Chapter 17 #2
I tipped the mirror, trying to steady my hand to catch the words in the glass. I filled my lungs and opened my mouth.
The spell was fire across my tongue, down my throat, in my belly. Sounds collided, blended, broke apart, skittering painfully between my teeth.
This wasn’t like the transformation spell. There would be no beautiful flowers at the end of it.
This spell was violence and pain, it was horror. Each word tore out of my chest and left me raw.
Lu’s hands shook, and still I spoke.
The mirror cracked, and still I spoke.
Thunder growled across the sky, lightning bombarding the horizon. The wind howled across the plain, kicking dirt and debris as the ground rumbled.
Still, I spoke.
I couldn’t see Headwaters, didn’t dare look away from the mirror, from the spell.
I wouldn’t see his attack when it came.
My heartbeat went ragged, making it hard to pull in enough breath fast enough to continue the spell.
All through in one, Card’s words came back to me.
I had to finish the spell, or none of this would work.
Lu’s entire body shook. I had to constantly adjust the mirror to keep the spell in view.
Then the last word ripped out of my lungs, and everything went suddenly, painfully silent.
Nothing happened.
The spell didn’t do anything.
I spun forward, every muscle throbbing. I was absolutely horse-whipped. It took everything I had not to drop the mirror.
Headwaters’ hood was thrown back revealing a face of horror that had been permanently etched in my brain.
He was vampire, only by the paleness of his skin and the hook of fangs over thin, blood red lips. His forehead was wide and protruded over cat-like eyes the color of wet ash. Yellow hair slicked his skull and hung lank to his shoulders.
If he had ever been human, there was no sign of it now, his expression alien and intense and utterly devoid of soul.
He raised his hand—
—just as the spell exploded.
I crashed to the ground, Lula next to me, pinned like a giant foot was crushing us.
I couldn’t breathe.
The air was gone—
—diamonds? I wondered, deliriously. Had we cast the wrong spell?—
—the sky and earth melted into mind-twisting terrors I could not describe.
I couldn’t feel my body, but still, I reached for Lula.
I couldn’t feel her hand, but I knew it was in mine.
The world exploded again and a great howling filled the air.
Something huge loomed above us, so large it blocked out the sun.
It had eyes—too many.
It had limbs—too many.
Its teeth were massive and stained with blood. Its body was built of fur and bone and scales.
The beast.
It howled, but it did not attack us.
It did not attack Headwaters.
It swung its head to the sky and exploded into smoke.
The sun burned again, the ground solid beneath me, the sky blue and arching overhead.
I sucked air, like I’d just dug up out of my own grave, and tasted blood and ash.
Lu’s hand in mine was warm.
All the rest of me was frozen.
The book was closed in Lu’s arms.
The beast was gone. It had broken free from the book and disappeared.
We had failed.
“You are nothing,” Headwaters spat. “How dare you call on god magic. How dare you disobey me.”
I rolled onto my side, hands and knees, my head hanging. The world was blacking out and snapping back into place. Bright, much too bright.
I pushed upward because Lula was moving, on her knees, then struggling to her feet.
We weren’t going to die on our knees.
“We obey no god,” I said, “or the worthless castoffs they create.”
Headwaters laughed, and it was rotted and cruel.
“You think you can stand against me? I made you what you are. I control your souls.”
Lula could barely lift the book, but she drew it up to her chest and opened it.
The spells were all we had.
It would kill us, but we were going to cast god magic again.
“No.” Headwaters didn’t yell, didn’t even raise his voice. But it sounded like a mountain falling, that one word hammering painfully through my brain.
Lula staggered and almost fell.
“I tore your souls apart once,” he hissed. “I forced the bloody pieces to join and twist and scar. I can rip them from your bodies and end you for good.”
He raised his hand again and my back bowed like I was caught on meat hooks.
I screamed.
Movement to my left shifted, something fast I couldn’t track.
Abbi stood in front of us.
Not in the guise of a child, but someone, something older and more powerful. Her mortar glowed in her hands, the pestle carved from stars, a cloak of shadow rising like wings behind her.
I tried to call out for her. To tell her to run.
She was a deity.
She was powerful.
But Headwaters was powerful too.
Abbi threw magic at the monster.
Headwaters lunged, inhumanly fast, his claws extended, aimed at her throat.
A fissure of light cracked open in the space right behind Abbi.
Cardamom stepped through a portal, whipping fireball after fireball of magic at Headwaters.
But not even a powerful wizard could stop that monstrosity.
I reached for Abbi…
…and time stopped.
Headwaters was frozen mid-leap, Cardamom’s magic wrapped around his throat, Abbi’s magic shrouding his head.
Abbi and Card were frozen too.
Card’s fingertips rested on Abbi’s shoulder, ready to pull her back through the portal in space he had opened.
Everything in the world was frozen.
Except Lula and me.
Dried blood tracked like tears from the corners of her eyes, catching her braid which had swung forward. The wildflowers we’d created with lost god power were still tucked in her braid, blood blackening the petals.
But in her hand was the magic pocket watch that could stop time, her thumb pressing the stem.
Clever, clever woman.
We only had a minute, had never been able to endure the stoppage of time any longer than that.
“We have to save Abbi,” I said. “We have to run.”
Lula smiled, but there were tears in her eyes. Her hand shook. “You aren’t strong enough to run. You aren’t fast enough. Neither am I.”
She was right.
I was exhausted to the point my vision was blurring. I couldn’t run.
For her to admit she couldn’t either, meant she was just as depleted as I was.
I lifted my hand and put it over hers, helping her keep time paused.
“I love you, Lula Gauge,” I said as I would always say.
“I love you, Brogan Gauge,” she said.
It was our hello. It was our pledge across too many lonely years.
And now, it was our good-bye.
“We’re here to kill the bastard,” I said, shifting our hold so it was my thumb on the watch stem instead of hers. “Pick up that damn book.”