by Sadie Moss
Cam nods, squeezes my hands, and then he’s gone in a blip, teleporting away.
I grit my teeth and race for my tower.
Chapter 24
I hate stairs.
I know that’s not really relevant to what’s going on, with the magical demon army we’re fighting and all that, but man, I really do hate them.
And this tower has a lot of them.
The stairs go up in a corkscrew, and there’s not a lot of room, which is a good thing in that it’s forcing whatever magical creatures I encounter to come at me one by one, but is a bad thing for my legs because, oh my God, I’m never moving again after this damn fight is over. And I can’t see my opponents coming, so one moment I think I’m alone and the next, there’s a creepy half-crab half-goo something demon attacking me.
No, I don’t know what the fuck is up with that either.
I’m using my sonic boom left and right, sending creatures flying back and then spider climbing along the wall over them, but holy crap, I’ve never used my magic this much. Even during the Trials, I relied on my wits and my puzzle solving skills and my own damn physical prowess more than my actual magic. And on the one hand, it’s kind of cool that I’m good enough at my magic to be able to use it like this, but on the other hand, it’s really draining me.
And I haven’t even gotten to the big fight yet.
Behind me, I can hear yelling and scuffling, the battle below continuing, but as far as I know, I was the only one who made straight for the tower instead of focusing on fighting the creatures coming out of it, so who knows if anyone’s coming up behind me.
Not my smartest move, I know. I’m all on my own up here.
I finally get up to the top of the tower, my lungs and legs burning like someone’s doused them in oil and set them on fire, and I have to brace my hand along the entryway to the top for a second and suck in some desperate breaths.
Jesus fucking Christ. Remind me to thank Cam for all the morning cardio workouts, or I never would’ve made it up this thing.
Then I step out onto the very top of the tower, and I see the magic user who’s controlling the beams.
He’s turned away from me, and I clench my fists. Okay, fucker, time to end this.
Then… then I see it. A glimpse. Just like with the demon bird, on the back of this mage’s head, I see—a face. A man’s twisted, angry face. And he’s looking right at me. Like he sees me. Like he knows I’m here.
The magic user stops.
“Ah.” He turns around, glaring at me. “I was warned about you.”
“Warned that I would kick your ass?” I snarl, even as my stomach knots up in worry. So the person who’s behind this attack, and possibly controlling this magic user, is the same guy who was controlling the demon bird. The same guy who got to Johnson. The same guy who controlled Raul.
Fuck. I am in so much trouble.
But you know what? So is he.
“You know what the definition of insanity is, right?” I snap, hoping whoever is behind this man, controlling him from afar, can still hear me. “Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.”
And I unleash my sonic boom.
The mage goes stumbling back, but he’s not flying off the edge of the tower like most people would. It’s almost like he’s managed to… absorb my power, or the brunt of it anyway. His head hits the edge of the wall but otherwise, he seems pretty fine.
How did he absorb my blast? Nobody’s been able to do that… except…
One of Cam’s powers is the ability to absorb magic that’s thrown at him and use it to power himself up. It makes him a really strong fighter, magically at least, because he actually wants his opponent to hit him with a spell.
I remember what that asshole Harvard-Boy panelist said about Unpredictables—how we’ve got all of this massive power inside of us, how we can wield shit that most people need potions and amulets and charms to do.
Could it be that this guy is an Unpredictable?
But no—no, how could that be? This is an attack on Unpredictables. Who would turn on their own kind like that?
Unless this guy was manipulated, like Raul, or perhaps is even being completely mind-controlled.
You know what, though? None of that matters right now.
Not when this jackass is trying to take down my school.
The man shakes his head at me. “Is that really your only trick?” Blue light starts to glow from his hands. “That’s all that you do around here?”
“Nah.” I shrug. “I’ve got a side job as a hooker.”
That throws him off for a second, and I don’t waste my opening. Dashing forward, I launch myself at him with a yell.
I doubt the yell intimidates him, but it helps give me a boost.
I land a punch—one good punch—and then the guy’s grabbing me and blasting me with magic, faster than I can react. I go flying backward and just manage to catch myself.
Okay, fucker, sure, fine, we’ll do this the hard way.
Something blue and white and crystalline starts creeping up his hands and I realize—it’s ice. Is that his Unpredictable power?
I try to still myself inside, to calm my racing heart and hitching breath, practicing the meditation Roman has taught me. Then I reach out with my energy and feel that ice echo inside of me.
Blue-white light starts to flow up my hands as well, mimicking him.
“Ta-daaaaa.” I grin fiercely, then throw my hands out and fling dagger-sharp ice shards at him.
He hurls the ice blades he was generating at the same time, and our two spells collide in the air, pieces of ice shattering like glass. I duck out of the way of the projectiles that make it through the collision, and he does the same—but he’s not quite fast enough. A small blade of ice catches the side of his face, opening up a long, thin cut on his cheek. Blood wells, and I see his eyes go wide.
“So it’s true,” he breathes. “You can mirror.”
“All day long, baby,” I shoot back. My knees are bent, muscles coiled like springs, as I watch him like a hawk, waiting for him to telegraph his next move.
