penetrating to the bone. All I had to do was dig it out and bandage it up.
&nb
sp; Josiah stopped the elevator once we reached the second floor and pressed the button to open the doors. “We go out the back way. Victis, you head straight for the cab.”
He turned his head to look down the hallway as Victis helped me into the elevator. With a curse, Josiah grabbed me by the injured arm and shoved me hard into the elevator car just in time to avoid being hit with a ball of icy blue magic. He threw himself against the wall, only barely managing to escape it himself.
“Get her out of here,” Josiah snarled at Victis and reached in to tap the Door Close button.
“Josiah!” I shouted and tried to push myself up, but my shoulder was too badly hurt. I went down with a curse. “What about you?”
“Don’t worry about me,” was all he said and turned away. The doors slid closed, sealing Josiah in the hall with whoever had attacked him.
Chapter Eighteen
JOSIAH
I waited until I was sure the elevator was well on its way before I stepped away from the doors, adjusting my jacket.
Danny stood at the far end of the hallway, his once-kind eyes wild and full of rage. In front of him stood the lovely blonde I’d met in the hallway before. Noelle. Her dress sparkled like black ice as she took another step forward, full lips quirked into a deadly smirk. She extended her hand and sheets of sharp, blue ice crawled down her elbow to coalesce into a swirling ball of steaming cold in her palm. The spell complete, she parted her lips and let out of a contented sigh before quirking an eyebrow at me. “Leaving so soon?”
“On the contrary.” I dusted a bit of ice from my shoulder. That last spell had come a bit too close for comfort. “Thought I’d stay and hold you off so my injured friend could escape. You wouldn’t happen to have a light on you, would you?”
Noelle laughed, dark and sultry, a promise deep in her throat of forbidden pleasures that made my spine tingle. “Afraid fire’s not my specialty.” She raised her spell, ready to hurl it at me.
“Stop.” Danny put a hand on Noelle’s shoulder and stepped past her. “Go and take care of the others.”
Murder flashed in Noelle’s ice-blue eyes. “We had a deal, Monahan. If you die—”
His fingers squeezed tight on her shoulder. “I said, go!”
She cast one threatening glance back at me before blowing a kiss and retreating in search of the stairs.
“Still rude to pretty girls, I see.” I unbuttoned my sleeves and rolled them up, pacing to the center of the hallway. “Worried she’ll upstage your magic, Danny-boy?”
He flashed pure white shark teeth and mimicked my movements, stepping to the side. “Always have something smart to say, don’t you, Joey Josiah?”
I had no choice but to sidestep as well or else risk letting him get the upper hand. The two of us circled in the narrow hallway, sizing each other up. He’d shown me only a fraction of what he was capable of on the rooftop earlier. Of that, I was certain. Anyone who could manage to craft such an intricate spell as the one laid on the floor above was not someone who would go down easily.
But it wasn’t just anyone, was it? This was Danny Monahan, my teacher, my friend. I had loved him once. Now, I’d have to kill him. He wouldn’t listen to reason. No, Danny was too far gone for that.
The first spell whipped out of Danny in a streak of electric blue. I jumped to the side and let it slam into the wall at the end of the hallway. Brick exploded. The building quaked. People screeched and ran, panicked into the hallway, pushing past me on their way to the stairs. The presence of all the innocent Normals didn’t slow Danny down one bit. He twisted his fingers in the air as if braiding a rope before making a fist and pulling empty air back toward himself.
The wall behind me collapsed, throwing bricks, wooden beams, and live wires to lash out at me. I put my arms up over my head as a heavy beam crashed to the floor off to my right. He was literally tearing the building apart to get to me. Well, two could play at that game.
“You can’t win, Josiah,” Danny shouted through the dust rising from the rubble. “Why are you fighting me? We should be working together, not fighting each other!”
“If you think this is my sort of gig, you don’t know me half as well as I thought you did.” Let’s see. A building this big, with that much magic soaked into the bricks above, I’d need a doozy of a spell. Blood would be the easiest fuel, and unless I wanted to grab one of the passersby fleeing the scene, I’d need to collect it from either me or Danny. I searched the ground for something, anything sharp that I could use.
A fireball careened through the air. I gathered my will into a thick wall of blue magic and raised my hands, stretching it between them. Danny’s fireball struck the shield, the strength of the impact forcing back a step. Another slammed into my shield, followed by another. The attacks were unrelenting, and only growing stronger, the more desperate he became.
