Emerald Blaze

Chapter 16

I stood by the counter, drinking my morning tea, basking in the sunshine streaming through the window, and tried to come to terms with Alessandro in my kitchen. He wore beat-up jeans and an old T-shirt, which he had gotten out of his car. His hair was tousled. Stubble traced his jaw. He looked terribly . . . casual? Domestic? I wasn’t sure there was even a word for it.

Alessandro poured black coffee into his mug, tried it, and made a face. Next to him on the floor Shadow looked terribly disappointed. She’d glued herself to Alessandro the moment he stepped into the kitchen. Apparently my dog was convinced that if she stared at him long enough, he would drop something yummy.

“Weak?”

“Bitter. Where did you get this?”

My phone chimed. A text from Patricia. Albert Ravenscroft is here.

Why? Why, why, why?

Do you want me to let him in?

Yes. I’ll talk to him outside.

“I’ll be right back,” I told Alessandro.

He nodded.

I went to the front door, Shadow at my heels. Outside the sunshine poured from the sky, bringing heat with it. It would be another sweltering day.

Albert was walking toward the house. He saw me and sped up.

“How can I help you, Prime Ravenscroft?”

Behind me the door swung open. Alessandro sauntered out with the coffee still in his hand, looking unconcerned. On the left, Connor walked out of his HQ. A mug of coffee floated next to him.

How considerate of my boyfriend and my brother-in-law to invite themselves into this conversation.

“Look,” Albert said. “I thought about it. Nothing’s changed.”

He had this grim, determined look on his face.

Connor leaned on the wall by the door, looking at something on his phone, plucked the mug from the air, took a sip, and put it back, just in case Albert forgot that he was the Scourge of Mexico.

“Albert,” I said gently. “What are you doing here?”

“We have something, Catalina. Something special. Black wings or no, I don’t want to lose that.”

“Black wings?” Alessandro muttered and looked at Connor.

Connor didn’t look up. “Long story.”

“Albert, this isn’t going to happen. You know why.”

He shook his head. “My father hates you, but it doesn’t matter. This time next month I’ll be the Head of my House. My parents have made arrangements to retire to the coast. Patrick is away studying at Florida State. It would be just me and you. I really want to make this work.”

“I understand, but I’m not in love with you. I don’t think about you in that way.”

He clenched his jaw. This would have been so much easier without an audience.

“Is there someone else?” Albert asked.

“Yes.”

“Is it him?” Albert looked at Alessandro.

“Yes.”

Albert’s expression hardened. He seemed to come to a decision. “I don’t know who you are and I don’t care. You should leave.”

Alessandro’s voice remained pleasant. “Or?”

Albert seemed to be caught off guard. “Leave. This is your only warning.”

Connor Rogan smiled.

I put some snap into my voice. “Albert, your welcome is withdrawn.”

His gaze bore into Alessandro. “No, I’ll fix this, and then we’ll talk.”

“Anytime,” Alessandro said.

“Fine. I tried to warn you.”

A focused torrent of power shot out of Albert. It wasn’t aimed at me, but I felt traces of it. Fear. Deep, mind-numbing, all-consuming fear.

Even if I’d had any feelings for him, this would have killed it.

The awful mental deluge smashed into Alessandro. He took a sip of his coffee. “I’m still waiting.”

Albert stared, shocked. A normal person would’ve collapsed in blind panic.

Magic swirled around Albert, icy and potent. He unleashed a barrage, hammering against Alessandro’s mind. Panic, pain, despair melted together into an irresistible compulsion to flee. It was a staggering salvo.

Finally, the attack ebbed.

Sweat drenched Albert’s hairline. “Antistasi.” He spat the word out like it was rotten.

“Yes,” Alessandro confirmed.

Albert’s eyebrows came together. “No matter. I’ll just have to do it with my hands.”

“Please do.” Alessandro held his coffee out to me. “Would you mind holding this for a second?”

I held out my hand. “Albert, what you’re doing is grounds for a feud. I don’t love you, but I don’t want you to get hurt. Respect my wishes and leave, because he’s going to break you, and I don’t want to send you home in an ambulance.”

Albert started toward Alessandro.

