by Izzy Shows
I couldn’t do this. I was staying alive but I obviously wasn’t doing anything to fight this thing. Emily had told me to handle it and all my handling was doing was distracting it.
I didn’t know what to do though, nothing in the world could have prepared me for this moment.
Certainly, not Aidan.
Anger swept up inside me suddenly, and I allowed it to fuel me.
Fucking Aidan. Didn’t teach me shit for fighting and said that he would handle this whole thing. Fuck Aidan for not realising that it was so much higher than his pay grade.
Fuck Aidan and his arrogance for getting me into this situation.
Fuck Aidan for not listening to me.
Fuck me for thinking it would be fun.
But fuck Aidan for not kicking me to the curb.
Fuck Aidan for not calling in reinforcements.
Fuck Aidan for not letting Mal help.
Fuck Aidan for not being here to help me now.
Fuck.
The anger inside me built to unbearable levels but gave me the clarity of thought I needed. I gulped more air down, turning to look back at the Colossal Undead again, a snarl on my face.
“Hey, fuck you!”
I screamed at it, lifting both hands to blast fire at it—again and again and again. I knew I wasn’t going to make a difference, it was an act of desperation.
But if I was going to die today then I wanted to go out swinging.
Another earth-shattering roar was the response that it gave me, swiping a long arm at me.
I tried to dodge but I wasn’t prepared for that move, I’d thought it would take another step.
I turned my back on it at the last second, trying to run away, and felt three different hands tearing my backside to pieces.
Sharp nails burned a path of excruciating pain through my back, ripping through layers of clothing to get to the vulnerable skin.
The pain brought me to my knees, asphalt biting into my palms, but that was barely noticeable when compared to the sensation exploding from my back.
I think I screamed. At least, that’s one word to describe the sound that was ripped from my mouth, going on for a moment that felt like eternity until my throat was raw and I couldn’t manage more than ragged gasps as I tried to find myself again.
I gulped down air as I fought the sobs that wracked my chest. I pushed the pain back, piece by piece, until I could think again.
I slammed another door shut in my mind, to be opened when I had the freedom to succumb to the darkness that had tinted my vision and threatened to pull me under.
I rolled myself onto my back, unable to muster the strength to stand, and fixed my gaze on the impossible beast in front of me.
I couldn’t do it anymore. I couldn’t keep running around and pulling off pathetic shots that did nothing more than piss it off.
I wasn’t going to make it.
But fuck him.
I lifted my arms, shaky though they were, and positioned them palm out, thumbs hooked together in a meagre attempt to stabilise them. I did my best to aim for the gaping maw that was its mouth. Maybe, just maybe, I could do something. I sniffed back the blood and snot that had begun to ooze down my face, and clenched my jaw.
“Sieg mon!” I pulled the words forth from that unknown place they’d come from and spat them out with all the anger and pain inside of me.
Power rocketed through me, vibrating my arms and lancing pain into my temples, and a bolt of pure ice shot out from my hands. It felt like it had torn my palms apart while leaving my body, but I didn’t care to check for the blood, the holes, that I felt there.
I slumped, exhausted, to the ground and barely registered the sharp pain of my head smacking the uneven pavement.
For a moment, it almost felt peaceful, laying on the ground, perfectly still, the night sky mocking me. What was peace anymore? Would I ever know it again? I allowed myself just that moment before I forced my eyes to focus back on the monstrosity to watch the flight of the ice as it shot for its target.
I missed. The lance made of ice struck the Colossal Undead in the cheek, and I was rewarded with another roar of pain. That was all, though. It did not fall. It was not over.
Numbness took the place of fear or disappointment.
I was a failure. Emily would die, Deacon would win. London would fall.
The monster loomed over me.
I closed my eyes to my inevitable fate.
41
THE WORLD FELL AWAY FROM ME.
Was this death? Had Death come for me?
No, pain still screamed at me from every inch of my body, threatening once more to plunge me into darkness.
I felt new holes being opened in my legs, my arms, my chest and gut. New fire lanced through me and I couldn’t find it in me to open my mouth and scream, but my mind screamed for me. I couldn’t think over the sound of it.
Finally, the pain forced my eyes open and I saw the horror of my situation first hand.
The giant had picked me up. A hundred skeletal arms were ripping into my body, sinking decayed teeth into my flesh, tearing me to pieces.
I felt the hold squeeze on me, pressing the nails and teeth closer into my form and I sobbed at the pain, unable to do anything other than make that pathetic sound.
I had always thought that death was something that would come for me quickly, take me away from the pain of the world without hesitation. I had not thought I would be exposed to this excruciating torture for so long.
I don’t know how long it held me, shaking me above its head as the bodies that made up its form tore into me. I don’t know how I stayed alive.
And then all at once it stopped. The teeth receded, the nails removed themselves, and the nauseating motions of the hand that gripped me still. I yanked my head up to look around me for the answer to this sudden respite from the pain, almost angry that my dying had been interrupted. We all knew I would die soon, I didn’t need it to be dragged out. I noticed that even the din of battle had ceased.
Who had interrupted it?
Deacon’s voice rang out over the empty silence. “Well, Blair. I think it’s safe to say you made the wrong choice.”
