The why was irrelevant. He just knew he had to make it count.
Sebastian grabbed Richard by the arm and hauled him forward, sending them both careening toward the demon, who opened its mouth, leaned forward, and spewed forth a roaring torrent of hellfire straight at its prey. It was met by blinding white light, but the demon did not relent—perhaps it did remember last time, and was determined not to give up so easily. It took one step forward, then another, not letting up on its unending stream of scorching flame.
“We have to stop it, I don’t know how long Lily can hold!” Sebastian yelled right next to Richard’s ear, barely able to hear himself over the conflagration.
Richard only nodded and pointed at the ground by the demon’s massive foot. Sebastian took his cue and sprinted ahead, then dropped and slid into a kneeling position with his hands cupped close to the demon’s leg. The heavy, clinging stench of sulfur washed over him and he coughed, eyes stinging. The massive beast took no notice of him, and its attention stayed locked on its stubborn adversary. It was a good thing, too, because this close to it, the heat radiating off its firestorm was almost too much to bear and Sebastian couldn’t have dodged a swipe of its claws even if he tried.
Then there was no more time for thinking, or worry, or even fear. There was only thrumming readiness, eyes locked on Richard. The agent launched himself forward from his crouch, picked up speed, then leapt at Sebastian. Sebastian caught the agent’s foot in his cupped hands and heaved the man upward with a burst of adrenaline-fueled strength. The move sent red-hot pain tearing through Sebastian’s side and he gasped as blackness dimmed his vision. Then his legs gave out. Blind instinct alone remained in control, urging him to roll and roll and roll away from the heat. He wheezed in pain, but he kept rolling until he was clear of the demon and could look up to see what had happened to Richard.
Four shots boomed out, their echo mingling with the demon’s screech of rage as it flung its head back. Its stream of fire washed over the wall and part of the ceiling before it winked out. If the bullets had pierced the creature’s thick, scaly armor, it wasn’t obvious, and the demon seemed angry enough to still be fully functional. It reached up across its body with one massive arm and clawed at the shoulder where Richard had been holding onto a bony spike for balance. But Richard had already shifted, swinging around to the other shoulder, where he tried to place his gun just behind the demon’s ear and get off a few more shots. The demon was having none of it, though, and spun around, grasping wildly with its long claws. One of the claws raked Richard across the shoulder and he lost his hold, then fell almost ten feet to land with a painful thud on his back. Still snorting in rage, the demon spun and scooped up its tormentor, its huge fist big enough to close entirely around Richard’s torso. It curled its fingers about its captured prey and its claws dug into the agent’s flesh as it opened its mouth and lifted its meal toward foot-long fangs. Sebastian was sure he heard bones pop and break, but Richard did not cry out. He simply lifted his one free arm, hand still miraculously gripping the Beretta, and unloaded the rest of the clip straight into the demon’s gaping maw.
There were a lot of things a greater demon could survive, but half a dozen iron slugs bulldozing straight through its cranium at over a thousand feet per second was not one of them. With most of the back of its head gone, the gigantic beast swayed on its feet, then fell slowly forward and landed on the floor with a sickening crunch.
“Richard!”
Lily’s scream snapped Sebastian out of his shock, and he heaved himself painfully to his feet. It took two tries to get upright, but finally he was stumbling toward the motionless hulk that was even now starting to smoke and disintegrate as its massive, spiked and plated body turned to ash before his eyes. Lily got there first and started digging through the crumbling ruins, looking for any sign of Richard. Sebastian joined her, and together they found the agent and struggled to drag his limp form free of the destruction.
As soon as they laid him down a few yards away, Sebastian knew it was not good. Richard’s labored breathing sounded wet, as if the demon had pierced a lung, and the man’s torso was shredded and bleeding all over the place.
“Richard, can you hear me? You’re going to be okay, we’re going to get help!” Lily said, voice trembling. She’d dropped to her knees by Richard’s side and gripped his hand in hers.
