Matthias shouted and darted into the adjacent room. Before I could follow, a roar shook the corridor behind me. I spun as a tsunami of water surged down the hall, sweeping a couple wolves away.
Water poured into the room and knocked me off my feet. I grabbed the edge of the desk and hauled myself up. Where was Jaxson?
The marid loomed in the doorway, a devilish grin on his face.
Gods damn it.
We’d been so close, and now Matthias was gone, and I had to deal with this asshole. Rage shook my body, and I thrust my hands out, freezing the marid’s legs into a solid block of ice.
His smile vanished, and grim satisfaction took me as I pushed my magic forward, freezing the very water in his veins and wrapping him in a column of ice. He screamed in anger and pain.
Jaxson burst up from the water and staggered forward, still in human form. He slashed his claws through the ice and into the marid’s chest.
“We don’t like getting wet,” he snarled.
The marid’s eyes burned with fear, and with a puff of steam, he vanished.
Damned planes-walkers.
“You’ve got to be shitting me,” Jaxson growled.
The werewolf turned. The blast of coins had ripped his face and arms, though the tactical vest protected most of his body. He’d heal soon with his shifter blood. “Where’s that fucker, Matthias? I’ve got his transportation necklace, so he can’t have gone far.”
I pointed to the adjacent room. “Ran like a coward. Let’s take him down.”
Even though I’d lost my knife in the churn, I didn’t dare draw my sword or spear. Matthias could turn them back against me. He’d done it before.
I snapped my hand and formed an ice knife. The perfect thing to ram through his heart. Neve had made a blood oath with Zara, not me, and if it came down to him or her, I’d kill him in an instant.
As soon as I looked around the doorway, an explosion rocked the tower. I dodged back as rubble rained down around us. The water swirled around my legs, and the current picked up.
Bad sign.
Ducking around the corner, I shot a barrage of hail to cover my advance. But Matthias was gone, and there was a gaping hole where a window had once been. Water cascaded out of the gap, with only purple-blue sky beyond.
I cursed and dashed to the hole, struggling to keep my balance in the outflow. Bracing myself against the wall, I looked out.
A bolt of agony shot through me, and I glanced down at the iron spear rammed into my chest. I caught myself against the stonework as the water threatened to drop me over the edge. I’d given up my wings, and it was a long way down.
I sucked in a breath, and my lungs rasped as pain spiked through my body. There’d be no healing this time.
“He’s out there,” I growled to Jaxson, grabbing the spear to pull it free. As soon as I tugged, the iron spear drove deeper into my chest, as if it had a mind of its own—Matthias’s magic. The point erupted out of my back. “I may need some help getting this out.”
Suddenly, the spear bent back on itself, and dug into my back like a fishhook. My body jerked forward, driving the air from my lungs. Jaxson grabbed for my arm, but Matthias’s magic yanked me through the open window and into the sky beyond.
But my angel powers were gone. I couldn’t fly. I couldn’t heal.
All I could do was watch the obsidian tower recede into the distance as I plummeted down into the infinite space below.
23
Neve
My clunky plastic wristwatch counted the minutes.
It wasn’t stylish, but we’d had to leave anything metal behind, just in case Matthias tried to turn them against us. That included cell phones, watches, daggers, and belts.
Luckily, I could dismiss the khanjar Damian had made me whenever I needed to, so I could still do some knife work if it came to that.
I touched the opal necklace Rhiannon had given me so long ago for good luck. It had been with me this long, through the djinn’s maze and the efreet’s fortress, so clearly it had some good mojo working for it. I’d even restrung the opal on a silk chain, so Matthias couldn’t choke me with it. I hated doing that, but I couldn’t part with it entirely.
Rhiannon scuffed her foot impatiently. She wasn’t too happy about leaving her swords behind, but she still had her intelligent bolas named Herc, a composite knife, and even a tonfa—a type of baton with a side handle.
