Casey’s face fell. “Ah,” he said.
I swallowed. “Yeah.” I shook my head. “Something’s not right. Dulcie would never do something like that. She was a Regulator for the ANC,” I continued as I glanced up at him, wanting him to understand that whatever he’d observed from her wasn’t really my best friend. “She was the best at what she did.” I realized I was shaking and squeezed Blue a little harder. He wriggled out of my arms and turned to start licking me in the face. I smiled and ruffled the fur on his back.
“So I’ve heard,” he answered, but he didn’t sound convinced, which, of course, made sense, given what he’d just seen.
I sighed. “What was the reason you were looking for her?”
Casey started petting Blue too. “To ask her some questions about her father.”
“Why? He’s dead.”
Casey nodded. “That he is, but his network is still very much alive. We hoped Dulcie might tell us something about his colleagues, since she was briefly on the inside.”
“Um … with all due respect, Special Agent,” I started slowly, “Netherworldian crime lords are the sole responsibility of the ANC. Aren’t they?” They were unless the American government just decided to up its game in light of our recent failures, which I couldn’t blame them for.
“When they are contained to the Netherworld, yes,” he answered. “But now, your ANCs belong to dangerous creatures, and they’re putting Earthly civilians at risk. That’s when it becomes my job.” He looked like he expected me to start yelling at him or something, but I just nodded. We’d been defeated, I already knew that. Our ANCs were mostly, if not all, now under the power of the Darkness. Knight and Bram were missing, and I was three blocks from a building Dulcie O’Neil had razed to the ground with powers she never had before. We were clean out of our league and then some.
Casey got a look in his eyes then, a sense of cold, hard determination, the likes of which I’d only ever seen before in Knight. “Sam, we could be just a two-person army here. None of our agents in any ANCs located on the western seaboard have reported back in weeks, some have not for months, and half of your lower administration is dead. If we’re lucky, Caressa’s ANC is still standing, but I sincerely doubt that. This ANC was a final blow somehow. It was big, it was loud, and it was flashy. Your people won’t be able to help us. I’m all you’ve got right now, and you’re all I’ve got, so we’ll have to work together.”
The word alone hammered itself through the empty space in my skull. I nodded before asking shakily, “What do we do now?”
Casey looked confused and pushed his glasses up higher on his nose as he frowned at me. “Really?”
“What do you mean ‘really’?” I answered with a shrug and a frown.
“Sorry,” he said with a lopsided grin that made him look all of twelve years old. “I just … I was expecting a little opposition. Our departments typically don’t get along particularly well.”
I smiled sadly at him. “I think it’s a little late in the ‘Darkness Takes Over the World’ game for a pissing contest.”
He chuckled. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”
“Tell me what you already know,” I said, barely managing to keep my voice steady.
Casey sighed, running his hand over his face. He looked like he hadn’t slept in a while, which was probably the truth and then some. “The Brokenview ANC has been compromised,” he said, “taken down from the inside by the insurgents Caressa was fighting for the last few months. Agent Knightley Vander isn’t taking my calls, and more than half of our agents in the ANC have gone dark, suggesting to me that every American-run ANC is no longer under our control.” He paused. “I can’t comment on our foreign ANCs at this time.”
Well, shit! “Knight isn’t answering your calls because Dulcie was kidnapped by the Darkness more than a week ago,” I said. “I haven’t heard from him either.”
Casey frowned, but he looked anything but surprised. “Why didn’t he call that in?”
“He abandoned his post to go looking for her himself,” I answered. “He probably didn’t want that on the record. And we didn’t know the Darkness was responsible for Dulcie’s disappearance until after Knight located Bram, and by then …” I grimaced. “By then, there was no force in hell that could have persuaded Knight and Bram to turn around.” I prayed their recklessness hadn’t cost both of them their lives. “They’re both stubborn, to say the least.”
Casey shook his head, grimacing. “Vander always has to be the hero.” He sighed. “So, Dulcie—she was the one throwing … hellfire?”
