by Monica Sanz
Barrington wound an arm about her waist to keep her upright, and with his other hand he frantically lifted her veil. “You’re safe. Listen to my voice, I am here, and you’re safe.”
She closed her eyes briefly, anchoring herself to him—to his strong hands holding her as her body shivered with the aftershocks of pain. To him towering above her, shielding her from terrors he’d never see and pain he didn’t understand. To his soft tenor of voice as he whispered, “Feel me, Miss Dovetail. I am here.”
He pressed a cool hand to her cheek. The trickles of his magic curled along her skin and bones and chased away the memory of them breaking and burning. Proprieties aside, she clawed her fingers into his arm and rested her head forward onto his chest as his magic reached her limbs that slowly gained feeling. His heart thundered beneath her ear, a welcome reprieve from her screams and those of the dead haunting her mind.
“I saw them,” she said, her voice hoarse. She clutched his lapels, frustration and anger roiling in her belly. He didn’t deny her and clasped his hand above hers, squeezing it gently. “I know why they showed me the hand.”
She pulled away and glanced back at the bodies, hot tears in her eyes. “That bastard, he turns seventhborns into puppets. He not only lets their bodies burn, but he takes away their will.”
She explained her vision quickly, and Barrington paled with each word. “That is why there are two binding ciphers in the spell. One is for when the necromancer grabs the seventhborn. The other is for when he forces the seventhborn to grip the Sister of Mercy. They form a chain, and using the seventhborn, the necromancer forces the Sister to break her oath.”
“Not just an oath, but a blood oath,” Barrington muttered. “If you break a blood oath, you forfeit your life. Usually an oath breaker bleeds to death, but seeing as the Sister was already dead, whoever forced her to break her oath suffers her penalty, which in this case was burning in the fires of the Underworld, I presume. That’s why he uses these seventhborns—to form a bridge between himself and the bodies. And once he learns the Sister’s secret, he leaves the seventhborn to suffer the consequences.” He met Sera’s eyes. “Tremendous work, Miss Dovetail.”
She swallowed through a thickened throat. “Thank you, Professor. Would you like me to take note of the ciphers now that they’re fresh in my mind?”
His brows gathered. “You’ve done enough. I don’t want to push you.”
She gave him a weary smile and held out a hand. She would do anything to find this necromancer and make him pay. “I can manage.”
“I know.” He slid out his pen and notebook and handed them to her. She jotted down the chained ciphers.
Barrington leaned in close beside her. “The ciphers were linked and not scattered?”
Sera nodded, careful to depict them correctly with shaking hands. “Why does it matter?”
Barrington snatched the notebook from her hands and stuffed it in his pocket. “When a Barghest cleanses a scene, the symbols are disrupted.”
He met her eyes at this, the answer glaring in the panic there.
Her stomach dropped to her feet. “It hasn’t been cleansed.”
“Precisely. We need to go—”
The sound of ice cracking silenced him.
They spun to the wall where frost vines spread out from a pinpoint. The ice fractured the damp stone as it traveled along the surface like a spider web. The hole at the center enlarged, and the pungent scent of rotten meat and sulfur engulfed them.
Sera stumbled back into a puddle, her fingers stiff on her wand. Barrington swept in front of her and held out his hand. Magic whirled from his palm and gathered before him. With each second, the magic spread and formed a translucent wall.
Rowe ran up alongside Sera. “Bloody hell,” he muttered.
“Take her to Lucas,” Barrington ordered, “and regardless of what you hear, neither of you is to turn back!”
“You mean to stay here?” Sera asked, her voice a frantic whisper.
“They will chase us and will not stop,” Rowe said, already retreating. “Compared to the scraps left behind in these victims, our magic is a feast, even my measly bit.”
“But—”
“I need to stay and reinforce the protection barrier,” Barrington said. “We don’t know how many of these beasts mean to come through, and this protection spell may not be enough to hold them.”
Fear wrapped itself tight about her limbs, suffocating her veins. “What if it isn’t and you’re here?”
