Chapter 28

Twenty-Eight

All it took was a tug and a click, and the thing inside the black ball oozed out like dark smoke. Lucien opened the ball fully, allowing the horrible, swirling mass to unleash itself upon the world. I could hear it whispering incoherently, hissing against my ear, as it encircled us both; probing our minds for any weakness it could exploit.

"Lucien?" I asked, unable to keep the worry out of my voice.

Lucien's eyes flashed red, and the demon swirling around us began to slow down, seeming almost curious. In a flash, tendrils of crimson energy lashed out from Lucien toward the immaterial shape, hooking into it and restraining it. Tendril by tendril, the demon screamed, the ungodly sound reverberating around the small room in echoes that seemed impossible for the size of it. A seventh hook embedded itself in the creature, and finally it fell still, docile.

Whatever clash of wills had just occurred, Lucien had clearly won. I felt his power surge once more, and when he opened his mouth to command the creature, the sound that came from his throat wasn't his own; it definitely wasn't English, but something else entirely. Something ancient, and horrible; something demonic.

At his word, the swirling dark smoke stretched itself toward the ceiling, several perversions of limbs extending from its center and forming claws at the end of unreasonably long arms. It leapt in front of us, and bull-rushed the Recondite.

The wooden pews splintered as the creature barreled through them, the light fixtures exploding one after the other as it made its way toward its prey. It roared, shattering the windows above us and raining glass on our heads.

The Recondite put his hands up, and a glowing field of brilliant, blue magic surrounded him. I watched the demon throw itself at it, lashing out at it, screaming like a feral beast at the magic field.

"Foul creature!" yelled the Recondite as he prepared to whip up a glowing sword of magic. "Go back to the shadows!"

"Lucien…" I said, in awe of everything that was happening. "You did it, that was amazing!"

"This isn't the time," said Lucien. "Get us out of here!"

"Right," I said, only I didn't know how to transition from the state we were in, to one where we could phase through the wall. I panicked for a moment, considering all our options, before an idea hit me.

I grabbed Lucien's hand and pulled him toward the door and the adjoining hallway, skirting past the demon's swipes and mage's counter attacks carefully. As soon as we entered the hallway, and I could let out the breath I hadn't noticed I was holding, my magic dropped, turning us visible right in front of two rapidly approaching Recondite reinforcements.

"Fuck!" I cursed.

"Alright," said Lucien, rolling up his sleeves "We're going to have to do this the old-fashioned way."

"We can't fight our way out of this! If they're human, our magic won't work."

Lucien's eyebrow raised, "Is that what your parents told you?"

"What… what do you mean?!"

Lucien turned to face the newcomers, and as soon as he did, the two men yelled at him to put his hands up. They had drawn their pistols and were aiming them at Lucien. He looked down at me. I shook my head, viciously. He grinned. "You take the one on the left, I'll take the one on the right."

As soon as he spoke, gunshots erupted. From behind Lucien's back, erupted several, thick tendril-like shadows, formed of the same crimson magic he had used on the demon earlier. They extended out, filling most of the hallway space before they folded themselves around him, deflecting every bullet before it struck him. The bullets fell to the floor, only not in solid form, but as clouds of smoldering ash.

My eyes widened.

What the fuck?

He looked toward me again, his eyes glowing crimson, sweat forming on his brow from the effort of maintaining the spell. "Go!" he said.

The other man aimed his gun at me, and I had to admit, I was terrified. This was the first time I had found myself staring down a gun. Seeing what Lucien had just done, though, I quickly swallowed my fear and resigned to do my best. Instead of waiting for the man to open fire, I instantly made my body phase, and I rushed him.

His eyes went wide, he started firing at me, but the bullets went straight through me. One round, two round, three rounds; his gun was useless, here, only the message hadn't sunk in yet.

When I reached him, I didn't stop, I phased right through him, coming to a stop behind him before settling into the physical world again. The man didn't seem to understand what had happened, or where'd I'd gone—he was touching his chest like a ghost had just ran through him. Before he could figure it out, I pushed my arm through his back, grabbed the gun from him, and thwacked him in the face with it. He crumpled to the floor with a sigh, knocked out by his own gun.

I stared at my own hand, impressed by the level of control over the Ether that I'd achieved in such a short time. For once, I felt truly powerful. Any fear I'd felt was gone now, replaced with an insatiable urge to draw more magic and push all my limits.

Lucien, on the other side of the hallway, moved like shadow. The guy who had been shooting at him couldn't get a single shot to hit its mark. When Lucien reached him, one of the shadowy tentacles smacked the gun out of his hands, whilst the rest began wrapping themselves around his neck and arms. Lucien calmly drew a small red and black knife, holding it gently against the man's throat.

"Don't fight," he said, "Or I'll use this."

Coming in, we had no idea whether the humans in this temple knew about mages or not, but the look of horror in this man's face confirmed they didn't. I could see the same thought crossing Lucien's face as he stared into the bulging, panicked eyes of the man he was holding. He sighed, pulled the knife away and waited a few moments until the man passed out, before slowly lowering him to the ground.

We hadn't had a moment to process this before we heard the loud crunch of splintering wood behind us. We turned in time to watch the door to the temple room bursting off its hinges under the weight of the demon pushing the Recondite mage through it and slamming him into the opposite wall in a weird wall-Recondite-door, sandwich.

