Chapter 15

FIFTEEN

Asha

Keep thinking about your men. It’s making you stronger.

My thoughts race through Orson’s gentle smile, Braxton’s dangerous smirk, and the way Max’s gaze always seems to see me deep inside. The silver magic flowing from my fingertips keeps brightening as it flows from me to Simon.

Just stay focused. Just stay focused.

I stare down the beam of my silver magic into the black mass occupying the corner of the room. The guests have cleared to either side, granting a clear space for this supernatural duel. Simon’s green counterattack draws from the slime to fuel itself, thinning the substance until I begin to spy the human face hidden within. The stream of silver magic distorts its features, as if glimpsed through a waterfall.

Simon .

It lends me a second wind as I funnel all of my strength into the shaft of silvery light. Still, even as I pour myself into my attack, it makes no difference. His face stays half-covered, and otherwise the rest of his body remains subsumed under the muck.

Murder has made him formidable. He’s much stronger than our last encounter.

You’re going to die .

I hear it as my own thought, and perhaps it is, but I have the terrifying fear that he’s infiltrated my mind. It causes me to falter, lose my balance, stumble backwards.

Max catches me, propping my body up with his own. His voice comes in my ear, filled with worry. “Asha, you can’t fight him alone.”

“I-I can.”

Simon’s green magic fights harder against my silver magic. My head begins to ache, and my teeth chatter. It feels like something is pulling apart inside me, but I pray it’s nothing important. I need to be able to come back from this.

For my men. For our house. For our future.

A dark voice curls inside my mind. When you die, his death will be next. And it’ll be slow and painful.

“No!” I tell it, shouting over the roar of magic.

“I’ll shift. I’ll help.” Max’s voice has grown more intense.

I know he wants to join in the fight, but his wolf would only prove an obstacle for me. I need him out of the line of fire.

Shaking my head, I try to speak through gritted teeth. “Y-you’ll be in the way.”

“He’s going to kill you!” he shouts angrily, helplessly.

I don’t say anything. Partly because I can’t spare the breath, but also because this grim assessment seems likely. My energy is waning, moments from tipping the balance in Simon’s favor. He’ll overtake me, and then I’ll be consumed by the power of his sickly green magic.

Through the silver light, I watch his lips curl slowly into a wicked grin. Then I feel the pressure of his counterattack, green forcing back silver. Like vines, slender tendrils of his putrid magic slither into the silver beam, as though infecting it.

I try to think of my men again. Try to focus on the good. But I’m just too tired.

Muscle strain sours into weakness, like a pernicious bout of the flu riddling the body with aches. Cold sweat breaks out across my brow. Teeth clench and throb. Bones rattle, threaten to splinter. I feel like I’m about to burst apart in a cloud of blood and guts and all I can think about is how traumatizing it will be for Max when his lover explodes in his arms. I want to tell him I love him, to give my final breath to love, but I can’t even turn my head to look at him.

I’m doomed.

My silver light flickers and dies. Simon fires a single blast that throws both Max and me to the floor.

“Max!” I shout, my voice ragged.

Sprawled beside the table, I struggle to lift myself, but it seems my body’s given up. Drained of its last reserves. I can hardly lift my head to watch Simon deliver the final blow, but I beg myself to find a way to protect Max still.

I need to use my dark magic. There’s no other choice.

A door bursts open. In my periphery, two furry beasts bound into the dining room, leaping onto the monster. Braxton! Orson! Even above the background effluvia of fear sweat, I whiff their scents. It’s a welcome aroma that feeds relief to my system.

The monster swats them away, but they bounce back, siphoning Simon’s attention away from me.

Hope .

I feel its cool tingle like a winter breath. I glare into the glowing, viridescent eyes of my enemy. We’re not through, you and me . Max helps me back onto my feet. “Can you keep going?” he asks me, sounding doubtful.

I nod, as much in answer to him as to convince myself. As I plant one leg behind me and prepare to renew my attack, Max shifts and joins the others in their assault.

But they aren’t the only ones fighting Simon. Suddenly, shapes are all around me, rushing toward Simon. A dozen others join my three mates in a counteroffensive, pairing magic with the claws and teeth of my men. I spare a moment’s glance at them and recognize them immediately.

My pack!

A collage of faces I haven’t laid eyes on in what feels like a lifetime. They stand in a line like a row of archers on the battlefield, hurling volleys of magic. Dark magic. Globes of twinkling darkness, star-spangled night sky curved around the surface of a basketball, fly from their palms. They arch over guests, who duck and cover their heads or otherwise lay injured on the floor. The impulse to run for safety grabs hold of a spry few who take their chances running for exits. Simon occasionally sweeps them with his tentacles, but enough slip past him that the room thins to a more manageable occupancy. I’m less afraid of collateral damage.

