Page 44 of Broken Souls
Pivoting, I land on one hand, push off, then twist onto my feet. I dart to the side immediately. Throw up a shield to catch Sau’s bullet. It pings off. The air behind me shifts, and I know a claw is coming up behind me to skewer me in half. I drop to the floor, belly down just as thewhooshof a blade-like object slices where I just was. I roll immediately in the opposite direction the claw is going, drop my shield, draw fire to my palms, and blast it into the creature’s exposed side.
It hisses in outrage as it twists back around to face me. Not trying to stab me, just trying to backhand me with full force.
My shield comes up.
Just barely in time, and as the “elbow” of the claw hits it (fuck monster anatomy), I’m thrown across the hall. My head slams into the wall. Plaster rains down on me. My vision blurs. My skull pounds.
There is a roar.
A scream.
I don’t know if it’s mine.
Can’t seem to think, to make things out anymore.
Gritting my teeth, refusing to die in a way that will mean Varius will believe I betrayed him, I raise a hand to my head and push healing magic into it. It’s not enough to heal any damage I might’ve taken, but it’s enough to reduce the pain. It’s enough to get me back on my feet, my arms up, a pale-blue shield in front of me while I take my bearings.
My eyes widen. Fuck, I got lucky. A werewolf must have tried to join the fight while I was down because they’re now pinned beneath one of the monster’s claws, and the tube-like things on the back of said monster’s head are all ripping into it, tearing fist-sized chunks out of its body. The wolf is screaming, howling in pain, throwing its arms up trying to defend itself. But it’s hopeless. The wolf is already dead; it just doesn’t know it yet.
I turn to Sau, wondering why I haven’t been filled with bullets, and the reason is instantly understood.
The dead werewolf isn’t the only one who has joined the fight. There are two others, and they’re both attacking Sau. She doesn’t have her gun anymore – either tossed aside or smacked away, I don’t know. But she’s burning through her life now, using her magic to defend herself against the fast claws and teeth of wolves. So far, it doesn’t look like they’ve managed to touch her, the shadows swirling at her feet keeping them back as she launches balls of magic at them, but it’s only a matter of time. She can’t keep up with their speed, and she can’t use her shadows forever.
And if one of them touches her, it will only add to her ‘evidence’ against me.
Fuck.
I have to intervene.
Glancing at the monster, making sure it’s still occupied, I then drop my shield and line up a shot at one of the wolves attacking Sau. Just as I’m about to release my magic though, a blur to my right distracts me. I turn my head, but I’m not fast enough, and I’m shoved into the wall by a body thick with muscle and power. A human, not a wolf.
One of their arms is around my waist. The other hand is cupped around the back of my head. Before I even know what’s happening, hard lips come down over mine.
My eyes widening, I try to push magic into my fingers to throw him off me, but then I realize they’re behind my back, pinned under his arm. My heart jumps into my throat and pounds wildly. I could be dead right now. He moved so fast, movedmeso fast. I never had a chance of surviving if he didn’t want me alive.
He’s off me in another second. I push back from the wall, trying to figure out what the fuck is going on. Sau can’t be working with him if she’s fighting his men. Which means she manipulated him into coming here, somehow letting him know the wards would be down today without actually telling him. So she could use her enemy to do her dirty work in killing me, use him to give credence to her lies. That makes sense. I get that.
What I don’t understand is why the fuck did he kiss me?
Before the next thought can form, my brain melts from what I’m seeing. Antonio jumps, still in human form, over the moat of shadows Sau’s erected up around her. He shifts in mid-air, too fucking fast and without the agonizing cries that normally accompany a werewolf’s change, his bones breaking, his skin tearing, tendons and ligaments and every other part of him being ripped to shreds before reforming into a bipedal monster with vicious teeth, knife-like claws, and long red fur. His teeth latch onto Sau’s shoulder, and white light flares around his face. They topple to the ground, sliding across the floor. Her shadows wrap around him, and he yelps as monsters from the other plane start to eat him alive, but he’s killing her faster than she can kill him, his claws ripping into her chest, her stomach, every place he can reach, just tearing chunks out left and right, no finesse to his movements, no beauty. Just raw carnage.
My jaw drops open as I watch her heal just as fast, closing holes, restitching flesh. Black magic forms on her hands, and she shoves them through his chest. He cries out, releases her. Stumbles off and back. The other two wolves jump into the fight, not giving her any time to regain her feet. To rebuild her energy. She’s burning through so much of her life, and even though I hate her for what she’s done to me, I can’t stomach watching her get torn to pieces.
She is Varius’ mother.
So I raise a hand, forming a ball of red energy. The air crackles around me. I move my hands together, building up the magic, making it the strongest it can be. In this time, in the three seconds it takes me, she’s already killed one of the wolves, and the other is screaming in agony. Antonio lunges back in just as I start to throw my spell. But it never hits him because I’m forced to twist and send it sideways as the fucking gorgon-bat thing slithers towards me, hissing in its desire to eat me.
The beast catches my attack in its mouth, and there is a moment of pain in its bright green eyes a second before its entire head is set on fire. It burns with such intensity, it turns into ash within seconds. I instinctively close my eyes so none of it flies into me, then wipe a hand across my face. By the time I can see again, though, it’s too late.
There’s nothing I can do to help Sau.
Antonio is kneeling on top of her, and he has both his hands inside her chest, stopping her magic from healing her. As I watch, helpless and exhausted, he rips open her rib cage, cracking bones and flinging blood in all directions. The shadows that were wrapped around his legs fall free, leaving behind gaping wounds.
Sau cries out for the first time, but it’s weak, fragile. A final breath of life.
And then her head flops to the side, the light in her eyes fading. She looks straight at me, and I don’t know if I feel happy that she’s dead or not.
But I’m not dumb enough to just stand here thinking about it.
