Lethe landed on the ground with a shudder. His legs collapsed beneath him. I slid off his back even as I tried to see where the magical wind had come from. Then I spotted Corrine, in the sky, along with four other jinn. Thank God, they had returned from their final transfer of the humans to The Shade. They must have spotted Lethe and I zooming down from the sky like a meteor.
The jinn’s focus remained on the mutants. They hurtled after them while Corrine descended to us. Her eyes bulged with concern.
“Lethe?” she said, touching him on the snout. “Are you okay?”
Lethe groaned.
I stood next to her to get a better look at the ice dragon’s face, and then I cast my eyes over the rest of his body. Corrine moved to examine his tail. It was blistering. She ran her palms down the length of it and muttered something beneath her breath. Lethe flinched and twitched, shifting his body across the ground away from her, but she maintained her grip.
Then the ice dragon relaxed.
“Feel any better?” Corrine asked him.
“Weak,” he mumbled, but at least he was slowly rising to his feet now. He raised his wings, testing them.
“I think we should take you back to The Shade,” Corrine said, biting her lip.
To my surprise, Lethe shook his head. “I’ll stay around the borders of the battle and be careful not to get into such trouble again.”
Lethe lowered his head, apparently expecting me to climb onto his back again. But I needed to be more involved in this battle than Lethe could be. A part of me felt responsible for the IBSI’s mess. It was, after all, my father at the root of it all. This was my battle, possibly more than anyone else’s. Mine, and my mother’s.
“You do what you need to,” I told the dragon. “Don’t worry about me anymore. Just keep safe.”
He nodded before launching into the sky again. His flight was shaky at first, but I suspected that he would not go far. Probably find a nearby skyscraper to perch on until he regained his strength.
I looked at Corrine, who was gazing up at the sky in the direction where the jinn had herded the mutants. I could hear the sounds of the battle, the thick of which was taking place about twenty streets away. The gunshots. The shouts. More screeching of mutants.
“I’m going to return to the others,” Corrine said, rolling up her sleeves. “What’s your plan?”
I wanted to venture through the streets a bit before returning to the sky. I might be able to take out a hunter or two in the process.
“Don’t let me hold you back,” I told her.
“All right.” She lifted into the air, and I was about to go darting down a street to my left when a ball of fiery red zoomed past me. Its heat singed my skin as it hurtled in the direction of Corrine, whose back was turned. I barely had a chance to yell out before it hit her square in the lower back.
She let out a strangled gasp. And then she was falling. Adrenaline exploding in my veins, I jolted forward in an attempt to catch her, but I never got the chance. Another blur whooshed past me: a blur of brown. It was a woman, hurtling through the sky. A woman with limp blonde hair, wearing a long brown dress. She flew to catch Corrine in her arms. She was another witch.
“Loira!” Corrine gasped, even as she began to fight her off.
Whatever spell Loira had thrown at Corrine had weakened her, however. Her attempts to break free from her grip were feeble.
“What are you—?” Corrine demanded, anger, and undertones of pain, coursing through her voice.
Before she could finish her question Loira sent her hurtling toward the side of a building. Corrine crashed through the glass and disappeared from my view. My heart was in my throat as Loira zoomed after her.
What is that witch doing? Where did she come from? I had never seen her before, and she certainly wasn’t a witch of The Shade.
There was no time for questions as I heard the sound of Corrine struggling. “Have you lost your mind?” she shrilled. “What are you gaining by siding with the IBSI?”
I dashed to the entrance of the building and began scaling the stairs. My finger closed around the trigger of my gun. Corrine was powerful. She shouldn’t need my help. But I feared the spell Loira had thrown at her while her back had been turned could have put her at a fatal disadvantage.
As their voices got louder and louder amidst crashing and smashing of glass, I had to bite my tongue to not yell out and attract attention toward myself, averting it from Corrine. If I was to stand any chance of helping Corrine, I needed an element of surprise on my side.
“I owe them a favor,” came Loira’s voice, surprisingly matter-of-fact. “It’s really nothing personal, Corrine.”
The two women shared a grunt as I imagined their spells clashing.
I reached their level, my blood pulsing in my ears as I stopped outside the door of the room they were in. I pressed my ear against it, trying to gauge the right moment to storm in. It was impossible. Although I could estimate their proximity from the door, it hardly helped me.
I just needed to barge in and do what I could.
Steadying my gun, I pulled down the door handle sharply and pushed myself inside. Corrine was clearly losing this battle. She was now pinned up against the wall by Loira, whose hands were closed around her throat. Hands that had begun to glow red, like hot iron.
Raising my gun, I aimed it at Loira’s back. She’d better stay put, or my bullet could go right through to Corrine. I held my breath and pulled the trigger. Loira screamed and jerked backward. She fell to the ground, leaving Corrine to slide down the wall, clasping her throat.
I didn’t know an awful lot about witches and their magic. For all I knew, Loira could quickly heal the bullet wound. As I locked eyes with Corrine, I was about to yell to her to finish the woman off while she could, but Corrine was already on the job. She staggered to her feet. I expected her to throw a curse down at Loira, but instead, she merely withdrew a knife from her belt. Leaping atop the woman, she slit her throat.
