Blade Bound

   Sorcha was focused on the sorcerers, and she kept moving forward through waist-high snow on the other side of the hill, into the valley where the lagoon reflected back magic. She was moving closer to the lasso the sorcerers still managed to hold aloft, but they were having trouble keeping it stable. It jolted and jerked between them, more live wire than lasso.

   Sorcha aimed a fireball at Baumgartner, who fended it off with a shot of his own. But he lost hold of the lasso, which sizzled and disappeared into the air.

   “The containment field is down,” Mallory called into the comm.

   The immediate threat minimized, Sorcha turned back to us, began tramping up the hill. I pushed Mallory, obviously exhausted, behind me and bared my sword—and my teeth—at Sorcha.

   “I’ll throw down my sword if you throw down your magic,” I said. “And we’ll have a good old-fashioned free-for-all.”

   “You couldn’t just give me what I wanted,” she said, gaze narrowed at us, her hair spread and lifted in the air as she rallied for one more volley.

   My skin still firing with nerves, I took a step toward her. Anything to keep her gaze off Mallory. “I’m not in the habit of handing my city over to self-centered sorceresses.”

   “I will show you self-centered,” she said, and flicked a hand in the air.

   Such a fickle gesture to have so much power in it. Energy burst through the air. I shielded Mallory from it, took the blast full-on. I hit the ground on my knees, limbs shaking with the new round of shocking pain.

   Light bulleted past me, a shot of blue fire that sliced across her arm, propelled by Mallory. Sorcha slapped a hand over the wound, screamed out with pain that seemed to shake the earth. Thunder cracked like a gunshot as lightning split the sky in the same sickly green shade.

   “I am owed!” she screamed into the sky. And when she looked down at us again, her lips were moving in some silent chant. She pulled a fat bundle of what looked like sage from her pocket, touched a fingertip to the end, and it began to smoke. She drew it through the air in front her, lips still moving, and that same greasy magic gathering around us.

   “Magic incoming!” I said into the comm over the static, my voice hoarse with pain, and hoped someone could hear me. “Prepare yourself.” For the magic and the monster it might create, I thought.

   Mallory screamed and crumpled to the ground, clamping her hands over her ears. And the air around her began to glow, to buzz with magic. It looked like steam was rising from her body. But it was magic—magic that Sorcha was pulling out of her with the power of her filthy song.

   “Mallory!” I said, and put my arms around her, shielding her body with mine, and covered her hands with mine in case it helped block the sound.

   Mallory cried out again.

   “I’m here!” I called out over the crackle of Sorcha’s power. “And I’ll help you. Just concentrate! Don’t let her use you!”

   Mallory’s entire body was rigid, and she began to shake from the effort.

   I didn’t know what else to do, how else to help her in the war she was waging with herself, to block out the magic and the sound of chanting. I began to sing the only tune I could think of.

   “I’m sorry!” I called out, and screamed out words I hoped I’d never have to repeat. “Never gonna give you up! Never gonna let you down!”

   “We’ve found the crucible,” Jeff said, his voice crackling in our ears. “Going to destroy it!”

   They were a moment too late.

   Sorcha kindled the magic. Thick swirls of sickly green power began to compose themselves in the air, spinning and blossoming, and obscuring her completely behind them. The air filled with the chemical scents of the city.

   Mallory shuddered. “No,” she said. “No, no, no, no, no!”

   “Get out of there!” called a voice over the communicator.

   “I’m here, right here,” I said, and she curled into me. “You’re stronger than she is. Never gonna run around and desert you!”

   “Merit!”

   “Here!” I called out, leading Catcher and Ethan to us. They scrambled up the side of the hill.

   “Sorcha’s been draining Mallory,” I said as Catcher lifted her into his arms.

   Ethan offered a hand, helped pull me to my feet. “I’m okay,” I said. “Just a little unsteady.” The earth shuddered, sending ripples across the lagoon’s surface. “And that is not helping.”

   “To the evac point!” Ethan yelled, as another concussion shook us, and the cloud of smoke and magic blossomed larger yet.

   Catcher scrambled down the hill, snow flying as he tried to keep his balance. We followed suit, hands linked together, my vision not quite focused, and slipping every few feet in snow that was becoming slushier.

   A hot and hazy wind blew across the island, carrying the scents of sulfur and smoke, and warming the air by at least twenty degrees. Cracks echoed across the island as the ice in Burnham Harbor began to split with the sudden temperature increase.

   “The snow and ice are melting!” I said. “Be careful!”

   We made it back to the looping trail around the lagoon when a sound cut through the darkness, something hard and sharp, a blade meeting stone, that sound bouncing against the city’s glass and steel and echoing back again.

   It was loud. It was close. And it sounded very, very angry.

   It screamed again, and we clapped our hands over our ears, but the scream still pierced through, furious and cutting. The sound wrapped claws around my heart and squeezed, and for a moment I couldn’t find my breath.

   Sorcha had made a monster of the Egregore. And her monster was coming for us.

   “I hope to God that is Chris Pratt riding a velociraptor,” Catcher said.

   “I don’t think we’re that lucky,” I said.