Soul Fire (Darkling Mage 8)

Heat flared in the palms of my hands. After all that we’d been through, after all the suffering, terror, and mayhem the Eldest had caused, did Agatha really think she had any chance of bending me to fight for their madness?

“No thanks,” I said through clenched teeth. “I’ll take my chances with humanity.”

The change in her features was frightful. Agatha scowled, the lines of her face deeper and darker, the shadows twisting her into something other than human. She flew closer, far too close, clutching a handful of my shirt as she pulled me near.

“Then you’ve made your choice,” she whispered. “You were born to humanity. You may die with them.”

Agatha’s fingers released me. I began to fall.

Chapter 30

My heart pounded furiously. I was frightened, of splattering against the ground, of my life ending so abruptly. Falling felt like an eternity, like a plunge that would never end. I didn’t want to die knowing I’d described my last moments in such tired clichés.

I could still see Agatha above me, a levitating statue in the distance, her face unchanged, unmoved. I didn’t scream. I didn’t want to give her the satisfaction. But I can tell you that I was very nearly shitting myself.

The air whistled as I fell, and partway through I twisted myself around enough to look at the ground. Yeah, probably a bad move. Was this really how fast it went? I could count on one recourse, though. If, by some miracle, I could time things properly, I could try to drop into my own shadow, enter the Dark Room – then somehow deal with the velocity of my fall that way.

“I’ll catch him,” I heard someone bellow. Bastion? Good old Bastion. I knew how that would end, though. His force fields and telekinesis were good for building strong, sturdy structures: huge invisible blades, massive shields. They weren’t made for catching falling people.

“You’ll break every bone in his body,” came a second shout. I recognized the glimmer of Herald’s glasses even from afar.

Could Mason fly up and catch me? Hah. He was a nephilim, wasn’t he? Maybe he had the gift of flight. Wishful thinking. Maybe he was hiding a pair of wings under there. More wishful thinking. He pulled his shirt off the day we met. All he had on his back were more of those tattoos and glyphs he’d inherited from his father.

Almost there now, I thought. Close enough to the ground that I could hear Vanitas grumbling in pain, somewhere within the Boneyard. At least I knew he was fine. Would my shadow even be big enough for me to fit, though? Would it even work?

More importantly, was the Dark Room going to respond?

I should have tried sooner. I reached out, knocking, rapping on its dark chamber with my fingers – and nothing. I did hear cackling from far above me. Agatha’s laughter. She was inhibiting my link to the Dark Room somehow. Fuck. Go figure.

That was it, then. No hope. I closed my eyes and waited to smash my body into the ground. Man, I wish I could have told Herald goodbye.

Then something happened. My descent slowed, like something had reached out to nullify gravity itself. Something warm cradled my skin. I opened my eyes, shocked to find myself smothered in a huge web of pale orange flames. Carver had caught me.

“Oh wow,” I yelled. “Holy shit, Carver, thank you so – ”

I didn’t get to finish. Within seconds I plunged into something soft and exceedingly cold, something that felt like – was that snow? I sputtered as bits of it filled my mouth. I guess I hadn’t noticed Herald firing out a massive mound of snow to soften what was left of my fall. I pushed up against the snow, staggering as it shifted under my weight, trying to find my footing. Strong hands picked me up off my feet, and I came face to face with Herald.

“You okay?” he said, his

eyes driving hard into mine, scanning me for signs of injury.

“My hero,” I mumbled. “How the hell am I still alive?”

“My spell slowed your fall,” Carver said. “Long enough to buy Mr. Igarashi time to produce this soft, fine bedding upon which you shall soon meet your death anyway, if you do not prepare.”

I looked up into the air, once again aware of Agatha’s threat. I’d expected her to teleport herself to the ground to meet us, but she took the long way, savoring her descent as she hovered slowly down.

“How inventive,” Agatha said. “How industrious mankind can be when it comes to finding ways to survive, of finding ways to help each other. How curious.”

Carver stepped forward, raising his head. “You speak as if you were never human yourself.”

I was only just getting used to how Agatha’s temperament could turn on a dime. She glared at Carver, her face once more warping into something monstrous. “I speak as someone who has transcended the bounds of human life, of mortal fragility. How unfortunate that the same cannot be said of you and your miscreants.”

She gestured at the ground, and the floor began to rumble. How many times had the Boneyard been shaken by some infernal earthquake? I wondered how Carver could possibly sustain our home’s structural integrity. And Agatha wasn’t fucking around. Little cracks were appearing in the stone floor. If they widened and turned into fissures, we would fall straight into the abyss.

Then Agatha thrust her palm forward, and a wave of power came crashing into us. It was as if an enormous, invisible hand had swatted us right off the ground. I fell to the floor, winded, the fear creeping up my spine as I looked around myself.

Prudence, Bastion, Gil, Herald, Mason, Romira, Royce, Carver – as varied as our gifts were, how the hell were we supposed to withstand the power of Agatha Black?