Chapter 26
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Kit
Three months ago, I was dangling my feet off the end of a pier at a marina in Copenhagen, the water black under the night sky and the seaside quiet.
I’d arrived on the last ferry out of Oslo, having taken a circuitous route to Denmark after escaping New York.
I was as alone as I’d ever been in my life, crumpling under the weight of my new reality.
Shivering on that pier, I stared down at my palm, barely visible in the inky night. Drawing my tattered concentration together, I imagined an itty-bitty Fwoosh warp. I visualized it in exhaustive detail, more detail than I gave to most warps, and then I willed it into existence.
Heat tickled my hand. With a sputtering spark, a Calcifer-sized fireball came to life, dancing merrily on my palm. It was a little wobbly and fluttery, threatening to fizzle out at the first sign of a strong breeze—but it was real.
My first intentional use of Elementaria.
Now, as I watched Kade admire his own wobbly, fluttery fireball, I saw the same rapturous satisfaction I’d felt on that pier. The same pride in shattering the definition of “impossible.”
And I knew.
That unexceptional flame didn’t come from an artifact or a spell. It wasn’t a trick, illusion, or sleight of hand.
Kade was using Elementaria for the first time—just as I had.
What the fuck had that spell done?
“Good,” Commissioner Sparks barked, pushing past one of Kade’s jackboots. “I’m next.”
Next?
“Not anymore,” another man in a ten-thousand-dollar suit snapped, shouldering in front of Sparks and preventing him from stepping onto the array where Kade stood. “Druthers was supposed to be first.”
Sparks gave his Consilium counterpart a cold glare. “So, it was his son instead. Nothing has changed. We still follow the determined order, and that means I receive the power next.”
The Commissioner’s words barreled into my brain, stampeding through every other thought and feeling, trampling the residual agony from the spell and leaving a sick, horrifying revelation in its wake.
Receive the power.
My power.
The archmythic power.
For so long, we’d believed that the Consilium wanted the astrolabe as a weapon, some conduit of mass destruction, that we hadn’t considered what else it could do.
I’d assumed from the beginning that their grand equation was “Kit plus astrolabe equals apocalyptic devastation.” It’s not like they’d ever been shy about murder.
But the Consilium’s goal wasn’t to enact some extinction-level atrocity. Destroying things—and people—had been the means. The end? Power.
They had the most powerful mythic alive locked inside a holding spell. An archmythic—a mythic above all others. A monster. A god. But killing a god wasn’t enough for them. Controlling a god wasn’t enough.
No, these sick, megalomaniacal bastards were going to repeat the spell and steal my archmythic magic for themselves, just like Kade had. They were going to become gods.
And I’d strolled right into their trap. I’d come for the grimoire, seen the astrolabe, then handed myself—the third piece they needed—right to them on a silver platter.
I wished I could scream.
“Gentlemen.” Kade closed his hand into a fist, snuffing out the wobbly fireball. “You’ve all got the wrong idea.”
“Meaning what?” Sparks demanded, his tone dripping with condescension. He wasn’t even looking at Kade. His hungry stare was fixed on me. “If you want your father’s seat—”
“No,” Kade interrupted. “Not interested.”
“Then—”
“I’ve decided your seats are no longer needed.”
Sparks finally looked at Kade, anger igniting in his expression. “What—”
“All of them,” Kade continued. “The Consilium is in desperate need of restructuring, and I’ve taken it upon myself to make the necessary changes.”
Movement in the shadows at the edges of the arena drew my attention.
Kade’s men were shifting into new positions without the notice of the Consilium leaders—except for one.
Special Investigations Director Stavros Griva hadn’t joined his conspirators on the arena floor.
He was still up in the gallery, inscrutably observing Kade’s hostile takeover.
“What the hell are you trying to pull?” Sparks sneered. “Know your place, boy.”
“I earned my place while you fossils were bickering and backstabbing each other. None of this”—Kade gestured at me, the astrolabe, the array—“would be here if it weren’t for me.”
Offended protests burst from the Consilium leaders.
