Authors: SM Reine
He kicked it in the face and sent it flying. But another one took its place and knocked the falchion from his hand.
It was hard to throw a good punch from the ground, but he sure as hell tried. Hitting the daimarachnid in the face was like hitting a brick wall. His knuckles split open on contact. It reared back an inch—only an inch. It was enough. He lifted his knees, planted his feet on its hind segment, and threw it over his head with its own momentum.
Betty got to her knees and ripped another page out of her notebook.
Another word of power. Another silent explosion.
The spider that had been on top of him splattered.
The paper dissolved under the force of its own magic, and she wiped her hands clean on her shirt. “Oh my
God
. I didn’t know—I don’t—oh my God!”
“Freak out later!”
Anthony grabbed the falchion, getting to his feet again in time to take the impact from another daimarachnid. There were still almost a half a dozen—plus the big one over the gate, who seemed to be watching them with amused silence.
He stabbed the falchion through the top of a spider-demon’s head with enough force for it to come out the other side. The tip of the sword buried in the dirt and pinned the demon down.
“I don’t think I have anything else,” Betty said, dissolving into a coughing fit.
“Help us!” he cried to Thom on the dais.
The witch was examining his fingernails, reclined against the gate as though it wasn’t throbbing with immense, uncontrollable energy. Thom’s eyes skimmed over Anthony’s body, and something like approval flashed across his face.
“Oh, fine.” Thom stepped down to Elise and brushed his fingers across her brow. He winked at Anthony. “You’re welcome.”
“What are you doing?” the Night Hag demanded.
He vanished. And Elise didn’t move.
“Anthony!” Betty cried.
She was pinned by one of the smaller daimarachnids. He wrenched the falchion out of the ground, kicked the demon off Betty, and pulled her to her feet.
The Night Hag’s leg swept over him with another step, and the lowest joint caught his attention. The armored shell was split so she could move.
He drove the sword up with all his strength. It buried into her flesh. Fluid sprayed from the Night Hag’s leg. The giant spider jerked away with a screech, but Anthony followed her. He hacked at the joint like he was splitting firewood at his aunt’s house—hairy, twitching firewood.
Elise’s falchion got stuck in the exoskeleton and ripped from his hands.
She slammed him against the wall. “I am having a bad day,” the Night Hag said in a low, cooing voice that came from nowhere. “And you are not helping anything.”
And then she bit.
E
lise woke up
feeling very strange. Her skin didn’t sit right on the muscle. Brilliant spikes of light filled the empty spaces in her skull. Her tongue tasted like ozone. And the air—so many new colors surrounded her. A not-quite-silver, a blue that wasn’t blue, and so many shades of gray that she didn’t see with her eyes.
It was the same thing she had seen on the chains binding Nukha’il, but it was magnified a thousand times and painted across the entire world. The light was brighter and the shadows were deeper.
Elise was seeing magic.
“James,” she groaned as she sat up, clutching her forehead in both hands. Her leg didn’t hurt anymore, and when she peeled off the bandages, she found blood staining unbroken skin. And one of her gloves was gone.
Her aspis was sprawled motionlessly beside her, and she grabbed his wrist to feel for a pulse. It beat steady and strong in his veins.
That was when she realized that Betty and Anthony were missing.
Elise riffled through James’s shirt to find the Book of Shadows tucked in his belt. “Sorry about this,” she muttered, getting to her feet to look around.
The gate was open. Pale light flowed from its center, warping the air so she couldn’t see through to the other side of the cavern. That explained why her glove was gone. But instead of the painful roar she experienced the last time a gate was opened, this one chimed. It was a soft, musical note, like a chorus waiting in the white beyond.
It didn’t hurt. In fact, nothing hurt. She felt… good. Maybe a little too good.
But there wasn’t time to figure out what had changed. An infernal presence was strong on the other side of the glowing dais, and Elise reached up to draw one of her swords.
Her hand met empty air.
She spun to search the floor. Her swords were nowhere in sight.
“Great,” she muttered.
Elise stepped around the dais. There were more pillars near the wall, although they were black instead of white. Where had they come from?
Her gaze traveled up the long columns.
Her jaw fell open.