"Stop this, Ethera!" yelled the Recondite. He was bloody, bruised, and clearly losing, "I know what they did to you. We can help you!"

Lucien came up beside me. "He's lying to you," he said.

"I know," I said.

"How do you know?"

"I may be reckless sometimes, but I'm not stupid. Let's finish this before the rest of the temple falls on top of us."

Lucien's eyes flashed red again, and the demon ceased battering the Recondite further into the wall. When Lucien next spoke, it was in that whispered, two-toned voice I couldn't understand. The demon suddenly whooshed past us and went lumbering further up the hallway.

Then the screams began.

The Recondite slumped to the floor, breaths coming quickly and raggedly. Despite the beating he had just taken, he slowly pulled himself upright to face us.

"He's using you!" he yelled. Though he had dropped his blue shield, he still had the glowing blue sword made of pure light in his hand. "Don't you see that?!"

"Give us the crown," I said.

"Is that really what you want, Ethera? Have you truly aligned yourself with that evil family?"

I shook my head. "All of our families are fucking awful. I'm just trying to survive."

"Stop what you're doing right now, Diaboli, or you will reignite the Shadow War tonight."

Lucien took a deep breath. "You have something that belongs to my family, and we're here to return it to its rightful owner."

"Then you have sealed your fate… you have sealed all our fates."

"Let us leave here with the crown, and nobody has to get hurt."

"Do you really think I would let you take that thing back to your father?"

"If you want to spare your people, you will."

"If I let you take it back to him, many more will die! Or do you not understand just what a powermonger your father is?"

"I know what my father is."

"And you condone his actions?!"

"I don't… I'm not doing this for him."

"Who are you risking war for, then?"

My heart skipped. Lucien hadn't looked at me, but I could sense something from him—a ripple of warmth, and comfort, and care in a sea of anxiety and tension. Me? He hadn't said it, but I had felt it. I'd felt his intention.

"I'm giving you a chance," Lucien continued. "Surrender the crown… and let us leave."

"You'll have to pry it from my corpse," said the Recondite.

Lucien shook his head. "I don't think so. I know exactly where it is; all you have to do is lay down your weapons."

The Recondite snarled and lunged, raising his glowing sword. Lucien was about to form his own phantom blade to protect himself, but I leapt past him and threw myself at the Recondite. When he swung his sword at me, I ducked, grabbed his arm, pulled him into the Ether with me and threw him into the nearest wall.

I didn't stop to think about whether he'd made it out the other side.

"Run!" I yelled.

The two of us made a mad dash following the path of destruction the demon had left in its wake. The walls were scratched up, the lights were flickering, many were broken. Furniture had been upturned, some of it had splintered, and there were people lying on the ground, cradling injuries.

At the very end of the hallway was an open door that led into what looked like an office, and there was the demon, standing behind a familiar looking box. If demons had tails, this one would definitely be wagging it—like a puppy that had mastered a trick and was waiting for its reward.

Lucien and I made a grab for it, realizing now that there were more men running down the hall toward us, including the Recondite I had thrown through the wall. He looked madder than ever, and we were cornered.

"There's no way out," I said. "What are we going to do?"

"There is a way out," Lucien said, as he picked the box up. He turned his red eyes up at the demon and whispered new demonic instructions. The demon rushed through us, leaving a cloud of cold air in its wake as it surged toward the group of people racing toward us.

"What is it doing?" I asked.

"Holding them off. Don't worry, they'll destroy it before it kills anyone," he said, and he grabbed my hand and pulled me toward a window.

"What are we supposed to do?"

"Take us through it."

"Through it?! We're a billion floors up! We're going to fall!"

"See that green chord on your backpack?"

I had seen it, and I had known exactly what it was for the moment I put the backpack on, but I'd chosen to stay quiet about it. "No," I said.

"It's the only way."

"Lucien!"

"Bee, do it before they put up another magical shield. Trust me."

I shook my head. "Remember when I said earlier that I hated all of this? I hate you way more right now."

"Go!"

I grabbed Lucien's hand, concentrated, and pushed us both through the solid wall between us and the open air. Gravity did its thing instantly, pulling even our ephemeral forms down toward the Earth. As soon as I rematerialized the both of us, I tugged on the green chord on my backpack. A parachute popped out of the back; another one came out of Lucien's.

My stomach flipped as I felt us pick up speed and saw the ground racing rapidly toward us. We were in a freefall, moving faster, and faster, until we were moving fast enough for the parachutes to open up. I felt mine tug, Lucien's too. An instant later, I felt our fall begin to slow.

Within moments, we weren't falling anymore—we were gliding, about ten stories up, soaring past the people underneath us.

"Holy shit!" I yelled, "Holy, shit! Can they see us?!"

"They can't," Lucien said.

"They will when we land!"

"We aren't going to."

It took a moment for me to realize we weren't falling but gliding steadily through the air as if carried by a phantom current. We weren't being chased, we weren't being shot at, and no one was screaming at us from below. Despite the rush of adrenaline that had come moments before this, I felt calm, and serene, gliding with Lucien down the center of this long, busy stretch of road.

Gliding toward the water.

"It's beautiful," I said, watching the moonlight glitter along the surface of the ocean.

"It's about to get a whole lot closer, too."

For a second, I forgot about the crown. I forgot about the Recondites, about the demons, about the Diaboli, and about the Shadow War we may well have restarted tonight. For now, there was a moment of peace and quiet… and I was one step closer to getting back to Max.