“Don’t—don’t bother,” Richard sputtered, and he turned his head to cough up a glob of blood. “Got—got the bastard good, didn’t I?”
“Yeah, you did,” Sebastian said, kneeling carefully at the man’s other side and putting a hand on his bloody shoulder while Lily looked up and called for help. “Blew his head right off. That was good work, Agent Grant. Mighty good work.”
“That’s a fine—” Richard paused to cough up more blood and suck in a few wheezing breaths. “Mighty fine...gun...Beretta, innit?”
Sebastian nodded, though he wasn’t sure Richard saw him. The man’s eyes kept opening and closing, his gaze unfocused and distant.
“Could use—use a gun like that.”
Lily looked back down at the FBI agent. “That doesn’t matter right now, Richard. Just lie still, you’re going to be fine.”
“You’re a...terrible liar...Lily.”
A horrible, pain-filled silence met his words, and he stilled, eyes finally focusing on Lily’s stricken face.
“I’m so...so sorry...Lily. S’all...my fault. Never meant...to ever hurt…”
“Shhh, don’t say any more, Richard. It—it doesn’t matter right now. Just hold on. Don’t you dare die on me.”
“C-can’t...help it,” the man struggled to say as more blood bubbled out of the corners of his lips. “Please...f-forgive…”
“Of—of course I forgive you, of course I do.” Lily gripped his hand tightly between both of hers as silent tears dripped down her cheeks and onto his bloody chest.
“Don’t...deserve it. Tell m...my ma...love her...”
“I will, I promise.”
“S...sorry.”
“Shhh, hush now. Just—just rest.”
“S—” Richard tried to speak again, but he couldn’t get any more words out past his labored gasping as his lungs filled with blood, slowly suffocating him.
Sebastian wanted desperately to pull Lily away, to spare her this horrible sight. But he knew she wouldn’t go—wouldn’t abandon Richard to die alone. So instead he put a hand on her shoulder, steadying her as she trembled with shock. Him? He just felt numb. He’d seen plenty of death, starting with his parents, and this was just another to add to the long list of sins to be laid at John Faust’s feet.
With a final, shuddering gasp, Richard’s eyes rolled back in his head and he slowly went limp. Lily didn’t move, and Sebastian could feel the terrible tension in her shoulder muscles beneath his fingers. He tried to think of what to say—was he even sad Richard was dead?
Filthy, lying traitor! Should have killed him yourself.
Yes, he decided, he should be sad, since that was the opposite of what the voices in his head seemed to want. He’d made just as many mistakes as Richard, if not the same kind. And the man had died bravely in the line of duty, protecting the innocent.
Sebastian shook his head, as if the voices were annoying flies he could brush away. Now that Morgan and the demon were dead, he felt ten times better. Though, oddly, he’d also noticed that even before their deaths, whenever he’d been hyper-focused on saving Lily—or on anything besides himself—the voices hadn’t seemed as bad either.
“Oh, Lily, I’m so sorry—”
“Lily, child, leave him—”
Lily’s mother and Aunt B had arrived and were speaking softly to Lily as Mrs. Singer tried to pull her away.
“Help! Help! Somebody stop her!”
Sebastian scrambled awkwardly to his feet, a surge of adrenaline singing through him at the sound of John Faust’s frantic voice. Everyone’s heads swiveled as they looked for the source of the cries, but Sebastian was alre
ady shuffling off toward it, every bit of him crying out in pain at the movement. Sir Kipling appeared out of nowhere and bounded ahead. Sebastian picked up the pace, simply following the cat through the maze of shelves until he rounded one to find Mallory kneeling on her father’s chest. She pressed one iron dagger to his throat and held the other raised above her head, poised to strike.
“Mallory, no!” Sebastian surged forward, afraid he would be too late.
But the upraised dagger remained suspended, trembling as if Mallory’s hand shook from the effort of holding it aloft—or from resisting the urge to bring it down to find its target.
