Decimation, p.20
Decimation, page 20
We pushed inside, and a strange emptiness greeted us. It was nothing visual—everything was where we’d left it before Anubis called—but there was a chill in my soul.
Nico frowned. “Her purse is gone.” He strode further into the space as he talked, heading for the bedroom. The door was ajar, and he opened it further. “She’s not in here.”
“Shower?” That wasn’t the answer, but I had to ask.
He shook his head. “She must have gone out to get some food.”
“That’s not right. You can feel it’s not right.” Not that I should have any sort of sense of where Magnus was or wasn’t, but my instinct was screaming with alarm bells. This was more than paranoia. “We need Dahlia.”
Nico and I headed downstairs again.
This was a misunderstanding. We’d get to NEON and find Magnus in the club. Or just coming back from a food run. Or grabbing a delivery from the back door.
None of that was true, but I wanted to believe it.
We reached the club to find Dahlia in the middle of a performance.
This wouldn’t wait. I cut a straight line toward her.
“Whoa.” Fen stepped in my path with a growl.
Nico blocked him from stopping me, and I kept moving.
I stepped into the middle of the stage, in front of Dahlia, to a chorus of boos. She fixed me with a withering glare.
“Magnus is missing,” I said as Nico said the same to Fen.
Dahlia’s frustration vanished behind a frown. “Are you sure?” She closed her eyes without waiting for an answer, and a heartbeat later, they flew open again. “Show’s over.” She was already walking off the stage.
“Everyone out.” Frey’s voice carried through the main room as the house lights went on, and he appeared next to Fen and Nico.
The grumbles behind me didn’t fade, as Dahlia and I joined the others, but I heard the sounds of people standing. Leaving.
“Where is she?” Dahlia was talking more to herself than to any of us. She brushed past our group, and clothes appeared on her, replacing the frilly nearly-nothing she’d worn on stage.
The T-shirt and jeans were part of her—her dragon ability to change her appearance into anything—rather than individual pieces.
I’d be impressed with how far she’d come later. Other things were more important now.
I stayed by her side, while Nico, Fen, and Frey followed us out onto the street.
Dahlia stopped at the edge of the curb and crouched to pick up something. The bag looked like it had been run over a few times, and wasn’t holding as much as last time I saw Magnus carrying it.
“Magnus’s purse,” Nico muttered. He squinted into the night. “There are traces of Vidar here. Not like he was here, but his magic was.”
Fuck.
“Where is she?” Nico demanded.
The creases in her forehead grew deeper. “I don’t know. I can’t feel her.”
I knew. “I can tell you where. Take me with you.”
“You are not negotiating her safety for your ego.” Nico was furious.
“No. I’ll tell you regardless. The facility in Barbados. Dahlia, if you focus on the island, you’ll feel a beacon. It’s faint. It’s meant to look like a mistake.”
“I feel it.” She grabbed Fen and Nico.
I gripped her arm. “I’m going with you.”
Fen growled. “Don’t get in the way.”
“Bring everyone home safe,” Frey’s voice lingered in our ears as we vanished.
It made sense that he would remain behind. He was only a combatant when he needed to be. I should have stayed with him, but I couldn’t.
Dahlia landed us immediately outside the entrance to the old FU facility. As we stalked toward it, Nico blasted the door out of the way with a burst of flame that should have scorched everything in the vicinity, but only destroyed the heavy steel obstruction.
“Stop.” There were far more soldiers here than last time I’d visited. Several pointed weapons at us, and Fen shifted as we continued walking without pause.
“We will shoot.” Whoever was shouting was terrified.
Fen charged, and Nico surrounded us with flame.
Dahlia held up her hand and flicked her wrist.
Everyone but the four of us vanished.
“Where did they go?” Nico asked.
“I sent them home. They don’t deserve to die today,” Dahlia said.
