Sacrificial Magic (42 page)

“Beulah?”

“Yes.”

She hadn’t expected that. From either of them, but especially not from Beulah; what possible reason would she have to risk her life?

Aside from the fact that if somebody didn’t do it, Monica would end up so powerful she could destroy the world.

They trotted across the street onto the bottom level of the parking garage. Rusted trash cans, soggy boxes, rotted wood lined the walls of it, littered the floor, barely visible in the streaks of light from the flames across the street. Heat from them made her already sweaty skin even slicker.

One last look at her phone as they started up the wide ramp to the next level. Nothing. Where was Terrible, shit, where was he? Panic climbed up her spine from her stomach into her chest, making her eyes sting. Fuck, all that magic in the air, all those men fighting, anything could have happened to him …

She clamped down on the thought, on the horrifying images of his fallen body—the memories of it—and locked them away. He was fine. He was fine, he was just busy, and she had to make herself believe that because if she didn’t she’d be ready to curl into a ball and wait until someone came along and killed her, too.

Beulah and Lex checked their own phones. Lex glanced at his sister. “Father called us up, I give he the ring-back, me.” Beulah nodded. Chess wanted to protest, but she wasn’t really in a position to do so, was she?

Outside, the fight got closer; bodies pressed against the low wall of the parking garage, barely visible to her as they neared the second level. Soon they’d be over it, in the garage itself. Shit. As if she didn’t have enough to deal with, between Monica and Aros and Wen, and who knew how they were armed, or how long Lex would stay.

The ringing phone, just audible over the roar of the flames and the fight, cut through her thoughts. She spun around. Damn it, whose phone was—

Oh. Oh, shit.

Lex and Beulah stood, staring up toward the next level, and the next. Staring into the higher levels of the parking garage, where the phone had started ringing the second Lex had called Slobag; the phone that rang in unison with the sound coming from the earpiece of Lex’s phone.

Slobag was in that building, with Monica and Aros, with Wen Li.

“Do you think he’s known about this?” Chess broke the silence, hating to ask, but she had to. “I mean, do you think he’s in on it, that he’s here to watch?”

To their credit, neither Lex nor Beulah seemed shocked or offended by the question. “Ain’t thinking he is, nay. Ain’t really him kinda action, if you dig.”

None of them wanted to state the obvious: if Slobag wasn’t up there as part of the plot, chances were good he was the sacrifice. And unless they could stop that ritual fast, he was about to die a very unpleasant death.

Another explosion ripped through the air, another building turning into a shower of cement chunks and sparks. Holy fuck, what the hell were Bump and Terrible doing, destroying the entire block?

Shit, this was not a good position to be in. They had the low ground, their heads would be visible before they had a chance to do anything, and they had less space and less to hide behind than Aros, Monica, and Wen.

But it was their only option.

The light got brighter as more candles were lit. With every one the magic pressed heavier and heavier on her.

She put her hand on the railing and saw it was shaking. Her whole body shook, in fact, struggling against the magic in the air and the anxiety in her stomach. She
wanted to be sick. She wanted to run. This didn’t feel right, it felt like something awful was about to happen, something awful was happening, and with every step she took, the urge to hide grew stronger.

She gritted her teeth and kept going.

Aros’s voice again, harsh in the damp magic-thick air. Calling the energy. Starting the ritual.

Chess took a deep breath, heard the others do the same. Lex raised his gun. Her muscles tightened. Behind her Beulah pulled a long, sharp stiletto from somewhere; a different knife from the one she’d had in Aros’s apartment.

They ran the last few steps.

Halfway up she saw them: Wen and Monica. She’d barely registered them in her mind when gunshots echoed off the cement, deafening her so the next few seconds took place in ringing silence.

Monica stood just outside the glowing dark-purple circle Aros had created. Her mouth opened in a scream Chess couldn’t hear and she jumped to the side, toward one of the thick cement pillars holding up the next level.

Her leap almost knocked Wen over. Wen, in whose hand a gun caught the light. Wen, on whose white sleeve a spot of blood had begun spreading. One bullet, at least, had hit.