The angels had glowing swords. Either they were magic and not affected by Matthias’s power, or they didn’t care. I wasn’t going to grill them about it. Every muscle in my body was on alert, and my stomach felt like I’d just chugged a pitcher of curdled milk. I forced myself to breathe. This was it.
Rhiannon grabbed my hand. Normally, she would have been gabbing to put me at ease, but we had to be quiet. She nodded her head at the angels and mouthed, They’re so hot.
I suspected Rhia was going to have trouble going back to normal guys after seeing the angels in battle. I rolled my eyes and responded, All yours. P.S. They’re kinda jerks.
Nathaniel was beautiful, but cold. Unreadable, unapproachable, and well, an ass, as far as I was concerned. Damian had never been like that, had he? There was always a fire burning behind his green eyes.
I wished he were here with me. I hated splitting up, but if we could simultaneously knock out Matthias and the portal, we’d neutralize the threat to Magic Side in one fell swoop. It might be our only shot.
Spark scampered over to me, though scampered might not have been an appropriate word for a twelve-foot-long dragon. Are there snacks?
“Plenty of demons to munch on,” I whispered.
Disappointing. Their essence is bad and not tasty.
“What’s really on your mind?” I could tell that he wasn’t really interested in food.
You are nervous. I am trying to put you at ease.
“Thanks, Spark, but I don’t think that’s going to happen. I’m just going over things in my mind.”
Ethan had taught me the incantation to break the spell keeping the gateway open. I’d memorized it quickly, which was a gift, but I had to be sure I got it right. I kept going over it, line by line.
Finally, my watch beeped. “Okay. Go time.”
My team formed up behind me, and Spark turned into a little mote of light to guide our way.
We darted left out of the chamber. The angels were silent like ghosts, making my own footsteps seem deafening in the empty corridors. I recalled Nathaniel’s monstrous footsteps when we’d met in Armenia. Bastard must have been showing off because he was as silent as a mouse now.
Heart pounding, I stopped at each intersection, checking the way. Two hallways down, we turned right.
A couple of demons leaned against the wall, guarding a door. Before they could cry out, I squeezed my fists and sucked the breath from their lungs using my power over air. Practice for Matthias, I thought, smiling. Though his innate resistance to my magic would be far stronger than these two.
The demons clutched their throats and fell to their knees. The angels were on them in a second, finishing the job with glowing blades. The demons’ bodies slumped onto the stone and began evaporating into trails of smoke.
They would be reborn in the underworld. I hoped that process took a very long time, because there was an open gateway to the hells just outside the tower, and I didn’t want anyone we’d killed coming back for vengeance.
We ducked into a stairwell and raced up four floors until we reached a padlocked iron door leading to one of the citadel’s many balconies.
I pointed at the locked door. “This one.”
One of the angels cut through the lock with a single swipe and shoved the door open. Extending beyond the balcony was a mesmerizing realm I’d only seen through Damian’s memories. It was far stranger in person.
The sky was like a nebula—a boiling thunderstorm of strangely colored clouds that bathed everything in a purple light. Islands of ice floated through the sky. It seemed that Matthias hadn’
t captured an earth genie yet, because there was no stone or earth in this artificial world.
In many ways, it reminded me of Mavia’s frosty domain in the Realm of Air, but the magic was all wrong. The signature of the place was maddening, like a thousand people whispering different things in your ears all at once.
And in the center of it all was the hellgate.
The massive iron ring stood erect in the middle of a floating island of ice. The center of the ring was filled with liquid flame that undulated like waves. Streams of magic poured out of the gateway, dissipating in the sky above.
“Damn,” Ethan whispered, at my side. “It’s bigger than I thought. That’s going to take some time to disable.”
There were a few demons guarding the ring—hulking yellow monsters with broad wings. Every few seconds, another demon or two would fly in or out of the portal on some errand.
I turned back to my team. “That portal leads straight to one of the hells. Once we strike, our first priority is to make sure no demons get through to alert whatever is lurking on the other side.”