He smirks, reaching up to wipe away the blood trickling down his face. “Mirror this.”
Then he makes a fist out of the same hand, curling his bloodstained fingers—and I notice the garish ring on his middle finger.
Oh, fuck.
My mirroring power is the ability to mirror someone’s innate power. For example, Maddy is a water elementalist—her innate magical ability is control over water. Which means that when I’m nearby her, I can mimic her ability and manipulate water too.
But I can’t mirror someone who’s using potions and enchanted objects. Just like all those fucking charms Johnson used, the ring on this guy’s finger—which is loaded up with some kind of offensive magic, I’m sure of it—is powered by a spell cast by an enchanter.
And I can’t mirror a spell, just like I can’t mirror a lamp.
Adrenaline shoots through me, and I draw on his ice magic again. But before I can unleash it, a ball of green light bursts from the guy’s ring. The spell hits me hard, sending me flying back into the wall around the top of the tower. I hit the top edge of the wall and hear my spine crack—fuck, that’s gonna bruise.
Please don’t be broken, spine. I need you.
Forcing air back into my lungs, I stagger to my feet and use my spider climb to get out of the way just in time before I’m hit with another blast. Fuck, this guy knew about me. He’s obviously prepared for a fight like this.
Who prepared him? The guy whose face I just glimpsed?
I saw him once before, when Dmitri, Roman, and I fought the demon bird. And I’m pretty sure the man behind all this was able to see out of the bird’s eyes or something and watch that fight.
So he prepared this fucker to make sure his minion wouldn’t be defeated again.
The guy I’m fighting starts using other magical trinkets and charms, things he knows I can’t mirror, and I try to reach
out with my feelings to grasp at his innate power again, but it’s hard to do when I’m also scrambling just to stay alive. We trade blows back and forth, each throwing attacks and dodging others as we light up the top of the tower like the damn Fourth of July.
I’ve reverted to mostly using sonic booms, since that’s the power that comes most easily to me, and I know I could be doing more if I was able to mirror him faster, but I don’t have time to worry about it right now. A single second of hesitation could lend me in a world of hurt.
He sends another blast at me, and I dodge, feeling the hot air of it whistling just past my shoulder—and then he smacks me right in the chest with a fireball. He must’ve unleashed both attacks simultaneously, using the rings on two different hands.
Fuck that hurts. I stop, drop, and roll, burning everywhere, choking on the smoke even as the fire goes out. Jesus fucking Christ.
I’m coughing and sputtering, on my knees, as he advances toward me.
Dammit. Come on, Elliot, throw another sonic boom. Come on!
But God, my head is spinning, and everything hurts, and my lungs are on fire…
“I was given the impression you’d put up more of a fight,” the man says, and I can’t tell if it’s really him saying it, or the man controlling him. How much free will does this man have right now? Does he really believe in whatever he’s doing, or is he just a puppet, forced to do all of this?
Either way, he’s about to kick my ass.
He raises his hand, and I’m so exhausted and disoriented, I’ve got no defense, and I can’t even muster the strength to get out of the way—
“Don’t you fucking dare.”
My eyes fly open—when did I close them?—as I hear Roman snarling like I’ve never heard him before.
He must’ve realized where I went and followed me up the stairs.
The beautiful, dark-haired man bursts through the door onto the top of the tower and grabs my attacker. I choke, coughing a little, as Roman’s eyes start to… glow. The rich cobalt color of his irises disappears, replaced by a bright, shifting orange. But not a natural orange. It’s the same color the demon bird had, same as the demon Roman summoned to fight Raul had. Something so otherworldly and inhuman it makes my eyes water to look at it, like lava shifting and churning.
It’s chilling.
Roman’s grip on the man tightens, and the guy screams, a shriek that seems to rip apart the night sky. Then he starts to wither away, and I blink in stunned horror.
It’s like Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade or something. His skin dries out and shrinks as he writhes in pain, and after several terrifying seconds, he’s nothing but a shriveled up husk, a mummy. It happened so fast. He was alive and threatening me one minute, and in the next, he might as well have been dead for a thousand years.
The corpse collapses to the ground, crumbling apart like dust, and Roman turns to me.
My heart hammers in my chest, and I can barely breathe. For a wild second, I’m actually scared of Roman.
No.
Terrified.
He doesn’t look like the man I know. The person with whom I feel the most safe, the person who represents complete protection—he’s not there anymore. This man looks starving, soulless, demonic. As if the power inside him is consuming him, the thirst for life overtaking him…
Then Roman draws in a deep breath and blinks a few times, and I see the shifting orange-black light slowly fade from his eyes. I’m shaking, and I hate that I start shaking even more as he begins to look like his usual self again.
“Elliot?” he whispers. His blue eyes are haunted, and his voice is a low rasp. He doesn’t come any closer to me. “Are you all right?”
I nod. I mean, I’m far from all right—I’m battered and bruised and burnt—but I don’t want him to think I’m still scared of him. I’m not.
But I was.
