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I fuly intended to give it one.
Before she could reload or move out of the way, I puled up my sword - not to bat the orb into a thousand pieces...but to reflect it. I held the katana directly in front of me, the cutting edge to the side, and the mirrorlike steel toward Malory.
The orb hit the blade with enough force to rattle the steel. But tempered and honed, it did its job. The orb bounced right off and flew back toward Malory. Slower on the return trip, but its direction true. It hit her square in the chest and sent her flying across the room. She hit the wal and then the floor, thudding down with a bounce that probably broke a few of her ribs, too.
At least she couldn't hurt anyone else, or herself, for a little while. One bad guy down...Now back to the other one.
And the other one was engaged in his own fierce battle. Tate, who could manipulate a car right off the road with magic, had apparently wanted a different kind of chalenge. He'd produced a sword of his own, a gigantic two-handed blade with complicated engravings that caught the light as it shifted. A katana was intended to slice; this thing looked like it was intended to pummel.
Ethan had his sword, and there was no denying he was good at wielding it. But Tate was a man with an agenda, and he wouldn't be deterred. The smile on his face reminded me of a cat playing with a mouse just before the final snap of its jaws.
Tate had every intention of finishing the fight - and finishing Ethan - but wanted to play with his food a bit first. Ethan's jacket was ripped from several cuts already.
"Ow."
I glanced at the other side of the room. Paige was sitting up, a hand to her bleeding head.
I rushed to her, hoping she could find a way to stop al of this, and went down on my knees beside her. "Are you okay?"
"He made me folow him out, then made me tel him where the book was." Her lip trembled, tears hovering at the edge of her lashes.
"It's okay. We al knew this was coming. He and Ethan are fighting. Is there anything you can do? Can you knock Tate out or something?"
She shook her head, tears faling down her cheeks, an ugly bruise beginning to surface on one. "He did something to me. I couldn't stop him from coming here or making me tel him where it was."
It sounded like a violation by magic, a kind of psychic extortion used by Tate to get to the book. As if he needed any more reasons for me to detest him.
Chunks of concrete flew past us as Tate's sword nipped a bit of the wal. Malory was out, Tate was occupied, and Paige was injured. If she couldn't use her magic, maybe I could at least get her out of the room to keep her out of any more danger - or to keep Tate from using her for anything else.
"Do you think you can walk?"
She shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe."
I put an arm beneath her and helped her to her feet. But that plan didn't last long.
"Merit!" Paige said. "Malory! The book!"
I looked back. Malory had awoken and was stretched ful out on the floor of the vault, one hand stretched over the book, her lips moving as she continued her incantation.
The sounds of the scuffle stopped as Tate turned toward the sound of the ancient words. Ethan took advantage of the distraction and thrust his katana down.
The strike should have sliced Tate open from throat to stomach, but Tate put up a hand, and Ethan flew back against the wal again.
My heart nearly stopped again, but Ethan groaned and roled over. Unfortunately, my relief was dwarfed by my shock at Tate's power and the violence he threw around so casualy.
What was he?
Undeterred by the violence around her, Malory continued her chanting, words that were chunky and rhythmic like Latin, but with thicker consonants and a twist that sounded almost Russian.
With Ethan handled, Tate vaulted a table and reached out to grab the book.
"Malory, stop!" I caled out, but I was too late.
Tate stretched for the book, and just as his fingers made contact with its red leather cover, Malory screamed out an incantation. "Adnum malentium!"
A thunderous clap split the air, the energy pushing Malory back...but not Tate.
The Maleficium exploded into a burst of bright blue light that wrapped around Tate's hand, stil on the book, and up his arm like a snaking vine. Within seconds he was enveloped in light.
Malory had done something, finished something, and the Maleficium was reacting.
The light glowed around him like a visible aura, and for a moment he smiled, as if he'd achieved some part of his plan.
But his elation didn't last long. The light around him began to shake, and the outline of his body along with it. He wobbled and quivered inside the cloud of light, and his expression grew pained. He opened his mouth to scream out, but no sound escaped the light, just the dul throbbing of the magic.
Within seconds, his vibrating form began to lurch up and down, and then his body began to widen. It didn't grow bigger - it stretched horizontaly as he howled out his displeasure.
The shield of magic grew as he did, and I scampered back to avoid the edge of it.
Suddenly, like a string of DNA dividing, double-wide Tate began to cleave in two. The split started at his head, and in sputtering stops and starts. Flashes lit the room like a sun-powered strobe, and then it was over.
A loud crack of magic crossed the room, and the lights in the silo flickered once, then twice.
When the room was calm again, Seth Tate stood in the middle of the room, sweating and rumpled.
And beside him stood another Seth Tate.
It took seconds for my mind to actualy start working again - and even then I hadn't managed to wrap my mind around what I'd seen.
Seth Tate, former mayor of Chicago, had become two Seth Tates.
The Tates looked at their hands and then each other, and then both pushed out their chests. They screamed out - a sound wholy inhuman and ear-burstingly loud.
I hit the concrete on my knees, covering my ears against the sound. The entire structure vibrated, and I'd have sworn the concrete and steel warped from the energy they put out.
For a moment, there was silence.
And then they both shot upward, straight up the shaft of the missile silo. I ran beneath the opening and watched them ascend - twenty feet, forty feet, sixty feet, eighty feet - and then the metal doors of the missile bay burst open, sending a shower of dirt and roots and cornstalks into the silo. The Tates disappeared through the opening and into the night, supernatural missiles of unknown proportions.
The dirt cleared, and lights shone down through the hole in the sky. And al was quiet again on the midwestern front.
Chapter Seven
THE GAMBLER
"What the hel just happened?" Ethan asked, but given the silence that folowed his answer, no one had any idea.
