“I’m not letting you go down with me,” Wraith said.
“What—” Shadow started to ask.
Wraith halted the stride, for a moment so brief it could hardly be said to have existed, and shoved her friends back into reality, praying their souls wouldn’t die just because Wraith was trapped in the circle and her power couldn’t get out. She had no idea if her desperate plan for escape would work. And if it did, would it be quick enough to do any good?
In a frozen, stolen moment of time, in the instant between the stride ending and the trap springing, Wraith saw the familiar cave. It had been restored to the way it had looked before she’d made her escapes all those months ago. In the center a dozen or so robed figures stood around the circle, chanting and focusing power through it. A hundred or more of the robed Order members stood back from the circle, all of them channeling power into the thirteen around the circle.
Wraith drew in a breath, and then opened herself up to the power and information around her. In that flash of an instant, she drew in and held more power than she’d even known.
The trap sprung, and it was like a thousand red-hot needles being inserted all over her body. She fell to the ground, writhing, desperate to scream but unable to draw in enough breath.
Through blinding pain, and intense focus to keep her very existence from exploding from all the power she held, she was dimly aware of a robed figure limping toward the circle. Through the shadows of his hood, she saw faint purple light burning behind dark eyes.
“And we had such high hopes for you,” the ritual master said. He drew back his hood, revealing a hard-edged face marked with lines and scars. His thin lips twisted into a sneer, and the purple fire burning behind his eyes grew brighter. “Such a waste.”
“Happy to disappoint,” Wraith said through a grunt of pain. All her muscles were tightened like an electric charge was coursing through her.
Then she let all of the power she’d drawn in loose at once.
She didn’t try and form any coherent formulation, just let it loose as raw entropy. It hit the circle like ocean waves against a massive cliff. And like water, the disorder she released found its way into the structure trying to hold it back. Nothing is truly perfect, not even this masterfully crafted circle. Chaos slipped into the fabric of the circle and began unraveling the weak points on the quantum level. Each crack in the circle was infinitely small, but there were an unimaginable number of them. They grew and met, then increased again, exponentially expanding through the spell. Wraith kept pouring power, and she could feel the circle slowing giving way, but she didn’t know if it would give enough before she ran out of power. She also didn’t know what would happen when she released all she had. Would her own quantum information pour out of her? Would she cease to exist?
“Even you can’t break this circle,” the ritual master said, then leaned in close. “You think you and the other street trash are the only ones we blessed with this immense power?”
Wraith opened her eyes and saw the ritual master’s hands, held up for her to see. They were covered in intricate designs of dark power, and they all seemed to glow with a dark purple light. Beneath his heavy hood, filled with shadows even when light should’ve banished them, two bright, deep purple fires burned.
Time, relative and imagined though it may be, seemed to drag.
Her heart sank into the floor when she saw the thirteen around the circle had similar fires burning behind their eyes. It didn’t matter. At the least, maybe she could give her friends enough time to free the others—
The ritual master stepped to one side and she saw Ovation and Geek, both unconscious and bound with thin silver chains inside a circle on the stone floor.
“Now we take this faerie abomination and mortal touched by magic and use their power to add to our own,” the ritual master said, then turned back to Wraith. “And when it’s done, we’ll tear your soul loose, and I’ll have your power for my own.”
Wraith was as good as dead anyway. If the Order didn’t do her in, the intense power would destroy her. But she couldn’t let them kill anyone else.
Before she could do anything, even piece together a coherent thought in the haze of pain and intense focus, the ritual master drew a silver knife and walked to Ovation.
Wraith tried to scream, to shatter the circle with her will alone, but the cracks and chaos were still not enough. She watched in horror as the ritual master’s hand— covered in sigils not unlike her own markings, but pulsing with purple light— grabbed Ovation’s hair and pulled his head back. His eyes met hers just as the blade was drawn across his throat. She saw the light of life leave him and the circle activate to capture that light.
Something inside Wraith broke.
“Can you shoot them?” Elaine asked.
“If they were in range,” Maeve said. “From what I could see, they’re nearly half a mile away.”
“So we just sit here?” Elaine asked.
“I’m thinking,” Dante said. He blinked and looked around. “Where’s Siobhan?”
More shots rang out, these coming in rapid succession.
Everyone turned to look.
“Holy crap!” Maeve said.
Siobhan was sprinting across the field toward one of the hidden snipers. She was moving erratically, giving the other sharpshooters as hard a target to hit as possible. There were several loud cracks as the high-caliber rifles turned and fired at the sprinting Fian.
“I’m not mourning another one,” Dante said. “Go!”
The marshals took off, following Siobhan’s lead and juking randomly. Dante turned to Elaine. “Stay—”
Elaine was crouched low, whispering something into a stone in her palm, then she stomped down with a foot. Dante felt the magic immediately, a massive thrum that radiated through the earth itself, emanating from Elaine. Dante stared at her in a combination of amazement, shock, and newfound respect.
“An elemental stone?” he asked.
