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And then, distinct against the crowd’s shape, those oily arms sharpen to lethal needles, scouring for Blood Mages.
Bright flashes banish the dark for mere seconds each time a Blood Mage launches a counterattack. Their magic fires like comets in the dark room, a bright ball trailing multicolor glitter that blinks quickly out of existence. None faze the monster. The tar swallows them like candy, extinguishing them on impact.
These harmless attacks make the task of selecting Simon’s targets easy, showing him exactly where to attack. The needles skewer the Blood Mages, lift and wave them in the air with a sickening relish until the skewers are dangling bodies, dripping with blood, over the crowd.
“Oh my god!” someone screams. Everyone screams. It’s a cacophony of terror in the dining room, but underneath, a reverberating bellow, the war cry of the monster.
For a moment, Max and I stand back, watching with shock and awe as Simon makes a meal of the Blood Mages. I don’t know whether to attack Simon or the Blood Mages, to end them when they’re at the lowest or to take him while he’s distracted. The former seems to have the latter covered, and yet I feel deep-seated hate for my tormentors, the perpetrators of genocide against my pack. No amount of pleading or vocalized anguish stopped their assault on my people, nor will it solicit my sympathies for them.
Fuck you. Die.
Is that a voice from within, or Simon speaking to the Blood Mages?
Before I have a chance to make that determination, I notice magic raining from above, the desperate misfires of skewered Blood Mages. It burns like acid on the flesh of their guests. I have to do something.
Raising my arms, I summon a shield of silver magic. It spreads like a protective force field over the guests, blocking the shots of Blood Mage magic.
Silver glows all around us, seeming to quiet the screams of the Blood Mages until they quiet, their magic stops, and they still above us. The people within the shield have grown quiet, cowering on the ground, but I know it’s not over. It’s just begun.
The Blood Mages are dead. Simon flings their bodies from his tentacles, hurling them against the walls like ragdolls. I meet his green eyes — but not his green eyes. They’re the irradiated eyes of the monster, glowing, furious, directing their hate at me.
“Shit.”
In his deep, gurgling voice, he says, “Weak.”
Anticipating what comes next, I dissolve the shield, bring my palms together, and channel all my energy into a beam of silver light. It burrows into the mire and the many tentacles shrink back into the main body.
But it doesn’t peel away from the body hidden inside. My brother is still held in the center of the muck, serving as its heart. Instead, it retaliates. Green magic meets my silver and presses back against it, almost like a fountain spraying horizontally.
And it’s gaining.
I’m going to lose.
Unless…
Unless I succumb to the voice of dark magic.
Max says my name from somewhere beside me. I continue channeling my silver magic, even while it shrinks further back inside me, and the green magic advances. My teeth clench together. The room sways ever so slightly.
What do I do? If I use the dark magic, can I come back from it?
And do I even have a choice?
FOURTEEN
Braxton
I hope Max and Asha are okay.
Orson leads us through the maze of hallways in the mansion’s basement, trying to focus on the mission when I’m worried about the people I love most in this world. “Are you sure you know where we’re going?” I ask him.
He looks back with a smug grin and taps a finger to his temple. “I studied the maps produced by my algorithm so that I could etch them into memory. I know exactly where we’re going, although we’ll be provided with more detailed information the closer we get.”
Static hisses in my ear. I wince and dig out the comms piece to examine it. “Have you heard anything since our last attempt at contact?” I ask.
Orson shakes his head. “Only random bursts of static.”
I recall the haunting split-second soundbite, a garbled noise that nevertheless sent a shiver down my spine. I wrote it off, some signal interference, but in the back of my thoughts I can’t shake the feeling something awful is happening. Because it didn’t just sound like interference. Beneath the hissing blanket of static, it sounded almost as if…
