Her cold lips touched my skin, then I felt the tips of her fangs. Inside my head, she said, «Do it!»
I did.
TO DIAMOND’S CAMERAS, IT MUST HAVE LOOKED LIKE I HAD SUMMONED SOME HEROIC LAST-MOMENT RESISTANCE TO BEING BITTEN
I shriveled from Elaine’s grasp like a deflating balloon, vanishing to the size of dust. I was immediately caught on an updraft caused by the heat of the generators. I took advantage of it and flapped toward the ceiling.
Elaine yelled, “Get back here!” but mentally sent, «Ignore what I’ll be saying. You have your orders.» No doubt she would put on a song and dance for Diamond’s benefit, making a show of attempting to control me. But that was just maintaining her cover. She’d pretend to be trying to break me, but I was already broken.
The hell of it was that if I tried to defy Elaine, I’d only make things worse. I wanted to destroy the generators, and the sooner the better. I wanted to close the rift before Lilith and the others emerged; before innocent people died and birds of prey got superpowers.
But if I obeyed Elaine’s orders, resisting would be harder the next time. Compliance strengthened her hold on me. If I didn’t fight now, it would be like accepting captivity. Slippery slopes, and all that.
HOW TO RESIST?
I yearned to attack Elaine. Even if I just kicked her in the shin, it would have symbolic weight. With magic, symbolism mattered.
Too bad that she was so shielded, my foot would bounce off her like kicking a boulder. If I could actually hurt her, that would be better, both symbolically and for bolstering my mental defiance. The major question was if I had anything that could touch her.
When in doubt, ask an expert. I drew my bronze dagger.
THE DAGGER HAD CHANGED
Its plain bone hilt was now carved with a pattern of eyes framed by a hexagon grid. The eyes were all the same: that stylized Egyptian eye you see in hieroglyphics. The eye with the curlicue beneath. On the knife’s bronze blade, the word Scout had been engraved in cursive script.
Apparently I had determined the dagger’s essence, changing it from tabula rasa into what it was now. «All right, Scout,» I thought, «good knife, pretty knife. Show me where Elaine is vulnerable.»
I took off the glove on my other hand and attempted to prick the same finger as usual. The knife tip balked, deflecting away like a bar magnet when you force it toward the wrong pole of a stronger magnet.
«Come on, Scout, be good.» I tried again. Another deflection, more forceful than the first.
More willful.
Was the knife doing this because of Elaine’s blood bond? Was her magic affecting the blade? Or was Scout being finicky about drinking from the same finger? The gold dagger had refused to drink from the same source as the bronze and silver. Maybe now that Scout had a name, it was a prima donna too.
I tried to stab a pristine finger. (This was getting ridiculous.) Nope. Scout turned away like a baby rejecting puréed asparagus.
Damned dagger, I thought. Damned Elaine. Damned blood bond.
I tried once more, this time aiming the knife tip at the juicy pad of flesh on my palm just below my thumb. If Scout refused to drink from such an enticing piece of meat …
It sank in. It drank.
It hurt.
WHAT ELSE COULD I EXPECT FROM DARKLING MAGIC?
Supply and demand. Scout knew it was needed, so it had upped its asking price. I foresaw escalation from all three knives: Each time I asked for their help, I’d have to cut deeper in some spot that hurt me more. How long before I had to hack off a finger, or worse?
I’d worry about that later. I told the knife, «Just show me Elaine’s greatest vulnerability.»
Copper light shone from Scout’s tip. The beam wove erratically over Elaine, crisscrossing her body, back and forth, up and down. Then it zipped clean away and across the room. It stopped on the machine that refined swampy trash-gas into powerful methane.
Sigh.
I didn’t doubt the knife was highlighting the greatest point of weakness. The coppery dot lay on the seam of a pipe fitting—likely where the seal was a tiny bit less than perfect. If I rammed a dagger into that spot, flammable gas would gush out at high pressure. One spark and the gas would ignite. The explosion would shred other pipes and release more gas, until, with a great fireball, all of the building’s generators would blow themselves apart.
Yes, fine, that was my primary mission. But first, I wanted to attack Elaine!
Scout practically laughed at me. Did I want to try again? Stab myself in an even more damaging place? How sure was I that a second try would have different results? Maybe I myself was the reason Scout hadn’t targeted Elaine. Maybe beneath the level of consciousness, I couldn’t hurt my “master.” Instead, I’d obeyed her command: I’d found a way to destroy the generators.