“I’m a woman of mystery,” Elaine said with a wry smile. “I’ve been saving it for a special occasion; and since you wouldn’t get off your ass, it seems it’s up to us ladies to resolve this standoff.”
The earth shook so hard, Dante had to grab a nearby tree to keep from falling over. He turned to the field just as a massive arm, six feet long and made of stone, erupted from earth not fifty feet from one of the snipers. It was soon followed by another arm, then a massive stone-and-earthen creature hauled itself up from the ground. It stood over fifteen feet tall, its eyes and mouth were openings to a glowing light inside that burned like a furnace. It turned to the sniper and bellowed with a sound like an earthquake.
“Don’t worry,” Elaine said. “He’s on our side.”
Dante turned wide eyes to her. “Where did you—”
“I told you,” Elaine said, “I’m a woman of mystery.”
Shots rang out and large clouds of dust erupted from the elemental, leaving large divots in its earthen body. Those, however, were soon refilled.
“Elementals aren’t well known for their obedience,” Dante said and broke into a run, pulling Elaine behind him.
She didn’t need much encouragement before she was running alongside him. As they ran, they saw Siobhan tackle one sniper. The ground shook as the elemental pounded the ground with its huge fists. Dante and Elaine both leapt into the air to avoid the tremor, landing just as the shockwave passed, and kept running.
The marshals closed in, laying down suppressive fire. The Order snipers drew back from their positions, their cover now gone. One by one, each drew out an amulet of black stone. Dante felt a shiver as they spoke their master’s name aloud, broke the amulet, and vanished.
Dante leapt at one, but the gunman vanished while Dante was in midair. He tumbled and rolled, coming back to his feet. As quick as that, it was over. The marshals closed in on Dan
te and took up positions around him.
“They’re gone,” Maeve said. “Where the hell did the elemental come from?”
Dante nodded at Elaine. “Ask the woman of mystery.”
“Not all gone,” one of the marshals, Simon, said.
Everyone turned to see Siobhan marching a man in a ghillie suit, his painted face looking toward the gathered elves.
There was a roar and pounding footsteps as the elemental saw the remaining soldier and rushed forward.
“Stop!” Elaine said, hand extended to the elemental.
It froze instantly, but its eyes tracked the soldier.
Dante saw, and smelled, that the soldier had wet himself and now stood staring with wide eyes. He couldn’t really blame the man, not many saw an elemental and lived to tell about it.
“That your pet?” Siobhan asked Elaine as she pushed the soldier forward again.
“I call him Rolf,” Elaine said, smiling.
“We’ll talk about Rolf later,” Dante said.
Elaine gave him a level stare. “No, we won’t.”
Dante smiled despite himself, but it was gone when he turned to the soldier. “How many more of you are there?”
The man just stared at the elemental, looming but still as a mountain.
“He asked you a question,” Siobhan said and smacked the back of the man’s head.
The sniper recovered his senses, glared at Dante and spat, “Servio, domino meo!”
“I’m really starting not to like this,” Maeve said.
“We are standing in the open with a mountain to one side of us,” Siobhan said. “I’m guessing if there were more of them, they’d be shooting by now, yeah?”
The sniper tore his own black stone amulet from his shirt and shouted, “Audite me, dominus, Zyth—”
Everyone raised their weapons, but Dante got the first shot off. The man’s head snapped back from a single shot to his forehead, and he fell to the ground.
“Well,” Elaine said, “that confirms your suspicions about who the Theurgic Order is. Not many names start that way.”
Dante nodded. “Agreed.” He nodded back to the woods. “We’ve wasted enough time. Let’s go.”
“What about Rolf?” Siobhan said.
“He’ll keep up,” Elaine said.
“I think she meant the possible attention a fifteen-foot-tall walking mountain might draw,” Dante said.
Elaine rolled her eyes, then let out a high whistle before breaking into a run.
Rolf leapt and vanished into the ground like it was a pool of water.
“Woman of mystery,” Maeve said.
“So it seems,” Dante said, smiling more than a little, then he began his pursuit of Elaine.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Time slowed. Each millisecond was like a century. Wraith watched in horror as the ritual master released Ovation’s hair and his lifeless body fell forward. In that moment, the universe seemed to shrink so that nothing and no one existed but her and Ovation. She thought of all that might’ve been, the life he was supposed have lived, and she found herself calculating the probabilities that she could’ve been part of it. There was no rage or anger, which surprised her. There was only righteous indignation and mourning for the lost life that could’ve been.
In that moment of grief, understanding unfolded in her mind. It was as if she’d spent her life inches away from a massive painting, and now she was stepping back and seeing it all for the first time. The pain vanished as she realized that it was part of her physical body, and that her physical body was just a vessel. She was more than that. The information and power she’d been using wasn’t something separate, she was part of it all, part of everything. Even the circle that was crafted to hold her was part of her. In that moment of realization, she was closer and more intimate with Ovation than any physical touch could ever have achieved.
