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Vanitas laughed. “Bring it.”
It almost felt like a video game. You make your way through the mooks, all the low-level goons, then you hit a mid-boss, the penultimate Big Bad. And then you make it to the final boss and hope against hope that you’ll live through the encounter. The difference, of course, was that this was real life. You don’t get extra lives. One wrong move and it’s game over.
Carver cast one last spell as we approached the door at the end of the hall, one that wrapped cocoons of orange fire around our bodies. As the flames faded, I felt more durable, empowered. We had to hope that Carver’s shields would be enough to protect us from what was coming next.
Sam threw the door open. We weren’t expecting the massive pulse of silver light that spilled out of it, and down into the corridor. As one, Carver and Sterling screamed. I blinked to clear my vision as the light faded.
But they were gone.
Chapter 28
“No,” I said, my heart pounding. “No, they can’t be.”
“Perhaps they aren’t,” Sam said, holding a hand over his eyes, squinting to see into the room.
“How can you be so casual about this? My friends could be dead.”
“See for yourself.” Sam grasped me by the wrist and pointed. “If my brother had destroyed them, they would be piles of dust. The corridor is empty. They must have escaped.”
They must have. I couldn’t deal with the possibility that both Carver and Sterling were – no.
“This fight isn’t over, Dustin.” Sam released my hand, then beckoned. “Come on. It’s down to us.” He eyed Vanitas. “And it. Him?”
“He’s right,” Vanitas said. “Worry about them later. We have a job to do.”
I nodded, stepping through the doorway, prepared to unleash unholy hell on Adriel, to ruin him for what he’d done to my friends. But I wasn’t prepared for what I was about to see at all.
The Comstock Media studio was smaller than the newsroom, not a full-scale production you’d expect from a large network, but enough for a basic news set, for doing simple broadcasts and shooting some occasional online content.
It was big enough, obviously, to contain all the equipment needed to run the show, and all the men and women needed to operate said equipment, all of whom were standing wordless, slack-jawed, at the ready, their eyes blank and white. Towards the far wall, where the set was, stood a man with auburn hair that reached to his thighs, its sleekness broken by loose waves and curls.
Barefoot and bare-chested, he stood in a shallow pool of blood drawn from the five corpses strewn at his feet. A faint corona of light hovered just over his head. If you squinted, you might think it was your eyes playing tricks on you, just a reflection of the hot studio lighting above, but I already knew better. It was a halo, the very emanation that marked this creature for an angel. My eyes flitted to Sam’s head, and for a moment I wondered where his halo was.
The angel was muttering to himself, tracing shapes in the air, drawing them across his chest in blood. Both his hands were drenched up to the elbow. He was reading from a book that hovered just before him: the Tome of Annihilation.
“Adriel,” Sam cried out. “It’s time to stop this.”
Adriel’s lips pressed together in annoyance, but he stopped incanting long enough to favor us with a smile.
“I see that my smiting hasn’t affected all of your companions, brother.” Adriel’s voice was soft and sonorous, nearly a whisper, though I could hear it clearly across the studio. “Then this one must not be one of the undead. A human companion, then? You haven’t changed at all, Samyaza.”
Samyaza?
“But it seems that you have, Adriel. Once you had sense. Once you knew how to serve heaven’s will. In spite of your dominion, your responsibilities, you still acted in humanity’s best interest. What happened?”
Blood dripped from the end of Adriel’s finger as he stretched it out, pointing directly at me. “Him.”
“You’re crazy.” I raised my hands. “I had nothing to do with this. I don’t even know how I’m involved.”
Adriel chuckled. “Your heart – your very soul is tainted by the venom of the Eldest, with a dagger-tip of their corrupted star-metal. The awakening of the Old Ones has begun, and there is no stopping them.” Adriel gestured, and the Tome of Annihilation’s pages flipped rapidly. “But I have found something that can.”
My hand shook as it balled into a fist. “How is killing people in the hundreds helping? And how many more are you planning to murder?”
“Not just any humans. This only reveals how little you understand, oh tainted one.” Adriel tilted his head, his hair shifting to expose more of the bizarre blood glyphs he had drawn on his chest. “You survived, as did your companions, the night I commanded the siren to sing her requiem. That spell – that song – was only meant to kill average humans, those without access to magic, to supernatural power.”
“We already know that,” I said, my anger building. I didn’t like what Adriel was saying any more than the tone he took. There was an edge of mirth in how he talked about the massacre, like – like it was funny to him, somehow. “We already know the spell doesn’t affect magical humans.”
Adriel’s smile stretched across his pale lips, a grin I could only call wolfish. “Then you understand, don’t you? The culling.”