Alessandro brushed my cheek with a kiss, winked at me, gave me his mug, and met Albert halfway. Albert launched a devastating kick. It whistled past Alessandro. He sidestepped Albert with fluid grace and kicked his supporting leg out from under him. Albert landed on the pavement, rolled to his feet, and charged at Alessandro.

I turned to Connor. “Are you just going to stand there and watch this?”

He raised his eyebrows at me. “Your boyfriend is being very careful with him. Look, he just had a chance to break his ribs and didn’t take it.”

Ugh.

Albert hammered a punch, aiming for Alessandro’s jaw. He’d turned into it, twisting his wrist at the last second to add more power, and if the punch had landed, it might have dropped Alessandro. Alessandro shied out of the way, locked his left hand on the wrist of Albert’s extended right arm, pushing it aside, stepped in, and turned right, driving his elbow into Albert’s jaw. The blow knocked Albert’s head to the side. Before he could recover, Alessandro reversed his swing, spinning left, and caught him with his elbow again. Albert staggered back, his mouth bloody.

“I fought a male telekinetic in the Pit,” I told Connor.

My brother-in-law came to life, like a shark sensing a drop of blood in the water. “Was he any good?”

“Yes. Powerful, but not very precise. I don’t think he has a lot of experience, because he freaked out when I grabbed his mind. He threw spikes.”

“What kind of spikes?”

“About two feet long, metal, with a ring on the dull end.”

Connor’s face snapped into a flat mask. He raised his hand. Something crunched inside the motor pool of his HQ. A bright spark streaked out of the open bay doors. A metal spike landed in his hand.

“Yes,” I said. “Exactly like that.”

“Was the inside of the ring smooth or did it have ridges?”

“I didn’t look that closely. I was running away.” I thought back to the spike protruding from the guard’s neck. “No, wait, it was ridged. Why is that important?”

“Most telekinetics throw spikes that look like giant nails or crossbow bolts. This is a modified marlin spike. I’ve never known anyone to use it outside of our family.”

Connor only had one family member on the American side, his mother, Arrosa. On the Spanish side, he had a whole boatload of relatives, but none of them were powerful enough, with the exception of Mia Rosa, who was eight years old.

“He was a Prime, Connor. I’m sure of it.”

I could tell by the look on his face that he didn’t like it.

Alessandro drove his fist into Albert’s solar plexus. Albert stumbled back and fell clumsily, landing on his ass. Blood dripped from his mouth. His eyes teared, his face swollen and bloody. Alessandro crouched by him. He was unmarked. His hair wasn’t even messed up.

“This isn’t a fair fight,” Alessandro said. “Go home.”

Albert tried to rise, his eyes full of rage.

Alessandro hammered a quick punch to his chin. Albert’s eyes rolled back in his head. He collapsed.

“You could have done that in the beginning,” I told him.

“Yes, but then he would think I sucker punched him and that he’d have a chance if he tried again. Now he knows.”

Nevada walked out of the bay doors. She was carrying a green bag with tiny dinosaurs on it. She didn’t give Albert a second glance.

“Hey, honey,” she said. Her voice sounded clipped.

“Hey,” Connor said, moving toward her.

“I need you to cancel your plans for today and find someone else to handle whatever this is,” she said. “My water just broke.”

Oh God. Oh God. What do we do? We needed a car. We needed to get Nevada to the hospital.

“Stay right here!” Connor ordered in his officer voice. “Don’t move.”

He sprinted to the bay.

Nevada looked after him and very deliberately took two steps forward.

My phone rang. A moment later Alessandro’s phone went off as well. I answered without looking. “Yes?”

“It took Marat into the Pit,” Stephen barked. “They’re fighting it now and losing. Tatyana’s on her way. Can you get there?”

I stared, mute, torn between two vital things.

Nevada waved at me. “Go to the Pit. I’ll be fine. Get to the hospital when you can.”

“On my way.” I spun around, ran into the house, and found Arabella in her bathroom, putting on lipstick.

“Nevada’s in labor.”

Arabella dropped her lipstick into the sink.

“The thing in the Pit grabbed one of the Primes and is attacking the work site. I have to go. Yesterday, Victoria threatened Nevada and the baby. Go with her and don’t let her out of your sight. If it all goes to shit, I don’t care if you are in the middle of that damn building, you transform, and you get her out of there.”

Arabella took off running.