Slobag and Aros were nowhere to be seen; inside the circle, she assumed, and started running for it before she finished the thought.

The closer she got the more it felt like running through soup, cold thick soup that clung to her skin and clogged her lungs. She kept going, pushing herself. It was only ten yards or so, not far at all, but it felt like miles, like the longest distance she’d ever run in her life.

And the fear. The energy that had filled her the night Jia died, that energy without shape or purpose but that found what was inside her and attached to it, became it,
found the terror in her heart and created more, found everything else in her head and magnified it to an unbearable level.

Her heartbeat, and the voices. Not real ones. The memory voices. All of them crowded in on her; cruel voices, deceptively cheerful voices, voices cajoling and threatening and yelling. The sound of slamming doors and whimpers, the sound of belts and hands smacking flesh, the taste of hateful strangers in her mouth, the feel of their hands all over her, their laughter and pleasure somehow even more violent than their bodies.

She was nine, and a party was being held, and it was the kind of party where she was the star attraction. They had them once a month, and she counted the days until the next one with growing terror.

She was seven, and her foster brother liked pushing her into things, picking her up and dropping her on purpose. He’d laugh when she cried, kick her if she didn’t. Sometimes his mother would take pity on her and give her a pill to take, but usually she didn’t, and every day she was afraid to go home from school, afraid he’d be waiting along the way, afraid he’d be waiting just inside the door.

She was eleven, and they locked her in the closet when they weren’t home so she wouldn’t eat their food or touch their things, and sometimes they’d be gone all day and into the night, and she’d be trapped in the dark alone. There were bugs in the closet, rats in the closet, no toilet in the closet, and every time they left she wondered how badly they’d punish her if she made a mess or if that would be the time they didn’t come back and she’d die in there.

Other sounds snapped into place, gave her merciful rest from the memories, even if only for a few seconds. More gunshots, more screams, a woman’s screams.
Monica or Beulah? She didn’t know, couldn’t look. Men’s voices, steel against cement.

Fear stiffened her muscles. Her body didn’t want to move, didn’t want to go farther. Her head didn’t want to either. All those images, those feelings, all waiting inside that circle, and the second she broke it they would spill out all over her, drown her in slime, and she’d die the way she should have then.

But scariest of all was the thought of what would happen to the world, to the Church, to Terrible, if Monica and Aros weren’t stopped, if they kept going and gathering power, taking it from the earth. Sooner or later the City would fail to hold; sooner or later, with the energy balance so skewed, the veil between the worlds might tear again as it had during Haunted Week, and the world would be invaded by the dead once more.

That’s what kept her moving, fighting through all of it: thinking of them, all those people, Elder Griffin, Lex and Beulah, and especially Terrible.

She hit the purple wall of the circle hard. Her already speeding heart cranked up so fast she thought it would explode. Purple like the Binding she’d been placed under before, the spell that wanted to control her, that forced her to bend to its will.

This circle didn’t. This circle didn’t care if she obeyed or what she said. It was furious and it hated, and it was made of energy so twisted and insane she thought it might drive her crazy too. It burrowed into her head, blinded her, fed off her, hooked cold cruel claws into her brain and heart and soul and yanked.

But it didn’t break. How the fuck did it not break, it was a circle, it was energy, she’d stepped through it and that should have broken it, holy shit, this was bad, this was really bad. This was unimaginable power, power that made her shiver.

Through the haze of vicious light she saw them, black
figures against the glow: Slobag tied to the cement pillar, Aros before him with the knife raised. Shit, she was almost too late, just in time—

She lunged for Aros, her arms outstretched. Her vision blurred and spun, terror made her clumsy, but she hit him. Didn’t knock him down, but hit him.

He punched her. More lights exploded behind her eyes; hot hollow-feeling pain in her nose and cheeks. She stumbled back, barely managed to keep hold of his robe. Tried to push him again, overwhelmed by the smell of the fabric, dust and slime, rotten old blood and darkness, the penny-biting scent of insanity cloying and musty beneath it all.

