Medusa's Dagger: A New Adult Urban Fantasy (Aya Harris Collection Book 1) (20 page)

“If you hurt him, I’ll kill you.” My voice didn’t sound like my own – it came out raspy and harsh. “I swear I will.”

“Stay out of this, Little Bird. This is my fight.” Nicky lifted his chin and took a deep breath. “This ends now.”

He raised his foot and kicked open the door to room 312. I couldn’t see inside, but there was already a scuffle going on. Agent Silva’s voice drifted from the room, but I couldn’t make out what she was saying.

“Please save the boy,” I called to Nicky. “He’s innocent.”

Nicky paused, turning his head away from me. “I’m not promising anything,” he said. “Theo has to die, one way or another.”

With those assuring words, he charged into the room with his palm up, throwing pulses of energy and slammed the door shut behind him. I didn’t have time to wonder what poor sap he’d stolen those powers from. Instead, I rolled over to my stomach and army crawled to Gideon.

Placing my hand on his chest, I felt the thumping of his heart under my palm. A sigh escaped my lips. There was no sign of blood or any other injury that I could see. He’d been knocked unconscious, but not dead.

“Gideon, wake up.” I shook his shoulder gently.

He groaned, but his eyes stayed glued shut.

“Come on, Gideon. Kit needs you. I need you.”

Another gunshot went off inside the hotel room. At the very least, it seemed like Agent Silva was still holding her own against Nicky and Theo. I ran my hands over Gideon’s forehead and cheeks. He groaned again, but this time his eyelids fluttered open, and he gazed unfocused on my face.

“That’s it. Wake up.”

Gideon blinked again and some recognition returned to his eyes. He shook his head, grabbing my hands from his face and pulling them down. “What happened?”

“I think Nicky attacked you. He’s in there,” —I tilted my head at room 312— “with Theo and Agent Silva. We need to help her.”

He scrambled to his feet, looking frantically at the floor. “The dagger?”

“My brother stole it. He’s going to kill Theo.”

Part of me wanted Nicky to succeed. This monster had already exterminated two members of Michelle’s family. He didn’t deserve to live.

“He can’t do that.” Gideon clenched his jaw and drew his gun. “We have to stop him.”

A room a few doors down the hallway opened. Out popped a grey-haired man with a cane. He took one look at Gideon’s gun and froze.

“Get out of the hotel,” Gideon shouted. “Head for the elevator. Now.”

The man abruptly turned and shuffled to the other end of the hall. I’d never seen anyone with a cane move as fast as he did.

We turned our attention back to the hotel room door. There was no turning back now. Just a few feet inside, a battle raged. Smoke poured under the door and tremors shook the walls. We could hear Agent Silva shouting, her words lost in the noise. I said a little prayer and hoped Kit was still alive.

“Stay behind me,” Gideon said, squaring himself to the door.

I didn’t argue – he was the one with the gun. With one kick at the middle of the door, he burst into the hotel room with me close on his heels.

Scorch marks covered every wall of the hotel suite. Blackened pieces of wall art lay broken and shattered on the floor. A couch had been overturned on the other side of the room, with several bullet holes puncturing the brown microfiber cover. Broken copper pipes from the ceiling hung down at odd angles and sprayed cold water on the remaining textured cream colored wallpaper. Agent Silva lay unconscious on the bathroom floor, her gun scattered around her in pieces. 

My brother stood with his palm facing up beside one of the two queen-sized beds. My eyes followed the direction of his hand to where Theo stood on the small balcony, outside a pair of what used to be sliding glass doors. Now, they lay shattered in a million shiny glass shards.

Theo still wore the black wind jacket and jeans, but a long thin burn marred one side of his face, and half of his head where the wavy blond hair had once been. He didn’t even look at us. Madness danced in his blue eyes as he shot a powerful gust at Nicky.

In the midst of it all, Kit lay still on the bed nearest the opposite wall. He wore Pikachu pajama bottoms and a yellow t-shirt. His skin had turned an ashen color and left his cheeks lifeless. If it wasn’t for the slight movement of his chest, I would’ve thought he was dead.

At his bare feet lay Medusa’s knife – abandoned and forgotten during the struggle. I lunged forward to grab it, but had to pull myself back when Nicky loosened a fiery stream at Theo. The Gorgon easily deflected the assault with a batch of wind that sent the fire sailing over his head and into the air.

