Torn. Part 27

One of the Darklings sprang toward Evangeline, and she moved to meet him, spearing him with the twin p.r.o.ngs on the end, shouting spells nonstop. The leathery black shape simply disintegrated, and the other creatures screeched in outrage as the staff picked up even more speed, the ends blurring as she whirled it around.

"Keep going," Luc shouted over the noise. He turned so that our backs touched, him facing the Darklings and me looking straight at the tangle of glowing lines. I could hear him chanting. The ruby wards shivered in time to the rhythm of his words, and I reached into the storm.

The first touch was like a blow. My head snapped back as it rushed over me, all four types of magic scrambling together and crashing around me in a maelstrom of noise and sensation. The link to Luc surged, steadying me as much as the pressure of his back against mine. I saw one of the Darklings fall and vanish, and the familiar stench rose up.

The floor splintered around me, the noise deafening. I closed my eyes again, trying to hold on to the lines. They felt like thick, smooth rope, the power throbbing just beneath the surface. In places, they were rotting, pits of nothingness spreading rapidly under my fingers. The dark places crumbled, and a more destructive power flowed out, coating my hands with something oily and corrosive. This was the rupture they'd warned me about.

How to fix it? Some part of me clung to my connection to Luc, and I tried to draw on it. Even with my eyes shut, I was hyperaware of him, where he stood, the spells he cast, his strength fueling me. I smoothed away the dark places and watched the line form true again, but it wasn't enough. As fast as I repaired one line, another rotted away. I couldn't keep up. I needed more power than even Luc could give me.

The ring. Powerful enough to attract Darklings, to raise the lines, Evangeline had said it was a tool to repair the magic. It blazed against my hand and I opened myself up to the whirling energy skittering sun-bright across the blue stone.

For a few seconds, it worked. The power contained within the gem careened through my body and ricocheted out into the lines. Triumph surged through me.

And then the darkness turned.

It fed on the magic, growing larger and faster, hungrier as it raced back along the lines, trying to enter me. The line I was repairing slipped away. Everything was slipping away.

"I can't hold it!" I cried.

Behind me Luc swore. The remaining three Darklings were beating against the wards, sending up sparks. The shimmering spells were burning out under the attack, but Luc was putting up new ones as they fell. His breath came faster now; I could feel it matching my own in a strange synchronicity. I gathered myself to try again, dipping my hands back into the ever-widening tumult, bracing myself against the pull of the raw magic.

Evangeline screamed, and I looked up to see a Darkling knock her across the room. She landed with a crack against the ma.s.sive stone window frame. The sparkling blue lights of her wards dimmed, some going out entirely, and she lay immobile on the floor. Luc pulled a set of palm-sized knives from his waist. He whipped them, one after another, at the Darkling, nearly severing the head. It fell next to Evangeline.

"It was working!" he shouted. "What happened?!?"

"I don't know!" Every breath was an effort to keep myself from being sucked farther into the magic. The ruptures scalded me, but the healthy lines felt like a balm against my skin. If I could hold on to one long enough, maybe I could gather the strength to fight off the blackness. "I used the ring, but it's getting worse!"

Luc stumbled as the wards started to fail. "It's feeding the rupture!"

A crash sounded down the hallway-the sound of breaking gla.s.s adding to the chaos.

"Trouble's comin'," Luc called.

A moment later, Kowalski and Colin burst into the room at a dead run, guns drawn, skidding to a stop on the marble floor. Sweat soaked Kowalski's white oxford, and his face was mottled red and gray, his breath coming in pained gasps. "What in the h.e.l.l is going on here?"

"Mo!" Colin took another step and Luc threw out his hand. A line of reddish flame soared up from the floor, forcing the men back. "You okay?"

"Colin, you have to go! It's not safe!"

"What are these things?" Kowalski demanded, training his gun on the Darkling nearest him.

Neither of the two creatures paid Kowalski and Colin any attention-as Luc had told me before, they were drawn to magic, not Flats. As long as Kowalski and Colin didn't get between the Darklings and me, there was a chance-a small, spindly chance-the creatures might not attack them.

