Chapter 11
Rosabel La Rouge
Not ready, I am not ready; not ready, I am not ready— my mind spun with the thought, and by the time we were on the other side of that mountain, the voice in my head screamed it until I felt those words on every inch of my body.
I was not ready to be here.
But that was nothing new, was it? I wasn’t ready; of course, I wasn’t. I’d been an agent for a year and a half and none of the missions I’d been on even came close to this. None of the people we’d had to fight against even came close to Hill and what he was trying to do— of course I am not ready!
But that didn’t mean I couldn’t win.
That’s what I told myself. I wasn’t ready for the training academy or to take on the job of an agent when I did; I wasn’t ready to be Mud; I wasn’t ready to survive and win the Iris Roe, or to undo the Devil’s Regah chamber. And most importantly I was never ready to lose Taland over and over—but I did. I did all of those things, and here I was now.
Just because I am not ready doesn’t mean I won’t win.
My thoughts slowly changed as I took in the sight in front of me, and it was incredible how much power I had when I decided to take it. It was incredible how I could control my heartbeat with a simple thought when I chose to not let the panic and the anxiety control me. I was here now and there was no going back. It was time to assess my surroundings and fight until I couldn’t anymore.
Laughter.
The sound of it echoed in the bowl valley between the mountains that had looked a bit smaller on the screen. Those excavators on the other side had dug about fifty feet deep searching for those skeletons.
Meanwhile, they were standing on the other side of them, and even though I couldn’t see them from here yet, I knew they were there.
So was Hill atop that landing farther up than I’d realized. So were his men wearing white, spread everywhere around us.
And so was Alejandro Ammiz, sitting on the same place—and the laughter was coming from him.
“Greetings! Welcome, welcome!” he shouted, waving his hands up and down and to the sides, as if he thought we might not see him.
All of us spread out in a line, and the soldiers who’d guided us here were already getting closer to where the ground began to descend into that hole.
“We’ve been waiting for you!” said the Devil, his voice echoing a million times. “Tell them, David! We’ve been waaaaiiiting! ”
Goose bumps down my arms. I looked at Taland and he winked at me, an easy smile on his face, like always, though I knew him well enough to realize he was calculating distances and trying to come up with a plan of action just by the look in his eyes.
“Our goal is simple—either apprehend or kill David Hill and Alejandro Ammiz, and whoever else gets in your way. Just don’t let them bring those skeletons to life,” Helen said as she stepped forward, her hair wrapped behind her head, her dark grey leather suit zipped up to her neck.
“Safe to say he doesn’t have another bracelet. That’s the first good news,” Radock said, putting on black leather gloves.
“The second is that those skeletons hopefully will break easy,” said Zachary.
“I’m going after Hill,” said Aurelia.
“So am I,” I said because I already had an idea of how to run all around the edges of the valley to get to that mountain and start climbing. The rocks had a lot of sharp edges. Should be easy enough, I thought.
“Good luck,” Helen said, and without another glance our way, she ran.
She ran and jumped straight into the bowl just as the gunshots began all around us—from both behind and ahead. Snipers.
The IDD soldiers and Hill’s men were trying their luck with bullets first.
Taland pulled up my hand and kissed the back of it. “Let’s kill David Hill.”
I rose on my tiptoes and kissed him on the lips. “He has no chance.”
I didn’t actually believe in the words I said, but I ran. Together with Taland, I followed Aurelia and Zach all around the edge of the bowl. They had probably made the same calculations and figured that this was the easiest way to that mountain.
We would make it, I thought. There were soldiers maybe fifty feet ahead, who didn’t bother with guns but were waiting for us with wands and bones in their hands, but it was nothing we couldn’t handle.
Except…
The explosion came out of nowhere. The ground shook and groaned, and a wave of energy slammed onto my side so hard it was impossible to push back even if I had seen it coming. It picked me up and threw me to the side like I weighed no more than a feather, and then I was falling. The view in front of me moved, and I flew and I fell and I was too shocked to scream, but I realized what had happened even before I hit the ground. They’d planted an explosive spell somewhere on the ground, and we must have activated it when we ran past it.
Now all four of us were in the air—and we crashed against the soil in the bowl almost at the same time.
Goddess, it hurt. I fell on my side and it felt like my shoulder caught fire and my neck snapped and broke, and then I continued to roll and roll until I was at the very bottom, all my insides trying to come right out of my mouth.
