Chapter 42
‘Familiars.’ Tobias nodded at the figures on the other side of the street. ‘And ahead of us as well.’
Ezra shook his head. ‘I don’t care. Let them try and stop me.
’ He wasn’t afraid of them anymore, and he wasn’t going to let anything stand between him and Analise, not when they were so close.
The Familiars didn’t make any move towards them, their eyes tracking him and Tobias as they continued down the street.
Every time he blinked, Ezra saw Lira’s lifeless body and heard Jem’s horrible, gut-wrenching scream.
That wasn’t going to happen to Analise. He wasn’t going to let it.
A handprint of shimmering gold pressed against the door of a townhouse.
‘This is it,’ he told Tobias. The door was locked, and in the time it took Tobias to extract a lock pick from his coat, Ezra was nearly crawling out of his skin.
He shook his head as Tobias crouched by the door, grabbing him by the collar and yanking him backwards.
‘No time,’ he ordered, then drew his pistol and kicked the door in, the lock giving way easily.
Tobias swore as Ezra charged inside. The foyer was cold and dark. There were no signs of a struggle, nothing out of place. It was eerily quiet, the air thick, filled with a strange humming. Ezra could hear his own heartbeat and the rush of blood through his veins.
Analise’s magic decorated a door to the left. Ezra started towards it.
Tobias caught his arm. ‘Wait. Your recklessness will get you killed, Ezra. We need a plan.’
‘I plan not to die,’ Ezra said. Magic oozed from beneath the door, curling into the air like smoke.
Ezra adjusted his grip on his weapon. He exchanged a look with Tobias and for a moment, they were ten years into the past, both of them younger, fresher, keen and eager for a new life.
Ezra took a shaky breath. He needed to remain calm.
Needed to face whatever was beyond that door. He would not break.
The door was unlocked, as if whoever was inside was waiting for them, and they stepped into a room of death. Magic saturated the air, much like the night Ezra found Analise in the morgue, but this wasn’t the controlled, calm magic she’d used on the Familiars in the Order’s basement.
This was chaos.
Power threaded through the air, tendrils of it rising from the three bodies on the floor.
Ezra sucked in a breath.
One of the dead was John, and he recognised the woman who had been following him. Sprawled on her back not far from them, red hair spread like the setting sun, was Analise. Blood was smeared beneath her nose.
‘You came for her,’ said a silken voice. ‘How sweet.’
Ezra froze. He knew that voice.
Sitting in an armchair, cool and casual, was a man in a white suit.
‘Hello, Ezra. I have to say, you’ve disappointed me.’
Before Ezra could say a word, the Devil waved his hand and Tobias was flung out into the foyer, the door slamming shut behind him. The unmistakable clicking of a lock echoed around the room.
Ezra lifted his gun and fired, the bullet flying across the room and embedding itself between Asmael’s eyes. His head flung back, hitting the wall with a sickening crunch. Ezra rushed forward, but before he could reach Analise, laughter cut into him, as sharp as a knife.
Asmael touched his forehead. ‘Good shot.’
He stood, and Ezra stumbled back as a pair of wings, white as snow, exploded from Asmael’s back. Black eyes blazed, and that inhumanely beautiful face was filled with fury. Not a drop of blood tarnished that crisp white suit.
It appeared silver didn’t work on the Devil—and the Devil didn’t appreciate being shot.
He clicked his fingers and Ezra was pulled across the parlour, straight into Asmael’s outstretched hand. Fingers closed around his throat with otherworldly strength and squeezed.
‘You were supposed to belong to me,’ the Devil whispered. ‘I was looking forward to adding your soul to my collection, Ezra Ives.’
‘Tough luck.’
Asmael chuckled. ‘It doesn’t matter. Your life is forfeit. Even she won’t be able to bring you back. I was going to see if she could, but …’
Those fingers tightened. Ezra’s lungs were on fire. He scrabbled desperately at the iron grip around his throat.
He looked down. He’d rather Analise’s face be the last thing he saw than the fallen angel who was delighting in choking the life from him. She was conscious. As their eyes locked, he hoped she could read everything he felt there.
