Chapter 39
Several things happened at once.
Victor Westbrook immediately disobeyed Will and ran to Amaya, which was irksome, but the other fleetmen closed in on the two automatons as instructed. Ford and Crowe lunged into action, heading for their assigned targets.
Will went after Graven, who was already lifting Stormfist, and threw Hellsgate to thwart the old Sky Lord’s aim. Hellsgate cut through most materials with ease, but not Stormfist. While Hellsgate successfully misdirected Graven’s lightning, it spun back toward Will like a boomerang.
Will caught it as he ran forward, gripping the hilt tightly and swinging.
Graven caught the sword in Stormfist’s mighty grasp. Purple electricity rippled over the blade and sent a current humming through Will’s blood, prompting him to release it before Graven sent a surge of lightning through the metal to electrocute him. He wouldn’t meet Lockwood’s fate.
He backed away, summoning Hellsgate back to his hand.
Out of the corner of his eye, Will saw Ford engaged in battle with the automatons; he’d already grabbed the Skystone.
Crowe was fleeing the warehouse with Amaya and her friend slung over his shoulders. Good.
Amaya was complaining, fumbling with a shotgun . . . Deadeye?
Will would deal with that later. For now, she was out of harm’s way.
He and Graven appeared to come to the same conclusion: the true fight began now.
It was a dynamic, frustrating dance. Stormfist’s relentless blasts forced Will to turn Hellsgate sideways and hold it across his body like a shield, deflecting the bolts of lightning and releasing the hilt when the sparks flashed too close to his skin.
He utilized Stormfist’s brief cooldown period to close the distance and take a couple swings, drawing slivers of blood here and there, but nothing lethal. Nothing even close.
Then Stormfist struck again, Will lost all of his hard-earned ground, and the cycle repeated.
They were too familiar with one another’s patterns to be unpredictable, and with neither able to gain an edge, this could last all night. The worst part was, Will knew this wasn’t a fight he could win. Not with Genesis thumping in Graven’s chest.
Unless he found a way to bypass it, he’d lose from exhaustion if nothing else.
Graven let out a roar and blasted Stormfist through the ceiling, causing a concrete avalanche to descend on Will.
Sixth Sense told him where to move, so Will launched Hellsgate across the room and vanished again, reappearing at the new position in time to see half the ceiling hit the floor with a deafening crash.
The calamity destroyed the single light bulb, their arena now lit only by the moon.
“You missed,” Will said in a mocking tone.
Graven shrugged. “Worth a try.”
The rubble had crushed one of Graven’s automatons, trapping its foot and restricting its movement. Westbrook’s men barraged it with bullets, the onslaught causing the thing to whir as it fought to stay operational.
Its stationary state proved to be its downfall. While pinned down, Ford was able to rip a bundle of wires out of its back with his bare hands, finally rendering it powerless.
The remaining fleetmen tackled the last automaton, Ford taking the lead. In their lieutenant’s absence, Will noticed they followed the giant’s orders without question.
Sheep—all of them. But useful ones.
Will turned back to his own fight, seeing red. His eyes fell back down to the thumping clockwork heart.
“How’d you get Genesis?” he grunted, swinging his sword at Graven and aiming for his chest. The mechanical heart looked ugly and painful, unnatural and powerful.
Graven’s eyes danced at the question. He deflected Will’s blow and puffed out his chest like a proud bird.
“Thank you for noticing. I was beginning to think you’d never ask.”
“Where’d you find it?”
“This old thing? I’ve had it for years. Eighty-one, to be precise.”
Will’s grip faltered on Hellsgate. Eighty-one years? How was that possible?
Timeline aside, Will had lived with Graven for eleven of those eighty-one years. Surely he would have known.
But now that he thought about it, he’d never seen Graven without his shirt or his black leather coat.
“So all that talk about finding Pearce in the Skyvault. That was just bullshit? You had Genesis the whole time?”
“Not bullshit, William.” Graven actually sounded offended. “I call it misdirection. I very much intend to find the Skyvault.”
He pounded Stormfist on the ground, sending waves of electricity across the floor in sparkling lines. Will jumped over them with catlike precision, splitting his mind between the battle and the conversation.
“But why? What’s inside that you want if not Pearce? More relics?”
