Chapter 30
ILLUSIONARY
Marina
Snow collected on the rooftop like a thick, crystalline blanket. Fat flakes continued to dance down from the monochrome clouds as Marina peered out across Hollow City, a momentary glimpse of stillness against her drumming pulse. She could hear the caw of a bird, a crow or starling, in the distance.
Like every time they’d met before, Soren waited for her, arms crossed in his black coat, looking out into the city. His mind probably ran wild with more secret schemes.
At the sound of her heels, he acknowledged her with a look over his shoulder. “No Nina today?”
She’d used minimal glamor, dulling her divinity enough to blend in as a mortal. In her final moments with Soren, as his friend, appearing in her disguise as Nina did not feel right.
“No.” She did not reciprocate the playful ire in his tone as she came to stand beside him, peering out at the vast view of the city. “Update?”
“I haven’t spotted another Daemon.” Snow collected in his dark hair and over the fabric of his mask. “How did it go when you tracked it down?”
He knew the answer, and yet he asked as if he did not, so convincingly. She had never met a better liar.
“The Daemon is dead.” She fixed on the falling particles slowly drifting from the sky. “The Blood Heretics caught it.”
Soren studied the side of her face, snow sticking in his dark hair. “They were patrolling down Tempest awfully heavy, but I managed to slip through to the other side of the city where I found a few witches undercover.”
She turned to him then. “And?”
“What do you think?” Soren’s eyes drew into what she knew to be a smirk under his mask. “They’ve been eliminated.”
“Hm.” Marina pushed out the sound, unable to find it in her to praise him. All she had to do was keep him talking, keep him on the rooftop.
“You seem worried.” His gaze softened and he lightly nudged her arm. “Hey, I promise we’ll keep the kid safe. That’s why I am here.”
His deceit raked like claws down her chest, a new ache that she wasn’t sure she could handle.
Her jaws flexed.
In times like this, life felt too much, too cruel.
She looked at him, really looked at him, and saw her friend, Soren, the god who appeared over her as she lay in her humiliation after her greatest defeat.
“You dead?” he’d asked, offering her his hand.
It had coaxed a deranged laugh out of her that quickly turned into tears. He’d stayed next to her the entire time, consoling her with a kindness foreign to her from a god.
Was any of their time together real?
“All those years ago,” she asked, “after I lost to Keirnan, why did you help me up?”
The clouds above began to darken, swelling with power.
Soren furrowed his brow. “Where is this coming from?”
“I am feeling nostalgic, I guess.”
He unfolded his arms, shifting his body to her. “Well, I am not sure what you mean.”
Marina held his cerulean gaze in a vice grip. “I just don’t understand why you helped me is all.” If these were the last genuine words she’d ever speak with him, she wanted to know.
Their soft plumes of breath hung in the air between them.
A second passed, then another.
Soren looked up at the gathering storm, as if he were contemplating his next response.
Marina could not wait for closure.
She brushed her middle finger across her brow—a signal to begin the end.
It rang like thunder, the release of the bullet, blending into the smoky sky.
The shot buried into Soren’s shoulder, coming out below the arm on his other side in a blossoming exit wound.
Marina watched the air refract around its trajectory, feeling the heat from its kinetic swirl. Mansi’s scope gave a quick gleam from a roof three buildings down.
Instead of blood, though, Soren’s insides released flickering particles of a deep forest green that caught and carried in the winter wind. His body melted down into the sleet, his skin shedding like a snake’s, before dispersing into the same emerald powder.
Soren’s voice graced the shell of her ear from behind.
“You think yourself special?” He laughed in an arrogant, buoyant sound that was only tinder to her rage.
He casually strutted back into her view.
“You think you’re the only one I helped after a vicious defeat, a lost love, a night of gambling gone sour? ”
Another clap erupted, and another hefty bullet pierced the god. This time it ate straight through his heart, the projectile whizzing past Marina’s icy, sable hair.
Again, his body wrung itself of its viridian fragments, but it rebuilt even quicker this time on Marina’s other side, starting with his boots and rising to his hood, unfazed by the wet weather.
He scrutinized her, head twisting in a smug manner as he approached in slow strides. “Trust is an investment, a currency. And sometimes, I get pretty damn lucky, and it pays off in droves. Say, when one of my pawns becomes the aunt of a god-killer.”
The memory played behind her eyes again: Soren reaching for her hand, offering her kindness. You dead?