I swivelled my head as best I could to look at the necromancer safe in his circle.
My heart sank as my eyes passed over Emily, a shotgun held to her head by the minion that had disappeared at the beginning of this fight, which felt like a lifetime ago now.
“You should have known it was futile from the beginning,” he continued. “I cannot be defeated by some novice mage who’s not even learned the language of magic. You shout your spells with gibberish, and you reduce their power by doing so.” Gibberish? I frowned at the insult, because I hadn’t created the words for the spells at all. Even now, I couldn’t remember the syllables I had uttered, they had simply been born into my mind. Perhaps that made it gibberish, but I didn’t think so, not really.
I guess now wasn’t the time to deliberate on that.
“I have to say I’m disappointed. You were not a worthy opponent, and I have grown bored with this game.” His voice droned on—I rolled my eyes, maybe he was bored, but he was boring me.
“If you’re going to kill me, you might as well get on with it.” My voice didn’t have any of the strength that I wanted to convey, but rather came out shaky and weak. Like me.
I turned my head to look at Emily again, my chest clenching at the sight of her fury. She was a fighter to the end, she didn’t think it was over, I was certain. I had given up, but she hadn’t. Likely she was running the mental math on how to disarm the man holding a gun to her head so that she could carry on.
And me? I was limp in the hand of a monster my mind couldn’t have conceived of before today.
“Kill you? Yes, I suppose we’ll be getting to that in a moment. But like I said, I’m rather bored, and I’d like to have some fun before…this is all over.” A flick of my eyes showed him gesturing to the circle around him, and the bodies laid out in their pe
rfect little pattern. I felt tears forming in my eyes—those little boys beside Aidan hadn’t asked to be a part of this. They had been chosen for their age alone and that was the saddest part of it all. Because Aidan and Emily had gone into this knowing what it was, knowing there was a likelihood of death, but those boys had been kidnapped.
I had failed them, just as I had failed London.
Deacon had taken a few steps so that he stood over Aidan, and yanked the man up by his hair.
A small noise of protest escaped my throat.
“Do you want to talk to your mentor? I think he’d like to see you fail.” Deacon taunted me, smirking as he did so.
Something stirred within me…anger. Again?
“Fuck you.” I snarled, struggling against the hand for the first time, trying to pull myself to an upright position.
“Tsk, tsk.” He chuckled. “Language.”
He began to chant again, low so that I couldn’t make out even the syllables, not that I would be able to translate them. His hand caressed Aidan’s face in a way that made my skin crawl and only served to heighten the need to get out of the hand.
Aidan’s eyes snapped open, for a moment they glowed as if infused with magic, before they reverted to their normal brown colour. He darted several looks around the area, surveying and getting his bearings on the situation, before he focussed in on me. In the hand. Torn to pieces.
I knew I wasn’t looking good, but still…I hadn’t really thought about it until Aidan was taking stock of the situation.
His brow creased and his lips formed a hardened line. He twitched his fingers, a movement I had learned was his way of summoning small magic, but nothing happened. He nodded, seemingly understanding the position he’d been placed in. He was inside another Wizard’s circle, he had no ability to call his magic to him.
And I had let it happen. Was he mad at me? Did he hate me now? Did he think I had sold him out?
Despair clenched me, and my stomach seemed to drop out of my body as I shook my head. I needed him to know that I hadn’t done this, that I had been fighting to protect him. That I had only been trying to do what he would have done.
Did he know that? He needed to know that! I wanted to tell him, but I found myself mute.
Funny, all those moments before I had been dying to close my mouth, shut down the screams of pain and torment, and now I couldn’t open it to explain.
I tried to look away, but Aidan held me with his stern gaze, every bit the teacher I had only known him as for a few days—though it felt like a lifetime of tutelage.
“What? No last words to give to your protégé? Or have you realised she was never worth the effort?” Deacon sneered. “Ah well. Waste of breath, I suppose.” He sighed and shrugged his shoulders.
“Blair.” Aidan’s voice was quiet, but I heard it like thunder in my ears, and my heart picked up its pounding against my rib cage.
Deacon froze, not moving a muscle except to arch an eyebrow at the kneeling man in front of him.
“End it.”
Two words. My heart kicked into overdrive, eyes wide enough to take up my entire face, my mouth went dry.
“I know what you did.”
Oh, God, no. No, no, no.
“END IT.”
I sobbed, shaking my head.
I’d forgotten about it; the heat of the battle had swept me up and driven it out of my mind.
Or maybe I hadn’t wanted to use it. Maybe I had wanted to forget about it.
Maybe I knew what a mistake it had been.
“FUCKING DO IT,” he screamed at me.
Deacon clubbed him over the head, knocking him to the ground. His features twisted into unmistakable rage and I watched him start to hurry.
Aidan was right. There was no more time.
I felt the tears tracking down my cheeks as I reached deep within me, for the power Mal had given me. My free hand reached over and dragged the sleeve of my tattered jacket up, revealing the mark burned into the inside of my wrist.
I touched two fingers to the surprisingly cool skin there and closed my eyes.
