‘That could be Piper,’ Hunter said. ‘And maybe Nerretti.’
‘The ex-angel?’ Tahlia’s eyes widened. ‘I’d wondered what had happened to him.’
‘He’s been rather protective of Hella,’ Hunter said.
‘How do we get them out?’ Tessa said, losing patience.
Tahlia’s eyes welled with fresh tears that had nothing to do with the smoke. ‘I don’t know that we can, little one. The Nymphas would have tried to douse the fire, but knowing Hella—’ She sniffled. ‘They won’t have been able to. We can’t get in. Whatever is happening down there, I hope Hella is protecting the others.’
‘Or maybe she’s the reason they’re in danger,’ Hunter said. ‘I’m part witch, and I’ve studied under Remy Stealthing, but I’ve never seen anything like her. It’s entirely possible she’s just too powerful and she lost control. That’s why Remy had The Force hold her.’
Tahlia looked devastated. ‘Oh, my little Thomas.’ She looked as if she were about to fall to her knees in agony.
And then the building collapsed in on itself with a deafening crack, and purple smoke and flames danced over the ruins as debris fell down around them like rain.
Chapter Fifty
Hella
It felt like she was being pulled through space by the insides of her chest. She was dragged this way and that, yanked and torn and wishing she could scream. There was nothing but purple fire and darkness. She tried to twist and turn to see Harrow, but it was like looking up and down while on a roller-coaster: things just moved too wildly to see anything. She wanted to close her eyes or throw up, but she couldn’t move or breathe.
Hella finally landed, like a house in a twister, with a painful thud back in her body so hard she was sure someone had hit her over the head with a baseball bat. She cried out, sitting up, and was engulfed with smoke. She had taken a sharp breath in and immediately regretted it as she coughed it all up. The smoke was a dense moving grey-black wall tinged with dancing purple flames.
‘Harrow?’ She had no breath left to call out to the others.
A hand closed around her arm and she jumped. ‘It’s me,’ Harrow said, his mouth close to her ear. He was right beside her on his bed in the plastic cell. ‘What’s happening?’ he croaked out.
Then the vision of Valhalla burning flashed before her eyes. ‘Magic. Burned here too.’ Speaking was like rubbing her vocal cords on a cheese grater. She stumbled off the bed, trying to pull Harrow along with her. Wherever the fire was, they had to get away from it. Hella didn’t have the strength to try to tame it, and it seemed to be too late for that. She couldn’t even see the bars of the cells, let alone to where the fire had spread. She gripped Harrow’s arm firmly and tried to drag him to safety. He stood voluntarily and even helped her up. He got the message. Get out of here.
Stumbling blindly, Hella tried to feel around the cell for their friends but couldn’t find them. She managed to smack herself into the bars twice for her efforts. She couldn’t see. Hella just hoped that Piper, Tommy and Net had had the sense to leave them while they could. Their friends had warned them to stop, but they couldn’t.
No matter what world they were in, it seemed, Hella’s powers raged out of control. She kept a firm grip on Harrow’s arm, unwilling to lose him in the smoke too. It was only a matter of time before they ran out of oxygen. They had to get to the stairs and get out of here. Thankfully the cell door was open. Together, they tripped over to the stairs, and began crawling up them on their hands and knees, coughing until their eyes streamed.
They had almost reached the top of the stairs, slowly and painfully, when a resounding crack echoed throughout the building. They heard a few screams before the entire building caved in. Something moved beside her, and Harrow had rolled protectively on top of her to shield her as rocks, debris and fire showered down on them. She heard Harrow yelp as something struck him, and he was knocked sideways off her. Hella felt something wet like blood drip down her cheek.
Chapter Fifty-One
Nerretti
‘We cannot leave them!’ Tommy yelled, pulling against Piper who was bodily dragging the young warlock away from Hella and Harrow’s cell.
‘We can’t help them if we’re dead!’ Piper said. ‘We get out, then go back for them.’
‘Just because you’re all for abandoning Hella again doesn’t mean I am!’ Tommy yelled at her.