I charged out of the bathroom and ran back downstairs to get my sword.

I took a turn too fast. Rhino’s overpowered engine roared as I accelerated out of the turn. Alessandro grabbed the door handle to steady himself.

We’d had a choice of the Spider or Rhino and we both picked armor over speed. Rhino would plow through anything in our way and get us there. If I didn’t kill us first.

“What the hell was he doing back on-site?” I growled.

“Probably getting all the equipment out. They are expensive machines.” Alessandro shook his head, his eyes sharp and focused. “Damn idiot didn’t listen to me. I told him to get his people out of there.”

“I did too.”

“I warned him.” Alessandro bared his teeth. “I said, don’t think about leaving, don’t make any preparations. Just walk off at the end of the day like normal, leave the equipment where it is, and once everyone is out, pull the guards back to the outer perimeter. The fool went back for the assets.”

And once the Abyss saw its food and brain supply leaving, it reacted violently. It required metal and humans to expand. Without a continuous supply of either, it would have to leave the relative safety of the Pit to procure it. Every time it sent its nodes out of the mire, it ended badly.

We tore past the dealership where we’d fought the constructs.

“I don’t have a plan,” I told Alessandro. “I don’t know how to kill it. It’s impossible to destroy every node, and as long as one survives, the Abyss will rebuild itself.”

“We’ll deal with that gap once we’ve jumped it.”

“That doesn’t even make sense.”

“You worry too much.”

“A sentient self-repairing construct the size of ten city blocks is on a rampage, and you’re telling me not to worry.”

“It will be fine. You’ll see.”

It wouldn’t be fine. “Call Linus.”

My phone dialed the number and the beeps echoed through the cabin. No answer. Just like the first two times I’d called him since we left the house. Linus always took my calls. I didn’t even want to think about why he wasn’t picking up. That was a bottomless rabbit hole of anxiety and speculation, and we had bigger problems on our hands.

We shot onto the final bridge. The Pit Reclamation island was on fire. Flames tore out from its shore, colliding with a forest of tentacles flailing in the water.

A hunter construct leaped out of the water and into our path. I rammed it. The impact knocked it aside and we sped past it. All around us the Pit churned.

The island wasn’t on fire. Rather the fire circled it, a wall of living flame twenty feet tall. Here and there the Abyss’ constructs, hulking forms melded from vegetation and bone, emerged from the water to storm the shore and fell apart, consumed by the inferno. The water at the island’s edge boiled. Plumes of steam rose, hissing. The temperature inside the car jumped.

Alessandro grabbed his phone and dialed a number. “We’re coming in.” He hung up. “Keep going.”

The fire wall towered in front of us. I drove straight at it. The flames parted. We shot through the gap and I mashed the brakes. Rhino skidded and slid to a stop.

In the middle of the parking lot in front of the HQ building, Tatyana Pierce stood in an arcane circle of dazzling complexity. Her eyes were pure fire. Workers huddled around her, clutching weapons and sweating. A young man in a suit, one of the secretaries I had seen in the House Pierce building, stood by with an impassive expression on his face, holding a cell phone.

I rolled the window down.

“Welcome to the party.” Tatyana grinned.

“Have you found Marat?”

“Jiang is looking for him. Go down the street directly behind me. I’d go with you, but I’m a little busy on the grill.” She laughed, her eyes sparkling.

I stepped on the gas and steered Rhino around her and down the street. Ruined buildings in various stages of repair slid behind us, and through the gaps Tatyana’s flames glowed like a magical aurora borealis. I couldn’t even begin to calculate the kind of power required to maintain a wall of that size.

We passed an abandoned Burger King, a convenience store, a deli with dusty windows . . . Ahead the street and the island ended, the swamp beyond it blocked by fire. Where the hell was Stephen?

“Up there.” Alessandro pointed to the right, at a four-story building jutting out of the rubble. I squinted. A man in a suit stood on the roof. Found him.

I parked and grabbed Linus’ sword. Alessandro leaped from the vehicle, carrying the prototype of the prototype Linus had given him.

The building’s automatic door stood ajar, stuck permanently open. We passed through it. The inside was dark like a cave. A musty stench filled the air, like hundreds of waterlogged books were drying in it. Alessandro turned left. I followed him and we came to a door leading up the stairs. He sprinted and I did my best to chase him.

