Page 32

32

LUKE

The academy has been reduced to rubble. Blocking access any further by the sheer destruction of the world around us, Felix and I materialise on the surface into a landscape of absolute chaos. The grounds of MistHallow are barely recognisable, torn apart by reality fractures that pulse with eerie light. The sky above us is shredded, the earth is torn apart, SilverGate Academy is transposed over MistHallow, along with DarkHallow, which is in a realm that makes my skin crawl with horror. They are all bleeding into one another, and I can’t tell where my academy starts or ends.

“Blackthorn!” a voice bellows at me.

“Who is that?” Felix mutters as a creature approaches, ducking a tree that comes flying across the courtyard.

“Eldris Blackridge,” I mutter back. “Headmaster of SilverGate.”

Felix raises his eyebrows. “Unholy shit.”

“What in the flaming seven hells is going on?” he roars, his pale face twisted into a grimace. “Why are the worlds overlapping?”

“Long story, for another time, Eldris, old boy,” I say cheerfully. “We are in the middle of a bit of a situation.”

Felix snickers next to me. “You could say that.”

Blackridge’s creepy black eyes laser in on Felix, and I push him behind me. Getting the attention of Blackridge is not a good thing.

“Return to your world, Eldris. It’s the best place for you. We are attempting to fix this, so you don’t want to be caught here.”

“How?” he asks incredulously. “The worlds are all smashing together.”

“Step back into SilverGate’s building, and take any of your students with you, if you please.”

“You had better fix this, Blackthorn,” he growls, but to my relief, he does as I ask.

“Well, he’s a pleasant sort, isn’t he?” Felix remarks.

“Fantastic. I do hope that Constantine doesn’t kill me for suggesting they send their son there.”

“You did what?” Felix asks with a stiff expression.

“It’s complicated, but the best place for him under the circumstances. Never mind that, anyway. We need to figure out how to get to the vault.”

Felix breathes out beside me, his voice nearly lost in the howling winds that tear through the reality breaches. “It’s worse than I imagined.”

I scan what remains of the main building, trying to orient myself. “The vault should be this way,” I say, pointing toward what was once the admin building. “Stay close.”

We move cautiously across the shattered courtyard. Where students once lounged between classes, now strange vegetation grows and dies in rapid cycles, plants that have never existed in our world taking root and withering in seconds.

“The professors are maintaining barriers around the surviving students,” Felix notes, pointing to a distant corner of the grounds where shimmering shields of magick contain huddled groups. “They won’t hold much longer.”

“We need to hurry,” I say, picking up the pace.

A groan of metal and stone draws our attention as another section of the academy collapses. In its place is an obsidian spire that twists impossibly upward, its surfaces gleaming with runes that make me shudder. The air around it shimmers with dark energy, and creatures move within its shadows that make my ancient blood run cold.

“DarkHallow,” I mutter.

“Looks…”

I raise an eyebrow at him as he falters.

“Yeah, I got nothing. Thank fuck, I ended up here and not there.”

“Quite. Keep moving,” I urge, pulling him away from the sight. “That place draws in souls. Look too long and you’ll never look away.”

We navigate the treacherous landscape, leaping over fissures that pulse with grotesque light and ducking under floating debris that orbits invisible gravity wells. The admin building is now a twisted heap of stone interwoven with structures from other realities.

We pick our way through the rubble and head down into the earth, where the structure is more stable.

“There!” Felix points to a section of a wall still standing amid the destruction. The heavy door of the vault remains intact, the protective wards glowing faintly against the chaos around it.

As we approach, the ground beneath our feet liquefies, then solidifies into something that resembles glass. Through it, I can see another version of MistHallow, underwater and populated by beings with gills and webbed hands. They look up at us with equal shock.

“We have minutes at most before a complete merger and all of our deaths,” Felix mutters.

I press my hand against the vault door, breaking the wards in an instant.

It swings open, remarkably untouched despite the devastation. Inside, the chalice sits in the corner, on the floor, glowing in a way that tells me Draken isn’t altogether gone. I can only hope he is with Gaida now, trying to talk her out of sacrificing herself because that will not happen on my watch.

