Rattigan grinned, his hands charging with magic, ready to attack and defend. The only way out of here was through him, and I had to do it fast. I glanced at my clutch bag, then I looked over at Rattigan, and I tossed the clutch at him.
“Catch!” I yelled.
Rattigan took his eyes off me and brought his hands up to catch the bag. I dashed toward him at top speed and smashed into him seconds before the clutch touched his fingers. We both tumbled to the ground and rolled until we were inches away from the ward’s edge. Axel had grabbed the clutch, and as he ran past me, he grabbed my hand and helped me negotiate my way to the other side of the ward with only milliseconds to spare.
The magic barrier sprang back to life, locking back into place and pulsing with power—but it was power only I could sense. Rattigan scrambled to his feet and ran through the invisible line in the sane, causing the skin-flaying demon spell to trigger.
I could feel it, the sudden surge of magic as ward’s conditions were met. I was already almost at the other end of the hall, Rattigan about ten feet away, when the lights in the corridor started to flicker. Axel, having sensed something I couldn’t, grabbed me and pulled me into a tight closet.
“What are you—” I was about to protest, but he wrapped his hand around my mouth to stop me from saying another word. At the same time, he brought his index finger to his lips, giving me the universal signal for shut the hell up.
It was dark in the closet, and all around me I could feel a strange, otherworldly kind of pressure start to build. Rattigan pounded on the closet door, and my heart surged into my throat once more like it had been struck by lightning.
“Open this door!” Rattigan yelled, repeating the words like an angry mantra. But as the seconds passed, his angry demands started to sound more like frightened pleas. Eventually, Rattigan screamed and went running down the corridor. I was about to open the door, when Axel stopped me. It was a good thing, too, because not more than a second later something else came bounding down the corridor—a creature with a stride so powerful and so long, it couldn’t possibly have been human.
For a terrified instant I thought it was going to turn its attention at the two mages huddled in a closet. But it went right past us, grunting after Rattigan who—judging by the sounds of startled partygoers—had burst into the heart of the Magister’s party to escape the demon’s wrath. Subtlety had definitely gone out the window, but we now, at least, had a distraction we could use.
Axel hadn’t released my mouth yet. I could hear him breathing harshly, and rapidly, through his nose. I could even hear his heart pounding inside of his chest, could feel it beating through his fingers and against my lips. Gods, he smelled good. I didn’t think I’d ever get over his cologne.
He released my mouth, but his hand was still so close to my face I was breathing against his fingers.
“Do you think it’s—”
Axel kissed me with a force like I’d never felt before. Maybe it was the moment, maybe it was because we were both probably a little scared at the prospect of being flayed living by a demon, but it was like he’d fallen into me… and I fell into him in return. I ran my fingertips up the base of his neck and into his hair, and he plunged his hands into mine.
The kiss was deep, and pure, and fueled by adrenaline. My heart was racing, his was too. His lips, his tongue, his breath, I made them mine in that moment, accepting him fully and pressing him more tightly against my body. The pull in the pit of my stomach was impossible to ignore, my body drawing me deeper into my own desires as the seconds ticked on.
But I broke away from him, shaking my head. “Shit, no,” I said, “No, no…”
“What is it?” he asked.
“The mission, the mission… we need to get out of here.”
“Yes,” Karim’s voice crackled through my earpiece. I’d forgotten he was there. “That, and we can hear you. It’s almost offensive.”
“I’m almost at the roof,” RJ interrupted, speaking between mighty pulls of the basket, “Where you at?”
“Stuck inside the penthouse,” I said, “Karim, I’m gonna need you to guide us out of here. Can we slide out through the ballroom?”
“No way, there’s a demon in there… the Legionnaires are trying to put it back in its box, it’s chaos. I’ve never seen so many mages open so many portals so quickly before in my life.”
“We’re in a closet in the—”
“—I know where you are. Step out of the closet right now, go down two doors and take the one on the left. It’ll take you to the roof.”