To hell with it. I wasn’t going to skewer myself in ever worsening places just because I didn’t like the initial answer.
Besides, if I torched the generators, maybe Elaine would fry too.
I DREW THE SILVER DAGGER
It too had changed. The bone hilt showed a hexagonal grid similar to the bronze dagger’s. Each hexagon held another Egyptian hieroglyph, but this time, the hieroglyph was a bird of prey. Inscribed on the silver blade was the word Falcon.
That fit. The silver dagger could fly on its own and attack.
Optimistically, I poked Falcon at one of my unbloodied fingers. The knife refused, just like Scout. I wondered if Falcon would demand to drink from a different place than Scout; but when I pressed Falcon’s tip to the same pad of thumb-muscle, the silver blade drank deep.
Note to self: Falcon was a follower. Or maybe it had a crush on its bronze companion. Hmm. Either way, Falcon took the blood bribe and vibrated in my hand.
I took aim at the weak spot marked by Scout’s beam. My Spark-o-Vision changed to laser sights, zooming in. I was about to throw when I realized I was still as small as dust.
Crap.
Falcon would be much too tiny to damage a metal pipe. Even if the dagger rammed all the way up to its hilt, it wouldn’t penetrate more than a nanometer.
Crap, crap, crap. I didn’t want to grow to appreciable size. Elaine was still putting on a show of casting spells, demanding obedience, and all that BS. She didn’t know where I was (or at least, that’s what she pretended), but if I became visible, she’d be forced to attack me with magic. That wouldn’t be good.
“Okay, Falcon,” I said aloud, although I couldn’t hear my own voice. “When anything leaves my omnimorphic field, I can choose whether it stays small or returns to its true size. This time I choose that you’ll grow, Falcon, old buddy, old pal.”
I hurled the silver knife with all my strength. It stayed small.
Well, poo.
FALCON FLEW AND HIT ITS TARGET; IT JUST DIDN’T DO MUCH
The knife buried itself exactly where Scout and my laser-sights pointed. However, since Falcon could be measured in angstroms, the pipe wasn’t pierced at all.
So much for pseudoscience double-talk about my omnimorphic field. Clearly, the honeymoon was over. The Light wouldn’t let me keep inventing new powers for myself. I couldn’t complain—I’d already pushed my luck outrageously far. But maybe that sense of overreach was what restricted me. As soon as I’d started thinking I was getting away with too much, I had set my own limit.
I reached out my hand, exerting my will and demanding that Falcon return to me. I felt the knife respond, trying to pull itself out, but it was wedged too tightly. It had spent so much magical energy going in, it didn’t have enough left to drag itself free.
Reluctantly, I reached for the golden dagger. These things had to come in threes, didn’t they? Two knives would never be enough. Magic demanded a three-act structure: beginning, middle, and end.
Stupid magic. This is why Science kicks magic’s butt. You don’t have to flick a light switch three times to get the bulb to work.
THE GOLDEN DAGGER HAD ALSO TRANSFORMED
Anoth
er hexagonal grid. Another hieroglyphic on the hilt. This time, it was a snake and the blade bore the word Asp.
How not-at-all ominous.
I didn’t even bother offering Asp a drink from the same place as Scout and Falcon. I rolled up my sleeve and touched the gold blade to the back of my forearm. I just laid it there lightly. I expected Asp to bite me of its own accord, but that was too easy. The knife wanted commitment; it wanted me to actively draw its sharpness across my skin and make blood spurt.
I’m not a cutter. I know people who are, and they’ve told me that cutting gives them relief. If that’s how it works for them, fair enough, but I’m not wired that way myself. The thought of deliberately slicing my arm turned my stomach.
That’s likely why Asp demanded it. The knife got off on revulsion.
I pressed and pulled. My blood flowed. The dagger drank.
ASP LIT UP IN MY GRIP, SHINING GOLDLY
It knew what I intended. It was eager to blow shit up.
Elaine’s gaze snapped upward and stared directly at me. Either she’d sensed Asp’s blaze of power, or the knife radiated so brightly it was visible to the naked eye. That simplified my next move—since Elaine had already spotted me, I didn’t need to debate whether to grow.
One moment, I was a dust mote, drifting near the ceiling. The next, I was Max Zirc–size and beginning to fall as I hurled the gold knife toward its target.
