Page 18

W ell, fuck,” someone whispered, and it could have been any of us. It could have been me.

“Why is nothing ever easy?” I whispered to Zara, who was lying on my left as we stared down through a railing into a big old lot of Nope.

“Hate for things to get dull,” she murmured.

“I like dull. I’m all about dull!”

“Oh, fuck that,” Alphonse said, but not in reply. He’d just come from guarding our rear and seen what was happening below. “You have got to be kidding me.”

I wished I was.

The only good thing was that a portal was thrumming away on the opposite wall of the cavernous room we were overlooking. It looked like there was space for three of them, as two burnt circles farther along the wall attested, but only one was lit. It was big, it was green, and it was probably not tuned into Vegas because I wasn’t that lucky.

But Bodil might be able to change that.

“No,” she said, crawling out of the tunnel behind us and onto the narrow ledge bordered by the railing.

She’d answered my question before I asked it, so I tried another. “Just how close do you need to be?”

“Closer than this.”

Great.

The problem was that the vast space below was being used. And what it was being used for had all the skin on my body standing at attention as if it was trying to see, too. Only it didn’t want to.

I didn’t want to, but I didn’t have a choice.

This looked like it might have been a naturally occurring cavern, with a few sheared-off stalactites overhead, where they’d been removed so the Corps could turn this place into a cafeteria/meeting spot. Somebody with a little earth magic had caused slabs of limestone to erupt from the floor all over the area, giving the mages tables to sit at and eat their dinners. There were only a few scattered chairs anymore, probably because this place had become a reminder of all they’d lost as their numbers shrank and had been left to gather dust.

It wasn’t gathering any now.

The Circle had been busy while we were resting, showering, and eating—and now I knew why the feast had been so generous. Nobody was worried about running out of anything because this was the day. The last day, before victory or annihilation, so provisions didn’t matter anymore.

And neither did anything else, apparently, like the code they’d once believed in. Because they were busy dragging obviously beat-up people back through the portal and beating them up some more if they tried to run away. The latest arrival made it five whole feet before being taken down by a triple spell.

He hit the floor, still in wall-eyed panic, while the portal behind him churned out a handful of others. It was no longer landing them in the safe zone outside, where they could be checked out before entering the new HQ. It looked like Jonas didn’t think there was time for that and had rerouted them straight here.

And there were a lot of them, presumably from Stratford, judging by their appearance, where the chaos had allowed his boys to kidnap some enemies. The portal spewed forth more mud-covered prisoners as we watched, who got a hose turned on them, I guessed to uncover any weapons they’d been carrying under all that dirt. They were subsequently relieved of the hardware, had gags shoved into their mouths, and their hands bound behind their backs before being pushed into pens.

Plenty of people were already in the two makeshift holding cells, one on each side of the room, staring around as if wondering what the hell. Which was a damned good question! But other prisoners were taking up prominent positions in the middle of the cavern.

They looked like the better-dressed mages I’d seen in the crowd at the old HQ. Their finery gleamed in the dim spell light studding the walls, which also highlighted the magical bonds that had been used to strap them down to the tabletops. And which shone through the mass of ghosts circling in the air overhead.

The spirits weren’t doing much other than forming incongruous halos above their former masters’ heads. My one-time ghost companion, Billy Joe, would have been moving heaven and earth to get me out had I been stuck down there. But these ghosts seemed a little more... ambivalent.

They were literally just hanging around, doing bupkis, despite the necros on the slabs mentally yelling at them. I could tell that was what they were doing because the men’s eyes were glowing, and they were thrashing around furiously, trying to break their bonds. And the ghosts weren’t helping, possibly sensing an opportunity.

After all, spells, including those binding spirits, don’t long outlast the death of the caster, do they?

“What is this?” ?subrand asked, crawling up on Pritkin’s side to my right. “What the devil is the Circle doing?”

“Preparing dinner,” I said, looking for a distraction.

“What? Whose dinner?”

“Mine.”

And that was undoubtedly what was happening. Jonas was hedging his bets about how much energy I would need and getting me every scrap he could while the opportunity was there. And thoughtfully tying them down so that, when the moment came to split them open and allow me to feast on the tasty soul energy inside, there wouldn’t be any embarrassments like my appetizers trying to run away.

I don’t know what was on my face, but Pritkin’s hand came down gently on my back. He didn’t say anything, but a muscle jumped in his jawline, and he looked as if he’d like to leap off the little catwalk and spring down there, ready to take on his former allies. ‘Cause, yeah.

The witches’ cloaks weren’t looking so bad suddenly, were they?

“Times have changed since you were away,” Zara told him, watching a raft of fleeting expressions pass over his face.

“Apparently.” It was clipped the way his voice only was when he was either frightened or so furious that he was having to leash himself to stay in place. I was pretty sure I knew which this was.

?subrand’s eyes suddenly got big as he finally caught on. “ That is what he... but that is—” he said a fey word that I guessed meant monstrous or infamous or fucked based on his expression. It looked like he was reconsidering his enthusiasm for the Corps.