The magic was a bigger threat. The rupture was yawning now, slipping out of my control. I tightened my fingers on the lines but they only crumbled faster, the rawness burning through.

"Mo, come on," Colin called. He fired at the Darkling closest to me. It c.o.c.ked its head, its bone white talon still scrabbling at Luc's wards.

"Get out!" Luc roared. It was all the attention he could spare. He was calling fresh spells continuously, his voice ragged, as though the words themselves were inflicting pain on him.

Kowalski fumbled for his radio, but it exploded in a shower of blue sparks.

"It's going," I wailed as Evangeline's wards failed completely, the lights disintegrating to nothingness. "Luc!"

"We have to leave," Evangeline rasped, slowly rising to her knees. She clung to the stone windowsill, blood vivid at the corner of her mouth. "We've failed."

"No! I can do it!" But I couldn't. It was all breaking down too fast, all my worlds crashing together while the magic ruptured, the wards falling around me and the Darklings entering the circle. I couldn't hold the center, and now everyone was in danger.

"We stop now and it all goes," Luc shouted. "We've got to finish it!"

Kowalski eyed me across the wall of deep red flame. "I'm coming to get you, Mo," he said, signaling to Colin. Colin gave a thumbs-up and pulled a second gun from his back, and trained both of them on the Darkling closest to me. Kowalski was eerily calm, moving purposefully toward us while Colin squeezed off shot after shot.

"Give me the ring," Evangeline insisted. "It's all the Darklings care about. They'll follow it, not you."

"I can't get to the magic without it! I won't be able to fix it!"

"The lines have ruptured. They're beyond fixing now. Throw me the ring!"

"The ring caused the rupture! Don't give it to her!" Luc shouted. He'd stepped away to fight one of the Darklings, and I could hear the whooshing sound of the sword slicing through air and connecting with rotten flesh. The familiar stench filled the air. Kowalski kept advancing toward me, nodding encouragement even as his eyes darted wildly around the room.

Evangeline's voice was soft, rea.s.suring under the chaos. "We can hide you again, Mo. We can reestablish the cloaking spell."

I turned toward her, desperate for refuge. Not just for me, but for all of us.

Kowalski paused as Colin reloaded, waiting for his sign before starting forward again. All at once, the Darkling bounded across the room, the floor erupted beneath me, and Luc yanked with all his might on the invisible chain connecting us.

I cleared the explosion by a thread, landing sprawled at Luc's feet.

Kowalski wasn't so lucky. The geyser of raw magic caught him full in the chest and swarmed over his skin, into his skin, lighting him with a horrible brilliance, and then he was a limp blackened ma.s.s on the floor.

I screamed, and Colin raced toward me. The Darkling lit on him with a screech and Luc knocked it back with a pulse of coppery light.

"More Darklings will come," Evangeline said, gasping. "The rupture will draw them. Even if they don't kill us, your friend can't survive here. Give me the ring."

Colin scrambled away from the Darkling, still angling for me. Luc continued to fight. "Mouse! Don't! Trust me!"

"Are you crazy?" The Darkling slashed against Colin's arm and blood poured out. His cry of pain made the decision for me. "We have to get out!"

I pulled the ring from my finger and tossed it to Evangeline in a high arc. The light from the stone was brilliant, even against the magic streaming everywhere. She plucked it out of the air deftly.

"Good girl," she said with a wintry smile.

With a grunt, Luc beheaded his Darkling and sent another bolt toward Colin, just missing him but knocking the other creature back through the window.

Luc shoved me at Colin and whirled away. He sent a stream of red-orange flame down the length of the sword, dead center at Evangeline.

I shrieked.

She deflected the bolt with a casual flick of her staff.

"b.i.t.c.h! You set us up," he hissed, dragging his sleeve across his brow. "You didn't want to stop the Torrent. You wanted to start it."