“You’re both under arrest. Get down on the ground,” Gideon yelled.

Just like when he’d confronted Ian Welch, the air around him began to crackle and pop with static electricity. His eyes morphed into a vivid green and the edges around his body blurred.

He pointed his gun at Theo. “I said get down.”

The Gorgon ignored Gideon’s request and sent another powerful gust into the room. This time, Nicky was caught in the blast and swept up, hitting the wall hard. A loud crack sounded and he slid to the ground with a pale face, holding his left arm at an odd angle. 

“Nicky!” Despite my brain screaming at me to stop, I ran to my brother’s side and grabbed his hand.

He smiled weakly at me, the pain shining in his eyes. The sight of bone sticking through the skin in his arm made my head feel light and woozy, so I concentrated on keeping my eyes on his face.

Gideon lunged forward and began shooting at Theo. Pop, pop, pop, the bullets went whizzing through the shattered doors and onto the balcony. Theo dodged the fire and hid behind the wall, his maniacal laughter loud enough to be heard over the gun.

“Feels like old times, doesn’t it, Little Bird?” Nicky coughed and spit out a mouthful of blood, giving me a bloody smile.

I tilted my head to one side, unsure what he meant.

“You know, Andy Gregson’s old tree,” he added. “The summer I fell?”

I felt a small smile pass over my lips. He was right. That summer, we were all about tree climbing and finding adventures. Andy Gregson had a crooked old apple tree in his backyard that had died years before in a draught. We were going to make a fort high in its branches.

The first boards had already been nailed to the tree when Nicky stepped on some dry rot and tumbled ten feet to the ground, landing on his arm and shattering his wrist. He spent the rest of the summer in an orange cast signed by all the neighborhood kids. Although that didn’t stop him from climbing any more trees.

My walk down memory lane was interrupted by Theo smashing through the wall and barging into the hotel room. He shot a blast of wind at Gideon, pinning him behind a wooden desk. There was murder in his eyes. If this didn’t end soon, someone would die.

“Stay here,” I said.

The dagger was only a few feet away. I slid across the soaking wet carpet and reached for the dagger on the bed, my eyes never leaving Theo’s back. He was still busy flushing Gideon out from behind the desk.

My fingers closed around the cold metal of the hilt, the filigree rough against my palm. I burst from my sitting position like a runner out of the starting box, and dove the dagger at Theo’s back. The blade was still sharp, that much I knew. It would sink into his flesh like butter. All I had to do was hit my mark.

Theo turned when I was nearly on him and grabbed both my wrists, twisting them until I screamed. I unfurled my black wings, flapping them to give me leverage. In my right hand, the dagger hung limply. Theo’s eyes darted to the dagger and then back to me with a wicked grin.

“I was hoping to have the chance to finish you off,” he growled.

Dropping my left hand, he wrapped his gigantic fingers around my neck and squeezed. Black dots filled my vision. I gasped for breath, but nothing came. It was like drowning on dry land.

Theo leaned in close to my ear. The sickly tickle of his breath against my neck made me shudder.

“I wish I had time to really make you scream, but I’m afraid I’m on a deadline.”

The feeling in the rest of my body faded as he dangled me above the floor. The dagger dropped from my hand and landed with a thud on the carpet. This was it. I’d cheated death three times already this week. The fourth time would be my last.

I felt the blast of Gideon’s gun before I heard it. Theo screamed and dropped me, clasping a hand over his shoulder. The sudden availability of air doused my burning lungs and I sucked in several large breaths of the life-giving stuff. Never again would I complain about the air quality in Arcana. It tasted sweet enough for me.

A splatter of blood landed on me as Theo dove for the balcony door. He perched himself on the wooden railing, looking over the side. We were at least thirty feet off the ground. If he jumped, he’d probably shatter a pelvis. Of course, his newly found powers to control the wind might help him land a bit more gracefully.

Theo was about to step off the edge of the railing when he was sucked backwards and across the hotel room, slamming into the wall. Leaving a Gorgon-sized crater in the busted drywall, he stumbled and attempted to right himself.

I spun around, searching for the source of the power that had yanked Theo so forcefully back into the room. My brother kneeled over Kit on the bed, Medusa’s dagger in his teeth.