Her lips moved, shaping words Ezra couldn’t hear. The world was darkening around the edges. His feet left the ground. He blinked in time to see Analise lunge forward and close her hand around the Devil’s ankle.
Magic rose in a cloud around her, red and angry and shaped like knives.
It poured into Asmael’s body, cloaking him in the colour of blood.
His face spasmed. The fingers holding Ezra let go and Ezra dropped to his knees, drawing the knife he stashed in his boot as he dressed that night, out of habit and nothing more.
But before he had time to even think about using it, Asmael collapsed.
A cloud of black rose from his body. It hovered in the air for a moment, then shot for the window, the glass shattering as it threw itself into the night.
‘Analise,’ Ezra rasped, dropping the knife and crawling to her side.
She was rippling with magic, and he almost lost his mind waiting for it to fade so he could touch her.
The door splintered as Tobias came smashing into the parlour.
He hurried over, his breathing laboured, bleeding from a deep cut on his forehead.
‘Is she—’
Analise’s eyes were closed. Ezra touched trembling fingers to her throat, forcing himself to be calm, to think. ‘Her pulse is weak.’
Tobias looked around. ‘What the fuck happened in here?’ His gaze fell on the man in the white suit. ‘Who—’
‘Tobias, meet the Devil, or the body he was wearing anyway,’ Ezra said. He slid his arms beneath Analise’s body. ‘I shot him and she … I don’t know what the fuck she did, but it’s nearly killed her.’
It still might.
He lifted her into his arms and stood. Analise groaned, her eyes fluttering open. ‘You came,’ she whispered, and then fainted.
‘Ezra—’ Tobias began.
‘We need to get her back to Charles.’
Tobias didn’t question him, hurrying from the room, saying he’d find a carriage.
Ezra didn’t care if he flexed some Gendarme muscle or stole it. ‘Don’t you dare die on me,’ he told Analise as he carried her from that room of death. He could feel himself starting to crack as he looked at her face.
Not yet, he ordered himself. Not yet.
‘If her heart stops completely, this might not work,’ Charles warned. He was busy connecting a thin copper wire to his battery. ‘If there is no rhythm, there is nothing for the current to attach to.’
‘She brought me back,’ Ezra argued, gently brushing strands of hair from Analise’s forehead. His fingers lingered on her skin. She was so cold.
Charles nodded. ‘What Analise did to you was different, Ezra, because it was magic and not science—she had control over it. I cannot control this current. It will be up to the body itself, and we can only hope it does the job.’
Analise didn’t stir as Charles inserted a long needle into her chest. That needle would touch her heart, which was beating slower with each moment.
Ezra could sense it. He sat beside her where she lay on one of Charles’ benches.
Charles muttered to himself as he connected the wire from the battery to the needle in Analise’s arm.
‘I’ll use a low voltage, enough to give her heart a jolt.’
‘And if it’s not enough?’ Ezra stroked the back of Analise’s hand; her veins stood out like the blue and purple lines on a map. Deep shadows rested beneath her eyes, and her lips were bloodless.
‘It will have to be,’ Charles said, voice brittle. ‘Anything higher could fry her heart, Ezra. I don’t have the right equipment here … I can only do what I can.’
Ezra looked up, feeling someone watching him, but there was no one in the room except for Charles, who was busy with his equipment.
Ezra frowned, then turned his attention back to Analise.
He had no idea where Tobias was, or Jem, or where Lira’s body was.
If this didn’t work… he couldn’t think about it, couldn’t imagine a world without Analise in it.
Charles flicked a switch on the battery. The machine began to hum gently. ‘Ezra,’ he said. ‘You can’t touch her.’
Ezra reluctantly pulled his hand clear. This had to work. It had to. Analise’s body suddenly jolted, her back arching. For a moment, her torso was suspended in the air before she collapsed back onto the bench.
Charles, frowning, touched his fingers to her throat, then returned to the battery, and flicked the switch again. This time, the skin around the needle sizzled as her body arched towards the ceiling, but Analise didn’t open her eyes.
