Scala (17 page)

Adair pauses before me, a smarmy look on her face. “I am the True Scala. You've stolen my love, power and throne. I want them all back.”

Comments sound from the nearby crowd. I wear words like gracious, regal, lady-like, and thrax. I notice that most of those talking are wearing yellow, the color of the House of Acca.

Note to self: if you get out of this alive, make them pay. Lots.

Adair's gaze shifts to Lincoln. “You must see that this is over. I'm the True Scala. She's nothing.”

“No,” says Lincoln coolly. “She's everything.” Fast as lightning, he whips a helmet off the nearest Knight's head. The man's features are blank and empty, except for his eyes, which glow demon-red.

Fresh gasps sound from the audience. This time, the inflection is not of awe, but of stomach-churning horror.

My heart kicks harder, all kinds of happy pumping through my bloodstream. The thrax hatred of demon kind has been working against me all night. Now, it's playing in my favor. Seems there isn't much that demon fighters fear more than being turned into demons themselves. The partygoers start to quiver in their collective boots.

Across the ballroom floor, Octavia slices through the crowd, heading in our direction. Things are looking up. My tail gives Lincoln a congratulatory pat on the arm. That was a pretty sharp move on the part of my honey, there.

Lincoln tosses the helmet to the floor; it lands with an angry clang. “You're a liar, Adair. Always have been. And now, you bring demonic powers into my lands? Possess my people and force them to act as puppets to your will? Stop this, now.” He raises his hand, motioning to a cluster of men in black body armor. “Guards! Take her.”

Now, awesome-sounding murmurs run through the crowd. I hear new words that are music to my ear, stuff like traitor, liar, and fraud. Some of the Acca folks start to not-so-subtly sashay towards the exits. Like I won't remember all of their faces and arrest them later on. You are so going down, my friends.

As the guards close in on Adair, Octavia bursts through the crowd to stand at our side.

“Clap her irons,” commands Octavia. “And then—”

The Queen stops halfway through her sentence. Her body freezes in place. All across the ballroom, the same thing happens. The thrax become immobile, stopped mid-motion, like a living photograph. My chest aches with grief to see the reason why.

Virtually all of them have demon-red eyes. Adair has taken over their minds. Only a small number of thrax stand at the top of the crystal staircase, their eyes still mismatched. These outliers must be beyond Adair's range of power. The faraway thrax race from the ballroom, with all of Adair's ghouls following close behind. A yucky feeling sinks through me. I doubt they'll get far.

I turn to Lincoln, my heart kicking hard in my chest. Framing his face with my fingertips, I scan his eyes. The irises are still mismatched. He's not possessed. I don't know whether to laugh or cry, so I think I end up doing a bit of both. “You're alright.”

“I'm fine, Myla.”

We both scan the crowd, and I know we're looking for the same person. Walker.

I spy him standing a few yards away, his cowl still pulled low.

Excellent. Our secret weapon is still in place. Lincoln and I share a nod. No question what we'll do next.

I go into battle stance, my tail arched over my shoulder. “Let's get her.”

“Right.” Lincoln whips his baculum out of his tunic, igniting it into a long-sword. Quick as lightning, he brings the blade down towards Adair's neck. The angelfire blade comes within inches of her throat.

And then, it stops.

Lincoln's eyes burn demon bright. He extinguishes his baculum, resets it into the folds of his tunic and stands still as a statue.

Possessing Lincoln? Now, she's done it.

In my heart, I unleash my inner wrath monster. A jolt of adrenaline courses through me; my mind snaps into battle mode. I see heads and bodies, attack vectors and weapon options.

I leap high into the air, somersault, and land in a crouch by Adair's feet. By the time I've touched down, my Scala robes have turned into awesome white battle armor. Moving my leg in a sweeping motion across the ground, I take Adair down at the ankles. Her skull smacks onto the crystal floor with a satisfying thwack.

Dozens of hands pull at me at once, dragging me away from Adair. Fortunately, all my attackers are clumsy thrax puppets under Adair's control. They grasp and claw at my limbs, trying to hold me down.

Not going to happen.

