"Thanks for the fucking spell," Vel said frostily and with very little sincerity, striding to the door.
He yanked it open so quickly he was surprised the little rusted bell didn't get knocked off the frame.
The shopkeeper called after him, "It's true, kiddo, you'll see soon 'nough. Spells ain't the way to do these things. Time is."
The door slammed. Vel stood outside the dingy little place for a moment, rubbing his hands down his face. He felt very restless, teetering between wanting to punch something and screwing the whole plan, going back up to HQ and lying motionless in his bed. He gave himself a few seconds. Then he walked.
x
Snow showed up again at recess, still only hanging around the gate. He appeared a little more energetic. Elstrin jogged over before his instructor could stop him. "Hey."
"Good afternoon, Elstrin."
Elstrin peered at him. Snow seemed odd—vague and focused at once. Elstrin remembered what he'd looked like on the field on Tuesday, irises so blown he could've been dead, blood seeping down his face. That couldn't have been very healthy. "Are you all right, Snow?" he asked, genuinely concerned.
"Yes, I'm fine. Rem f—healed me. With Gabriel's help."
"Are you… sure?"
"Yes."
"Then why aren't you training with me?"
"I'm still very busy, I'm afraid." He stared blankly at the cadets pacing around the field.
"Um, okay. So, uh, mind telling me more about Rem?"
"I cannot, Elstrin. Please ask me something else."
Fucking hell. "What about the thing that attacked, then? Was it the sorcerer?"
"No. The sorcerer is an anchor to a ghost, like you were when you came here. A puppet. We've known for months."
"Whoa. So the guy, whoever he was, he's really dead?"
Snow shook his head slightly, scowling in discomfort, and seemed to physically pull himself together. His voice was much more like his own when he next spoke. Thank god. Elstrin could never get over how creepy it was when Snow looked like he was sharing his soul with several different people at once. "Yes. Gabriel and I… we killed him."
"How?" Elstrin knew it was foolish to question Snow's word, or the word of any soldier, really, when it came to matters like these—but he was more poised to believe the slim chance that the man had survived compared to the even slimmer chance that an extremely powerful ancient being had latched onto his corpse and was using to kill those who were performing black magic.
"I shot him in the spine." Snow held up a hand. "I know, it's not as definite as something like lopping off his head, but I was going for speed and minimal mess. He's dead. Gabriel can… no, never mind. There is no way that he could come back to life. A spirit is riding his body."
"But it's so—so impossible," Elstrin protested. "Why would it keep doing what the sorcerer did? At least it shouldn't be against black magic, right? I mean, black magic was what brought it here in the first place."
"We don't know what the spirit wants, what it's here for, and why it chose this particular moment to manifest. What we do know is it's dangerous. And intelligent."
"So it was the spirit all along? Right from that morning we went down to the city. Did you know, then?"
"I… suspected." Snow looked away, frowning at the ground, his hands clenched tight in front of him. "And then Gabriel confirmed it for me. And… we did nothing."
His words were laced with regret, an emotion Elstrin had never seen him express. Hearing it now alarmed him. "It's not—"
"I'm sorry," Snow said, harsh and bitter, his blue eyes flashing like a cat's. "I'm sorry. We—I should have done something. The signs were all there. If I had exorcised the spirit, or stayed with Rem more, or—then your friend wouldn't have died—then this whole mess—" He twisted his tense hands together, fingers trembling slightly. "I'm sorry," he repeated again in a quiet, restless voice.
Unsure and more than a little afraid, Elstrin said, "Snow, it's not your fault. It—it isn't. It's the sorcerer, and the spirit, and—just not you. Snow? Are you listening?"
