by Devon Monk
Holy fuck, that boy was ruthless.
I didn’t need my dad. I didn’t need to do what he wanted. Shame was taking care of Jingo Jingo. Dane still held the cage from crushing Sedra, though he hadn’t broken it yet. Victor was hot in battle with both Liddy and Chase, and Terric had knocked Mike out-with fists, not magic. I couldn’t see Greyson or Hayden.
I needed to deal with Cody and close the gate so the Hungers couldn’t get through.
Jingo Jingo yelled.
Shame was on his feet now, magic still hammering Jingo’s Shield. But Jingo wasn’t yelling in defeat. He swung his huge arm to one side and directed the disk and magic at the gate.
Cody screamed. The incorporeal shrill felt like someone had shoved hot peppers in my eyes. His voice, his pain, filled the dome.
For a breath-just that long-everyone stopped.
Except me.
I stood. Ran. Straight at the gate. And caught Cody’s spirit as he fell free into this world again. Caught him, not in my arms, but rather, confusingly, horrifyingly, in my mind.
For a moment, I was three people, three lives, three memories. I remembered painting with magic, carving with magic, creating beautiful, beautiful things that broke barriers between life and death, ways for magic to be all disciplines at once.
I remembered inventing technology, formulating glyphs, standardizing spells with a mix of metal and glass that broke barriers between life and death, and made magic follow all disciplines at once.
I remembered my eighth birthday party and the purple sweater my dad bought me. I loved that sweater.
Too many memories, too much. Too crowded. I whined and stumbled backward, trying to get away from the people inside me, trying to escape my own skin, flee my crowded, crowded brain.
People can’t possess people. People can’t possess people. Zayvion had said it was rare. Said my dad was in my head only because we were the same blood. Cody and I were not related. And yet his spirit-or at least this part of it who could make magic do beautiful, beautiful things-was curled around my brain stem.
There wasn’t any room for me to breathe, to think.
Out, out, out!
My back brushed the spongy wall of the Illusion, and I finally heard my father’s voice.
Allison. Let him go!
I exhaled, blinked. Magic swirled around me, a curtain of ribbons and fire, a maelstrom all my own.
Good. You are doing fine. Calm your mind.
I shouldn’t. Shouldn’t listen to him. Shouldn’t trust him. But I had loved that purple sweater. He had canceled a business trip to Europe and stayed home for my birthday. He had brought me a birthday cake. And the purple sweater I had secretly loved and mentioned to him only once when we walked by the store.
I did as he said.
Dad used me to cast a spell. It felt like a gentle stroke over my hair, except it was inside my head. And then the awareness of Cody, his life, his memories, his soul, was gone. Instead, Cody’s spirit, pale as watercolor, stood beside me.
“Tired,” he said in a voice little more than a child’s. He was transparent, rain falling through him. He looked like the watercolor people who usually showed up when I cast magic. Or usually showed up if my dad didn’t block them when I cast magic.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I thought I could fix this.” He frowned, his voice drifting away on the wind. Destroyed by thunder.
“You’re okay now.” I was surprised at how calm I was. Apparently some part of my brain still functioned. Now that Cody was out of my head, I could think again, breathe again, and not panic again.
Mama stepped forward, just enough that she was through the Illusion. She squinted. It must be brighter in here. It was certainly a bloody mess.
“Come with me now, boy,” she said to Cody’s spirit.
Which meant she could see Cody’s spirit. Which meant she was using some kind of magic to see him. Which meant she could use magic. A fleeting memory of her hand on my chest, glowing, snapped bright in my mind, then was gone. But the sense that she had more to do with magic than I knew lingered.
“Wait,” I said. “Mama, what are you going to do with him?”
“He’s safe with me, Allie girl. I’ll keep him hidden. Have my own ways, and you won’t ask me nothing about it. Tell your father I don’t owe him no more.” She held out her hand for Cody.
Cody looked at me. “I like her.” He smiled.
I had no idea what to say to him. Had no idea what was the right thing to do. Maybe I should try to keep him somehow and return him to his living self.