Get up, get up, GET UP! my mind shouted at me, and I did. My body moved on pure instinct and I was on my feet even before I knew I could stand and even before I could actually see my surroundings.
A hundred blinks later, the view cleared. I did see, and somehow, I could keep standing. Taland was beside me, taking my hand in his, the other raised as he chanted furiously—putting up another ward around us.
“The fucker planted them all over,” Aurelia said from my other side as she helped Zach to his feet, and she was right. We were looking at where Helen and Radock had been leading the group to the skeletons of the Delaetus Army, and they’d been met with an explosion, too.
And all around the edges of the dug-up valley, IDD soldiers were fighting Hill’s men already.
For a moment, it all felt like a dream. Everything had happened so fast, and that fall was like a wakeup call shaking me awake to what was really going on around me, all that blood that was being spilled, all that magic hanging in the air, making it almost too thick to breathe.
“Hey, you’re okay,” Taland said, pulling my hand to get my attention—and I was. By some miracle the fall hadn’t hurt me too much. My shoulder still throbbed, but I wasn’t bleeding and I could move just fine.
“I am,” I said and focused on him for a moment. He was slightly bleeding in the corner of his lips, but he seemed to be okay, too. He was putting away a gigantic raven feather in his pocket that shone with all imaginable colors under the bright sunlight. “Need a healing spell?”
“Nope. Good as new,” he said, looking up at the mountains, at that landing that protruded from the side of it, atop which was Hill.
“C’mon, weaklings. Race you to the top!” Zachary called as he started running up the steep incline of the valley right where we’d fallen, and Aurelia followed.
“Ready?” Taland asked, and I nodded even if I wasn’t. But we were here now, and we were going to make the best of it.
Together, we ran.
The soil was slightly wet and stuck to my boots, but it also made it a bit easier to climb all the way up the edge again. By then I no longer really expected to make it to Hill or even the Devil who was still smoking his cigar sitting on that rock, grinning at us. Aurelia and Zach were already fighting a group of soldiers who’d been waiting for us.
I started chanting even before I made it up the edge behind Taland. He’d pushed back the two soldiers from the bigger group a bit farther away fighting the Mergenbachs. The soldiers had been throwing their Bluefire at us—standard combat spells, which meant these guys were trained in the academy, too. Hill had taken them from the IDD.
My bracelet heated up and my magic rushed down my arm—faster than ever before, it seemed to me. I could have sworn that the more strongly I felt about any given situation, the more magic I had access to, and right now I was thankful. For the fear and for the thrill that went through me when I raised my hand forward and aimed it at the soldiers.
Eleven of them. Eleven were fighting the siblings and Taland, who, when he saw me chanting and aiming my hand, shouted, “ Get down!”
Flames full of colors burst out of me just as they moved their heads down. My magic shot forward, so bright even in the sunlight, and slammed against the soldiers like it was something solid, pushed them back and threw them to the ground much like that explosion had thrown us down the valley.
Power hummed in my veins, raw power.
“Let’s go!” Aurelia shouted when the colors faded and all those soldiers we’d been fighting remained on the ground, still trying to get up.
We didn’t bother with them, though. We just kept on running toward that mountain, and more soldiers dressed in white were waiting for us, but I wasn’t afraid. There simply was no room for fear in my mind— surviving required all my focus.
We clashed with the second group of soldiers, and the others we’d left behind would be on us soon, too. At least most of them. The magic might have broken a few ribs, but it hadn’t killed them. I’d used a third-degree, but right now I was thinking I wanted to go with fourth-degree spells only because I could. Because all those colors that were buzzing inside me could absolutely handle it.
“Go, go, go!” Zachary said as he pointed his wand at the group of eight soldiers throwing spells at us from a distance, clashing onto our wards.
“C’mon!” Aurelia called, waving for us to follow her while Zach kept the soldiers back with his bright blue flames, the halo over his head unwavering.
“Just keep running, baby. I got your back. Keep your focus forward,” Taland said while we ran, and I believed him. I heard him chanting and throwing his magic behind, and I assumed the soldiers were already on us, but I kept my eyes ahead on Aurelia as she ran, closer and closer to the edge of the mountain, to another group of ten soldiers who were waiting for us with their hands raised.
How many more of them would there be? I wondered, my ears already used to the screams and shouts and the sound of bodies slamming against the ground.
Goddess, this was worse than the Iris Roe.
“Move aside!” I called at Aurelia as she ran, and she did, just as another blast of blue flames left her wand and slammed onto the group of soldiers, who were under a stronger ward than their friends. No matter. I was already chanting my second spell—a fourth degree energy blast this time, and I had my hand raised and ready.
