CHAPTER FORTY
Myra
“NO!” I screamed, lurching forward, only to be stopped by Yael's extended arm.
“I wonder how long they’ll survive?” Argo taunted from across the narrow road. “I hope they scream loud enough for me to hear over the flames.”
“Enough!” Yael’s voice boomed through the street as the ground beneath Argo cracked wide open. A sinkhole as wide as the lane he stood in and far deeper swallowed him, and I watched as he disappeared from sight into the cavernous rift.
A burst of blinding light followed, and I shielded my eyes for a moment. When I could see again, I found Argo standing in front of the sinkhole with Ravi at his side, a bright orb of white light floating above his right hand.
“In case I wasn’t clear before, he can’t let anything happen to me,” the mob boss said with a vicious smile before a surge of fire shot toward us.
Yael countered the attack with another wall of roots just in time. The wall of fire crashed upon them, incinerating them in seconds, and I wondered how long that approach would last before his evil alter ego appeared and slayed everyone he deemed a threat—including Ravi.
The black swirling through his irises when he turned to order me away told me it wouldn’t be long.
“Get out of here!” he shouted before Argo lunged at him. The two met in the center of the road, a collision of earth and roots and fire.
Instead of leaving, I ducked down to avoid stray blasts and scrambled away, desperate to get to the flame-engulfed bar.
I wanted to grab Argo and mindfuck him into stopping, but I could feel the heat emanating off him from feet away, and I knew I’d never survive if I tried to get closer.
But as I got near The Riff Raff, the heat was even more scorching—and my friends were inside.
“Ravi!” I screamed. “Help me!” But my cries were met with nothing more than roaring flames and the melee in the center of the early morning street. Ravi might not have been attacking Yael, exactly, but he was working to neutralize the fae’s attacks, which was nearly as bad.
Realizing I was on my own, I covered my mouth with my arm and moved closer to the door, praying I could wrench it open.
I pulled my hand deep into the sleeve of my leather jacket and reached for the pull bar.
The second my covered hand met something solid, heat seared through me, and I cried out in pain.
Knowing I’d never get in that way, I ran to the nearest window, blacked out with smoke, and tried to bash it open with my elbow.
Every strike ricocheted through my body like the glass was made of stone, but I continued to slam against the unforgiving surface over and over again until my eyes teared from the pain and the gutting feeling that I would never get them out in time.
“Come on!” I screamed at the unrelenting barrier as Argo’s laughter echoed through the Playground.
“You’ll never save them,” he shouted as he shot a blaze of fire at Yael like a flamethrower, momentarily incinerating his earthen magic.
“I’m going to kill him, then watch you watch your friends burn.
And for the grand finale, I’ll make Ravi watch you die slowly.
He won’t die in a fire of my creation, but he will when he sees the light leave your eyes. It will be glorious…”
His attention snapped back to Yael, who was recovering from his last attack, but barely in time to withstand another. His fae magic was failing him, and I wondered how much longer he could stand against the master of fire.
I felt helpless as my panicked eyes jumped from his struggles to the burning bar behind me, and I cursed the punishment set upon me that had left me useless to do anything.
The desperation was a torture all its own, and I welcomed the death headed my way if I couldn’t do something to end their suffering.
An unhinged scream ripped through my body as anger mixed with anguish, and the ground beneath my feet began to rumble in response.
The fire hydrant only feet away began to quiver, and water dribbled from the sealed spigot.
And I could practically hear it calling to me.
Racing over to it, I dipped my finger into the trail of water and channeled all my fear and rage into that trickle until it became a stream, then a wave of droplets swirling around me, begging me to command it.
Without thought, I thrust it at the bar, dousing Argo’s fire.
Steam rolled off the surface when I grabbed the handle again, but this time, the door flew open.
Curtis staggered out, his shirt gone and the remnants of his pants barely intact, exposing the smoldering outlines of scales beneath his dark skin.
Tucked under one arm was Sasha, who coughed violently as she escaped the heavy smoke in soot-covered clothes.