A long thin line had been sliced into the child’s arm. Trails of blood rolled down his pale skin, blooming across the white comforter in a grisly red pattern. Kit’s yellow shirt had been torn open, and the mysterious symbols painted on the smooth skin of his stomach with blood.

“No! Nicky don’t!” I screamed.

He didn’t even look up from his work. In his hand was the pendant which normally hung on his chest. Kit’s blood dripped onto the amulet, soaking Nicky’s hand with the sticky red liquid. With a flick of his hand, Theo’s body lifted and crashed into the ceiling, dropping him with a thud on the floor.

The Gorgon growled, curses in English and languages I didn’t recognize tumbling out of his mouth. He bared his teeth, leaning forward on his thick arms, the muscles bulging along his biceps from the effort.

Nicky calmly took the dagger out of his mouth. “You shouldn’t have crossed me, Theo. We could’ve done great things together.” He held it out in the palm of his hand and it began to float upwards.

“Like you’re such a saint?” Theo spit. He wiped the back of his hand on his mouth, smearing blood across his lips. “You say you’re ridding the world of evil, but you enjoy the kill just as much. Admit it.”

Nicky remained tightlipped. He raised his chin and levitated the dagger even higher. I closed my eyes, waiting for the kill.

“Alright, that’s enough.” Gideon stepped out from behind the desk. The barrel of his gun was pointed at Nicky’s heart. “Put the dagger down. The SI is taking both of you into custody.”

Nicky shook his head. “I’m sorry, Agent Ward. That’s not an option.”

He dropped his hand to his side. At the same time, the dagger shot forward and buried itself deep into Theo’s chest cavity.

A loud roar ripped from his mouth. The city’s enchantment faltered, flashing back and forth to Theo’s true Gorgon form – his giant mass flickering like a projection on a movie screen.

Theo stumbled forward a step, clasping a hand around the dagger and pulling it out. A whirlwind began to whip around him. I jumped behind the desk with Gideon and watched as a mini tornado swept Theo up. It rolled his body in the air, and then dropped him to the ground in a heap.

His chest rose with one final inhale, pushing a stream of blood up through the hole the dagger had left behind. With a sigh, he rolled his head to one side and lay still. Even from my place behind the desk, I could see the once vivid blue eyes had turned glossy with death.

A dark gray color seeped into his skin, beginning at the tips of his fingers. The gray moved up his limbs until it covered every inch of his exposed skin. It took me a moment to realize that Theo was slowly turning into stone. I guess it made sense. Medusa had died in a similar fashion. It seemed fitting.

In the still of the room, Gideon jumped up again with his gun drawn. “Don’t move, Harris!”

Nicky didn’t waste time with niceties. He flicked his pointer finger and the gun spiraled out of Gideon’s hands. As he scrambled to retrieve it, Nicky walked calmly in the direction of the balcony, the pendant clutched in his hand. He was going to escape again.

“You can’t do this.” I stepped in front of him, barring the door. “You can’t keep this up. It’s wrong and you know it.”

“Out of my way, Little Bird.” Nicky raised himself up to his full height and looked down at me. “Don’t make me hurt you.”

“No one makes you do anything, Nicky. That’s what I’ve been saying all along. You can choose to be good.”

They were the words I’d stored up inside me for so long. The words I wanted so badly for him to hear.

“This thing you’re doing, this hunting down evil, it’s not right. You think you’re helping the world, but you’re just bypassing the systems we already have in place. You don’t have the right to hurt people. Just give yourself up.”

Nicky tilted his head to one side. In his eyes, I saw sympathy. “You don’t understand, Aya. This is my destiny. I have to fight for good.”

“No, I’m not letting you leave.”

I expanded my wings and stood my ground as he tried to brush past me. Our eyes met and we exchanged glares. A part of me still hated to see Nicky caught by the SI, but I knew it was time. My brother was never going to get better. He’d chosen his path and I’d chosen mine.

“You’d turn me in?” he asked. “Is that what you want? To see your brother in chains?”

I didn’t say anything, but he could read my answer in my desperate face. With a slight nod of understanding, he took a small step backwards. I kept my arms and wings extended out. It could be nothing but a trick. But, he didn’t make a run for it.

Instead, he placed two fingers on my forehead. An electric shock of power pulsed through my skull, down my body and into my toes. As I fell to the ground, Nicky stepped over my body. He jumped off the balcony railing and disappeared right before my vision went dark.