Chapter 6
Chapter Six
Torin
It oddly seems like only the two of us can enter the strange barrier placed around the building because the instant Riley dove through, Imani and his weird creature rushed after him, but I see neither of them here.
“I most definitely didn’t dive on in. It… sucked me inside. Where the hell are we?” Riley asks.
“I don’t think we’ve switched realms, and yet… this whole place feels wrong. Like it’s… a mesh of here and there… wherever there is. And the magic…”
I glance over at him, since the first thing I noticed was the immense magic bubbling from inside him. It feels like the same magic exuding from this place.
So this is why they placed me with him.
Riley can manipulate magic in ways I’ve never seen before. Hell… they must think he’s strong enough to contend with a god all alone. He always acts confident enough to deal with it.
Yet now he’s standing there, back pressed against the wall, looking worried… What has made him anxious about this place when he’s never been anxious about any other?
“Let’s leave and come back when we’re more prepared,” he suggests.
“It’s like the building has been distorted. I don’t know how to get through the barrier placed around it,” I say as I look at it. “I guess we need to find a different way out.”
I step forward and find that when I do, he cocks his head and takes a step as well, but his movement is strange. When I stop, he abruptly halts.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, wondering if it has something to do with that magic inside him.
“Nothing,” he says, but when I take another step forward, he tilts his head and slowly follows me.
“Have I found something you’re afraid of?
” I ask, looking around the room. It seems to shift between an open office building and a grand manor, depending on how I stare at it.
I hum in thought, uncertain which way I want to go.
“You are absolutely brimming with the strange magic of this place. What is it?”
“I don’t know,” he says as he timidly follows me.
“I thought you said you learned all about the magic every time you acquired new magic.”
“I usually do… but not this time. This magic… a person didn’t give this to me. I have no idea where it came from. I’ve never acquired magic without touching someone.”
“Do you know where to go? Can you feel a pull?” I ask while I glance around the confusing landscape, not quite sure where the best place to go would be.
He’s quiet for a moment, shifting uncertainly before nodding forward. “I’m being pulled up… but is that where we want to go?”
“No idea,” I admit as I reach the staircase. It flashes between an elaborate wooden staircase and just a stairwell, like my eyes are playing tricks on me with each blink.
I step up before I feel an influx of magic and the world shifts into the large manor and doesn’t shift back. I take another step when Riley falls forward, slamming into the stairs.
I turn quickly, pulling my twin hand scythes free as I look for whatever attacked him. “What was it?” I hover around him while he slowly stands up, blood dripping from his nose as anger crosses his face.
“FUCK!” he shouts.
“What is it?” I ask, still uncertain what is happening. “What attacked you?”
“N-Nothing attacked me. I just tripped.”
“You… tripped?” I question, reasonably confused.
“Yes. Just… forget it happened.”
“We need to keep moving. This place is unstable.” I hurry halfway up the stairs before discovering that he’s still working his way up onto the second step and then onto the third.
“What are you doing? This place is unstable and I can feel something here that I really don’t think we’re up for meeting.” I look up, wishing I had my power, but the only thing I can use are my scythes. “Riley, are you hurt?”
“No… fuck… I can’t see,” he snaps as he slides his hand up the railing and takes another tentative step.
“What do you mean?” I glance at the candles with flames flickering. The place is illuminated well enough to at least see the stairs.
“I mean… I can’t see. I’m…” He grits his teeth. “I’m blind. And right now, I can’t see.”
I stare at the man. “Must be something with the magic of this place.”
“No… I’m blind. As in I cannot see… I can’t see without Kit.”
I narrow my eyes, trying to comprehend what he’s saying. “Without your vermin?”
“She is a genet, not vermin. And yes. I… I use magic to see through her eyes. I see what she sees. And without her… I’m extremely disoriented. She must be outside, so I can’t see anything.”
My jaw drops. “So this whole time… everything you’ve seen has been through your familiar’s eyes?” I gaze at him in disbelief because I haven’t noticed any behavior at all that would make me think he was incapable of seeing.
“Yes,” he says, jaw clenched. “The others don’t know, so do not tell them.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why do you hide it?”
Riley ignores the question. He’s a very capable person… the people out there highly respect him even though it doesn’t seem like he works with them. I can’t imagine they’d simply decide not to respect him if they learned his secret. This human is quite peculiar indeed.
Suddenly, the building shudders and the walls begin to crack. He reaches for something to hang on to, so I take his arm and pull him close to me.
“Can you look through my eyes?”
“No, just Kit’s.”
I grab his hand and set it on my hip, hooking his fingers in the fabric of my pants. “Don’t let go of me.”
