Chapter 51
FIFTY-ONE
Magic used in defense of yourself or others is always permissible.
CIPRIAN
Hidden by my nightmare, Alistair and I weave through S’lach’s side of the spectators.
Riven’s around here somewhere, but he handled his own disguise.
Luca is our bait. Honestly, I don’t love that part, but he’s arguably the most durable, and Riven assured me he would kill anyone who looks at him funny.
My girlfriend’s boyfriend is an assassin. If we weren’t actively sneaking around, I might laugh at how wild it is to find comfort in that fact. I’m not rooting for a bloodbath, but there’s at least one person I want to see dead.
My eyes narrow on the back row. Scratch that and make it two.
“That guy.” I point at the stocky angel.
He’s got his fat fingers stuffed inside a bag, and his nose is more scar tissue than .
. . nose skin? I wince, hating the mental image that creates.
See, this is the problem with having a vivid imagination.
I’m thinking about decomposing mummies when I should be communicating with Alistair. “He’s giving killer-for-hire,” I say.
Ali approaches the stranger, and I pull him into the nightmare with us.
He startles, but before he can make a sound, Alistair is on him.
“Tell me if you were hired to kill Celine.” Laced with compulsion, he speaks the sentence in the common tongue.
Malach made Ali practice at least fifty times before he was satisfied with his pronunciation, and as far as I can tell, he nailed it.
The assassin nods, thank the gods for that, then removes his hand from the bag. His fingers are wrapped around an orb, and his hands shake wildly as he tries to throw off the weight of Alistair’s compulsion. This can’t be good.
Closing my eyes, I pull Luca and Riven inside the nightmare too, erasing everyone but us and the guy so they know exactly what to focus on. Luca runs to join us, his eyes wide and panicked.
He screeches to a halt next to me. “That’s a koil’nashra!”
“What the fuck is a—”
“A bomb, Ciprian, it’s a fucking magic bomb.” Luca grabs the guy’s face and stares directly into his eyes, petrifying him in seconds as a stranger materializes by his side. I stiffen, then relax as I recognize Riven’s mind beneath the disguise.
I adjust my grip on the illusion. I’ve got us hidden, for now, but the more complex this nightmare gets, the more difficult it will be to maintain. Eventually, I’ll slip, and someone will see something they shouldn’t. We have to act fast.
“If he hired one killer, he’ll have hired more.” Alistair scans the rest of the spectators, brow furrowed.
“We’ll have to split up.” I glance over my shoulder as S’lach roars.
Celine is still holding her own, though she’s bleeding from a small cut on her arm. Her father fights like a brute. I hate to say it, but they’re evenly matched. If Celine loses focus for even a second, to dodge a bomb, for example, she’ll be in trouble.
“Find the assassins,” I whisper. “I’ll keep you all hidden and disguise our friend here, so no one sounds the alarm.” I tap the assassin’s stone cheek. “We’ll decide what to do with all the sleeping bombs after.”
We do a damn good job and identify eight more assassins as the duel rages behind us.
After Alistair uses compulsion to confirm our suspicions, Luca petrifies them one at a time. It goes faster after we realize they’re all holding tightly to an orb, hands in pockets becoming the ultimate tell.
I’m dripping sweat. There are a lot of layers to this nightmare; I’ve never created this many at once. I’m so focused on maintaining them, I don’t see the edge of the bench.
I trip over it, stumbling before catching my balance.
Alistair grabs my hand and tucks it into the waistband of his pants, but it’s too late.
I’ve already dropped two layers.
Someone screams, and I wince. Shit is hitting the fan; there’s nothing to do except get dirty. “I’m going to lift them all except ours,” I say. “The chaos will be its own distraction.”
Ali grunts, and I coat him in another layer of magic as I peel back the others, revealing all nine petrified assassins.
“Koil’nashra,” someone screeches. The word spreads like wildfire through the crowd, panic overriding logic until they’re jostling against each other to get away—one step away from a good old-fashioned stampede.
“We might have missed someone,” Alistair says. “Watch for anyone who isn’t running.”
I nod. We’re still hidden, but in the middle of this madness, that almost makes it worse.
Then I see him. A massive angel, seven feet tall and built like a brick house.
“There,” I wheeze as elbow slams into my ribs.
“How the fuck did we miss him? He’s bigger than Malach.
” The angel has one hand buried in the same round satchel the others carried.
It’s a fucking purse for bombs, and I’m over it.
Alistair looks at the giant, then back at me being jostled by the mob. His face twists with indecision.
“Go!” I shove him hard. “I’ll be fine. Go, Ali.”
Red bleeds into his eyes, then he’s gone, carving a path through the panicked angels with the precision of a blade. Alistair is fast, but his moment of hesitation cost him. This time, he isn’t fast enough.
The angel hurls the projectile a heartbeat before Ali snaps his neck. He topples to the ground, but it’s too late—the bomb is already flying toward Malach with unerring accuracy. Standing on the sidelines by himself, Malach is all alone. Until he isn’t.
Riven tackles him, shoving him out of the orb’s path by a hair.
They hit the ground. My heart is beating out of my chest. I’m not sure if I’m choking on my own fear or the combined terror of the panicked crowd. Radiating blinding light, the orb hums before expanding to the size of a small car, a black hole sucking in everything around it.
Trapped beneath Riven’s body weight, Malach avoids the suction.
Riven doesn’t.
His foot jerks up, followed by his entire leg. Shit, shit, shit, it’s going to crush him. What can I do? I’m too far away to physically help and hiding them from the orb won’t do a damn thing.
Malach wraps Riven in a bear hug and grabs the pole of the speaker system with his legs.
The device hums, and the suction gets worse, pulling in a shoe, then an entire bench.
I watch in horror as both Malach and Riven are lifted off the ground.
Malach’s legs are the only thing keeping them tethered, but I don’t know how long he’ll be able to hold on.
Finally, after what feels like a lifetime, the orb emits a horrible, high-pitched whine and contracts to the size of a beach ball.
Malach and Riven fall to the ground.
I’m tempted to do the same. That was way too close. Riven’s foot is bent at a strange angle, but he’s alive. And he still has a foot, so that’s something.
I suck in a shaky breath. Maybe the worst is—a terrified angel bumps into one of the assassins Luca turned to stone, knocking it over in her effort to get away. The hand snaps on impact, releasing the pressure and activating another bomb.
I watch, frozen with horror, as it devours an entire, very occupied, bench—one marked with S’lach’s silence rune, thank the gods. A symphony of horror ensues. Grinding stone joins agonized screams, all punctuated by the throbbing, rhythmic hum of the hungry koil’nashra.
Their deaths aren’t fast.
They’re slow and loud and fucking gross.
By the time it’s done, all that remains of the angels are a few snapped bones sticking out of a ball of crushed rock and flesh. Plus, buckets of blood. It oozes from the compacted remains, soaking the stone a deep, rusty red.
Stumbling free from the jostling crowd, I cling to my nightmare and try to regroup.
I’m not sure if we’re winning or not, but one thing is painfully obvious: the organized part of the duel is over. This is pure chaos.