“What’s he saying?” Jack repeated.
“Shit,” Darien muttered.Shit.
“Darien—,” Ivyana tried.
“He’s praying,” Darien choked out. Begging for forgiveness for his sins, repenting for his wrong doings to the deities of the Star. “He’spraying.”Darien took off for the next set of waterfalls—but he didn’t make it in time to help him.
Not before a single shot cracked through the tunnels.
Not before Headmaster Langdon put a bullet in his own skull.
58
The city was in hysterics.
The waves of magic pulsing through the air grew stronger. Faster. The call of the Well was ten times as horrific as when Randal had poured his power into Loren, the awful and ancient language of the universe blown out over the city like a horn.
Loren’s knees threatened to buckle as she lurched to her feet, looking out over the destruction that was Angelthene—that washome. She could barely see anything in the blinding darkness.
But then the streetlamps buzzed back to the life, the city twinkling with light.
Tanner had managed to get the power back on.
And down below, she saw it.
Saw Dominic, glass vial in hand, swooping up the base of the cristala tower.
The antidote. Doctor Atlas had completed the antidote on time.
But something was wrong.
As Dominic swept up the length of the tower, he barely made it a quarter of the way up before the powerful pumping of his wings faltered, as if forced back by a phantom wind. Even from this distance, even in the half-dark, the pain gleaming in his eyes could not be mistaken.
He crashed into the side of the tower so hard Loren could hear it from way over here—could hear the crunch and snap of wing and bone over the bloodcurdling screams and roars of the citizens and demons.
The antidote slipped out of his hand, plummeting to the ground below.
Followed by the Angel of Death, who hit the asphalt hard enough that his wings snapped again, twisting at horribly wrong angles.
“Dallas—,” Loren gasped out.
But the witch beside her had her hands cupped over her ears, sniper forgotten. She was writhing on the balcony, mouth open in a silent scream, as if some sound unheard by mortal ears was clawing its way into her brain. At Loren’s other side, Sabrine was doing the very same thing.
And Hanli—
Not a single one of them could move. Could unclasp their hands from their ears.
Across the square, where they were stationed on another skyscraper, Travis, Maximus, and Christa were doing the very same thing. And Jude and Jessa and Race—
None of them could move, could unpin their hands from their ears, could open their eyes.
Heart galloping, Loren looked out at the sea of people—all stumbling, all screaming, fingers plugging their ears, no longer able to run from the demons that continued to rip into their bodies with teeth and claws. No longer able to do anything but writhe in pain over the sound.
It was the Arcanum Well. The waves of power coming off it was incapacitating magic-born people worse than it was mortals, rendering them blind—rendering their brains liquid.
At the base of the tower, the glass vial containing the antidote glimmered in the light of a streetlamp.
Beside her, Dallas drew in a ragged breath. “Loren,” she panted. Tears of agony gleamed in her eyes. “What the hell is going on?”