"What?" I scrambled to my feet. Colin gripped my waist and tried to drag me away, but I fought him, planting my feet and swinging wildly. Without the ring, I could no longer see or feel the lines whipping around the room. I knew they were there, ready to take us both out like downed wires in a storm. If they touched us, we'd be dead. We couldn't move, and we couldn't stay. "She's on our side, Luc!"

He gave me a pitying glance, aiming the sword at her again. Dark red flames pulsed along the blade, barely restrained. "She lied to us. From the start. She's part of the Seraphim, Mouse. h.e.l.l, maybe she's the leader."

Evangeline tilted her head, admiring the ring held delicately between her index finger and thumb. "Not the leader, Lucien. Nothing so grand. Any service to the cause is a glory and a privilege. How did you know?"

"You shouldn't have said my old man was on board. He would never try to do an end-run around the prophecy."

"Yes, Dominic cleaves to the old ways, doesn't he? It's certainly cost him enough, yet he follows the prophecy as slavishly as any. Still, the Quartoren could have overruled him."

He snorted. "Like that would ever happen. You lied about the Quartoren. You played Mouse like a f.u.c.kin' Stradivarius, with all your talk about what Verity would have done. You knew she'd do anything if you dressed it up like that. You told her to open up the most powerful group of lines you could find and asked her to do a patch job.

"Got that, Mouse? She asked you to do open-heart surgery with a Band-Aid and a b.u.t.ter knife. Now it's in motion, right? Just like you wanted."

"We thought removing Verity would ensure the Torrent would occur unchecked. But when the ring responded to Mo, we knew we hadn't been entirely successful." She gave me a contemptuous glance. "You were so weak. Pathetic, really, with all your noisome talk of justice and grief. We didn't think you were truly a threat. Why reveal ourselves when we could simply allow you to fail?

"When you completed the binding, we realized we'd looked at it from the wrong perspective. The Torrent needed the Vessel in order to begin, so we turned you to our own ends. Here you are, present at the hour the Torrent has begun, the one that made it possible. And without the ring, you have no way to reach the magic again. You've done us quite a service, Mo."

"You killed Verity." My stomach heaved and I staggered, feeling Colin's arms around me. His voice sounded like a dream, urging me away.

"I tried to talk my betters out of it. I believed she could be swayed to our position, but I was unsuccessful. She asked for time to think, and insisted she return home. As if she could run from us. My superiors suspected she was planning to inform the Quartoren, and we couldn't allow that. As I told you once, sometimes one must do unpleasant things for the greater good." She turned those awful, pale eyes on me. "Lucien, for example, bound himself to a poor subst.i.tute for the girl he was meant to have. Ultimately useless, I grant you, but honorable in its way."

The flames on Luc's sword blazed brighter. "Give the ring back."

She laughed. "I don't believe I shall. You're welcome to try to take it, Lucien, but your Flats won't last much longer here."

He paused, glancing uncertainly at the floor around me. I couldn't see the lines, but I knew they must be inching closer, sliding out of control.

"Oh, Lucien. You do struggle, don't you, when you must act for yourself instead of the prophecy? It's quite sad." She shook her head, palming the ring. "The Torrent has begun. More Darklings are coming. Feel free to give chase-all it will cost you is Mo."

And then she vanished.

A roar I knew too well was building, Darklings coming Between in waves. Luc stood in the ruined center of the circle, looking utterly defeated. Colin pulled me toward him, and I'd run out of strength to fight. Blood soaked his shirt, dripping onto the floor, and his face was white with shock. "We have to get you out, Mo. The police are coming."

"Luc?" I said, taking a step toward him, not caring about the lines.

He stared at the place Evangeline had stood, sword held loosely in his hand, his expression ravaged. "We lost."

"We can't fight them," I said, tugging on his hand. "We have to go."

High above us, the Darklings battered the tower. I reached for him as bricks and mortar began to shower down. "Luc, please!"

He slung his sword over his back and stepped toward me and Colin, taking us Between and away from the swarm of Darklings.