Cody took Mama’s hand, and for a second, I thought I saw her hand glow white, just as lightning struck. I blinked away the flash and Cody was stuck to her by a stream of white light, like the ghost children had been stuck to Jingo Jingo, only Cody didn’t look sad about it. He looked relieved, walking to the end of the length of light, then back close to her again. I couldn’t help but think of a balloon being caught safely before it floated away.
Mama stepped toward the wall of Illusion, out to the outside world.
Just before he followed her, Cody turned back toward me. “Zayvion,” he said. Thunder drowned out his words.
“What?” I asked.
Allison, my father warned.
“Zayvion. .,” Cody started, the stream of light between him and Mama tugging on him.
Allison, Dad said again.
Shut up, I thought at him.
“. . says he loves you too,” Cody said.
“When did he say that?”
“In there.” Cody pointed at the gate. “Today.”
I looked over at the gate.
And saw a wave of monsters, Hungers, and horrors I had no name for pouring through the gate and onto the field.
Chapter Twenty
There was no time to see how anyone else was reacting to this. There was no time to think anything through. Hungers would tear the magic users apart in seconds. There was so much wild magic in the air, in the sky, in the city, that it would take the shadowy Hungers only a few minutes to become fully solid. And then they would hunt. They would eat magic users and civilians. They would kill.
I pulled Zayvion’s sword, and wondered why that hadn’t been in my hands all along. A calm washed through me, as if this sword that Zayvion had spent so much time with had been infused with his calm, his strength, his clear, concise ability to deal with a horrifying situation and make competent, lifesaving decisions.
The Hungers, a dozen, two dozen, went from transparent beasts into solid muscled creatures with wide heads, red eyes, and fanged jaws. Magic pulsed down their hides, like black veins, wild magic feeding them, making them strong.
Other things with too many eyes and too many limbs clattered out of the gates behind the Hungers.
Magic users turned weapons and magic on the beasts that howled and charged across the field. But just as quickly as the magic users struck the beasts down, magic, wild magic, poured through the beasts. The black veins along their bodies pulsed with it, and then the beasts stood again, attacked again.
They were not going down and staying down.
A beast leaped for me. I swung the sword, caught the thing midleap, straight through the neck. It fell to the ground, quivered, and lay still.
The blade in my hand went black, then grew bright and silver tip to hilt. Holy shit. Zay’s sword had some kind of spell worked into it so that it could drink the magic out of its foe. Maybe it was honed to drink down dark magic.
It is, Dad said. But you are not trained to use it. You will grow weaker with each strike.
So tell me how to use it right, I thought.
I can’t. He didn’t sound happy about that. I am not the guardian of the gate.
Here’s the thing. I was getting pretty tired of having to pay the price of magic. But I’d do it with grim satisfaction if it meant I could save my friends.
Another Hunger leaped at me. I swung again. Left it headless. It did not rise. The ground beneath my feet sway
ed and I stumbled as my knees gave out. Okay, he wasn’t kidding. It took a hell of a lot of stamina to wield dark magic.
I pushed back up to my feet, into a fighting stance, sword at the ready.
The four beasts nearest me backed away. Like scenting the wind, they all lifted their wide heads. And ran. Past fallen or injured magic users-easy kills-which made no sense. Ran toward Sedra.
A dozen beasts ran for Sedra. Two dozen. More.
Dane could not hold them off and keep the cage whole. He threw a wall of magic at the beasts, but only half of them fell. The rest rushed him, fast. Too fast. Dane disappeared beneath slathering jaws and wicked claws.
The cage around Sedra constricted, crushing her. Sedra screamed-a strangely inhuman yell.
I started off toward her. But the battlefield was filled with beasts. And with each one I killed, I had to pause, catch my breath, and balance before I could raise the sword and stride forward again.
Jingo Jingo answered Sedra’s cry. Caught in battle with a beast, he cast magic, the disk clenched in his thick palm, and chanted something that sent the beast to its belly. No. Something that made the beast crouch, then spin to launch at Shame’s throat.
