by Lisa Shearin
“I know.” Vegard’s voice was steadfast.
“You’re disobeying me.”
“Yes, sir. I am. I’m staying to watch your back, sirs-and ma’am. And to defend this mirror for you.”
Mychael finally looked at him, a sad smile curling his lips. “You’re a good man, Vegard. Thank you.”
“I do my best, sir.”
The shrieks and wails continued from behind the Hellgate, louder because they were closer-and there were more of them. The demons seethed en masse against the membrane, feeling its weakness, knowing that in mere moments they could have what they had wanted for countless ages-the end of our time, and the beginning of theirs.
Hell on earth.
And we were in the front row.
Tam spoke without moving. “Mychael, I’ve got a problem with your suggestion to take my hands out of the Hellgate.”
“That wasn’t a suggestion.”
“Take a look at my problem.”
We did. A demon that was little more than fangs with legs was attached to Tam’s chest with only the Hellgate’s thin membrane separating them. The thing was gnawing at the membrane, mewling eagerly.
“If I step out of the opening, this thing bites a chunk out of my chest-the chunk with my heart in it.”
“Why don’t you stay where you are,” Mychael told him.
“I thought you’d see it my way.”
“You’ll have to take one hand out. Raine needs it.”
I blinked. “I do?”
“Yes.”
Tam laughed once, without humor. “Mychael’s going to use our power to blow sunshine up the demons’ collective ass.”
Mychael raised one eyebrow. “In a crude manner of speaking, yes.”
I got it. This place was evil central. Rudra Muralin started with black magic rituals and sacrifices, and once the demons arrived and started setting up housekeeping, the walls in this place were literally smeared with evil. I remembered my vision of Mychael when he’d joined our umi’atsu bond. Power shining like a blazing sun, deadly and unrelenting, an avenging angel. And with our combined strength, Mychael could very well be a Hellgate-banishing angel.
Our combined strength included the Saghred.
“You’ll be using the Saghred,” I said.
In response, Mychael took my hand in his, his fingers interlacing with mine. His large hand was warm and strong, and the pressure was reassuring. Through that simple contact, I felt the bright core of his magic through his palm. His sea blue eyes were calm and steady.
“We’ll work together. At watcher headquarters, you controlled the Saghred.”
“Until I lost control.”
“You didn’t lose control; you focused that power and used it.”
And a giant yellow demon went squish.
I tried to swallow, but my mouth was bone-dry. “Mychael, I don’t know what to do here.”
He gave my hand a gentle squeeze. “I do. I’ll show you how.”
Tam pulled his left hand from the Hellgate and held it out to me. I expected it to be dripping Hellgate goo, but it was dry. I took his hand in mine; it was deathly cold. Tam gasped at the contact, and a shiver ran through him.
“You’re warm,” he breathed.
“Still being alive will do that.” I tried for a smile; it didn’t make it. I pulled the back of Tam’s hand against my chest, sharing what warmth I could, while I could. Tam’s power, his deep well of strength flowed into me and through me to Mychael, and it was my turn to shiver.
I felt a deep thrum of power run through us and down into the stone beneath our feet. The floor vibrated with it. My fear and exhaustion was washed away, a calm certainty taking its place. For the first time, I actually believed that this could work. My power, Tam’s power, Mychael’s power and guidance.
“Ready?” Mychael asked us.
I nodded.
Tam blew out his breath in a hiss.
We touched the Hellgate.
My magic flared, and my chest caught fire. Freed from the distortion’s restraints, my magic and the Saghred’s power flared and twisted until what was me and what was the Saghred became a white-hot cyclone. It filled me to overflowing, but it wasn’t like with the yellow demon, when its uncontrollable power felt like a wall of water crashing down on me. This water lifted me, like giant sea swells. Unfathomable depths of power surged beneath me, but it also held me up, supported me. I rode the power, flowing with it.
