I watched, heart in my mouth, as Azriel walked around the sphere, inspecting it. When he’d returned to his starting point, he touched it with his fingertips. Blue light crawled across his hand but didn’t appear to hurt him. After another moment, he stepped into it.
I think I stopped breathing, and time seemed to drag.
Then he reappeared, and with him was Rhoan—bloody, beaten, but very much alive.
Relief shuddered through me, and just for a second, my legs felt weak and my knees gave way. Somehow, I managed to stay upright.
“Right,” Hunter said, her attention fully on me again—something I could tell by the wash of animosity and satisfaction oozing from her. “Rhoan is safe, as is your precious reaper. Give me the key.”
“They’re not out of that building yet.”
“No, and they won’t get out of it unless you give me the key. Now,” she added, when I didn’t move. “Or have you forgotten I can still blow them all to smithereens?”
“Then take it.” I held out the hand that held the key and silently screamed, Azriel, you need to get out of there—now! Hunter has the place rigged to blow.
I had no idea whether he could hear me; certainly there didn’t seem to be any sudden awareness of danger in his or Rhoan’s actions. I wanted to scream at the screen, tell him to get his ass moving, but I did nothing, just watched, as the two men moved out of camera range, then reappeared in the next screen.
Hunter stepped forward, out of the shadows. Her gaze was on the shard of concrete rather than on me, so I carefully reached back with my free hand and wrapped my fingers around the knife. The stone blade pressed lightly against my palm; it would take only the slightest pressure for it to slice into my skin.
Dušan, be ready. You, too, Amaya.
Her excitement raced through the back reaches of my mind, sharp and eager to kill.
Hunter’s fingers hovered above mine for a moment; then she carefully picked up the concrete shard. “I can indeed feel the weight of magic within it. It is a powerful thing.” Then her gaze rose to mine. “And more the fool you are for trusting that once I had this in my grasp, I would keep my word.”
The words were barely out of her mouth when the images on the monitor behind her exploded into flame.
Chapter 16
I screamed and reacted instinctively, clenching my fist and swinging as hard as I could at Hunter’s smug face. But even as I did so, Amaya’s voice cut through the panic.
Not dead! Safe they are!
My blow didn’t land. Instead, it was caught in a viselike grip and held firm. I didn’t fight her hold; I just glared at her.
Are you sure?
Valdis contact. Reaper comes.
Which didn’t mean he could actually get in. Even so, relief flooded me for the second time that night. But I couldn’t let it show. Hunter had to believe I believed everyone I cared about was now dead.
Hunter’s grip began to tighten against mine, and her sharp claws sliced into my skin. Blood welled. Anticipation and hunger flared in her eyes, but a similar sense of anticipation echoed through me. She’d just provided the perfect cover.
My grip tightened on the blade at my back. It sliced into my palm and was met by a rush of blood. The sweet metallic scent grew stronger in the air, but I doubted Hunter was aware of this secondary source. She was too intent on crushing my hand, too aware of the blood that dripped in fat splashes down onto the paving stones between us.
“I’ll kill you for that,” I growled.
Her smile was slow and lazy. “Oh, you most certainly are welcome to try. But remember what I am; remember that what I did to the—”
I plunged the stone blade into her stomach, and the rest of her sentence became a screech that was both fury and pain. She flung me backward so forcefully that I literally sailed through the air for several feet before crashing onto my back and sliding to a halt hard up against the elevator doors.
I scrambled to my feet, Amaya out of my body and in my hands. But even as I did so, light flared across the shadows—a fierce white light that was nigh on blinding. I raised my hand against it, battling to see what was going on, where Hunter was.
After a moment, I realized the light was coming from her.
Or rather, from the wound in her stomach.
Tendrils of brightness flowed from the knife’s entry point and entwined around her, their movement getting fiercer, angrier, as they flowed up her body, then continued on, as if reaching for the very distant heavens. But they disappeared long before they even reached the roof of this cavern.