Shame opened his arms and laughed, magic caught between his two hands drinking the dark magic out of the creature. But the monster was huge, bigger than a car. It kept coming, no matter how quickly Shame drained it. Shame yelled, anger, terror, maybe even desire, as it broke through his spell and leaped upon him, jaws tearing into his chest.
Terric, on the other side of the battlefield, yelled. “No, no, no!” He swung his axes, cleaving through the beasts between him and Shame, blood and a black ichor covering his face, so much that not even the rain could wash it away as he hacked and sliced. Hungers and the other, stranger creatures with too many hands, too many eyes, and too many teeth fell in pieces at his feet as he cut a bloody swath through them.
I ran toward Shame. Slow. Too damn slow.
Jingo was already striding over to Sedra. Past the slathering pile of beasts on top of Dane, ignoring them, and Dane’s screams, like they were of no more concern to him than a pack of puppies. He slammed the disk, full of magic, into the cage that held Sedra. His voice rose above the battle, above the storm, above the thunder. “This will end!”
Copper lightning shot up out of the ground, enveloping them. Then Jingo Jingo and Sedra were gone, leaving nothing behind but a circle of black ash.
Holy shit. I killed another beast. And another. Then pulled the blood blade to hold another off while I tried to catch my breath and strength. I wasn’t going fast enough. Shame lay dying beneath that creature. Might already be dead.
A blur to my right caught my attention. Victor, wielding his sword, and I swear not even breaking a sweat, sliced his way toward Liddy, who held a protective spell around Chase. I didn’t know why she was protecting Chase, but Chase wasn’t looking too good. She looked dazed.
Liddy wasn’t looking too good either. She didn’t even try to keep Victor from breaking the Shield spell. She stiffened and fell before Victor’s blade reached her.
And then I saw why. Behind her hunkered a huge nightmare of a thing. Too many heads and mouths and hands, all bloodred. It pulled six bloody pincers out of Liddy’s back and reached for Chase. Chase crumpled as if she’d been hit by a Taser. Victor’s sword, which I thought had broken Liddy’s spell, instead finished its intended arc and sliced the creature in half.
The creature shuddered, then fell into a pile of quivering flesh. Flesh that started smoking in the rain. Victor grabbed Chase and dragged her away. He ran back for Liddy, but he was late, too late.
The creature went up in a screaming bonfire of flames, so dark, it hurt to look at it. And somewhere in that flame had been Liddy.
This was a slaughter.
Chase coughed and rocked, as if she’d hit the ground from a height and was trying to kick-start her lungs. Blood and rain splashed across her face. That nightmare creature had done some damage.
From the edge of the clearing, I saw another beast moving fast, liquid on four legs.
Greyson. No longer a man. All pissed-off hell-spawn creature, somehow more familiar and less frightening than the Hungers and horrors, coming straight for Chase. He tore through the Hungers, sucking down their life, their magic, and then spewed that magic at the other creatures, boiling them until they burst into flame.
I didn’t know where Hayden was. Didn’t know how Greyson had gotten away from him. But there was another killer on Greyson’s heels. Just as fast. Just as frightening. Coming down heavy enough I could feel the vibration of his stride under my feet.
Stone.
And he looked angry.
Greyson pounded toward Chase, throwing Hungers to the ground, laying a path of destruction behind him.
Allison, my dad said. Get close to Greyson.
I intended to do just that. Then I intended to stick Zay’s sword in his chest.
I understood the pain Chase must be going through. She still loved Greyson, even though he wasn’t human anymore. I could forgive her for siding with him, for wanting to defend him. But I would not let that keep me from killing the bastard.
If you kill Greyson, Dad said, you will kill the part of me inside him.
You’re not supposed to be alive anyway, I said. Get rid of him, get rid of you. How is that a bad thing?
Because without me, you’ll never be able to bring Zayvion back.
