Chapter 54

TOBIAS

I'm thrownfrom Gabriella in a repeat of the last time we met, her attack sudden and swift as I hit the floor. I swear, staggering to my feet and lunging at her mind, hitting the very centre of what controls her.

As I throw a barrier up against the spike of magic reflecting back at me, Gabriella screams out, dropping to her knees and gasping as she bends forwards, sleek hair falling into her face.

What? I snap my head around.

Not my doing. Andrei's.

"I've had enough too," he says, voice laced with intent as she screeches at him.

He's no closer to Gabriella than moments ago but his eyes seer into the side of her head, as the magic that assaulted my mind that day radiates from him. I'm hit too, the energy screaming through me as Andrei's magic slices at everything close to Gabriella.

As the power ripples through the air, a new panic breaks out, and those who haven't made their way from the stalls cry out and collapse, their screams becoming all too familiar. I needn't have worried about Andrei exhausting his power on the recruits—he's barely touched his abilities.

Ash backs away from the piled bodies, swearing, hands on the side of his head. Through my fogging vision, Jamie's face twists in pain too and Maeve clasps onto him with her shadowed hands gripping to stop him falling.

The magic could explode through us all.

"Andrei!" I move to intervene, but the closer I get, the more magic cuts into my body and mind, slowing me as if I'm walking through sludge. "You're hurting everybody, Andrei!" I gasp out. "Pull back."

Gabriella looks up and sneers at Andrei, and his furious response knocks her head back as if he punched her in the face. But there're no injuries. No bleeding or scorch marks on her face.

"I've more of the First's blood than my new members," she says through gritted teeth. "I won't fall as easily as the cowards I brought here."

"Bad luck because the First created something stronger," snarls Andrei.

She coughs out, and tiny specks of blood spray onto the wood. "Too strong perhaps? Look at your friends."

"Andrei," I urge. "We can help."

"Gabriella has more of the First's blood than her recruits, but not as much as me." His voice—the one I heard in my mind the day he attacked me. "You have none of the blood. You can't kill Gabriella. Only I can."

"And the magnitude you're using might kill everybody around you!" I shout.

"No!" I snap my head around when the word comes from Maeve and not Gabriella. "The First wants your attack on Gabriella to end us all. We can't kill her, Andrei."

"We don't know anymore!" yells Andrei. "We don't know what the First wants! But it doesn't matter, and I want Gabriella to die. Destroy her whole fucking world."

"And what about us, Andrei?" I shout out. "What if we die?"

The stage shudders as Ash falls forwards onto his hands and knees, lifting his head back and snarling at volume I've never heard. His dragon eyes glow, claws digging into the wood, scales glowing. The magic roaring around us like a typhoon stops any chance he'll shift, because I've experienced the agonising paralysis in my mind that's painted across Ash's reddened face.

But I've more ability to resist.

"You're hurting Ash," I shout at Andrei. "This is more than shoving Jamie yesterday."

But Andrei's lost, as he was in the catacombs, absorbed in the woman kneeling in a pool of her victim's blood. He strides over, transformed into the murderous thing from yesterday and stares down at the powerful woman prone at his feet. "Whatever it takes to end you and your fucking organisation, that's what I'll do."

"Such as play into the First's hands and kill your friends too?" Gabriella's voice weakens. "I admire her strategy."

Jamie stumbles against Maeve, losing his footing and sinking to the stage. She drops to knees with him, the shadows that circle her growing thicker, spreading along the arm she's wrapped around Jamie. Maeve's touch and the shadows protect him, but he's still doubled over. There's no sign that Maeve will falter against Andrei's power, but her anguished face fills with the struggle whether to leave her bonded witch or intervene.

Is this up to me? How can I possibly take on the First's Andrei?

"You fucked up every aspect of my life," Andrei screams at Gabriella. "You destroyed my chance at normality before I was old enough to understand. Because of you, death threats hovered over my head and people manipulated my fate my entire fucking life. I watched you kill my friends. Assault and try to murder the people I love. You wanted me to be you. I am not and never will be!"

"Such a teenage moment, Andrei," she rasps. "Why not stamp your foot too?"

He's trembling and the magic that screws with our bodies too radiates around as his fury grows, smacking me to the ground as it spears my heart. "Andrei, please," I gasp.

"Kill me and hundreds die."

"Hundreds of Dominion," he spits.

"Then kill me and the First wins."

"We'll fucking deal with that creature too," he yells.

"We? Looks like you're accidentally killing the people who accepted what you are? Or is this an accident?" She looks at me through half-aware eyes. "Is the First crushing the ones that threaten her?"

The First's blood within her shields Gabriella, and Andrei fights harder. His concentrated magic drags the stage into a place void of oxygen and warmth, as he draws on more to tear away Gabriella's resistance to him.

"Listen to Gabriella and Maeve," I call as the pressure builds behind my skull. "The First planned this!" I'm struggling to see Andrei as the white spots dance in front of the darkness across my vision. "All of this. A trick to kill us."