They all tried to attack me, too, and a couple even fired their guns at me, but the bullets fell before they reached me. And my magic charged at them like a vicious animal full of colors that faded before the blast slammed onto them, picked them up and threw them against the rocks of the mountain at their back—and not only that. It made the entire mountain shake and groan, and it made the Devil laugh out loud like he’d just witnessed a damn miracle.
Meanwhile Aurelia cheered. “Woohoo!” then proceeded to chant another spell to hit someone behind us. I turned for a second, but all I saw were the blue flames of her spell, and the black ones of Taland.
“Don’t die!” Aurelia told me, pointing her index finger at me like she was ordering me.
I could have laughed.
“Keep your eyes ahead. We’ll cover you,” Taland called, and I did. More than that—I was starting to feel ready, like maybe being here wasn’t a complete disaster. Like I could actually make a difference in this fight and not hold anybody back—I already had! Those soldiers were down, and the ones who’d tried to get to their feet again had already met Aurelia’s magic, and even Zach was running toward us again, having beaten the soldiers that he’d stopped to fight, too.
Hope —such a beautiful, terrifying thing. It took over me, fell around my shoulders, wrapped around me like it had arms, clung to me as I ran. More soldiers dressed in white came from the side of the mountain, but I was climbing because Taland reminded me to keep my eyes up. He and Aurelia, and even Zach took care of the rest, and I saved my energy and I looked upward—right at the face of the Devil who had stood up and thrown his cigar away. It finally felt like he was taking us seriously, at least enough to stand and wait, prepare himself.
I had no illusion that he’d be as easy to get through as those soldiers. I had no doubt that his wards would be much more problematic to break. His wouldn’t be standard protocol wards that all IDD soldiers and agents used—no, his would be personal and stronger, but my magic? Those fourth-degree spells that I seemed to be able to push out of me with the same ease as Madeline did?
They would be hard to keep back, and he knew it.
That’s why he stopped laughing and started chanting when I was still only halfway to him.
I was right—the rough surface and the sharp edges of the rocks made it fairly easy to climb, but the Devil could see me from where he stood just fine, and so when he raised his hand toward me and chanted his spell, there was nowhere I could hide or get out of his way.
My wards were about me, two that I’d made with the bracelet, so I had hope that they would hold against his magic as well as they held against bullets. But even so, I raised my arm in front of my face on instinct when his Blackfire shot out of his hand and came for me lightning fast. A scream built up in me and stuck in my throat, and the taste of his magic coated my tongue, even though I felt no pain and my wards held back the worst of it.
Still, the effect of his magic vibrated on my skin, and I knew that if he kept at it, I wasn’t going to be able to withstand it forever. That’s why I forced myself to keep moving, even while he chanted his second spell, this one longer, and I had a plan. I was going to let him do his spell, hit me with it this time, too, while I got closer. The smaller the distance between us, the more effective my magic would be. And hopefully, when he hit me with the second spell, I’d be ready and close enough to unleash mine on him.
So, when his magic slammed onto my wards for the second time, it was much more powerful, indeed, definitely a fourth-degree, and it was a miracle I managed to hold onto the edges of the rocks. The Devil was done playing around, and if he hit me with that same spell again, my wards were going to shatter, and I was going to feel the full strength of his magic.
That’s why I was chanting even before I blinked the stars away from my vision—and he did, too. Except he chanted out loud, and he was going for another fourth-degree, but so was I, and I was going to complete my spell faster. But I kept my head down while I whispered so he didn’t see it, didn’t know what I was preparing, couldn’t protect himself as well as he should have.
I only raised my head and my hand toward him when I was on the last words of the spell, and colorful flames were already taking shape on the palm of my hand, my magic so eager to come out of me, to destroy, it would have scared me any other day. As it was, I watched the colors shoot for the Devil, and I’d never forget the look in his eyes when he realized he couldn’t move away in time.
No smile on his lips. His eyes widened and he still tried to step back, but my magic was faster. It hit him straight in the face, and of course his wards protected him, but the sheer force of my magic pushed him back a couple steps, then knocked him down on that rock, too.
Go, go, go, go, I kept repeating to myself, as if that was going to make me move faster.
Behind me Taland was already climbing together with Zach, while Aurelia still fought a few soldiers who were left standing. Goddess, I only looked back for a second, and when I saw the bloodbath and the trail of bodies we’d left behind, I was fucking sick to my stomach.
