Page 69 of Tear of Destiny

I gulp and look at the woman standing behind Alessandro. I catch my breath.

“Frances,” Noah gasps. He sounds as astounded as I am. “Please tell me this isn’t happening.”

But the bulging bag slung over her shoulder, in which something seems to be moving, speaks volumes.

“So I guess you’ve discovered my secret,” says Alessandro, leaning against the door frame so we can’t get past. “Until now, nobody knew about this. Not my family, not my friends, not even the people who lost the fights and were stupid enough to gamble away their key spirits.”

I look at him incredulously. “You’re seriously telling me that there are people who would stake their key spirits as bets?”

He shrugs casually. “Sure. The winners get a huge cash prize inaddition to the loser’s key spirit. You’d be surprised how many people value that over a weak key spirit. Especially because some of them plan to leave the key carrying world anyway. And as I’m sure you know, they can’t keep their key spirits if they do that. So the prospect of a nice little packet of prize money is pretty tempting. And some like to collect key spirits even if they can’t enter them in the fights. There are a few people with really exotic collections. Anyway, I could never complain about a lack of willing participants.”

“Why did you kill them?” I yell. “Why did you have to torture them like that? Are you some kind of sadist? Do you get a kick out of it?”

He laughs and shakes his head in amusement. “You’ve got it all wrong. I showed you some of our family treasures. You should know that we Fabricis have a predilection for rarities. I’ve always been hugely interested in those precious artifacts, and I checked them out thoroughly. And you know what I found in one of the books? A formula for improving key spirits. Just imagine. We’re not restricted by their limitations. We’re not simply unlucky if we get a weak spirit. No, we have options. Obviously, you need other spirits for that; you take the useful parts that make the spirit special. And there’s a ritual that allows you to transfer those features to your own spirit and make it stronger, better, faster.”

I frown and look at Frances and her bag, which obviously contains a key spirit. “And now that you’re not allowed to organize your fights anymore – which you obviously only did so you could get your hands on more key spirits – you had to go and look for another source?” I stare at Frances, concentrating in that stare all the hate and contempt I feel at her betrayal. I don’t understand how she could get mixed up with Alessandro.

He shrugs. “Well, the key spirits that I acquired through the fights were the losers, but even those have special abilities, andit would have been a shame to waste them. So yeah, I transferred them to my spirit. But then there were a few accidents, as you know. Hmm, those were hard times. At first, I thought my hands were tied when I joined the hunters. But then I recognized the opportunities that presented. A school right next door. Full of unsuspecting students who worship the hunters and would do anything for them. But fortunately, I didn’t have to resort to that.” He shoots Frances an appreciative, almost affectionate look. “We reached an agreement that benefits us both. And Frances typically brings me only the highest quality goods. It couldn’t have turned out better for me.”

“So that’s why you haven’t been around lately,” Noah chimes in. “You were hanging around the doors looking for powerful spirits to bring him. And you let him pay you with dying breaths? That’s where they came from, right? The ones you hid in my apartment?”

Frances just stands there like a lifeless shell, her arms hanging at her sides.

“Oh, there’s so much more to her than that. You never recognized her potential. Unlike me. But this knowledge is useless to you now. Because you must realize that I can’t let either of you live. My secret has to be protected; I’m sure you understand.”

There’s that smile again, although now it looks scary. And as if he weren’t already frightening enough, a creature emerges out of the darkness behind Alessandro. A leopard, sleek and aggressive. Its muscles ripple with each movement, and its eyes are fixed on us, detecting our every movement and breath.

Noah and I both know what’s coming, and we’re aware that we have a challenging fight ahead of us. We’re not facing a normal key spirit but one that’s been altered many, many times.

“You’ll soon see what immense power my spirit has,” Alessandro says quietly, and his eyes change. Then his spirittransforms, becomes bigger, and fire licks out around it. But water droplets form in the air too. Tiny flames shoot out of Alessandro’s fingertips, and his skin gleams wet and bluish.

“What have you done?” Noah asks in horror.

“Perfected my spirit and myself,” he snaps.

A wave of air shoots out of his hand, and hits me and Noah. It’s so fast and violent that there’s nothing we can do, and we slam into the wall behind us. I gasp and cough and struggle to breathe.

Alessandro walks toward us. “You’re no match for me.”

Behind him, I see Frances staring at us with big eyes. When I catch her eye, it’s clear to me: she’s not going to help us. We’re on our own.

I look at Alessandro again, who doesn’t even give us a moment to stand up. His key spirit’s fur bristles, and suddenly water droplets fly at us, combining into a huge deluge. Yoru jumps in front of me, and Noah and ignites his flames, which are so hot that the mass of water simply evaporates.

“Not bad,” says Alessandro. “I knew as soon as I saw your spirit that he could be useful to me. Once I’ve defeated you, I’ll use him for Nero here.”

“That’s what you think,” I hiss at him, sending Yoru more odeon. I know I have to be careful not to transform. But what choice do I have?

Alessandro’s skin is still gleaming with a bluish tinge, and his hands puff out little clouds of smoke as he sends his spirit the next command. This time, he seems to be combining wind with fire magic. A gigantic sea of flame rushes toward Noah, who merges with Rain. His body is surrounded by black smoke, which seems to absorb most of the attack and deflect it back at Alessandro. But Alessandro just laughs, flinging his arms in the air, and a fiery vortex explodes above us. Thousands of small glowing shards of fire rain down on us and set fire to everythingthey touch.

I have a certain immunity to fire, so my injuries aren’t too bad. And Noah’s not badly hurt either. But the little burns hurt like hell. In spite of this, Noah and I manage to get to the door and sprint into the cellar, which is larger and offers us more room to maneuver.

“That won’t save you,” calls Alessandro. His skin begins to glow, first blue, then red, and I suspect he’s about to deploy two elements again, or maybe more.

Sure enough, the floor beneath us quakes and chunks of stone shoot up out of it and try to impale us. I use up a lot of energy evading the stones or melting them with Yoru’s firepower.

Breathing heavily, I dodge another attack but it’s too late when I see Alessandro raise his arm and shoot something blue at me. The pain is indescribable. I go down, and some kind of destructive power snakes around my legs and crushes them. It feels as if every bone is about to break.

Yoru comes to my aid and tries to melt the ice I’m encased in with his flames. But apparently, it consists of more than just frozen water.

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