An older woman, dressed in a white gown and practically dripping pearls, stumbles towards the door. One of Simon’s needle-thin arms spies her, a faceless snake zeroing in on its prey. A voice in the back of my head thinks, Why save her? She’s probably awful . But I attribute this to the dark magic prodding my consciousness.

I twirl and fire a beam of silver magic at the tentacle, severing it just before Simon manages to stick the old woman. She flees safely into the hall.

That better get me karma points .

I look back and discover my brief lapse has given Simon an open shot. An oily black arm, thick as a tree trunk, barrels towards me. I don’t have time to fire on it. I barely have time for the shock to register on my face.

But just as it closes the distance, a powerful black wolf collapses it. Braxton sinks his teeth into the appendage, ripping out the tarry innards. It bucks him violently and he crashes against the wall.

“NO!” I cry.

The arm chases after him, but Orson leaps and lands astride the girthy tentacle, snapping his wolf jaws at its wound. Max joins him, but quickly both are thrown to the floor. Hard.

Oily arms twine around them, squeezing them in the air. I picture what Simon did with the Blood Mages. I picture them exploding like pinatas above us. I send my magic out like daggers and the arms around my men are cut off. The three wolves fall to the floor. They struggle out of the arms, try to rise, then fall again, unable to fight any longer.

Turning to Simon, I lift my arms to fire, but find myself exhausted. Hollowed by adrenaline, I don’t know if I have any magic left in me. I’m a platinum-haired husk staring down an inexhaustible gelatinous foe. The goop creeps over the face inside it, erasing my only gains in this fight.

How? With all this firepower meeting him head on, how can he be completely unfazed?

My spine steels. My dark magic. I need to use it, if I can. It’s the only way.

Lifting my hands, I watch as Simon continues to swell, and I pause, something bothering me. Turning to the rest of the room, I observe the black magic of my packmates striking the mass. Their magic dissolves into it, and I realize they’re not hurting Simon. They’re feeding him.

“Stop!” I shout, my voice hoarse. Waving my arms at them, I repeat, “Stop!”

I catch their attention and they pause their barrage, a matching look of puzzlement on each of the dozen faces.

“Your dark magic, it’s only helping him!”

Having collected the necessary payload to destroy me, Simon charges his final attack. And it is absolutely a final attack. The swell of dark magic that grows as he weaves the spell seems to contain so much power that it feels like he’s about to unleash an atomic bomb.

He doesn’t just want to kill me, he wants to send a message. He wants to level this place to the ground, killing everyone within it, save himself. And then, no one will be able to stop him.

Beneath the grotesque mask, a bright green spot glows beneath the muck. It grows so bright it’s painful to look at. The energy prickles my skin like tiny needles. Spots seem to bleed, running down my skin. This is it; he’s going to kill me .

Nothing we can do will stop him. There’s no dark magic left inside of me I can use as a secret weapon. There’s simply nothing that can help me defeat him. My mates lie injured on the floor. My pack is no match for the monster. I’m utterly spent, barely capable of summoning any magic at all?—

That’s it .

In a split second’s revelation, the solution comes to me, a providential vision. Maybe I don’t need the strength to defeat him. Maybe I just need to be smarter.

I think of my mom, my brother as he was, and my sister. I think of my pack. And then I think of my men and our future together. A future with a beautiful home and children. I focus on all the beautiful, wonderful things in my world until I can feel that silver magic within me answering my desperate call. The last shreds of magic within me.

A horizontal column of neon green magic expels from the belly of the monster, overwhelming the room with dark power as it comes to life. It closes the distance between us, fast as a bullet. My hands conjure the silver magic once more, but instead of pressing back against Simon’s attack, the silver twirls in elegant spirals around the column of green dark magic. It forms a double helix that bends the green back on itself.

Return to sender .

The killing blow veers back to its source and strikes with so much force that the air’s sucked from the room, and then I’m bathed in darkness. Within seconds, his spell unleashes a dazzling light show of green fireworks bursting from the pile of black slime.

In its wake, a terrible silence follows.

Tears spring to my eyes, but I haven’t the energy to weep.

Turning to my men, I meet their gazes as they rise to their feet in their human forms, looking battered and bruised, but no worse for the wear. They nod, confirming they’re okay, then gesture toward my brother, giving me permission to do what I need to do.

I shamble to my brother’s side and collapse there.

He’s finally free.