Into the Fire

He didn’t give me a pitying look, which was good because I couldn’t stand one more of those. Yet from his expression, he obviously didn’t think I was very smart.

“Pitting a mid-level spell against this form of advanced grave magic? A Chihuahua would have better luck surviving a death match against a werewolf.”

That was a firm no, but damned if I’d give up. I spun back around to Mencheres.

“Come on, you don’t know any magic that can break this? You’re over four and a half thousand years old, you have to know something that can help!”

He drew in a breath to reply, and my cry of “Wait!” stopped him. The answer was suddenly so clear, I should have thought of it first thing. “Let me in the warehouse. I can break this.”

“How?” four voices asked in unison.

I was already heading over to the warehouse, wincing at the heat that poured off the building. This could work, if I didn’t burn to death before I reached Vlad.

“The necromancer tried to cast the same spell on me, blue-handed grip and all, but it didn’t take for the same reason that the Remnant attack didn’t do anything to me months ago. Regular magic and necromancy-infused magic might stick to me, but for some reason, the natural energy of my voltage makes me immune to the dark energies of grave magic. That means all I have to do is fill Vlad with enough of my voltage to make him immune to it, and break the spell!”

Mencheres’s expression went from compassionately grim to cautiously hopeful, then back to compassionately grim.

“Even if your theory is correct, you might not survive to do this. The fire grows in intensity with every new memory cycle. Moreover, I have a barricade around Vlad to protect him against the necromancers trapped inside the building, but I will not be able to do the same for you, and they will surely try to kill you if you enter.”

“Tell me something I don’t know,” I muttered. “I’ve got a plan for that, too, but we can’t waste any more time by me explaining it. Just trust me, Mencheres, and let me in there so I can break this spell before it gets Vlad killed.”

“Leila.” Marty caught up to me and grabbed my hand. “Don’t go in there, please.” His gaze started to shine with pink tears. “I already lost one daughter. I can’t bear to lose you, too.”

Maximus said nothing, yet he looked equally pessimistic about my survival chances, and Ian’s expression said that he was downgrading his opinion of me from stupid to outright deranged.

“I’m not going to die,” I said, and hoped that was true. “But this is the only solution that doesn’t end with Vlad’s guaranteed death. Yes, it’s dangerous, but I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t try, so”—I flashed a lopsided grin at Ian—“Chihuahua-versus-werewolf odds or no, I’m doing this.”

“You know it’s madness,” he said in response.

“And Vlad wouldn’t want you to sacrifice your life for his,” Maximus added, finally breaking his silence.

I was done debating with them. Every second spent out here downgraded my chances to worse than what they already were.

“Enough. This is my decision, and I’ve made it. Mencheres, either open a door for me or I’ll cut out an opening myself.”

He met my gaze. For a tense moment, I braced to hit him with all the voltage I had if he tried to restrain me. Then he said, “Let me know when you have dealt with the necromancers and I will drop the barricade around Vlad,” and an opening appeared in the side of the warehouse as if the metal had become curtains that someone drew back. Despite the instant blast of heat, I ran through it without a backward glance.

“That’s love for you,” I heard Ian say. “Glad I’m too corrupt to fall victim to that form of intelligence lobotomy.”

“I hope you fall head over heels for someone who insists on monogamy!” I called out right before Mencheres closed the metal slit behind me. Then a roar of fire claimed all my attention as a huge swath of flames poured out of the door across the room and headed right toward me.

Chapter 38

I hit the floor, keeping low enough that the fire passed over me instead of hitting me. Even though the flames didn’t directly touch me, their heat was so intense that my skin started to blister. After a few minutes, I had to fight an instinctual urge to crawl back to the same wall I’d entered through and bang on it until Mencheres let me out.

Yet I didn’t. The large fire swath dissipated after another minute, which meant that Vlad’s memory must now be on the “staring silently” side of the endless loop. That gave me a few minutes before he would start burning things again. I got up and headed farther inside the long, empty room that led to the door marking the club’s official entrance.

The two bouncers who’d previously guarded it were long gone, but a few charred bodies remained near the entrance. These couldn’t be the necromancers; they had been pounding on the walls a mere few minutes ago, so they were still alive. They must be some poor patrons who’d either gotten trampled in the stampede to escape, or caught by one of those fire-hose sprays of flames that, moments ago, had been jetting out from the open door. The fire would only get worse, as Mencheres had said, but I took consolation in the fact that there were sections of this room that were still untouched by flames.

Maybe it wasn’t just the constant resets as Vlad’s memory rewound to the beginning of that awful moment and interrupted his power from reaching its full potential. Maybe, just maybe, a thread of Vlad’s consciousness remained, and he was fighting back against the spell. ns class="adsbygoogle" style="display:block" data-ad-client="ca-pub-7451196230453695" data-ad-slot="9930101810" data-ad-format="auto" data-full-width-responsive="true">