Better off Dead Book Two

by Odette C. Bell

  I knew that something was going to happen long before an outline of wings cut through the barely existent light.

  I managed to turn my head up just as Sonos descended.

  “Fool,” Hilliker spat. He tightened his grip on my throat, but somehow he couldn’t kill me now that the rain wasn’t driving down anymore. Don’t get me wrong, I couldn’t breathe, and I was hardly in a great situation as his fingers tightened even further around my throat, but my neck didn’t snap only for resurrection light to fill me once more.

  Sonos landed down beside me, one hand in the murky, writhing puddle that surrounded Hilliker’s feet. Slowly, he stretched up. His wings were fully open – the demon ready to hunt.

  This was where I assumed Hilliker would jerk away, drop me, and start the fight. Instead, he remained exactly where he was. Based on how wide his eyes were alone, he looked as if he wanted to run, but something was keeping him held to the spot.

  “Sorry I took so long,” Sonos said without turning to me once. He was still in the same suit he’d been wearing back at the light bar. But as symbols began to burn along his hands and race up the sleeves, his jacket and shirt were burned right off him. They quickly became ash that scattered at his feet. Now I could see his appreciably muscly, bare chest, I watched Hell runes dance over his skin. They rose off his flesh a good few centimeters, scorching the air and anything stupid enough to touch them. As a few remaining shards of glass fell down from above, they hissed against his skin and instantly turned to dust.

  “Put her down, priest,” Sonos said in the kind of deep, rumbling voice that could have reached down to the middle of the Earth, kept going, and punched right through until it divided the planet in half.

  Hilliker stared at him with wide-open, boggling eyes. It looked as if there was pressure building up in his skull that was trying to force his eyeballs out of his damn head. “There’s nothing you can do. The process has begun. The Just One will return.”

  “Not if Heaven and Hell have anything to do with it.” As more blood-red symbols spread across Sonos’s hand, he reached his fingers to the side. Energy built in his palm. This distinct, eerie glow settled around him like a cloak. As it traveled down his arm, into his wrist, then finally into his fingers, I saw a sword appear in his grip. It was no ordinary blade – it was the weapon of a General of the Damned.

  Any dark practitioner – either a newbie or one who’d been dabbling in the shadows their entire life – would give their own skull to touch, let alone have, a sword like that. It wasn’t so much real as carved out of reality itself. It commanded one’s attention because it burned through everything. As one or two last stray chunks of glass fell from the ceiling, they were unlucky enough to touch the blade. They disintegrated, becoming vaporized in a second.

  Sonos took a menacing step toward Hilliker. He still held me exactly where he had been before. It seemed that this particular location was important somehow.

  Sonos suddenly moved. He was so quick, even a bullet wouldn’t have been able to keep up. But Hilliker thrust a hand to the side, opened his fingers wide, and sent magic charging around him in a defensive cloak. Sonos’s sword slammed down into it.

  Sonos didn’t hold back. He used every ounce of strength – and magic – he had until fire blasted up around him and shook through the room. It caught a few of the broken gurneys that had been pushed off to the side. They melted, forming toxic puddles that mixed with the black water already filling this room.

  A few droplets splashed against Sonos. They did nothing to him. Hilliker was a different story. Regardless of the fact he was protecting himself with magic, that protection did not extend to his clothes. His shoes caught fire, and the lower half of his robes were burned right off him. As the smoke coiled around his form, it made me choke.

  Sonos wasn’t about to give up. With a growl, he thrust forward again, more energy blasting into his Hell blade until it looked as if he would be able to rival the sun.

  But Hilliker wasn’t about to hold back, either. He screamed too. By the sound of it, he was so choked, every single hand in reality was wrapped around his throat. Strange things were happening to his voice. And even stranger things happened to the room as that very same voice quickly uttered a hex. It bit through reality, tearing it up into shreds. I watched the room bulge as if it was getting ready to explode.

  “That is forbidden magic,” Sonos growled. He had to jump back, bring up his sword, and defend himself with it. Damnation fire swirled around the blade and his bare chest, holding back that strange bulging magic.

  It wasn’t the only thing expanding to the point of bursting. As Hilliker held out his free hand, his eyes widened and widened and widened until it looked as if they would detonate.

  The room continued to bulge. I was somewhat protected from it yet vulnerable to it at the same time. My head wasn’t about to pop, even as chunks of the wall exploded, plaster scattering everywhere. But my clothes were not so lucky. I felt as they rippled, stretched, contracted, and otherwise fought to stay real as the room was further inundated by Hilliker’s dark powers.

  “You threaten everything, you fool,” Sonos said as, with another scream, he bolted forward. His Hell blade now created so much fire, it looked as if Hell itself had been emptied out just to feed it power.

  I saw, practically in slow motion, as he leaped up, clutched the blade in two white-knuckled hands, and tried to bring it down on top of Hilliker.

  Hilliker attempted to hide behind his elbow. He pumped more magic into his spell. Somehow, Sonos’s attack managed to rip Hilliker’s influence from the rest of the room. That strange space-defying hex contracted until it was nothing more than a ball right around Hilliker’s form. It was black and writhed far worse than every droplet of the poisonous rain had. Sonos’s sword came down on the ball, and massive energy waves discharged from it in every direction. Anything they struck was disintegrated. They smashed into the wall beside Hilliker, and they kept going. The plaster didn’t have a chance – it was spirited right out of this world into another.