There were no words that came to mind, and Mal hadn’t bothered to tell me what to do, maybe he’d hoped I wouldn’t need it.
Just another man who had let me down by not preparing me.
I took in a calming breath and let it out, trying to pull focus to myself. Trying to focus on the men in that circle, the one who threatened our lives and the one who had brought me to this moment.
Only my emotions kept raging at me, beating me like waves on sand.
Anger, frustration, an all-consuming sadness mixed with rage. They beat at me until I couldn’t think.
I dropped the barriers I’d created in my mind and let them wash over me, take me with them to a place where I didn’t have to think.
And then it ripped through me, more painful than any magic I had used before. It tore at my insides, forced its way out of every centimetre of skin with no care as to what it did to me.
I screamed, in my mind and out of my mouth, the pain worse than anything I had ever imagined, worse than the mouths that had torn at me before, worse than every moment of the battle I’d been in.
I heard a sonic boom, and then everything went black.
My last thought was of floating on a cloud of pain.
42
I DON’T WANNA WAKE UP.
My roommate was shaking me and I didn’t want to wake up. I groaned and tried to roll over, away from the person rocking my shoulders.
“I’ll call in sick, go away.” I mumbled, shaking my head.
I couldn’t go to work today, I didn’t feel good. Sick, no, sore? I couldn’t put my finger on it. Whatever. I didn’t feel good, didn’t matter why.
What work was I calling in sick to again? I frowned, tried to remember. Was I still working at the restaurant? No…I’d been fired from that a while ago.
I’d taken a job. A gig. Freelance. Yeah! That was it. So, I didn’t need to call in.
The hands became more incessant at my shoulders and I noticed a roaring noise in my ears. Wait, no, that was sobbing. I heard sobbing.
Who was crying?
Wait a minute. I didn’t have roommates. Who was waking me up?
I tried to open an eye to see what was going on and pain exploded across my face, causing me to cringe and recoil.
Which, of course, only brought more pain, and I gasped for air.
“Blair, please, please wake up. Please wake up.” Sobbing again, but this time I could make out the words that went along with it. I couldn’t recognise the voice.
“Please, Ms. Lady.” If I had any strength in me, I would have laughed at that. Ms. Lady. That was comedy gold.
Why didn’t I have any strength?
Oh, and wait a minute. That wasn’t the strong voice of a woman who had been begging me to wake up, that was the voice of a little boy.
I realised that there was a pair of tiny hands shoving at my shoulders on one side, and another on the other side.
I tried to flex my fingers and just brought more pain on myself.
I’d been in a fight. The realisation brought flickers of memories back.
Caught in the circle. Emily in armour. Rushing to rescue Aidan with Emily. Dying.
I had died, hadn’t I?
God, it had felt like dying, that was certain. If death felt worse than that…I had better stay alive.
“Shhh.” I murmured, trying to raise a trembling hand, but I could only lift it up a bit before it hit the pavement again. Pavement. Right.
We were at the Tyburn Tree crossing.
“Give me a moment.” It hurt to move my mouth, hurt to do anything. Pain was lancing through my head just thinking.
I heard a rush of breath, as if someone had let out air they’d been holding onto for a while, and then it was followed by giddy laughter.
“Oh, thank God. I thought you had died, Blair, I really did. Oh, thank God. Thank you.” Her voice sounded watery, as if she was stil
l crying, but I allowed myself a small smile. Emily had worried about me. That was kind of nice.
I should remember to tease her about that later.
I had to compartmentalise the pain, that was the only way I was going to get up and get this worked out. Because there would be no ambulance or hospital for me. I didn’t want to risk being around that much technology. I took in several breaths, welcoming the sharp pain in my lungs, the creak in my ribs, the rough sensation of my throat, the dryness of my mouth. I pulled in all the pain and began sorting it, like laundry, into different areas of my mind. Push it back, push it deep, deal with it later. Maybe the pain would kill me then. I couldn’t do that in front of Emily, though, so I needed to get a hold on myself for the moment.
Finally breathing didn’t hurt, and so I moved on to another area. Flexing my fingers. I sorted that pain, and kept going through every limb on my body. Bringing in the pain and giving it a place to reside with the promise that I’d give it the attention it deserved later. Then I shut and locked all the doors in my mind and opened my eyes.
Emily was kneeling over me, with a giant smile on her face and tear tracks on her beautiful faces. “Can I hug you?” she whispered.
“Yeah, I think I can survive that.” I rolled my eyes, but smiled at her.
She pulled me up to a sitting position and wrapped her arms around me, ignoring my ‘oof’ when I hit her armour. I let her hold me for a moment before I coughed, sort of politely, sort of not.
She let go of me and beamed that movie star smile at me again. I finally looked to the twins sitting on either side of me, and the happiness that Emily had given me was quickly whisked away. I scooted forward and began looking one over, inspecting arms and foreheads and cheeks and hands, and turning back and forth to check the other, making sure that they were OK. A shuddering breath wracked my chest as I let it out, and took another one in. They were alive. They had made it. I hadn’t failed. Oh, thank all the gods.
They were a little dirty and sniffling, but that was to be expected. They’d been through rather a lot.