Sebastian did not try to tackle Mallory or even try to pull her off John Faust. In fact, he had to resist the overwhelming urge to grab the dagger from her hand and plunge it into the wizard’s chest himself. Instead, he caught her upraised wrist, holding her arm firmly where it was while Sir Kipling crouched nearby with tail whipping back and forth in readiness.
“Mallory, don’t turn into him. He’s not worth it.”
“He’s a threat,” she bit out, and her words shivered with the tension he could feel humming through her.
“Yes, he is. But we’ll handle him.”
“He’s a murderer.”
“Yeah, he’s that too. But you aren’t, okay?”
You are a murderer. You killed her. You killed them all!
Mallory didn’t respond. Her attention was locked on her father’s face, though his gaze flicked back and forth between her and Sebastian. The wizard’s eyes were wide, and his nostrils flared as his Adam’s apple bobbed against the cold iron held to his throat.
“I surrender. I offer no resistance. Please, get her off me.”
His plea was met with a vicious curse from Mallory, a hiss from Sir Kipling, and a scowl from Sebastian—who didn’t believe a word of it.
“What is the meaning of this? Mallory, release your father this instant.” Aunt B’s voice—thin and quavering, but still full of command—echoed down the row of shelves as she limped toward them with the aid of a black cane. The two male wizards Sebastian didn’t know ran in front of her, and they soon skidded to a halt beside the three-person standoff. Their grim faces were tight with rage, and they stood poised for a fight even as they quietly panted to catch their breath. Sebastian wasn’t sure if they were there to stop Mallory, or cheer her on.
Mallory did not react to their arrival, nor did she drop her weapons. Several times her arm flexed, pulling against his grip as she wavered between choices.
“Mallory, release him,” Aunt B said again, finally reaching them. “The right of judgment is not yours.”
“It should be,” the young woman spat out.
“You did not give him life, and you have no right to his death.”
“He took my life. My identity,” Mallory said, her voice rising. “It was all I had and he took it. I deserve to do the same to him.” Suddenly, she twisted her arm and broke free of Sebastian’s grip, then whipped her dagger up again for the attack. But before she could plunge it downward, Aunt B shouted.
“Stop!”
Mallory froze and Sebastian stumbled back a step, turning in shock to his aunt. Had she just used the same spell John Faust had used on him?
Whatever she had done, it took the last of her strength, and she sagged suddenly over her cane. Sebastian lunged just in time to catch her before she hit the floor. To his relief, one of the other wizards took advantage of Mallory’s momentary immobility to drag her off her father while the other stood ready in case John Faust tried anything.
“Mallory,” Sebastian snapped, “get your head out of your butt and go get those manacles in your pack. We’ll slap them on this piece of trash and figure out what to do with him later. Go!”
With a venomous glare directed toward him, Mallory wrenched out of the other wizard’s grip and stalked off down the aisle. As Sebastian watched her go, he wondered how much of her willingness to take on the job had been for the money, and how much had been for a chance at revenge—a chance she had clearly obtained, but then hesitated to take advantage of.
“Watch him,” Sebastian said, looking back at John Faust, who remained prone with hands raised in surrender. “Aunt B, are you okay?”
“I—I shall be. I just—just need to sit and—regain my strength.”
“W-what’s going on?”
Lily’s trembling voice made Sebastian turn to see her running up, followed closely by her mother. She slowed and would have stopped at the sight of Mallory stalking past, her stone-cold expression fixed ahead, but Mrs. Singer urged her onward and they both hurried over to him and Aunt B.
“Nothing, Lily,” he assured her. “This sniveling coward just realized he couldn’t fight his way out and now he’s trying to fool us into thinking he’s standing down so he can escape later.”
“That is not true, Blackwell,” John Faust said, his expression darkening. “I was a prisoner here just as much as anyone else. Morgan was insane, and she would have killed me without a thought if I had refused to go along with her plans.”
“Refused to go along with her plans? You make it sound like she was trying to scam the IRS or something. You stood by and watched while she murdered people!”