I hurried to her, staring down at the blood spilling from Loira’s throat. Corrine’s eyes glittered with anger as she rose, her hands soiled, her chest heaving.
She drew in a shuddering breath. “Thanks, Lawrence, I owe you one,” she said, wiping her sweaty forehead with her forearm. “This meddlesome witch can continue her meddling in Hell.”
Lawrence
Corrine healed herself before she and I returned to the scene of the battle outside. I abandoned my idea of attempting to assist at ground level and instead let her soar me to the roof of a building that was closer to the fight.
It was just as hard to see through the smoke as it had been earlier, perhaps more so now, even despite the breeze carrying much of the smoke away.
I spotted dozens of mutants along with hunters scattered on the ground. My chest constricted as I spotted a fallen dragon, too. By the looks of it, he wasn’t getting up again. Who had been atop that dragon? How many more members of our army had we lost?
I looked toward the area in the sky where I had spotted the press reporters who’d hung back earlier in their choppers. There were still some there now, but less than before. Most appeared too afraid to hover here any longer. And rightly so. The scene was descending into a massacre.
I didn’t think we could maintain this fight for much longer without risking too many lives. Especially when a massive explosion went off about half a mile away from us. I felt the heat of the blast against my skin, and it caused Corrine to retreat backward with me.
It caused the dragons to scatter. They could handle such heat, but their riders couldn’t. I wasn’t sure where Lethe was at this point—I couldn’t make him out anywhere—but I hoped he was staying a good distance away.
Even with our magic wielders, we were outnumbered. There were too many of the IBSI’s army for us to contend with, all of them darting through the sky in different directions at supernatural speed. More of their army had fallen than ours, judging by the sample of land beneath me now. But we weren’t inv
incible.
More than anything I wondered what we truly had to gain by staying here any longer. We wouldn’t eradicate the IBSI. We would only delay their reassertion of power over the city, and more lives would likely be lost in the process. Press were still watching, but I was sure that they would not be able to broadcast anything. It was looking more and more like an unnecessary endeavor.
I gazed at Corrine as the two of us grappled with what our next step should be. Now I saw doubt in the witch’s eyes, doubt that had not been there before, when she’d made her statement that we couldn’t leave. That we had to stay to assert our rebellion and not make reclaiming power so easy for the IBSI.
But now, it seemed that she was realizing what I had feared all along.
We had lost.
The two hours the authorities had given us to prove ourselves were up.
They had returned all power to the IBSI. TSL had been shut out. The golden window of opportunity we had so painstakingly opened up for ourselves had closed.
Our staying here longer seemed like mere stubbornness. And as much as I admired everyone’s courage, there came a point when stubbornness turned into stupidity. I did not want to witness more people fall. Enough had died already due to the IBSI.
We had to recognize when to step back.
“I think we should retreat,” I said, even as it killed me.
Corrine winced as though I’d slapped her. She pursed her lips tightly, her jaw twitching.
Maybe we would come upon another opportunity in the future to prove ourselves. But it wasn’t now. Our timing from the start had been all off kilter. Ultimately, in spite of our intentions, we had caused more harm than good. I could hardly bear to think how many innocent lives had been affected, not just here in Chicago, but elsewhere where my father had ordered the boundaries to be pulled.
Another massive explosion sounded, closer this time, causing the dragons and all of us to retreat further. Then came another, and another—blasts spurting up from the ground like fiery fountains—until TSL had moved back so far, we were almost at the border of the river.
We had, in essence, already retreated.
Corrine gulped. “It looks like you’re right, Lawrence.”
We rose higher in the sky to avoid the scorching heat. Now I spotted Lethe. He had positioned himself atop a skyscraper on the other side of the river. I caught sight of his hunched-over figure, gazing in our direction. At least he’d kept himself a safe distance away.
We arrived among the rest of our group. The horde of mutants encroaching further, we found ourselves backing away together. The witches put up a protective spell around our group, so that they could not get too close while we hovered in the sky.
I gazed around at the ashen faces of my fellow fighters.
Our group was not as small as I’d feared it might be. Everyone I recognized had survived.
“We need to cut our losses now,” I told them, raising my voice above the mutants’ screams. The beasts and the hunters were attempting to break through the protection. They didn’t just want to beat us back; they wanted to end us.
Everyone shared the same expression of deep reluctance. Of pain.
One of the dragons—Jeriad, I thought his name was—bellowed across the river to Lethe. Crap. The mutants had spotted the ice dragon again.
Corrine planted me on the back of Xavier’s dragon before quickly vanishing herself toward Lethe, who had already taken Jeriad’s warning and begun to flee. The witch reached him and put up a protective bubble around the two of them before returning and rejoining us beneath the main protective barrier.
“Are we all together?” Corrine croaked, doing a head count.
“Yes, we’re all here,” Rose’s husband spoke up, a vampire whose name I had forgotten.
“What’s the matter?” one of the hunters roared at us from outside. He had been so bold as to remove his protective mask, and now I realized that I recognized him. Oliver Hyatt was his name. He was one of my father’s right-hand men. So the IBSI’s leaders are acting as foot soldiers after all.
