In what felt like no time at all, they were pulling up to the front gates of Paramount Studios in Shannon’s minivan with a solid plan in place.
Well, mostly solid.
Shannon’s stomach flipped as she considered all the things that could go wrong. She couldn’t stop touching her still-sensitive wrist, remembering how it had felt to hear those bones snap. But she’d already had this argument with herself, again and again. She knew the risks of coming back to LA to help her friends, and that was the choice she’d made. It was too late to back out now.
Plus, she didn’t want to give any of these professional fighters the satisfaction of seeing her afraid.
Cedric, Kat, Rafe, and Merek filed out of Shannon’s van. Peter, whose own injuries still made him slow on his feet, would wait behind to drive them off, should everything go according to plan. Back at the house, Peter had showed Cedric and the others how to set off the fireworks without blowing off their arms. They’d lit up a couple of practice fireworks from the beach. To Shannon, it looked strange to see the explosions burst apart over an entirely empty strip of sand and water, with no applause or collective oohs and ahhs as they fizzled red and gold and blue. It was even stranger to see their colors set against the eerie, oppressive sky. A familiar sight turned so, so wrong.
Now they were splitting the fireworks into five bags, some backpacks from the house and some canvas grocery bags they’d managed to find in the kitchen. Cedric and Kat walked through the studio’s front gate first, weapons out.
“Keep your eyes out for guards,” Rafe said from his position in the middle of the group. “And, Merek, do not forget to watch the rear.”
Shannon waited for the smart-ass comeback from Merek, but instead he just nodded.
As they walked deeper into the lot, no guards appeared.
“Do you think we might have been wrong?” Shannon asked. “Or maybe we’re right, but Malquin didn’t expect us to find him?”
“Or maybe he already knows we are coming,” Cedric said darkly.
The lot was huge, spanning out from them in all directions. They decided to walk straight. At the end of one giant parking lot was a large rectangle; it looked like a movie screen, although it was several times the size of any screen Shannon had ever seen. It was painted to look like the backdrop of a beautiful blue sky, meant to represent a regular, sunny Los Angeles day. But now, it stood out against the angry colors of the actual sky. When Shannon looked at the backdrop, she got the disconcerting sense that it was real, and the world behind it was the painted, unnatural one.
“This place is . . . odd,” Rafe said, staring at the blue backdrop.
“Shh,” Cedric said. “We might be upon them any minute.”
But they wandered for several more minutes, past giant, empty buildings and even a few abandoned catering trucks.
The knot in Shannon’s stomach got tighter and tighter as she walked. She didn’t know if she was afraid they wouldn’t find Liv held captive here—or if she was afraid that they would. Finally, after walking past what looked like a brick apartment building—or at least, the front side of an apartment building propped up by wooden posts with nothing behind it—Cedric put one arm out to stop the others.
“Do you hear that?”
Shannon strained to listen, and finally she heard it. Voices. Talking. Arguing. Even laughing. Cedric led them slowly, single file, around the building facade. They crept across the street and bent low against another building, moving closer to the noises. Then, across the street, Shannon saw a group of men standing in front of a building labeled “Stage 18.” To her, the men didn’t even look out of place. In their jeans and T-shirts, they might have been a film crew taking a break.
“Are they . . . ?” Shannon whispered to Merek.
He nodded. “Wraths. And look.”
Merek motioned to the shadows on the side of the building, where Shannon could just make out Joe’s Jeep in the fading light. Her stomach dropped.
“So we were right,” she said, adjusting the bag of fireworks on her back and trying to keep from collapsing in anxiety.
“There is a ladder to the roof, there,” Cedric whispered back to them, pointing to the building. Shannon saw a ladder made of thin metal rods fixed to the building’s exterior and leading up to the roof, where there was a door. “We have to take out all of those wraths before any can alert those inside. Then we go up the ladder. Everyone know what to do?”
Before anyone could respond, Rafe held up a hand. “Wait.” He turned to Merek and Shannon. “Maybe you two should wait here.”
Merek looked confused, so Shannon answered for him. “Excuse me?”
“This is a dangerous mission, and you are still recovering from your wounds,” Rafe said. “I would hate to go home and have to tell Mother and Father that something happened to you.”
“I . . . ,” Merek started, his face turning alternating shades of red and white.
“We need Merek out there with us,” Cedric said, a note of finality in his voice. “He is a strong fighter.”
Rafe’s eyebrows raised. “Is he? I haven’t ever known that to be true.”