It was my magic. Mine. Not just the Saghred. The power that had magnified my magic had come from the Saghred, but the seed that it had grown from, the core of my strength, was all me. My father had been right. What I did with that power, how I used it, was up to me. My decision. My choice.
Tam’s power coursed like liquid fire through my body, red-hot and searing, my magic and his power erupting into an inferno that blazed through me and into Mychael, wrapping and entwining, joining the three of us together.
Mychael slammed all of that power against, into, and through the Hellgate.
Screams, agonized roars, and wails from a thousand nightmares rose around us as the light pierced the Hellgate to the other side, bright as a newborn sun. The light blazed and fed, an unrelenting and consuming flood of white fire, searing the darkness, cleansing the evil, and immolating the demons pressing against the Hellgate and beyond.
The blinding light exploded, and our screams joined the demons’.
Then darkness and blessed silence. I welcomed both with open arms.
Chapter 30
I opened my eyes and raised my head-and was nothing short of stunned that I was alive to do either one. The only thing left of the Hellgate was the stink. I could live with that. Better yet, so could everyone else on the island.
Mychael was on his feet, but barely. Tam was on his knees. Apparently, at some point, I’d decided that facedown on the floor was the way to go. Needless to say, no one was holding hands anymore. I rolled over and concentrated on breathing. A smoky haze lingered in the air where the Hellgate membrane had stretched between the two columns. That had to be the source of the rotten-egg stench. Other than that, there was no sign the Hellgate had even been here.
I loved it when something I thought was going to kill me didn’t.
The remnants of Mychael’s and Tam’s magic still rolled in waves through my body, but the intensity was gradually decreasing to calm, flowing ripples. That sensation brought on one big head-to-toe shiver-the good kind.
I sat up; past experience had taught me to take it slow. I had only minimal swirlies and no urge to be sick. A nice surprise for a change. But I did feel really, really light-headed.
Vegard ran up the stairs and knelt at my side. From the look on his face, I must have looked like I had one foot wedged in Death’s door.
“Ma’am, please don’t move. Sir!” he called to Mychael. “Blood loss. A lot.”
That might account for the light-headed feeling. I looked down at myself. No blood there. I couldn’t see the linen I’d wrapped around my neck, but I could feel it, and it was heavier than it should have been. The blood soaking it should have been flowing around in me.
Mychael knelt beside me and began carefully, but quickly unwrapping my soggy, makeshift bandage.
“Mychael, I’m fine,” I insisted. I tried to get to my feet;
Tam’s hands on my shoulders pushed me back down. I think I growled at both of them, or at least I tried. “We don’t have time for this. We’ve got to get through that mirror to-”
“After I stop the bleeding.” Mychael’s voice said no arguments.
I drew breath to give him one.
“Carnades knows,” Tam said from behind me.
Oh shit. Carnades. The first thing he’d do after he could stand up would be to look for a pen to sign our collective death warrant. That took the rest of the wind out of my sails.
I heard a sound out in the darkness of the Assembly, like the scuff of boots on stone. Tam was instantly on his feet, panther-quick and just as si
lent. Vegard drew steel and planted himself in front of Mychael and me. Tam’s dark eyes were alert to any movement out in what was supposed to be an empty chamber.
“What is it?” I asked Tam in mindspeak. With no Hellgate distortion, all of our magic was back.
“Someone.” He scowled. “I think.”
“You think?”
“They were there; now they’re gone.”
“Who?” Mychael asked.
Tam hesitated a little too long. “No one I know.”
“Human, elf, or goblin?”
“Couldn’t tell.”
Now I knew Tam was lying. Goblins had legendary night vision; if something was out there, Tam would have seen it as clear as day. Just what none of us needed-a witness to everything we’d done who knew Tam. People who knew Tam weren’t people we wanted to see what we’d just done.
Mychael’s blue eyes narrowed. He knew Tam was lying, too. “Keep watch,” he said tersely.
Tam nodded once and didn’t take his eyes from the spot. He’d closed his mind to us, but not before I felt something that I’d rarely sensed in Tam. Fear.
