Chapter Nine: When It All Breaks

 

Darkness, death, destruction.

I sat straight up in bed, pushing the covers to the side. My breath heaved in my chest, and I flailed for purchase as I unconsciously tried to call socks to me.

My socks hit me in the face as the world ending magic between the layers drew inward like a sieve, spilling its dream sand onto a single point. Adrenaline fought against the grogginess of four hours’ sleep. I called my cloak with a flick of my wrist. It smacked against the wall and disappeared into the bed crack.

“Another Awakening?” Constantine looked up from where he was fiddling with a drawing, legs crossed at the ankle on top of the desk. “That's the seventeenth. Rather boring, this same tune.”

His shirt was open and rumpled, his hair looked like his fingers had passed through it one too many times, and he was barefoot. If I posted this image of him, I'd be rich in a week. I frowned as I shoved my hand between the bed and the wall, grasping the priceless garment with sleep-numb fingers.

I sent the coordinates to Axer. First Layer Botswana was about to have a wild ride.

I looked up into the early rays of light pouring through the windows above, unhampered by anything in flight. Ori had been disappearing for longer periods of time. Guard Rock was gone, too. He’d been leaving more often, the more I’d been allowing others to do my duties.

I looked at Constantine. “Have you been up the entire time? No sleep?”

The first few Awakenings had been riddled with traps. But the last few had been surprisingly free of them. The simplicity of the rescues had increased everyone's tension.

Constantine hadn't been immune.

“Don't cast stones in a gravity field, darling.”

I pulled a hand over my body, concentrating on the battle tested clothes I wanted to change into and subsequently on where I wanted my nightclothes to go. A moment later, one arm of my t-shirt flopped from the drawer it was supposed to be neatly tucked into.

“Go back to sleep,” Constantine said, eyeing my clumsy result. “Alexander and his minions will handle this one just as they’ve handled the other ten. The Awakenings are getting positively boring for them.”

“I know, and that’s what worries me.” I tugged at the awkwardly hung trench cloak encasing my shoulders, and moved quickly to secure the spells I'd need. “I just like to be prepared.”

Dressing for battle had been a useless task since the combat mages had taken over. But...being prepared just made me feel better.

I was especially jittery tonight.

“I'm fine,” I said.

“As fine as you always are,” he said, one brow lifting at how shoddily I had dressed myself.

“What's that supposed to mean?” I tugged my boots on quickly and manually. There were some misplaced dressing spells that weren't worth the pain, especially during battle

He surveyed me, sighed deeply, then waved a hand over his own frame. His own version of a battle cloak settled perfectly upon his shoulders in response.

“You can dress yourself better than I can.” I pulled my last boot all the way up. “Congratulations. I can make it so that you’re glued to that chair for the next two days.”

“And deny the world two such glorious buttcheeks? Besides, you give obvious tells in your connections. I know what you are going to do—”

I shot a stunning bolt before he finished, and he grabbed it from the air, coiling the magic in his palm. He looked at it, smiled, and turned the magic into a blue iris, which he then pressed into his skin. “—before you do it. Thank you, darling.” He stroked his connection threads in his mercurial way—in a combination of contentment and irritation.

I grabbed the last device I needed, slinging the band around my frame, and stepped into the hall.

Constantine closed the door behind us, and followed me toward the room I used as a port. “Come, darling, do we really—”

My heart stopped beating for one second, two, three, and waves of panic swept through me. My knees buckled, and I pressed a hand against the wall to keep myself upright. Constantine was next to me instantly with a hand tucked beneath my arm.

“What is it?” he demanded, all playfulness and antipathy gone.

“Another. Another Awakening.” My brain focused on the energy swirling around the layer system schematic in my brain to pinpoint the location. “It just started in Honolu—”

Pain. This time, only Constantine's grip held me upright. “Ren,” he growled.

“Samoa. Madrid. Niger.” I looked up at him, clutching his arms as he held me up. “Too many.” Horror and overwhelming guilt brought me low.

He read my face. “There's never been more than one First Layer Awakening in a two-hour period. You can't get to them all,” he said grimly. “Send the five coordinates. Alexander's unit can split to two sites. I can bribe three of the Ophidians to take a third. Dagfinn, O'Leary, and Price can alert Marsg—”

“There are twelve,” I whispered, new information overlaying each previous piece in milliseconds of upending, changing data.

He breathed in sharply. “Twelve?”

“All over the globe. The magic...the wards on the layer are stretching. Too much is happening beneath them. I don't know if they will hold.” I sent the entire packet of data to everyone connected to the location device, including the fact that I was going to the second one, since the combat mages were already on their way to the first.

