Emerald Blaze

A blur of green shot out of the decorative hedges on our left and smashed into me. Big scaly arms clamped around me and jerked me off the ground. I kicked my feet trying to break free, but it was like fighting in a straitjacket. Whatever grabbed me turned and ran. The buildings rushed past me.

Gunshots rang out behind us, Leon firing in a controlled frenzy.

Bushes loomed ahead. The creature tore through them, the branches raking my arms and face, and burst onto the bank of Buffalo Bayou.

It flipped me, and I saw it. It resembled a Razorscale, but built with reeds and metal. It had the same powerful tail and similar limbs, but where a true Razorscale had only two, this one had six, arranged in pairs along its body, and it towered over me, eight feet tall, not counting the four-foot tail. Its head swiveled toward me on a thick neck, a big beautiful flower with a single perfectly round eye in its center.

The Abyss had built a better construct. It was learning.

The creature clenched me to its chest and leaped into the muddy river. Water swallowed us. I flailed, panicking. The more I struggled, the tighter it held me. The beast shot through the river like a torpedo, the force of the water pressing on my face.

I would die in this stupid dirty river.

I clawed at the construct. It surfaced, spinning. For a moment there was air, and I gulped it, and then we were under again.

Another spin, a lungful of fresh air, followed by another dive.

It wasn’t trying to kill me. It was taking me to the Pit.

I spun my magic inside me, building it up.

The beast surfaced. I gulped the air and sang out a short high note. “Mine.”

The Abyss’ mind and my magic collided. The beast went under. Water flooded into my mouth. There wasn’t enough air. I clung to the construct’s matrix, grappling with the nebulous intelligence on the other end. It pondered me, stunned. Images flickered between us—Felix’s face, Felix facing the swamp, Felix asking, “Why are you here?” and the answer blazing in his mind in glowing numbers: “162AC.” More images, Cheryl, Felix saying in a weird echoing voice, “I found someone to take care of it,” a distorted image of Linus, and then me, wavering, as if I were underwater.

My air ran out. I knew I was thrashing, my body fighting on pure instinct. I poured all my magic into that connection, imagining me dying, imagining my limp body sinking into the muck of the river bottom, disappearing completely. I showed the Abyss the absence of me and sent a single focused torrent with the last bit of power in my oxygen-starved brain.

Stop!

The beast broke the surface in an explosion of foam, like a great white breaching, and hurled me forward.

Air, dear God, so much air.

I landed on my side on solid ground. Pain punched my injured hip and I barely noticed it, focused on sucking as much air as I could into my lungs. The Abyss hovered on the edge of my mind, watching.

Finally, I sat up, coughing. Water laced with mud came out of me. My mouth tasted foul. I looked up.

The Razorscale construct crouched by me on all six limbs. The white fringes of its petals shivered slightly, the turquoise eye staring at me with terrible intensity.

We were on some sort of muddy bank. Behind us and up, the sounds of traffic filled the air, so mundane it was surreal. I glanced over my shoulder. A tall concrete bridge towered over the river. It had to be Woodway Drive.

The construct leaned forward. Our eyes were inches apart.

Images slipped into my brain. I was sitting on a huge lily pad, bloodred flowers blooming all around me, glowing with magic. A tentacle slid through the water and dropped a fat fish in front of me. It flapped on the leaf, big mouth gasping. All around me the Pit sang, the splashing of water, the soft whispers of fish streaking under the surface of my leaf, frogs croaking, distant Razorscales bellowing, a bull gator roaring, birds singing . . . The Abyss serenaded me with the sounds of the swamp the way it heard them.

Its mind wrapped around me. No, not its. His. It was a distinctly male presence.

The view rushed over water to some buildings. A metal-tipped tentacle burst from the muck and pierced the guard standing on the walkway. The man convulsed, impaled through his stomach. A second tentacle wrapped around him and dragged him into the water, through the swamp, with dizzying speed, to where I sat. The tentacles lifted the body out of the mire and showed it to me.

All around me appendages rose from under the surface, some big, some small, some tipped with metal, others with long spindly digits. They filleted the guard like fish, dropping organs and flesh into the mire. The water boiled as fish and other things fed.