Cradled against his chest in the other was Laney’s tiny body, her pale skin peppered with ash and angry wounds, but she didn’t look like she’d just been swallowed up in a psycho’s inferno.
I couldn’t help but picture Curtis shielding them both from the brunt of the flames with his body, trying to save his friends.
Relief washed over me for a fraction of a second before I remembered the war waging behind me, and I looked back to find Yael surrounded by fire.
Roots and earth continually cropped up around him to keep the fire at bay, but the flames were tearing through them faster than they could grow, and the thought of him succumbing to a fiery death was more than I could bear.
No…
At my command, the flood of water still swirling around me turned toward Argo like a tidal wave.
The wall of water slammed into his side and carried him down the street while I walked alongside it, dunking him anytime he came up for a breath.
His flames had long since been extinguished, his primary form of magic temporarily disabled.
And that was all I needed.
The lake in the street parted for me as I stalked over to where he knelt on all fours, gasping for air, and wrapped my hand around his neck.
“Don’t. Move.” My nails dug into his flesh so deep they broke through the skin. Blood trickled down his neck, and I wondered if I could command the water out of it until he was little more than a husk littering the streets of Serpent’s Tongue.
“Myra, stop!” I turned to find that glowing orb between Ravi’s hands yet again and anguish plaguing his expression. “I cannot let you hurt him, either.” I relaxed my hold on Argo just enough to satisfy him, and the threat of magic levitating before him snuffed out.
“Come for her, and you and I will have a problem,” Yael said as he stormed through the flooded street to join me with murder in his deep green stare.
He stopped only a foot or two away, positioning himself between Ravi and me.
With a quick glance over his shoulder, he asked, “are you all right, little mermaid?”
“I’m fine.” I looked past him to where Ravi stood near the others, who looked too shocked and traumatized to speak, and raised my voice so he’d hear me.
“Fair warning: my power seems to be a little glitchy these days,” I said before turning my attention back to the mob boss kneeling as still as a statue.
“Damian would know a thing or two about that. He tried to fight the press of my magic, and… well, I think you know how that ended for him. Try the same, and I might just accidentally cook you from the inside out before Ravi has a chance to stop me.” I smiled as devilishly as my fae counterpart as I held the mob boss from Demon’s Horn in my thrall.
“I’d watch that fire consume you with a smile on my face, just like you did while my friends were burning in The Riff Raff—only I’d let it finish you off.
So I’m going to ask you this once and only once: who called in Jemma’s debt? ”
“Loreleia,” he said without a fight. “Jemma was trying to buy her way out. That’s what she was doing the night she disappeared.”
“Who’s Loreleia?” I asked.
Given the way Yael’s body went tense, I knew I wasn't going to like the answer. “A powerful fae… one who never should have known about Jemma’s power in the first place,” Yael answered for Argo, then turned his attention to the male at his feet. “How do you know this?”
“I overheard her talking to one of my dealers the last night I saw her. She said she was there to collect something for Loreleia—what she needed to pay off her debt.”
“Evil…”
“Exactly.”
While I tried to understand how that could be used to pay off a debt, Yael continued his interrogation, unfazed by my obvious confusion. “What else do you know about her disappearance?”
“Nothing beyond the fact that Loreleia was ultimately where she was headed that night. Her final stop.”
“So, she was the last one to see her?” I asked, still trying to figure out how Yael’s sister could pay off a debt to this Loreleia with ‘evil’.
“I don’t know that for certain, but it would make sense.”
“And you have no idea what the debt was or how evil factored into it?”
“No.”
I looked up at Yael and asked him if there was anything else he needed to know.
“Yes,” he replied as he crouched down next to me slowly, making the move look more menacing than I would have thought possible. “Did you have anything to do with this deal between my sister and Loreleia?”
“No—”
“Did you sell her out? Tell her what Jemma was? What she could do?”
