by Alisha Basso
The Rayne Shade attacked her, and its shadowed sharp-edged weapon hit hers and sent sparks off the joined blades.
“Don’t let the blade touch you,” I shouted.
Val’s bells jingled and the mage looked up. “You have been busy making friends, haven’t you?” He made the same gesture and a figure emerged with a low, compelling laugh. It went into the air and faced off with Val. The same jingling sound, but it didn’t have the cheer of Val’s bells—no these had a malevolent, discordant rasp. Another malicious carbon copy.
But Val ignored his copy, and the jingle of his bell got louder. “I’m a Forerunner, mage. I don’t get distracted. I do the distracting.” He hefted a large jingle bell in his hand and threw it up into the air. As it came down it split into three and Val deftly caught them and juggled them effortlessly, his bad-boy grin in place. But there was no teasing in his eyes, only pure, calculated intent—dangerous intent. He sent the bells at the mage at the same time Fox let loose with an arc of lightning. The charge slammed into the mage at the same moment as the bells, and Bleak was knocked away from me, sliding on the roof tiles.
Rayne cried out, my head jerked around to locate her, and my mouth went dry. Her shade had sliced the fabric of her uniform, but I saw no blood. My heart in my throat, I took a step toward her.
“No!” she shouted, “Lily stay put.”
Alarmed, I watched as the Rayne Shadow took another swipe at her, its impassive face scary in its stillness and lack of emotion. It was nothing but a killing machine. As I watched her shade, I realized even though Rayne wasn’t as touchy-feely as I was, she was a compassionate and dedicated friend. I didn’t want anything to happen to her, or to Fox and Val.
Rayne was fighting for her life now, and sweat soaked her hair and ran down her face. Her shade double countered her every move, as if she were fighting herself in the mirror.
With a lunge and a twist, the shade got under her guard and, with a snap of its wrist, it cracked the hilt against her temple and she dropped to the roof.
“Kill her!” The mage shouted as he rose off the tiles. Before Fox could move, the mage sent out not only a replica of Fox, but of Maya as well. They faced off with each other.
With a sweep of his hand, the mage sent a gust of wind at Val, and it slammed him into the side of the building. With a soft grunt and groan he slid down and lay still, his long blond hair spread out like liquid gold across black velvet.
“Val!” I shouted, but he didn’t move as his shade hefted his own jingle bell and sent it flying at his prone body.
Fox’s arc of lightning batted it away at the last moment. But he couldn’t help Rayne. The blade was already descending and I couldn’t do anything from within my circle. If I used my magic it would break the protective shield…and if I didn’t, Rayne would die. Visions of Olivia’s death flashed through my head. I couldn’t save her. But I could do something here.
I stepped across the circle and yelled, “Obex keravnos!” just as the tip of the blade plunged toward her heart. A purple barrier formed over her the instant the words left my lips, and my circle of protection broke with an audible snap.
The barrier stopped the blade an inch from her heart.
“Ahhhhh, delightful! The little witch has come out to play.”
Too late I realized he’d attacked the wardens to get me to break my circle.
With a flick of his wrist, he picked me up and threw me across the roof at Fox. My back hit with enough force to knock the air from me and Fox, and I tumbled to the lip of the roof. He went over the edge and grabbed for the rim just before he would have fallen to the sidewalk below. My head reeling from the fall and collision, I shook it to clear the dizziness.
“Lily,” Fox rasped and I frantically reached for him, almost weeping as our hands met in a firm clasp. I began to pull with all my might while Fox tried to find purchase against the building to leverage himself back on the roof.
Val was already moving, racing through the air, only to be struck on the side of his head by one of his shade’s bells. It opened a gash on this face, and blood flew as he tumbled across the asphalt roof and crashed into the side of the building again.
Moaning in pain, blood soaking into his blond hair, he slowly pushed himself up, grabbed his jingle bell whip out of thin air and sent it at his shade. It wrapped around the dark, taunting figure and squeezed tight. The shade let out a terrible, keening wail as Val’s copper eyes narrowed and his lips tightened with the effort of using his will to crush the shade. As soon as it disassembled into a dark mist again, then dissipated, Val was up again, heading toward Fox’s Shade and Maya. The whip sang again and he systematically grappled with both shades. Maya leapt at the mage, but he put up his own barrier, his fingers working effortlessly. The cat collapsed at his feet, her blue energy dissipating back to the Mystic Plane.