Barrington held her stare. “I can hold them back, but I can’t fight them and protect you at the same time.” A light sheen glistened at his forehead, the strain of controlling his magic wall already taking its toll. He drew the notebook from his inner pocket and pressed it into Sera’s hands. Folding her fingers around it, he gave her hand a gentle squeeze, then released her. “You must go.”
Sera heard him, but she couldn’t look away from the red eyes that glowed in the growing hole.
A loud crack resonated. Black fog exploded outward from the pinpoint that was now a doorway. The smoke doubled and stretched until a shadowy figure materialized in its depths, a massive reptilian-like dog with a bear head. Black tar dripped from its fangs and sizzled when it met the earth. Sera gasped, but it was soundless, overpowered by the beast’s growl.
“Miss Dovetail, we must go now!” Rowe touched her elbow. Torn from fear, Sera nodded frantically and trailed him down the long tunnel. Forgoing the route they used to get there, Rowe ran straight. “There is a manhole cover just down this way. You’ll have to climb, but it’ll leave us closer to Lucas.”
A feral howl resounded. She glanced over her shoulder just as the hound lunged for Barrington. It crashed against an invisible barrier that glowed white when it slammed against it. The symbols of Barrington’s protection spell glittered in the fog.
A rope of dread tangled down her spine, around her legs, and forced her to stop. Focused on the hound before him, Barrington was blinded to the wall that was turning to frost behind him.
“Miss Dovetail,” Rowe hissed, “the professor ordered us to go!”
“We can’t just leave him here!”
Another doorway exploded open in the wall. A beast lunged out, the frozen ground cracking beneath its feet. It crouched behind Barrington, oblivious of Sera and Rowe a distance behind it.
Barrington spun, his eyes wide. He lifted a hand, but the beast growled a warning, and Barrington stopped. Sera’s heart pounded. There was no way he could create another barrier before the beast attacked. And use of his magic against this creature would weaken his hold on the other.
“We can still leave,” Rowe whispered. “It hasn’t sensed us yet.”
The beast’s spiked tail whipped the air around it as it hunched low, prepared to attack. Barrington swept his gaze beyond it and met Sera’s eyes. Her hand flinched to her wand, but he shook his head no and mouthed for her to go.
She mirrored his gesture and drew her wand. A flare of white snapped from the tip. It slithered down the tunnel like a snake and exploded at the beast’s feet.
The hound whipped around. A long split tongue glided from its mouth. It licked downward, frantic, and devoured the sparks of magic. From behind, Barrington instigated it, thrusting magic and insults at the beast, but the hound’s red eyes narrowed, its gaze fixed on Sera.
What on earth was she to do now?
The hound lunged toward her. Sparks darted from its claws that hit the stone with each step closer.
“Go, miss!” Rowe snatched the wand from her hand. “I will hold it back. Run to Lucas!”
Sera looked at the panic in Barrington’s stare, at the beast slamming itself wildly against his magic, at the one that drew closer to her by the second, at the ladder some yards away.
Rowe aimed Sera’s wand at the approaching hound. A small orb gathered at the tip of her wand, but fizzled with a poof. “Damn!”
The beast roared, lunged.
Sera shoved Rowe out of the
way. With its speed, the hellhound tripped past them and tumbled down the tunnel, its momentum not allowing for a clean stop. It thrashed against the walls, splashed and splayed in murky water.
Forgoing the ladder, Sera darted into the tunnel to the left, Rowe quick on her heels. They rounded the bend that split the tunnel in two. Sera shoved Rowe to the right. “We have to split up. It can’t follow us both.” She knew who the beast would favor. She yanked her wand from Rowe, gave him a shove in the opposite direction, and rushed away before he realized this as well.
The howls echoed through the tunnels as the beast chased her left, right, right, left, until she was lost in the stone web. A low growl snuffed out her breath, a cold sweat dampened her shift. She stopped and speared a blast of magic down into the water, breadcrumbs for the villainous beast. As long as it chased her, Rowe was safe and Barrington able to focus his magic into defeating his own beast.