I pointed to the two angels we’d assigned to keep the gateway clear. “Rhiannon can stop time for a few seconds. That should give you time if things get out of hand and you’re overwhelmed. The rest of you will defend Ethan as he unbinds the spells powering it. We’ll need to hit hard and fast. I’ll make a beachhead. Everyone, follow as fast as you can.”
Rhiannon squeezed my shoulder, and I gripped her hand. My heart was pounding so hard, I could barely hear myself think.
This was it. No turning back.
Stepping onto the balcony, I exploded through the sky like a bullet. I was at the gateway in seconds.
Matthias wasn’t here, so I whipped out my khanjar and ripped into one of the demons guarding the portal. He screeched in anger, but I put him down in two strokes.
His buddy leapt for the gateway, but Spark shifted into a dragon and dropped him to the ground. I knocked a third demon down with a blast and summoned a whirling vortex of air in front of the portal to trap anyone trying to get through.
The demon scrambled back to his feet and lashed out at me with his clawed hand. I jumped back, but his reach was longer than I expected. His claws ripped into my left shoulder, and pain flared through my arm.
He was about four times my size, but I could use that to my advantage. I spun inside his reach, ducked low, and slammed my blade into his knee. I juiced it with a burst of wind and knocked him face down onto the ice.
Leaping on his back, I finished him with three fast stabs while Spark ripped the head off his demon and looked around for more.
Angels alighted on the icy island, and I released a vortex of air around us so Ethan and I could get to work.
There were glowing runes inscribed around the ring—just like a teleportation circle. Ethan pointed, and shouted over the wind, “We’ll have to disable each rune, one at a time!”
We began casting the disenchantment spells, and our magic crackled along the ring. The runes around the edge of the portal sparked and flickered, and finally two faded out.
The ring shook and groaned like a suspension bridge twisting in a storm, but the fiery portal at its center remained.
Ethan broke off his spellcraft. “This thing is possessed by some serious magic. It’s going to take time, and I’m betting they know we’re here by now. Get ready!”
I glanced back at the citadel. It was unsettling to see the jet-black tower floating on an island in the middle of the sky rather than where it belonged—in the midst of a lava lake.
Everything about this place was wrong and disjointed, like a patchwork of images cut out of random magazines. A work in progress, I gathered.
The realm was clearly unstable, which was why Matthias had needed so much magic to hold it together. Even the obsidian tower seemed on shaky footing. It listed slightly to one side, and dozens of chains anchored it to the ice island, straining to hold it upright.
Maybe there was a way we could use that.
As I looked on, the door to the balconies flew open and dozens of demons soared out. Unfortunately, the tower was only seven or eight hundred feet away, so they’d be on us soon.
“Here they come!” I shouted over my shoulder as I disabled another rune. As I broke the spell, it released foul magic that made my stomach churn.
Rhiannon rushed to defend the portal, while Nathaniel and two angels joined me at my side.
“Ready?” I asked.
Nathaniel gave me an impenetrable look as his sword flared with light. His magic washed over me unabated. Pomegranates and dates. The sound of bells and wind rushing through abandoned canyons. His power felt ancient, like crumbling ruins. How many civilizations had he watched rise and fall? “We’ve been fighting demons for thousands of years. So, yes, child. We’re ready.”
I grinned. “Good. I’ll let you pick off the stragglers then.”
I summoned a roiling wall of wind. The descending demons spun in the storm, crashing into each other, wings snapping. I twisted the currents with my hands and slammed disoriented monsters into the icy isle before turning my attention back to the portal.
“Stragglers, it is.” Nathaniel smirked and launched into the air on pearl-white wings.
Winged demons in more varieties than I’d ever seen divebombed us from all directions. They screeched and howled in their unnatural tongue as they lashed out with razor-sharp talons and jagged swords.
The angels set to dismembering them with their glowing blades. Nathaniel was impossibly fast. I could barely track his movements out of the corner of my eyes, and I was relieved to have him watching my back. He decapitated one demon with a single stroke, spun and rammed his blade through another. While Damian was a raging firestorm, Nathaniel was cold grace.