One flight, two, three, four . . .

Alessandro had disappeared into the gloom above.

I picked up speed, sprinting.

Above me a door banged, probably Alessandro emerging onto the roof. Another flight of stairs. A door loomed ahead. Finally.

I stumbled through it into the sunlight, gasping for breath. The roof was paved and square. Stephen stood at the far edge, looking out into the Pit. Alessandro was next to him. I ran to them. Heat washed over me. Tatyana’s wall ended about twenty feet below us.

A clump of vegetation protruded from the mire about fifty yards away. The long green stems, striated with metal, shifted against each other, braided into a fist.

“Is Marat in there?” Stephen asked me. “Can you feel his mind?”

I reached out. My magic grew, spiraling, and found a mind, glowing with purple.

“He’s in there.”

“Is he alive?”

“Yes.” Marat was emanating a lot of magic. “He’s fighting.”

Stephen took a deep breath and said something in Mandarin. It sounded like a curse.

“Can you open a path to him through the water?” I asked.

Stephen backed up, all the way to the door. “That won’t be necessary.”

He leaned forward. “I told him to leave the damn bulldozers. The man never listens.”

Everyone had told Marat to leave the damn bulldozers. If I ever did business with House Kazarian, the contract I offered Marat would have to be a mile long to account for every harebrained idea he came up with.

Stephen sprinted. He tore past me, pushed off the ledge into a leap, and for a moment he flew through the air, over the wall of flames, arms raised like wings.

Breath caught in my throat.

Stephen plunged down. He landed on the water as if it were solid ground. Waves pulsed from the impact. He thrust his arm out. Water flowed into his hand, forming a long transparent shaft with a blade on the end. He’d made a guandao. Oh, wow.

Stephen spun the watery glaive and dashed across the swamp to the clump of plants. A tentacle emerged, snapping at him like a whip. Stephen spun the guandao without breaking stride. A fan of water struck from the blade, severing the tentacle like a giant razor.

Arabella would die.

Stephen attacked the green wall, slicing, cutting, spinning, and stabbing, flawless and graceful like a genius dancer.

“Catalina,” Alessandro called.

“Are you seeing this? This is insane.”

“Listen to me very carefully. I need you to draw a circle that can generate a null space. A really good one.”

I turned around. Alessandro was staring in the opposite direction, at the bridge leading to the island. I raised my head and froze.

Constructs marched through the mire. Huge, industrial monstrosities, gleaming in the sun with metal and magic. I had seen them before. My brain supplied the right names. Climber XV. Crawler XI. Breaker VI. Others I couldn’t name. People with weapons rode atop them. And at the head of it all, on top of a colossal Digger XII, sat Cheryl Castellano.

I couldn’t see Cheryl’s face from this distance, but I knew it was her. My brain feverishly assessed and calculated. Nine huge constructs. At least thirty people.

Cheryl didn’t have a private army. She had House security, but she wouldn’t use them for this. One look at the forest of tentacles and constructs and even the dimmest person could tell that this wasn’t normal magic. House security didn’t have the kind of discipline to keep their mouths shut about what they saw. If the Assembly called on them, they would testify.

No. She wouldn’t deploy House security. That meant Arkan’s people were riding on the constructs. And that meant . . .

“She’s going to kill all of us,” I said.

“Yes,” Alessandro said.

She knew she couldn’t destroy the Abyss, so she’d settled for the next best thing. She would kill everyone who knew about it. Tatyana, Stephen, Marat, all the workers, and the two of us would die in the Pit. What a great tragedy. She would bravely carry on the work of her fallen partners, free of oversight. Free to interact with her creation at her leisure. Maybe a part of her still thought she could control him.

“Do you need chalk?” Alessandro asked.

I pulled chalk out of my pocket.

“Good.”

He walked to the edge of the roof facing Cheryl’s armada, crouched, and drew a perfect circle with a practiced swipe of his hand. Another circle, a line of glyphs . . . So House Sagredo had a House spell of its own after all.

The constructs drew closer. One crawled along the bridge. The rest stomped their way through the mire. Tentacles slapped against the spidery metal legs of Climber XV. Buzz saws slid out of the construct’s legs, chewing the plant and metal to pieces.