My tail punches one in the gut, and then topples another over by pulling the feet out from under him. I don't want to kill any of Lincoln's people, but I certainly won't mind if they wake up tomorrow with a headache, especially if they're wearing Acca yellow. Within seconds, the hands that were holding me back are now a dozen bodies lying prone on the ground.

Adair rises to her feet, her face the definition of smug. “And what was that little display about, Myla? Do you really think you can defeat all these thrax single-handedly? Even you aren't that good.”

At those words, the entire thrax audience, all thousand-or-so of them, turn to face me, their eyes flaring demon bright. Moving as single unit, the possessed start to lumber in my direction.

Typically, this kind of situation would spell disaster, but I know something Adair doesn't, and that knowledge makes me all kinds of happy.

Walker's standing right behind her.

“Hey, Adair!” I wave my arms wildly, trying to pull her attention to me and away from Walker.

“What?” she snarls.

With a series of swift kicks, Walker takes Adair out behind the knees. Oh, I wish I had a camera. Adair topples over.

“That.”

Adair leaps back to her feet and instantly, a horde of possessed thrax descend on Walker. They have crap for reflexes and strategy, but what they all lack in brains, they more than make up for in numbers.

I rush to help Walker break free when I get stuck under my own pile of the possessed.

I make some quick calculations, and it isn't looking good for us. So far, Walker and I have taken down about four dozen thrax. That leaves 950 or so to go.

All this adds up to one conclusion. We need to grab Lincoln and get the Hell out of here, fast.

I down the latest pile of thrax attackers and come up for air. Adair stands across the dance floor, her eyes blazing bright red as she scans the scene, her lips whispering commands to her possessed minions. Walker and I battle it out on opposite ends of the room. We keep on fighting, but fresh attackers lumber in our direction.

We can't keep this up forever.

Walker calls to me from across the ballroom. “Lincoln, now!”

I take down another Acca thrax with a combination upper-cut and kick to the gut. “Got it.”

Knowing Walker my whole life, I understand what those two words mean. He wants to form a portal behind Lincoln, which the three of us will then run into and escape.

Fortunately, Adair doesn't catch on to Walker's meaning. She starts whispering in Lincoln's direction, and he shuffles off to a deserted corner of the dance floor. Most likely, she doesn't want him to get hurt in the battle. I exhale a relieved breath. Finally, something is going my way tonight.

Walker breaks free from his latest horde and yells out one word. “Go!”

Behind Lincoln, the dark form of a ghoul portal appears. From opposite ends of the room, Walker and I race towards Lincoln and escape. All we have to do is hold his hand, jump into that opened portal, and our troubles are over.

Adair sees what's happening and starts whispering at double-speed. Lincoln begins to lumber off in a new direction, but I expected this might happen.

“Walker! Move the portal behind him!”

I race towards Lincoln's new trajectory. Walker does the same. The moment the three of us meet, Walker opens a fresh portal directly into our path. Walker grabs Lincoln's right hand; I wrap my tail around Walker's left wrist. Together, the three of us slide into the portal. Darkness starts to close in around us. My rush of battle adrenaline turns from wrath to joy.

We did it. We rescued Lincoln and got out alive.

Suddenly, a burst of light explodes into the darkened portal. Something holds me back; I'm no longer falling through empty space. I look up, seeing Adair at the portal's edge. She's created an igni cord from her hands to mine, and she's not letting go. Even worse, the cords are already wound tightly around my palms, making an unbreakable connection between us.

Unholy Hell.

Behind Adair, the demon-eyed thrax line up, helping her haul the three of us out of the portal. Adair doesn't so much pull on my weight—she leaves that work to her thrax helpers—but she drags something else from me.

Igni.

Panic shoots through every nerve ending I've got. This is just like at the Ghost Tower. I can't break the connection. I can't use the link to pull my igni back. I can only slow the transfer as she steals my powers.

Tiny voices begin to howl in my mind. It's the igni. She's taking them again.

Adair leans into the opened portal, her eyes red with rage. “None of you are getting away. Not after the price I paid.”

More about the price? This bitch be cray-cray.

All the more reason I can't let her take us.

