Martyr (38 page)

Justin laughed, his mouth curving into a smile.

“And why would you want to know?” he asked.

“Because you had balls once. I can't imagine what that would have been like.”

In the blink of an eye, Justin was hunched over Tenn, a finger jabbed between his clavicles. Tenn didn't gasp, even though it felt like Justin was about to collapse his throat.

“I was a kung fu instructor in L.A. before my girlfriend joined the cult of the Dark Lady,” he said. “She turned me. I was her first.”

“So why are you with Leanna?” Tenn managed to ask.

Justin's eyes narrowed. “My maker was human. Humans. Die.” His finger dug deeper.

“I'm sorry,” Tenn whispered.

“Why?”

“Because soon you're going to join her.”

The door at the top of the stairs blew open.

The force of the explosion made Tenn's ears ring, but in that one brief moment of Justin's distraction, he pushed the chair over and opened to Earth. The bonds broke free. Tenn crashed on the side of his face and scrambled away, racing toward the doorway and thanking everything that Dreya had made it inside. Justin didn't try to stop him. He didn't curse. He just stared up at the broken door with his arms crossed over his chest, a bored expression plastered on his face.

Dreya floated down the steps, her white coat and jeans fluttering in the windstorm. She looked like a goddess, her body laced with an aura of yellow and blue, her Spheres blazing. Tenn didn't waste any time. He ran past Justin and stood at Dreya's side. Her power roared in his ears.

“Go,” Dreya said. There was a tightness in her eyes as she stared at Justin, a recognition that bordered on madness. It reminded him of when Devon let Fire take control.

“I'm fighting,” Tenn replied.

She said nothing to this.

Justin didn't attack. He raised an eyebrow instead and looked at them like they were mice toying with a cat. Tenn was still weak, and the very thought of fighting again made him want to sink into the ground and never come up. But with Dreya at his side, he felt buoyed. He had to find the fire, the need for revenge for all that these bastards had done to him. Otherwise, he'd never make it out alive.

“Who are you?” Justin asked.

“You wouldn't remember me,” Dreya replied. “But I remember seeing you, running. You escaped me that once. You will not do so again.”

She struck. The air within the basement became a cyclone of dust and rubble. It whipped around Tenn, slashed marks in his skin, but he didn't flinch and he didn't close his eyes. He might not have been any use in the fight, but he was going to see this.

Water sprayed from the wall as the water heater tore away, crashing into storage boxes and scraping along the concrete floor with the wail of banshees. Everything was swept up in the maelstrom—pipes burst, foundations cracked. Everything moved but Justin.

He stepped forward, appearing from the screen of flying debris in a halo of stillness, water sloshing around his feet. The Sphere of Air burned in his throat, a bruised blue, a garish yellow, and Tenn realized the awful truth. He was immune to Air magic. That Sphere consumed the power Dreya whipped at him.

Justin grinned. His eyes flashed. Dreya's magic was making
him
stronger. “Dumb bitch,” Justin said. Tenn had no idea how he could hear the guy over the roar of wind, but his voice carried like they were talking over a dinner table.

“You're making him stronger!” Tenn yelled, praying that Dreya would hear him. “He's breathless!”

“He is,” she replied. “And he was there, when our clan died. He was there, stealing their breath. For that, for all of this, he deserves a slow death. I will make him suffer.”

Her face was a grimace, a mask of barely controlled rage. Then she opened her mouth and sang.

The burning light within her flashed bright as a strobe as the power inside the basement amplified. Wind howled. Tenn sank back against the wall behind her, trying to find shelter from the hell Dreya had unleashed. Through the blinding light and whirling debris, he saw Justin take a step forward. He was laughing now, and his own twisted Sphere was devouring the power. The water heater flew past, and he smashed it with a fist without even looking. His eyes were trained entirely on Dreya.

“I will eat you alive, little bug,” he sneered. “I will drain you till your bones implode. And then I'll feed you to the kravens.”

Dreya paused her singing, just long enough to call to Tenn, “Bind him!”

