The next roof came up ahead and Aspen leapt, wind milling her arms as she did. She hit the opposite side hard enough to knock the breath out of her, half her body dangling over the traffic below. Up ahead was the final roof, and beyond it, the spell. She could make out the slight blurred shape of Xavier standing before it.
With great effort, Aspen pulled her herself up. She was forced to crouch for a moment to catch her breath. Though she could feel magic entering her, she could also feel it doing something else: the magic eating away at her, piece by piece, causing the seams that held her together to erode away.
She might have been immune, but she wasn’t invincible, Lucien had said. It was only a matter of time before her body gave out and she was finished.
Aspen sprinted to the nearest metal ladder. Her hands stung as they slapped each rung, finally pulling herself up to the final roof. It was as though she had emerged in a private stadium in the heart of New York. The skyscrapers rose in a ring around them like indifferent spectators. Aspen knew powerful magic kept most Norms from seeing the magical world, but with as much magic as Xavier was using, she didn’t want to know what they were seeing now.
Xavier himself stood on an elevated cement platform ahead of her, back turned, facing an ever-growing bubble of magic that swelled in front of him. The dark clouds that had rolled in grew. The light from the magic sliced reflections off the glass of the nearest buildings. The silver, cylindrical battery sat at his feet. It pulsed to the rhythm of Xavier’s chanting.
Xavier bellowed another syllable, and Aspen looked up in horror as a tremendous crack split the sky. The darkened clouds coiled and stretched apart, revealing a barrier that had once been invisible to her. She couldn’t make out the detail this far away, but it appeared to be comprised of thousands of interlocking runes—jagged slashes, swirling brushstrokes, ancient spells and scrabbled scrawls.
As Aspen watched, the barrier began to peel apart. Beyond it, the sky once again appeared blue beyond the black, but Aspen knew the city would be left defenseless if she allowed it to come apart completely.
She gripped her knife tighter and—
“Aspen?”
Isak sat propped against the wall just below Xavier, blinking groggily as he tried to focus on her. He clutched his head. “Aspen? What are you—I thought you were…”
Ignore him, Aspen thought. He doesn’t matter anymore. Nothing but stopping Xavier mattered.
But…What’s the point of stopping him if nothing good remains after?
Agonizingly aware she was running out of time, Aspen sprinted over and crouched beside him. Isak’s eyes were still glazed over, the remnants of Xavier’s spell still wearing off. With great difficulty, he managed to turn his head and meet her eyes. That smirk she’d come to expect lit up his face.
“That figures. I get hurt trying to break you out of something and you do it yourself anyway.”
“Do you believe me now? About Xavier?”
“Of course I do. I’m not an idiot, I just refused to see. But I know he’s doing it for the right reasons, Aspen. I know it.”
He was coming around now. His strong arms tried to push himself up but hadn’t quite mustered the strength yet. Aspen found her eyes wet as she watched him struggle to keep fighting.
“Goodbye, Isak. Don’t come after me.”
Isak grabbed her hand. The intensity of his gaze stirred something inside her, something that had nothing to do with the magic swirling around them.
“You’re not an idiot, either,” Isak whispered. “You can’t run from people forever. I hurt you, and I’m sorry. But I still care about you. There are a lot of people who still care about you.”
Aspen tried to tug away, but Isak’s old strength was returning, and he held on. “I know he’s done some horrible things, but don’t kill Xavier. Don’t kill him. For me. Please.”
He might as well have slid a hot poker into her gut. Part of her didn’t want to let him go, didn’t want to take this on alone. She wanted something to fight for, a future she could look forward to, maybe with him…maybe…
But…
Aspen leaned in and kissed Isak, letting her lips linger on his before pulling away. She tugged her hand out of his.
“I can’t promise that. I’m sorry.”
“Aspen!” Isak yelled as she started up the ladder toward Xavier. She kept climbing, tears burning her cheeks.
“Aspen, please!”