  This room could only take so much. This hospital was hardly in perfect condition to begin with. As another chunk of wall was taken down, the ceiling started to sag.

  “I call on your dark power,” Hilliker began to chant. He had to keep his hand extended wide as magic blasted through his body and out into his spell. His elbows shook, threatening to buckle. But there was one thing that never became weak – his grip around my throat. “I call on your dark power,” he shouted louder, his voice shaking with this terrifying certainty.

  I caught sight of his eyes. They weren’t bulging anymore – they were... darkening.

  I’d seen a lot in my job. I’d witnessed sights that would make even Sonos’s toes curl. What happened to Hilliker took my breath away.

  This energy invaded his pupils. It spread out into his irises then claimed the whites of his eyes. It looked... it looked like pure greed, if such a thing could exist. It was this need – this overpowering desire that appeared to come, not from this reality, but from something beyond.

  I hadn’t believed too much of what Sonos had told me. I simply couldn’t comprehend any situation that would force Hell and Heaven to work together, but as I stared at the energy invading Hilliker, I realized then and there that Sonos hadn’t been trying to fool me.

  Sonos screamed again. He thrust into the air, brought his sword back, pumped energy into it, then smashed it into Hilliker’s shield. It was becoming weaker with every attack. As energy lines broke across it, discharging into the floor and further undermining the structural integrity of this room, Hilliker’s whole body finally started to shake. Steam wafted off him as if he were hot coals thrown into an ocean. His grip around my throat tightened. I felt him trying to kill me again, but for whatever reason, he still couldn’t.

  “I call on your dark power,” he chanted louder until it sounded as if his throat would crack. “My liege – the source of all real truth and justice – I call on your power,
” he screamed until his voice broke completely.

  But his voice wasn’t the only thing that broke. Magic blasted through him. It came from his eyes. Whatever had infected them suddenly infected the space all around him until I could literally see reality cracking. Hilliker screamed, thrust his hand wide open, and shunted forward with me still in his grip. That black expanse around his body bulged then shot forward. It struck Sonos right on the chest just as he was readying another attack.

  “Sonos,” I managed to scream around Hilliker’s grip.

  I couldn’t even see Sonos as he was blasted back into the dark. All I heard was the loud, painful crunch of a body against stone.

  Hilliker suddenly turned back to me. He didn’t have any eyes anymore – all he had were these two black voids. I made the mistake of staring into them. All I wanted to do was keep screaming, but I suddenly couldn’t. I couldn’t breathe – I doubted my heart could even beat. My body could perform no function to prove it was alive – because with one mere look from him, it felt like I was killed over and over again.

  It was more than a feeling. Hilliker wrapped both his hands around my throat and began to squeeze.

  He was half a second from killing me once more when I heard a tortured voice from further off in the room. “Snow... snow globe,” Sonos managed. I’d never heard his voice weaker. He sounded less like a General of the Damned and more like an ordinary broken man.

  There was no way I could call on my subspace pocket and remove the snow globe. There was—

  “The more he kills you, the stronger he becomes,” Sonos hissed. Judging by the sound of his voice, he’d been badly injured.

  There would’ve been a time when such a prospect would’ve filled me with hope and a warm gooey feeling. Right now the thought of Sonos being too wounded to help me terrified me right down to my core. Then that fear drove right in, expanding like acid. It shook me up just as I felt Hilliker’s hands squeeze all the way in for the kill.

  There was every reason for this not to work. He was controlling more than my capacity to breathe. He had a complete hold of my body. I shouldn’t be able to reach into my subspace pocket, but in that moment I did. I thrust away all distractions and concentrated only on two things. Sonos and Sonos. The last one should have been me, but it wasn’t. I couldn’t allow myself to be filled with my own fear and need. The only thing that kept me going was the same damn man who’d always kept me going.

  Whenever I’d entered my darkest moments in life, I’d always thought of Sonos. Not in a loving way, of course. I’d thought of one day facing him – one day killing him for what he’d done. Though I hadn’t appreciated it at the time, the thought of him had given me the wings I’d needed to pull myself out of trouble.

  I guess I’d always been compelled by him – connected, even though I’d never understood why.

  I held onto that thought now. Though I’d been sure that I only had a second before Hilliker snapped my neck, for some reason he was taking more time. I doubted it was because he was enjoying the moment. It was clear that he needed more power from killing me – and he needed it now. And yet, one second ticked into another, and then another second ticked into another yet again.

  “Just die,” he roared as he tightened both his hands around my throat.

  “The snow globe,” Sonos hissed.

  I concentrated on my subspace pocket with all I had. This wasn’t the first time I’d managed to call on something with just my mind. Truly powerful practitioners can call on anything with their minds. Their thoughts become nothing more than an extension of their power – a means through which the energy of the universe – and true magic – can flow.

  But I had never experienced power like that – until today.