There were too many. Even with Tatyana and Stephen, there were too many constructs for us to overcome, not to mention the trained killers they carried. We were stuck between the Abyss and Cheryl’s army.

“Trust me,” Alessandro said.

Even if I used all of my power and beguiled their minds, the most I could do was throw them at the Abyss. United, they would injure it, but not destroy it. It would return. The longer people I beguiled stayed under my power, the more they loved me. Those who survived this fight would tear me apart, consumed by the need to possess a piece of me. There would be no winners here.

The chalk felt clammy in my fingers. An odd kind of calm washed over me, clearing my fear. This was my job. I would do it and I would fight to the bitter end.

I dialed Tatyana’s number. The male secretary answered. “Yes?”

“Tell Tatyana that Cheryl is not the cavalry. The thing in the swamp is her doing. She’s coming to kill us.”

“We know,” he said and hung up.

Cheryl was a threat to us. But the Abyss would end our world if we let it. If I let it.

I put Linus’ sword down and crouched. I could draw a dozen circles with a null boundary, but none of them fit. Half of them would cut me off from the environment. I would be safe in the circle, but magically deaf and blind, able only to expel magic by relying on my eyes and ears. The other half would allow me to use my mind but wouldn’t give me the power I required to project my magic.

I would need power and range. Lots and lots of power. I needed my senses too. The Abyss would try to reach me once he realized I was here. I had to know what he was thinking.

The half-finished designs in my head coalesced. My incomplete House Key arcane circle merged with the Aldrin projection design, augmented by the Tremaine targeting band. Yes, that would do it. It would give me the null space and the power I required and it would unchain my mind.

The circle glowed in my mind. I just had to replicate it.

I drew faster than I ever thought I could.

A drone plunged from the sky and hovered near me.

“Do not shoot this down, you shit weasel!” Bug yelled.

Alessandro and I kept drawing, crawling around on our hands and knees.

“Is Nevada okay?” My voice came out dull. I was trying to hold on to the pattern in my head.

“She’s fine. There is a fucking construct army marching here.”

“I know,” I told him.

“What do you need?”

“Record her. Record everything that happens.” If we died, Cheryl would not get away with it.

“I have six drones on it.”

The constructs were almost on us. I had no idea how long Tatyana could hold out.

“Shit,” Bug cursed.

I chanced a glance over my shoulder. Stephen had hacked the wall of tentacles into chunks. He stood on the island of vegetation, his face impassive. Marat slumped next to him on one knee. Three hunters rose from the swamp, each with two hounds. They ringed the two men. There was nothing I could do for them right now.

I went back to drawing. Glyphs, more glyphs. If this didn’t work . . . It had to work.

Tatyana’s voice came out of the drone. I spared half a second to glance up. A small digital screen on the drone showed Tatyana in her circle and Cheryl atop the Digger just beyond the wall of flames. I was right. She’d ridden on the leading construct.

“Hi there.” Tatyana sounded upbeat.

“We’ve come to reinforce you,” Cheryl announced.

“Oh, is that what you’re here to do?”

“Let us in, please.”

“I had a really interesting conversation with Stephen last night,” Tatyana said. “Is there anything you want to share?”

“I have no idea what he told you. Marat is out there, dying. You’re under assault. Let me help you.”

“We wouldn’t be under assault if your fake ass hadn’t made an abomination and unleashed it into the Pit. What were you thinking, Cheryl? Jesus! Were you dropped on your head as a baby? Did your parents not hug you enough? Or are you just greedy and stupid?”

Cheryl recoiled as if slapped. “How dare you!”

“How many people have you killed? Felix is dead because of you. We may all die because of you. Is this the sort of shit you think my family needs right now? I swear to God, Cheryl, as soon as I’m done with this, I’m going to burn your House to the fucking ground. Scorched earth, Cheryl. You will learn the meaning of those words.”

A vicious grimace twisted Cheryl’s face. “You were always a fat, stupid bitch. Your brother is a fucking arsonist, and all the money in the world won’t change that. You’re trash, your family is trash, and you will die in this fucking swamp. Bring me her head!”

“Holy shitballs,” Bug muttered.

I glanced at the screen. On Cheryl’s left, the towering thirty-foot Breaker resembling a rhino on six massive legs started toward the flame wall. The four people on its carapace readied themselves. One of them snapped into a mage pose, arms bent at the elbow, palms up, fingers cradling invisible spheres.