"But I could've ended it," Snow muttered, still not looking at him. "So easily. I had so many chances. One simple procedure and—but I didn't, I—"
"Snow," Elstrin snapped, wanting suddenly to hit the lieutenant. Snow panicked and distressed
was the last thing everybody needed. He should know that. Whoever—whatever—he was, he should at least know that the people in HQ looked up to him like he was a general. And it was his duty to maintain that image, because it was a true one. For the first time, Elstrin was disappointed in him— for breaking down so abruptly, for choosing such an inconvenient time to start his self-loathing, for being completely irrational and—and robotic. It was as if someone had instructed him to never make mistakes, and feel totally horrible if he did. Maybe that was Rem, maybe not. Elstrin didn't care. All he wanted, and needed, was Snow to become Snow again, the level-headed, logical, problem-solving soldier he'd grown so fond of. Then maybe the lot of them could get out of this thing alive. "Snow," he tried again, in a gentler tone. "Calm down. It's okay. It's not your fault, and even if it was, it's too late to change anything now. All we can do is make things better. All right? You can apologise all you want later. Right now, it's not helping."
Snow took a deep breath, his mouth still a thin, flat line, glaring into the sunlight. "All this is a direct result of my actions—"
"Please stop being so stubborn," Elstrin said, precariously close to losing what little patience he had left. It felt like he was standing on a bed of hot coals, needing to leap aside soon or he'd scream. "Save it. Tell me more about the spirit. It tries to kill people who perform black magic, right?"
"…Yes," Snow said.
"Right. Okay. Who would it target next, then? Barring the obvious—me, Vel, Kana. Are there any other cadets that need shielding—"
"I can't shield them. The kind of power it would require can only be sourced from Rem, and it'll kill an untrained cadet."
"Oh." Elstrin closed his eyes for a moment and forced himself to not accuse Snow of keeping that a secret. Later. Everything could wait. "Then—still, who would it target?"
"Anybody. Anybody at all."
x
Vel walked to a section of the slums that was away from the black market, away from his home, from Diva's brothel, from Gabriel's house and Keri's school and Kana's neighbourhood. Away from everything and everybody he knew. He hoped that would be enough to ensure a lack of collateral damage.
There, he chose a wide alleyway with a dead end. He stepped in and cast a basic sentry spell, one of the few pieces of magic he actually had memorised. He'd learnt it for pointless, playful reasons when he was younger, and now he was grateful and anxious for it. It was an easy spell, but not very fine-tuned. He'd basically sent up a magical beacon into the sky, alerting any sorcerer nearby to his presence. He only hoped the right sorcerer would show up, and not Gabriel, who was surely getting suspicious by now. The sun was climbing towards noon.
"Come on," he muttered, shuffling his feet edgily. "Come on, I'm right here, I'm a fucking sitting duck, just come here and finish your fucking job—"
Someone stumbled into the mouth of the alleyway. Vel had one second to process the man's shambling gait and tattered clothes before a tide of red-black power stabbed at him, slamming him into the dirty brick wall. He almost dropped the Salt Hex in his hands. The man stalked closer, moving in a strange, jerky fashion, almost insect-like, as if he didn't quite know how to manoeuvre his limbs. His dirty clothes had fallen apart from filth and age; on his half-bare sternum was a messy glistening hole, the exit wound of a long-range bullet. It seemed to widen another notch before Vel's very eyes. The man's body was decaying, and he showed no sign of stopping.
Another wave of the needles made Vel grit his teeth. Gabriel's wards were probably the only thing keeping him alive, but he felt them shudder under the weight of the assault. They wouldn't hold for long. He inched sideways as the sorcerer approached, and they
half-circled each other, slowly. Just a little more. The dead man didn't seem to want to physically touch him, preferring to use his magic to overwhelm, which was good—Vel just needed… to trap him….
"Vel? Vel!" Gabriel's voice hollered, far away then closer, then right there, impossibly fast. "Holy shit," Gabriel gasped, skidding to a stop at the alleyway, staring horrified at the sorcerer, or whatever he was seeing that Vel couldn't. "Get back, Vel, now—even I can't fight that thing—"
Vel opened the box.