Asp flew faster than I fell. I was only being pulled by gravity; Asp had gravity on its side, plus my throwing strength, plus its own magical lust for destruction. It struck with perfect accuracy on the weak spot chosen by Scout, but Falcon was already there.
And Falcon was no longer miniaturized. As soon as I grew, Falcon did too. (That old omnimorphic field!) In fact, Falcon did the best thing possible: Its blade remained in the pipe, penetrating deeper as it grew.
Asp rammed into Falcon like a hammer hitting a nail. Falcon ruptured the pipe and released the gas within, under such high pressure that it burst outward with a whistling scream. Asp blazed even more brightly, blossoming with golden radiance, making a spark that ignited the gusher of gas.
FIREBALL
I hadn’t hit the floor yet, nor did I. The explosion blasted my body straight through the building’s wall. Booyah, a win for me. It meant I wasn’t at precise ground zero when everything else blew up too.
The generators. The rift projector. Pipes carrying methane and other flammable gases. Those barrels of chemicals used for refining. They went up in a chain reaction, each one setting off its neighbors. Boom, boom, ba-boom, with shock waves to match.
Jagged remnants of machinery went flying. I was pelted with hot metal shrapnel. It hurt like flaming darts even if they didn’t pierce my rocky skin. Ow, ow, ow! Then I hit the ground face-first, hard enough to plunge through the covering layer of snow and grind into gravel beneath.
I lay aching for long, loud moments as fragments of junk whizzed overhead. I hurt, but I wasn’t damaged. Which was more than I could say for my costume—it was hanging on by shreds. But at least the melting snow extinguished the parts that were on fire.
WHEN THE BARRAGE OF DEBRIS PETERED OUT, I SHIFTED MY VIEWPOINT INTO THE WRECKAGE TO SEARCH FOR ELAINE
Fire is lethal to vampires. Their dead, dry tissues go up in smoke much faster than those of ordinary mortals. Unless a vampire can extinguish her flames before she lapses into unconsciousness, she’ll keep burning until her body is consumed.
But Elaine wasn’t anywhere I looked. Nor did I believe she’d been totally cremated—when everything exploded, she’d been shielded by defensive spells. Maybe her shields had ruptured and Elaine got vaporized, but I didn’t think so. Darklings and Sparks can certainly die, but more often, they just go missing, only to return at the worst possible moment.
I did find Nicholas exactly where I’d left him. He looked unchanged. Since he’d been sprawled in front of that fireproof door, it had protected him from the hot bangy destruction. I still couldn’t tell if he was “dead” or “alive” (whatever those mean for a ghost), but he didn’t look worse than before.
I decided to consider that a good thing.
THE FORCE-DOME COLLAPSED ABOVE ME
I could tell the exact moment it happened. All the snow that had accumulated on top of the dome plummeted onto me as if someone had dumped a shovelful over my head. Apparently, the dome had been powered by the generators, just like the rift projector. Once the generators were destroyed, the dome had lasted mere seconds before going poof.
As for the rift, it would start shrinking too. Unfortunately, that would take time. It had grown as tall as a skyscraper and cast its lurid brown light across the snowy landscape, all the way to the looming mountains of garbage.
Closer in, corpses littered the ground: birds, rats, and raccoons, slaughtered in front of the rift. My teammates had dealt with the ugly necessity. I was so, so glad I hadn’t had to participate, and so grateful they’d done what was needed.
My Spark-o-Vision could see my friends’ faces clearly. One reason Sparks wear masks is so nobody knows when you’re crying.
I PULLED MYSELF OUT OF THE SNOW AND FLAPPED TOWARD THE OTHERS
I transmitted, «How’s it going?» trying to sound gentle and soft.
«God-awful,» Ninety-Nine answered. «How ’bout you?»
«Comme ci, comme ça,» I said. «I—» I stopped. My mind refused to communicate anything about Elaine. Bugger. Whether or not Elaine was alive, her blood bond was still in effect, preventing me from saying that I’d seen her. «Things got sticky, but mission accomplished. You heard Diamond’s soliloquy about his master plan?»
«Loud and clear,» Ninety-Nine said. «But thanks to you, the plan’s mostly history. We’ll just stand guard until the rift closes. And of course, we’ll fight Lilith and the gang, because no way we’ll be so lucky that the rift shuts before they wake.»