Tenn looked between the two of them, standing only feet apart. Then, before Justin could take another step, Tenn opened to Earth. The floor beneath Justin's feet turned to quicksand, sucked him down to his ankles. Then he let go of the power, and the concrete solidified in an instant. Shock turned to hate on Justin's face as he tried and failed to wrench a leg free.

“Oh, you are going to pay for that,” he said.

He inhaled.

If it weren't for the sheer strength of Dreya's magic, Tenn knew they would have both died in that instant. Justin pulled the air from the room. Tenn's lungs burned, and even Dreya stumbled. But she didn't cease her song, and her power filled the void with everything Justin tried to steal. Her song became a scream, one that matched pitch with the howl of wind, but all of it only fed the monster. All Justin had to do was wait for Dreya to become used up; then, a small gasp and he would have them both.

“Dreya,” Tenn said, hoping he could get them both out of there before she fainted. She glared to him, her eyes bright as azure stars, and he shut up. That was a look that said she knew precisely what she was doing.

He glanced back at Justin, still sunk in the concrete, still glaring at them as the wind whipped around him and his Sphere swallowed it whole, the water now splashing around his calves. That's when he noticed something…different.

The darkness of Justin's empty Sphere was lightening. The vortex of power that swirled around and into him flickered.

“I hear it hurts,” Dreya said, the song cutting off, her words slicing through the maelstrom like a knife. “I hear that the hunger is unbearable. That is why you kill the very people you once loved, because it hurts too much to do otherwise. Consider this your final blessing then. No. More. Hunger.”

She flung her hands forward, sending a blinding torrent of magic and wind at Justin's locked frame.

Justin gasped. His hands shot to his throat.

And in that instant, with a roar of magic that sent shivers through Tenn's very bones, Justin's Sphere… healed.

There was no other word for it. One moment, the Sphere was a vacuum in Justin's throat. The next, it was whole. Dreya let off in an instant. If Tenn hadn't been watching her, he would have missed the way she slouched and steadied herself on the stair banister. She quickly righted herself. When the dust of the room cleared, she stared down at Justin with a look of pure disgust on her face.

“You healed him,” Tenn whispered.

He looked to Justin, who was just as shell-shocked as Tenn felt. The man had been cured of the incurable. And in that moment, Tenn realized he should have done more. Tried harder.
You could have healed Jarrett
. Water roared in his stomach with this newfound truth, more horrible than anything else.
You could have saved him. You killed him instead
.

Dreya didn't give him time to sink. She grabbed him by the sleeve and began pulling him up the stairs.

“Wait!” Justin called out. Tenn looked back. He was still stuck in the concrete, the water quickly rising around his knees. The basement was small. How long would it take to fill? Water sent another chill through him. What would it feel like to drown? “Wait, don't leave me like this!”

Dreya paused, perhaps from the panic in his voice, perhaps because she really was as winded as she looked. Her eyes were pale, and her chest fluttered as fast as a rabbit's. She leaned against the wall and looked back to him. She didn't speak.

“You saved me,” Justin said. He was frantic, struggling against the concrete that was lodged around his legs. “You can't just leave me like this. I'll die.”

“I did not save you,” Dreya said. Her voice was flat, emotionless, but it also had a breathlessness that made Tenn fear the worst. She'd drawn way too much. “You are still a monster,” she continued. “But you will die a human.”

She turned and walked up the stairs. Justin screamed.

Tenn didn't move. There were tears in his eyes. Justin screamed at him, begged to be released, but Tenn wasn't hearing his words. In his mind's eye, Justin had melded into Jarrett.

Dreya grabbed Tenn by the collar, pulled his face close to hers.

“Move,” she hissed. “Before the Kin return.”

Tenn glanced back at the man who, only moments before, had threatened his life. He deserved to die.

What are you becoming?

The question made his heart sink. Dreya pulled him again, and he followed.

“I'm sorry,” Tenn whispered. He doubted Justin heard it over his own, terrified screams.

He let her guide him through the hallways. His brain was numb, preoccupied with images of Justin, somewhere below them, stuck in the concrete and slowly dying. With images of Jarrett, lying limp and helpless and moments from death. Savable. If only he had tried harder.

