Chapter 41
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Saber
An ethereal toxicity seeped from the PNE grounds, oozing through the cracks in the concrete like a foul, invisible haze. I tasted it with each breath, felt it with each step.
Zak was a few feet to my left, the hood of his leather jacket drawn up, an arsenal of alchemy on his combat belt. A black fabric mask covered the lower half of his face and tinted contacts darkened his green eyes to obscure his identity.
Kit walked just ahead of us. He wore a long black coat borrowed from Zak’s closet, the leather sweeping out behind him, but the way he moved was different from the notorious Ghost. Instead of a powerful, intimidating stride, Kit ambled with his hands in his pockets, his shoulders loose and head slightly tilted.
The dead air of the amusement park swallowed the sound of our footsteps. The unmoving skeletons of the tallest rides leaned over us, and closed concession stands loomed out of the darkness.
Scattered throughout the park were SI agents.
They lurked in groups of two or three, geared for combat, armed and armored. Kit made no attempt to hide from them, even offering them the odd wave or nod. Caught off guard by the casual intruder, the agents kept their distance, staying ahead of us as we advanced.
Nervous chatter from the agents’ radios occasionally pierced the quiet—the Kit Morris was here, and they were ordered not to engage, to pull back and wait for backup. Their movements were agitated, their fear spilling into the vile miasma that lay over the grounds.
The fear probably had something to do with the enormous, green-tinged cloud of thick mist that followed our every step.
As we neared the Ferris wheel, one of the SI agents sidled away from his group to get behind us. The fog absorbed him, and a moment later, he let out a muffled cry that abruptly cut off. The man didn’t reappear.
The rest of the agents hastened their retreat, filtering through a gate in the tall chain-link fence that marked the edge of the amusement park.
As the final agent tried to lock the gate behind him, Kit grabbed it with his telekinesis, ripped it off its hinges, and tossed it thirty feet away, sending the agent scrambling toward the amphitheater on the other side.
As we reached the fence, panels of it tore out of the ground, turning the narrow gateway into a wide-open passage.
Zak, Kit, and I walked through the gap, the unnatural blanket of fog following us onto the small grassy hill above the large amphitheater.
The ground before us descended in tiers to form a curved half-bowl that could seat thousands.
A couple hundred SI agents had congregated at the bottom, all staring at us, hands on their weapons.
More agents were filing in from other parts of the PNE, and the mood was shifting from tentative to confident as their numbers grew.
The metallic tang of arrogance, contempt, and viciousness contaminated the energy beneath my feet.
I stared back at the horde of SI agents, regretting every day I’d stood idle since they disbanded my guild.
Kit lifted a hand, and a murmur swept through the SI agents as they readied themselves for an attack.
“I know what you’ve all heard about me,” Kit called to them. “That I’m a rogue, a murderer, a dangerous man with dangerous abilities.”
Judging by the SI agents’ changing expressions, they could all hear him, even those at the far edges of the amphitheater.
“And I want to assure you,” he continued, “that all of that is true. I guarantee that none of you have even heard of a mythic like me, and you sure as shit haven’t gotten on the wrong side of one, which is why you’re all still walking and breathing.”
A rumble of indistinct voices disturbed the silence in the bowl.
Kit’s words rose above the commotion. “But I’m also not quite the merciless psychopath you’ve been warned about. So before we get this party started, I’m giving you the opportunity to lay down your weapons and surrender. No harm, no foul.”
Agents throughout the crowd laughed and jeered. A few of them looked at one another, but none moved.
“Nobody? That’s too bad.” Kit sighed and shrugged. “I guess you don’t think one mythic has much of a chance against a thousand. You don’t think even Kit Morris and a handful of his best friends can stop you. Not alone. And you’d be right.”
I felt Zak’s aura stirring the energy below our feet, and I let my own aura spill out of me, harmonizing it with his.
Kit twisted to gesture over his shoulder. “That’s why we didn’t come alone.”
He snapped his fingers, and a violent gust of wind punched through the amphitheater, knocking some of the SI agents off balance. It rushed past Zak, Kit, and me, whipping the loose hair off my face and blasting the green-tinted fog behind us.
The heavy mist dissipated. As the wind died, a hush engulfed the amphitheater. I didn’t have to turn around to know what the SI agents could now see.