Danny’s silhouette appeared at the edge of the darkness and dust, hands raised, another, larger fireball spinning between his palms. “Dammit, Joey.” His voice broke under the strain of emotion, cracking as if he were a teenage boy again. “We could’ve been something. We could’ve been great. Why? Why’d you do this to me? I could’ve given you everything, yet you throw me away like trash. After all these years, it’s still all about you, isn’t it? What Josiah wants.” He stepped through the cloud of dust, close enough that the dark circles under his eyes were visible.
Now was my chance to strike, but I’d have to drop my shield to do so. The second I did, he’d hurl that fireball at me, and that thing was too big to dodge. Once it hit the floor, the whole building would go up, and us with it. Better than letting him kill everyone in New York.
Danny had taught me a lot back in the old days, but his spells relied on his understanding of the elements. Science, the elements, the very knowledge of how electrons spun around the nucleus of every atom, that was how Danny understood magic. He’d married science, reason, and the arcane to craft spells that could tear the world apart with enough will. Such an understanding gave him control and accuracy that were unmatched.
But that wasn’t how I understood magic. Magic had a cost. Like fire, it needed fuel, something to burn in exchange for the power it gave. Blood and sacrifice were the easiest way to fuel a spell, but they weren’t the only way. Raw emotion, while unpredictable, could feed some of the angriest, most powerful spells in any wizard’s arsenal, though tapping that power was dangerous. Feed too much into the spell, and it could easily careen out of control.
I dropped the shield and tapped into the boyhood memory of what I’d felt for Danny. The love and lust, yes, but also the anger that he had walked away. The shame I had used to build a wall around those memories, keeping them locked away, so I’d never feel that again. The silent tears shed alone in a bed I had earned by betraying the one person who understood me best. Hope, rage, loss, betrayal, all balled into one explosive force that tore out of me in a bolt of raw power. It slashed open the side of Danny’s face and sent him spinning to the ground. A few inches lower and the blow would have sliced his throat wide open. This could’ve all been over.
No time to think about that now, not with his fireball flying toward me. I had one option to survive, and it wasn’t a good one. Danny had forced my hand.
I barked two syllables and made a fist, drawing on the well of power that sat deep within, nearly untouched. It woke at my call and rose, stretching like a lazy cat waking on a warm summer afternoon. My heart beat once, pushing fire into my veins that burned to the surface, threatening to devour me. Blinding light consumed the world around me while a high-pitched buzzing vibrated my eardrums until they burst. I opened my mouth to scream, but all that came out was more flame.
In the presence of Holy Fire, Danny’s fireball fizzled to nothing. I had survived his spell. Now all I had to do was survive my own summoning.
The earth quaked under my feet, trembling in the presence of its creator’s power. Brick and glass melted. Support beams snapped and tumbled. I called to the cool of the night
, to the snow I knew was falling through the cracks all around me. A choir of terrible voices called to me, all chanting the same thing: Abomination. Unclean. Sinner. I reached for them, for the promise and power that was mine by right. Save me.
But no angel grasped my hand to pull me from the flames of Hell nipping at my heels. They turned their backs on me and let me fall into perdition with all the rest of the souls trapped in the flat that night.
Chapter Nineteen
KHALEDA
The elevator doors opened, and Victis grabbed my hand to drag me out. I hesitated, pulling back. “We have to go back for him.”
Victis’ face hardened. “Teacher, that man is a menace. We need to escape this place while we still can.”
My jaw trembled. I had felt the magic rolling off of those two at the end of the hall. Josiah was powerful, frighteningly so, but I didn’t know if he could take them both on. Not by himself. He’d barely gotten this far without my help.
Victis’ fingers squeezed my hand, threatening to crush it. “I won’t let you die for him.”
My head snapped up. “It’s not your place to decide what I live and die for.”
His eyes widened, and his face jerked as if I had slapped him. Dammit, he was right, though. Injured as I was, I was no good in a fight. Josiah stood a better chance of getting away if I wasn’t there to slow him down.
He let go of my hand. “Please, Teacher. He told us to go. You’re hurt. You need medical attention.”
Well, Victis was right about that. My shoulder ached like it was broken and burned at the same time. The fresh stitches Josiah had put in my leg were sore too, and exhaustion had finally hit me. I wouldn’t be upright for long at this rate.
Victis didn’t wait for an answer. He grabbed my hand, and we raced for the rear stairs. He threw the door open and frigid night air washed over me. I instantly regretted not bringing my coat. The stairs were icy, difficult to navigate in heels even if I wasn’t weak from bleeding and exhaustion. Victis had to help me down. Even then, I stumbled into his arms.