There was a huge spider in the room. It had Anthony pinned against the wall. And four or five smaller daimarachnids milled around them.
One of her swords was right in front of the gate. Elise dived for it. Getting so close to the gate made her entire body vibrate, but it wasn’t nearly as agonizing as before.
The giant spider moved to bite Anthony. “Hey!” she yelled.
It looked at her. “Oh, wonderful. It’s you.” Elise recognized that voice. She was too giddy to be surprised that the Night Hag had turned into a spider.
“Yeah. Me.” Elise lifted the Book of Shadows. “Betty!”
Her friend looked up. Elise threw the notebook, and Betty caught it. Her eyes lit up. “Should I—?”
“Make a miracle happen!”
The Night Hag rushed Elise, limping on an injured leg. As soon as it landed in front of her, she jumped onto it and scaled the spider’s body, dragging herself atop the head. Elise nearly slid off the top when she thrashed, but her fingers caught a ridge near one of the angry eyes. It swiveled around to glare at her.
She levered herself onto her knees, lifted the sword over her head, and plunged it into the Night Hag’s eye.
Betty spoke a word of power.
The air boomed as the symbols on the sword blazed. All eight eyes erupted at once.
The Night Hag roared. Elise lost traction. Her sword tore free.
It was a long way to the ground.
Anthony caught her. She had the presence of mind to drop her sword to keep from stabbing him, but his arms barely softened the blow. His elbow connected with her stomach. All the breath rushed out of her as they both hit the ground.
The spider stomped blindly toward them with a wailing shriek. Elise jumped out of the way of a crashing leg, pulling Anthony with her. She shoved him toward the wall.
She didn’t even see the second leg coming at her.
It smashed her to the ground. Elise threw her arms over her head, trying to shelter herself from the thrashing limbs, and felt ichor shower onto her shoulders from the stab wound. Elise was an instant from getting crushed.
The light in the gate suddenly grew again. Nukha’il appeared at the top of the dais with a flash, looking winded and confused. “Nukha’il!” she shouted.
He glanced between Elise, under the stomping feet of the giant spider-demon, and the Night Hag herself.
A huge foot flew toward her.
Nukha’il darted in—a pale blur in the darkness. Cold hands grabbed Elise’s. He dragged her out of the way.
“Get against the wall!” Betty yelled, standing over James’s body.
Elise didn’t ask why. She threw Nukha’il toward the side of the cavern and covered his body with hers.
Magic coalesced in a nimbus around Betty’s head. Her hair stuck straight out in every direction as though she had been struck by lightning. There was paper clutched in both of her fists. Steel-blue light crackled around her. Elise had never seen James’s magic before. It was so much darker than she expected.
Betty threw the paper at the Night Hag.
The spells hung, momentarily suspended, in midair. Then they rested against one of her telephone-pole legs.
She pointed.
The room filled with light and heat. All moisture vaporized from Elise’s skin. Her clothing charred instantly as the tapestries behind the gate caught fire.
The Night Hag screamed.
Elise ducked her head so she wouldn’t have to see. But there was no way to tune out the roars of pain and fury as she thrashed in her final death throes.
It felt like she screamed for hours. Days.
Eventually, they trailed into sobs, and then there was nothing but the echoes of crackling fire. The Night Hag had fallen by the dais. Her body was a black husk, and red embers glowed within her carcass. Entire tapestries had disappeared in a puff of smoke.
Both Anthony and Betty were covered in ash, but unharmed. Elise let Nukha’il sit up. He stared around with shock, as though he couldn’t imagine a human causing such devastation.
“My Lord,” he said.
Elise’s mouth was too dry to speak. She worked her tongue around in her mouth to create saliva before saying, “Good miracle, Betty.”
With a shaky laugh, Betty sank to the ground and pressed her face into her knees. Elise crawled over to her. “I’m okay,” she mumbled without getting up, “I’m okay. Is James…?”
“He’s still breathing. He’s fine. What about you?”
“That
hurt
,” Betty whispered. Her hands were closed so tightly around the remaining scraps of paper that her knuckles were white. Elise carefully opened her fingers.