As Val continued fighting Fox’s shades, Fox’s hand was steadily slipping from mine even before the mage came over and grabbed me by the back of the collar and broke my grip. His deep gold eyes filled with determination, Fox latched onto the roof again, but the mage stomped on his fingers, and with a cry he let go and hung on with only one hand. Bringing up his bloodied hand, he sent a tornado twirling into Bleak. It knocked him back, breaking his hold on me. I reached for Fox again, but as he sent electricity at the tornado and it ignited, Bleak roared, as it engulfed him.
I reached for Fox again and suddenly the tornado exploded and Bleak strode across the short space and sent a stream of shadow at Fox. I screamed “Obex keravnos!” The shadow attack bounced off my barrier.
The mage snarled in anger and backhanded me across the face and I lost my grip on Fox. He fell and my heart lurched. I screamed, “No!”
Val broke off the fight and sailed over the edge of the roof. The two shades headed for Rayne. My face throbbing, blood trickling down my cheek, I panted, “Obex keravnos!” I mentally strengthened the barrier over her, but with three shades, it would eventually falter.
Rage and grief hardened like a ball of heated lead in my gut. I scrambled away from him. The unnamed power I had used to save Talon woke within me and sizzled like electricity along my nerve endings as it built.
“Ignis! Dormite! Constringo! Tardis!” I screamed one after the other, but the mage, just batted my spells aside like they were nothing.
“Lily!”
My head jerked toward the roof’s door at the sound of Talon’s deep, frantic voice, but the mage’s fingers were already working. Heavy bodies hit the door, but the mage had somehow magically locked it.
The distraction cost me, allowing the mage to backhand me across the face again, and I stumbled away, seeing stars.
“You little, bitch,” he said, reaching down and grabbing my ankle.
Gasping, I went down as he yanked me onto my butt and turned, starting to drag me. I hit with a thump, panicking. As I kicked ineffectively at him, I saw the air flicker at the far edge of the roof.
“Let me go!” I demanded, kicking the backs of his knees with my one free foot. I reached for the Torrent, desperate. His leg buckled and he stopped, his irate look clear in the ambient light. He punched me in the face and pain exploded in my cheek and jaw. I lost the connection as my head swam. I tasted blood from my cut lip. He grabbed my other ankle, continuing toward the shimmering air.
“Lily,” Talon bellowed as he pounded on the other side of the door.
The mage dragged me across the roof as I clawed at the tiles, but I couldn’t stop my momentum. When I looked over my shoulder the flickering air was swirling. Oh, goddess. He was taking me through a portal.
Relief surged through me when I saw Val touch down and stagger under Fox’s weight. As Fox hit solid ground, Val went to his knees, crying out in pain, clutching his shoulder. Blood dripped off his chin. But he didn’t hesitate. “Ding dong!” He shouted and a huge bell dropped over the mage, the sound of the clapper so loud I slapped my hands over my ears. It reverberated so hard the roof shuddered beneath me.
The mage’s cry of rage echoed and the bell flew away from him and crashed into the door leading downstairs, blowing it off its hinges. All I could see as he dragged me past were three crumpled bodies, and Talon’s hair shining like blood in the moonlight.
“Talon,” I whispered. “No.”
I latched onto the side of the building, digging my fingers into the metal sheeting covering the rough corner.
“Let go,” Bleak gritted, sounding murderous.
“No!” my muscles started to shake as I fought to hang on while Bleak pulled. Fox barreled toward us.
“Looks like your shaman friend has a hard-on for you, little witch. Too bad he won’t survive.”
Something ugly and foul blew across my skin, sizzling with the smell of brimstone. I gasped as I recognized the scent and my mouth opened to scream. It was a cursed runic spell, and it would kill Fox outright. But I was too late, and the black ball of energy shot from him and flew unerringly at the sprinting shaman.
