Chapter 47

47

A mbra remains true to her word, pulling open another illusioned door, and the pain Delina sensed back at the bar is slowly starting to creep in.

And the door opens to a disaster.

Immediately, Ambra scrambles back, hand flailing behind her, before the leash around her neck abruptly jerks.

She screams, high pitched, and stumbles forward.

"Shit," Chloe breathes, and Gurlien tries to grab for the door, before the wall blasts open.

Delina rocks back, half protecting Maison, half ducking away from the shards of brick.

And in front of them, revealing a hall of prison doors, traditional prison bars, the wall folds open like nothing more than origami.

Delina grips the strip of death tight, pulling it taut, and she can't see a thing in all the dust, can't see a thing in all the smoke, and—

Behind the wall, blocking them from the prison door, is a group of people.

A group of people, all grim, all with weapons, all waiting for them.

With only a beat, Gurlien lifts the pistol and cracks out a shot, but the one in front bats it away like it's nothing.

Maison inhales, deep.

"So, Frederick, this was impressive," the one in front speaks, a man with close cut gray hair and a face that's lined deeper than any that Delina's ever seen. "Got your girlfriend to blast her way down her, free a bunch of criminals, impressive."

Despite the pain, Maison swings Delina behind him, practiced.

The man's hand is clenched around the leash, his knuckles white with the grip, and Ambra struggles against it, clawing at her throat.

There are way more of them than they can go against. Way more, and behind them…

…Sitting in the cell, staring straight ahead, her eyes blank, is the older woman from the pictures. Her hair is whiter, her face thinner, but her jawline echoes Maison's and her brows are the same set as his when he's trying not to think.

The man's eyes fall on Delina, as if evaluating. "So the insane doctor bred a Necromancer, that's typical," he says, and his eyes fall to the ball of death in her hand. "You really don't have any finesse, do you?"

"No," Delina replies, honestly, and the group obviously didn't expect that, their brows furrowing all at once.

Slow, deliberately, the man withdraws a gun. A normal, perfectly non-descript gun, and points it directly at Maison's mother, holding it to her chest.

And he freezes.

"How much do you want to bet you can get your necromancer to her?" the man says, sharp. "Think long and hard about what you're willing to do, Frederick."

Maison stares, panic in his eyes, bleeding through the stance of his shoulders.

Chloe backs up, not fully out of their view, already making herself smaller. Making herself unnoticeable, though one of the groups keep their eyes on her.

And the man smiles, satisfied.

Then pulls the trigger.

The bullet punches through Maison's mother, blood spraying over the small cell.

Too many things happen at the same time.

The demon screams, recoiling away, clapping her hands over her ears.

Gurlien and Chloe jerk back, scrambling away.

Maison's mom slumps over, whatever spell they put on her to keep in silent, to keep in stasis, breaking. She blinks, once, twice, before her heart gives up, blood pouring out of the artery, too deeply.

Death slams into Delina, close, too close, and she gasps, her ears and eyes filling with it. It sparks behind her mind, drowning out her awareness of anything else.

She staggers, her very balance off.

Maison spasms forward, and the man swings the gun over to him.

"Because if you give up the Necromancer, we'll have her raise her, and everyone is happy," the man says, and Maison's shoulders tighten, despite it all. "They can both survive, and it's all up to you."

Maison inhales, terror in every motion, then his eyes flicker back to Delina.

And for a split second, she can tell he considers it. Weighs their chances, weighs what he thinks she can do, before something furious, something subversive, sparks in his eyes.

"What exactly will you do?" Maison asks, turning back to this, and Chloe hisses in anger. "She can raise my mom? You'll let her?"

And, as he speaks, slow and deliberate, he hides his wrist behind his back, presenting it to Delina. His hand shakes, a tremor through it.

To Delina and to the death still in her hand.

She twists it between her hands, clinging closer to him, still gasping. The entire world narrows to just a pinprick, and there's the death in her hands and the death just beyond the cell, just out of her reach.

"Oh, we can guarantee many things," the man says, idly, and Ambra scrambles against the leash to no avail. "Your mom living, the necromancer being out of your hair, and—"

Before she can think twice, Delina loops the rope around Maison's wrist, and everything sparks into motion.

"Hurt only them!" she yells, and Maison jerks forward, between one breath and the next he's in the man's face, ripping the gun from his hand and crushing it in his fist.

The man yells, and everyone bursts into action.

Maison teleports to the bars of the cell, held back by an invisible barrier, then twists back, fear and fury in his eyes. He's panicking, he's not thinking clearly, every line of him is scared. His mother's on the floor, the death so strong Delina can taste it, and he can't get to her.

