The Heart of a Monster: The Complete Series

Chapter 29

Quinn

My voice tore up my throat as I backed away from Rollick, my hand clutched unwillingly around my crossbow. “Listen to me, not him. You belong to me.” At least, that’s what I thought I was saying in the eerie syllables that spilled from my mouth with a rush of power.

But it didn’t matter. The villain’s magic was already fighting its way into the demon’s brain, and my own power bounced off him like it had their minions.

Rollick clamped his other hand to his ruddy temple, his claws digging into his own skin to set off tiny plumes of smoky essence.

“No,” he snarled under his breath. “You’re not having me. No.”

I hurled another command with my sorcery at him, but it didn’t connect. At the same time, the thing at the front of the building gave another bellow that seemed to rock the demon on his feet. It must have been driving its influence in even farther.

Rollick’s body swayed on his cloven hooves. A tremor ran through his body. He squeezed his eyes shut, his jaw flexing, the turmoil inside him as he struggled wafting from him into me.

I stood rigid, my crossbow half raised, my hand moving automatically to reload it again, although I found it hard to imagine shooting him.

This couldn’t come to that, right? He was a millennia-old demon. Even if our opponent was a little more ancient, a little more powerful, sorcery wasn’t its natural talent, only something it’d borrowed.

But then, you could say the exact same thing about me.

Rollick swung his head toward me. His penetrating eyes smoldered with rage… and what I knew was a flicker of fear. The most assured being I’d ever known wasn’t totally sure he could fight this off.

“Go back to the booth,” he rasped at me. “Get ready to do what you have to do once he’s here. You shouldn’t be near me like this. I?—”

Another roared phrase echoed through the room, and Rollick snapped his mouth shut. I backed up toward the short hall with the booth, but my stomach twisted with queasiness.

Did he expect me to set off the trap with him still in the room? Why hadn’t I cast my own sorcery on him ahead of time?

I would have if we’d known early enough that this fiend was on its way, but we’d been too caught up in the fighting—and I’d been too afraid of my powers to insist on that protection up front.

And my refusal to fully accept what I was and what I could do might mean the death of one of the men I’d come to care for in ways I’d once doubted were even possible.

I stopped by the entrance to the hallway, ready to bolt for the booth if Rollick turned on me, willing more of my sorcerer energy to swell up inside me with a surge of the newfound exhilaration it could bring. I’d broken the villainous duo’s hold on other shadowkind—but this monster was pummeling Rollick with his influence right in front of me, far fresher than anything I’d shattered before.

It wasn’t coming into the trap either, I realized. My sense of it still quivered over my skin with an unsettling tingle, but it hadn’t pushed closer since I’d first felt it shoving into the building. The floor had stopped trembling, the walls stopped groaning.

It must suspect that I had something else up my sleeve. It was hoping to use my companion to finish me off where its own minions had failed.

Maybe I was focusing on the wrong monster here. The thing that was assaulting Rollick with its magic didn’t have any sorcery on it for me to break. I didn’t know it the way I did my men, but I’d compelled less powerful higher shadowkind.

I had to try.

I dragged in a breath and shouted toward the entrance of the building as forcefully as I could. The sorcerous words hurtled up my throat with a crackle of electricity. I focused all my attention on the vast, ominous presence at the front of the building.

Do as I say. Come toward me. Leave my companions alone.

For just a second, I thought I had it. I had the impression of my influence catching on the massive being like the tug of a fishing line when a fish has just taken the bait. But however much I’d hooked it, the next second, it slipped free, shaking off my energy.

My shoulders slumped, my chest heaving as I recovered from the effort I’d put into that spell. I’d thrown enough of myself into that command and the ones I’d aimed at Rollick that even the exhilaration of my enhanced magic was dwindling into exhaustion.

Rollick spun and staggered toward the side wall. He smacked his head into it, his horns digging into the drywall, as if he thought he could propel the fiend’s influence out of his skull through physical force.

It didn’t seem to be working. He shook himself with a furious growl, and the flare of emotion that hit me was laced with hopelessness.

My sense of his inner state was fading. The sorcery was dulling his resistance and the emotions that came with it. How much longer did we have before he succumbed completely?

I’d given everything I had to my attempt to control the monster that still hadn’t entered the trap room. If even that hadn’t worked?—

My gaze stalled on the trickles of smoke trickling from the scratches Rollick had carved into his face. A memory hit me of being pinned beneath him in the back of his car, that cloudy essence coursing down my throat—and waking up all kinds of unearthly energies in me.

There was more smoke pouring up all throughout the room from the bodies of the minions we’d killed. Minions the creature that threatened us had compelled and forced to carry out his orders.

They were the closest things to a connection to the beast itself that I could get.

A wave of horror washed over me at the thought that’d just unfurled in my head, but I shoved it away as I dashed across the floor toward the nearest fallen creature—the torso of the polar-bear-ish thing.

