Fields of Blood (The DeathSpeaker Codex Book 2) (27 page)

Just then, a shape streaked from the opposite direction, headed straight for Sadie. It collided with her, knocked her back several feet to crash into the fence. And the soldiers emptied their guns into her savior.

Marlon.

I reached the fence seconds too late. Furious, I smashed through the chain link and threw a shield spell at the two humans. It crushed them against the bleachers. Snapped them almost in half.

Sadie had managed to crawl to her fallen brother. I hung back to give them space as she pulled him up and turned him over gently. He was in human form. Naked and covered with bleeding wounds, the edges of the skin black around the gaping holes. Alive, but barely.

“Marlon?” Sadie’s voice trembled. “What…”

“Silver.” His voice was a wisp of sound. “Dying.”

“No! We’ll save you.” She sent a panicked glance over her shoulder at me. “Gideon can take the bullets out. You’ll be okay.”

He gave a wet cough. Blood ran from his mouth and streaked down the sides of his face. “Sadie…forgive me. Please. I thought…”

“Don’t talk. I know,” she said softly. “You were trying to protect the pack, and I wasn’t part of it anymore. You idiot.” There was an edge to the last word that was almost affection. “I forgive you.”

He shuddered and stilled.

Sadie allowed herself another moment, and then struggled to her feet. She looked from me to the broken, lifeless bodies on the bleachers. “You did
that
?” she ground out.

I didn’t have time for an ethical debate. The pressure in me was still building, and I knew something very bad was going to happen when it burst. If we didn’t win before then, we never would. “Where’s Taeral?” I said.

“I don’t know. Gideon—”

“Find somewhere safe. And stay there.”

She glared at me. “You sound like your brother.”

“Yeah. I know.”
I’m sorry
, I wanted to add, but it wouldn’t come out.

Finally, I sensed a flash of magic and knew it had to be him. I spotted him across the arena on this side of the middle fence, defending two forms huddled against the bleachers behind him from a small wave of soldiers. Elara and Mars.

“Sadie, get to safety. Please,” I said, shocked at my reluctance to say that last word.

She hesitated, seemed about to say something. But at last, she went.

I plunged back into the fray and made my way across the bloody field.

C
HAPTER 41

R
eese got to Taeral first.

By the time I saw him rising from the bleachers just behind the group, he’d already taken aim and fired twice. Both bullets hit Taeral in the back. He wavered and fell to his knees, and his eyes met mine, filling with shock as I pushed my way through the remaining soldiers.

“Gideon…what have you done?” he rasped.

“What I had to.” I turned a furious gaze to Reese. “You, I’m not going to feel bad about killing,” I said. “Every part of me is on board with that idea. What did you shoot him with, you son of a bitch?”

Incredibly, Reese grinned. “I suppose you’ll have to guess.”

“How about I kill you, and then ask you again?”

“You’re not the DeathSpeaker,” Reese said. “I don’t know how you managed all this, but I will find out. And then I’ll destroy you.”

My jaw clenched. Before I could think of a response, the door to the right leading into the stadium from the research building crashed open. Column after column of soldiers marched out and formed ranks between me and Reese. They stood with one hand on the shoulder of the man next to them, and the other extended and holding a gun.

I sent a blast of glamour at them, turning random soldiers to werewolves. The effort cost me. It felt like something cracked inside me, and I staggered with the force of it. A thin stream of blood ran from one nostril.

But none of the soldiers moved.

“Do you really think we don’t know how to deal with Fae glamour?” Reese called over the silent sea of men in black. “They’ve been trained for this. You can make them look like their own dead mothers, and they’ll know it’s an illusion. Seeing is not believing when you ground yourself with what you can touch, Mr. Black.” He stepped to a lower bleacher. “Take him down. Standard ammo—I want him alive.”

At least forty guns went off at once.

I felt multiple bullets hit me. Just as quickly, my body began to heal. As I staggered back, the columns advanced in lockstep, firing again and again. Even as they blew fresh holes in me, the buildup of power inside and the bathing rays of the moon kept healing the wounds, an endless loop of pain and relief—but the pressure had nearly reached the breaking point.

I laughed. Harsh, wild, and completely uncontrolled.

Blood ran from my nose and ears. Something hot and wet streaked from my eyes, too thick for tears. I swiped at it and found more blood.

If I was going down, these bastards were coming with me.

“
Mahrú à dionadth
!” I pushed a hand at them, forming a shield that swiped a cluster of soldiers from the corner of the formation and crushed them against the chain link fence.

The remaining group froze, and I pumped another spell at them. “
Ahmac àn beahlac.
”

They scattered. Some flew into the air, others dropped, and still more scrambled back, trying to avoid the impact of their falling brothers.

More than a few took off running.

I advanced on them and cast another shield, mangling three of them beneath it. My steps faltered as I released the spell. There were still quite a few holes in me, and the automatic healing had stopped.

Only a handful of soldiers stood their ground. I managed to remain on my feet, but I was draining fast. I’d almost completely exhausted my spark…and the injection was wearing off, the weight of what I’d done attempting to crush me.

I still had one trick left, though.

“
De’àrsahd
,” I whispered to the moonstone, and it pulsed with a comforting glow. It wouldn’t give me more magic, but it would enhance my spark. What was left of it. I held my hands toward the remaining soldiers and gasped out, “
Beith na cohdal.
”

They fell over, asleep.