The streaks of lightning disappeared, allowing Will a moment to catch his breath and shake his hair out of his eyes.
“Not exactly. I’ve found evidence suggesting that the Skyvault isn’t a vault at all.” Graven’s grin widened. “It’s a doorway to other worlds.”
Will’s eyes narrowed, using Hellsgate to deflect a bolt of lightning.
Another world? This was more than a madman’s obsession, it was a fantasy. A fever dream. Aetheric Decay must have infected his brain.
Will and Graven began circling each other, on guard but no longer dealing active blows. Will watched closely for sudden movements, periodically glancing at Nightmare’s blue light for any changes. If Graven closed the mechanical eye and it opened red, he’d be able to invade Will’s mind.
That wasn’t happening.
“There’s no such thing as other worlds,” Will declared.
“Of course there is.”
“How are you so sure? Have you seen one?”
“I have a primary source,” Graven said. “My good friend, Ronan Pearce.”
Will paused. “You knew Ronan Pearce?”
It shouldn’t be possible. But if Graven had obtained Genesis eighty-one years ago . . . it could be.
“I did.”
The second automaton fell behind them, exploding into a shower of orange sparks. A quick glance at Ford showed him to be bloody and bruised, but alive. Will made brief eye contact and, when Ford patted his pocket to indicate he still had the Skystone, Will signaled him to start heading back.
Ford gave a strange look, but obeyed, and it was then Will realized he and Graven hadn’t been fighting for several minutes.
Graven stood there almost patiently, waiting for Will to put it all together.
Will knew the Relic War had ended a little over eighty years ago with the creation of the Aether Storm. Pearce disappeared, then returned with blue eyes and had an affair with Lucretia Albright, Amaya’s great-grandmother.
And then he’d gone after his partner, Westin Cory.
Pearce killed Cory to take Genesis, and then disappeared, presumably into the Skyvault.
But Genesis was here, which meant Pearce had never hidden it in the vault.
If Pearce didn’t have Genesis, he was undoubtedly dead . . . and Genesis was, more than likely, still with its previous owner.
“You’re Westin Cory,” Will realized, staring at the man who’d raised him with new eyes. “You killed Ronan Pearce when he came for Genesis.”
“Indeed.” Graven had the audacity to look mournful. “It was unpleasant; he was my oldest friend. We fathered the industry together, but he never saw the untapped potential. He never understood what I was trying to do—the world I was trying to build for us.”
Graven lifted Stormfist, admiring the purple sparks perpetually moving across it.
“But what Ronan lacked in vision, he made up for in scientific ambition. He told me the creation of the Skystone opened a doorway, and one need only navigate the Aether Storm with the stone to find it. It sounded simple enough. It wasn’t until he lay dying at my feet that he shared he’d made himself, and his mutated genetic code, the one and only key. ”
Graven clenched his hand into a fist. “He locked me out. He never told me about Lucy Albright, so it took eighty years to track down the stone. I thought it would take another century to activate it, but imagine my delight when we learned of Miss Amaya’s truly stunning blue eyes.”
Will’s stomach tied itself into a knot, his head pounding with the surplus of information.
“So you have no interest in fixing the relic industry,” he said. “You just want access to the other worlds.”
“The industry is my creation, William. Of course I want it restored. But that’s just the beginning,” Graven said.
“Aether is just the beginning. Imagine what we could harvest and harness from other worlds. We wouldn’t just revitalize our industry—we’d create new ones.
And if only I can open the door . . .” His eyes shimmered.
“That would make me the most powerful being in the world. In every world. With millennia to perfect each one.”
“You can’t open the door,” Will snapped. “Only Amaya can. You said so yourself.”
“Yes, quite correct. Which is why I’ll be needing unlimited access to her.”
It wasn’t Pearce that Graven needed to control to make his nightmarish dreams a reality, it was Amaya. It had always been Amaya.
“Imagine it,” Graven said. “It could benefit you, too. A new world is a clean slate, a fresh start. You could even bring that motley crew of yours. Start over in a world that’s never heard of William ‘Deathsmoke’ Lexington.” Graven leaned in. “I know you don’t want this life. You never did.”