We landed on a nearby roof. The sand-colored limestone of the Water Tower was covered with hordes of Darklings, more than I could have imagined in this or any other world.

"Kowalski," I said softly. "He's still inside."

"The cops will be here soon," Colin said. "They can't find us here."

"What do we do?" Blood was still pouring from Colin's arm. I stripped off my sweater and pressed it against the b.l.o.o.d.y gash, trembling violently.

Luc stared at the tower. "How do we stop them?" I asked, over the howling wind.

"We bury it," he said.

He raised his hands and closed his eyes, and the now-familiar language of spells poured forth, stronger and angrier and harsher than I'd ever heard before.

With a giant whooshing sound, an explosion rocketed up beneath the Water Tower. The entire structure trembled and collapsed into rubble. Flames licked at the base, like an echo of the fire it had survived over a century ago.

"My G.o.d," I breathed. "Why . . ."

"They'd feed on the magic," he said furiously. "They'd get stronger and devour everyone in their way. I sealed it as best I could. My father and his people can finish the job. Not that it matters now. We're only gonna have a few days before it all goes." He rounded on me. "Why did you give her the ring?"

"She said it was the only way to save us!"

"And I said I'd protect you!"

"From the minute we walked in there, you were saying I wasn't strong enough. You didn't even want me to try!"

"You weren't ready! But there you go, throwing yourself in 'cause Evangeline says that's what Verity would do. You don't know what she would've done. n.o.body does!"

"So I shouldn't even try, right? Everybody knows I can't really take her place. I wasn't ever going to be enough. You even told me that, but I was too stupid and crazy about you to listen!" To my horror, hot tears sprang up and my voice cracked. I pressed the sweater more firmly against Colin's arm, trying to get myself under control.

Luc gaped at me. "Christ, Mouse! This isn't about Verity anymore! I didn't want her, and I didn't want you to be her. I never wanted you to be her, and h.e.l.l if I didn't knock myself out tryin' to make you see that. We weren't ready, but you listened to Evangeline instead of me. I knew once we started, we couldn't pull out, but you wouldn't listen to me again. And then you gave her the ring? If you had listened to me-trusted me-we would have had a shot."

He shook his head in disgust. "You want to know what Verity would have done? She would have honored her d.a.m.n promise. She would have held on to the ring and trusted her partner, not some shriveled-up old bat who promised an easy out. She would have been the person she was supposed to be, not run away from it 'cause it was hard. Too much to ask from you, I guess. And now everything's ruined, sure as that building over there."

His words knocked me back as hard as any blow from Evangeline, but my anger gave me the strength to lash back. "Welcome to the club! You and your stupid destiny have been ruining my life since before I even met you!" I shouted, wanting to hurt him as badly as he'd hurt me. "You've taken my best friend and my future, you're burning down my city, and I've nearly died more times than I can count! I went in there tonight knowing the magic could kill me, and I went anyway. And you let me. You've been manipulating me since day one, Luc. Why would I trust you?"

"Because we are bound, Maura Fitzgerald. Doesn't matter what you think of it, who you love, what you're scared of-anybody in the world you can trust, it's the one you're bound to. h.e.l.l, yes, you're supposed to trust me." He stopped, stared at the remains of the Water Tower, and turned to me again, naked desperation in his voice. "Maybe it's not too late. We could try again. . . ."

The thought of opening myself up to the acid burn of raw magic again, letting it eat away at me, made me nearly retch. I'd seen it kill Kowalski, had felt it reaching for me before Luc yanked me back. Trying again would mean my life. And for what? He'd just admitted I wasn't enough.

Colin's face was gray with pain and shock. Suddenly he sagged against me, his weight nearly toppling us both. I staggered, trying to keep upright. We needed to leave.

"I tried, Luc. I really did. But I'm not the one you need." He looked stricken, lost, and my heart broke for him a little bit, in spite of everything. "I'm so sorry. But . . . I can't. I just can't."

CHAPTER 26.