“Raine first,” Mychael said, back to business. “Then the Saghred. Then I will deal with Carnades.”
“Not if I get to him first.” Tam said it like a vow. And I knew Tam; if he vowed to do something-especially if it involved much-needed vengeance-the object of said vengeance better leave town, or in this case, the island.
“Phaelan’s following him around with a rock,” I reminded him. “You might not get the-dammit!”
Mychael’s palm felt like a branding iron on the side of my neck.
“Battlefield healing,” he told me, holding me still. “We don’t have time for fancy.”
I grimaced. “Do what you have to,” I managed through pain-clenched teeth. I did my best not to move-or scream. “I have payback due to some people on the other side of that mirror, too.”
The citadel was quiet. Way too quiet. Either nothing had happened yet, or everything already had. Or in my family, silence didn’t mean the fight was over; it meant everybody was catching their breath-or sneaking up on somebody to stab.
Tam swore to himself. I heard him in my head, and couldn’t have agreed more with his word choice. There was no demonic welcoming committee waiting to slice us to ribbons when we’d stepped through that mirror, but there weren’t any Guardians, either. As I’d guessed, the mirror was in a containment room, but the room was empty, and the door was standing wide open. Under normal circumstances, that’d be downright inviting. But I wasn’t about to stroll through that door and find demon hospitality at the end of a skewer.
Once we were through the mirror, Mychael shattered it. There wasn’t a Hellgate for the demons to escape through anymore, but Mychael didn’t want them leaving the citadel, at least not alive.
Mychael held up a hand for me and Tam to stay put, and he and Vegard took up positions on either side of the door. Mychael nodded once and they made their move. When Vegard’s shoulders relaxed, I knew the hall was clear. Suspicious as hell, but clear.
At least of men or demons.
The air was literally vibrating with magic. It was coming from all around us, but mainly from the floor beneath our feet. Tam clenched his dagger in his teeth to free his hands and quickly tied back his long black hair in a tail.
“We’re one level above the Saghred’s containment room,”
Mychael said in mindspeak. “There should-”
Screams, shouts, and demonic roars damned near deafened us, like someone had opened a soundproof door to a madhouse. That someone had used a sound veil, a good one. Apparently they didn’t need to be quiet anymore-my money was on the demon queen.
Mychael ran down the hall and all but threw himself down the stairs; Vegard, Tam, and I were hot on his heels. It suddenly occurred to me that my hands were empty. I didn’t have a weapon to my name, and no one I was with had one to spare. I silently swore a blue streak. I was running full-speed and unarmed into a nest of demons. Usually I’d get what I needed from the first bad guy I could knock down and pilfer, but this time the bad guys were demons-naked demons. No sword belts there. Though when you had claws, horns, and a mouth full of fangs, steel was redundant.
No one had been upstairs, because everyone was down here.
Too many Volghuls and not nearly enough Guardians. The only Volghul I’d seen go through the mirror was the one with the demon queen. The number of Volghuls down here didn’t bode well for the number of Guardians left alive up in the citadel. Where was Sora and a demon trap when you needed them?
Open space was at a minimum, which made for ugly, close-quarters fighting.
And Piaras was in the middle of it.
He had his back to the Saghred’s containment room door with a pair of long daggers in his hands. The blades were glowing. Not the white of Mychael’s magic, but like polished silver infused with pure light. I didn’t know Piaras could do that. Like Justinius said, the kid could rise to the occasion. He wielded those silver blades with feline grace and, hell, even with flair. Piaras couldn’t move like that-but Sarad Nukpana could.
However, Piaras was killing demons, not Guardians. Nukpana would have been doing the opposite. Piaras’s lips were moving in spellsong incantation. I couldn’t hear the words, but the Volghuls that got too close to him obviously could. They screamed and staggered back, and when they went down, they didn’t get back up.