I pushed aside the panic I could feel from everyone, and concentrated on Constantine who was contemplating the consequences of knocking me out and tucking me away.

“Strategically spaced?” He narrowed his eyes and I felt ghostly fingers align to pinch my consciousness. I wrapped my hand around his wrist in soft warning and charged defense.

“A trap. I know,” I said. “But I'm going anyway. Twelve feral mages, Con.”

“One Origin Mage, Ren.”

I whistled, and the book flew through a black-and-white patterned hole in space a moment later with Guard Rock dangling from its lower corners. Guard Rock dropped onto my shoulder. The book looked on edge, but it opened its pages, awaiting instruction.

“You don't need the book to travel.” Constantine's mental fingers released me with difficulty, like an arthritic grip letting go, then hesitating on the edge.

“No.” I swallowed. “But if it's a trap, the book can help.” I tucked Guard Rock into my hood.

“So can I.” Constantine slipped his arm beneath mine.

We blinked and a moment later we were standing on a beach in Honolulu. Swirls of wing-shaped magic swept upward on a sweet plumeria breeze. A girl with aviator sunglasses perched on her crown and an airplane logo embroidered on the breast pocket of her shirt, reached toward the sky.

The tip of her finger was extended as far upward as she could manage, and I could see magic swirling down to her, as if the cosmos was stretching toward her in response.

Behind her, wicked delight painted the face of the hunter who was lifting the device that would incapacitate and drain her magic.

I wasted no time concealing my presence. I shielded the Awakening mage with a pull of magic and shoved her into the Second Layer at the same time I blasted the hunter into the ocean.

Magic rippled outward in a hungry wave.

“Ren—”

“No time.” I looked at Ori, grabbed Constantine, plotted the coordinates in my mind, and skimmed the layer to Botswana.

Fallon Lox, Mars Ramirez, and Camille Straught looked up sharply as we appeared.

They were surrounding a young girl overflowing with warmth and fire. Her magic reminded me, achingly, of Sari Tarkovar, the girl I had saved on Bloody Tuesday, who made everyone around her feel warm and secure.

I darted my gaze between the attacking units—even the Department mages were being influenced by the new feral. Even they were throwing kinder magic—nets and capture spells designed to incapacitate rather than kill.

There were more Department mages here than at any other Awakening.

I reached out a hand and curled my magic around the glowing fire and warmth of the girl, ready to push her through space—overwhelming magic jumping to my command, as if starving from the absence of its use in the past few days.

Constantine grabbed me, twisting the magic and cutting it off.

The layer rippled out again, causing everyone to wobble on their feet.

The three combat mages didn't wait, they used the distraction to open a vortex that looked surprisingly like one of Constantine's, and, grabbing the girl, the four of them jumped inside.

I considered pushing Constantine in with them, but the layer was wobbling again, and I grabbed the fabric of it, smoothing it and sucking the two dozen hunters into the holes as I knit it all back up.

Constantine was suddenly in front of me.

“Ren.” Constantine cradled my cheeks in his palms. “You have to calm down. The First Layer—”

But too many communications were streaming through at once—everyone jammed over one comm like the world was screaming together.

“Everyone in the Department who handles First Layer concerns and hunts has been mobilized to respond to the Awak—”

“Samoa and Jakarta have been secured by allies—”

“The Asunción mage was taken by hunters—”

My fist curled at the loss, and I blocked the rest of the broadcasts. Seven to go.

I grabbed Constantine's arm and ported us to Xi'an.

Axer was already there, by himself, protecting a boy with purple-stained fingers and the blank, internal mixture of joy and terror that Awakenings produced.

“Get her out of the layer,” Axer demanded furiously, whipping a tail of magic that cost him half a container. One hunter collapsed, another hissed as a slice of crimson nearly cleaved him in two, and a third barely made a headfirst dive behind a car.

Constantine's fingers slipped from my wrist as he threw an exploding marble at a hunter aiming at us. The hunter was knocked off his feet, but another lobbed his own magical grenade in our direction. Axer lifted the dirt around it as it landed and threw the wad of earth and explosive back at the man.

Spike. The long chain of Awakenings squeezed like a set of stomach contractions. I clutched my stomach, feeling like it was rupturing.

“Something's wrong with one of the Awakenings,” I gasped. “Worse than the others.”

I grabbed Guard Rock from my hood and threw him at Constantine’s back. “Help them.”

“Ren.” Constantine pivoted sharply as Guard Rock latched onto his cloak. His hand reached for me, and I saw Axer's magic fly my way.