Gurlien ducks back, as someone sends a spell snapping through the air, jerking Chloe away from the bolt. Chloe scrabbles for the bag, pulling out the knife.

Maison teleports out of the way of another bolt, all pain gone from his knee, then snaps the neck of the magician who sent it his way, and the death punches through Delina's awareness, and he tosses the body to her.

Right. Another death for her to take.

She does, the power twisting in her hands, and she rips it apart and fans it out, just in time to block another bolt of magic that would've hit her face.

"Chloe, get the cell," Delina yells, and Chloe pushes past them, scrabbling with her lock picks, and Delina skids to a halt in front of her, the death blister hot against her palms.

The man holding Ambra's leash yanks back on it, and Amber surges up to Delina, the bobble popping, up, and—

Delina lets the death in her hand snap apart, and Ambra reels away, pain searing through her head, through her neck. Blood wells up in her throat, against her chest cavity.

And it's enough for Maison to grab Ambra by the back of her collar, heaving her away from Delina, teleporting her up and away from her, before he drops her by the side, appearing in front of Delina to block another spike of magic.

His eyes are wild, like a scared little boy, a wrecking ball of emotion and power and fury.

Another dead, and Delina pulls it back to herself, blocking another desperate shot to Chloe, whose hands shake at the lock.

Ambra screams, struggling against the leash, clawing at her neck, and the man tugs it again, spinning her back towards Delina. Tears streak down her face, red and angry, and she screeches in Delina's face, like a monster of old.

She's in so much pain.

"Stop—" she chokes out, and a gunshot rings out, cutting her short.

A gunshot directly into the man holding her leash's head, and he crumples.

A moment of silence, and Gurlien lowers his gun, his eyes wide.

Ambra recoils, then scrabbles away, panting.

The first lock clicks, and Maison breaks the neck of the last person, and then there's nothing else but the sound of their breathing.

"Mom," he says, appearing between one moment and the next in front of the bars. "Mom, can you hear me?"

There's no reaction.

Of course there's no reaction, his mother isn't breathing, there's no spark of electricity in her mind. There's nothing.

"Mom, can you…"

Delina grabs his wrist, untying the death around his hand, and he stumbles forward, his hands coming up to cling onto the bars. The pain blooms back in his knee.

Chloe swears, then moves to the second lock.

Delina sticks her arms through the bars, reaching towards the dead in front of her, but she can't reach. She's out of reach, she can't grab her back, she can't…

"I've almost got it," Chloe mumbles, in the silence. "Give me two more seconds."

His mom's eyes are open, unblinking, and they're the same shade of grey as Maison's.

"Mom," Maison repeats, desperate. "Mom, please—"

Chloe clicks the second lock, and the door swings forward, Maison stumbling inside, until his knees hit the floor next to his mother's form.

He doesn't even react to the pain.

There's blood pooling everywhere, too much blood, and Delina's heart pounds.

Maison cradles his mother's head, pulling it into his lap, and his hands are shaking, before he lifts his eyes back up to Delina.

They're bloodshot, and his face trembles.

"Delly…" he says, his voice rasping, and there's terror there as well. "Delina, please—"

It's enough to spur her into motion, and she scrambles to his side, to his mother's still body.

And despite the exhaustion, despite the headache pounding into Delina's mind, she lets herself sink into the sensation of the death. Into the knowledge she gets by just the touch.

The bullet punctured through the artery, grazing her lung and through her rib cage, chipping one of the bones on its way out of the body. The blood pooled in the chest cavity, in the lungs, all electrical signals stopped.

It's a far worse death than Maison had.

Slow, Delina exhales, letting her eyes flutter shut.

Maison's saying something, but Delina pushes it away from herself. There's too much with the body, too much that needs to be done before she can bring her back.

She seals the puncture first, socketing the chipped rib back into place. It's small, but if she had left it there, his mother would die all over again in moments.

The blood in the lungs take more effort, and Delina pushes it into place, drawing it out drop by drop.

Against her hands, Maison's mother's body spasms. She's not alive, some leftover signal to the brain.

Slowly, too slowly, Delina knits the artery back into place, and sweat drips into the dust on her back. She has to make it perfect, it has to, despite her ears ringing and her hands trembling.

Behind her, remote, she hears the demon Ambra inhale, pained. It's a threat, back there, but she can't think, not when Maison's holding his dead mother, not when she has to do this.

Delina's breath hitches, as the elasticity of the artery isn't perfect, isn't completely smooth, and there's blood still on the skin. There's blood all over Delina's hands, sticky and rapidly cooling, cooling too fast. The rest of her blood will cool, then still, and she won't be able to—

Before she can complete that thought, before she can will herself to even think it, Delina sends a shock of electricity to the brain, sparking it into action.