Shannon scoffed, barely believing Rafe had the gall to say something like that. She waited for Merek to jump in and defend himself, the way he would if Cedric or Kat or anyone else in the world called him out. But instead, he was stony-faced and silent, his eyes on the ground.
So Shannon stepped forward. “Well, maybe you don’t know him very well,” she said.
Rafe looked at her, really looked at her, for the first time that night. His expression barely changed, but she knew he was sizing her up, and she refused to shrink under his gaze. Finally, he shrugged with one shoulder and looked to Merek.
“It is your decision, baby brother. Be it on your head.”
He turned and faced the group of wraths standing by Stage 18, then slowly crept forward along the side of the building. Cedric and Kat each shot Merek sympathetic looks before following. Merek stood still for just a moment, his hand tightening on the strap of his backpack. Just as he was about to set off, Shannon reached out and grabbed his shoulder.
“He’s wrong, you know. He might be your brother, but he clearly doesn’t know you very well.”
Merek turned to look at her. “He knows me better than anyone. He always has.”
Shannon shook her head. “Maybe that used to be true, but it’s not anymore.”
“You don’t understand,” Merek said, his voice taking on a hard edge. “He was raised and trained to be a warrior and a duke, someone of importance. And I was not. He is right—I am not as strong a fighter as him, or Cedric, or Kat. I was nearly killed the last time we faced Malquin. Maybe I have only survived this far on luck.”
Shannon felt a spike of anger. How could anyone make Merek feel that way, and how could he believe them? She gripped his shoulder tighter and spun him to face her head-on.
“Luck is for losers,” she said, voice fierce. “And I don’t make out with losers.”
“Make out—?”
Shannon pushed herself up onto the tips of her toes until her face was level with Merek’s, and then she kissed him. Hard. For a moment, he seemed more shocked than anything, and he stood very, very still with his hands at his sides. But after a few seconds, his lips pressed back against hers, and his hands met her waist and slid down along her lower back. Locks of his hair fell against Shannon’s forehead, light and tickling and warm.
She kissed him until she felt dizzy, until she could hear the blood rushing from her head. She pulled back, her face just inches from his. This close, his eyes were blurry and indistinct, but she could see the intensity in them, the way they were focused on her and only her.
“Now go let’s go kick some ass and save my friend,” Shannon said. “And you better keep yourself in one piece, if you want what just happened to ever happen again.”
Merek grinned. “One piece it is.”
He grabbed her hand, and they moved together to face whatever the night would bring.
Liv’s arm was sore from being pressed against the concrete floor for so long. After the ground had stopped shaking, Malquin rambled on about all the ways they could change the world together through magic. Most sounded insane, but Liv’s only plan was to keep Malquin talking long enough for her to try to slowly twist out of her bindings. Not that she was getting very far.
A wrath came up and whispered in Malquin’s ear. His thin-lipped smile in response sent a shiver down Liv’s back.
“It seems we have a guest,” Malquin said. “And perfect timing, too, since I see you’re going to need a bit more convincing. It’s only fair you see what we can do together with your own eyes.”
Liv cast a quick glance over to where Joe stood, staring down at her with black eyes.
“I’ve already seen it, thanks.”
“No,” Malquin said. “You really haven’t.” He tilted his head. “I got the idea from the Guardians, you know. After all, your little boyfriend’s ancestors were the first men to ever ingest wrath blood for the purpose of gaining their power. Of course, magic on Earth was a little more . . . stable . . . back then, so the results weren’t quite this dramatic.”
Malquin smiled at Joe, who grinned hollowly in response. Liv felt like throwing up.
“But this better suits my purposes anyway,” Malquin said. “All the power, none of the pesky personality. Joe’s practically pure wrath now. And would you say he looks unhappy?”
Joe’s mouth stretched across his teeth in a ghastly imitation of a smile. He didn’t look unhappy. He looked . . . void.
Malquin put his good hand in the air and snapped his fingers. From around the fake wall of the castle, two wraths came forward, holding a gagged figure between them. One of the wraths was the fair-haired former Knight who’d thrown Liv against a wall in the OC house. It took Liv a moment to recognize the person he was dragging forward—it was a blond woman she’d only seen in pictures. The fair-haired man’s wife.
It looked like she hadn’t gotten away after all.
Malquin moved closer to the terrified blond woman, removing a sharp dagger from the belt at his side. The woman glanced at her husband—or what used to be her husband—and screamed for help against her gag. The fair-haired wrath was impassive. But Malquin didn’t turn the dagger on the woman. Instead, he turned to another nearby wrath and ran the knife across the creature’s forearm until black blood flowed from the surface.