With my spark completely extinguished, I dropped to my knees on the blood-soaked ground and waited for Reese to kill me.

C
HAPTER 42

T
aeral hadn’t moved since he’d been shot in the back. Elara and Mars stayed with him, huddled in a frightened clutch over his motionless body as Reese descended from the stands.

But he didn’t even look at them. He was headed for me.

I had nothing left. No magic, no strength, not even a sarcastic remark. I could only watch his approach, and hope he was angry enough to make this fast.

He stopped five feet in front of me. And started clapping.

“Well done, Mr. Black.” The clapping slowed, and then stopped as he crouched level with me. “You aren’t as weak as I thought. You’ve done some real damage here. Unfortunately, I think you might have gotten a few of your friends killed in the process,” he said. “But if it makes you feel any better, you have set me back by at least a month or two.”

“Yeah. That was the plan,” I managed. “To set you back.”

He shook his head slowly. “How did you do this? I really must know.”

One corner of my mouth lifted. “I suppose you’ll have to guess.”

“Fine. I can live with that.”

He straightened and took something out of his pocket. A loaded, capped syringe. “Since I’d planned to test you in the arena tonight, I decided to advance the timetable,” he said, sliding the cap from the syringe. “The new batch of L39. I tested it on one of my own men, and it worked just fine. In fact, he was even able to think and speak in enhanced form.”

“So what, you’re going to stick me with that?” I panted.

“Oh, no. This is for me.” He pushed a sleeve up and rubbed his thumb on his upper arm. “I said I’d face you before we were through, and I’d kill you. So now I’m going to rip you apart. Piece by piece.”

He popped the needle in, and pushed the plunger.

Damn. This was really going to hurt.

I hadn’t seen the transformation up close until now. His skin pulled taut, and the muscles beneath rippled and swelled. His nails thickened and lengthened into talons with sharp points. The jaw dislocated and stretched wide as more pointed teeth than could ever fit in a human mouth emerged.

His eyes went a solid, glittering black.

“I can smell your fear,” the Reese-wolf said, in a voice like a blender full of gravel. “Haven’t tried it myself, but I’ll bet it makes you taste better.” He grinned and crouched to spring.

“
À dionadth!
”

The shout was Taeral. As he spoke, the air shimmered in front of me. Reese crashed into nothing and sprawled on the ground with a frustrated snarl.

Taeral stood about ten feet back, his normal arm outstretched. At least, normal for a Fae. His glamour was gone, leaving him with sky-blue skin, pointed ears jutting from thick tangles of black hair, and needle-sharp teeth bared in fury. Pale flames of light danced along the outlines of his body—a sign that he was well and truly pissed.

But I sensed that he hadn’t dropped his glamour because his spark was gone. Power crackled from him in waves, stronger than I’d ever felt it.

He
wanted
Reese to see him like this. Probably because he was scary as hell…and he knew it.

Taeral advanced as Reese got to his feet. “I made you a promise, human,” he thundered. “And now I intend to keep it.”

Reese laughed. The low, wicked sound shivered down my spine. “The werewolves are stronger. Faster. And you’re even weaker than your pathetic friend,” he said. “I wanted to keep one of you alive, but I don’t mind killing you both. The Fae are nothing.”

In a blink, Taeral was in front of him. He grabbed Reese’s throat with his normal hand and lifted him off the ground. “I am an Unseelie warrior, the son of the Queen’s favored noble,” he said. “And you are threatening my brother.”

Runes of blue fire traced themselves into being along his metal arm. He stabbed his hand into Reese’s chest like a dagger, through skin and bone—and pulled out his beating heart.

Reese screamed.

Pale blue light flowed from Taeral’s normal hand into Reese. Healing him. Keeping him alive as he dropped the bloodied chunk of flesh and sliced his stomach open with the thorny nails of his metal hand, spilling his guts.

Exactly the way he’d promised to kill the bastard.

Taeral pulled him close as he shivered and twitched, unable to scream any more. “You’re dying,” he rasped near Reese’s ear. “For humans, the moment of death can last an eternity. I’ve something to keep you company while you wait—the eight months of torture I suffered at the hands of your so-called
brothers
.”

Reese’s body jolted stiff, his eyes wide and frozen in horror. At last, he slumped boneless in Taeral’s grip.

Taeral dropped the body with a sneer of contempt and rushed over to me. I still couldn’t get up, so he knelt in front of me, his worried eyes searching my face. “Gideon. Are you…yourself?”

“Yeah,” I rasped. “Pretty much.”

“What in the name of the gods happened?”

I shuddered. “Shot myself up with that human suppressing stuff,” I said. “Went full Fae for a while.”

His jaw went slack. “Why?”

“Because there was no other way out.”

“Foolish, impulsive child! You might have destroyed yourself. Do you have any idea—”

“Taeral. I might have, but I didn’t.” I spoke as firmly as I could. “It’s over now. And trust me, I’m never doing that again. I don’t know how you can stand it.”

“Stand what?”

“Being Fae, with all these…humans around.”

He gaped at me, and then smiled. “It does require some adjustment. Particularly when you happen to care for at least one of them.”

“Half of one, anyway.” I smirked and glanced past him at the remains of Reese. “You have to show me that heart-ripping trick sometime,” I said. “How the hell did you do that?”