by Raven Steele
Henry’s appearance seemed to have the same effect on Lucien. Already, he had managed to free himself from four of the metal rebars. She couldn’t imagine what kind of pain he must be experiencing.
“Who are—” Boaz’s face paled. “Impossible! You’re supposed to be dead! I killed you!”
“Not even close.” Henry’s eyes lit up with power.
Henry must’ve given a silent command because Boaz suddenly shot through the air, his body flying straight for the Jumbotron. He crashed into it, sending sparks exploding into the air. The entire screen came crashing down upon him. Broken bits of plastic and glass billowed outward.
The destruction gave Eve a brief moment of peace from the disturbing images. She gasped in relief. Now to make sure no one ever saw them again.
The invisible wall finally dropped. Eve marched toward the destruction, anxious to kill Boaz once and for all. Lucien had finally freed himself and walked with her, despite the fact that he still bled. Henry was on his left, his intense gaze fixated where Boaz had fallen.
Boaz burst from the debris, his fangs extended. He lifted his arms. The wreckage behind him rose to his command. With a flick of his hands, chunks and shards of plastic and metal zoomed through the air in their direction. She quickly produced an invisible shield to protect herself from Boaz’s assault. The others had already done the same.
Boaz winked at Eve then puckered his lips and blew. Directly behind them, a wall of fire ten feet high appeared.
“Cover me!” Lucien yelled. He turned around and focused his attention on extinguishing the fire that was lapping at their feet.
Boaz whipped a triangular shard of glass at Lucien’s back, but Eve managed to knock it away just in time.
The fight continued like this for several minutes. Lucien would almost have the fire extinguished when Boaz would start it up again in between trying to knock debris into her or Henry. Boaz had run out of Jumbotron parts and had begun using the stadium seats as weapons.
“Tell me, how did you do it?” Boaz asked Henry after tossing a chair at him. “How did you manage to stay hidden from me for centuries?”
“With great care.”
Boaz chuckled, almost as if he was remembering a fond memory. “I was always impressed by your willpower. You never succumbed to my gifts of fame and fortune.”
Confident her invisible shield would hold against Boaz’s attack, Eve took a step toward him and then another. Boaz regarded her with a watchful eye. After a few more steps, the air in front of her became concentrated, and she had to physically push with all her strength to move forward even a few inches. But at least she was still moving. Boaz was growing weaker.
Boaz continued to lift one seat after another, some of them snapping in two from the effort, before shooting them through the air as if from a slingshot. One of them nicked the side of Lucien, spinning him around, but he managed to right himself again and regain his focus on holding the flames back.
“You should know, Henry, that your wife didn’t die easily,” Boaz said. “I took my time with her, torturing her for information about other witches who opposed me.”
Henry’s face was red from exertion, and sweat rolled down the sides of his face as he too was attempting to get at Boaz. His fangs extended, he let out a monstrous growl that echoed throughout the stadium.
The barrier in front of Eve softened, and she was able to push forward at a faster rate despite all the broken objects still being shot at her. Boaz must be using more of his powers against Henry, who had dropped to the ground, his toes digging into the earth and his claws chewing up the grass as he attempted to get at Boaz.
“Hey, Lucien,” Boaz taunted. “Did you know Eve kissed me before she was Alarica?”
Lucien lowered his arms and turned around to Boaz. The fire gained momentum behind him, spitting and licking at his heals.
“Lucien, the fire!” Eve yelled and reached her hand back to try and ward off some of the heat. She needed more magic and fast.
She concentrated hard, going deeper into her mind than ever before. At first it was terribly painful, and she bit down, nearly breaking her teeth, but then a strange calm warmed her, like stepping out of the shade on a hot summer day. Even though she didn’t fully understand it, she recognized it as the ancient magic that had existed since the beginning of time. She had been on the fringes of it before, able to snatch bits of knowledge here and there, but now she was fully in it, and had no doubts that she would find what she needed to defeat Boaz somewhere in this primordial place.
