Dark Harvest (Darkling Mage 2)

I couldn’t say the same for Thea. She had gone pale, somehow even whiter, more translucent than the unearthly shade that her skin had taken on. The light that shone from within her body guttered. A thin trickle of blood dripped from the corner of her mouth, as black and as blasphemous as the pool of gore spreading from the spike that had pierced her abdomen, soiling the pure white of her strange armor.

Her head twitched as she turned to me with confused eyes, her mouth struggling to form around a curse. She lifted her hand, her face straining as she forced her fingers to gesture, to attack again. I severed the connection to the Dark Room, slamming the door shut. The spike dissolved into black smoke, then dissipated. Thea crashed heavily to the ground – then slipped off the edge of the platform.

Bastion cried out. Maybe he had hoped to have something or someone to arrest and return to the Lorica. But Thea was gone, and dead. From how high up we were, she had to be dead. And from how high up we were, I’d have pitied her more if she survived, how broken her body would have been when it hit the ground.

My lack of remorse should have surprised me, but I felt only satisfaction when the blade had burst out of the shadows, nothing but pleasure when she fell from the tower. The violence was exhilarating. Perhaps I had acquired a taste for destruction. Maybe it was always there, a part of me all along. In some dusty corner of my mind, I heard Hecate titter.

The scar at my chest burned, but not with the same intensity as before. I felt a wetness at my shoulder, and I winced at the stinging pain. My wound was bleeding again. I might have escaped tearing my scar open this time, but the Dark Room wanted its payment in flesh and in blood.

Bastion was barely holding himself up on the ground by his forearms. He looked up at me and muttered. “I can’t believe you killed her.”

I looked as far as I dared over the edge of the platform, the night wind tousling my hair, wondering why I felt so numb.

“Me neither.”

“I’m okay with it,” Asher said, splayed on his back, still panting for breath. “It was either her or me.”

“I don’t think you have anything else to worry about now, kid. You’re gonna be okay.” Bastion arranged himself across the ground, spreading his arms as he lay back. I was exhausted just looking at him.

I watched the two of them, wanting more than anything to collapse, wondering whether that would be terrible for my wound.

“So,” Bastion said, after a few quiet moments. “How the hell do we get off this thing?”

Chapter 27

Salvation came in the form of a Wing, a surly man with close-cropped hair who looked pretty unhappy to have been woken up so late in the night. He had a Hand with him, who already had a crackling handful of electricity prepared as they blinked into existence right on the tip of the spire.

Asher might have whimpered at the sight of yet more strangers looking to attack us. I didn’t recognize either of them, but at Bastion’s word the Hand immediately stood down. It took a couple of trips for the Wing to teleport us all off the stalk. I was the last to go, and I used the time to bundle up the broken pieces of Vanitas’s blade and scabbard in my jacket. It didn’t feel right to just leave him there.

A swarm of Lorica staff waited at the base of the stalk. Maybe an exaggeration, but if this was going to turn into yet another altercation, or worse, an arrest, then it was clear that the Black Hand – sorry, that Carver’s delegation was tremendously outnumbered. It didn’t seem like we were in any danger, though. Not just yet. In fact, Asher, Bastion, and I were rushed by another group of Hands as soon as we were back on the ground. They were clerics, which was easy enough to tell when my wound stopped bleeding as soon as one of them touched me.

“You’re going to be just fine,” one of the Hands told Asher, stroking him gently on the back. It seemed like such an innocuous gesture, but the cleric was subtly imbuing him with healing energy, enough that his pallor was beginning to fade. I thought that he would have the ability to heal himself, to an extent, but considering his ordeal, it was obvious that he needed a hand. Or a Hand, as it were.

I looked around, marveling at the Lorica’s sheer efficiency. Men and women flung spells at the fallen trees and foliage, rearranging everything in the botanical gardens to make sure that the normals wouldn’t notice anything amiss.

Some Hands were disintegrating the revolting, sticky remains of the fallen shrikes, eliminating the evidence. Still others were helping to heal the leftovers of the Viridian Dawn, then turning them over to Mouths who whispered in their ears and stroked at their temples, psychically erasing and replacing their memories of the evening, and hopefully, of their entire time with Deirdre.

Oh, of course. Deirdre. She was being led away by three Hands, accompanied by a Wing. Her head was still held high, her wrists bound in ropes that were no doubt enchanted to prevent any form of magical escape.

Closer by a cleric was examining Prudence’s ankle. Gil was crouched near her, concerned, an especially bizarre picture considering he had returned to human form, shirtless and slathered in a grotesque mix of his own blood and the horrible black liquid that leaked out of every shrike he had ripped apart with his bare hands.

Everything looked to be in order, and as far as I could tell, we weren’t in trouble. Yet. The main problem, as indicated by the huddle of Lorica staffers gathered around the base of the stalk, was the question of getting it the hell out of the gardens in the first place.

Another Hand clapped me on the shoulder. I was too transfixed on the enormity of the stalk to look, at first, but the way he kept squeezing my arm prompted me to acknowledge him.

“Ow. Dude. Can I help you?”

“It’s more of a question of whether I can help you,” the Hand said.

I blinked, peered closer, and froze. It wasn’t a Hand at all. The man had curly black hair, a deep tan, and an infuriatingly cocky expression that surpassed the arrogance of both Ba

stion and Sterling combined. Along his temples ran his familiar wreath tattoo, its leaves bending in the wind.

“Dionysus,” I muttered, well aware that I had said it with all the displeasure of someone who was being forced to gargle vinegar.

He sniffed. “You’d think I’d get a warmer welcome considering your predicament.” He was still clutching my arm, studying my wrist closely.

“Hey, it’s your fault I’m in these circumstances after all.” I tried tugging my arm away, but the god was strong, even when it looked like he was only limply grasping me by the forearm. “So about that. Can you please remove this damn mark from my body already? We stopped the Viridian Dawn.” I couldn’t help swallowing as I tried to form my next few words. I look over to where Enrietta’s body fell. Her corpse was gone. In its place were patches of small, white flowers. “But we couldn’t save Mrs. Boules.”