Candles lined the circle, and his robe brushed the floor. Maybe if she could push him into the candles it would catch fire. Hell, maybe if she could push him out of the circle it would break. Maybe he could break it.

He pulled his arm back. Against the field of bright purple she saw the knife, the long wicked blade deflecting the light as it rose, hitting her eyes with neon shine as it started to descend. Fuck!

She dove for his legs, trying to knock him off balance. More pain, sharp in her side like her skin was screaming. He’d slashed her. Hot blood began soaking into her shirt.

More screams outside. Another gunshot. Who was shooting, what was going on? Why hadn’t anyone come to help her, could they not get through the circle, were they busy? Were they dead? Fuck, what was happening?

Aros’s voice cut through her thoughts, cut through her mind like a blade of ice, words of power clouding it further. Agony tore down her spine, throbbed in her head. She fell to the cement, fell on her cut and bleeding side and hardly noticed.

More blood fell on her, spattered hot and thick on her crouched back, in her hair. She knew it was blood,
smelled it, felt it, and her heart stopped in her chest as she looked up.

He’d stabbed Slobag.

Slobag writhed against the ropes holding him fast, his jaw working against the gag tied behind his head. She had a split second to look at the wound, to decide it probably wasn’t fatal, that in his haste Aros had missed, when she saw him draw back to try again.

Her hand shot out, punching him in the kneecap as hard as she could. It shifted with a satisfying pop. His scream sounded even better.

He tumbled to the ground, landed on his knee and screamed again. Good. Blood dripped from her hair into her eyes, fuck she could hardly see, and Aros lifted the knife once more.

She rose onto her own knees, caught his hand in both of hers. Fuck. No way was she strong enough to beat him at this. She might have the strength of the desperate, the strength of one trying to save her life—trying to save many lives—but he had the preternatural strength of the insane, and he would win.

She raised her knee and slammed it into his balls as hard as she could. Not very hard, unfortunately; she didn’t have a lot of room to move. But enough to make him double over, enough to make him drop the knife.

Chess grabbed it, jumped up. Stab him? If she killed him the spell would activate; it needed a death. If he got up too quickly, he could attack her again.

If she and Slobag both got out of the circle, would it break the spell? Did she have time to get him out?

Cement chips flew from the pillar, inches from Slobag’s head. Holy shit, they were shooting, they were shooting into the circle, who the hell had the gun and would shoot into the circle?

Slobag’s eyes, those eyes that had only been cold and
arrogant every time she’d seen them before, met hers, wide with fear. Begging her to help him.

If he was free he could help her. They could both fight. He could help Lex, help Beulah, while she focused on ending the spell.

She brought the knife down on the ropes holding him. They stuck; the blade looked sharp, but it wasn’t sharp enough to cut rope with one blow. Fuck! Aros still moaned on the ground, but he wouldn’t be down for long. Any second he’d get up and come after her, probably even more enraged.

She sawed at the ropes as fast as she could. The blade kept scraping the cement with a horrible screech that made her teeth vibrate. She freed his upper arms. Slobag reached for his gag. Chess ducked down to hack at the binding around his legs.

More cement chips flew. Another bullet. How many fucking bullets did they have? Every one of them echoed against the walls and ceiling, echoed in her head, sent more fear through her body. Every one of those shots might have hit Lex or Beulah. Might have killed them.

Aros tackled her. Her arm hit the cement with a painful scrape; the impact jarred her vision.

But she didn’t drop the knife. She couldn’t. She had that knife in a fucking death grip and no way was she letting go, not until this was over, not until it was safe. The knife was her talisman, her only weapon, everything she had.

She swung it back. From her position on the ground she couldn’t see where she was swinging, but she felt it sink into Aros’s body. He screamed; not a groan or a grunt, a scream, and she looked over at him and hot wild triumph roared through her head. She’d gotten him good, right in the thigh.

Blood spurted from the wound as she yanked the blade out and started working at Slobag’s ropes again.
No time, no time for this, what was going on outside the circle, what the hell was happening—

The ropes gave. Slobag reeled away from the pillar. Aros got to his knees, grabbed Chess from behind, his hand around her throat, his arm locked around her waist.