“Now?” I asked.
“Now,” he repeated.
I didn’t need to be told twice. I opened the door, dashed down the corridor, and entered the stairwell that would take us to the roof—and to freedom.
CHAPTER THIRTY
“What’s the status of the party?” I asked Karim as Axel and I raced up the stairs.
“Pandora’s back in the box,” Karim said, “I’m seeing people filing into the corridor you just escaped from like they’ve just been told there’s free booze and shrimp back there.”
“Probably Legionnaires going to check the vault,” Danvers put in.
“Do you think they saw us?” I asked.
“I don’t think so,” Karim said, “But we only have cameras in the ballroom. You’re on your own for now.”
“Alright. RJ, I can see the roof access, we’re only a few seconds out.”
“I’m almost there,” he huffed, “Just a little more.”
I reached the roof access door ahead of Axel and charged through it, bursting out into the cold, crisp, New York city air. The wind was intense up here. The penthouse had been huge, but the vault was so deep and dark, and the corridors so closed off, you almost forgot you were thirty stories up.
The rapid change was disorienting. It took a second before I was able to gather myself. I staggered toward the nearest railing and held on. That was when the spell slammed into my back. Insidious magic moved through me like a virus, spreading through my body in half-a-heartbeat. My nerves seized up in a cascade, my joints went stiff like they’d been frozen solid, and I toppled to the floor like a plank of wood.
The spell had hit me from behind, and as I lay on the floor, my entire body numb from the magic, I had this crazy idea it had been Axel who’d hit me. But the magic affecting me right now wasn’t Psionic magic; it was Vivimancy. A shadow loomed over me, then someone grabbed my shoulder and turned me on my back.
Karkov.
I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t move, and I couldn’t do magic. Until the spell wore off, maybe in a couple of seconds, maybe in a couple of minutes, I was completely helpless. “Little girl should watch corners always,” Karkov said. “Easy for enemies to be hiding.”
I wasn’t sure what stung more, that I’d been caught off guard, or that he was right. I should’ve checked my corners. I wanted to tell him to go screw himself, but I couldn’t speak, either. The only muscle working inside of my body was my heart, and even then, its pace had slowed down to a crawl. If the spell’s effects didn’t wear off soon, I’d probably lose consciousness.
And then what?
Delia was next to crowd above my head, her black hair dangling from her face in crazy strands, her eyes wide and wild. She was like a feral cat, hungrily eyeing up a bird with broken wings. A wide grin spread across her black, lacquered lips.
“There’s no fight in you now, is there?” she asked, “Poor little rat, paralyzed and alone, food for the crows.”
Only, I wasn’t alone… but Axel wasn’t exactly rushing to my rescue, was he? Where was he? He’d been right behind me. Why wasn’t he—
Delia cocked her head to the side. “It’s a good thing she came bursting through that door before you did,” Delia said, “Otherwise we may have stunned you, instead.”
I couldn’t move my eyes, but the way the shadows moved told me all I needed to know. Axel wasn’t fighting them, and he wasn’t coming to my rescue, either. Despite th
e numbness, I could still feel my stomach sink right into the floor; dread’s cold, familiar fingers worming their way through my body.
Axel tapped his earpiece with one finger, muting his mic so he couldn’t be heard through the comms. “If I had walked through the door first,” he said, “You’d have wasted the element of surprise, and then she’d have eaten you both up—you can trust me on that.”
“Is that so?” Delia asked, straightening herself up. “You’re speaking pretty highly of her there… you haven’t gone soft on us, have you?”
Soft? What? I hated that I couldn’t speak, but I was also having a hard enough time trying to remain conscious, so… one thing at a time.
“You’d do well to watch your mouth,” Axel warned, “You may say you work for my father and not for me, but I can make you throw yourself off this building before he even realizes it’s happened.”
Delia walked over to him, slowly, arrogantly. “Good things crows can fly then, huh?” she asked, and then she snapped his teeth at him.