Home was vague, but if I had to guess, I’d say she sent them to the now decimated TOM campus. That put them a few clicks outside a small town, they’d be familiar with the area, and any accidental discharge wouldn’t strike innocent parties.
“Center of the building.” I pointed down the appropriate hallway as we walked. No one else stopped us. Dahlia was efficient.
As we drew closer to our destination, Magnus’s screams reached us. The agony in the sound tore my heart to shreds and cranked my fury to never before known heights.
Nico blasted another door out of the way, and the noise grew in volume. We walked into a now fully lit gymnasium, with Magnus and Vidar in the middle.
She looked tired. Her face was drawn and tear-streaked, and something invisible held her upright. She’d aged centuries in the last few hours.
“Damn it.” He looked annoyed more than concerned. “I thought I had more time. Okay, you can all die fi—”
Vidar’s words were cut off when Nico flung a ball of flame at him, engulfing the god.
Vidar stepped from the fire unfazed and smirking.
He was knocked back when Fen lunged, teeth bared and aimed at his throat.
Fen was tossed aside with a flick of Vidar’s wrist. He landed on his feet, and a half-dragon Dahlia was already slicing a razor-edged wing at Vidar.
Vidar vanished and appeared behind her, planting a foot in her back and sending her stumbling.
She blinked out of sight and appeared next to Nico, her balance recovered.
The three moved like a well-oiled machine, but nothing they did so much as scratched Vidar.
I crept toward Magnus. Could I free her? I had to. She was the goal. We could take her, destroy this place, and regroup to figure out what to do about Vidar.
“The charm.” Magnus’s voice was barely a croak as I got closer.
An invisible fist hit me in the chest, sending me flying back and gasping for air. I caught myself and looked up to see Vidar smirking at me, before he turned his attention to the others.
“Vidar.” Dahlia’s call rang out. She stood several meters from him, the amulet from Artura in her hand.
He vanished from his spot.
She crushed it, and the pieces clattered to the floor just as he appeared next to her. “Fuck you,” Dahlia spat.
Vidar snarled, and she teleported away before his attack hit her.
Nico would turn him around with fire, while Fen leaped from above, and Dahlia slid low, aiming for his legs.
Again and again, they would be cast aside. It didn’t matter how well they worked together or how quickly they recovered, Vidar tossed them back.
Each time I got close to Magnus, he would knock me away without so much as a glance.
The longer they fought, the more wear and tear shone on Dahlia, Fen, and Nico. Torn clothing. Scratches. Burns. Injuries that didn’t heal everywhere.
Vidar looked as fresh as when we’d walked in, but his frustration was growing. “Why won’t any of you die?” His question rattled the building.
“We learned it from watching you.” Dahlia charged again.
Instead of knocking her aside, Vidar gripped her by the throat and raised her in the air.
She clawed at his arm, sharp dragon blades slicing again and again, but every slice on his skin healed before it finished appearing.
“Minato should have killed you,” he said.
Fen’s roar was terrifying, and he lunged, only to bounce off an invisible wall.
“She got what I needed in that very first dream,” Vidar said. “But you just kept coming back for more. Over and over.”
Nico swooped in as a bird, to peck at the back of Vidar’s head, and Vidar dropped Dahlia to swat Nico aside.
Dahlia stabbed Vidar in the back.
He vanished and reappeared behind her and a few feet up. He planted his foot in her skull, and sent her flying.
They couldn’t keep this up. Dahlia and the others would last a long time, but Vidar would last longer.
I was helpless. I couldn’t even get to Magnus, to free her so she could help. So we could escape.
“Help,” Magnus whimpered. “I have to help them.” She sounded so weak.
Vidar couldn’t have her. He couldn’t have Nico. I wouldn’t allow it.
You’re like a void. Anubis’s voice echoed in my head.
If energy could die, that would be what’s happening to you. There was Nico.
Fuck it. I knew how to save them. Vidar was occupied with a three-way strike, and I crawled up to Magnus. I brushed her leg to draw her attention.