It didn’t matter if the idea sickened me. It didn’t matter if this act took me farther down a path I’d never wanted to be on in the first place. My men were willing to be total monsters for me, so I shouldn’t shy away from any bit of monstrousness if it meant saving one of them—maybe all of them. Maybe the whole city around me as well, and who knew what else.

When I looked at it that way, it was a minor sacrifice. I wouldn’t be around all that long to regret whatever the act did to me anyway.

I threw myself to my knees beside the smoking torso and dropped my head to its ragged ends. Opening my mouth wide, just an inch from the disintegrating flesh, I inhaled the deepest breath of the stuff that I could.

The essence flowed into my lungs and sizzled through the rest of my body, waking up the chaotic sensations I’d felt with Rollick’s. But they were familiar now, less stupefying now that I recognized them.

I was in control. I was deciding to take this step. I was a sorcerer, and I’d take in all the power I could.

I gulped mouthful after mouthful of the acrid essence as quickly as I could. A thump and a dwindling snarl from behind me told me that Rollick was still fighting, but continuing to weaken with every passing moment. I drank in another waft and another, every nerve lighting up with the wildness of the shadowkind—and then I yanked myself upright.

Electricity seemed to sizzle over every inch of me. I wouldn’t have been surprised to catch a glimpse in a mirror and see my body lit up with a vicious glow.

“Go to the back door,” I yelled at Rollick, hoping he had enough will left to manage that much even without my magical compulsion, hoping he’d listen if he did. I sucked in one more lungful of the essence and focused on all the energy zinging through my veins.

I was powerful. I was invincible. I was a monster, and nothing could stop me.

Then I flung the full force of my renewed power at the monster lurking beyond the room.

The words tore my vocal cords as they burst out of me, leaving my throat raw. Do as I say. Come toward me and show yourself. Leave my friends alone. I battered the presence in front of me with every shred of strength I had in me.

My legs wobbled, but with a burst of joy, I felt the hook snag deep. The fiend moved, finally. My awareness of its immensity expanded as it trudged toward me, its steps thundering over the floor.

“Keep coming!” I shouted at it, every particle of my body quivering. “All the way in.”

The doorway at the far end of the room shuddered and split—but we’d been prepared that these massive beings might not fit. The beast that shouldered into the room past the chunks of wood that fell around it was nearly as tall as the ceiling and half as wide as the entire space.

It looked like a cross between a hippo and an ox—if ten times more immense than either of those animals would have been. Its rounded snout opened to reveal a gaping maw of crooked teeth. Curved horns protruded forward at an aggressive angle from its forehead. Each of its hooves on its thick legs, solid rather than cloven like Rollick’s, was wide enough around to stamp me flat.

Bristly hair sprung from all across the thick, wrinkled hide that covered its broad body. A smell like the darkest, deepest cavern wafted off of it, sending a chill through me.

This must be the behemoth.

He was still coming, step after heavy step. I whirled around and saw Rollick stumbling by the back hallway, still clutching his head and shaking it. Throwing caution to the wind, I ran at him and shoved him forward.

“Go, go, go!” I screamed, and more of my amped up magic seared through my voice with the command. I didn’t manage to break the behemoth’s hold on him, but I felt it crack. With a ragged breath, Rollick lurched on down the hall.

He stopped by the door, waiting for me. I glanced back at the beast heaving himself into the room, my pulse racing.

I could only be sure of our victory if it made it all the way inside so the trap would fully spear it. Come on.

The behemoth pawed the linoleum, and a spark of fear jittered through me. Was he throwing off my influence?

“Get in here,” I screeched at him, not caring what I sounded like as long as the sorcery reverberated through my voice. My body outright shook with the energy jittering out of me. “Come all the way in now.”

My fingernails dug into my palms, but the behemoth pushed farther forward. I spotted the flick of his tail behind its haunches as its rear end finally passed the larger entrance he’d smashed into the far wall.

He was in. We could do this.

My triumph was muted by the panic still blaring through me. Every part of me was aware that the thing just ten feet away from me was powerful enough to squash me like a flea.

I ducked into the booth and slammed my hand on the red button. Then I bolted for the back door.

Gears squealed. A vicious light flared in Rollick’s eyes, and he swung one clawed hand toward me. Moving only on instinct, I threw myself forward, ducking down at the same time, and rammed my side into his legs to propel him into the door.

We hadn’t bothered to lock it, since no being should have been able to touch it anyway. As it popped open with the force of the impact, we both tumbled onto the sidewalk outside. Crag grabbed my shoulders an instant later, but my gaze was glued to the scene at the other end of the short hall.

The silver and iron blades slammed forward simultaneously. They lanced into the behemoth’s body from all sides, slicing into his abdomen, his neck, his skull. A groan loud enough to shake the pavement in the alleyway where I stood resonated from his throat. A vast cloud of smoke exploded from his form. He twisted once, twice…

And then he sagged between the weapons that’d skewered him, the presence I’d felt snuffing out like a forest fire doused by a downpour.