Page 21 of Hellfire to Come
A pulse of energy shot from my palm and yeeted him into the opposite wall.
There was a meaty crunch and a small moment of silence where I stared at my glowing fingers and whispered, “Holy shit. I am the wand.” A manic cackle burst from my lips.
The creepy guy was a pile of very dead meat on the floor, and I wanted to be anywhere but near him when they found him.
Cackling like a madwoman, I bolted down the hallway. Barefoot. Bleeding. Wild-eyed. I flung stolen magic like a toddler with paint. Improvised like my life depended on it, which, fair point, it did. At one point I shouted something in Latin-sounding gibberish and blasted a chandelier off the ceiling. Not helpful. It looked cool, though. No one cared if I was screaming or laughing. They couldn’t hear me from all the kickass happening not far from me.
Then I turned a corner and hit a wall of pure magic like a goddamn freight train.
I crashed backwards into a pile of urns used as decoration in the damn place. One broke over my head. Again.
“Okay. So... maybe magic requires aim. And finesse. And fewer concussions.”
But I was close.
I knew I was.
I could feel them, Brooklyn and Dominic, like bright stars in the storm guiding my way. Strong. Moving fast. Coming for me.
If I was discovered, I just had to hold on a little until my friends arrived.
I could do that.
I wasn’t alone.
Not anymore.
That gave me a burst of energy I didn’t know I had.
Gripping the iron rod, I pushed to my feet, determined, bloody, dizzy and laughing through my teeth.
“All right, assholes,” I growled at the empty hallway in front of me, lurching toward the next corridor. “Let’s play.”
Chapter Nine
BROOKLYN
This cursed place was getting to me.
The deeper we pushed, the more it felt like the walls were closing in on me. Hissed voices reached my ears like the stones themselves were holding secrets; Not the kind you whisper. The kind you bury. The corridors were crooked, warped from time and cruelty, and the stench of old blood clung to every inch of it. I’d passed the same path once or twice but I’d never been this aware of everything. Never paid it this close attention. I wished I didn’t at that moment either. Wished I could ignore the cracks splitting the floor like veins, and the strange sigils that had been scorched into the walls. Every so often, we passed alcoves with charred bones still chained to the stone, forgotten offerings in a house of horrors.
I didn’t need a reminder that this place was soaked in death. My skin knew it.
My own blood was soaked in the very core of the cursed structure.
So was my rage. And I clung to that with everything in me.
Dominic and I moved in silence, his hand occasionally brushing at the small of my back like he was reassuring himselfI was still with him instead of buried in memories. Usually that would’ve made me upset, but I appreciated it this time—more than he knew. The wolf was slinking through the corridors nose brushing the ground, searching for Alice as hard as we were. Echo and Chester were just behind us, close enough that I could feel their magic humming through the stale air even when I couldn’t see them. We’d just finished dragging the bodies of the last witches we encountered, and my body ached from the strain, but I didn’t stop. Couldn’t stop.
Alice must be close.
Closer than she’d been since the Council took her anyway.
Just as I thought that, a sharp agony doubled me over, nearly dropping me on my knees. It took me a second to realize that it was not me that felt pain but Alice.
Something was wrong.
Again.
