Chapter 100
The cruel Finn shuddered. He shook as if he were standing on top of an earthquake. He clenched his fists as a bright light shot through him. Pierced him and filled him. The light rocketed like a beam out of the crevice and speared toward the sky.
Above, the horror screeched.
The cruel Finn’s chin dropped to his chest. His eyes closed, and he took in great, heaving breaths. He shuddered one last time, and then the earthquake-like shaking subsided. The light dimmed, and the glow faded.
Finn’s fists were clenched, and his jaw was hard. He looked like his father. Like Wolfgang at his coldest. A soldier who wasn’t there to protect but to slaughter.
He filled the crevice with his power, and I backed against the dirt and stone wall.
The good Finn was gone. Only the cruel Finn was left.
He loosened his fists, rolled his shoulders, and then, lifting his head, opened his eyes.
He captured me with the force of his gaze. It pinned me to the stone. I froze, unable to move.
“Mari.” His voice was thunderstorm-raw, and the rumble of it rolled over me.
I shivered. His cosmic-blue solange eye was gone. Both eyes were hazel again. What did it mean? His gaze softened, and I fell into the summer thunderstorm promise of them. He lifted his hand, and I felt the illusion swirling even before he conjured.
I reached into my pocket and threw my last blood snake at his feet. It sprang to life, and six feet of venomous snake rushed at him.
Finn shouted, and I scrambled up the wall.
* * *
I rushed from the crevice, dodging fireballs and the horror’s seeking darkness.
The Smiths had surrounded it and were shooting fireballs into the dark. Larvae smoked and writhed on the pavement. Last had dragged Primus behind her stone hill.
Jagger’s remaining creatures shot fire at the Smiths while the tornado tore through them.
“Well?” Jagger asked.
“He’s dead,” I said, and when I did, he laughed.
“Both of them?”
“No. The good one.”
I didn’t smile at Jagger’s amusement. His flat gray eyes raked over me, and he grabbed the obsidian blade at his throat. “Good. Never forget, Mari. A man willing to die for a cause often becomes a man willing to kill for it. That’s what happened, isn’t it? Lesson learned.”
He jerked his head, nodding toward the fight.
Griff dropped from out of the black sky, spreading his dark wings. A hot breeze blew past as he tucked his wings behind him.
“Where have you been?” Jagger’s voice dripped with the promise of punishment.
Griff nodded toward the darkness. Jagger and I both turned. Winnie strolled out of a black cloud. Her hands were behind her back, and she moved with a jaunty, skip-like stride, as if she were frolicking in the park.
Behind her, Justice limped from the darkness.
My chest clenched, and the secret spot in my heart that loved him pulsed with fear. He looked like he’d just walked through hell and wasn’t planning on turning around and coming out again.
He moved heavily, slowly, as if every step caused unspeakable agony. Finally, he stopped a foot from Jagger.
“I failed,” he said.
Jagger was a giant creature. Even so, Justice had never seemed small or weak compared to him. But now, as he hunched over in defeat, he seemed very, very small.
Jagger looked over Justice contemptuously. He hated weakness in any form. Justice, broken and beaten, was the epitome of everything Jagger hated. Usually, when he saw something weak, he killed it.
“I see that,” Jagger said, his gray lips pulling back. “What have I always told you? There is no failure for you, only death.”
Jagger lifted his hand, curling his fingers so his sharp claws could rend and rip.
“Wait—” Justice said, quickly glancing at me, then away.
Jagger paused, ready to strike.
“Let me try again.”
Jagger narrowed his eyes, looking down at Justice’s broken form. “Why?”
“Because it’s better to die fighting.”
Jagger sniffed, his lips curving maliciously as he looked away, out at the blazing battle. While he did, Justice quickly turned to me. Then he tapped one finger against the back of his opposite hand.
Tap tap. Tap tap.
I tilted my head.
Was he . . .?
Tap tap. Tap tap.
Was that Griff’s tap?
Was he tapping our code?