Then, Malquin turned and handed the knife to Joe.
That’s when Liv started to yell.
“Please, Malquin. You don’t have to do this! You can leave her alone.”
Malquin shook his head. “This woman sealed her fate when she joined her life with one of the Knights of Valere. She knew what he was, and she did nothing. She even supported him.”
The woman thrashed against her captors, against her stone-faced husband, screaming into her gag. Liv again saw the pictures from the couple’s living room. The fair-haired man might have belonged to the Knights of Valere, but he also had a family, a house, a sprinkler system. The couple had gotten married, had a dog, gone to Angels games. He was a Knight, but he’d also been a human being . . . and this woman hadn’t done anything but marry him.
“Please!” Liv yelled. “Please! I’ll do anything you want, just please don’t!”
Malquin finally looked back at Liv. “Don’t you get it? I already have what I want. Two more scrolls, at my disposal. Enough to open up as many portals as I want. To let in as much magic as I want.”
Liv thrashed against the ropes that held her. “That’s insane. It’ll destroy the world!”
“Destroy? The world isn’t a worse place with magic, Liv. Whoever told you that was lying. We have the power now to make everything different. And I’ll even give you the same choice I gave all of these Knights. You can agree to help me of your own free will, or . . .” Malquin nodded toward the wrath he’d cut, whose black blood was slowly running down the surface of his skin and landing in drops on the concrete floor.
“You can’t just do this to people,” Liv said. She took big lungfuls of air, trying to calm herself. If she couldn’t yell Malquin down, maybe she could reason with him . . .
“I can, actually,” Malquin responded. “The magic here has made it quite simple. I may not have the power the Knights did all those years ago, but I am a scroll, which means there’s some magic already inside of me. And now there’s magic in the very air. So as long as I have people around me who believe in the power of that magic, I can bend their belief to my will. I can make pretty much anything I want happen. Now watch.”
Liv watched.
There was little else she could do. Even as she pulled against her ropes until the skin of her wrists cut open, even as she yelled until her throat was sore and scratchy, the only thing she could really do was watch.
She watched as the wraths forced the blond woman to the floor and ripped the gag from her mouth. She watched as the bleeding wrath leaned over the woman, letting his blood pour into her mouth. Almost immediately, the woman started to choke.
She watched the woman try to spit it out, try to fight, try to thrash.
She watched as she went still.
“Now,” Malquin said, his voice barely more than a whisper.
But the figures standing around the edges of the makeshift castle heard him. And they all started to speak. Or chant, really. Their various coarse voices slowly unified, growing louder and echoing off the set walls until Liv could finally make out what they were saying.
“Change. Change. Change.”
“Please don’t work,” Liv whispered.
But as cracked and low as it was, her voice was still loud enough to be heard. Malquin turned to her, his own expression calm.
“It will work,” he said. “I wouldn’t have done this to my own brother if I wasn’t sure of the success. Granted, it didn’t work perfectly at first, and there were a few . . . unfortunate failures . . . but I finally figured out the secret.”
Liv thought of the Knight they’d found in front of the Ralphs’s parking lot, the one who’d died before them with black eyes and peeling skin. Had he been one of the “unfortunate failures”? Or was his fate what still awaited the woman who was writhing now on the ground? Was it what awaited Joe?
Behind Malquin and all around, the chants continued.
“All this time,” Malquin said, “I thought the words mattered. But it turns out, they’re just a means to an end. That spell I taught you to open a portal—someone invented that. Just made it up. Whether he was a Knight or a scholar or a sorcerer, it doesn’t matter. He was just a man, like me. It wasn’t the exact words that mattered, it was the conviction. The speakers have to believe in the magic, and in what they want it to accomplish. They have to feel it.”
Malquin smiled serenely as he looked out over the circle of wraths, all still chanting, their voices running together and repeating so often that the word they were saying began to lose meaning to Liv’s ears. But it didn’t matter. She could see in their intense, focused expressions, in their fevered eyes, that they believed their words would work.
Liv’s pulse started to race harder. The answer was here somewhere, the one she’d been looking for . . . but before she could concentrate, she saw the blond woman finally sit up across the room.
She moved slowly, deliberately. Her back was ramrod straight. She was faced away from Liv, so it was impossible to see her expression. Then, the woman swiveled slowly to her right, her head and shoulders inching in Liv’s direction, her eyes taking in the room.
