King's Gambit (24 page)

It was almost as if I could feel my heart brushing against the grain with each beat. I chalked it up to being overdramatic and forced myself to focus on anything else. If I didn’t, I’d panic. I couldn’t afford to panic, not when Alex was still in danger.

The man who threw me and his two friends – the guy who held the gun against Alex’s head and the gorilla wannabe who pounded his fists at everything – stalked over to me. I speared one through the head, but the others were too hard to see past the jagged piece of wood sticking out of me. I wanted to pull it out but couldn’t risk the blood loss fucking me up even more than it already had.

This reminded me of the night with Lucas. And the night almost six months ago. This was the third time in half a year I’d walked into an abandoned factory only to face off against a gang of bad guys and get stabbed through the chest. I wonder if I could get a doctor’s note excusing me from all hunts that led to warehouses.

A gunshot rang out, followed by five more, and blinding pain radiated all over my leg, throbbing like the world’s most love-struck heart. I think there was laughter, but it was hard to hear anything over my screaming nerves. At least they haven’t shot me in the head. Yet.

I had no intention of giving them that chance. I threw a fireball ahead of me. It missed, shooting forward and hitting the ceiling. Gorilla-Man grabbed my arms and lifted me off my extra-large stake. Blood rushed out of my mouth as I was pulled free. He threw me to the ground and joined his friends in kicking me. The pain was nigh unbearable. My vision went white and the sounds around me became muffled. It was all just one big
hurt
– there was no other way to describe it.

I knew I wouldn’t be able to maintain the barrier around Alex in this condition – it would fade away soon if it hadn’t already. At least all the thugs were focused on smashing my face in; there weren’t any left to attack him. A targeted hit had me spitting out teeth before another kick broke my nose. My limbs wouldn’t listen to me; I couldn’t even curl into myself to protect my face. My body may have been broken, but my mind was still very much alive – even if I couldn’t physically push through the pain, I could break through any mental barriers.

Focus. Focus.
Focus.
Everything was far away. Pain, vision, sound – all of it. All I had to do was gather my power inward and form it into one giant sphere. It took time, but the sphere eventually formed, its presence so dense I could feel it weigh against me. Taking comfort in its solidity, I held onto it for a moment before bringing it over my body and crushing it.

My plan worked – I could hear the force sphere hit the two men above me, the sound of their bones shattering to dust reminding me of sand smashing against a wall. It would have been immensely satisfying had I been coherent enough to move the sphere farther away from me before breaking it.

While the magic ripped through those men, its proximity also caused it to plow through my ribs and hipbone. My bones weren’t powderized, which I was grateful for. They were broken, however, and wouldn’t start to heal until my regenerative abilities finished closing up the hole in my chest – y’know, the one spurting out enough blood to cover my entire body so I looked like a giant tampon. Flesh began tugging itself together once my lungs finished regenerating. It felt like something was rummaging around my insides, but I’d live. The thought brought a weary smile to my face.

Everything was silent for a moment, and I almost forgot what was going on. The slamming of a door woke me up, but my injuries kept me down. I rolled onto my stomach, praying my insides wouldn’t slosh out, and crawled in the direction I remember Alex being. In this haze, I didn’t have the mental capacity to navigate around the bodies, so I crawled over the ones in my way like a blind caterpillar. Through the detritus, I made out a vague, humanoid outline. I couldn’t speak with a broken jaw, though, no matter how much I wanted to call out.

“Morgan.” A figure appeared in my peripheral. I sent out a burst of fire, more a warning than anything, and it stepped out of my line of sight. “It’s Marcus. You look like, well, ground beef, for lack of a better term.”

If I could speak, I’d have commented on the irony before asking about Alex.

Marcus tried to roll me over, grimacing when he saw the state of my torso. “I’m going to untie your friend. He seems fine, by the way,” he told me as my body tensed. “Just rest here.”

As I laid there, letting my body knit itself back together, the world started to clear up once more. I never thought I’d be so happy to see a dark, dirty factory, but the sight almost brought tears to my eyes. The only thing more beautiful than this was finally being able to see Alex through the pain induced blur. Marcus was pulling feebly at Alex’s bindings, apparently having lied to me about how well he was holding up. Did he really think
now
was the time to play macho? Alex looked as banged up as he had before I had Rambo’d shit up, but there was a weary smile on his face as he looked at me. Then, it vanished, his expression going from relieved to horrified in less than a second.

A shadow blanketed me. There was a rush of air before my body spasmed, a heavy pressure shoving against my back. I couldn’t be sure, but it felt like I’d been re-impaled. Great, make that
four
times. Maybe I’d make it into the
Guinness Book of Records
. Blood I didn’t know I still had leaked from every possible orifice. At this point, I’d probably bled enough to feed a small vampire village.

“You,” Flavius ground out above me, “all of you, you’ve ruined everything! All my plans were perfectly laid out. I had that pissant Heinrich kidnapped and tortured for dirt that would help me overthrow Marcus. After I took power, I learned someone in my parliament was a traitor!” He twisted whatever he was holding around, and Alex screamed something I couldn’t hear over the feeling of my innards being violated.

Flavius continued his tirade, sounding more and more unhinged with each word. “I told Zhen. I could trust her; she had no connection to Marcus. She told me to look at Robert, that he’s been stealing from me, and that I shouldn’t keep anyone on my parliament if I didn’t trust them. That meant getting rid of everyone but her and Allison. I agreed, and she told me she’d take care of it. That was when you stumbled into the picture.” He wrenched his weapon out and kicked me onto my back. I couldn’t even manage a cry of pain. “Zhen’s agents reported your presence, and she assured me she’d take care of it. Then,
you
killed
her.
And who do I walk in on Sergei calling? You. It’s always you! You’ve got your grubby little fingers in all my affairs! All my hopes and ambitions, you’ve ruined it all! You–”

I had half a mind to wait and see if he’d say “You damn kids and your miserable dog,” but I wasn’t in any mood to enjoy, well, anything. How the hell are his failures my fault? Still, me falling into all those things was pretty uncanny; I guess coincidences
were
possible. Whatever. Introspection later, murder now. I shot a feeble fireball at him, which he easily sidestepped. I threw out a few more, but my concentration was shot up even worse than my leg.