It’s me. I’m still me.
I let out a breath and then smoothed my features as Jagger turned back to him.
“Fine. You’ve been an adequate mine. I’ll grant you this. You may die fighting. Kill the Bards. Kill the Smith heir. Kill the Smith, if you can.”
Justice smiled.
I shivered. I’d never seen him smile like that before. It was a terrifying thing to behold.
He palmed a long knife and grinned.
There. That was the grin I knew. The one he used to give before he became a mine.
It was his happy “let’s imagine a place where we’re free” grin.
Let’s imagine our cabin in the woods.
Jagger turned away, dismissing him.
Instead of running into the battle, Justice leaped forward and shoved his knife into Jagger’s gut.
* * *
A nine and a mine couldn’t harm Jagger. That was one of the peculiarities of our symbiosis. If you ever attempted to harm him, you froze. It was impossible to move.
Justice froze in rigor mortis the second he leaped at Jagger. But the force of his momentum carried him forward. His arm was propelled downward, and the knife crashed into Jagger’s abdomen.
I screamed as pain ripped through me. I pressed my hand against my stomach and felt the hot ooze of leaking blood. My skin burned, and my vision was swamped with darkness. The metallic-hot taste of blood filled my mouth, and my ears thundered.
Justice grunted and then screamed through gritted teeth as Jagger dug poison claws into his blood. A leggerock could do this whenever he wanted. He could torture and maim and make his creature’s blood sizzle.
I pressed my hand to my abdomen, trying to slow the blood flow.
“Justice,” Jagger said, scraping his claws through the air. “Just for that, you won’t die. Not for a long time.”
His eyes widened as Justice shoved to his feet. He was still torturing his blood—that was obvious. But somehow, Justice was fighting through it. He held the knife in his hand.
“You can’t,” Jagger said.
Justice smiled, baring his teeth. His stomach was leaking even more blood than mine.
“I know,” he agreed. Then he spun around in a wild circle and, blurring his form, he flung the knife. It hit Jagger in the shoulder, just above the rocklike space where a heart would be if he had one.
I fell to my knees, gripping my shoulder.
The meat of it was torn with agony.
He hadn’t aimed! He hadn’t aimed at all! He was beating Jagger’s will by having no will at all.
Griff saw my agony and raced at Justice, trying to stop him, but Jagger threw him back.
“Fight me then,” Jagger said tauntingly, giving Justice permission to fight.
Winnie hovered at the edge of the black cloud. She tossed Justice another knife. He caught it and lunged at Jagger.
Swipe after swipe, cut after cut. I felt every single one. So did Justice. The more he cut Jagger, the more Justice bled.
Soon, I lay curled on the ground. A pool of blood soaked into the concrete. The horror’s dark reaches swarmed around me, tasting and sniffing. It was waiting for just the right moment to move in and swallow us all.
“If you kill him,” I called, my tongue thick, “we all die.”
“Good,” Justice snarled.
“But he won’t. He never dies.”
“I won’t,” Jagger boasted.
Justice smiled, looking into Jagger’s cold eyes. “Lie. I see your depravity. You are lie.” He swung his knife, arching it toward Jagger’s throat. It caught the soft gray flesh and tore across it.
Justice and Jagger fell at the same moment.
I was already on the ground.
My neck burned. I gasped for air. It leaked free before it could reach my lungs.
Across the dark, I heard a jackaltooth howl.
Griff screamed. It was the horrifying shriek of the Jersey Devil.
Justice stared at me, his cheek cushioned on the concrete. His face was turned toward me, and although one eye was swollen shut, I could read the emotion in him perfectly.
It’s me. I’m still me.
My lungs screamed for air. Even though I gasped, nothing reached them.
The wind shrieked, rushing in a tornado around us.
Jagger laughed, pushing himself upright.
He’d already healed.
He was stone, not man.
I blinked, keeping ahold of Justice’s pained gaze.
From across the darkness, I heard Finn’s roar.