Piaras’s eyes were wide and terrified, but determined. They were his eyes, not Nukpana’s. What abilities the Saghred had enhanced in me, I’d kept. It looked like the same was true for Piaras. The goblin’s sword skills must have rooted themselves deep in Piaras’s reflexes. Creepy as hell, but anything that kept him alive was good.
Helping Piaras stay alive was Archmagus Justinius Valerian.
The old man was kicking demonic ass and having the time of his life. It was beautiful.
He’d staked out ground in the hall near Piaras, and the forces of Hell literally couldn’t budge him from that spot. He vaporized a knot of demons trying to overrun him and Piaras. That move alone went a long way toward evening the odds, and it boosted the heck out of Guardian morale. The men redoubled their efforts and more Volghuls died. Justinius was flushed, but he was grinning like the spell-happy maniac he was. The archmagus was back, and I didn’t see Carnades anywhere. Maybe Phaelan and his rock had another talk with him.
Mychael jerked his gaze up toward the ceiling. He heard something, and so did I. It wasn’t coming from the ceiling; it was coming from inside the ceiling. Scuttling, scratching, and moving fast.
Running away from the Saghred’s chamber. The little purple bastards had gotten their claws on the rock.
“They’re taking it to the queen,” Tam said. Like their elven counterparts, goblin ears did more than just look good.
Mychael shot a glance back at Justinius. His duty was to protect the old man, but the old man didn’t look like he needed or wanted any help. It’d just piss him off. As six more demons went down in blue-flamed death, I knew I never wanted to piss him off, either.
“Where does that air duct go?” I asked.
Mychael actually growled. “All over the damned citadel.”
I felt a tugging in my chest and grinned in fierce determination. The Saghred wanted me to follow it, and I was only too happy to oblige. The rock had been stabbed with the Scythe once, and it didn’t want it to happen again.
“I can track it,” I said.
No one asked how I could; they knew. I took off running down the hall in the opposite direction of the Saghred’s containment room with Mychael, Tam, and Vegard right behind me. The tugging led up, so up the stairs I ran. Up was good; up meant out. I was sick and tired of being stuck underground. The tugging led to a dark hall with a pair of doors about twenty feet ahead. I stopped. There were lightglobes set into the walls, but they were as dark as everything else. I was impulsive, occasionally dim, but never suicidal.
“What’s through
those doors?” I asked Mychael in mindspeak.
“Our gym.”
The gym. The place where Guardians worked out, trained-learned to kill.
“It’s packed with weapons.” My lack of enthusiasm was evident.
“Yes.”
“Is there another way in?”
Mychael nodded once.
A room with weapons was good for me since I didn’t have any; but it would be bad for all of us if the demons got to them first, which they probably had. Just because they had claws, fangs, and horns didn’t mean they wouldn’t take anything hanging on the walls-like those demon-slaying, green-bladed, hooked spear thingies. I swallowed. Killed by demons with weapons that were made to kill demons. Irony sucked.
A faint clinking came from the darkness, not just inside the doors, but farther into the room-much farther than I wanted to go without knowing exactly what was in there.
“Chains,” Mychael said before I could ask.
I arched a brow.
“Attached to punching bags,” he clarified.
Oh.
I wondered if the demon queen knew that we’d destroyed her only way home, and now her situation was all or nothing, do or die, kill or be killed. She was cornered and we had no choice but to go in after her and however many Volghuls were sharing the dark with her. The queen had the Saghred and the Scythe; and if she managed to stab the former with the latter, she’d have all the backup she needed, and we’d have Hell on earth-thousands, maybe millions of souls looking for new bodies, and the inhabitants of Mid would be just the beginning. And the four of us would be at the front of the line. It was up to us to stop it all, and my hands were as empty of blades as the day I was born. We didn’t want to rush in, but it only took a second for a demon to stab a rock.
The whole situation had suicide mission written all over it.
I didn’t need to project my thoughts to Mychael and Tam; I was sure they’d arrived at the same gloom-and-doom conclusion.
“Stay here,” said Mychael’s voice in my head.
I didn’t have to say or think “like hell”; my expression said it perfectly.