Flavius strode away from me and pulled a gun off one of the ghouls’ bodies. He fired off a round, shooting Marcus straight between the eyes. The former king’s body jerked as if he’d been electrocuted before collapsing backwards in a heavy heap. When he turned the weapon on Alex, I opened my mouth to scream, causing my jaw to crack back into place, which made me scream for a completely different reason.

“Leave him alone,” I gasped out.

Flavius turned back to me. His normally immaculate blonde hair was sticking out in odd places, small curls forming around his temples. Despite the scuffle, his tailored suit wasn’t ripped, though it did hang lopsided over his frame. There was a maniacal glint his eyes, a spark of madness, and I knew there was nothing I could say that would bring him back.

“You see, Miss Maxwell, I’ve learned many things over the course of my existence.” Each word came out as a frenzied pant. “One of what I consider to be the most important of those lessons is this: if you want to hurt, to
destroy,
a man, you don’t kill him, you kill his family – you take away the people he cares about. That’s what I’m going to do to you. You’re going to see Marcus burn to ash. But first, you’re going to watch me put a bullet through your lover’s head.”

“Don’t–” I cut off, coughing up bile, blood, and saliva.

“Take comfort,” he crooned. “His death will be painless. Yours won’t.”

Everything seemed to slow down. Alex, still bound, was trying to inch away, wormlike in his futile squirming. Flavius walked over to him, back straight as if he were about to take the stage. He stopped a foot away and aimed the weapon right at Alex’s head. There were muffled sounds around me. In the back of my mind, I registered the noise as me screaming, begging, but I couldn’t consciously process the thought.

Flavius cocked the gun.

That’s when everything sped back up.

Red flooded my vision, and something from my very core surged forward with a violent scream. Flames roared, and when I could see again, everything around me – including the king himself – was engulfed in hellfire.

18

The change from red to green almost made it look like Christmas in here. For a moment, my mind drifted off to images of spending the holidays with Alex. What kind of gift should I get him? I sucked at buying presents – probably because I always preferred getting cash. Then, a stray spark of hellfire hit my arm and all peaceful illusion was lost. The pain was as bad as when I melted through the top of my hand while breaking into Wright’s safe – and this was just a splash. Fuck hellfire.

My legs shook like an earthquake, but I managed to push myself up, holding back puke at the sight of the bullets that had been in my leg. My body had forced them out in the healing process, which was good, but didn’t make the snubbed, blood-soaked pieces of metal look any less macabre.

Ignoring the pain, I started looking for Alex and Marcus. Considering the condition I last saw them in, I doubt they’d moved. I dragged myself over to where Flavius had disintegrated. The flames were spreading with a ravenous hunger, devouring more and more of the warehouse’s metal carcass with each second. The fire was hotter than, well, Hell, but taking my jacket off would have been way too painful – not to mention a waste of my time – so I suffered through it. Flames licked at me, like grasping hands trying to pull me in, to consume me. The air was so thin, the fire making everything claustrophobic, I had to take giant gulps of air just to feel like I was breathing properly. How long could someone survive before smoke inhalation killed them? Why the fuck did I, a semi-pyromaniac, not know the answer to that? Where did this even come from? Was a demon here? An infernalist?

“Alex!” My voice was inaudible against the roaring inferno.

Something ice cold wrapped around my wrist, and I swung a fist in the pressure’s direction. A flash of auburn, striking against the unholy green fire, dropped down as I hit air. Crouching there with panicked grey eyes was Noah. He was cloaked in a barrier so amped up it was practically opaque; if there was anything that could whip a vampire into a fear-induced frenzy, it was fire. Why was he in here, then? Why would he willingly enter a burning building? Why was I looking this in the mouth?

When he saw I wasn’t going to take another swing at him, he pulled me into the perimeter of his barrier. The magical energy thrummed, beating wildly throughout the barrier, the sound so loud it almost completely blocked out the roaring hellfire. His magic was panicked, rushing around like it was trying to find a way, any way, out. His grip was cutting off the circulation to my hand and his eyes kept darting around; he was trying to avoid looking at the flames while simultaneously being drawn to the movements of their unearthly dance.

“Noah!” I shook him but only succeeded in making myself dizzy. I wanted to ask why he was here, but right now I gave zero fucks about anything that didn’t involve saving Alex. It solved the mystery of why there was hellfire, at least, though why he summoned it if he couldn’t control it was beyond me; he didn’t strike me as the kind to do things without forethought. Maybe he panicked once he approached the flames? “Alex and Marcus are still here. Marcus was shot.”

He nodded along absently, eyes still racing around. “Where?”

“In the head.” I tugged him toward where they’d been.

“No, where are they?” His words came out in soft breaths, but thanks to the almost soundproof barrier, I managed to pick up the words.

Using him as a willowy crutch, I led Noah to where the hellfire was raging most violently: the point of ignition, Flavius. The closer we got, the tighter Noah held onto me. Despite my worry for Alex, I tried to accommodate him by walking as far from the fire as possible. He was here, supposedly, to help me. I wasn’t about to let him die. And if he did try to betray me…

That problem could be solved with a simple shove – the hellfire would eat through his barrier eventually.

Noah pointed to an odd shadow a foot away. “There.”