Just before it hit, his jaguar, Maya, leapt in front of it, and the black ball hit her like a battering ram, knocking her across the roof and onto her side. She lay still for a moment then rose shakily to all fours. The blackness from the curse eclipsed the blue spectral glow of her and it spread until she was as dark as a real jaguar. Her eyes went red and Bleak laughed.
“Kill him.”
The cat turned on Fox and he stepped back, his face a mask of pain and rage. “Maya, no.”
But the cat didn’t obey and Fox didn’t move.
“Flit,” he called and the hummingbird was a tiny blue flame as it fluttered around him.
“Fox!” I screamed, but he faced the cat, and when she leapt at him, he caught her and blue fire exploded from his hands against the cat’s flank. She sank her teeth into his shoulder, and as she did, the blue flame turned a midnight dark, streaking the incandescent blue with shadow. The light surged while Fox was illuminated as if from within. But the darkness grew and dimmed his light and a sick dread clenched my stomach. “No,” I breathed.
The mage kicked me in the ribs, and I cried out while he pried my hands loose, picked me up, and threw me over his shoulder. My breath exploded out of me as Bleak’s muscle-hard shoulder rammed into my middle.
He carried me to the portal, but Val stepped out of the blue light and he sent his fist into the mage’s belly. Bleak doubled over and dropped me on the roof.
The smell of brimstone and burnt cloves filled the air, and the eerie feeling traveled over my skin again. Bleak was preparing another spell. I rammed into Val, and he tumbled backwards just as the ball of energy released from the mage and harmlessly struck the building across the street.
Val grabbed me with his good arm. I could see the agony on his face and the awkward angle of his dislocated shoulder. He backpedaled, and I felt us lift off the roof, but the mage grabbed my ankle and jerked me out of Val’s grasp. I landed hard on my right side, the impact sending pain from my shoulder to my ankle.
He sent more dark energy at Val, which he ducked. But it was too late. Bleak had a good grip on me again and managed to drag my lower body until I was up to my waist in the portal. I felt compressed, like a heavy weight was flattening me, or I was being dragged through a knothole, one much too small for me.
Talon pelted across the roof, blood running down his face, his arm outstretched as green fire sailed toward the mage’s back, but it hit the portal instead as he disappeared through. Fox had been engulfed by that frightening black flame, Rayne was unconscious and sprawled on her stomach, maybe dead, three murderous shades mindlessly trying to break my barrier, Val’s face was a mask of pain, and Talon looked like he would move Heaven and Earth to get to me…those were the last things I saw.
The portal swallowed me up, the roof winking out in a swirl of black and white. Runic magic coated me. I choked, trying to get my leg free, clawing at the hand around my ankle, unable to breathe. My heart beat wildly as his magic battled through me, redefining the blood, flesh and essence of me in a way which terrified me. The blackness of the absence of reality enveloped me, and I panicked as I felt shattered, with bits and pieces of me scattered everywhere and nowhere at the same time. I wavered on the edge of oblivion, unable to draw air, unable to reason.
And then I was simply…gone.
#
He dragged me out of the portal and into a musty-smelling warehouse, and I finally was able to take a gasping breath. It was dark, but I could make out rows and rows of computers and my blood went cold with dread.
Computers. Oh, goddess. The game.
He let go of me when he reached a small, open area where I could see the screens. All of them. At least one hundred computers, all downloading the game. The status bar showed forty percent complete.
Horrified, I stared up at him, feeling my face go pale and my eyes go wide. “Please stop this. Please don’t,” I whispered weakly, hating myself, but needing to give him a false sense of my state of mind. Although I was scared down to my toes, I had to buy time to figure a way out of this mess.
He grinned.
The game monsters would overrun the Twin Cities. They would rampage through it, unstoppable beasts, shades, hideous monsters, Daray. The death toll would be in the hundreds of thousands. Then they would spread out and tear across the continent until all life was extinguished or in hiding.
Bleak grinned all the wider. “That’s precisely my vision. It’s what I’ve sacrificed everything to achieve. They will be at my beck and call. I’ll be the master.”
Why was it evil geniuses always wanted to take over the world?