“Give me the grimoire, you insolent bastard!” Sparks growled, thrusting a hand toward Kade.
From my slightly elevated perspective, I could see Kade’s jackboots each taking a stance behind an incensed, oblivious Consilium leader, all of whom were too focused on Kade to notice the danger at their backs.
I couldn’t call out a warning. I wasn’t sure I wanted to.
“It’s time for a changing of the guard,” Kade drawled, his voice rising above the old men’s grumbling. “You can join my father in hell.”
With that, Kade’s jackboots slit each of their targets’ throats.
The most powerful men in the mythic world collapsed into puddles of their own blood. Their influence, political might, and unfathomable wealth couldn’t save them. A slit throat was still a slit throat.
Holding the bloody knife he’d used on his unsuspecting father minutes earlier, Kade watched with a blasé smile as all the men standing in his way were slaughtered.
Or almost all of them. Director Griva had vanished from the gallery, and I was certain he wasn’t among the fresh cadavers on my level.
Needing no further instruction, the jackboots dragged the corpses away. One of them fetched two large buckets from the shadows beneath the gallery and dumped their contents—some kind of potion or cleaning solution—onto the array, washing away the meticulously drawn lines.
Kade strolled toward me. “Did you enjoy the show, Kit?”
He stopped a foot in front of the holding spell, gloating satisfaction seeping from his every pore.
His plan to seize power by the literal throat had worked.
But how the hell had he pulled it off? I wanted to bellow the question at him.
No, I wanted to break out of this holding spell and beat an answer out of him.
All the bodies and most of the jackboots were gone, with only a trio of Kade’s loyal soldiers left in the arena with us. One of them packed the astrolabe into the foam-lined interior of a protective black case.
Kade flexed his hand pensively, and a few sparks jumped from his fingers. “I’ve been preparing for this for a long time. I knew there’d be a learning curve, but I think mastering my new abilities will be easier than expected.”
I hoped he could see the hatred in my eyes.
“Imagine all the fun you and I could’ve had,” he mused. “Two mythic gods pitted against each other. It’s unfortunate our little game has to end.”
I didn’t like the sound of that.
He raised his bloody dagger. “I think what I’ll regret the most is not getting to carve away your life piece by piece.”
I waited for him to plunge the knife into my throat. I couldn’t move, couldn’t even twitch, and I definitely couldn’t stop him.
He didn’t strike. Instead, he tapped the blade against the column of light surrounding me. The golden spell flared, repelling the weapon. Whatever magic was keeping me and my abilities in was also keeping him and his knife out.
Sadistic eagerness distorted his features as he dropped his gaze to the artifact stuck to my sternum. “Ori causa finita finiat.”
The holding spell disappeared, my feet dropped to the floor, and I launched myself at Kade.
He laughed as he dodged my swinging fist. His three jackboots charged toward us, two drawing their daggers and one pulling an artifact from under his vest.
But I’d already gotten my telekinetic grip on three metal chairs from the gallery. I’d never controlled three objects on separate trajectories before, especially none this heavy while also in the middle of a fistfight, but I had all the motivation in the world.
The chairs flew downward, and with a little gravitational assistance, they crashed into the unprepared jackboots. Two of them took the brunt of the force with their thick skulls, while the third managed to twist aside, the four-legged projectile banging off his shoulder.
Kade’s head whipped toward the racket of metal and bodies hitting the floor.
It was the perfect moment to run, to escape, to get the hell out of there.
I was outnumbered by enemies whose minds were invisible to my psychic abilities and who had every intention of making sure I left this arena via body bag.
But I couldn’t run, not with my archmythic abilities now in Kade’s hands.
He wanted godlike power.
So I’d show him some godly fucking power.
I lit my fist on fire as I drew my arm back for another punch. He slashed at me, but I was already shoving his blade away with a telekinetic parry. My fist hit his armored vest right over his sternum, and a blast of aeromagery tripled the impact, hurling him backward in a burst of flames.