A chill washed over my skin, colder than the rain. Stone leaped and landed, hard, in the middle of Greyson’s back. I heard bones break. Chase screamed as if the pain was hers to share, and maybe it was. She pushed up to her knees, and feet, and stumbled toward Greyson.
Victor did not stop her, too busy with the half dozen Hungers that surrounded him.
Hayden was back, at the northernmost edge of the field, swinging his broadsword like a one-man army, and yelling at the top of his lungs.
Zayvion is trapped, my father said. They did more than push him through the gate. They locked him there. They are using him there. He will never return.
No, I thought. That’s a lie.
My hand jerked, and I nicked the side of my thumb on the glass and steel blood blade I carried. Zayvion’s blood blade. I hadn’t moved my hand-my father had.
What the hell? It was a small cut, but blood ran freely from it.
Blood to blood, Allison.
I didn’t know what he was talking about, or why it mattered. He drew on the magic in the air, maybe used some of the magic in me, and I felt the tight, intimate tingling of a Truth spell spread through me, spread between us.
Zayvion is locked on the other side of death, my father said, and I felt the truth of it like a fire against my bones.
I thought Truth spells were bad on the outside. Having someone inside of my head bonding through Truth hurt. But it was very, very clear that my father was not lying.
I believe I can free him and send his soul back to his body, back into life. If you regain the parts of me Greyson now holds. And if I cross over into death to find him now. His time there is at an end. He is dying.
I didn’t want to hear that, didn’t want to feel that truth burning through me.
We can do it later. After the battle. After we win. You can help me later. I didn’t care how desperate I sounded. He already knew what I was feeling. Truth spells worked both ways.
No, I cannot.
He broke the Truth spell, or uncast it, or did whatever it is a dead guy who can still freaking cast magic from inside someone else’s freaking body can do.
I opened my mouth to curse, but didn’t have time. More and more creatures continued to pour out of the gate. Too many for the magic users to deal with, too many to hope to defeat, too many to let loose into the city.
Victor had carved his way across the field to the front of the gate, his hands lifted in a complicated glyph that would close it. Nikolai, the good-looking Russian Closer, stood next to him, killing the beasts that came
too near, holding a Shield of magic so that Victor could do his work.
Close the gate. So that there were no more beasts loose in the world.
Close the gate. And trap Zayvion.
Close the gate. Sealing Zayvion’s death.
Maeve was still on the ground, unconscious, but Sunny knelt next to her, keeping the beasts away with wicked knives.
Shame was also on the ground.
Terric had destroyed everything between him and Shame, and beheaded and de-limbed the Hunger that had attacked Shame. Terric now crouched next to Shame, one hand on his chest, glowing with magic that sank into Shame and poured out of him into the ground, as if Shame were a sieve, broken, unable to carry magic, life, breath.
I couldn’t tell if he was breathing. Terric was crying, his teeth bared in fury, his ax raised and crackling with black licks of magic as creatures circled them, came too close, and died on the edge of his blade. The blood on one side of his face was finger-painted in the glyph for life and I knew it had been traced there by Shame.
Shame was dying. Maybe he was already dead. I didn’t have the wrist cuff. I couldn’t tell if his heart still beat.
The gate was about to close. There was no more time to make good decisions. There was only time to make a decision.
Whom to save?
Zayvion had once told me I was not a killer. I’d proved him wrong. I had killed. But right now, it was life I was trying to hold on to.
I ran toward Greyson, caught the attention of too many creatures, and hacked my way through them. Months of training and sheer fury drove me on, Zayvion’s sword drinking down the magic, the energy, of the beasts. It was draining me, but I was pulling on magic from the sky, wild magic that licked and bloomed and caught fire in my blood, my bones, and fed me strength.
I channeled the storm. And now the storm raged in me.
Too bad for the beasts. Too bad for anyone in my way.
Closer, my father said.
I made ground as things born of death’s nightmares leaped at me, tearing at my magic, tearing at my flesh. Something, a claw or a fang, got through, sliced my thigh. Something else raked down my back. I felt the hot pump of blood mix with the hard-falling rain.