Then I had no choice but to focus on pulling myself up to stand on that rock where the Devil was struggling to make it to his feet.
My legs shook a little and my arms hurt, too, from the climbing. My fingers were bloody, but I still raised my hand at him, prepared to chant.
Before I could, Taland put his over my forearm. “Save your energy,” he said, his eyes focused on the Devil.
“Move out of my way!” Zachary called, and we stepped to the side to let him up. The guy was smiling, and he sounded cheerful, and Aurelia was coming up fast behind him, too, laughing like the Devil had been doing until now.
“We got this,” Zach said, wand raised at the Devil who was on his feet already, pretending to dust off his pants as he watched us and smiled. But it wasn’t a real smile—it was one he forced himself to keep on because he was afraid.
Oh, he was afraid, all right. And to see that fear in him boosted my hope even more.
“Go ahead, keep climbing,” said Aurelia. She had a cut on her cheek that was bleeding but seemed perfectly fine otherwise. And focused on the Devil.
“Have fun, friends,” said Taland, pulling me to the other side so we could continue to climb higher.
“Oh, that’s awfully rude of you. You don’t think I’m worth the effort?!” said the Devil, and when his Blackfire shot out of both his hands at the same time, the entire mountain seemed to shake in its foundation again. Even though the magic didn’t reach us—both Zach and Aurelia were already countering it with their Bluefire that had spread like a shield in front of them—the ground was uneven enough that I couldn’t keep my balance. I fell on all fours, and so did Taland.
Before I could get back up, I looked.
I looked out into the valley, and all the hope I’d felt swelling in my chest until now faded away.
Here I’d thought that Helen and Radock and the others had already killed every soldier that stood in their way and they’d already ruined the bones of the Delaetus Army, but I was wrong. They were still fighting, and the ground beneath their feet seemed to be loaded with fucking mines because it kept exploding and throwing them off the closer they got to the Army, and the more of those soldiers they took to the ground.
Holy shit, they were bloodier than we were, slower, covered in dirt. The skeletons were still there—and Hill was still up on that landing.
“Move!” Aurelia screamed at us, and Taland was already pulling me to my feet, basically throwing me against the rocks. The Devil’s magic came at them again, and Aurelia and Zach stepped in front of me to act as a shield. For a moment, Zach looked back and his nose was bleeding, probably from the sheer pressure of the magic he held back with his own, and in his eyes, I saw that same hope that had faded from me just a moment ago.
“Go!” he said, but I didn’t hear his voice over the screams in my own head, only read the word on his lips.
I turned to the rocks again and I started climbing with Taland right behind me.
Don’t look, don’t look, don’t look, I was telling myself now because if I looked down and saw that the Devil was winning, I might lose my grip on these rocks. If I turned to find out why he was laughing— again —I was afraid I’d have no choice but to get down there myself and make sure he died.
Why the fuck was he laughing still? Could he not see that he couldn’t win?
Who says he can’t win? said the ugly voice in my head, and it was a bloody battle up there in my mind.
“Keep going. Keep going,” Taland said, as if he could tell that I was struggling and I needed his voice to keep me grounded. In the moment. To make me hope again simply because if these men won, they’d kill us. They’d kill Taland, and that just wasn’t acceptable. I’d never allow it, hope or no hope.
These men could not— would not win.
Even though the thought didn’t clear my head all the way like I hoped, I was able to focus on moving my limbs faster, getting up there in time so that I could kill David Hill and put an end to this bullshit once and for all. No more threats—couldn’t I just have that? One day and month and year without fearing for my life or the life of my loved ones. That’s it, that’s all I wanted, and only David Hill was standing in my way.
It took us a while to climb all the way to him, and not only because the surface of the mountain wall became smoother, with less edges to hold onto, and steeper as we went, but he was higher up than I’d realized. Blood on my fingers and my limbs were screaming in protest, my muscles aching, but I kept going.
Ignoring the sound of the battles around me, I kept on climbing until I could see the edge of that landing, and I could see Hill kneeling up there with those eggs in front of him in my mind’s eye, too.
“Just a little more, baby,” Taland said. He was just as breathless as me, but he refused to stop, too. I had no idea for how long we climbed, but he never once fell behind or stopped to take a breath.
Until finally, I gripped the edge of the landing and pulled myself onto it, and he followed. We were both on our stomachs, breathing heavily, and when we looked up, we finally saw Hill—standing. Chanting.
That’s when we realized that we were too late.