“Grab it,” I tell Felix, keeping watch at the door when a creature that’s half-snake, half-something unidentifiable slithers past, paying us no mind as it hunts through the ruins.

Felix approaches the chalice carefully. “It’s responding to me,” he murmurs, extending his hands. “To Gaida’s blood in my veins.”

“Be careful,” I warn. “Even empty, it’s potentially dangerous.”

As Felix’s fingers close around the chalice, it flares with sudden brilliance. He gasps, his body going rigid for a moment before he regains control.

“Felix!”

“I’m okay,” he says, though his voice trembles slightly. “It’s communicating somehow.”

“We need to move,” I urge, glancing at the deteriorating world outside. The sky has been ripped apart completely now, showing a kaleidoscope of alien constellations and impossible celestial bodies. The merging accelerates with each passing second.

Felix wraps the chalice in his jacket, and we make our way back through the ruins. The journey is twice as treacherous now, with entire sections of reality blinking in and out of existence. Where once there was solid ground, now there are pools of liquid light, or sudden drops into nothingness. We move with vampire speed, leaping over obstacles and dodging falling debris.

A scream pierces the air as a student materialises in our path, having fallen through a reality tear. I grab her before she can plummet into a newly formed chasm, pulling her to relative safety.

“Professor Blackthorn!” she sobs, clinging to my arm. “What’s happening?”

“Find Professor Fauna’s group,” I instruct, pointing toward the magickal barriers in the distance. “Stay with them. We’re working to fix this.”

The girl nods shakily and runs in the direction I indicated, narrowly avoiding a lamppost that falls from nowhere, embedding itself in the ground where she’d stood moments before.

“We’re out of time,” Felix says, his voice tight with urgency as the chalice pulses in his hands, even through the jacket. “The worlds are collapsing into each other.”

As if to emphasise his point, a massive tear opens directly in our path. And there in front of us is a vampire exuding so much power and wrath that one would wonder if he were perhaps a god.

“Constantine,” I mutter as he steps forward, eyes narrowed and heaving a world-weary sigh.

“You had better have a solution for fixing this shitshow, Luke.”

“We’re working on it. Go back home. Be with your family.”

He purses his lips. “My wife sent me here to help you idiots.”

“Then shut up chatting and move,” Felix growls.

Constantine regards him with an interested stare. “Oh, the sorcerer has fangs. Literally.”

Felix flashes them at him, and I stifle the urge to laugh at this insanity.

“Move,” I say to Felix as a rainbow bursts out of the ground at our feet, with a Leprechaun riding it like a wave, as a unicorn flaps next to it.

Felix gapes, and I shove him harshly to snap him out of it. “Not all other worlds are dark and horrifying.”

“Nope. That one looks kind of fun.”

“Not now,” I growl, pulling Felix forward as we sprint the remaining distance to the entrance of the underground chamber. Constantine follows, his ancient power creating a shield around us that deflects the worst of the chaos.

The entrance to the chamber is barely visible now, half-buried under debris from multiple realities. I blast it clear with magick, revealing the dark passage below.

“What’s down there?” Constantine asks, his eyes narrowing.

“Our only hope,” I reply tersely, gesturing for Felix to go first.

We descend rapidly, the sounds of reality fracturing, growing muffled as we plunge deeper beneath what remains of MistHallow. The chalice in Felix’s hands vibrates with increasing urgency.

When we reach the chamber, Dante whirls toward us, his face haggard with worry.

“About fucking time,” he snarls. “She’s getting worse.”

Gaida’s body convulses on the altar, her back arching at an impossible angle, her eyes open but showing only crimson light. The air around her shimmers with power that makes my skin crawl.

“Constantine?” Dante stares in disbelief at our unexpected companion.

“Long story,” I mutter, moving quickly to Gaida’s side. “Felix, the chalice.”

Felix unwraps the vessel, its glow intensifying as it nears Gaida. The symbols carved into the chamber walls respond instantly.

“Get to work.”

He nods and does precisely that.