I was reconsidering my own brilliant plan, which had been to cause a distraction and then run like hell for the portal. Bodil could telescope it out to meet us partway, as she’d done back at Zara’s, assuming she could figure out this new magic and had enough juice left. And if we came anywhere near it, we’d be gone in a heartbeat.

But the operative word was if . And in usual Silver Circle fashion, it wasn’t utter chaos down there as might have been expected. It was organized .

The pens holding the regular Joes were warded; I could tell that much by the fact that they weren’t going anywhere, despite being squashed up together, and from the reaction of the guys inside every time one got too close and was zapped for his trouble. Those tied down in the center of the space, who I guessed were the stronger variety, were staying there despite every effort they could make to the contrary. And the zombies that some of them had brought along were being slaughtered as soon as they stepped through the portal.

Like that, I thought, spotting the sadhu from earlier, who burst out of the swirling vortex, trailed by a couple of his crew. Only for them to be speared through the heads by some floating knives waiting on either side of the entrance before they’d fully cleared the field. They fell into piles of others, the sadhu was hauled off to a waiting slab, and I was left wondering what the hell we were supposed to do now.

“There are at least a hundred mages down there,” Alphonse said, from where he’d somehow inserted his huge body between Zara and Bodil. “We ain’t carving our way through all that.”

“If we don’t, we’re going to end up on one of those slabs!” ?subrand said because he appeared to be firmly on the mages-be-crazy train suddenly.

I could relate.

“We need a distraction,” I pointed out and then waited for more words to follow, inspired ones that would shine a light on the problem and make our path clear.

And waited and waited because, apparently, that was as far as my brain got. It would have made me feel worse, except nobody else was volunteering anything, either. Not even Pritkin, who looked like that agile mind of his was considering a couple dozen ideas in quick succession and rejecting them just as fast.

“I liked it better with the dark mages,” Enid said, sounding shocked. She was clustered behind us with the rest of the witches, but apparently, she could see enough.

“They’re all the same,” Topknot told her. “Always have been, always will be. Never trust a mage!”

“You sound like a vamp,” Alphonse commented.

“Am I wrong?”

“Hell, no.”

“I could go down and... talk to Jonas,” Pritkin said, as if he was substituting ‘talk’ for something far more painful.

“You could end up on a slab!” ?subrand said in a shrill whisper. He seemed to be focused on that.

“I could cause more of a distraction than you think,” Pritkin insisted. “It wouldn’t last long, but it would give the rest of you a chance—”

“To do what?” I demanded. “There’s a hundred war mages down there!”

“That’s what I said,” Alphonse agreed, causing Pritkin to shoot him a look, which did as much good as that ever did with him. “Don’t get pissy with me because your boys went nuts,” Alphonse added. “You ain’t distracting shit down there, not with them all set to martyr themselves.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Pritkin said tersely.

“I know you’re gonna get caught. I know Cas won’t leave without you. I know that’ll screw all of us, so—”

“She’ll leave without me. We discussed this.”

“Sure.”

“And what does that mean?”

“It means you don’t know your woman as well as I thought.”

“The coven could try something,” I said, because they were both looking at me suddenly, only to get whisper-shouted down before I finished the thought.

“Try what?” Topknot demanded.

“Speak for yourself!” Gray Curls hissed.

“We’d end up like the bokors before we got halfway down the stairs,” Butch Cut agreed, her forehead frowning. “And I’m not feeling a lot of wild magic in here, so we’re on our own, and I’m not exactly flush—”

“None of us are!” Zara said. “But we’ve got to get Cassie through that portal!”

“Oh, so you’re a true believer now?” Purple Hair challenged. “Earlier today, you were trying to kill her!”

“Feels like longer,” Zara muttered.

And then the witches did what witches do and descended into squabbling while I held onto the bottom of the rusty iron railing and tried to think. But my brain had been through enough that all I was getting back was a distant hum. It was as if my CPU was set on idle and wouldn’t be budged.

Which was a problem with Jonas about to murder everyone in the room!

But still, nothing.

I needed sleep. I needed a vacation. I needed to quit gripping the rail so tightly because the orange flakes were embedding themselves into my flesh!

“Stop that,” Pritkin told me gently, prying my hands off and leaving me wondering if I could get tetanus from this crap. And if I’d live long enough to have to worry about it. And where they’d gotten enough water in the Sahara to rust anything.

And then I stopped worrying about it, because what the fu—

“What is going on?” Alphonse yelled, not that it mattered. Suddenly, the war mages were scattering, the portal was bulging, the prisoners were screaming, and someone new was coming through the brilliant swirl of green.

Make that some thing , I thought, right before a glowing golden torso the size of a god, because it was one, tore out of nothing, spearing light so bright around the cavern that it forced me to shield my eyes, even while expecting to be torn apart any second.