“Relax. That’s James’s magic going through you. You’ll be fine.” Elise made herself sound confident, even though she wasn’t sure that was true. What happened when a weak witch channeled power of James’s caliber? She had never seen it before, but they were probably lucky Betty was still awake, much less alive.
Nukha’il dusted himself off and came to stand beside Elise. The magic on his necklace had faded, but not gone out.
“Free me,” he said. There was no supplication in Nukha’il now—only defiance.
Elise stood. “Why?”
“I helped you. Free me.”
She nodded. He turned around. Her fingers tingled as she pressed the latch open, and the metal fell to the floor with a clink.
A sudden swell of ethereal energy rose around him. Nukha’il sighed and rolled his shoulders. “Thank you,” he said. “Finally.”
“What will you do now?”
“Find Itra’il and move on. I have wasted too much time in servitude.”
With a small bow, he turned to leave the cavern. Elise watched him go. The presence of an angel always left a sour taste in her mouth.
“Elise?” Anthony’s call drew her attention back to him. He was gaping at the Night Hag’s body. It seemed to have lost half its mass in death, but it was still terrifyingly huge. “Should we do something about the gate?”
“Sure. Why don’t you stay here for a second, Betty?” Her best friend nodded against her knees. She was pale and trembling. Elise collected her swords, sheathed both of them, and joined Anthony by the fallen overlord. She was impressive, even in death. “She’s dead, Anthony. We don’t have to keep an eye on her.”
“I just can’t believe…” He blew a heavy breath out of his lips. “That was terrifying.”
He probably was hoping for words of comfort. Elise didn’t have any.
She turned to face the gate. The light inside whirled and swirled. She stretched a hand toward the broken fragment that had come from her necklace, but getting too close made her fingers burn.
“Here,” Anthony said.
He plucked the stone out of the gate, and with a resounding clang like a heavy iron door shutting, the light went out. It sounded like the very gates of Hell swinging shut. But it was so much worse than Hell—and so much more satisfying.
A huge weight Elise hadn’t realized she had been carrying lifted off her chest. She sagged against his arm.
His fist clenched around the rock, brown eyes burning bright. “What now?” he asked.
Now she would take that rock and throw it into the deepest reaches of Lake Tahoe. Now she wouldn’t worry about anyone reaching those ruins again. Now the overlord and the brand on her shoulder were gone, and the city was hers. Now…
Relief thrilled through her chest, foreign and strange. She seized Anthony’s shirt in both hands. “Now this,” she said, pulling his head down to kiss her.
His empty hand pressed against the small of her back, crushing her body to his. It felt good. She could have done it forever, if they had the time. Forever turned out to be just a few short seconds, but when she broke free, Anthony pressed his forehead to hers.
“Wow,” he murmured. “That good, huh?”
“Yeah. That good.”
He laughed and swept her up in his arms, spinning her around. “Jesus, Elise! Thank
God
you woke up when you did. I was sure we were going to die!”
“You didn’t do too badly on your own.” She leaned on his chest when he set her on her feet again. “Remember when you asked if fighting was a little exciting in the desert?” she whispered, low enough that Betty wouldn’t be able to hear. She didn’t feel like being teased. Not when she was so relieved. He grinned.
But Betty wasn’t even listening to them.
“Hey, lovebirds! I think James is waking up!”
Elise broke free of Anthony. “Of course he missed all the good—” she began, facing her friend, who had pillowed James’s head in her lap.
Motion loomed in the darkness beyond Betty.
Alain entered from the hallway above, flanked by twin angels. They were statuesque and pale with the silvery ghost of wings sweeping from their shoulders. Both had swords that flamed with ethereal light.
And the witch’s pistol was drawn and aimed at James.
“Watch out!” Anthony shouted.
Three things happened at once.
First, Betty saw Alain and lifted one of James’s paper spells, bold challenge glowing in her eyes. Elise could see the confidence in her face. The surety that she could wield that kind of magic. But shifting to take the spell from his Book of Shadows put her directly between the gun and James.
Second, Elise shoved her boyfriend out of the way and drew her sword. The stone dropped from his fingers and clattered across the floor.
Third, Alain squeezed the trigger.
The explosion echoed in the great underground chamber, like two gunshots in quick succession. His muzzle flashed.