Page 91 of Colin Gets Promoted and Dooms the World
With a grunt, Eric pulled himself to his feet and drew his sword with a flare of golden light. Shadows whipped toward him and he severed one, then another, heroic and beautiful as he danced back from another blow. Then his leg folded under him and he staggered, off-balance. The Abomination caught him a glancing blow that spun him around, more tendrils fastening around his body as he threw his head back and howled, the sword in his hand flickering and failing.
Do you want to know something ironic? You never needed my help. Management had Their eyes on you from your very first day in Dark Enterprises.It paused, and when it spoke again, its tone was sly.Isn’t that right, Margaret?
Confused and terrified in equal measure, I turned as the curtain of blue flames parted smoothly to reveal Ms.Crenshaw, flanked by what was left of the executive board. There had been twelve, once—now I counted seven people arrayed to either side of the CEO. Some of them swayed as if barely able to remain upright, and Mr.Samuels cradled one of his arms close to his portly frame, bone gleaming wetly where it protruded from a compound fracture in his wrist.
“So this is where you went,” my boss observed coolly, gaze flicking from the coiling shadows to me and back again. Pale ash streaked one side of her face and flecked her perfectly tailored suit jacket. “I was starting to wonder if you’d retreated, Abomination.”
Your protégé requested a face-to-face, and I couldn’t refuse.Eric dangled helplessly in the air, blood dripping onto the floor as dark tendrils drew him slowly toward the monster’s pulsing center.He has potential. A pity he’ll never realize it.
Turning away from Ms.Crenshaw, I fumbled awkwardly at the pockets of my khakis. Was it still there? My fingertips brushed against a small glass sphere, miraculously unbroken, its surfacewarm to the touch. “Please!” I called in a broken voice. “Please don’t take him. Take me instead.”
No, Colin. You’re going to watch me tear him to pieces before I eat him.More shadows seized Eric’s limbs, stretching him into an X shape like da Vinci’sVitruvian Man.I’ll make it slow, so he has time to hate you. He’ll curse your name before I’m done.
Drawing my hand from my pocket, I rolled the glass orb toward the Abomination. Light pulsed at its center as the sphere skittered on the floor, slowing a little as it passed through something sticky that used to be Ivan. It was heavier than it looked, though, and its momentum carried it in a curving arc under the monster’s heart. Time slowed to a crawl, and into that moment I spoke a single word.
“Išatum.”
With aboomthat shuddered through the entire building, an incandescent pillar of white flame punched up into The-One-Who-Hungers. The heat of it was staggering, a torrent of scorching wind that made my cardigan flutter wildly and singed my eyelashes. The swirling cloud of shadow keened at a frequency almost beyond human hearing as the otherworldly fire pierced it straight through. Thrashing, it let Eric fall to the ground where he crumpled into an unmoving heap, clothes smoking.
The flame died almost immediately, leaving a purple afterimage glowing on my retinas, but the Abomination continued to writhe and shudder, struggling to draw itself together again. This was the best chance we were going to have. “Do it!” I screamed. “Do it now!”
Amira and Lex both shouted something in response, their voices clanging against the air like a hammer falling on an enormous anvil. The seal in Lex’s hand flared into thousands of filaments, a delicate tracery of silver light that settled across The-One-Who-Hungerslike gossamer threads. Then those filaments tightened, no longer a frail web but a network of wires that sliced and burned as they contracted, pulling the Abomination toward the ground. I watched as those threads twisted and doubled back on themselves, coiling into fractal knots or disappearing and then reappearing somewhere else. That was Amira’s doing, her mind guiding the magicks into dimensions beyond conventional reality, and those strange patterns grew more and more complex by the moment, countless filaments vibrating and shifting into something both beautiful and terrible.
Lex and Amira spoke together in a desperate cry. “It’s not going to hold! It’s failing!”
Blackness strained against the threads binding it and the fractal pattern bulged in places, trembling on the very brink of ripping apart. My friends were trying to do something on their own that had once required all of Management’s awesome power. Shouting rose from beyond the ritual circle, perhaps the executives trying to help, as I looked down at the Black Blade. Then I scooped it awkwardly into my left hand and started forward in a clumsy, stumbling run. Silvery filaments snapped apart, their complicated geometry unraveling, and a piece of shadow lashed out at me. Before it connected, there was a silent flare of golden light that left spots swimming in my vision. The darkness recoiled, but more tendrils descended upon me in a ferocious, terrifying assault, each driven back in turn by those searing flashes.
I didn’t understand what was happening, only that it couldn’t touch me, and that was enough. Clutching the Black Blade in my left hand, half-blind, I charged forward into that maelstrom of darkness, screaming in fear and rage as I drove both myself and the knife into the very heart of The-One-Who-Hungers.
The cracked and peeling hilt of the Blade twitched against mypalm as it sank into…something. A wordless scream rang out and my hand went icy cold, fingers cramping painfully around the worn leather. Reality itself shifted and I was falling upward into the ceiling, moving faster and faster as shadows blurred around me and all I felt was pain. Then darkness closed in, and everything went away.
Thirty-Three
“Colin?”
My eyelids fluttered. I knew that voice. It was deep and lovely and made me feel all warm inside.
“Colin? Wake up, okay? I need you to wake up.”
There was a note of fear in the voice now and I didn’t like that, so with considerable effort I forced my eyes open. It was like lifting two concrete slabs, but I got there eventually. As things swam into focus, something dark loomed over me and I flinched instinctively, my thoughts filling with ravenous shadows. But it was just the silhouette of someone crouched over me, haloed by the faint fluorescents overhead.
“There you are,” Eric murmured. His eyes crinkled a little at the corners as he smiled, but I could see concern in their depths.
“Here I am,” I mumbled. My throat felt like it was filled with sand. I made the mistake of trying to reach for him with my right hand and the sudden spike of pain in my shoulder made me gag a little.
“Don’t move,” he told me, unnecessarily. “You’re pretty banged up.”
“I thought you were—” I swallowed, unable to continue. A tear slid down the side of my face as I stared up at him.
“I’m okay.” Drying blood had left a dark smear across his forehead and down his jaw.
“Amira? Lex?”
“See for yourself.” He sounded amused as he glanced pointedly off to my right. Turning my head, I was treated to the sight of my two friends kissing. No, not kissing—making out.Hard.
“What the hell?” I struggled to sit upright but then subsided when Eric placed a hand on my chest.
“I noticed it as soon as I saw them together. You didn’t?”