Karkov pulled a dagger out from inside his jacket, and my heart started to beat like a jackhammer. I thought he was about to stick me with it, but instead he presented the handle over… to Axel. Axel stared at the knife, his eyes wide.
“It is time,” Karkov said, a suggestive grin on his face.
Axel took the dagger and turned his eyes on me. I wanted to say I could see hesitation inside them, an unwillingness to hurt me, but I couldn’t see anything.
He was gone. Cold, and distant, like the first time I’d seen him.
“It’s time to carry out your father’s orders,” Delia said, “Kill her, and cut out her heart so that he can feast on it.”
Wait up, what?
I tried to move, but no matter how hard I made my brain yell at the rest of my body, it wasn’t listening. My entire nervous system had gone for a nap, and there was nothing I could do to wake it up before it was good and ready to wake up. Like a fucking teenager.
Axel came over to where I lay and slowly knelt beside me. He was holding my bag in one hand and the dagger in the other. It was a short dagger with a gold pommel and a ruby at its heart. It looked like it was made more for punching holes in people instead of delicately removing organs from their bodies. But hey, I wasn’t a butcher or a surgeon, so what did I know?
“Do it,” Delia urged. “Do it, and you’ll earn your place at your father’s right hand.”
Inside, I was screaming, but as ever, outside I was cool and collected. Of course, I had the sunning spell I’d just taken in the back to thank for that, but that wasn’t important. The fact was, all Axel could see was a woman staring back at him in defiance of what he was about to do to her. What he couldn’t see was that woman’s toes starting to wiggle inside of her high heels.
The spell was wearing off, but I still had a way to go.
“He is hesitating,” Karkov said, offering an astute observation. “Why not you kill little girl? She is enemy of family.”
“He’s hesitating because he’s spent too much time with her,” Delia snapped. “Your father wants her dead. Do it!”
Axel pointed his dagger at the crow. “Speak again, and I’ll tear your throat open. Both of you. I’m sick of the sound of your voices.”
The crows both seemed to shut up at Axel’s command. That was good, because he’d pretty much said what I’d been thinking. Considering thinking was all I could do, it was good to be able to do it in silence, with only the whoosh of the wind and the distant sounds of horns blaring from the streets below.
I turned my eyes on Axel again, watching him more closely. I could move all of my toes, now, and some of my fingers, too. If I could only have a few more seconds, I was sure I’d be able to bring my hand up to zap him, but I wasn’t sure I had another few seconds. Axel’s hand came up, the tip of the dagger aimed directly at my chest.
A heartbeat passed, then another, and another. This time, even I could see the hesitation inside of him, and that was something. But the son of a bitch was still about to kill me because his father had asked him to. But he dropped the knife instead of plunging it into my heart, and then all hell broke loose.
It was like a quick-snap at a football game. A flash of movement caught my eye, and while I couldn’t turn my head to follow it, I didn’t have to. The shape that had shot across the rooftop was huge. Karkov and Delia both turned their heads before Axel did, but all three had the same reaction to the lion barreling down on them.
Primal terror.
The lion bounded on Karkov first, its mighty paws splayed wide open to reveal razor sharp claws. Karkov got up to stand, but the lion pinned him down and bit deep into his collar. The smell of blood filled the air. Karkov cried out in pain. Delia, having recovered but only barely, snapped a spell at the lion with her cobra-fast hand, but nothing happened to the lion when the spell found its mark. The lion only growled and turned its deep brown eyes on her—and then it pounced.
Delia yelped, turned tail, and started running across the rooftop, but the lion was too fast for her. It brought her down with a swipe of its claws to her leg, sending her tumbling along the floor. Axel looked like he was having a hard time figuring out what the hell was going on, and that served me just fine because I’d regained the feeling in my right arm.
“Hey, asshole,” I said.
He turned to look at me, and I clocked him in the jaw with a solid right hook. The contact was clean, and sweet. When you hurt your own hand punching someone, you know you’ve punched them right.