“You’ll destroy everything.”
He kicked me and I scrambled away from him. “Obex,” I said. And I thought of my embattled newfound friends. Part of me wanted to let go and feel something and part of me wanted to remain behind the barrier I had to put up to stave off the terrible pain of Olivia’s betrayal.
Even as I struggled with my emotions, I prayed that all of them were okay. Fox…Goddess, the shamanic power he wielded was…enormous. So, talented, sweet, dedicated. I wanted a chance to know him. Decided I did want to retrieve my memory if it was possible. Val. Cute, funny and sarcastic. A unique Realized. And, Rayne. Cool, calculating, lethal and smart. She tripped my barrier switches on. And, Talon, who had wormed his way into my heart.
All I wanted to do was get back to them.
He laughed. “Stupid Earth witch. You think your little barrier is going to hold me off for long?”
“Runic magic is forbidden,” I said, trembling. “It broke reality. You could risk something even more catastrophic.”
“Do you think I give a flying fuck? My vision is almost a reality. I’m creating my own beautiful Armageddon.” He bent down, his crazy gaze boring into me. “Tell me who gave you my name.”
“What?” I said, meeting and holding his stare, my chin lifting. “This is why you brought me here?”
“Yes, I want to know who gave you my name.”
The man who had saved me from the undead vamp. Goddess help me. “I don’t know his name.”
A shriek of pain ripped from me as Bleak lobbed a ball of energy at my barrier.
It came down, and the energy detonated, blasting through me.
My muscles jerked and spasms shook me until my face hit the dirty warehouse floor. I was on fire, and I clenched into a fetal position, hands over my ears.
Screams upon screams beat upon me. I couldn’t block them out. They hammered at me, the only things which were real besides the agony. Like an explosion, the force of the energy ran through me like a loop, settling into my center, spilling over to set my limbs on fire. My brain felt as if it had been bathed in acid, and all the time that awful screaming wracked my ears. I was on fire. I was burning.
Huge, wracking sobs finally replaced my screams. Panting, I opened my eyes. My hands were pale and shaking in the light from the computers. They were
n’t charred, but the scent of brimstone and burned cloves was dense in my nostrils.
And the echo of what had once been pure and clean magic hit me like a ton of bricks. More cursed runic magic, distorted and bent to Bleak’s will, subjugated and made unholy and evil by his twisted spirit. He was foul, power-hungry and warped. And the feel of it was also incredibly familiar…but connecting a memory to it was beyond me. I’d never have used runic magic. It was forbidden. It was bad enough I’d used the darkane. I was an Earth witch, my magic stemmed from all that was living. Yet, I couldn’t shake the eerie sense of familiarity.
“Just tell me. The secret’s not worth all this pain. Who gave you my name?” I cried out as Bleak squeezed my shoulder in a punishing grip.
Numb, I felt spittle drool down my cheek. I couldn’t remember how to wipe it away. My throat hurt and the cold air I sucked in burned. The steady hum of the computers moving unerringly toward our doom sounded almost peaceful in my ears.
“I’m not keeping it a secret,” I said through clenched teeth. Glaring at him, my words coming out staccato, as I said them slowly so he would get the message. “I don’t know who it was.”
“You are a brave, brave witch,” he said, grinning wildly, his hand tightening even more. “You’re going to be a dead, dead witch if you persist in lying to me. You cannot save your precious city. There will be no answers for you.”
He shot energy from where his hand grasped me right into my body. I shuddered like a live electrical wire, loose and flailing uncontrollably. I bit my tongue as I convulsed against the surge of the aberrant magic. Fire immolated my center, overflowing and making my skin burn, finally settling into my thoughts. I couldn’t think. I was nothing but pain. I was burning. My very thoughts, my soul, were burning.
Blistering agony sliced me to shreds, scoring my nerve endings until every movement was torture.
He let me go and I fell back against the closest computer desk, feeling as if my bones were cracking and crumbling. Shivering violently, I looked over at him. I felt the hum of the computer through the cold metal against my back while the magic slipped off me like writhing black smoke. And I felt soiled by the touch of magic for the first time in my short memory.