Midnight
I wrap Lucy’s body in layers and layers of Finis magic. I don’t have the strength to carry her down the tower. Not with my ribs. I am certain they’re broken by the way every breath I take is fucking blisteringly painful.
I wield the ribbons and Finis does the work of carrying Lucy into the tower and down the never-ending stairs. When I get to the Finis door, I beg Mordax to find Lex and send her to meet me by Church Mortis.
I may not be a linguist, but I’ve learnt enough at Finis to recognise demonic runes when I see them.
The last thing Lucy said before blacking out was Ignatius. The fucking bastard.
The campus is now quiet. It’s unnerving after such carnage earlier. Vampire soldiers work to lift the bodies of the injured and speed them to the infirmary.
What’s left are cobbles littered with wraith and ashspawn debris and the bodies of Societas members sprawled in unnatural positions.
The faint stench of stagnant water, sour milk and cigarette breath pervades the air. It makes me want to vomit. Eleanor and Cordelia wave to me, beside them Red is triaging the most urgent injuries before allowing soldiers to speed them across the campus.
Even wielding campus magic, I collapse quickly. My body is done; it wants to give out.
“Red,” I shout. She kisses Octavia and then runs after me, catching up as I haul myself off the ground and continue to make my way around the back of the Great Library, past the garden of death and towards the churches.
“Can you help?” I plead.
“I… I’m not sure. I don’t know anything about rune magic, but I can certainly check her vitals and keep her… well, I’m not sure. Let’s get her laid down first and I’ll examine her.”
Lex meets us in the foyer of the church. She’s a little worse for ware. There’s a small cut under her eye and she’s not walking too smoothly. But she seems relatively unscathed.
“What’s—oh,” she falters. “Oh gods.” Lex pushes her sleeves up, then nudges me out of the way and tugs at Lucy’s clothes, pulling and pushing fabric this way and that so she can get a good look.
“They’re not the same as before, are they?” I ask.
“No.” She shakes her head.
Red’s hands glow golden. It almost looks like Lucy’s skin when her runes flare. There’s a faint hint of mint and lavender an even a little overcooked cinnamon. The light washes over Lucy and her trembling eases.
“Okay, I think I can keep her stable like this for a while. Can you read the pictures?” Red asks.
“They’re demonic runes,” Lex says. “But yeah, I think so. It’s just that they keep switching from celestial runes to demon ones. The celestial ones are the dominant runes, but it’s like the demon ones are blocking her from whatever it is she’s doing or… or becoming.”
“Blocked or controlled?” I say.
“I, umm…” She glances down at Lucy and brushes her sleeve up again. “Oh shitting hell. Ignatius.”
“Bastard.”
“I don’t understand. She broke free of her original contract,” Lex says.
“It has to be the deal I made. He doesn’t have the full control over her he used to. But because I sold her to free myself, he must have some power over her.”
Lex slumps into one of the pulpit chairs. “What are we going to do?”
We fall silent, but the truth lingers between us, thick and ugly, destined to rip another hole in our lives.
I already know what has to be done. I think I’ve always known.
“Not we,” I whisper.
Lex hesitates, the realisation washing through her as she replays my words. “Midnight, don’t you fucking dare. I lost Bastien, I will not lose you.”
Red’s eyes widen. She shifts uncomfortably and averts her gaze.
“Lex…” I start.
“No,” she growls.
“Lex…”
“No,” she says, her voice crumbling into tears. “No, please. You’re the first friend I made here. You and Lucy are the reason I know why my sister was able to save me, for demonsake. You’re the damned reason our flat feels like home. Don’t do this.”
I grab her hand and squeeze. “I have to. She will never be free. But I can be like your sister. If I make the sacrifice, then she will be free, finally, of his influence.”
Lex sobs as I pull her into my chest.
“I’m sorry,” I breathe into her neatly braided locks. “I’m so sorry.”
“Fuck you, Midnight,” she says, still crying. There’s no malice in her tone, just pain. And it breaks another piece of me.
This is the only way.
My clock has been ticking for ten long years and I am so very, very tired of living this way. I was always meant to give my soul for another’s, I just chose the wrong person.
I can fix that now.