For all Nathaniel’s ability, I wished I had that firestorm beside me now.
Screeching and sounds of chaos erupted as a flood of hideous, jabbering demons skittered out of the gateway. Six arms sprouted from their iridescent bodies, and they moved like insects, running on their arms like spiders and then suddenly springing through the air.
“What the hell are those?” I screamed as I dropped my spell and blasted one out of the sky with a gust of wind.
It landed on its back, tumbled over, and struck out with four of its hands. Claws dug into my side, and I screamed in anger, flipping it into the air before ramming my dagger into its skull. The iridescent blood coating my hand evaporated in smoke.
Looking up, I counted a dozen monsters swarming around Ethan. Crap. They were clearly aware of what we were doing. Nathaniel appeared at his side in an instant, sweeping his blade in an arc like a reaper cutting wheat. A ring of demon corpses piled up around them, and smoke rose from the bodies as they disintegrated, creating a wall of thick haze.
Dread filled me. This was a hopeless task. As soon as one demon dropped, more clambered out of the gateway. They climbed along the sides of the ring and leapt down, screaming. I could knock them away with blasts of wind, but it meant I was making no progress on disabling the portal.
Rhiannon turned to the angels at her side. “We’re getting overrun! Ready to even the odds?”
In answer, they dismissed their swords and pulled bows from the ether.
“Now!” she screamed.
Time around the gateway slowed to a crawl. Demons were caught half in and half out of the ring, while others floated midair, suspended midleap.
The angels released a barrage of arrows, and the air filled with blinding flashes of light as they found their marks and exploded.
After a few seconds, time resumed.
Disarticulated demon chunks splattered around us, and a wave of nausea worked its way through me.
Rhiannon staggered back, weak from the effort. “Get ready to go again!”
Shrieks sounded behind me, and I tore my gaze away from the gateway and blasted two more demons out of the sky. They’d be back quick.
Angels soared around me, cutting down
demon after demon. My heart wrenched as one of the glowing beings disappeared over the edge, entangled by demons.
Rhiannon shouted, and a series of flashes followed. Seconds later, more demon bits plummeted down around me.
I leapt into the air and cut one down as it dove toward Rhia. We crashed into the ice, and the demon’s claws raked at me, but I blasted him back, and then ripped my dagger through his throat.
“Thanks!” Rhia hollered back.
I was about to respond when the wind around us rose. My breath caught as the taste of tobacco burned my tongue and the scent frankincense filled the air. I met Rhia’s wide eyes. We both knew that signature all too well.
A sudden windstorm ripped across the ice and knocked me off my feet. Iridescent demons spiraled through the sky, arms and legs flailing. Cruel laughter echoed around us like rolling thunder.
The djinn had arrived.
And with him, a hurricane.
24
Damian
Wind whipped past as I plummeted down. The obsidian tower on its floating island of ice was rapidly becoming a speck.
Rage shook through me. I was helpless without wings. The arrogance of angels.
I shoved down the pain and rage. I had to think clearly, fast. How was I going to get back into the fight?
My only option was to planes-walk or use a transport charm. I would probably survive the leap through the cosmos, but I wouldn’t be able to get back to the Realm of Chaos without—
Agony ripped through my body, and the wind rushed out of my lungs.
I was no longer falling. There was only pain. I tried to move but choked on blood. Mounds of white danced before my eyes, and my vision faded in and out.
Somewhere beyond the pain, the ground was cold. I moved a single finger. Soft snow. Ice.
I must have struck a floating iceberg or island. A fall like that would have killed a normal man, so my stolen powers must have kept me alive. I glanced down at the massive iron spear lodged in my chest. My healing magic was gone, which meant that I was a dead man.
I drew a little of the efreet’s fire to warm my body. Pain trickled through me with the effort, and I knew I wouldn’t survive planes-walking or transporting out of there. I wouldn’t be seeing Neve again.
Broken Skies: Dragon’s Gift: The Storm Book 4 Page 15