“Drawing on the original inferno in the Netherworld,” I said. “Supposedly. It’s just a name for the spell.”
He nodded, but only looked more confused. “Do we have any idea what the Darkness wants with Dulcie? Does Dulcie have any information they would find valuable?”
“Well, she was Melchior’s daughter, but that’s her only connection. And it’s not like her father played much of a role in her life. So basically, no, she wouldn’t have known anything.” I sighed, long and hard. “If all the ANCs are gone …” Fuck, that hurt to say. I swallowed. “Then the Darkness wouldn’t have needed her to secure the portals. Maybe they think they can use her somehow to unite her father’s people? I don’t know.” I frowned. “But …”
“What?” Casey asked.
I bit my lip and shook my head. I hadn’t and still couldn’t make sense of this next part. “She, Dulcie said she was doing all of this for her mother, but her mother has been dead for more than a decade. And she mentioned something about the ‘old way.’ I don’t …” My head started throbbing and I cut myself off, groaning. “None of it makes any sense, to be honest.”
“It appeared she was working directly for the Darkness,” Casey said flatly.
“I know,” I answered as I shook my head. “But she isn’t with the Darkness, I know she isn’t. She would never do that.” The silent argument that she had done exactly that throbbed between us.
“She’s worked with their kind before,” he said.
“Strictly under duress,” I replied, trying to obliterate any further doubt, but I couldn’t muster the anger it required. All I could think about was Dulcie, wreathed in silver fire with her hand around my throat. “I don’t understand, she, she would never …”
“I know,” he said slowly, looking pained, “I know. Sam, Vander’s told me a lot about Dulcie, and if there’s one thing I believe for certain, it’s that she does catastrophically stupid things to protect the people she loves.” He sighed. “So, yeah, this doesn’t exactly fit the bill.”
I nodded, trying to keep my growing panic at bay. “After six years of working with her, I’d say I know her pretty well. Not only that, but she’s also my best friend.” Or she was.
“Do you think maybe Vander went rogue and Dulcie is protecting him?” Casey asked as I immediately shook my head.
“Knight wouldn’t go rogue. He’s as dedicated to his position as Dulcie is. And even if I agreed with you for the sake of this argument, Dulcie tried to kill me. Protecting Knight, if he did go rogue, and trying to kill me just don’t add up. So, no, I don’t believe she’s protecting Knight and, no, I don’t believe he’s gone rogue either.”
“Okay, argument made and won.”
“She had this look in her eyes like … like she didn’t even know who I was. Like she was …” possessed was what I wanted to say, but the word stayed lodged in my throat.
Casey nodded slowly. “Any idea what might have caused that?”
I sighed shakily. “A hundred things. Arsonflower overdose, prolonged exposure to belisdra ordum or any of its sister flower spores, pseudo-physical magical influx, a bad reaction to a different creature’s blood in her system … But any of those would just inhibit her memory; they don’t explain how the fire …” I trailed off, reserving my comment that she looked like something straight out of Poltergeist to myself.
“What do you mean?” Casey asked, leaning forward.
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“Hellfire is supposed to be blue,” I responded, “and sometimes green if you’re dealing with an extremely capable wizard. Dulcie’s was white, which means her magic was strong enough to burn away all the color, and the only creatures powerful enough to do that are either in permanent hibernation or dead. Dulcie couldn’t be that powerful. She’s a fairy, not a freaking goddess. She isn’t capable of any of the things she just did; it just isn’t possible.” Then I swallowed. Hard. “Unless …” It almost didn’t deserve my consideration, but after everything Dulcie had ever done to protect us … Dammit! Maybe it wasn’t so farfetched. If Knight were still missing, and Dulcie was here setting Splendor on fire …
“Unless?” prodded Casey.