The look on Charles’ face when he checked her pulse again ripped Ezra to pieces. Analise brought him back from the dead. She’d shocked his heart with her magic and ever since he’d been different, like he was constantly charged. His gaze flickered to the battery and back to Analise.
Magic had travelled through her body and into his, and it was still there, fuelling him so much that he barely slept. He didn’t need to eat. He was constantly alert, senses screaming.
It was like he was too alive.
‘Use me,’ he said.
Charles looked up from the battery.
‘Use me. Her magic is inside of me, so use me,’ Ezra repeated. ‘I can feel it—life. Too much of it. You said the human body is like a battery? It needs to be charged—mine is too charged. Pull the extra life out of me and give it to her.’
Charles stared at him.
‘I don’t know the science terms for it,’ Ezra said, frustrated. ‘Can you do it or not?’
Charles turned away, collecting more wires and needles. The battery crouched in the corner of Ezra’s vision. ‘I need your arms bare,’ the alchemist ordered.
Ezra rolled his sleeves up as far as they could go.
‘This will be like being struck by lightning, Ezra,’ Charles warned.
‘There would be risks but, in truth, I don’t know what they are.
I can’t tell you what will happen to you.
The voltage will need to be high enough that it can be pushed through you and into her.
’ He paused. ‘In theory, this should work, but … in reality, it could kill you.’
‘I’ve cheated death twice already,’ Ezra mumbled. ‘Can’t hurt to try again. Hook me up.’
Charles nodded. Gently, the alchemist inserted a needle into Ezra’s forearms, one at a time. Ezra watched Analise’s face as Charles fiddled with the wires. A thin line of copper connected Ezra to the battery, and another to the needle protruding from Analise’s chest.
Charles squeezed Ezra’s shoulder, and positioned himself behind the battery.
Something cold touched Ezra’s arm. When he looked, there was no one beside him. He took a steady breath. ‘Light us up, Charles.’
Charles flicked the switch and the battery hummed.
At first, nothing happened, but then, a bolt of heat slammed through Ezra’s body, travelling quickly through one arm and across his chest before it blazed its way down his other arm.
His heart jolted. He grit his teeth, watching Analise’s face as another blast ripped through him.
The skin opened on his chest, and the smell of burning flesh hung thick around him.
The pain of it … he took a deep breath, let it sink inside him.
Ezra watched the copper wire connecting him to Analise, and breathed a sigh of relief. He could see the magic dancing along the wire like tiny balls of golden light. He was on fire, but it was working. ‘Again.’
Jem hurtled through the door, his face draining of colour. ‘My god.’
‘Don’t touch him,’ Charles cautioned as Jem hurried over. Tobias was close behind him, face pale beneath the bruises that were blossoming on his skin. ‘Don’t touch either of them.’
‘Ez,’ Jem whispered as another bolt of electrical current tore through Ezra’s chest. His heart seized, but kept beating.
He watched the magic slide along the wire; his vision was starting to darken around the edges.
Analise was deathly pale, but her chest rose and fell with a steady breath. ‘Once more,’ he said.
‘Ezra …’ Charles began.
Do you love her?
Ezra jumped as someone whispered in his ear, but there was no one there.
He did though. He knew it because he could feel it in every part of him, like he could feel the last of the magic she’d left there slowly gathering itself to leave his body.
Charles said not to touch her, but Ezra figured that didn’t matter now.
As heat ripped through him, he ran his fingers down Analise’s cheek.
Her flesh was warmer than before and colour was returning to her lips.
‘Don’t you die,’ he whispered. ‘Please.’ Not caring if anyone heard him, he put his mouth close to her ear. ‘You can’t die because I need you. I need you, Analise.’
Her eyelids fluttered.
‘Do it again, Charles,’ Ezra commanded through clenched teeth. His insides, his skin, his organs were burning. As another bolt of blazing heat rippled through him, Analise’s eyes opened.
Blinking, she slowly turned her head.
Ezra managed a smile. A cold hand squeezed his shoulder, and then the world collapsed.