«Keep an eye out for Diamond too,» I said. «He’s likely watching from a distance. At the very least, he’ll shoot a few missiles at us just to be a dick.»
«I’m scanning with sonar,» Aria said. «I’ll notice any incoming projectiles.»
«Unless they move faster than the speed of sound,» Ninety-Nine said. «Would you like me to explain the physics?»
«Bite me,» Aria said.
«I’m picking up mental activity inside the rift,» Dakini said. «The Darklings are waking up.»
«Can you put them back to sleep?» Ninety-Nine asked. «Or telepathically tell them not to attack?»
«I’m attempting to do so,» Dakini replied, «but it’s like blowing into a plugged-up straw. I can’t feel anything getting through.»
“Yo, dudes!” Ninety-Nine yelled aloud. “You Darklings in the hole! I know you want to hit something, but if we go all Reservoir Dogs on each other, you’ll end up exploding. Chill, and maybe I can find some way to help.”
“You’re going to help them?” Aria asked under her breath.
“Like it or not, I’m the team’s Mad Genius,” Ninety-Nine replied. She yelled into the rift, “What about it, guys? Play nice and live another day? Cuz seriously, there’s nothing to gain from busting heads anymore. If you want a big, pointless fight, let’s all go to a sports bar and watch wrestling.”
The were-bat leapt to his feet and screamed.
Aria murmured to Ninety-Nine, “I told you nobody else likes to watch wrestling.”
THE WERE-BAT HURTLED OUT OF THE RIFT, SCATTERING TINY FLAMEBALLS AS HE FLEW
He wasn’t as fast as the panther we’d seen in the Market, but the bat was much, much faster than he’d been in the alley. Perhaps as fast as Aria, though I couldn’t tell for sure.
And when he screamed, it was serious.
SOUND IS A WAVE; THE BAT’S SCREAM WAS A TSUNAMI
A wall of noise slammed into everything. Snow blasted off the ground; debris rattled in the ruins of the generator building; my teammates were knocked off their feet.
As for teeny-tiny me, I went spinning head over h
eels like a tick in a tornado. Even after air resistance stopped me, my head kept whirling—the bat’s cry had made me dizzy, and not just from tumbling around. My Spark-o-Vision reeled, continuing to gyrate even though my body had stabilized.
The bat’s screech wasn’t just a sonic blast; it induced vertigo. Pew double-pew.
I couldn’t make my brain stop loop-the-looping. I saw movement, lots of movement, but couldn’t make sense of it. Wobbling streaks of color and blurry light. It took a full five seconds before my Spark-o-Vision righted itself. When it did, I saw Ninety-Nine perched on the were-bat’s back, her legs locked around his waist.
Her left arm pressed hard against the bat’s throat, reefing in on his windpipe. That explained why the bat hadn’t produced any more screams. I couldn’t help noticing that Ninety-Nine’s position was almost identical to the way she’d been ridden by Skinless in our previous fight. The only difference was that Ninety-Nine didn’t have the patience to wait for the were-bat to pass out from lack of air. Instead, she was whaling on the bat’s head with her free hand.
Her hand was a bare fist. Either she’d lost her hockey glove or she had deliberately tossed it aside so her hits would have no padding. Weightlifter-strong and boxer-fast, Ninety-Nine punched like Chuck Norris and Muhammad Ali. Blows like that would break a normal person’s bones—Ninety-Nine’s own knuckles had to be fractured by now. The bat, however, only seemed angry, not hurt.
Mostly though, it was just berserk.
Like the Darklings in the market, the bat’s brain had snapped. His eyes were feral and he frothed at the mouth. Bonding the Light to his Darkness had driven him insane.
Unlike the Darklings in the market, the bat wasn’t strobing despite the punches Ninety-Nine was dishing out. Diamond had promised these super-Darklings would fly to pieces, but they sure weren’t as fragile as the previous batch.
Damn.
GIVEN TIME, NINETY-NINE MIGHT HAVE PUMMELED THE BAT UNCONSCIOUS
But her opponent could fight back. A bird’s wings take the place of arms, but a bat’s wings are basically hands with the fingers webbed and extended to ridiculous lengths. For the were-bat in feroform, each “finger” ended in a claw as big as a meat hook. They weren’t as dexterous as human hands, but they were good enough to deal damage to anything within its grasp.
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