I swallowed. “Unless she’s done something catastrophically stupid,” I said. Like giving herself over to the power of an endo-ethereal demon from the original inferno. Or fusing with another equally powerful creature. Or even by drinking diluted ichor from one of a hundred goddess pools in the wild, things that would definitely kill you if you didn’t have some extremely powerful help. “The Darkness must have made her do something,” I said, and I felt my throat closing up. “I, I don’t know what, but if this is what she can do, it’s really bad. Like, nuclear meltdown bad.”
“That sounds really bad.”
I almost laughed, but the gurgle that came out of me was full of panicked bitterness. I could feel myself teetering on the edge of total hysteria as I took a deep, long breath, digging my fingers into the loose dirt beside me. “It is,” I said, drawing out each word, forcing myself to be calm.
“Are you okay?”
Oops, apparently that wasn’t working. I opened my eyes and found Casey’s fascinatingly warm brown eyes fixed on me, brimming with concern. I noticed his five o’clock shadow which I hadn’t realized before. I imagined him with a full-fledged beard and couldn’t stop myself from laughing when the image I conjured looked like a lumberjack flip-calendar.
“That’s a no,” he said, and I realized I was cackling like, well, like a witch. I couldn’t seem to get hold of myself, even long enough to tell him I was fine (which I wasn’t).
Great, I thought, now I’m going insane. I guess stress, sleep deprivation, too much caffeine, and nearly being murdered by your best friend will do that to you. Who knew?
“Do you think you can walk?” he asked. I realized the sirens were getting closer, and, on further inspection, so was the fire. I felt a cold jolt of electricity creeping up my spine that meant somebody was using an unanchored—and therefore hilariously unstable—portal.
“No,” I said, “but we need to get moving.” I started to push myself up, digging my nails into the bark of the tree. My side screamed in agony and I felt a fresh supply of blood soaking the underside of my bandages. I collapsed back into the grass. “Fuck,” I muttered, sucking in the air through my teeth.
Casey was on his feet a second later, looping my arm around his neck. “Come on.” He stood up slowly. My muscles stretched and groaned, but the nerves around my ribs seemed content to bitch about it more quietly.
“You good?” he asked.
“Fan-fucking-tastic, let’s move,” I said, and Blue followed right behind us. He rolled his eyes and we started walking—shuffling like drunken disco dancers, actually, but that’s not the point. No, the point was the rush of unnamable energy that struck me from nowhere, and the sharp pulse that followed.
It slammed us both to the ground. A wind overwhelmed us like a tsunami with unmitigated power streaming out in all directions. I heard glass shattering, stone breaking, and something piercing my side, digging through the bandages like a dagger. I felt the stiches splitting, and saw my blood flowing onto the ground, staining it black. The buildings around us trembled and cracked, while the bark of hundred-year-old trees split down their centers. From everywhere came the sounds of metallic screeching of cars that were swerving and braking to avoid the irregular shafts of concrete thrusting up toward the sky.
Trying desperately to ignore the pain, I propped myself up on an elbow. Only after I was sure that Casey and Blue were both accounted for and alive, did I dare to look over my shoulder. A grey cloud full of liquid fire billowed up from the ANC, flattening itself beneath the underside of the sky. Colorful flashes like lightning illuminated its insides, and the reds and yellows and cobalt blues of highly flammable potions went up in smoke.
My stomach twisted in on itself. If the building hadn’t been gone before, it sure as hell was now. Power surge, I thought, but for a moment, I couldn’t connect it to anything. It just stuck in my brain like a painful thorn, shouting something through a bullhorn I couldn’t understand. Power surge, I thought again, and then, wormhole. Power surge, wormhole. Maybe … I couldn’t concentrate long enough to start the thought, so I had to forget about finishing it.
“Oh what the hell,” said Casey. He was on his knees, looking around at the fresh carnage and up at the steadily rising black smoke. For a long time, the only sound was that of the breaking earth and car alarms, along with rushing water that streamed from all of the demolished hydrants and hissing steam from the ruptured pipes.
“What was that?” he asked, but the way he said it made me think he didn’t really expect me to answer. It was a question to the universe, a general what-the-flying-fuck-is-going-on? addressed to no one in particular.