Raw clarity came to her all at once. It was as if her mind had been unlocked and suddenly there were colors she had never seen, sounds she had never heard, and power she couldn’t begin to comprehend. But she understood enough. She quickly grounded herself to every object in the stadium.
“Eve wanted more, Lucien,” Boaz goaded. “And I gave it to her over and over.”
With a monstrous roar, Henry finally broke through his barrier. He rushed Boaz, cutting through the air faster than a bullet. He was almost to Boaz, when out of nowhere, a broken baseball bat pierced Henry’s side, sending him careening in a different direction. He hit the ground hard, bouncing a few times before he came to a complete stop.
“You missed,” Boaz said.
“It won’t happen again,” a voice said from the shadows.
Sable walked onto the open field. At first it looked like her body was covered in blood, but as she drew closer, Eve could see the coloring was only a trick of the moonlight. Sable’s long red dress was form fitting and ran all the way to her ankles.
It didn’t surprise Eve that her mother was here, appearing at this very moment. Sable always loved a dramatic entrance.
Henry writhed on the ground and tried to free the splintered bat from his side, but he couldn’t quite reach it. She slowly moved towards him, her gaze flickering to Lucien. Lucien’s back was still to the fire. He had one hand extended toward Boaz and the other toward Sable in a defensive position.
“You can’t win,” Boaz said to her and Lucien.
Sable walked over to him and stood by his side. She gave Eve a slight, tight smile. “Hello, Daughter. I see you are back to your old, weaker self.”
“Who said anything about weak?” Eve brought her hands up, crossed them at her chest then snapped down hard. A pressurized pocket of air exploded into Boaz and Sable, throwing them into the first several rows of bleachers.
Eve lifted her arms. Every seat in the whole stadium began to shake and vibrate at her silent command. The sound was as if a freight train the size of New York was barreling down on them. The chairs snapped from their screws and flew in the direction of Boaz and Sable. One after another, she buried them until the pile was over thirty feet high.
Behind her, Lucien had finally extinguished the raging wall of fire. He ran toward Henry and tore the fractured bat from his side. Lucien helped him to stand. Together, the three of them directed their energy toward the pile of chairs.
A popping sound followed by another and then another echoed out from the bottom of the pile. It took Eve a few seconds to realize what they were: Boaz was making the chairs implode.
With only a single layer of chairs left, Boaz shot out of the debris, leaping high into the air. He landed in a crouching position not far from them, his mouth tight and nostrils flaring. Sable also rose from the pile, but not as easily as Boaz had. She lifted herself into the air and floated next to him. A deep cut bled into her hairline.
“Now!” Henry yelled.
All at the same time, Eve, Lucien, and Henry exploded energy from their hands. The force should’ve crippled Boaz, but instead he waved his arm as if swatting away an annoying fly.
Boaz eyed the ground beneath them, his left eye twitching. “I will bury you all alive!”
Chapter 43
The ground beneath Lucien’s feet began to crumble faster than he could move out of the way. Because he was standing in the middle of Eve and Henry, he fell first into the ever-gr
owing hole. He clawed at the earth, but there was nothing to hold onto as it kept giving way. He couldn’t even find decent footing to jump from. Eve and Henry fell next.
Lucien was about to fly from the hole, when dirt began to rain down upon him. It wasn’t just a sprinkle, but a raging storm of soil and stones. They smashed into his body, pummeling and bruising his skin. He would’ve tried to block them, but he was too busy trying not to get sucked farther into the deepening hole.
“Can you teleport out?” Lucien yelled over the violent tempest. It was hard to see Henry and Eve through all the muck spinning around him. He tried to scramble over to Eve, but every time he moved, he lost his footing even more.
A flash of black filled the space for a split second. Lucien wasn’t sure who had left, Henry or Eve. Hopefully both of them. Lucien slipped, falling another five feet until he managed to catch himself on something hard, a part of the stadium’s foundation perhaps. The temperature was much colder here, and the stones much bigger; they could’ve been chunks of concrete. One smacked him in the temple, nearly rendering him unconscious.