Even if it was just for a moment, I was.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see the beams of blue light from the other two towers fading, and I know that the one around this tower must be fading as well. The man I was fighting up here was the one controlling the blue light, sending it out to connect with the other buildings. Now that he’s dead and no longer directing it, the spell is unravelling. The people on the other two towers must be dead too.
No more creatures or mages are emerging from the tower bases. Below us, I hear the sounds of battle dying out, growing quieter, more sparse—just a yell or a smash here and there instead of a confusing, all-consuming cacophony.
My thudding heart beats heavily against my ribs as all the muscles in my exhausted body seem to unclench at once.
We did it. We stopped the invasion.
This time, anyway.
Chapter 25
Roman carries me down the long and winding tower steps, despite my protests. He looks a bit banged up himself, but nowhere near as bad as I feel. My clothes are singed, I’ve got burns all over, my spine hurts like a motherfucker, and I can feel a bit of blood making my shirt stick to me from where my back scraped against the stones of the tower. I’m one big bruise.
“Just relax,” Roman murmurs. “I got you.”
I do relax a little, but I can’t stop myself from staring up at his face. He seems so normal now. So like himself. It’s almost enough to make me believe that I imagined how he looked for those few moments. But I know it was real. I watched him drain someone’s life force in seconds, like it was nothing, like a spider sucking juice from a fly.
I try not to think about it. This is Roman, and I trust him more than almost anybody in the world—and besides, I’m okay and he’s okay, and we have much bigger things to worry about at the moment.
Like the clean up.
As we exit the tower, my jaw drops a little at the sheer magnitude of the destruction around us. The school buildings look mostly okay, thank God, but there are scorch marks here and there, a few cracks in the thick stone walls, and the quad itself is… destroyed. The lawn is burnt and filled with holes, and there are chunks of massive gray stone scattered everywhere from people blasting the towers, which must have become vulnerable once the glow faded away. There are dead bodies of the creatures and magic users that rushed from the towers, and the sight of their corpses turns my stomach. The decorative flower beds are demolished, a few patches of the ground are on fire, debris everywhere…
Yeah. It’s a mess.
People are starting to gather near the dining hall again, sounding off as they return from whichever tower they were fighting at, making sure everybody is accounted for. I’m terrified that we might’ve lost someone, or more than one, especially any of the students that I talked into staying to help—but most of all, I’m scared for my guys.
“Elliot! Roman!” Cam comes running up, Dmitri right behind him, and neither of them stop until they’ve got their hands on me, checking to make sure I’m okay.
“Careful, she’s injured,” Roman cautions, tightening his grip on me. His voice still sounds strained and rough, like it did on top of the tower after the demonic light faded from his eyes.
“Where’s Asher?” I croak. Great, thanks to the smoke from the fireball, my throat is a goddamn wreck.
“With his family.” Cam smooths my hair back from my face, casting a worried glance up and down my body. “Don’t worry, they’re all okay.”
Roman continues to hold me, and the guys stay with me until Hardwick is finished accounting for everyone and starts getting the healers to work. Some healers approach me with a stretcher, and Roman gently lays me onto it so they can carry me into the infirmary.
It’s only once I know that I’m about to get help, that relief is on the horizon, that the full extent of my injuries hits me. The pain I’d been blocking out, refusing to acknowledge, hits me like a Mack truck.
And I’m out.
I spend a day and a half in the infirmary, waiting for the spells and potions the healers used on me to repair my burned skin and knit my wounds back together.
; Once everyone’s healed and taken care of—which takes a while, since there were a lot of people hurt just as bad or worse than I was—the clean-up process has to begin.
Hardwick apparently hopes to handle the bulk of the clean-up and repairs over the summer so that classes won’t be disrupted in the fall. They’ll need to find a way to take down the towers and cart the stones away, and then to fix up the quad and the other damaged buildings. It’ll take some time and effort, but at least the towers seem vulnerable to magic now that they’ve served their purpose. So that’ll help with getting them down.
In the meantime, some debris isn’t going to stop everyone from coming back to finish their exams. Hardwick sends out a notice to all the students who evacuated, alerting them that it’s now safe to return to the Griffin campus.
Everyone seems happy that we managed to defend the school, and there’s another big dinner in the dining hall to celebrate. It’s not exactly a party—everyone’s way too beat up and exhausted for that—but it’s something.
I hate to rain on anyone’s parade, but if you ask me, this fight really isn’t over. Once again, we weren’t dealing with the actual mastermind behind all of this, just his damn minions. How many times are we going to have to deal with this sort of bullshit before we actually face the man behind it all?
According to Asher, the Circuit has initiated an investigation into the origin of the towers, now that it’s clear beyond any doubt that the structures were part of a coordinated, planned attack on the school. They’ve also been identifying the bodies of the mages involved in the attack—there’s not much point in trying to identify the bodies of the creatures and demons that poured out of the towers—but so far, it hasn’t yielded any promising leads. Most of them don’t even have criminal records or anything.
I’m not surprised. Every person involved in that attack, even the guy I fought on top of the tower, was a pawn. Nothing more.