A translucent fiery shape coalesced around Tatyana. Her hands sprouted foot-long ghost claws. A monstrous luminous head formed over Tatyana’s face. Spikes grew from her back. It was as if a demon made of fire and glass enclosed her.

Hellspawn. A House Pierce high spell.

Tatyana grinned, her eyes pure fire, and the demon grinned with her.

The Breaker pushed through the flames.

Tatyana opened her mouth and vomited a torrent of white fire.

The front of the Breaker sagged, melting. The four people on top of it went up like human candles. Molten metal dripped. The Breaker swayed, tried to back up, and collapsed into the dark water.

“Welcome to hell,” Tatyana roared in a demonic voice.

I had the whole outer band left. I couldn’t watch anymore. The chalk was a small nub in my fingers. I dropped it and pulled a second stick out.

“Crush her,” Cheryl howled through the drone speaker. “All of you, now. Forward!”

The inner boundary. The intersecting lines. The air smelled of soot and burning plastic. I didn’t have time to watch.

“Bug, what’s happening?”

“A lot, Catalina. There’s a lot going on right now.”

“Be more specific?”

“Tatyana keeps spitting fire. Cheryl is sending her monster constructs in. Tatyana melts them, but they keep re-forming. Minus the poor bastards that were on them. Behind us a man is running around on water slicing monsters into pieces. It’s Armageddon. ”

The Hellspawn was immensely powerful, but Tatyana couldn’t keep it up forever.

Sweat drenched my forehead. Just a bit more time.

The island shook. I looked up. One of the constructs made it through, stomping through the buildings. People screamed.

“Where are you?” Alessandro asked, his voice like a bucket of icy water.

“Almost done. Just a little longer.”

“Shit!” Bug swore. “Four more constructs and three armored transports coming down the bridge. I think we’re fucked.”

I drew the last line, stepped into the circle, and sent a pulse of magic through it. A pale green glow ran through the chalk lines, sending little puffs of dust into the air.

Work. Please work.

The small circles inside my design turned, realigning. The glow dashed through the chalk, but there was so much ground for it to cover.

In front of me the island burned. Pillars of black smoke streamed into the sky. A half-melted mechanical monstrosity rampaged through the island, dripping molten metal. A stream of white fire smashed into it, as if a mythical dragon had emptied its belly. Molten metal ran, but the construct kept going, flailing its metal arms into the buildings. Debris flew. Concrete exploded. Bug was right. This was Armageddon.

“Tell me when,” Alessandro said. He stood in his circle, loose and ready. The pattern around his feet stretched to cover nearly half of the roof. I’d never seen anything like it.

I pushed my magic, trying to claim the circle faster.

The fire wall around the island sputtered and died. Either Tatyana ran out of magic or she was dead. The troops from the armored transport flooded onto the island on foot. Gunfire crackled. It had to be now.

The outer boundary of my circle shone.

Magic punched me, so much magic. I reeled, trying to absorb it. For an agonizing second it felt like trying to hold a jerking fire hose, then suddenly, the current and my power snapped together into one steady stream.

The Pit opened before my mind’s eye and I saw everything in a fraction of a second: the bright magenta star of Cheryl’s mind in front of me; the duller white glow of Tatyana, all but extinguished; the sharp pale radiance of Stephen behind us; the faint purple smudge that was Marat; the collection of weaker lights among Cheryl’s private army; Alessandro’s supernova, so powerful it took my breath away; and the glowing nebula of the Abyss, wrapping around us and stretching far back into the Pit.

The Abyss’ presence brushed against me, eager. Visions of dying humans floated over my mind. I tested the circle and felt the impenetrable barrier of null space.

“Now,” I said.

Orange light ran through the lines of Alessandro’s design. A whirlwind of magic and orange sparks wound around Alessandro, lifting him off his feet. He leaped up and hung suspended, the magic spinning around him faster and faster, a maelstrom ready to be unleashed. The building underneath us shook.

The construct battle kept going, Arkan’s people disembarking, oblivious to the breathtaking storm building up on the roof.

Alessandro raised his head. His skin glowed and his eyes overflowed with magic. It spilled out of him, radiating like a corona from the sun. He looked like an angel, a furious, majestic creature, filled with astonishing power and sent down to punish.