“Loreleia already knew what she was,” Argo replied, his tone steeped in anger. “You will not pin your sister’s fate on me. She’s been a mess since the two of you set foot in Seattle, and you know it. And you did nothing to help her—”
Yael’s hand shot out and wrapped around Argo’s throat, choking off any more of his cutting observations.
“And you took advantage of her at every turn,” he seethed as his hand squeezed so hard I could hear the muffled crunch of cartilage in his grip.
I grabbed his arm and silently begged him to stop before Ravi intervened.
His eyes met mine for a moment before he released Argo and continued his interrogation.
“Tell me something… did you ever do anything to my sister against her will?”
“No,” he wheezed past his constricted airway.
“Remember, friend, she couldn’t consent if she was too far gone.
Does that change your reply?” Argo’s eyes went wide as he fought not to answer.
In turn, I assaulted him with my magic, and the faint smell of burning flesh began to fill the air.
His eyes glowed orange as his mouth opened in a silent scream.
“I see…” Yael inhaled sharply, then shoved Argo away before unfurling to his full height as Ravi approached with a glowing ball of magic floating next to him.
“Let’s see if you consent to what my lovely partner here is about to do to you. ”
Bloodlust rushed through me, fueling the metaphorical fire within me—and the literal one in Argo. I could vaguely hear Ravi’s frustrated cry as he lobbed his magic at us, but Yael was there to defend against it, allowing my vengeance to continue.
“Damian’s death was an accident,” I said as smoke began billowing from his ears.
“I never wanted to hurt him—I just wanted answers. But you? You came here to cause pain and death because you delight in it.” I clenched my fist harder, digging my nails deeper into his smoldering flesh.
“I wonder how much you’ll like it when you’re on the receiving end.
Because I don’t care what deal you and Ravi have—nobody walks into my neighborhood and hurts my people without consequences.
” My gaze drifted to where my friends stood, leaning on one another as they watched me slowly incinerate the one who’d tried to do the same to them.
“I will kill you for what you did to my friends.”
“Myra!” Ravi called as he crashed through the thorny barricade Yael had erected. “Please stop—for both our sakes.”
“He tried to kill them,” I replied as my anger flowed into my magic and Argo screamed.
Ravi’s features twisted in pain as he raised his hand to stop me. “Bitiya, I beg you. Stop this. Please,” he pleaded as Yael stepped into his path to shield me from the magic growing in his hand. “Do not make me do this…”
The agony in his voice illustrated just how tortured he felt, and I understood then just how tormented he was by whatever magic had bonded him to the sketchy motherfucker that ran Demon’s Horn.
Begrudgingly, I relented the push of my magic enough to keep Argo from roasting, and Ravi relaxed almost instantly.
“What bargain did you make with this piece of shit that has your hands tied?” I asked, frustration bleeding into my tone.
Argo’s menacing laughter grew the longer Ravi remained silent. “I wonder what she’ll think once you tell her, Ravi. If she’ll still be your precious bitiya then.”
“To me, she always will be.” The sadness in his voice was so thick it penetrated my need for revenge, leaving behind the scared girl that Ravi had taken in and kept safe. No matter what he’d done that had tethered him to Argo, it didn’t really matter. Not in that moment.
Not when I’d be leaving the second we tracked down Loreleia and learned what we needed to.
“I’ll let him go,” I said, relaxing my physical and magical hold on Argo, but not before I leaned down close to him, my lips at his ear.
“You leave here alive only because I’m allowing it, but I cannot guarantee that this is the end.
A reckoning will find you one day for what you’ve done, and you will never see it coming because you will forget everything that happened here tonight.
” I pushed my magic into him one last time to make sure my command was received.
“You will forget about Damian’s death and your battle with Yael—and you will forget about me and the magic I possess. Now go.”
Like a puppet on a string, Argo stood and walked into the darkened streets of the Playground as though his body weren’t fully under his control. Ravi watched him disappear with a haunted look in his eyes, and I wondered if the guilt at whatever deal he’d made would eat him alive one day.
Or if it already had.