"Not Maeve." Andrei's replies, as vacant as the witch prone in the corner of the stage.

"And us?" I shout. "Me, Ash, Jamie."

"You'll be fine."

I choke in shock at his certainty. "How can you know that?" Andrei's eyes narrow at Gabriella, oblivious to me again. "Andrei! Look at Ash."

Gabriella topples backwards, gasping for breath but the stench of scorched flesh doesn't surround her. I collapse too, not from any deliberate attack by Andrei, but the magic emanating from him is beyond any physical affect I've experienced. Head fit to explode; I press fingers to my eyes as if that'd stop them burning out.

Distract him. Breath hisses through my teeth. "I hurt Maeve. That's why she was avoiding me."

Andrei's First-corrupted self pauses and spins to where I sit on the floor. "What?"

I'm on my back in a painful heartbeat as more energy focuses on me, Andrei snapping away from his attack on Gabriella. She curls into a ball grunting in pain, unmoving.

"What did you do?" he shouts. "Because I'll fucking kill you too."

"Finish Gabriella," I call to the others. "Now. Before he kills us all."

Ash gasp in lungfuls of air, and I see his vague movement in the corner of my eye as Andrei's magic converges into an arrow launching straight at me, hitting me square in the chest.

The force hits like a bolt of lightning, delving past my stuttering heart and into my soul. The shockwave reverberates through every inch of me, agony boring into my bones.

"Tobias!" Maeve clings to Jamie, who manages to lift his head. Weak but protected. "He's lying, Andrei."

Andrei pulls me from the floor and towards him in an invisible chokehold. "What did you do?"

His entire otherworldliness surrounds me, and I cling to hope that he's damaged Gabriella enough that she can't move before—if—someone else can reach her.

"I hurt Maeve. I told her I lost control, but I lied. I want more. I'm waiting for my chance to do to Maeve exactly what you saw in my thoughts. I always was," I say weakly.

As planned, Andrei doesn't pause and the pressure in my mind immediately becomes fingers squeezing at my brain, and I cry in pain as his magic homes in on me.

A screech of amusement spills from Gabriella's mouth as she rolls onto her back and stares at the stage lights. The veins beneath her face run closer to the surface, a black network of the Tepes blood, but her eyes are open and unchanged.

"Don't be a fucking martyr, Tobias!" shouts Maeve. "You promised. Andrei. He's lying. Tobias hasn't touched me for weeks. Look in my mind for proof!"

Maeve's unaffected, the shadows surrounding her body spiralling ready to attack, but instead protecting her and Jamie. Absorbing Andrei's deathly magic. We've made our biggest fucking mistake in trusting Andrei. How can someone transformed into part of the creature that's intent only on self-preservation remain as he is?

"Andrei," she pants out. "Killing Gabriella is killing us. Ash can't stand. Jamie's only okay because I'm holding him. Don't kill Tobias for a lie."

I've dug into the one part of Andrei that the First unwittingly enhanced—protecting Maeve as overriding everything—and he's directed that fury to me. The magic dropped. Marginally.

Would Andrei kill me? Is there enough of him left to consider Maeve's words?

I grip the sides of my heads, weakness growing in my limbs. Ash doesn't move. No blood. Still no burned scent. Jamie kneels with palms on the floor, breaths sawing in and out. How could we ever imagine Andrei would remain enough himself to hold back the primal corruption poured into him?

"Finish Gabriella, but if you can't kill her, get out of here," I say weakly to the others.

Maeve drops her hold on Jamie and stands, completely steady and unaffected. Only when she steps between us does she stumble slightly at Andrei's pulsing magic, but the shadows thicken in response.

Andrei falters. "I'll leave Tobias but get the shadows away from me. Let me finish her."

"That's the opposite of what I'll do if you don't stop now."

"Not until Gabriella dies!"

"Andrei," Maeve says in desperation. "Tobias did not hurt me. I am okay. He has not betrayed us. Tobias wants you to calm down that's all."

"Then do as he says leave!" he shouts.

"Jamie and Ash can't move!" she shouts then falters as his eyes meet hers. "Where are you, Andrei?"

Wherever Andrei is, it isn't here.

Maeve and her shadowed tendrils attacked Andrei yesterday and won, but he still held vestiges of Andrei. This unthinking, obsessed creature left Andrei behind the moment he became the First's bomb unwittingly detonating our lives.

"I'm sorry, Andrei," Maeve whispers. "You can't do this."

Maeve trembles as the shadows leave her, alive with intent, surging forward in a wave of suffocating darkness. They coil around the Andrei like chains, tightening with each attempt that Andrei makes to break free. As they leech the strength from his magic, Andrei chokes within the cloud.

Yelling out, Andrei launches himself at Gabriella, the shadows trailing with him as if he's on fire. His last burst of fury brings the First's power to its peak and ends everything.