I forgot to breathe.

A blast wave of pure magic tore out of Alessandro and rolled through the Pit.

The constructs collapsed. Their hulking metal forms split into components and tumbled down. The tentacles still swirling through the water disintegrated, falling apart. Refuse blanketed the surface of the mire. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Stephen fall into the water with a splash and disappear under the surface.

In my mind’s eye, the area around us turned dark, as if a glowing city suddenly lost all power. A third of the Abyss vanished, and what remained crawled away from us.

All went silent.

Oh my God. He’d nullified their magic.

A hoarse high-pitched scream made me turn. Cheryl stood in the middle of the parking lot, Tatyana slumping a few feet away. Cheryl balled her fists and shrieked, wailing. It was the sound of pure panic.

We were born with magic. We felt it in ourselves and others. We used it, the way we used our eyes and ears. Every mage down below must have felt as if they had gone blind and deaf all at once. Only Alessandro’s magic remained, burning like a sun.

So there it was, the true power of the antistasi.

Alessandro landed in the circle, the light of his magic suffusing him, his face beautiful and terrible all at once.

All traces of the man I knew had vanished. He wasn’t the Artisan. He wasn’t even human. He was a force determined to slaughter.

Alessandro raised his hands. Two blades of pure magic formed in his fingers.

He sprinted to the edge of the building and leaped out of sight.

Fear slapped me. “Bug!”

“On it.”

The drone moved to me, hovering outside of my circle’s boundary. On the screen Alessandro fell on Arkan’s troops. His left blade carved through the first man like he wasn’t even solid. A woman on his right died before she knew what was happening, her chest split in two by a magical sword.

In my mind’s eye the glowing cloud that was the Abyss compacted, crested like a wave, and surged toward us. Oh, no. I spun around to face the swamp.

A horrible deep bellow tolled through the Pit. Constructs poured out of the mire, swimming through the water toward us, dozens and dozens of constructs, the hounds, the hunters, the strange creations I didn’t know how to name. Tentacles slithered between packs of Razorscales, and behind it all, an enormous mass of flesh, metal, and plant surfaced, its own island in the Pit. Alessandro had hurt him, and the Abyss had unleashed his army.

On the little island, Stephen, soaked and dripping water, wrapped his arm around Marat. The summoner looked on the brink of collapse, the corpses of arcane beasts he must’ve summoned littering the ground around him. They were directly in the path of the Abyss’ horde.

There were too many. Even if Alessandro slaughtered all of the attackers, the Abyss would overwhelm us.

It was my turn.

I sent a focused thought out. No.

The Abyss answered. MINE.

Images bombarded me. People dying, Alessandro dying, Linus dying, constructs of plant and metal rising, flooding out of the Pit onto the streets, and me, sitting in a protective bubble of magic, safe and imprisoned in the mountain of flesh now rolling toward me. The Abyss wanted to kill. He loved the power of it. It was central to his being. That’s what he lived for. That’s what he was made for.

Offer him what he wants, and he will bring his people to you to get it . . .

“Catalina, get out of there!” Bug screamed. “Get out!”

I thought of Nevada’s baby. A tiny little baby, helpless and just drawing his first breath. I thought of my sisters and my mom. I thought of Alessandro.

No. I would stop this Armageddon. My family wasn’t going to fuel the Abyss’ army. Nobody else would ever end up as a brain and a spinal cord wrapped in foul magic. I would end this now.

I pulled the power from the circle. It poured into my wings and they burst out of me, huge and glowing. I opened my mouth and my song erupted, full of power, a siren’s call beyond anything I had ever imagined. Power surged out of me, no longer spiraling in delicate shoots, but flowing like an ocean tide. My feet had left the ground, but I barely noticed.

Come to me. Please me.

The wave of my magic collided with the constellation of the Abyss’ mind.

I sang. It was an ancient song, full of promises and whispers of bliss, the kind of song that caused seasoned sailors to hurl themselves into raging seas just to get closer.

Love me. Come to me and love me.

My magic swept through the nebula of the Abyss’ mind, brushing aside his defenses, all the way to its glowing center. It wrapped around the glowing star that used to be a human mind and saturated it.