And then that's all Delina can do, all possibilities vanishing before her.

Delina blinks her eyes open, and Maison's staring at her, stricken. His mother isn't breathing, isn't moving, there's nothing, until—

With a small hitch, her chest moves, a deep, gentle breath, like someone deeply asleep.

Delina sits back, exhaustion prickling her vision with black.

She did it. She did it, his mother's breathing. Alive. The blood sluggishly starting to pump back through the veins, the heart beating.

In front of her, Maison's mother blinks, and the discomfort of it ricochets down Delina's senses. His mother was shot, and she's picking up that her eyes are scratchy.

"Mom?" Maison repeats, and slowly, ever so slowly, the woman lifts her eyes to him. "Mom, can you hear me?"

For too long of a beat there's no reaction, nothing, before her face crumbles and she jolts herself to sit upright, then coughs.

"Maison?" she asks, and her voice is whisper soft. "Maison, is that…"

As if seeing beyond the doors for the first time, she looks past the bars, at the carnage. At Gurlien holding the gun, at Ambra huddled on the floor. At Chloe ducked behind Gurlien, like she's afraid…Then…

At Delina.

Her eyes are the same grey as Maison's.

Trembling, she reaches a hand down to the ragged hole in her clothing, then over to Delina.

"Mom," Maison says, desperate, and his mother tilts her head up to him. She's also exhausted, she's lost a lot of blood, she's dehydrated, and Delina can feel all of it.

"Maison," his mother repeats, and there's some steel in her voice, something stronger than should come from a woman who was just dead. "I told you not to risk anything."

Still, his mother pulls him into a hug, and Maison all but collapses into it, his face crumbling, before he reaches for Delina and grasps her hand as well.

Slowly, outside the little cell, Ambra climbs to her feet, as if she thinks that any motion will jerk her back down to the ground, and Gurlien twitches the gun back up to her.

Delina just stares over at the room, exhaustion rendering her unable to react.

"Mom, we got you," Maison mumbles. "We got you, we're getting you out, everything's okay."

Ambra eyes them, and Delina tears her glance away from Maison to watch her.

"That was two out of five," Ambra says, her voice wrecked. "Your team killed two out of five."

"So three people out there can still control you?" Gurlien asks, and he's shaking, despite the gun still outstretched.

She nods, her eyes wide.

Delina should get up, should interfere, but the very idea of standing is so beyond her.

They did it. They actually did it.

They actually freed his mom. His mother is alive, despite the blood on her front.

Maison's knee still hurts, but it's almost beyond them now. Delina's hands ache, a headache brews behind her eyes, but they did it.

They actually did it.

"How much time do we have, Gurlien?" Chloe asks, voice hushed. It's so silent there, with just Ambra's ragged breathing and the buzz of the overhead lights.

The remaining death clogs up Delina's nose, like it was waiting for her to notice.

"Four minutes," Gurlien says, tucking the gun back away and staring at his watch, a little dumb founded. "Four minutes, then we get a rescue."

Ambra rockets back up to her feet, and, almost instinctively Delina tries to stand, but the demon stares, a bit too intensely, at Gurlien.

"Rescue by who?" she asks, voice tilting downwards, almost in a warning.

Maison stirs, lifting his head. There are streaks of tears down his face.

The silence is fraught, now, and Gurlien gapes at all of them, like he's asking for help in it.

"The Wights," Chloe answers for him, still sitting on the ground, and Ambra slates her eyes over to her, evaluating. "That was the deal, we rescue the girl—"

"—Stella, yes, her," Ambra interrupts, impatiently. "She cried a lot."

"—and then they'd break us out," Gurlien finishes, rocking back on his heels, away from the conversation, like he's grasping for straws. "You helped, I'm sure they'll help you, we'll tell them."

The demon's glowing eyes narrow again. "There are three people still out there who can control this," she says, tugging at the leash around her neck again, and even though it's her own hands, Delina gets a hint of pain, sharp among all the death in the room. "Three more. The Wights won't help me, not with three still out there."

Maison pulls away from his mother, his face grim, and even with everything else, even with the pain in his knee, he grasps magic in his hands. Even after all the fighting, he's still ready.

Ambra twitches, then grabs at the leash, and there's some split-second decision in her eyes, a split-second of warning, before she snakes her hand out, grabbing Gurlien by the collar of his jacket, and disappears.

Taking him with her.

Chloe gasps, the air so exhausted it's almost a squeak. "Where…"

And then, the entire building above them opens up, and the Wight strides in, fury along every line of her body.

Maison pulls his mother up to standing, then reaches down and extends a hand to Delina, helping her up.

The rescue is here, and now they can leave.

THE END