“I had no choice,” the wizard bit out, though he looked at Lily as he said it. “You saw what she could do once she joined with the demon. It was only blind luck that I was able to throw off her influence long enough to attack her. Why would I have done that if I was a willing participant? I tried to kill her and save us all when the opportunity presented itself. I did not quite manage it, but by the look of things, the end result was satisfactory.”
Sebastian’s eyes narrowed. He’d spotted his ring on one of John Faust’s upraised hands, and it made him realize something. There was no reason to think the ring would have protected John Faust any less effectively than it had protected Sebastian, which meant John Faust had been faking his obedience the entire time. And that meant his every action had been carefully calculated—and that he could have struck sooner, yet had chosen not to.
But why?
“Satisfactory? Satisfactory?” Lily’s rising voice broke through his thoughts, and he saw her step forward, only for her mother to grab her arm and hold her back. “You call this satisfactory? People are dead because of you, because of your stupid arrogance and disregard for the good of others. R-Richard is dead because of you, because you lied to him and manipulated him to hurt other people.”
“I never coerced Agent Grant to do a single thing,” John Faust said, his voice as low and quiet as his daughter’s was shrill and loud. “We had a business arrangement. He made his choices, just as you have made yours. His fate can be laid at no one’s feet but his own.”
“Y-you—you—” Lily cut herself off. She was trembling with rage, her fists clenched and her eyes burning as she stared down at her father with crushing accusation in her eyes.
Sebastian had never gotten the impression Mr. High and Mighty cared about anyone’s opinion but his own. But in that moment, the wizard’s face tightened. It might have been distress, but knowing him, it probably wasn’t.
“I have only ever wanted to help wizardkind—to strengthen them and aid them in taking their rightful place in our world. That is all I have ever wanted or ever fought for. If you had not stood in my way, no one would have gotten hurt.”
Lily sputtered, her face growing redder by the second. But it was her mother who got the next words out.
“How dare you imply that any of this is Lily’s fault, you two-faced, lying—”
Sebastian knew better than to jump into the brewing storm, though he was very curious to note that, according to his truth coin, John Faust had believed the words he had spoken, even if Mrs. Singer didn’t.
“—keep your filthy, manipulative mouth shut and don’t speak another word to my daughter,” Mrs. Singer continued, swelling with mother-bear rage. “You’ve hurt her more than you could possibly imagine, and yet she’s still the best dau
ghter she can be and the most decent human being I’ve ever met. I won’t let you hurt her anymore.”
“Peace, Freda—” John Faust tried to say.
“Don’t you ‘peace, Freda’ me, you—”
At that point the other two wizards started yelling too, their mannerisms and tones strikingly similar to Freda’s as all three voices joined in one furious tirade.
“I’ve had enough of you, LeFay—”
“How dare you open your mouth after what you did—”
“You and your family will regret ever laying a hand on—”
“Enough.”
The three wizards’ mouths gaped open, their cacophony of noise silenced with unnatural abruptness at John Faust’s command.
“I knew it!” Sebastian said. “Watch him, you all, he’s obviously not as harmless as he wants us to think. What did he just do, Lily? He did it to me earlier.” He did not feel the need to mention that his aunt had done it as well, though for a much better reason.
“It’s compulsion magic,” Lily said, her voice once more under control but laced through with disgust. “It’s not mind control, but with enough power behind it, it might as well be. Mundanes are especially vulnerable to it. It’s considered extremely faux pas in wizard society, or so I’ve been told.” The look Lily gave her father would have withered a lesser man where he stood. John Faust didn’t even blink. “It doesn’t work well against other wizards if they’re expecting it,” she continued, “and obviously you can ward against its influence. But it can work if you take someone by surprise, or if you slip it in slowly and subtly so they don’t notice until it’s too late.”
Sebastian noticed that it was no longer Mrs. Singer holding Lily back, but the other way around. Gone was the haggard expression and weary slump to the older woman’s shoulders, burned away by the anger that radiated from her eyes, though even that wasn’t enough to hide the haunted look that lurked beneath.
Love, Lies, and Hocus Pocus Identity Page 35