Piper looked as if he’d struck her. He might as well have. Net couldn’t bring himself to argue with either of them, but the building shook violently, and Hella and Harrow had both set the cell on fire. Smoke rolled off them in great waves. In a matter of minutes, it would engulf the entire building, endangering everyone inside. Instead, he ran up the stairs and began shouting a warning until people began to filter out to see what he was talking about.
A guard came and tried to go downstairs. ‘That’s not a normal fire,’ Net insisted.
‘Get off me. I’m a Nympha, don’t worry.’ The ignorant guard brushed past him and into the cell. He frowned at the shimmering of their bodies, an effect of Hella’s astralling power. He used his magic to try to douse the flames under a fine sheen of ice water.
It didn’t do anything.
‘What the…?’ he said, looking personally offended that it hadn’t worked.
‘She is the promised witch—your water and ice will do nothing. Get everyone out, now! There’s nothing we can do to stop this.’ Net shoved the guard back up the stairs. The guard looked utterly dumbfounded. When he teetered, Net shoved him and he ran, calling for the House to be evacuated. Net wondered if they had ever had to do so before.
Coughing up plumes of smoke, Piper ran out of the cell, her eyes streaming. Her array of potions and athames couldn’t help them now. She held up her hands, perhaps to cast a spell, then choked.
Tommy remained in the cell stubbornly.
‘That warlock boy is going to die if he doesn’t move,’ Piper told Net as she coughed.
‘I know he is.’ Net sighed. He went back to the cell and opened his mouth to tell Tommy to come with them, when the boy collapsed right at his feet. ‘Smoke inhalation will do that, little warlock. Come on.’
Net hefted Tommy into his arms, then cast a look at Hella and Harrow. He hoped the spell would protect them somehow, though when they had started to burn, the magical chain had melted away, broken. But they had survived this long.
‘I’m sorry,’ Net whispered over the crackling flames.
They ran outside with the flowing crowd of warlocks pouring through the double doors. Net was relieved to see so many outside, out of harm’s way. The warlocks all looked shaken, and he couldn’t blame them. Children hugged their parents, and loved ones huddled close to each other. When the council leaders did a hasty headcount and tried to check to see if anyone was missing, Net ducked back inside.
He could not leave Hella and Harrow. Whatever else had happened recently, after all they had both been through, he would not leave them. As he skidded back inside, a thunderous crack echoed through the building. Net didn’t get to take another step as the entire building rained down on him. He was thrown to the side and felt something in his body crack and bleed, then all he saw was falling concrete.
Chapter Fifty-Three
Hella
To her great surprise, Hella was still alive. Though it felt like—yup—like a building had collapsed on top of her. There would be a lot of bruises on her body tomorrow and she felt the bite and sting of a myriad of cuts and scratches. Hella tried to open her eyes but was met with a gross mix of sticky blood dripping into her eyes from a wound on her forehead and thick plumes of dust and smoke. She closed her eyes again. Eww.
A thought struck her. ‘Harrow?’ she called. She began breathing quickly. Where was he? Was he okay? She pushed off the rocks that had landed on her. It was a miracle she hadn’t been crushed to death. Hella did her best to use her sleeve to wipe the blood out of her eyes. ‘Harrow?’ she called a
gain, coughing up smoke. She remembered the building caving in, and he’d been right here.
There was no answer.
‘Harrow!’ she screeched, her throat in agony. The smoke had rubbed it raw. Hella tried to get up and found herself surrounded by rocks, cement chunks, and debris. At the top of the stairs, where the opening to the foyer should be, was a wall of thickly packed rocks that had caved into the stairwell. They were trapped. There was no way Hella could dig, or burn, her way through that. She started scrambling through the piles closest to her, looking for Harrow. She prayed to the stars (hey, they’d kept her alive so far today) that he was okay. Every time she moved a rock, cutting up her hands and fingers on the sharp edges, she expected to find Harrow underneath—a little cut and bruised, maybe, but alive and hopefully unhurt. After everything they’d gone through, he had to be okay.