She turned her ear. Puddles splashed and the tick-tick of the beast’s sharp nails on the stone answered, growing closer. She sent another flare of magic down the tunnel to the left, then dashed down the right one.
Her legs kept moving, running, carrying her away from the beast. She darted a glance over her shoulder. The orb of magic bounced and collided against the walls, the ceiling, giving off a faint light that haloed it in the darkness.
The beast dove into the intersection and caught Sera’s eye in the distance. The orb sizzled, but before fading, the Barghest leaped toward it, snaked out its devil tongue, and slithered it up, taking the bait. It was too hungry not to.
She shot another bit of magic and turned. Gathering her skirts, she ran. There was no chance to look back. Not this time. Sweat beads rolled down her back, her breaths quick, harsh, raw.
She spun to the right and ran—
The light of her wand reflected against the sleek wall before her.
A dead end.
Sera turned, made to run in the opposite direction, but the Barghest pounced into the intersection and slammed down into the murky water. It growled, its sound bouncing off the walls. Sera set one foot behind her and then the other, until flush against the wall. Trapped. Caught.
The Barghest lowered onto its front paws, its hind end arched upward. Her heart pounded. There was no way out.
Sera aimed her wand.
The beast roared, then lunged.
She held up her free hand and shielded herself. Eyes shut tight and face averted, she braced for death.
A rush of heat seared her palms, as intense as the redness that shaded the darkness of her closed eyes.
Sera opened her eyes. Her breath cut short. Luminescent light, silver and white, sparked out from the tip of her wand like wings of frosted fire. It chased the darkness from the tunnel and illuminated the beast before her. Its wet pink nose was an inch away from her wand but, bound in white ropes of her magic, it could move no farther.
“Good God…” Rowe stumbled into the tunnel, eyes wide. He slipped off his hat and raked a hand through bushy curls. “How are you doing that?”
She didn’t answer, her focus on the hound whose claws scraped the earth as it attempted to free itself. A growl rumbled in its chest, the desire to tear her apart palpable. Her anger flared, and she clenched her hand around the wand. No one would hurt her again.
Her magic responded to her rage. The beast’s growls died to screeches, the binds of magic sizzling as they bored into its scaled skin. Its stare met hers. In its eyes was all the fear in the world. Fear of her, fear that she could break him if she wished.
“Miss Dovetail!” Barrington called from afar, his voice an echo in the tunnels.
She ignored him, lost in the potent sensation of magic that coursed through her veins uninhibited, unchecked, wild and free. It pricked at her skin, a paradox of pleasure and pain. It promised to consume her and possess her, to cleanse and avenge her, to drag her higher and higher until all else ceased to exist.
“Miss Dovetail!” Barrington said again, much closer this time. Sera refused to look away from the writhing hound. She’d controlled her magic when refusing to exact revenge on Whittaker, and in the end, Whittaker and his sister had walked free. But not this beast.
Winds tore through the tunnel and whipped wildly around her. Frozen on this thin line between madness and what was right, she closed her eyes a moment. Barrington spoke of control, but would it be such a bad thing if she just let go and embraced the intoxicating rush? She could make them all suffer, make them pay—every last one of them, from the Whittakers, to the necromancer, to every person who hurt a seventhborn.
Memories made every scar on her body pool in pain, and her hold tightened around the beast. It howled and screeched and toppled over.
“Seraphina!”
Hearing her name, her gaze flicked to Barrington. He stood a measure away, clothes in shreds, a gash over his brow, but still very much alive.
“You don’t want to kill this hound,” he said. “Control it. Banish it to the darkness it came from.”
Tears salted her lips, yet she turned back to the beast and clenched her hand tighter around her wand.
“We do not kill when we can,” Barrington said. “We kill when we must. This beast is at your mercy. Its fate is in your hands.”
She lowered her eyes to the hound. All animosity was gone, but the pitiful excuse of a beast remained. It was an animal. However magical and hellish, it was nothing but an animal. Yet her hand shivered. How could he ask her to let it go when she hadn’t ever felt this free, this powerful? When in this moment, no one could hurt her? When if she embraced it, no one could hurt her again?
