Last Rites (Darkling Mage 6)

“You remember when I stabbed you in the leg?”

He growled from deep inside his chest, snatching the flask away, his eyes flitting to his thigh. “Yeah, I fucking remember. You’re lucky it didn’t do any permanent damage.”

I scratched my chin, tree bark cool against my back, my insides coursing with the slow warmth of whiskey. “Sorry, man, didn’t mean to laugh about it. It’s more – you and me, you know? We fucking hated each other. And I’m pretty sure this is the second time you’ve saved my hide.”

Royce cleared his throat, then took another swig from the flask, like he was trying to wash something out of his system. Typical man’s man, I thought.

“Don’t get sentimental on me now,” he said. “But yeah. You know that already. Odessa and I have a different point of view when it comes to these things. Don’t let it get to your head, Graves, but you’ve got to be the key to figuring this shit out. Killing you isn’t the answer.” He offered me the flask, and I shook my head. “But if it isn’t, what is?”

“This,” I said, picking up Mom’s amulet – my amulet – between my thumb and forefinger. “This’ll seal them away forever. Made it myself, you know. Enchanted it earlier, but you already know that.”

“Right, right,” Royce said, peering closely at the amulet. “So why is it glowing, then?”

“What?”

I sat bolt upright, flipping the pendant over. The garnet was glowing, all right, shimmering with an internal light that burned stronger and stronger with every passing second, until I was sure that its brightness was going to attract unwanted attention.

Then the sky began to fill with eerie, pipe-like music. A droning, like distorted flutes – like an alien song spilling out of a warped, twisted throat.

“Oh shit,” I breathed. “No. Not here, not now.”

There it was, just dozens of feet away from the projector screen: a white, spinning portal.

Chapter 26

“What the fuck is happening, Graves?”

I looked at the amulet, then up at the portal. How the hell was I supposed to know? All I knew was that the jewel in my hand was meant to close the gateway that was threatening to open by – oh fuck, by a huge crowd of normals.

“We’ve got to do something about this,” I said, springing to my feet. “Call out your Wings, we need to evacuate these people immediately.”

“Oh yeah?” Royce flung his hand out at the rift. “And what about that? I can’t call a strike from the Heart. We’re basically in the middle of the city. Do you know how many would – ”

“Just deal with the civilians, will you?” Plus there was the small matter of me destroying the Heart’s mechanism. I was careful not to mention that. “I’ll call Carver. Figure something out.”

Royce touched two fingers to his

temple, tapping into the Lorica’s network, and I sprinted towards the rift, screaming bloody murder.

“Get the hell out of here,” I shouted at the normals.

At least a hundred of them, by my guess, still transfixed by the film, the volume of it drowning out my voice. They hadn’t noticed the rift at all. I ran faster, all the way up to the screen. I stood in front of it, shouting at them to evacuate, waving my arms.

And then I wasn’t there anymore. Royce had snuck up on me again, teleporting me beside the shimmering Eldest portal.

“You idiot,” he snarled. “I know you were just a Hound, but don’t you know any of the protocol? You’ll send them into a panic. You’re covered in blood, and you’re going to stand there and yell like a lunatic?”

“Fucking fine,” I snarled back, shaking him off me. With one hand I was already dialing Carver, and with the other I brandished my amulet at the portal, completely and embarrassingly unsure of what I was supposed to do.

“Nothing’s happening, Graves,” Royce said warningly.

“Will you please attend to the normals, Royce? Christ Almighty, just – yes, hello, Carver? Heinsite Park. We’ve got a major problem. There’s a rift here and – ”

“By the gods above and below,” Carver shouted from behind me. “Will we never be rid of these infernal things?”

I whirled around, my phone still pressed to my ear, shocked to see him standing there with Gil, Sterling, and Asher at his side.

“Asher,” Carver shouted. “To me. The ritual I taught you. Help me destroy this thing.”