Hella spent what felt like hours moving rocks, with no trace of the boy she had gone to a different world to save. She didn’t even have time to think about his soul, and whether or not he really had it back. Hella would give anything to find him right now, soul or no. He had tried to protect her when the building caved in. She felt sick at the thought that he might have died to protect her. Again.
Hella was crying now, sobbing, and losing track of what she had already moved or where she had already searched. She screamed up at the blocked stairs, calling for help, but no one could hear her cries. She punched, hit and kicked at a rock at random in frustration. ‘Harrow!’ Her hands bled everywhere. Where the hell was he? He must be dead, she thought. She could have sworn that someone had reached into her chest, breaking all her ribs, and had ripped out her heart. That’s what it felt like. She looked around everywhere, breathing hard. ‘Harrow!’ she called, her voice breaking.
They were caved in from both sides. The cell below them was now dust and bricks. Good thing they had moved, or they would have been crushed to death. If you were a silver-lining kind of person, you might even notice that the collapse had extinguished the fire by burying it and sucking the oxygen away. Of course, that silver lining was pretty thin, since she and Harrow needed oxygen too. In a fit of anger, Hella screamed and hit one of the larger rocks. In the blink of an eye, her amulet glowed, her hands flashing purple, and her telekinesis flared: the large rock—twice the size of her head—lifted into the air, and then pulverised into a dust finer than sand. The molecules drifted to the ground calmly.
Hella and Harrow had both spent at least two days in astral-form, which meant that while it had seemed they were resting with their eyes closed, they had not eaten or slept. She suspected Net or one of the others had been giving them sips of water, at least, but their bodies were running on fumes. Hella looked down at her hands. Her purple flames were already flickering, waning at her lack of energy. She didn’t want to be starting any fires down here, it would absorb what little oxygen was left, but if she could pulverise enough of these rocks, just maybe, she could find Harrow and they could get out of here.
She had not gone through all this to die buried in a pile of rocks under a building she had accidently collapsed. That, she hoped desperately, could not be the destiny of the promised witch. If at any point since she had gotten her magic she had wondered if they came from a higher power, be it God or destiny, Hella hoped now, for the first time, that it was true. She hoped that there were things she was fated to do, people she had to save, because then she might get out of here. Hella would not entertain the idea that her powers were simply a by-product of whomever her father was, and her powerful mother. That just wouldn’t do. That wouldn’t save her, or Harrow.
No. Hella decided that her powers had come from somewhere ‘on high’, and that gave her strength. Wherever Harrow was, under these rocks, she focused as hard as she could, for his sake. The look of terror in his eyes when she had healed him—well, electrocuted—when she had overused her power was burned into her mind. She would not make that mistake again now, even though her emotions were running wild, her mind and body were exhausted and she was probably about to pass out.
She focused her chakras as much as she could and in her mind selected the dozen top-most rocks that she could see. Each one of them rose into the air and was pulverised, as if smashed by an invisible hammer, raining down a little dust each time. She did this again, each time digging a little deeper toward the hard surface of the steps; Harrow had to be under a pile of rocks here somewhere. She just had to get to him.
She concentrated on another set of rocks, pulverising them, slowly clearing the stairway. Hella’s head throbbed. She knew she was quickening her metabolism: burning away energy her body didn’t have (she would need a hearty meal after this, and a damn long nap). It took all her strength to keep pulverising the rocks, now one at a time.
‘Harrow,’ she called again, though her voice was barely above a whisper. He must’ve been buried deep. She refused to let her mind think of the damage they must have done to him. She continued with her work until she lifted a rock that was stained with dark-blue blood. She pulverised it as she scrambled over to where she’d lifted it from.
Sure enough, Harrow was underneath it. But the few bruises and cuts she had hoped for were nothing like what he’d really suffered. Hella clapped a hand to her mouth, no doubt smearing her own face with her blood. Harrow was on his side, facing her, and she could hardly see any of his pale skin that wasn’t covered in dust or blood.
‘Harrow,’ she lay a hand on his head, his black hair filled with grime. He didn’t stir. She focused her energy on moving and pulverising the remaining rocks half-burying him and in her way. ‘Harrow, come on.’