“You can’t save everyone,” I told her. “But I love you for trying, and you need to keep the good happening to good people.”
“What are you doing?” Her question was soft. Desperate.
Vidar was looking at us again. “What are you doing, old friend?”
Saving the only people who ever mattered. I pushed to my feet. “I want to talk.”
“You always do.” Vidar laughed. Though his attention was on me, he managed to knock Dahlia, Fen, and Nico aside with each of their attacks.
I strolled toward Vidar. Behind me, I heard Magnus struggling against her restraints. She knew. She could feel it.
I’d accepted that this was where I died.
I reached Vidar. “You want to make her suffer? Let her watch while you kill me.”
He smirked. “You’ve always thought so highly of yourself.”
“Takes one to know one.” Sometimes the new insults were the best.
He gripped my throat, the way he had Fen, but I wasn’t capable of breaking free. Vidar lifted me in the air.
My feet kicked freely without purchase, and I grabbed his arm. This was exactly what I wanted. “Go ahead. Destroy me.” I spoke through gritted teeth.
His power flowed into me.
And kept flowing, vanishing the moment it was part of me.
Mostly vanishing. I felt the residual building. Clinging to components of me. Eating away at my existence from the inside out, like a slow-acting acid.
Would I be overloaded before he ran out of power?
I didn’t know, but every single ounce of magic he poured into me was more he didn’t have to use on them.
I dug my fingers into his arm, actively trying to draw more from him than he was giving.
Vidar snarled. “You want to die quickly? Fine.”
He pushed harder. Blackness licked at the edge of my vision, and my thoughts deteriora…
TWENTY-FOUR
MAGNUS
These restraints were like one of those stupid finger toys, that the harder I pulled, the tighter it got.
Except that relaxing didn’t make them looser.
In school, Starkad taught us physics. Not that he was our science teacher, but there was a lot of subconscious math involved in hand-to-hand combat, especially with noticeable size and weight differences in opponents.
What I was watching with Vidar and Bragi was what Starkad would have referred to as unstoppable object meeting an unmovable force.
Or rather, that was how it started.
I could see Bragi being torn apart from the inside out, where Vidar just kept generating more power. Where the fuck was it coming from?
Bragi thought this was some sort of grand gesture. It wasn’t that he wanted to die, but he was that determined that Nico and I should live.
Fucking asshole.
I jerked against the invisible bonds, struggling harder than I ever had.
Bragi was dying. Nico was going to die again. Dahlia. Fen.
I couldn’t watch that all play out a second time. It nearly destroyed me the first.
I felt Bragi’s every single emotion slipping away in a cloud of agony. I felt the frustration of the others. Bleed into futility.
Vidar flung Dahlia back. She hit the wall hard enough that her consciousness slipped. Only for the briefest second. Long enough for her dragon to vanish, along with clothes that weren’t there, leaving her in half her stage costume.
Wait.
Something tickled my mind.
It vanished when inspiration struck Bragi. He let go of Vidar’s arm, and ripped the bracelet—Tatiana’s charm—away from Vidar’s wrist.
Yes.
Dahlia didn’t bother putting on pretend clothes again, she was already flying in for another attack, along with the others.
No one knew I was free.
You have to tone down the power display near the sound system.
That was what Frey had told Dahlia just a few days ago, right before she blew out the club speakers nearest to her.
I felt all of them. Their power. Their strengths. Dragon. Wolf. Phoenix. Heart.
Destruction.
I pulled on all of it, the way I always had before, letting it grow inside me until I was ready to burst at the seams. They were all so powerful, it didn’t take much. But I pushed myself harder than I ever had. I stuffed myself at the all-you-can-eat buffet, and went back for seconds and thirds and coffee and dessert.
If I were feeling better, I’d make a Captain Planet joke, just to piss off Vidar. Instead, I yelled, “Stop.”