Hundreds of mythics from Vancouver, from neighboring cities, from the rest of the province, and from across the Pacific Northwest—those who had seen the MPD’s growing power abuses, had heard what was happening to us, and had dropped everything to answer our call for help.
An assembly of ordinary mythics, staring down at their would-be oppressors, here to even the odds.
The rushing beat of my heart amplified, ferocity pulsing through my veins. Standing here now, with hundreds of allies at my back, I couldn’t understand how I’d thought I could run from this fight. How I’d thought that fleeing was the best way to protect my family.
This was how we protected our families—by resisting evil wherever it appeared. We protected our families not by barricading our own front doors, but by fighting beside our friends, guildmates, and neighbors.
Standing here now, I knew every person behind me shared that belief.
“I want you to remember that you started this,” Kit called, “that there was no fight until you invaded our homes, took our friends, and attacked our communities.”
In the amphitheater, an indignant stir ruffled through the SI agents.
Behind me, a collective readiness settled over the crowd.
Kit thrust his fist toward the sky. “Because in my family, we don’t hit first, but—”
“—we always hit back!”
I and every mythic behind me shouted the final words of the Crow and Hammer’s first rule, our unified voices rattling the earth.
With our words still echoing in my ears, our multitude of allies broke apart—the front of the group pressing closer to the amphitheater while the rest split, some heading back into the amusement park and some toward the Agrodome and Coliseum.
The SI agents scrambled to react, confusion spreading through their ranks.
I sent my aura surging into the earth. Zak’s aura joined mine, amplifying our mastery over this land, and a maelstrom of energy formed around Kit, swirling into his body.
The earth trembled. The air thickened with a wet haze.
Magic flared in hundreds of hands and on the blades of hundreds of weapons as the SI agents began rushing up the amphitheater steps toward us.
The tremors beneath us worsened—then the earth heaved.
Concrete split and fragmented, throwing agents off their feet.
The tiered half-bowl collapsed, creating a thirty-foot-high wall of crumbling dirt.
Only a ten-foot-wide swath remained intact, the steps leading directly to Kit like an unspoken dare.
From the top of the bowl, mythics rained attacks down on the SI agents below. They fired back with their own magic while dozens braved the steps to charge at me, Zak, and Kit.
I stretched my hand out. The fae rune on my wrist, encircled by a black tattoo, flooded my veins with frigid magic, and ice formed on my palm in the shape of a spear.
I swung it into the face of the first agent stupid enough to come at me.
The instant my weapon connected, it ruptured into a starburst that engulfed the man’s head and shoulders.
As he tumbled off the edge of the steps, I created a wall of ice in front of me and Kit’s exposed flank.
A blast of magic hit it, shattering the barrier.
On Kit’s other side, light flashed as Zak’s amber shield deflected a barrage of magic. With a flick of his wrist, he morphed the shield into a glowing whip and cracked it viciously across the lower torsos of the next four agents charging at us.
Above the amphitheater, the haze congealed into thick clouds.
Ríkr! I called silently as I created an icy javelin that shot up from the ground at a forty-five-degree angle.
Yes, dove?
My javelin caught a woman in the chest, piercing her sternum and driving her into the agents behind her. Have you dealt with their fae?
It is a work in progress. He paused, and I felt a distant rush of his arctic power. I have drawn them into the trees near a pond and am keeping them preoccupied with maintaining possession of their limbs.
Azure light shone above the trees of the nature park to the west, and a spire of ice erupted out of the barren canopy of branches, gleaming with fae magic.
A fireball whooshed toward me, and I formed ice into a partial dome over me and Kit. The fire burst against it.
The clouds above the amphitheater darkened. The burning scent of ozone stung my nose, and the air pressure shifted, popping my ears. Lightning burst through the thunderhead, and the storm unleashed its assault.
Shards of hail carried on gales of wind and bolts of lightning bombarded the agents trapped below.
The wind whipped with even more violence, spinning into funnels that plunged into the amphitheater.
As the roiling of the clouds turned to tortured writhing, a bestial howl rose from the thunderous booms.
No longer a mere storm, the tempest had become a savage creature of cloud, rain, wind, and wrath that pummeled the minds and bodies of the SI fools who’d lacked the sense to flee the amphitheater while they’d had the chance.
It was awe-inspiring. It was petrifying.
It was the true power of an archmythic.