The raging earth storm stopped abruptly. Lucien glanced around. He was alone, which meant Eve was safe for the time being, at least. He took a second to catch his breath before he climbed up the deep hole. His arms were covered in cuts and bruises, and a bone-deep sharp pain shot up his leg every time it bore weight.
A loud grinding sound, like metal on metal, echoed from above followed by a grating screech as if something or someone was being dragged across a concrete wall. A scream sounded, but it was so shrill and full of pain that Lucien couldn’t tell whom the distorted sound had come from. He quickened his pace.
He reached the edge and peeked over to avoid being seen. Henry was on his back, grunting at some invisible force bearing down on him. Dread sank into Lucien’s gut at the sight of Eve. She was pressed high against a billboard, blood covering her head and running down into her eyes and onto her cheeks. Boaz wasn’t far away, his finger pointed at Eve. Sable stood behind him, the corner of her mouth twitching, as if a punchline to a joke was about to be revealed. Henry was a fool to have trusted her.
“I’m afraid your time is up, Love,” Boaz said.
He reached back, almost as if retracting a bow. Lucien didn’t want to see what shot from his hand. He jumped from the hole and was about to send a wave of fire in Boaz’s direction, but stopped when Sable removed a dagger from behind her back. She raised it high, and just as she swung for his neck, Boaz turned. Sable missed but ended up severing his hand instead. He wailed a great and terrible cry and backhanded Sable with his good hand. She flipped into the air and smacked into a metal railing dozens of feet away. Her limp body fell to the ground, a plume of dust gasping around her.
While Boaz focused on his missing hand, the pressure lifted against Henry, who then turned on Boaz. Lucien jumped to his feet and bolted for Eve, who had fallen to the ground as if a broken doll.
“Hit him now, Lucien!” Henry yelled just as he managed to capture Boaz in an invisible grip.
Lucien froze, looking back and forth from Eve to Henry. As much as he wanted to go to Eve, he had to try and stop Boaz. With Boaz injured, this may be the last chance they had.
Lucien sucked in deeply, bringing his hands toward his chest. He traveled through his mind lightning quick, searching for the door to the ancient magic. He found it right where it had been before. It was still closed. He let out a roar and smashed through it. The knowledge that came tumbling out almost overwhelmed him. He took hold of the sliver that made the most sense—the power to cripple—and shoved it out from him while mouthing the word, “aboleo.” An electrical energy tore through the air until it hit Boaz square in the chest.
Boaz dropped to his knees and coughed a spray of blood into the moonlight. He pressed his severed arm to his chest, hissing through his teeth.
Lucien and Henry continued to push their power upon him, but Lucien could tell it wouldn’t be enough to kill him. Boaz’s fists were clenched tight and he was concentrating so hard, his whole body shook.
He glanced over his shoulder at Eve still lying on the ground. “Eve! We need you!”
Her head lifted, and wide eyes shined through the blood on her face. She rose to a standing position, her lips moving. It took Lucien a moment to realize she was chanting a phrase over and over.
“The Devil comes, the Devil goes.
Spirits, hear my spell.
Smite the Devil and drag him back to hell!”
Eve strolled toward Boaz, a growing wind whipping her hair all around. Her green eyes were practically glowing, and ribbons of black appeared in her blonde hair. Veins beneath the skin on her face swelled to deep purple and protruded eerily outward.
She snapped her hands downward, and suddenly her nails were growing into razor sharp points. She continued to chant, her voice growing louder:
“The Devil comes, the Devil goes.
Spirits, hear my spell.
Smite the Devil and drag him back to hell!”
Boaz startled, and his eyebrows lifted at the same time his mouth dropped open. This was the first time Lucien had ever seen him afraid.
Eve stepped into Henry’s force field that bound Boaz. Her black and blonde hair swirled upward, twisting in and out of each other as if snakes in a den. Boaz struck with his good hand as if to hit her, but she caught it and snapped it back, breaking his bone in two.
“Forgive me, Eve,” Boaz begged, his face twisted in pain. “I only wanted to love you.”