He must have followed the mages, I thought, my heart thudding as Pritkin dragged me to my feet. He must have traced Jonas’s guys back here. I remembered Zara saying that some of them had a little mind left.

But not us, apparently, as we were pelting straight for the thing!

That was even true of ?subrand, who was being dragged toward the stairs at the far end of the ledge by Alphonse; I didn’t know why. But he was fighting, and Alphonse was punching him in the head. And I didn’t know who to root for because I was kinda with the silver-haired bastard on this one.

We needed to get out of here!

But then the portal cut out in a blinding flare of light, bisecting the creature, who let out a howl of mingled fury and anguish that almost ruptured my eardrums. It echoed in the enclosed space like all the kettledrums in the world, like a thousand banshees, like the beat of my heart, which was threatening to crack through my ribs and drive its way out of my chest. The sound was quite literally stunning, sending me to my knees and stopping the fight between Alphonse and the silver cat, both of whom stopped to stare.

But it didn’t stop the war mages.

Dozens had poured through the portal alongside the creature and were now slamming spells into the massive body in an almost constant barrage. And the ones who had initially fled were already regrouping, were coming back, and were joining the fight with magical shields held out in front of them, not that those were helping much. Because the god was furious, and the great wound where his other half had been was spewing brilliant golden light that ate through shields like acid.

A second later, the creature had recovered, at least enough that mages were being flung in all directions, flying through space to hit the sides of the cavern with sickening smacks. Others were disappearing under volleys of what looked like molten gold, which reduced anything it touched to cinders in less time than it took to blink. People were screaming; spells were ricocheting, and we... were halfway down the steps already.

And then all the way down because we were moving , and the fight was trending away from us and toward the other side of the cavern. Where a thick cluster of mages under heavy shields surrounded Jonas Marsden, who had what looked like a bazooka over his shoulder. One that the old man was swiveling around, was taking aim, was—

“No!” Pritkin screamed, but no one heard him, and anyway, it was too late.

A blast of something that I assumed must be life energy hit the mad god, and okay, yeah. He felt that , I thought, as my whole body was shaken by the howl the creature let out. And by the screams of the trapped necromancers as gold spewed everywhere, a huge burst of it that had half of them melting while a dozen Corpsmen shielded before they went up in flames.

Or maybe not, because the smell of burning pork flooded the air, and my eyes went swimmy because what the hell?

Jonas was yelling orders, magical lassos were being thrown over the writhing remains, and the Gulliver-sized torso with a jagged hole torn through it was being dragged into the middle of the burning circle of necros and—

Strapped down.

“Hope you’re hungry,” Alphonse said as I stared in disbelief. And swiftly decided that passing out seemed like a viable option, but that wasn’t happening.

Pritkin had paused with the rest of us because who wouldn’t pause at that? But he’d just come back to life and started dragging me toward the portal. And then carrying me when I failed to keep up, my feet as stunned as my brain.

“Here, gimme,” Alphonse said, taking me from him. “You guys get that thing working. Cas and I will be right behind you.”

And I guessed that was acceptable because Pritkin, Bodil, a wild-eyed ?subrand, and Enid ran for the portal, and they ran fast.

But not fast enough.

“There!” Jonas’s magically enhanced voice echoed around the space, even louder than the cries of the dying god. “Detain them!”

And, okay, not happening, I thought, groggily trying to run even though I already knew it wouldn’t work. But the coven, which had stayed back with Alphonse and me, wasn’t even trying, and never had I seen five women look more pleased to be facing certain death. Choosing not to fight the Silver Circle all these years had been the smart play, but it had definitely rankled, and now that they had no other choice, they were going all out.

I swear, I heard one of them laugh as the barrage of spells heading for our advanced group was grabbed out of the air by a burst of Coven magic, vivid purple, neon green, and lavender-tinted blue. Some of the witches’ bolts caused the war mage spells to explode mid-air into colorful confetti; others sent them flying back at the mages who had sent them or twisting upward to the ceiling, where they hit hard enough to crack it. And still more were knocked to the floor, plowing up great furrows in the earth and rock and sending shards flying.

But one put the rest to shame, deflecting a combined war mage spell into one of the pens of rank-and-file dark mages, shattering the ward and spilling a mass of motivated fighters into the room.

Most of them were still bound, but a few had managed to get their cuffs off and their gags down, and they set about freeing the others. But Jonas’s mages acted as if they barely noticed, and the old man wasn’t leading his troops so much as scanning the room. And those rheumy eyes must have been sharper than before, sharper than they had any right to be, because he spotted us.

“There! In the shadows by the stairs!”

The cry echoed around the space, followed quickly by another.

“Don’t hit Cassie!” the old man yelled, but too late.

Hedged by a wounded god on one side and a mass of crazed dark practitioners on the other, his mages reflexively sent a barrage at us, and they sent everything they had. All I saw was a wash of color that filled my vision, caught my breath in my throat, and prickled over my skin from half a room away because this...

Was not survivable.