The house was as broken as his mind. Statues were toppled and shattered over the once-pristine white carpets, the plush floor now covered with the glitter of broken mirrors and photographs. He could smell smoke, distant but sure. Another tremor sent him stumbling, and a small voice in his brain wondered how long it would take before the mansion and its pedestal toppled in on itself.

It wasn't until she stumbled over a bronze statue of Adonis that he realized just how far gone Dreya was.

“Are you okay?” he asked. He reached out a hand to steady her, but she flinched away and gave him a look that said, quite clearly,
fuck off
.

She nodded, leaning against the wall and taking shallow breaths. The fact that she could still
breathe
after all that magic floored him. If he'd channeled that much Earth or Water, he'd be a twitching heap on the ground. Another rumble shook them, and she looked down the hall. The place was surprisingly empty. Then again, Tenn had no doubt that the brunt of the army was outside, trying to find Devon. How they'd managed to avoid detection from Leanna or Tomás was beyond him; the amount of power Dreya had channeled downstairs should have been a beacon. Outside, another roar of thunder, this one sounding frighteningly like a dropped bomb. Then again, maybe Devon was doing more than enough to keep them all distracted.

Tenn took advantage of the momentary pause. He knew in moments they'd be out the door, running and fighting for their lives in attempt to—what? Free the innocents?
I couldn't even save one…

“What you did down there…” he began.

Dreya raised an eyebrow, making him stutter. Even with one hand to her chest and the other braced against the wall, that one eyebrow was enough to make him second-guess. He continued anyway.

“You saved him,” he finally said. “You made him human again.”

Dreya squeezed her eyes shut. He wondered if she could still hear Justin screaming, too, or if after enough killing, the noise just faded to static.

“It's impossible,” she said. Another rumble shook the house, but neither of them flinched. He couldn't take her eyes off her.

“But I just saw—”

“You saw nothing,” she said, her eyes opening in a flash of blue. Her voice was sharp. “You cannot cure the disease that ails them.”

“But—”

Again, her eyes closed.

“One can only assuage the Sphere's hunger for a time. When the Sphere is damaged to that degree, it cannot be mended, not by any human hands. Soon, that Howl's Sphere will eat itself again. And when it does, he will be just as broken as before.”

Her words were both a blessing and a curse. Part of him had hoped against hope that there was some way to end this, some way to cure the monsters that plagued the world. A way that didn't involve killing them. But another part, the quiet, broken part, was grateful—there was nothing else he could have done to save Jarrett. The fact that he could even begin to feel that sickened him.

What sort of man are you becoming?

42

Tenn
had spent the majority of his time with the twins in awe of their power. Maybe even a little frightened. But the moment he stepped outside, all those old fears paled in the face of what Devon was currently weaving.

The sky was red. Not the red of flame, but the red of a wound, raw and bleeding. Clouds dripped fire like lava, and the once-picturesque mountain landscape now looked like the fangs of some broken beast. Fires roared on the hillside, weaving trails of smoke up into the air as lightning forked back and forth with strobe-like speed. Everything was flame and fury. The wind whipped the scent of ash and brimstone. Every hair on Tenn's body stood on end, his Spheres echoing the destruction around him. And yet, in spite of the havoc that wove like madness through the countryside, the town below was strangely untouched. Only a few fires leaped between buildings, snaring the dark shadows that raced through the streets. Tenn knew Devon was trying to avoid the innocent lives that swarmed near the outer wall. But from here—as on the mountain—everyone looked like small black ants.

Dreya paused in the doorway and turned to him. Her breath was still erratic, and she looked paler than usual, as though her skin was becoming translucent. She reached out a shaky hand and took Tenn's arm.

“I am sorry about Jarrett,” she whispered. “We will avenge him.”

Tenn didn't know how she knew, but he wasn't about to ask. Now wasn't the time.

Dreya ducked her head as another tremor of thunder rolled across the sky. It wasn't a wince. It was almost an admission of defeat.