She leapt onto the platform and immediately staggered with the sudden push against her. The magic was so overwhelming. She had never felt anything like it; dozens of supernatural beings’ power concentrated into a single area. Each bit of it touched her. She could almost feel the beings the magic had once been part of; taste their fear, their anger.
Their desire for revenge.
It mingled with her own and she honed it, sharpening it, forgetting Lucien and what he’d told her and shoving all her fury on the man before her.
Aspen aimed the knife’s tip at the back of Xavier’s neck and charged.
She didn’t see the ghouls.
The first one’s arm came out of nowhere. Aspen couldn’t stop in time, only try to adjust her body to stave off the worst of the blow. The ghoul’s chipped, yellowed nails cleaved the skin of her forearm and she crashed to the concrete. Xavier turned. He didn’t look the least bit surprised to find her there.
“Deal with her, idiots! I’m almost done.”
Aspen rolled backward as a ghoul plunged its jaws down where her neck had been. She ducked as another tried to take off her head with a single, powerful swipe. They were blocking her in, herding her away from Xavier. Already she could see the wards above looked less solid. How much time did she have before it was too late?
Aspen bobbed and weaved, keeping light on her feet as the ghouls tried pinning her down. She attempted calling the magic she’d used earlier but it wouldn’t work.
A ghoul made a lunge and Aspen saw her chance.
She dipped beneath his arm and trapped it between her own, snapping it with a single twist. The ghoul’s screech was cut off as Aspen hammered the side of her free hand against his cheekbone, shattering it. She let the ghoul fall and charged Xavier once more. She ducked the next ghoul trying to cut her off, sinking her knife into his thigh and yanking it out again as she passed. Then she was free, leaping toward Xavier—
He turned. He clutched a fistful of magic.
A searing bolt tore through Aspen. She could feel the spell pierce her, felt her body flying backwards off the platform and hitting the ground hard. Her muscles seized in violent contractions. Her lungs forgot how to breathe, even as she knew her body was breaking down the magic. That one had nearly killed her. She was sure his next one would.
She pushed herself to a crouch. Someone cackled.
“Girlie, girlie in trouble now.”
A sickening hand gripped her hair and yanked up until she was face to mouth with rank breath and rows of yellowed, misshapen teeth.
“Girlie’s gonna taste gooood,” the ghoul said. Its lower jaw distended, easily wide enough to fit her head in. Aspen weakly reached for her knife still on the ground beneath her. The ghoul drew her closer. A fresh wave of hot, rancid breath washed over her face.
“That—” Aspen gripped the ghoul’s top and lower jaw, being sure not to get any flecks of rotting meat on her hands. With a heave she forced them apart until she felt something snap. “—is disgusting.”
The ghoul let out a gargling howl as it dropped her. Aspen’s legs gave as she hit. Before she could recover, the rest of the ghouls pounced her.
There was a swirl of a cloak. Lucien caught the nearest ghoul in a headlock and with his injured arm shoved a sparking ball of magic in its face. It twitched in jerky convulsions and went limp.
“Xavier,” Lucien said to her, his breathing ragged. “Hurry.”
He spun away, drawing the rest of the ghouls with him.
Aspen shakily drew herself up. Nobody else was around her. It se
emed, in the confusion, she had been left alone.
She scooped up her knife. On rubber legs, she made her way back to the ladder then up to the platform.
An earthquake shook the ground, tossing her forward before ceasing. Aspen pulled her head up in horror.
The barrier in the sky was coming down. Chunks like puzzle pieces broke away from one another and plummeted toward the city, disintegrating into nothingness before they reached the tops of the first buildings.
“It is done,” Xavier said, turning to her. “The reign of the Mages is over.”
A Broken Promise
Aspen charged him, rage filling her.
“You’ve killed us!” She snarled as she swung.
Xavier stepped back. His eyebrows rose in surprise as her knife nearly cleaved skin. He didn’t seem crazed or angry anymore. Calm, more than anything. Resigned, now that his task was complete.
“You have no idea what I’ve done. I’ve saved us.”