The walls shudder again, and I feel the magic inside him fluctuate. He grimaces and I feel the way his hand tightens on me.
“What’s going on, Riley?”
“I… I don’t know. This magic inside me is unlike anything I’ve ever felt. I need to get rid of it. We need to get out of here.”
“I’m going to keep walking. We’re heading up the steps; I’ll tell you when we reach the last one.”
I start moving forward, gently pulling him after me. I want to run, but he’s struggling enough just taking the steps that we have to move slowly, even as I see the way the walls begin to crumble. I’m not sure what’s going to happen when this place falls apart, but I’m not dying to find out.
“Something is not right with all of this,” he says.
The thing is, I know it’s bad if Riley’s saying this, and he can’t even see what I do. If he could see what’s happening, he would know it’s well beyond “not right.” “I think you’re correct for the first time in your life.”
“I would be glowering at you right now if I could waste my concentration on it.”
“We’re at the end of the stairs,” I say.
“The magic is calling me this way.” He waves to my left. “The issue is… do we want to go that way? Something feels very wrong with this magic. I don’t like it and I’m not sure I care to listen to it.”
I look left and discover an impossibly long hallway. It appears to extend farther than I can see. The paint on the walls is peeling and shriveling up, and the candles hanging on the walls flicker.
“Aren’t you a god? Can’t you just poof us the hell out of here?”
“I’m a god who can’t seem to use any of my power,” I say.
“Useless pair of dumbasses we are,” he mutters.
“I have faith in this pair of dumbasses.”
“You’re the only one.”
With a final look down the hallway in the direction Riley said was calling to him, I turn to the right, hurrying down a different hallway instead.
But as soon as I step into it, the walls start to crumble and buckle.
A chunk of ceiling collapses and I jerk Riley back just before it hits the ground in front of us.
I barely manage to scramble back as the walls and ceiling cave in around us.
“What’s happening?” he asks.
“Whatever it is, it doesn’t want us going down this hallway.”
“Oh joy.” His head snaps around and I realize that something must have drawn his attention. I turn and look, unsure what it was, but the magic inside him is swelling.
Riley grits his teeth and I feel the way his hands begin to shake. He staggers into me, curling in on himself.
“I need to get rid of this magic. Quickly,” he says as his grip tightens on me.
But my eyes are fixated on the shadow of a man walking down that long hallway. Every candle he passes goes out while he moves toward us, featureless as he’s cloaked in the shadows. I slide Riley behind me as I hold my weapon tightly.
“Who are you?” I ask.
The whites of his teeth shine through the darkness when he smiles, and Riley falls against me, his nails digging into my sides.
“Fuck! Get me away. Get me away from whatever that is.”
Riley tries pushing away from me and staggers, falling to his knees and sinking to the ground.
He grabs his head as he groans, and I question what’s happening and if that man is doing this to him.
The magic inside him pulses when I reach down for him, but as I do, a force slams into me, throwing me away from him.
I hit the ground on my back, smashing into it, but my only thought is to get back to Riley.
I try to rise, but it’s like my limbs are too heavy for my body and I can’t lift them while that shadow draws closer.
“Riley, run!” I shout, incapable of helping him when I can’t even rise to my feet.
He struggles to get up, but the magic inside him seems to have a mind of its own, wrapping around him in this strange black fog while I slowly try to crawl toward him.
I’ve never felt so weak in my life. So useless.
Gritting my teeth, I force my way forward just as the lights go out around me.
I see the shadow reach out to Riley a moment before the magic coursing through this world shudders.
And then everything around me explodes into a world of white.
My ears are ringing when I flip onto my stomach, thrilled that I can finally lift myself up, while dust and debris rain down around me.
As the dust settles, I find myself surrounded by absolute destruction.
Pain stings my cheek and arm, a long-forgotten feeling, but my eyes are locked on the man lying right in the middle of it all.
I hurriedly get to my feet, unsure how a human could have survived that explosion, but there Riley lies, looking better than I do. Kit must have reached him first because he’s hugging the catlike creature to himself and looking up at me.
“You look like shit. You sure you’re a god?” Riley asks as I swipe away the blood running down my cheek.
Clearly, he’s back to normal. “At least I still look sexy. You look like you went for a dust bath and the dust bath won.”
Riley scoffs and sits up before looking around as he seems to realize that the entire building has been absolutely leveled.
“Sure didn’t mean to do that.” He sighs and lies back down. “Tell them I’m dead. Just carry my body out.”
“I only know sex terms. I can shout, ‘Your dick is so large, it won’t fit!’ Will that help?”
I think he proceeds to die for real.
Just of shame this time.