The least concussed jackboot halted ten feet away, electricity crackling over his dagger. Before he could launch a lightning bolt into my chest, I telekinetically ripped the switch out of his hand and plunged the blade into his thigh. He fell with a strangled cry.
The other two jackboots had recovered from their chair-induced trauma. Crimson magic flared as one of them summoned a demon from the infernus hanging around his neck.
Kade was back on his feet, an artifact in his hand. He snarled an incantation.
I flung my hands out, imagining the smooth black floor splitting, making it real. A ring of concrete and rock shot up from the ground, forming a circular shield around me.
Kade’s artifact activated in a blaze of magenta light—the decapitation spell that had ended Soze and almost killed Vinny. It exploded against my stony barrier, turning it to gravel. As it crumbled, I hurled the largest pieces of rock at Kade, then pivoted to face the other two jackboots.
One—a hydromage—pulled water from the cleaning solution on the floor and sent it rushing at my shins like a Mach 5 mini-tsunami. Charging behind the wave was a seven-foot-tall demon with magma-red eyes and thick, veiny muscles that made Mr. Creatine look like a pushover.
I visualized a blast of cold worthy of a Canadian winter and froze the center of the wave before it hit me.
As water splashed down on either side of me, I shattered the ice into razor-edged shards and flung it back at the two jackboots.
The projectiles found their marks, rendering the demon immobile without its contractor to control it.
A dark blur in my peripheral vision had me spinning back in the direction I’d last seen Kade, fire igniting over my fist.
He was almost on top of me, his blade slicing through the air. I recoiled, the knife’s point grazing a stinging line across my throat as my shoes slipped on the wet floor.
Kade slammed into my torso and drove me into the broken concrete with a splat, his blade plunging toward my chest.
Fire ignited all around us with a roar.
Kade jerked backward, and behind me, cries erupted. I shoved to my feet and jumped into the air, levitating above the flames.
The center of the arena seethed in a waist-high inferno. Apparently, what was left of the cleaning potion was more combustible than a car’s gas tank in an eighties action movie. I must’ve ignited it with my flame-coated fingers.
Kade and his jackboots retreated from the fire. While I didn’t want Kade to go up like a tinderbox—not with the priceless item he carried—I couldn’t say the same for his jackboots.
Still levitating over the swath of flames, I imagined wind. A gust whipped through the room, spinning faster and faster, its roar drowning out all other sounds. The cyclone sucked the flames into it, and I imagined them burning hotter until the firenado surged toward the skylight.
It might not be up to Bodil’s standards, but it wasn’t half bad considering I’d been beaten halfway to hell then tortured by that magic-copying spell.
The slow-moving hydromage and contractor disappeared into the blazing twister. Smoke billowed through the room, reeking of burnt flesh. The demon dissolved into crimson light that vanished into the smoke.
Continuing his retreat, Kade took in my display of magic, fury contorting his features. Blisters rose across his face and sweat-sheened scalp. The electramage, clutching the astrolabe’s case and limping on his blood-drenched leg, had managed to reach Kade’s side.
Kade dipped his hand into a pouch on his combat belt. He withdrew a flat black disc.
Releasing my levitation, I hit the floor running, my tornado dissolving and the burning liquid spattering in every direction.
Kade dropped the artifact. It landed with a clatter and spewed out a swirling green vortex. He shoved his jackboot into it, and the case-clutching electramage was sucked into the void.
Giving me a final sneering look, Kade stepped into the spell.
I reached for him with my telekinesis and grabbed at the front of his combat vest with phantom fingers, finding purchase on something solid. But I couldn’t stop him. He vanished through the portal.
My feet slid wildly as the spell’s suction-like force yanked me toward it. Then in a blink, the violent whirlpool was gone, leaving only a black disc.
I fell to my knees as the artifact disintegrated into dust. “Fuck!”
Hovering above the dusted portal was the item I’d managed to snag from Kade’s vest pocket in the split-second before he vanished. Harsh breaths rasped in my lungs as I stretched out a hand, lowering the item gently onto my palm: the grimoire.
But Kade and the astrolabe were gone.