He was using magic to move quicker. The outer edges of his body were a blur, but Aspen could tell he was slowing. The spell must have taken more out of him than he’d realized.
The spell…
The battery was in its same spot. Every other second, a pulse of magic shot toward the sky, into the crumbling barrier above. If she could stop that, stop the source, then it just might be enough to stave the worst of the damage.
“No you don’t!”
Xavier’s fist cracked against her cheek as Aspen lunged for the battery.
“Idiot girl! You of all people should be grateful for what I’m doing! Or do you want to be the victim your entire, pathetic life?”
Aspen wiped the trickle of blood from the corner of her mouth. Xavier stood between her and the battery. He looked exhausted, but she was flagging as well.
“Without the Mages there’s going to be chaos,” Aspen said, trying to buy time to figure out a way around him. “We need them to keep order. More people are going to get hurt.”
“There’s already chaos. More than you could ever know. More than any Norm could ever know. The strong are made stronger and the weak are left at the wayside.”
His eyes flashed maliciously. “But you’re more than just a Norm, aren’t you? Aspen Rivest, the Null; something even your parents didn’t anticipate.”
Aspen breath caught in her throat. “What?”
Xavier crouched, placing his hand flat on the ground and then pulled, drawing up a metal spear fixed with a wicked tip. He pointed it at Aspen. “You should be thanking me, girl. Thankful that they burnt away before they could see what you’d become.”
Aspen flipped aside as Xavier’s spear pierced beside her. Her mind had fixated on Xavier’s words, but his constant attacks forced her to focus on the fight.
“The Mages will be gone, and we will all be better for it,” he said. “When Maladias’s thirst for power is quenched, he has promised to deliver to me a time of equality, a time of peace.”
Xavier blocked her knife as she leapt from above. Another pulse of magic from the battery sent them both tumbling away. Aspen used her momentum to roll into a crouch, and then she was up and sprinting toward the battery. She reached out her hand—
Xavier’s spear pierced her arm. Aspen screamed as the tip drove through the flesh of her forearm and into the ground, pinning her in place.
“The Mages will be gone,” Xavier hissed. “And a new age—a better age—will rise in its place. An age not just for the few, but for the many. Even if I fall, this is just the beginning. You can’t stop the change.”
Xavier twisted the spear and Aspen bit her tongue until it bled to keep from crying out. She wouldn’t dare give him the satisfaction of hearing her scream.
“And…Isak?” she grated out. “What will happen to him? If he doesn’t…agree with you…then you’ll just kill him…too?”
Xavier’s eyes glinted. “Still fixated on him, girl? I’ve taught him to be far superior than those other fools. I’ll admit I could have prepared him more for my true goal, but once he’s adjusted, once he sees that this is a better way, he will lead the rebirth.”
“And if he…doesn’t want…to?”
Xavier drove the spear down more, drove his snarling face closer to her. “He will learn. He doesn’t know what he wants—what potential he has. But he will discover it.”
Aspen curled her knees to her chest and lashed up with her heel, catching Xavier in the chin. He staggered back. Aspen gripped the spear with one bloody hand and yanked until it came free. Then she was up, turning, bringing her knife around—
Driving it into flesh.
Xavier gasped. His body went rigid, then limp. His legs collapsed beneath him and Aspen followed him to the ground, her knife still embedded just beneath his heart. Xavier gasped again. He stared down at the knife, then up at Aspen. Then he chuckled, a pulpy, watery sound.
“So you ended up killing me after all. One of the greatest Mages…felled by a…Norm. It’s rather…ironic.”
Aspen checked where her blade had entered. She’d probably punctured a lung, but had missed most of the vital organs.
“This won’t kill you. Isak didn’t want me to. You’ll live to see a trial.”
“Isak…trusted you…not to…?” Xavier let out a long breath. “I…see.”
With a sudden burst of strength, Xavier gripped Aspen’s hands around the hilt and wrenched them upward, driving the blade into his heart.