The appendages dipped the bloody remnants of the man into the water and pulled him out again, neatly separating the head and spinal column from the body. A massive tangle of plants surfaced, and the Abyss began to weave them around the head and spine. A larger, thicker appendage appeared, shaped like a bulb, opened, and secreted liquid metal onto the plants, wrapping it like a ribbon around the shape it was building.

Another thin tentacle thrust a glowing seed into the amorphous construct. Magic sparked and the new beast moved, its body tightening, flowing into a compact shape, vaguely familiar. The construct dropped onto all fours. It had four limbs, a long muzzle, a short tail, two floppy ears . . .

It looked like . . . It . . .

The Abyss had made a cow-sized version of Shadow for me and he put the dead man’s brain into it.

I recoiled. “No!”

The image of the Pit faltered and vanished. The Razorscale construct clamped its forelimbs on my legs.

Regina said that if a single matrix node survived, the Abyss could rebuild itself. That meant a matrix node could function independently. I had to break this one free of the Abyss or I would end up on a lily pad in the Pit.

I poured my magic into the creature’s matrix. My evil grandmother could’ve cleaved it free, Nevada too, but my magic seduced. It didn’t sever. I could only wrap my power around it and try to make it mine.

The construct pulled my legs, sliding me across the mud, as it backed toward the water. I swathed my power around it, tighter and tighter, layering it like an onion, trying to isolate the matrix node from the tendrils of the Abyss’ mind. If I let it get me into the water again, it would be over.

The creature yanked me toward the river.

I pulled it to me with everything I had. The Abyss clutched on to the construct, trying to wrestle it free from me. It was like putting a dog leash on a lion and trying to drag it. The Abyss was strong, so much stronger, but he was so far and I was right here.

I released my wings and they opened behind me, radiant with magic. I stared into the turquoise eye and sang.

“Sleep my child and peace attend thee,

All through the night . . .”

The construct stopped pulling.

“Guardian angels God will send thee,

All through the night . . .”

The Abyss’ hold on the creature was slipping. Both of them were listening to me, one seduced and the other fascinated.

“Soft the drowsy hours are creeping,

Hill and dale in slumber sleeping,

I my loved ones’ watch am keeping,

All through the night . . .”

The construct’s matrix buckled under the pressure.

I forgot the next part, skipped it, and kept singing.

“While the moon her watch is keeping,

All through the night.

While the weary world is sleeping,

All through the night.

O’er thy spirit gently stealing,

Visions of delight revealing,

Breathes a pure and holy feeling,

All through the night . . .”

The Abyss’ grip slid off the construct’s mind and vanished. The creature scooted closer to me, its flower glowing, and wrapped itself around my body, like an affectionate dog. Its metal scales vibrated, making a soft mechanical purr . . .

A body dropped from above and landed on top of the construct in a flash of orange magic. Alessandro swung and buried Linus’ sword in the creature’s eye. The construct fell apart into bands of metal and reeds.

Alessandro glared at me. “I leave you alone for six hours and this is what happens?”

I scrambled to my feet. “I had it! I took it away from the Abyss! You—”

He kissed me. The world spun sideways. A whirlwind of emotions tore through me—relief, need, want, outrage—and I didn’t know which one to pick. Outrage won.

Alessandro’s lips left mine. He squeezed me to him, a huge grin on his face. “You’re alive.”

“You killed my construct,” I ground out.

“You can’t keep it,” Alessandro said. “It’s bad.”

“Let go of me!”

I pushed away from him and swayed. He caught me. Alarm skewed his face. “Are you okay?”

The words fell out one by one. “Tired. Dirty. Wet. Hurt. Frustrated.” My brain suddenly came up with a complete thought and I spat it out. “Now? Of all the times you could have kissed me, you thought now was a good idea? I have mud and algae in my mouth.”

He grinned again, wrapped his arm around my waist, and half steered, half carried me up the slope to a narrow, paved sidewalk leading up the bank. My legs barely moved.

“Where were you?” I squeezed out.

“Busting Arkan’s HQ in Houston.”

“Are you okay?” He looked okay, but that didn’t mean he was okay.

“Yes.”

“Is Linus okay?”