He was right. But it didn’t matter if Will wanted this life or not; this was the life he had. He was a pirate, a killer, a monster—all because this man had molded him into one. Running away to another world wouldn’t erase that.
“Drop the sales pitch,” Will sneered. “You’ve failed. You need the Skystone and Amaya to find your imaginary doorway, and I have both. You’ll never lay eyes on them again.”
“Have I failed?” Graven growled, baring gold teeth. “You’re just a boy playing dress-up, William. You’re still the pathetic child I found fifteen years ago, weeping over his dead parents. Your ship was no match for mine, and you’re no match for me. You can’t kill me.”
Graven stepped forward and activated Stormfist again, letting the electricity crackle.
“You may have Amaya and the stone now, but the only way you can stop me is to kill her yourself. You play a convincing Sky Lord, William, but even you don’t have the stomach for that.”
Will heaved a breath, his pulse rushing. He’d sooner slit his own throat with Hellsgate than pull a trigger on Amaya—the rest of the world be damned. But that wasn’t the choice before him.
“You’re right,” Will said. “But I do have the stomach to kill you.”
It might not be possible, but he had to try.
Will flew into a frenzy, disappearing in a wisp of smoke and reappearing inches away from Graven. He dodged a blow from Stormfist, then another.
Genesis pulsed in Graven’s chest, a tantalizing target. Will didn’t take his eyes off of it. He went after the mechanical heart with everything he had, whipping himself into a tornado of black and red and gold.
Will channeled his rage into violence the way Graven himself had conditioned him to, letting himself embody the bloodthirsty monster of children’s nightmares and living up to every inch of his “Deathsmoke” moniker.
He’d gladly be the beast depicted in Edmund’s books if it meant ridding the world of this man.
If it meant saving Amaya from a future in Graven’s service.
If it meant avenging his parents and his crew.
If it meant avenging himself, and saving a thousand other worlds from Graven’s industrial hellscape.
If he could just overpower this one fucking relic.
Finally, Graven faltered. He stumbled over a block of concrete and, in the moment it took for him to regain his balance, Will plunged Hellsgate through Genesis—or, tried to.
Genesis resisted Hellsgate like Stormfist did, the sharp point of the sword refusing to puncture the heart. No matter. Will angled the sword up and sunk it into Graven’s chest instead, right above Genesis.
Hellsgate naturally curved to where Graven’s human heart should be, the blade tearing through flesh and muscle and bone. Will twisted the hilt before ripping out the blade, maximizing the internal damage.
Although he tried to ignore it, there was a small corner of Will’s own heart that filled with an irrational, irritating sadness at killing the man who had raised him. But Graven hadn’t really raised him. He’d molded him, groomed him. In a way, Graven had brought this upon himself.
Will squandered any glimmer of sadness, not allowing himself to feel it.
He would not mourn Alastor Graven.
Graven wavered on his feet, shifting from side to side. He fell to his knees, catching himself with Stormfist as wretched coughs tore through him, blood splattering on the floor.
No one should be able to recover from that kind of blow, at least not quickly, but Will wasn’t taking any chances.
He lifted Hellsgate high and brought the sword down hard on Graven’s neck, intending to separate his head from his shoulders.
But everything changed in a blink.
Sixth Sense only warned Will of attacks intended to cause physical harm, so when Graven snapped his head up and Nightmare flashed red, there was nothing he could do to prevent Graven from invading his mind.
“Agh!” Hellsgate evaporated as Will squeezed his eyes shut, but he was too late. The red light was trapped behind his eyelids, infecting his mind like a cancer until all he saw was red, red, red.
Will tried to fight the scarlet wave overtaking his senses—tried, and failed. It clawed through his thoughts, shredding them into ribbons, each thread of his willpower discarded until there was nothing left.
He felt like he should roar and rage. But he could no longer remember why. Or how.
“You’re going to convince dear Miss Sinclair to cooperate,” Graven said, now a disembodied voice. “You’re going to tell your crew you ran from this fight. Then, you’re going to lead me to the Skyvault. And you won’t realize what you’ve done until it’s too late.”
The words sunk in, burying themselves deep into the dark, forgotten corners of Will’s mind. He became vaguely aware of something hard and cold being pressed into his palm.
“I await your signal, Captain.”