I can give the greatest woman I’ve ever known a chance to live. A chance to prosper free from control.
“You have to pass Finis. Do it for all three of us, okay? Last woman standing,” I say and brush a hand over Lex’s hair and kiss her forehead.
“I hate you so much,” she says, squeezing the life out of me and rubbing my back.
“That’s okay.”
Red scratches her neck with one hand. The other working on Lucy.
“I don’t want to interrupt, but if you’re going to do something, now is the time. Whatever this Ignatius is doing is slowly draining her.”
I grit my jaw and pull myself free of Lex, who watches me walk away. Her eyes bore into me the entire walk down the aisle.
It’s her soft cries that will haunt me long into the underworld. It feels like I’ve betrayed her even though I’m doing this for Lucy.
Doing this because I am exhausted from running and hiding and fighting my fate.
It is time to face the decision I made and deal with the consequences.
I enter the dungeon and make my way to Ignatius’s cell.
He stinks. His clothes are dirty and ripped, his face smeared in muck, but he holds a triumphant gaze in his eyes, a faint glow humming beneath his skin.
That motherfucker has no idea what’s about to hit him. I unclasp my scythe from my hip for the last time.
“I wondered when you’d come back. Ready to die already?” he snarls.
I sniff, wipe my hand across my forehead, very blatantly brandishing my scythe.
His eyes narrow. “What are you planning to do with that?” he says, decidedly less smug this time.
I smile, it’s lopsided and a little crazed. I tilt my head, waiting for him to catch up.
“Funny thing I learned about deals. See I always thought there was only a couple of ways to break a contract: renegotiation… you were never going to do that.”
He smiles at me, all toothy and vicious.
I continue. “An angelic blessing. Well…” I turn around, gesturing at the world in general. “I don’t see any willing angels. Do you?”
“And killing the demon you made the deal with.”
He laughs. “Is that what you’re here to do?”
I grin. “Nah. See, the way I figure it, the original deal is the reason I’m dying. But the subclause… that’s the one you really value. The one giving you Lucy.”
His expression falls, the ego peeling away and making his skin pale.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Cut the bullshit, Ignatius. Lex is up there reading the runes you’re using to control her. Lucy’s fighting though. Gods, is she a fighter…”
He frowns, trying to piece together what’s coming.
“I realised something… what was the phrase you used?” I clear my throat dramatically and do my best impression of Ignatius.
I deepen my voice, fling as much arrogance as I can into it, mocking him.
Revelling in the fact I know I’ve finally got the bastard.
“Then you have a choice to make. Your soul, for hers.”
I strut around, puff my chest out the way he does when he thinks he’s getting his way.
“Do that, give me my daughter and I’ll let you out of this contract. I want what’s mine and you took it from me.”
The final puzzle piece must click because his face darkens to a violent shade of red. It’s a divine feeling.
“A soul for a soul. That’s what you said,” I grin. The satisfaction is bone deep, nestling against every cell and fibre. I’ve never smiled so hard in my life.
His shoulders stiffen; a pulse throbs in his temple. I take my time to memorise the rage throbbing through his features. There is no pleasure like this. Despite the fact I’m about to die, I finally won.
“Here’s the thing, if I give you my soul, you can’t have hers. She will finally be free. So, Ignatius Corvine… I am here to give you my soul.”
“No,” he barks.
“There’s a thing I do for each soul I reap. A final gift I give them. Do you want to know what it is?”
He launches himself up and runs at the bars, only to be flung backwards as the chains lock out at full extension. “Don’t you dare.”
I ignore him and continue. “I say: whisper your last truth and I’ll carry it to the dark with me. Do you want to know what my final truth is?”
“Go to hell, Midnight. You don’t have the balls to do this.”
I bring the scythe to my neck. Ignatius yanks on the chains, trying anything to rip them free of their restraints.
“My last truth is that all these years I kept sacrificing myself for others. For love and worthy causes. But the thing is I never once believed I was worth saving too. Omnia mors aequat.”
I plunge the scythe deep into my neck and slice in one swift movement.
I suck in a breath, my mouth parts in a scream and then I’m plummeting to the floor. The last thing I hear is Ignatius’s howls of fury.
And then there’s only peace.