In one fluid move I shoved my bag into Constantine's hand, deflected Axer's magic, and opened space, concentrating on the point that called, and folded myself inside.

I could feel the end of Constantine's shout. But I couldn’t think about the fury and terror I could feel from him. This Awakening felt worse than all the others. Like something terrible had already happened.

I appeared in a hallway in Santiago, and the timbers of the sidewalls splintered.

There was nothing there, though. Strange. In each of the previous Awakenings I had ported next to the mage. What had I done wrong this time? I concentrated and pulled the location to me again.

Little zips of magic pulled into view, traveling along the blue and silver damask of the wallpaper, and connecting to a bedroom a few steps away. I carefully opened the door.

The Awakening mage was slumped over, cradling a tawny haired boy against her chest. Magic was zipping around her—a tempest of electricity.

The boy wasn't breathing.

A zip of magic traveled slowly past my face as time stopped and I stared at the scene for an eternity. I moved forward, and the zip snagged onto the timestream, disappearing in a blur. I touched the girl.

Her head jerked up, and translated Spanish spilled from her lips. “I killed him! I killed him! I don't know what—”

I pushed a packet of knowledge straight into her brain. The magic looped back through her system and shot from her skin into the boy's. He heaved forward, taking a deep, hacking breath. Her arms shot around him, and the magic flew more wildly.

I stared at them as they gripped each other. Siblings. A strange feeling worked its way up my throat.

Shadows emerged from the edges of the room, coiling inward and upward from the baseboards and floor like smoke. No. Choking sorrow turned to rage. I tore open the first shadow, and destroyed the second. The third smiled, opening its arms.

I flung the portal pad out and whipped it around the girl and her brother, then sealed the edge around me.

We landed in the same Second Layer Death Valley location I'd chosen previously. Magic, like anything else, diverted to the familiar by default.

Almost immediately, shadows rose from every direction.

I reached for the sibling pair. We’d go to the Third Layer, where the rocks joined the—

My hand hovered motionlessly in the air at the sight of them.

The boy was seizing, staring blankly at nothing while the girl shook him like she could stop his second death. Powerful magic swirled wildly around her. “Carlos, Carlos!”

I had made a dreadful mistake.

The boy was from the First Layer and he wasn't a mage. He didn't have the magic to mentally navigate a world drenched in it. Not without dedicated exposure.

I shot a bolt at the first diving shadow, then at the second. But this was the praetorians' playground, and they smiled manically as they shot into the sky, then dove again.

The boy couldn't survive the Second Layer, so he wouldn't be able to survive the Third—

The girl turned to me, desperate and angry. “Help m—”

I enveloped us again, dropping us into the busy emergency ward of a hospital in NYC.

I grabbed the girl before she could react and forcefully pulled her away. Immediately, the hospital staff started running to the boy spasming on the floor. An earthquake rumbled beneath our feet.

The girl strained toward her brother. “Let me go, let me g—”

“They’ll take you both, if I do. I’ll send someone to help your brother,” I said, already slamming Marsgrove with the request.

I folded us back to where I'd left Axer and Constantine in mainland China. They weren't there. A quick check said they were still in the First Layer, together, but now just to the southeast, in Taiwan. Greene and Ramirez were in Africa again.

“That's good,” I said out loud, blankly staring at the charred ground of the battle. “There are five—” I felt the light of one extinguish. “Four more, now,” I said numbly.

A little whine in the back of her throat was the only warning I had before the girl started sobbing. Heaving, world-ending sobs.

“Mine was like that, too,” I said, voice detached. I didn't bother asking her name, I just drew on Constantine’s magic and plucked it from her mind. “Rosaria. Huh. Rosaria and Carlos, R and C. Me too.”

“What?” she asked brokenly. “What are you—?”

“That's a good question,” Julian Dare said, appearing out of nowhere.

I stopped his net before it landed on me.

“I think not,” I said coldly.

“You are not in your right mind,” he bit out, eyes icy and calculating. “And the world suffers.”

I could see every atom of the world swirl around him, opening the universe's secrets to my view. “I am fully in my mind.”

I could pinpoint every single atom that I could use to bring him down if he tried to stop me.

“You need to be neutralized until we can use you.”

“You can try.”

He smiled and magic shot from him in a crystal-clear wave.

“Julian!” Marsgrove yelled, appearing out of nowhere and knocking aside whatever Julian Dare was attempting to do to me.

Magic shot sideways, and the skies cracked open.

“Get out of my way, Phillip.”

I didn’t wait to hear the argument as another of the Awakenings dimmed. My hand wrapped around Rosaria’s palm and I pulled the more overwhelming Awakening magic from her, fixed the sky, and folded us through space.