For whatever it was worth, I knew what was happening. The spell was called Singularity, and it did exactly what it sounds like it might do—compress massive amounts of energy into a fine point, and release that energy in an unmitigated expulsion of force and fury.
We limped away. Blood streamed down my forehead and face, coloring everything I saw in a sticky, watery, cherry color. I stared at the ground, watching the cracks in the road, the ravines swimming in sewage and grass and stone, the shadows of metal and rubber and smoking steel, the stench of burning skin coupled with the broken voices that continued screaming without any intelligible words.
I didn’t lose consciousness, not completely. I kept moving, and my mind became an objective observer. I saw everything without being there, all the darkness our world had inflicted here imbued me with a hollowness I’d never experienced before. A deep, yawning blackness in the pit of my stomach wound its way like smoke and felt like acid ink when it climbed up the back of my throat.
I scoffed when I realized what it was. The acceptance of defeat. The realization that we underestimated the enemy, that our mistake has cost everyone we know their lives. Your body is ready to finally clock in for the end of the world. I felt like Atlas, struggling to support the whole world’s incompetency, which was now settling on my shoulders. Of course I couldn’t do this. If Caressa and Knight and Christina and Dia and Dulcie fucking O’Neil couldn’t do it, then of course, neither could I.
Gelvie’s dead, I thought. Along with everyone else, but hers was the face that haunted me in my head. I didn’t know why.
CHAPTER SIX
Dulcie
Standing in the ruins of the ANC, I savored the smell of burning skin still hanging in the air. An officer in a red uniform, a fireman, and several of his crimson compatriots ran past me with hoses and water buckets and axes. Fire blazed around them, broad walls of liquid red reaching for the stars. Between the shattered glass and busted stone of collapsed buildings, people ran and screamed, but their yelling was fainter now than it had been before. Most of the people making the noise were now dead, leaving Splendor in a state of sublime silence.
The last sounds that remained were the ones that only I could hear: the labored breathing of men dying under slabs of concrete set to the misty haze of busted fire hydrants. I spotted the quivering excess of the scar the wormhole left in space and time. I could see, if I squinted, a transparent white line strung across the sky. I could have opened it, if I wanted to, and let the emptiness swallow whatever remained.
My fingers twitched at the idea, but I resisted the urge. Mother said to wait, so wait I would. There would be
plenty of time for more carnage when all of this was over and done.
A line of blue and white cars pulled up to the curb—the police, detectives, and other crime scene personnel had apparently survived the collapse of their station. I watched them exit their cars with obvious disinterest, illuminated by the fire and the blinking red and blue lights. They pulled things out from their bags and car trunks: guns and clipboards and equipment, but what they thought that could learn from the flattened earth around me, I had no idea. They all knew there was magic, and would have been interested in little else.
Fine. Let them wave their toys in the air, let them confirm what they already suspected. Maybe it would speed things along. I intertwined my fingers together and let my arms hang limp as I observed the scene.
The whole world was a rather unseemly grey, as though a storm cloud had fallen from the sky and imbued its color on everything it touched. Smoke was everywhere, the thin, dispersed fog of a thousand different fires burning across the city. Bodies littered the broken concrete, the only other color in the whole world. Among them was a woman, a slight creature with a clipboard clasped tightly in her crumpled fingers and the look of petrified shock on her face. Red hair fanned out on the ground behind her, singed at the edges. Her skin was charred, her clothing burnt away to nearly nothing. I tilted my head and knelt before her, touching her freezing skin—which was almost warm, compared to mine. The stillness in her veins filled the air around her, turning it cold. It was a rather curious quirk of witches’ blood that I’ve never fully understood.
The poor creature had a name tag. The only legible word on it, however, was Moon. A transfer, a call-in, perhaps to examine the air around the wormhole Jax used to save me. Though I could not explain it, something in my heart suddenly shattered. Then, the name Gelvie began to drum between my ears incessantly.