As she tilted him, he woke, his blue eyes wide and bright in the darkness. A smile barely broke her dry lips when he tried to inhale, and instead let out a scream. His hand went to his shoulder and she noticed it. She had been too busy moving the rocks to get to him to realise that a barbed metal rod stuck out of his skin. He tried to sit up, squirming away from the pain, but Hella put a hand on his leg.
‘Don’t move, Harrow.’ Hella eyed the rod. Each time he breathed, a little more dark-blue blood oozed out. Removing it would be bad, she thought, unsure if she could heal him. Adrenaline alone held her upright. Well, that and the miracle that Harrow was alive. She would continue praying to the stars that he stayed that way. That’s all that mattered.
He seemed to freeze in place, his jaw locked shut. Only his eyes roamed their space, growing wide at the scene. ‘Building caved in?’ He groaned.
‘Hmm-mm,’ she said, her throat still sore. She gently moved her hand into his. She knew he would squeeze if he could, but his finger twitched, and that was enough.
‘Get it out,’ he breathed. Even his black eyelashes were grey with dust.
‘I don’t know if I could heal you. And if I take it out, and I can’t, you’ll bleed to death down here. I need to break down the wall of rocks blocking us.’
When his eyebrows rose slightly in a question, she elaborated. ‘Apparently my telekinesis can pulverise rock,’ she said, using it to pick up a small one by his line of sight, the size of a golf ball. She demonstrated and he made a little noise that she took to mean he was impressed. ‘That’s how I found you.’ She sat up and moved a little distance away from Harrow so that she could properly see the rocks she wanted to destroy, versus the ones that would send them all down into the stairwell to crush them even further. It was a risky game, but there were no other options.
Carefully, she picked a rock in the wall that looked like it would not cause a death-avalanche and pulled it away from the others slowly. When nothing else moved, she crushed it. Again and again, fully aware that Harrow was in agony, she had to weigh moving fast and making a mistake, and moving slow and risking their lives in other ways. She found a middle-ground and, pulling out ones she deemed safe to move, started at the bottom of the pile, the ones that were in the way, but not part of the greater structure. Then she came across a large chunk of concrete, a slab as big as a car. With
each rock or chunk she smashed, it jolted her, sucking away her energy.
Her eyes drooped. Harrow’s staggered breathing kept her alert. Every three to four breaths it hitched in his chest and he whimpered a little. That alone kept her pulverising. She picked up the car-length slab slowly, then smashed it. For the first time, she had created a hole in the wall and could see a smidge of something beyond it: what used to be the foyer, she hoped.
‘Hold on, Harrow. I’m getting there.’
Hella selected another large chunk, just a little smaller than the last one, and crushed it without lifting it carefully away in her haste. It sent a small shower of rocks and dust down toward them. She moved directly in front of Harrow, then managed to catch the big ones with her magic and smash them. Harrow’s breathing hitched in worry. ‘I’ve got them.’ She moved a little more cautiously until she could feel a gentle breeze flow down to them. ‘I’m going to crawl up there and call for help. Maybe someone can hear me now.’
‘Don’t go,’ Harrow said.
‘I’m not leaving you. Just a minute.’ Hella touched her fingers gently to his cheek, looking into his eyes. ‘I’ll be right back,’ she promised. Harrow’s eyes blinked, blue as ever, and he smiled slightly.
Hella crawled over dozens of sharp rocks and cement slabs. She poked her head out of a microwave-sized hole, blinking through the dust. She wasn’t sure what she was seeing, everything was burned and grey. ‘Help! We’re down here! Can you hear me?’ She yelled as loudly as her voice would allow.
‘Hella!’ The voice was familiar. Then his ever-friendly face appeared. Nerretti. ‘Oh, thank the stars it’s you. I’ve been trying to dig you out for hours, but it just kept going. Are you okay? Where’s Harrow?’
‘He’s down here, Net, but he’s hurt. He’s got a pole-thing sticking through his shoulder.’ Her eyes drooped. ‘I can’t heal him, so I left it in. I can’t…’ She took a deep breath, trying to stay focused.
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