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Alaric snarled. “I’m gonna kill—”
“No, you’re not,” I snapped, throwing another series of telekinetic bolts in his direction.
Alaric’s shield flickered in stunning color and I drove him back a few steps. It wasn’t enough to threaten him, but inch by inch, bolt by bolt, it gave me space to work. I flexed my fingers, transferring the barrage to one hand and conjured a whip of energy with the other. The power surging through me obliterated the shaking in my hands. Everything in me felt sharp and alert.
“Uh, Rebekah, darling. I’d run if I were you,” Matteo called over the resounding screech of two different forms of magic clashing together.
“Shut up,” I grunted, snapping my left wrist. The whip wrapped a coil of energy around the memory mage’s shoulders. I pulled my hand back, and Matteo jerked across the ground in my direction.
“What the—” he gasped.
“Get off your ass,” I spat at him. “I can’t keep him back for—”
A bolt of lightning shot across the tunnel and struck me in the clavicle. I spun away from the shot and pain exploded through my chest like I’d swallowed a string of firecrackers.I gasped and time ground to a halt. My heart thumped painfully in my chest. The sound of the beating was so loud, it drowned out every other sound in the tunnel.
I looked down at Matteo, but his lips were moving too slow for me to make out what he was trying to say. The air warmed on the back of my neck and the alarm bells went off inside my head. Something was coming. Behind me. Alaric. I stepped to the side as a second bolt of lightning shot past me and struck the ground exactly where I’d been standing only seconds before.
Turning around, I lifted my right hand and caught the third bolt in my palm, like he had. I willed the energy into a rebound shot and Alaric was forced to duck behind his shield. The energy flared in front of him and the dome he’d created for protection cracked.
Alaric’s eyes widened and his hands fluttered in front of him. Lightning crackled at the end of his fingers, but I couldn’t make out the set of sigils he drew. Another wave of heat hit the back of my neck, and I turned around again, lifting my arm to block an oncoming blow, but it was too late. Six burning rocks were halfway to my face. Four of them rebounded on my shield, but two made it past my guard. The first slammed into my hip, driving me back a step, and the second caught me across the nose and mouth.
Time snapped back into place as the pain rang through my skull. I put my hand to my lips, and it came away bloody. Enough was enough. Straightening up, I wiped more of the blood from my nose and glared down at Matteo.
“Oh, shit,” he gasped, inching away from me. “I…I was wrong. Alaric, darling. It’s you that needs to run. Right now.”
“Shut up, you piece of—”
“He’s right,” I called out, cutting off the flow of whatever venom he was ready to spew. “You should run. Because now, I’m bleeding.”
My gloves were coated in red, and magic buzzed with a fury under my skin.
Alaric sneered, his off-white teeth glinting yellow in the overhead light. “You never should have involved yourself in my business.”
Matteo winced. “Seriously man, you should run. You don’t know who you’re dealing with.”
“I don’t care who she is,” Alaric spat.
I smiled. “You should. My name is Rebekah Devereaux. Daughter of Michael. Trained and raised by Viktor himself.”
Alaric’s dark skin paled more than I would have thought possible. “D-D-Devereaux?”
“I told you,” Matteo hissed.
I looked down at the blood on my glove and a spell floated to my lips.“Sanguinis Petros.”
The red liquid lifted from the leather on my fingers and floated into the air between us. Unlike the spell I’d used against the demon, this time the drops circled into a tight vibrating ball. A rock of blood. I focused on the thump of my pulse and took a deep breath. The power inside me roared with pleasure and I exhaled.
Alaric didn’t have time to move or even raise his arm to shield against the blow. The rock shot like a bullet from a gun. My blood hit him square in the sternum and he flew back off his feet. A pulse of red light cascaded over his body and he dropped like a stack of limp noodles on the ground.
A beat of silence followed, and then Matteo whispered. “Holy shit, did you just—did you kill him?”
My head throbbed and I felt the rebounding sting of the blood spell rippling through my nose and lip. My knees wobbled, but I remained on my feet as I looked down at the stunned memory mage. “I don’t know.”
Matteo’s eyes met mine in horror, and then the world went black.
11
Black Holes