My friends did.
Vidar just laughed and looked at me in disbelief. “Why?”
“I’ll give you what you want.” I took a step toward him.
“It’s too late for that, lover.” Vidar dropped an unconscious Bragi, and bent to reclaim the charm that was still clenched in Bragi’s hand.
I blinked out of sight and landed next to Vidar, snatching the bracelet before he could.
He regarded me with a glare. “I can always make this worse, lover.”
“I know.” I gave him a sweet smile, and slipped the bracelet onto my own wrist. “But if you want my power so badly, you can choke on it.”
I grabbed his arm, the same way Bragi had. But my goal wasn’t to draw his power out, it was to feed him more. I let the overload spill from me, but instead of releasing what I had and stopping, I kept pulling from the world around me. From the air. From my friends. From myself. I ate and ate and ate, and the various energies mixed in me, growing far beyond what they should be. Swelling until I thought I might burst.
And I kept pouring it into Vidar.
His smirk shifted to a frown, and then horror.
His face contorted, and he clawed at my arm.
I didn’t even know where I was finding this power. The shielding on the stolen servers? The artifact he had from Skuld, was radiating toward me from somewhere in the building? The shattered amulet from Artura that lay in pieces around the gymnasium.
Vidar crackled. The magical joints inside him split and snapped.
I pushed more in. I crammed decades of terror and frustration into him. I doubted that would make a difference, but I didn’t fucking want that pain anymore.
I scorched him until he screamed in terror and agony.
Unlike him, I wasn’t here for the torture.
Not much of it anyway.
I ripped a final chunk of power from the air, magnified it, and crammed it into him in a single blow.
The explosion that tore him apart also incinerated every last bit of him, and knocked all of us back several meters.
The massive magical discharge rang in my ears.
“I think I broke something.” I was surprised I could hear my own voice. It sounded foreign to me.
“You did.” Dahlia’s words were tentative. “You broke Vidar.”
Did I really though? “Are you sure?”
Around me, everyone was climbing to their feet.
A black scorch mark radiated out from the center of the room.
“You definitely broke something.” Next to me, Bragi stood.
He was okay.
He was more than okay.
He was… “You look different.” I studied him.
Bragi blinked out of sight, and returned a heartbeat later, something clenched in his hand.
“You have your power back?” Nico asked.
“Seems that way.” Bragi handed me an amulet that was a mirror image of the one Artura had given Dahlia. “That’s how you know he’s gone. No one but him would be able to hold this without his permission if he were still here, because Skuld gifted it to him.”
I stared at it blankly in the palm of my hand. It couldn’t be real. This couldn’t be real.
“It is,” Bragi said.
I finally looked up. “I didn’t say anything.”
He closed my fingers over the amulet. “You didn’t have to.”
Because he felt my disbelief. And my relief. And my fucking exhaustion.
Bragi pressed his lips to my forehead, and the feedback loop of comfort nearly swept everything else away.
Nearly.
I shoved him back with a grunt. “You’re an asshole. You were going to die for that? How the fuck was that going to help?”
Dahlia joined me and looped her arm through mine. She stuck her tongue out at Bragi. “She’s right, you know. Dumbass. Dying never helps anyone. Have you been paying attention?”
Bragi looked past us, to Fen and Nico.
Fen slipped an arm around Dahlia’s waist. “It’s best to just agree, unless you like to be argued to death with sarcasm and pop culture references. They tend to be right about this shit.”
Nico grasped my hand and pulled me to him. He cupped my face between his hands, and crushed his mouth to mine. When he pulled away, he reached past me, to rest his hand over Bragi’s, where it rested on my hip.
“They’re right. That was an asinine move. I’m grateful you’re all right,” Nico said. “Can we go?”
“Yes,” I said. “But only if someone promises me they’re buying the apples and olives as soon as we get back.” I was so hungry, and the babies still had a craving.