He neared her, steps slow and steady. “Banish it.”
A sob caged in her throat. She shook her head no.
Closing in beside her, he said into her ear, “Show it the mercy that’s not shown to you. Banish it.”
She heard him close, his words tugging at her conscience. If she killed this beast, she’d be just as bad as everyone who’d ever persecuted a seventhborn. Like her, the beast could not help what it was. She pressed her lips together, and with the need for abandon clawing at her insides, she conceded. “I don’t know how.”
Barrington came around her and framed her extended arm with his. “Repeat after me,” he said, his breath a fog at her ear. “I banish the body. I banish the soul. I send thee to the darkness that is thine home.”
“I banish the body,” she whispered. The whips of magic she held around the beast vanished, and its body curled away as smoke until once again immaterial, a spirit in a black fog.
“I banish the soul.”
Dimmed red eyes in the cloud met hers, and where the thirst for magic had been before, now there was gratitude.
“I send thee to the darkness that is thine home.”
A red-rimmed hole appeared on the ground. The cloud of fog twisted into a funnel and seeped into the hole. Within moments, the beast was gone. The hole shrunk until only a smoky burn marked the ground. The faint peal of harbor bells resounded through the tunnels, but aside from that and the trickle of water on the walls, all else was quiet.
Fatigue rolled through her limbs in a violent wave, her reserves depleted. With the weight of magic gone, exhaustion buckled Sera’s knees, and she collapsed against the wall. Strong arms came around her in an instant.
“Don’t touch me.” She tore herself away from Barrington’s hold and pressed her hand against the wall to keep from falling.
“Your reserves—”
“I’m fine,” she said, a blatant lie to anyone who wasn’t blind. The tunnel spun around her, and the ground waved beneath her feet, though they were both still. “My reserves are fine.”
Barrington stiffened, and his eyes steeled, but respecting her decision, he didn’t help her, though on their walk back to the carriage, he didn’t remain far from her side. His shadow melded with hers for the entire journey, of which Sera was both glad and ashamed.
Once inside the carriage, she snatched off the veil and haule
d in a deep breath, unbearably hot. Her shift stuck to her skin, sweat the glue. The air was heavy like dirt packed tight around a coffin.
The door swung open. Barrington entered the carriage and sat nearest the door. He slipped off his hat, soundless. His hair was damp, matted to the sides of his face with sweat, his hands stained with mud. His trousers were torn and shoes indiscernible through the thick layer of muck. The drain of magic rendered his skin milky white. But he wasn’t spent. His magic hummed in the air. Or perhaps it was anger?
Deflating with a sigh, he rested his head against the plush leather, his knuckles white and fingers tight around his walking stick. Decisions weighed heavy on his brow, and he stared at the darkness above as if the answer were hidden there.
“Damn it all.” He pushed the door open and leaned out. “There’s a change in plans, Lucas. To Rosetta’s.”
“Yes, sir,” Lucas called down.
Barrington slammed the door shut and sat back once more. He pounded twice with his walking stick, and the carriage groaned to life.
Sera braced. There was no need for pretext. She knew what was to come, and the look of him told her he knew as well. Everyone schooled or employed by the Aetherium was required to provide a sample of magic for official records. No doubt once the bodies were discovered, the Aetherium would investigate and find her signature within the magic used in the tunnel. Worse, Barrington’s. And even if they were found faultless of the crimes, there was still the question of her relationship with the Alchemy professor.
She lowered her eyes to her dress, leaded by whatever putrid substances layered the tunnels. And blood. A dead girl’s blood. A dead girl she would never avenge because she couldn’t control her emotions and her powers.
“I…” she started, but the words died to the stiff silence. What explanation could she possibly give? What apology could she utter that would make any of this better? He’d asked her to go, yet again she hadn’t listened. Now not only was her place at the Academy at stake but also his career, and when the scandal of their involvement broke, so would his investigative work. His quest at clearing his family’s name.