From the start, he had nurtured their friendship for his own gain. And because of her insurmountable foolishness, she’d never suspected his true intentions.
The burn of tears started in her eyes, but she composed herself as lightning illuminated inside the nimbus clouds above.
Soren looked up and watched the bright, violet threads in the sky. “You were hungry for connection, and all it took was my loyalty to earn your favor. Now, thanks to you, I know every detail of this city, its protectors, and where they are keeping the demigod child.”
I am the problem.
Starved so desperately for love that she ate crumbs out of a stranger’s hands.
A caustic pool rose in her throat, her pulse a living percussion.
“Congratulations.” She clapped in sarcastic applause, smirking as her rage crawled over her skin.
“What a mastermind you are, Soren. Truly. Consider me divinely impressed.” She took a step into his space, bringing her face close to his.
He glowered down at her, his true colors finally showing.
“I am going to make you regret ever offering me your hand that day.”
Soren let out a breathy laugh, hovering his curled fingers near her cheek. “Theon could never just keep his mouth shut, huh? Took you all enough damn time. I’ve been waiting too long for this.”
It happened quickly.
A barrage of bright purple static began raining down on Soren. He teleported before the impact of one bolt, but another struck not a second later.
It was a waltz of hot lightning and bright flashes, pulled down from the belly of the squall as Soren phased between the strikes. White powder and brick exploded in small craters where the bursts of energy hit.
Viviana materialized to her right, Mansi on her left, as an ear-splitting cacophony of bestial shrieks rang out.
Dozens of large claws ripped over the sides of the building, slicing into the concrete. The false Daemons of Soren’s creation scaled up the edges and hauled themselves up onto the rooftop, quickly crowding Marina and her two closest friends.
Shit.
A sheen layer of sapphire magic spread over Marina’s head like a dome, encasing the nearby blocks in a protective barrier.
The Blood Heretics.
A failsafe if Soren had attacked, to contain the catastrophe and keep the rest of Hollow City’s citizens safe.
A Daemon jogged on its spindly legs in a predatory sprint toward Marina.
She grounded her stance before reshaping her whirling onyx into a large, righteous blade.
She gripped it with both hands, and as the creature leapt for her, she bisected it from its skull to its barbed tail in a mighty swing.
It choked on its breath as it collapsed.
“There!” Another jumped for the group as Mansi pulled a small shotgun from her belt and unloaded two quick bursts of grapeshot into its ribbed chest.
Marina whipped around. In her periphery, she counted the Daemons surrounding her. Five total, with two more quickly approaching.
She let her sword disperse into the darkness as she squeezed her hands into fists and raised her forearms, commanding her divine power to flare up from her feet. It welled in black pools, covering the sheet of fresh snow, and spread under the nearby creatures.
With a snap of Marina’s fingers, her oily might molded into black spikes that tore up and penetrated through the Daemons like the stalagmites of Tavora.
Soren stood on the building’s ledge, his eyes squinted in a boyish smirk. “Did you honestly think you could trick the High God… of Trickery? I mean, really?” He leaned sideways to dodge a quick, impulsive shot from Mansi’s revolver.
Marina’s fists clenched as he flicked his mask up smugly at her.
“I hate that he’s still so fucking hot.” Viviana jutted out her hands, and a neon web of lilac electricity coiled around her palm.
She flicked her wrist and sent the current to the mass of beasts that struggled on Marina’s large trap.
The Daemons convulsed and writhed in agony as their lifeforce burned away.
“Time for another hole in that pretty face!” Mansi cackled like a maniac as she whipped out another revolver in her other hand.
She sent both arms out and began her volley of lead and seraphic poison, gunning down the Daemon that dove between her and Soren.
“Vivi!” Marina brought back her ribbons of Night and sent them to form a whorl around Viviana’s ankles. The spiral of onyx rose around her frame and split off into small, fractured shards of serration, ripping through the attacking creature’s flesh as if it were gelatin.
Viviana’s arms shot heavenward. Electricity nipped in the air. The storm flickered once more, and a fusillade of bright streaks plunged into the spot where Soren stood.
His figure dissolved and swept away in the breeze.
Another fucking illusion.
Had he ever once shown up to this rooftop as himself?
Marina growled under her breath, and her mind swelled in a raucous panic. She flitted her eyes over the crowd of monsters gaining around her, her senses overloading from the growing amount.
Wait.