Chapter 22 #2
“You may as well open your eyes,” a new voice said, its tone dry. “I know you’re conscious.”
I briefly debated continuing to pretend, but decided there probably wasn’t much point.
The new person appeared male, older than the others—fifties, maybe sixties—and very slightly amused, a small upward curve to his lips.
“Rayn Alverno,” he said looking at me.
I had no idea who he was or whether or not I was supposed to. I said nothing.
“You look like your father,” he remarked, almost casually.
I swallowed, but still kept silent. What are you supposed to say when someone has kidnapped you—or at least participated in your kidnapping—and then announces that you look like your now-dead relative who threw you in an asylum for killing his brother? Silence seemed like my best option.
The man grunted. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that your intellectual development was stunted,” he remarked, sounding almost disappointed. “Given your… upbringing.”
So he knew me. Knew my parents. Knew that they’d thrown me in Tranquil Brook.
Did that also mean he knew I was a death witch?
My lungs felt tight, fear making it impossible for me to draw a full breath.
“Mr. Garraway,” Mulrooney said, stepping forward, his tone respectful.
Oh, shit.
My heart pounded faster, a sour lump forming in the back of my throat.
“I assume you were not followed?” Garraway said to Mulrooney, who shook his head.
“No, sir.”
“You are certain?”
“Yessir.”
Garraway let out a soft grunt that may or may not have indicated satisfaction, then rolled up his sleeves and closed his eyes.
Wary, I shifted, sitting up slowly, pulling my knees toward my chest, leaving a smudge of chalk on the knee of my slacks.
I frowned down at it.
Chalk?
Shit.
But before I could seriously think about what Garraway was doing—what kind of spell or curse he was beginning to chant—I felt cold starting to seep into my body from the places where my butt and feet touched the ground and the chalk-lined sigil Garraway had presumably drawn on the broken tile.
He was draining me.
Panic made me lash out before I could stop myself, my magic desperate to protect itself.
Garraway’s eyes widened, and he let out a gasp, sinking to his knees.
But he didn’t die.
Instead, he swept his arm to the side, and it was Mulrooney who dropped with a dull thud, his eyes wide and shocked.
“Boss!” The cry came from Gennaro.
Garraway bared his teeth at me in a kind of rictus grin. “Well, well, well,” he breathed. “Turns out your mother was right about you.”
I didn’t bother asking what she’d been right about.
The cold intensified as Garraway waved his hands, the gestures clearly deliberate and rehearsed. Part of a spell.
I really, really wished I’d done more to train myself to use my magic—not just not use it, but to actually use it. To focus and direct and shape.
I wasn’t upset that Mulrooney was dead. He’d made his choices.
I was upset that Garraway wasn’t.
Because I wasn’t sure if I could muster that much magical energy again, and now he was expecting it. Or, at least, was expecting something from me.
I wasn’t sure if it would be better if he over- or under-estimated my capacity—if the first, he might be more cautious, and if the second, I might surprise him.
Either way, though, there were three of them—still living, anyway—and one of me, and I’d refused to learn necromancy from Archie in order to get closer to balanced odds.
I wondered if I’d take him up on the offer if I made it through this alive. Right now, the idea was pretty tempting.
Breathing was getting harder, my bones colder from the inside out, and I could tell that if I didn’t do something now, I wasn’t going to have any magic left to do anything at all. Including breathe.
That’s the thing about magic.
Once you have it as a part of you, whether from birth or from Arcanavirus, it’s part of you, and the only way to totally strip it from you is to strip away your life, too. If Garraway took all my magic, it would kill me.
And I wasn’t going to let him do that without a fight.
Besides, if I used up more of it, that would be less he could take from me, and I took at least some perverse satisfaction in the thought that even if I couldn’t stop him or save myself, I could at least keep him from getting as much as he wanted.
But I had to do something soon, before I no longer had the strength.
I let myself go limp, slumping closer to the filthy floor, trying to give the impression that I was losing energy more rapidly than I was—or, at least, that I had less left than I actually did.
I heard the shift in Garraway’s voice, heard the slight shuffle as either Gennaro or Edson took a step, although whether toward or away from me, I couldn’t tell. They all thought Garraway was winning.
He was.
But I wasn’t done yet.
I debated whether taking out Gennaro would be more productive than trying to get through Garraway’s defenses.
If I killed Gennaro, I would take out one of Garraway’s followers, but Garraway himself would still be at full strength.
More than, maybe, if he had the ability to use the magic he was taking from me right away.
I was pretty sure I didn’t have enough left in me to kill Garraway, but I might—just might—have the ability to throw him just enough that he’d have to stop what he was doing. To, in essence, do to him what he was trying to do to me.
I couldn’t totally drain him. Not even close.
And I wouldn’t consume his magic the way he was consuming mine—death magic would let me drain his life, not his power.
But life is power, and power is life. If I could weaken him enough, he’d have to conserve energy to defend himself and stay alive, and that might be enough to keep him from draining me completely.
It wasn’t really a choice.
I scraped up everything I could from inside myself, my insides feeling raw and weak, the cold from Garraway’s magic freezing in my marrow.
I pooled it in the pit of my stomach, folding myself around it, trying to use the meat and bone of my body to protect it as much as I could until I’d put every little scrap I could into it.
And then I pushed.
I didn’t lash out the way I had the first time. The way I had when I’d killed my uncle.
No, Garraway had seen that already. Would be expecting it.
This was a kind of reverse siphoning—pushing the magic I wanted Garraway to receive down the pathway he was already using, making sure that the magic he consumed would be tainted by deathly intentions.
And, then, when he started choking on it, gasping, his eyes wide, I pushed harder, forcing it down his throat like bitter medicine until I no longer had the strength or the magic left to push.
Darkness lapped at the edges of my vision and the air in my lungs felt thin as I collapsed back to the ground, sucking in dirt with the oxygen I so desperately needed.
I coughed weakly, tasting soil and grit.
My ears rang, and I couldn’t make words out of the sounds of men’s voices.
The blackness was winning, despite my desperate attempts to cling to consciousness, and I spared a thought to wonder whether or not anyone would ever find my body.