Axel toppled from the hit, falling flat on his hands, the dagger and the clutch clattering away from him. Despite still being a little sluggish—and wearing high heels—I scrambled to get to my feet and leapt for the clutch, but Karkov grabbed my leg.
“You will not have it,” he snarled, his mouth full of blood.
I hit him with a stunning spell, and then another one, and then another one, snaps of magic flying from my hand one after the other. The big guy was hard to put out of commission, but after the third hit, he was well and truly filled with electricity and completely unable to move. I pulled my leg out of his grip, and kicked my shoes off for good measure, then I went for the clutch again—only this time Axel had it.
He was standing in front of me and looking down at the floor, but his shield hand was up. “Don’t,” he said.
I scowled at him. “So, this is how it’s gonna be?”
Axel didn’t speak.
“You can’t even look at me?”
“You won’t understand.”
“I don’t understand? I understand you pretty well, Axel. All this time you made me feel like you were looking down on me because I’d stopped chasing my full potential a long time ago, when the truth is you haven’t reached yours either. You’re too busy groveling at your father’s feet, hoping for his approval. Guess what—you’ll never get it. Men like him don’t ever change. You can’t make him see you.”
Those last few words had brought stinging tears to my eyes. I thought of my dad, then, and how I’d always wanted to please him. How I’d always wanted to make him proud of me, not realizing he’d de-prioritized me long, long ago, and that would never change.
“Just go,” he said, shaking his head. “Go before he gets here.”
“Whatever,” I said, disappointed. “Keep the fucking bag.”
I turned around and headed for the window basket RJ had pulled up. He was already inside, calling me over, his mouth and chest covered in blood. I started to run, suddenly feeling like I couldn’t be on this rooftop anymore. RJ’s eyes suddenly widened, and he yelled for me to get down.
My magic senses started tingling as, somewhere nearby, someone was charging an offensive spell. I put my head down and ran faster, throwing myself into a slide to cover the last few feet between me and the basket, and RJ’s open arms.
He helped me get inside, just as a bolt of magic streaked past my head. Delia cursed, and as I turned my head, I saw her fighting to get to her feet.
<
br /> “Go!” I yelled, just as Delia fired another spell toward us.
RJ started working the pulley system to get the basket moving down the side of the building. My stomach lifted from the sudden jolt. Grabbing the railing, I turned my eyes up to the edge of the building, ready to defend us both if Delia came charging over.
She didn’t. Instead, a bolt of her magic slammed into one of the pylons holding the basket upright. The metal pylon twisted, the rope frayed, and then it snapped.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
RJ lunged and grabbed the rope with one hand and the basket with the other. His muscles rippled and stretched from the effort of holding us in place, sweat pouring down head and neck.
“It ain’t gonna hold,” he said, gritting his teeth. “Sure as shit ain’t gonna roll down, either.”
“Izzy, are you alright?” Karim asked through the comms.
“Give me a minute,” I barked. “You have to let it go, RJ.”
“If I let it go, we both fall.”
“Not you. You can turn yourself into a bird and get out of here.”
RJ groaned, his body working overtime to try and keep the basket from plummeting. “I ain’t leaving you behind!”
I frantically scanned around. On one side of the basket was a solid wall—the nearest window was a few feet further down—and on the other side, all of New York. The updraft caught my hair as I peered over the side, trying to figure out just how instantaneous my death would be if I hit the ground from a fall from this height.
The way out of this situation struck me like a bolt of lightning. One of the pylons holding the basket up had been damaged, but the other was fine. All I had to do was abandon the relative safety of the basket, grab hold of the only rope holding it up, and climb back onto the roof.
Screw it.
“Let go,” I said, climbing over the side of the basket and grabbing the rope with my hands and my feet.
“What?” RJ asked, “No way!”
“Let go, and get to Danvers and Karim. Now!”
Heart of the Thief (The Wardbreaker Book 1) Page 19