Her all-black, empty eyes.
It had worked.
Malquin turned to Liv. “So you’ve seen what I can do. Isn’t it amazing? And now, my dear, it’s time to make your choice. You will help me, but you can either do so willingly . . . or not.”
She wanted to scream, and she wanted to cry. She wanted to rip through her bindings and scratch Malquin’s eyes out. She wanted Joe to snap to life and save her from this place. Malquin stared at her with his expectant eyes, and she did her best to square her shoulders from her position on the ground.
“I won’t help you,” she said.
Malquin gripped the knife once again, gesturing the bleeding wrath forward.
“Okay, then.” Malquin shrugged, then turned to the wrath with the still-bleeding arm. “You’re up again. Joe, restrain her.”
Liv still stared at Joe, tears in her eyes. He had to be in there, somewhere. A part of him still had to hear her, had to care . . . had to . . .
“Joe? Look at me. Please, look at me.”
He looked down at her and cocked his head. Was that recognition in his expression?
“Joe, you have to fight it. If you’re still in there, just fight.”
Without losing a beat, Joe kept walking across the room toward Liv. She strained backward, rolling over her bound arms and screaming as her hip bones pushed them into the concrete floor. She rolled over again, onto her stomach. But there was no getting away. Joe was halfway to her, his dead eyes barely taking in her struggle.
“Please, Joe. Please. I know you’re still in there, I know it.”
Joe put one foot on her back, pressing her to the floor.
“Joe . . .”
But the creature above her just pressed down harder, hurting her. Joe would never, could never, hurt her. And Liv knew—Joe was gone.
Joe was gone. Her eyes shut tight against hot tears.
And above her head, the room exploded.
That was the only way Liv could describe it. Lying on her stomach, she had a limited view of the room around her. But she could still hear as a giant, booming noise roared through the set, followed by a brilliant red glow.
The lights in the studio cut out, sending the room into darkness. Then came the second boom. This time, the entire room lit up blue, enough to see Malquin and some surrounding wraths looking up toward the ceiling with wonder and terror in their faces. After a few seconds, the blue light fizzled, and all was dark again.
That’s when Liv smelled the smoke. Not just any smoke, but a particular, familiar kind of stench that only ever reminded her of . . .
The Fourth of July?
By the time the green explosion went off, Liv had enough of her wits about her to keep rolling again. Joe had removed his foot from her back. She could barely make out his outline in the dark, but at the next deafening boom, she saw his profile illuminated against flashes of red and gold. He was standing at attention next to Malquin, who was screaming out orders that no one could hear.
As she rolled again, Liv saw that the wraths were scattering, some climbing up to the rafters, toward the explosions, and others running out the door.
Darkness again. Then boom. The world turned brilliant purple, and Liv saw Malquin trying to keep the wraths in place.
Darkness, then boom.
In eerie green light, Liv saw a piece of scaffolding fall from the ceiling and collapse a corner of the Styrofoam castle.
Darkness. Boom.
A blue light that showed mostly smoke now. Coiling, thickening smoke that spread quickly through the room . . .
The smoke hit Liv’s eyes and throat, and she started to cry and cough at the same time, nearly choking in the process. But most distressing was the ringing in her ears. She could still hear explosions going off, but the noises got dimmer and sounded farther away every time.
She didn’t even hear the footsteps approach until they were right on top of her, until hands were grabbing her and lifting her up.
“No,” Liv said, before her voice dissolved into a fit of coughs. She could barely see in front of her through the smoke.
“Liv?” The voice sound far away, like it was on the other side of a long tunnel. Still, Liv recognized it.
“Liv?” Cedric asked. His hands gripped her shoulders, and he held her steady as her bound arms and legs threatened to knock her off balance and cast her back to the floor.
“I’ve got you,” Cedric said. He looked like he was yelling, but his voice sounded muffled and distant. “I’ve got you.”
Liv could only cough in response.
Cedric looked around wildly. “Where’s Malquin? Is he here?” They both scanned the billowing smoke, but Liv couldn’t see anything beyond Cedric’s face. He turned back to her, his eyes red and starting to tear. She could read the frustration and rage in them. Malquin had slipped away again.
“I don’t know where—” she choked out.
He shook his head. “It does not matter. We have to get out of here. Where is Joe?”
When she heard Cedric say Joe’s name, his voice so steady and unknowing, she felt a pain so intense she thought she’d split apart.
“He’s gone,” she finally managed to say as tears streamed down her face. “He’s already gone.”