The feral in Niger was safe—Greene and Ramirez had triumphed—but the feral in Madrid was gone, confirming the dropped link in the chain. A body-shaped burn mark was the only thing left in a crater of white rock when I arrived.

No allies were at the tenth Awakening in Weber, New Zealand...but the Department wasn’t winning.

There was something a little...touched...in the Awakening boy's eyes. Like he hadn't lived in the real world for a long time and had no feeling for anyone who did.

The boy reached out for one of the hunters who came to close. The man's hand dropped, eyes going glassy.

“You are looking for a powerful leader to follow,” the boy said.

He reached over and touched me, and I could feel a connection trying to form—a silver blue line—stretching from the hunter to the boy to me, and through me to Rosaria.

I pushed gently at the connection to the man, pushing it away before it fully formed.

The boy—the name Samuel Bly whispered in the loosened connection—cocked his head. The hunter’s eyes were still unfocused, the thread shimmering in the air between them.

“That isn't the way I work,” I said softly. “We choose our connections.”

Samuel cocked his head to the other side. “He wants to make this connection. He just doesn't know it.”

I shook my head. “No, thank you.”

“It will benefit you both. I can feel it in the way that you both feel. It will benefit the four of us.”

I looked at the powerful magic surrounding the boy. Muse magic manifested in a slightly different way, but there was a similarity to his. “I have a friend who can help you harness and control your magic and these feeli—”

Before I could complete the sentence, swirling figures moved into view. With a rush of adrenaline, I threw a shield around Samuel and shoved him into the Second Layer. Talking was for later.

Everything shuddered around me.

The Bogotá mage, the eleventh Awakening, had vanished. Taken between one breath and the next, another Department triumph.

In Taipei, I found Constantine and Axer.

Axer had twisted a protection field around the twelfth Awakening mage, who was staring at her hands, just like every feral seemed compelled to do. He adhered a device to her back and activated it. The petite girl disappeared to the pre-programmed destination. I didn’t know to where.

He took out two hunters, while Constantine incapacitated a third.

The book soared overhead, protecting them, like I knew it would. Guard Rock was actively darting between them, stabbing and twirling. Constantine’s cat and Axer’s paper guardians were pouncing and swooping.

With the girl gone, both Axer and Constantine seemed to relax a fraction, but they argued vehemently as they blasted magic at the dozen remaining hunters, and, occasionally, at each other.

“We need to find her,” Constantine said.

“What a stunning deduction,” Axer said sarcastically, shattering one man’s leg and breaking the neck of another.

I cocked my head and looked down at my chest and the silver blue coating of magic there.

I could hear the two of them arguing, even though their lips weren’t moving, and I had no frequency in place anymore.

“You let her leave,” Axer said. He viciously slashed a man’s midsection without a shred of expression showing the mental battle he was fighting with the man at his side.

“Right. Because I have so much control over her. Like a chidog leashing a feldragon.” Constantine was moving and ducking smoothly through the fight, dropping anyone his hand touched.

“You don’t, but you can’t seem to accept it.”

Constantine sent a blast of magic at Axer at the same time that he threw a bolt at someone sneaking in from the right. Axer caught the blast with an unamused look and threw it into the chest of a hunter trying to rise.

I looked up as the world swirled and the dawn sky darkened to unnatural night once more—far too quickly a day cycle. I gripped the hand held tightly in mine and knelt down to touch the ground.

“The mechanisms that can hold her are in the hands of people we don't want using them. We should be searching out those devices.”

“To control her. To limit her.” Axer snapped, hitting him back and neutralizing two others that were circling Constantine.

“To stop her from constant magical suicide.”

“You can’t stop her,” Axer said grimly.

A dozen freshly cloaked men ran down the street. With a forward motion of my right hand on the pavement, I sent a wave rolling down the street, throwing the reinforcements to the ground.

Both boys swung toward me.

“Er, hi?” I gave a small, useless wave with my non-dominant hand, at the same moment I realized why I hadn’t used my left. Rosaria was staring blankly, crouched beside me, as if everything in her world had been turned on its head. Her hand held a death grip on mine.

I found mine wasn’t any less clutching. I couldn’t make myself let hers go.

Constantine immediately headed our way, absolute fury smoldering under a blank expression.

“My brother died when my hands sparked,” Rosaria whispered, oblivious to the undercurrents, looking at the destruction around us. “Is this what magic does?”

I gave her hand a squeeze. “No. He’s going to be fine. It’s not all…death.”

Axer swung his hand and emptied an entire container of acidic magic into a man's face.