He saw the spell rush out, a dense cloud of black smoke, so potently deadly that he flung the box away out of instinct—but even so, it singed his fingers as the container burst into pale green flames, destroyed in a second. The smoke pulsed in the air, seeming to access all three of them, before slithering towards the sorcerer. The man saw it and tried to turn, but there was nowhere to go in the blocked space, and the spell smashed against his ruined back, sending him sprawling. Vel watched as he tried once to get up, arms shaking and thinning, muscles withering away to reveal tendons and bones under skin that cracked and mottled. Every cell in his body was dying, rupturing and shrivelling up, literally imploding and becoming utterly useless. Salt Hex—now Vel knew why it was called that. It was like watching a slug dry up under table salt. The man flopped over, chest heaving as his lungs collapsed, and a moment later his emaciated skeleton grew still. Dark blood leaked from his orifices. The corpse looked like a mummy.
That was it. Vel had killed him. He felt dazed and blank. His hands were freezing; his eyes stung.
He'd killed him. It was over.
A rough hand hauled him back and he gasped in a little breath, registered the tight grasp over his shoulders five seconds late. He pulled away automatically, blinking until the world returned to focus somewhat. "What?" he said, dizzy.
"Stop moving," Gabriel hissed. Vel realised he was twisting away whenever Gabriel tried to grab his arms. He forced himself to still. "Thank you." Gabriel took his hands and squeezed, fingers sliding down Vel's palm slowly as if wiping off a film of oil on his skin. The cold pain that was stabbing through his palms where the spell touched him disappeared. Gabriel rubbed his own hands together, scowling in discomfort. "Fucking hell, kid, what the fuck were you thinking—"
"Is he gone?" Vel whispered. He was starting to shake like he'd been doused in water. He put his forehead against Gabriel's chest, not knowing what he was doing, some childlike part of him just seeking warmth. "Please tell me he's gone."
"Yes." Gabriel's arms came around him tightly. "Yes, Vel, there's nothing fucking left. Look."
Vel shook his head. He wanted to hide somewhere dark and clean. "I—I can't walk," he stammered, because it was true. His legs felt like jelly.
"Okay. It's okay, Vel, it'll pass. Put your arm around me. That's it." Gabriel half-dragged him out of the alleyway. Vel staggered away from his hold, the sunlight so bright it seemed to ring in his ears. He fell to his hands and knees and retched, though nothing but bitter bile came up. Then Gabriel was there again, crowding him, but this time cool, soothing energy flowed from his hands into Vel's skin. Vel panted and coughed, crouching there until he could open his eyes without his head splitting open. "Vel, you gotta stand up," Gabriel urged him quietly. "We need to get out of here. The ghost, that thing—it's still dangerous. Come on, you can do it. Just slowly—okay, now sit."
Vel bumped into the cool metal of Gabriel's bike. He managed to sling his leg around the seat. He slumped against Gabriel's back, still shivering, though only in small bursts now. He wound his arms around Gabriel's waist and linked his chilly fingers together. The snarl of the engine startled him, but as it faded to a loud growl at the back of his mind, he found it helped drown out the frantic noise of his nerve endings firing at random inside his brain. The sheer weight of his frazzled emotions was so great that he laughed a little. Rage and vengeance and sorrow and heartbreak. He laughed at the strange, strangled sound of his own laugh. He laughed at the weirdness of finding Gabriel's scent nice, some funny mixture of cigarettes and sweat and worry. He laughed until he ran out of breath, and then he cried.
Tears streamed from his eyes as he sobbed silently into Gabriel's shirt. This time he stopped blaming it on the wind.
x
"…What?" Elstrin said, stunned.
"If you're long-winded enough, you could say everyone in HQ has some tiny connection to black magic," Snow continued. "The ghost probably wants Gabriel to resurrect the sorcerer, so it'll keep killing until he does. He may be the only one safe."
"So how the hell do we deal with that?"