Every construct in the Pit stopped and shuddered.

Show yourself to me. Come to me. Trust me. I am happiness. I am ecstasy. I am what you desire.

The constructs charged toward me.

On the island, Stephen gripped Marat, trying to shield him. The Abyss flowed around them and hurled himself against the foot of the building I was on. The constructs piled onto each other, building a hill of squirming bodies.

Yes. That’s what I want. More. Show me more.

The mire boiled. Tentacles thrust out, slapping against the hill of plant and metal growing against the building. The glowing dots of the Abyss’ nodes converged on me. The shining center moved, shifting toward me. The vast mound crept to me like a colossal amoeba, rising as it neared.

Ten feet high. Twenty.

Images burst in my mind, like soap bubbles. A huge grotesque monstrosity wrapping itself around the building, begging for my touch.

I changed the pitch of my song. No. Ugly. Clumsy. Graceless.

The nebula that was the Abyss convulsed in pain.

I sent my own image back. Alessandro glowing with magic, moving with elegance and grace.

Strong. Fast. Beautiful. Worthy. Worthy of me.

A shudder ran through the constructs in unison. The center of the mound collapsed, sucked into itself. The tiny glowing stars of nodes surfaced from the pile by the building and rolled into the hole in the center of the mound. The constructs on the outer edges fell apart. The nebula of the Abyss’ mind contracted, compacting in on itself.

Water vapor erupted on the edges of the mound. Chunks of it began to fall away. The Abyss was building something, throwing all of its energy and magic into it.

The nodes aggregated around the central light, all but merging with it. Tentacles ripped metal from random constructs and hurled it into the hole in the mound.

Yes, I sang. Glowing. Beautiful. Yes. That’s what I want.

The mound crept forward again. Its edges decayed. Large pieces broke off and sank, inert. The nebula compacted on itself.

My vision swam. My heart fluttered in the cage of my ribs. I had channeled so much magic, and my body was giving out. I had to hold on. Almost there. Almost.

The shambling mound landed at the foot of the hill the constructs built against my building. The nebula was gone now. Only its center remained, condensed into blinding white.

The mound split. A cloud of revolting stench washed over me and dispersed.

Giant tentacles surged up in front of me and opened like the petals of a flower. A glowing man stood at their center, a giant with the body of a god made with white metal and radiant flowers, perfect and astonishingly beautiful.

I looked at his face. Nothing in the world could compare. His eyes glowed with blue light. I wanted to weep and prostrate myself, but then I would have to stop looking at him, and it was beyond me to turn away. I had never seen anything so mesmerizing. I had to keep looking at him. I could spend a lifetime staring.

Our minds touched and I saw myself standing next to him with a body that matched his. He would remake me. I would be Eve to his Adam. The Pit would be our Eden, no one would cast us out of it, and humanity would serve us forever.

He smiled. Magic radiated from him and washed over me.

My body trembled, every nerve on fire.

He was made of pure power and will. Every node he possessed was in that body. There weren’t enough adjectives in any human language to describe him.

He opened his arms. His mind brushed against mine. Join me.

I waved my hand. The circle around me died. I sang to him, a sweet song, filled with love and longing.

Alessandro screamed my name.

The Abyss held out his hand.

In my memories, Alessandro kissed me and whispered, “I love you.” It was the happiest I had ever been.

I stepped out of the circle, picked up Linus’ sword, and rested my hand in the Abyss’ perfect fingers.

He smiled.

I hammered a spike of magic into the sword and plunged my blade into his chest, where the once-human mind burned with magic. The null space carved through the armored body and pierced the fragile brain.

The titan fell to his knees.

I dropped my sword.

His magic blinked, pulsed with bright white, and died. He had melded all of his nodes to make this body for me. Unified into one, they were no longer capable of survival. I felt them dying one by one. The last one winked out.

The awe-inspiring body at my feet fell apart. The beautiful, murderous god of the Pit was dead, and I had killed him. The full enormity of it hit me and I screamed my grief and pain into the sky before it tore me apart, because I had murdered something indescribably beautiful and it would never exist again. The magic turned my scream into a song and once the last notes of it died, I had nothing left.

My legs gave out. I crashed onto the roof.

Alessandro would live. Everyone would live.

Behind me a loud hum announced incoming helicopters.