Eve lifted her clawed hands and, in one quick motion, stabbed them into Boaz’s neck. As she pushed them deeper into his flesh, she growled a cry full of pain and anguish. Lucien recognized the sound: it was a torment that would not easily heal. It held no hope, no promise for a future. And in that moment, he was afraid he might have lost her forever.
Eve continued to drive her nails into Boaz’s neck, then jerked upwards. A sound, like leather tearing, filled the grand stadium as Boaz’s head tore from his body. Eve tossed it to the side and gasped for air.
Lucien hurried over to her, but she lifted her hand to stop him, her head lowered. She was sucking in air in great hitched gulps, her shoulders trembling.
He wanted to tell her to just let it all out, drop all the pain and hurt at her feet. But then she raised her head, her face expressionless, just how she was when they had arrived at the stadium. The only evidence that she had been upset moments ago was a single tear running down her cheek. It was the only one allowed to escape from the storm raging inside her.
From the corner of his eye, a shadow moved within the concourse to his right. And then another, this one bigger. Something moaned, a deep and pitiful sound, followed by a scurrying of claws against concrete.
“What is that?” Lucien whispered.
Henry limped over to him. “They’ve come to collect their master.”
A shadow darted a short distance in front of Lucien. It was followed by dozens more. He scooted closer to Eve protectively. The small shadows skimmed across the baseball diamond in uneven patterns. It wasn’t until a few of them stopped at Boaz’s severed head that he was able to see their true shape. Small, round center, short arms with long claws, legs a little longer. Their eyes were dark red, the kind someone would only notice in the dark if staring at the same spot for a very long time.
The creatures sniffed at Boaz’s head, some of them poked at it, while others tore at his body. One of them lifted his head and let out a gurgled shriek. The others jerked to attention, as if given a command, and each one of them snagged a claw through Boaz’s flesh. Together, they dragged his headless body and severed head from the field until they became one with the darkness once again.
Sable moaned. She was lying down on a concrete slat where a row of seats once laid. Henry hobbled over to her and helped her to sit up.
“Is it over?” she asked. “Is he dead?”
Henry nodded. “You are free, Sable. You survived.”
Her e
yebrows lifted and fell, and she tilted her head to the side. “I don’t know how to feel.”
“You will in time, but only if you make up for all of the things you have done.” His eyes darted to Eve. “We both have some making up to do.”
“But it was the only way.” Her tone turned sharp and biting.
Lucien wondered if someone like Sable, who had done horrible things against so many people, including her own daughter, could ever truly change. He glanced at Eve. Her face was pinched as if in pain. He hoped she wasn’t thinking the same thing about herself. Eve’s situation was so different from Sable’s.
“Are you ready to go home?” he asked Eve, his hand hovering near her elbow.
“I don’t know what I’m ready for.”
“We will take it one day at a time, for as long as it takes.” He held out his hand.
Her gaze dropped to his outstretched palm. She reached for it, but Lucien felt no strength in her grip. He glanced back at Henry, who was helping Sable onto the baseball field, and nodded goodbye.
As he walked alongside Eve, he didn’t feel any kind of satisfaction from Boaz’s death. Relief, yes, but no elation, and no desire to celebrate. Boaz had taken too much from them. Their lives would never be the same again.
Chapter 44
Sunlight twinkled through a thick canopy of red and orange leaves and onto Eve’s face, but it wasn’t enough to warm her chilled skin. She had never been colder. Rows of tall and gnarled oak trees dotted the old cemetery. Dozens of people, many of them employees of the Deific, huddled together, mourning the loss of a great man.
The priest stood at the edge of Charlie’s casket that balanced over a six-foot hole. Soon, his body would become trapped by four inches of cherry mahogany and several feet of compacted dirt. He shouldn’t be in that hole. He should be at the Deific right now, leading, directing, encouraging, fighting and helping people. All of that had been taken from him. He would no longer be contributing to the world. A truly positive force for good, now gone, thanks to her.