"I don't—"
"Sir!" A lieutenant ran up, breathless, his eyes wide. His hand was injured; it looked like he'd put his palm straight on a piece of hot metal. "Sir, it's—"
"What is that?" Snow said sharply, staring at the soldier's oozing hand, seeing what Elstrin's inexperienced eye failed to pick up. He grabbed it and held his own hand over it; the blue energy that streamed from his fingers fizzed apart into nothing on the burnt flesh. The lieutenant pulled his arm back.
"I'll be okay, I just touched it. It's Matthews, sir—he killed it. He killed the sorcerer." "What?" Elstrin and Snow said in unison.
"He—he went to some dodgy magic shop by the slums and he bought—god, I don't even know, a curse or something, and—"
Snow was walking before the man got a chance to finish. Elstrin was right on his heels. "What the hell? Didn't you just say the sorcerer was already dead?"
"He is." They rushed into the outer hall. Vel was there, standing opposite Stag, staring stoically at the far wall as the colonel almost shouted questions at him. Snow stopped, hovering at the doorway. "You go talk to him. He doesn't look like he wants to be around too many people right now. Find out exactly what he did."
Elstrin nodded and strode forward. Up close, he nearly didn't recognise Vel. He'd cut his hair short, almost shaved it—he still looked good, but it made him seem tougher, older. Made the sheer lines of his cheekbones stand out more, revealed pale scars on his neck and ears that had been previously hidden. There were dark circles under his eyes, lines around his jaw, fresh tear tracks on his face. Little of that cheerful, hyperactive teenager remained in his stony expression, replaced by a quiet line of constant anger, and underneath that, transparent as glass, a sea of loneliness. He didn't know what to do with himself, and didn't seem to have the drive to find out. He glowered at Elstrin as he came near, but still didn't open his mouth to speak. Stag appeared close to completely losing his temper. Elstrin cleared his throat.
"Go back to training," the colonel growled without looking around.
"Lieutenant Snow sent me, sir."
"I don't care. Leave."
"But he—"
Vel said in a hoarse whisper, "Shut up, all of you. I used my sister's money to buy a Salt Hex and it sucked the life right out of the guy. I want to see Gabriel."
Elstrin frowned. "A what?"
Stag just stared at Vel. "Matthews, that's one of the most illegal curses in—"
"What do you think Damien would've done?" Vel said, his voice still soft and raw, but his eyes could've cut marble. "Imagine if he was still alive and some stranger just goes ahead and kills his brother, then his lover. He's king of the rats, and he's general. He would just do whatever the fuck he wanted to make things right. Do you think he'd care if some tiny little spell was illegal? I sure didn't. And I don't give a fuck what you think, sir. Where's Gabriel?"
There was a moment of tense silence. Then Stag said tightly, "He went back to where you released the spell. He's investigating the… situation."
"Okay, well, I'll just wait here, I guess. Please leave me alone." Vel paced away to the end of the hall, sitting down against the wall. Stag swore colourfully and stomped back into the training field. Elstrin went over to Vel slowly.
"Hey," he tried.
"Hey," Vel replied dully, staring ahead at the scarred floor. "Sit."
Elstrin lowered himself carefully beside Vel, keep
ing a safe distance between them. But Vel shuffled closer and, without a word, put his head on Elstrin's lap. His skin felt feverish, and he was almost a dead weight, relaxed and unmoving. "Uh, what're you doing?"
"You're about the same height as Andrew," Vel mumbled into his stomach. "If I close my eyes you feel kinda like him."
"O-oh." Fuck. "Um. Where should I put my hands, then?"
"Anywhere. You're not him." Vel blinked slowly, a long, quiet sigh escaping his lips. "It's funny; I can say his name now. I can think about him again. But I can't cry. I did, a little, just now on Gabriel's bike, but now I feel… empty."
Elstrin didn't know how to respond to that, so he just said what he hadn't gotten the chance to after the attack. "I'm sorry, Vel," he murmured.
"I know."
Another minute passed, but Elstrin no longer found it awkward. He just felt sad, and detached from all the commotion outside, like Vel's vacancy was infecting him. "Where did you go?"
Dragon Bone Page 36