In a flash, I know the only way to escape. It's simple, perfect, terrible. I have to push all the igni I can at Adair. That's how the Old Scala gave me his powers, and it knocked me for a loop. It's the only thing Adair won't expect, but even thinking about it tears at my soul.

Still, I have no choice.

I command the igni to leave my body, move across the cord, and enter Adair in a great burst of energy. Issuing the command rips at my heart; pain and loss wrench through my rib cage.

You must go. I'm so sorry, my little ones.

They understand my request and instantly do as I ask. A great wave of light crashes down my arms, moves across the igni cord, and slams into Adair. She falls back, shocked. The portal closes, and we tumble through empty space once again.

Moments later, the three of us step out of Walker's portal and into my gymnasium back home. I grasp Lincoln's forearms and look into his eyes. Mismatched. No sign of demon-light. It's as I'd suspected. Adair needs to be close to her victims in order to take over their minds.

Lincoln shakes his head, his eyes unfocused. “What happened?”

Fresh panic jangles through my nervous system. How many igni did I lose? “I'll explain in a minute.” I rush over to my father's cabinet, the one where he stores the Bloodstone Amulet. I open the drawer, pull out the red disc, and set the chain around my neck.

Bit by bit, the front of the amulet transforms into the image of two dragons, just like it had before. I turn the disc over and watch the back. Again, the entwined tails form a spiral accented with numerals, from one to ten. The level starts at ten, pauses for a moment, and then starts to fall. Nine, eight, seven, six…

Please let some of them have stayed.

Five, four, three, two. The level finally becomes steady. One.

I'm torn between wanting to cheer and weep. I have hardly any igni left. Certainly not enough to perform an iconigration. But a new plan has begun forming in my mind. This amount of igni may not be much, but they may get the job done. Still, it's a last-ditch option, only if all else fails.

Although, with the way my luck has been going, all else will fail.

Connor, Octavia, Lincoln, my parents, and I all sit around my kitchen table. Walker and Cissy are off planning the big iconigration tomorrow, assuming I can get my powers back to do it. After my battle with Adair, I don't have nearly enough igni. I tried, too. I can barely get a few dozen to appear around my arms.

I try to wrap my head around this turn of events, but my mind's numb with shock. Only two hours ago, I was the Great Scala at my very own Ball of Welcome in Arx Hall. Lincoln was about to introduce me to his nobility as their future Queen. Now, one hundred and twenty minutes later, I've hardly any powers left.

It's a flat-out disaster.

I inspect the faces around the kitchen table, and a spark of hope lights up in my chest. My parents, Lincoln, and I have spent the last two hours coming up with a kick-ass plan for a special ops mission into Antrum where we'll take down Adair and get my powers returned. Hopefully, we can use this time with Lincoln's parents to convince them into helping us make it work. A shiver rolls up my back. I don't want to think about what happens if the special ops idea hits the dust. My secret back-up plan is wicked unpleasant.

Lincoln eyes his father carefully for a time. “How did the pair of you get to Purgatory so quickly?”

Connor smiles as if Adair possessing his subjects happens every week. “Oh, Adair calmed down once you left. She's a high-spirited girl.”

What the what? High-spirited? How about insane?
I ball my hands into angry fists and thunk them onto the tabletop, ready to tell Connor exactly what I think of his casual take on Adair.

“Myla.” Mom shoots me a warning look. She and I talked about this before. Until we know if Lincoln's parents can help us, I need to keep a lid on my temper, especially where Connor is concerned. Still, it's everything I can do not to punch him in the head.

If Connor notices my rage, he doesn't show it. “Adair's fine. We had no problem getting a transfer platform.”

“And what of our nobility?” asks Lincoln.

I know what he's worried about. Two hours ago, Adair possessed the minds of all the thrax at the Ball of Welcome, turning them demon-eyed. Assuming she's released them, they shouldn't remember a thing about what happened.

But before that? Not so much.

“Lincoln whipped the helmet off a Dungeon Knight,” I explain. “The whole crowd saw the guy's demon eyes, and they were freaked out with a capital F. How are the people handling that fact?” By this point, there could be mass panic in Antrum.