“Scared now?” Oliver continued to taunt. “I wish you’d realized you were out of your depth before you began all this.” Gripping the reins of his mutant, he gestured to the destruction around us—the burning city, littered with bodies and broken buildings. “This is what your so-called holistic approach has led to.”
The dragons rumbled at his words. Everyone tensed. My throat felt tight. I wished that I could shout back a retort, but I wasn’t sure what could be said in this moment. His words were so twisted—completely ignoring the fact that the IBSI had been the ones to let down the boundaries in the first place—it was hard to know where to even start with such a man. Arguing or throwing back harsh words seemed utterly pointless. They’d only bounce off him.
“Go back to your little island and continue your pipe dreams,” Oliver snarled. “Our friends at the press over there have recorded your failure enough to make the world want to hunt you down for your stupidity. I suggest you think carefully before leaving your base again.”
As he pulled on the reins and moved to turn around—apparently realizing that there was no point in continuing to try to get at us with his men while we were protected—Rose called out, “Hey, sir. Where do you think you’re going?”
Oliver, along with the rest of his army who had also started turning to leave, resumed his focus on us, his eyes locking on Rose. His face took on an expression of utter disdain.
“To clean up this mess you have created,” Oliver shot back. “Unless you’d like to battle with us some more? We will oblige.”
Rose glared daggers at him. I frowned as I stared at Grace’s aunt. She had risen to her feet on the back of the dragon she shared with her husband to command Oliver’s attention. I had no idea what was going through her head, why she was even bothering to talk to this piece of crap.
“I would like to ask you a couple of questions first,” she countered. “Then we can talk about another battle.”
I frowned even more deeply.
“What?” Oliver snapped, clearly impatient now.
“What’s your name?”
“What?” Oliver replied, his face contorting with the same confusion as I felt.
Where is Rose going with this?
“It’s a simple question,” Rose retorted.
I half expected him to just turn around, continue on his way and ignore her. But apparently her odd behavior had piqued his interest in some small way.
“Oliver Hyatt,” he replied.
“What would you do if you weren’t working for the IBSI, Oliver?” she asked.
Oliver scoffed. “There is no other calling I would give my life to.”
A wry smile curved the corners of Rose’s mouth. Then she said in a soft voice, “I hope you’re prepared for unemployment, Mr. Hyatt.”
Her eyes rose above his head, and then I realized the cause of Rose’s behavior.
Sweeping toward us like a dark storm in the distance was a throng of Hawks so large it blocked the moonlight.
As the hunters twisted around on their mutants to see what Rose was staring at, their jaws dropped.
It’s not over yet, Father.
It’s not over yet.
Derek
Ibrahim, Horatio and I had an important journey ahead of us. We already had willing accomplices in the supernatural dimension—several species had pledged themselves to our cause, due to our freeing them from the hunters’ grasp a short while ago. Now the time had finally come for us to call upon them.
We needed to gather an army large enough to convince the world that we had the manpower—or rather, the supernatural power—to take over from the IBSI. Not only to protect them from the Bloodless, but also to root out other mischievous supernaturals that the IBSI had still not been all that effective in controlling.
This was possibly the most epic task I had ever faced. But burning within me was deep confidence that we could pull this off. Our day had fi
nally come. As night had for the IBSI.
Our first stop was The Woodlands. With Ibrahim keeping a spell of shadow over me, it didn’t take us long to find a pack of werewolves who recognized me. We had spent a good deal of time here in helping them to drive out the IBSI, and I had met and spoken with many werewolves personally, from many tribes. We came across three members of the Turnfur tribe. We traveled by magic with them from pack to pack until we had gathered an army of hundreds of werewolves. Victoria was supposed to be hanging around somewhere here, with Mona and Brock. But we didn’t come across her. Ironically, our last stop ended up being Blackhall Mountain, where they informed us that Victoria and Bastien had already left for The Shade. We must’ve narrowly missed them. The Blackhalls had appointed a new leader and were in the process of mourning due to recently losing some pack members. But they would be the last to forget all that they owed us. They joined us, too.
Once we were finished in The Woodlands, we moved next to The Trunchlands. The werewolves agreed to wait on the shore of the ogres’ land while Ibrahim, Horatio and I ventured inside. It became apparent that the royal mountain kingdom that had previously been abandoned had been reoccupied. Thus we did not have to travel far or wide to find the king.
We entered the mountain and were met by some aggressive ogres who did not realize the deal we had made with their king, but once they had calmed down, they agreed to lead us to him. We followed them up through the mountain to the royal wing. Anselm Raskid emerged from his quarters, and on seeing us, his eyes instantly darkened. Apparently he had grown a tad complacent in the time that had passed since we had freed him and his people. He had probably been hoping that we would never call upon his help in the end. He’d been wrong.
“It is time for you to return a favor,” I told him, looking the tall, rough-skinned man seriously in the eyes. “I am certain that you remember your promise.”
He nodded, a slight grimace forming on his lips. “Yes, King Derek Novak. I have not forgotten.”