  I let my thoughts lead me until I opened my subspace pocket, until I snagged hold of the snow globe.

  In a moment I would never forget, it dropped down right in front of me. Though I was certain that I had to touch it in order to initiate it, I didn’t. I simply thrust my mind into it until I felt something opening up.

  “What the—” Hilliker began – it was too late.

  The energy of the snow globe started to reach around me. I felt its embrace as if it were a lover. It pulled me down and down and down until finally I felt Hilliker’s hands leaving my throat.

  In a snap, I was back in the snow globe, back in Sonos’s arms, and back in safety – for now.

  Chapter 6

  I screamed. Once upon a time, I’d had little capacity to move my body in the snow globe, but now as my dress appeared around me and my hands became locked in Sonos’s, there was nothing to stop me from jerking back. Before I could completely lose his grip, Sonos tightened his fingers around mine. It took a while for his plastic features to resolve into that of the real man. Immediately they spread thin with worry. “Eve—”

  “Sonos, is that the real you? Or is this just a version of you in here?” I asked so quickly, my worried words became strung together.

  “It’s me,” he hissed.

  “What’s happening? Why is Hilliker so powerful?”

  “Each time he kills you, he siphons off power from the resurrection curse into the Banished. The Banished then further possesses him, giving him more strength.”

  “He’s allowing himself to be possessed?” I asked through a shuddering breath.

  You would think that, of all the practitioners out there, a priest would know the dangers of possession the most. They were often the ones to deal with it, after all.

  Though possession agreements could look lucrative and beneficial on the face of it, the person who allowed themselves to be possessed never won.

  Either their body would rot away or their mind would. The more powerful the creature that tried to possess them, the more quickly that damage would occur.

  “Hilliker is now completely mad. He sees nothing but power. He will do anything to achieve it.”

  I finally looked at Sonos properly. There was blood all across his shirt. It was seeping in, even though I couldn’t see an injury. I shook. “Sonos – your chest—”

  He looked down at it without removing his hands from mine. “I took a charge of an unreality hex right to the torso. It will take some time to heal.”

  “An unreality hex?” My brow crumpled in confused worry. I was a student of magic. I knew about every single hex there was in this big wide world. But I had never heard of anything like that.

  “The Banished has access to true chaos magic.” Judging by the way he said chaos, it was the worst concept he could think of. As a man from Hell, that really said something.

  My gut kicked, and a cold sweat slicked my brow. “What the hell do we do? He has me in hand—”

  “You must stay here until you are strong enough to fight. Though there is a limit to how much this realm can protect you.”

  “What even is this place?” Without removing my hands from his, I tilted my head around and stared at the strange ballroom as we continued to dance. Though I’d only been here a handful of times before, I knew that Sonos was not as strong as he had been previously. He was still dancing, but his grip and movements were stiff. As I jerked my gaze back to him, I saw blood suddenly trickle down from his brow. “What the hell is that?”

  “I’m becoming more injured.”

  “More injured?” I spluttered. “How is that possible? You’re in here with me—”

  “No. My mind is here with you. My body is back there.”

  There was something about the way he said it. I slowly let my mouth open – then realization dawned on me. “You’re sustaining the spell for me, aren’t you?”

  He tilted his head down in a slight nod.

  Sonos might be a General of the Damned. He might be so powerful that practitioners – both dark and light – would do anything for his autograph. But he couldn’t sustain soul magic like this for long.

  “You’re shielding me, aren’t you?” I whispered, barely capable of pushing that out of my mouth. “You’re
shielding me with your soul.”

  I finally understood what this realm was and what was creating it.

  It was a dream. Technically. Ordinary people thought dreams didn’t exist, but they did. They were the only reality the soul could live. In many ways, the life your body and mind led were insignificant compared to the dreams your soul got up to every night. They are what feeds you emotional energy and power, and that in turn gives the soul new worlds to explore every time you shut your eyes. If the soul could not dream, life would end shortly thereafter.

  Truly strong practitioners can utilize both the magic and energy of their souls. They can create dream worlds that have all the hallmarks of reality and yet are nothing more than an extension of their own hearts. Such worlds become completely dependent on the power of one’s soul.

  I twisted my head to the side just as a great chunk of the ceiling fell down. It was nowhere near us. We were still dancing in the middle of the ballroom. But I knew what it signified.

  “Sonos,” I cried as more blood trailed down from the other side of his brow.

  He clenched his teeth in obvious pain but didn’t stop dancing. “When you get free from here, you must run.”

  “I’m not going to leave you behind,” I spat long before I could think it through.

  Barely half an hour ago, I had told Sonos to his face that I would never believe a word he said to me. And now, here I was, hand-in-hand with him, terrified that I would ever have to leave his side.

  A part of me... a part of me knew that if this situation ever resolved, I would go back to hating him, but right now I couldn’t bring myself to do that. As his grip on my hands weakened slightly, I grabbed him tighter. “I don’t have a chance without you,” I hissed.

  He smiled. There was something about it I couldn’t fathom. Maybe he was simply happy that I’d finally come around to him – or perhaps it was something else. “You’ll have a chance wherever you are – as soon as you come into your power. Just run, Eve. I’ll do the rest.”