Aspen gasped as Xavier’s breathing shuddered. The pulse of his heart beneath her fingers slowed, then stilled.
“This…is for Isak’s…own good.” Xavier’s eyes lost focus, drifting over her shoulder. “For…his…own…”
He slumped to the side. Aspen caught his head before it hit the ground.
There was a strangled sob behind her.
Isak stood there, eyes wide, face frozen in horror as he looked down at Xavier’s body.
“Aspen, I…I asked you…I begged you not to…Xavier!”
Aspen was shoved onto her back as another pulse of magic washed over her. The barrier above was now a patchwork quilt of broken runes curled within a dark sky.
Aspen didn’t have time to comfort Isak. She let Xavier’s body rest and ran over to the battery. She could find no off switch, no cords to yank out. She tried to pick it up, but it wouldn’t budge, the spell apparently locking it in place. The only thing she could do was channel the magic that remained inside of it somewhere else. Into someone else.
Aspen rolled up her sleeves. With a deep breath, she slapped her hands against the smooth metal.
Magic instantly flowed into her. She could feel its direction divert, seeking this fresh, easier outlet. She was nothing but a conduit for it, the path of least resistance. It filled her. It pushed at her blood vessels and sharked around her organs, taking up every available space within her. She couldn’t take much more. She needed some way to let it out again…
Agonizingly slowly, Aspen pulled one hand away from the battery and pressed it against the ground.
Go she begged it. Go that way. You’ll like that way, I promise.
The magic didn’t move. Pressure was building behind her eyes. Too much. It was too much. She would soon burst from it.
Go. Please. She pushed it with all her might. Willed it with all her anger.
She thought of Lucien. Of what he’d done to her and what he’d told her. She thought of Isak’s lips on hers, and then his horrified expression as she held the body of his dead master. She thought of being alone and afraid, then of Tana, feeling the same but not giving up, finding a friend and a new place among those who accepted her as an equal.
Go, she ordered, Leave me.
The river of magic coursing through her diverted. It flowed down her arm and out her hand, leaking into the ground. The growing tension within her tapered off and then began to dwindle.
She crouched there until her legs went numb. Until she couldn’t feel her body anymore and the last of the magic was drawn out of the batt
ery. When at last it had, Aspen fell back against the ground, completely spent. In the sky above, sections of the wards remained. They were sporadic; some large chunks still held together, looking like the fractured remnants of an ancient Roman city. Other pieces continued falling from the sky, but the dark clouds that had pervaded earlier were gone. For now, at least, she had diverted its complete and utter destruction.
As soon as Aspen removed her hand, the rest of the world came back in fits and starts. She was aware of the stillness around her. The ghouls were not cackling. She couldn’t see Lucien among the number of bodies below her. Only then did reality come crashing in. She heard the wail of sirens going crazy below; the honk of fire engines as they parked at the bottom of their building. Every part of her body hurt so much she was sure she couldn’t move.
But she had to. Xavier might have been done but he had somewhat succeeded. The barrier was severely weakened. Maladias could now come through. She needed to move…
With immense effort, Aspen forced herself to roll over. She sat up. Xavier’s body lay where he’d fallen.
Isak was gone.
The Unexpected Mage
“How is this possible?”
For the hundredth time within the last three hours of questioning, Aspen wanted to march up to where the Mages were sitting and literally slap some sense into them.
“Again,” Aspen said with an exasperated sigh, “Xavier was the one stealing the magic from the borough locations. And the one murdering the supernatural beings. Then he used the magic to take down the wards. Or he tried to. Some of the wards are still in place, but I don’t know how long they’ll stay that way.”
But it was the why that still bothered her. In the scant few minutes she’d had to herself since her showdown with Xavier, Aspen had puzzled over why he’d done what he did. Was it all the depravations of a sick mind? No, Aspen didn’t know much, but she knew that wasn’t it at all. Xavier was sick, but not insane. He’d known exactly what he was doing, she just wasn’t sure what that was…
Mage's Apprentice (Mages of New York Book 1) Page 29