She reached out to the circle, the billions of frayed threads in the infinite weaving that made up the circle. It didn’t become unmade, or change at all. She changed. Turning, she saw her body on the ground, and looked at it as if it were a house she’d once lived in. There was a distant nostalgia when she looked at it, but it was just a house. She changed, all right. She was now, well and truly, homeless.
Looking at the Order members, she saw the other homeless, the kids who had suffered and had been forcibly bound to their hosts; those who now wore the lost and forgotten like macabre clothing. It was all so simple. No wonder she’d never seen it before. The pain that was visited on them was to disorient them, leave them lost and confused. Wraith whispered to them, all of them, even those that were bound to her. She told them a great and powerful secret, a truth so simple it was like the utterance of God.
“You are free,” she said. With those words, power flowed not from her but through her. Belief could, and did, shape reality. Those tormented souls had been bound because the magic had convinced them that they were. It wasn’t a lie, but the belief of the captured was stronger than the belief of their captors. Wraith would make sure of it.
Thousands of souls turned to her, their pain and confusion halted. The power that drifted through them was like a balm to their tattered essences.
“You are free,” she said again, gifting to them still more understanding and power.
Then a number of things happened all at once.
Time returned to normal.
Wraith felt several strong hands grab her and pull her back into her body. It was like falling into icy water.
The circle didn’t vanish, it just no longer held her. The information that formed it was rewritten, making it as impotent and useless as a paper door.
Lastly, every single captured soul was released, freed from their captive hosts. Every one of those lost and tormented children turned on their former tormenters and captors. Dozens of glowing forms of every shape and size pulled themselves from each Order member; and then proceeded to tear at them.
Shrieks of pain and panic filled and echoed through the cave, but unlike every other time, these were not the lamentations of the lost and forgotten, the tortured and terrified. It was instead the sound of balance being restored.
The ritual master’s screams joined the chorus around him as hundreds, perhaps thousands, of ghostly shapes began attacking him as well.
Wraith got to her feet, her body weak and racked with pain and cold, and watched the wronged collect their justice.
“There is no safe haven for you tonight,” she whispered. “Not from a debt so great.”
She walked, slowly and unsteady, through the useless circle and toward the ritual master. Only the power that still flowed through her kept Wraith on her feet, but she could feel her understanding of it waver. All the wisdom and truth that was so simple moments before was now slipping away like a dream after waking.
As she passed the Order members, they hurled darkness and tainted magic at Wraith and the freed dead alike. But against the furious horde of vengeful souls, the attacks were like handfuls of dust thrown at a tornado. One by one, the Order members began to fall, their own black souls lifting away only to be torn at and ripped apart by the righteous hands of their victims.
Through the winding formulation that made up the quantum information of the Order members, Wraith saw dark threads that stretched out, reaching beyond this reality like the strings of a psychotic puppet. Though it was beyond her present understanding, she knew there was indeed a puppet master on the other side of those strings; something vast, powerful, and terribly dark. She even saw a name, one that she knew not to utter. Zythtraxion.
The ritual master raged and fought. His own power wasn’t insignificant, and the threads that connected him to his master were countless. Even with all that, it wasn’t enough to keep the horde at bay. They tore at him, and at the cords that made him dance. The ritual master stopped when he
saw Wraith and gnashed his teeth, seemingly unconcerned about the dead still slashing at him. To Wraith, it was like something else was looking at her through those eyes.
Wraith watched in a strange, objective horror as she saw the broken filaments from the fallen Order members attach themselves to the ritual master. The puppet master would not let his toy fall so easily.
“This will not stop us,” the ritual master said through grunts as the onslaught against him continued. “We are everywhere, in each shadow and darkened corner. We are the dread that fills nightmares.”
“I’m the dawn that turns nightmares to empty dreams, soon forgotten,” Wraith said without fear or anger. There was no reason for either. What she’d said was just simple fact. With that, she reached out to tear away the connection to his master.
“Then you will all be forgotten with us!” he screamed and dark purple fire surged down those puppet strings and filled him until it erupted from his hands. Massive tendrils of blackish-purple flame grew and spread through the cavern, consuming the bodies of the dead and those still fighting.
Wraith drew back in pain from the flames, so cold they burned. She saw the formulation of the fire, but couldn’t make sense of it. It wasn’t right. It was an abomination of magic, twisted and perverse. It flatly defied everything she knew and understood. She reached out to draw an equation to counter it, to cut the ties, but the power was too much for her to control. She struggled, trying to force the formulation into a zero sum, but searing agony bore into her head. She screamed and turned away. She saw Geek, unconscious but alive in his circle. The fire was closing in around him.
She looked from him to Ovation’s body and back. Tears ran down her cheeks. She had power, she was power, but her body wasn’t strong enough to control it; it never had been. She couldn’t save them both. Just like before—like every time it seemed—it wasn’t her power that was lacking, it was her. She might be able to quash the fire. Of course it would likely be at the cost of all that made her who she is, which she would do, but the time required would cost more. She couldn’t do it fast enough to save Geek and any others who might be held in the cages beyond this cave.
The Forgotten Page 28