Summoned Chaos (32 page)

Blue light and frigid winds exploded from the tear, bathing Rancin in an eerie, unnatural glow.

The portal vibrated against my Skill with alarming force. The power of Pierce’s death stabilized the opening like no other rift I’d encountered before—solidified the edges in the equivalent of supernatural concrete.

“Come, destroyers!” Rancin shouted into the maw, her Skill resonating like a live wire. “Come and feast upon the flesh of a new world.”

Distant, beastly screams echoed off the interior of the Cathedral.

I recoiled in horror. No wonder these people were still alive. They were her audience. And her next set of victims.

My initial instinct was to attack, but the safety of the civilians took priority. With Rancin focused on the rift, I slid around the podium and into the seats. Several people spotted me, but I held my finger to my lips, then gave them a thumbs-up.

“Tell everyone to head to the front doors,” I whispered into the ear of the nearest young woman. “I’ll cover you.”

“I can’t move,” she said.

I placed my hand on her arm, feeling with my Skill. The pressure of a spell pushed back. It was powerful, but with Rancin’s attention diverted with the summoning, she had lost some of her grip on the spell holding the civilians.

With a flick of my own powers, I snipped the ethereal bindings that held the woman, then worked my way through the small crowd.

One by one the prisoners filed out of the hall. The young woman I’d spoken to held herself together, guiding everyone to the far wall. I kept glancing between Rancin and the escaping prisoners, praying that the Elder wouldn’t hear.

For the first time in what felt like forever, my luck held.

As the group disappeared from view, I drew my Glock from within my robes. Rancin might think she was ready for a Skilled attack, but she likely hadn’t planned on dealing with a Normal weapon.

And I had the element of surprise.

I eased around the wooden partition of the choir seats, moving slowly. As I reached the end, I slid behind a beautiful piano and through a set of doors into a side worship area.

Positive I was finally close enough to hit her, I leaned against the doorframe, aimed, and inhaled deeply to calm my thundering heart.

“You deserve this,” I muttered and pulled the trigger.

The Glock boomed, the sound echoing off the marble floors. The sound was so powerful that I blinked with surprise. Thankfully, my aim was true and the bullet hit its mark.

Then ricocheted off of her, plowing into the far wall.

Rancin flinched, spinning around. We made eye contact and the expression of surprise on her face was immediately replaced by one of rage.

Panicking, I squeezed the trigger three more times, but each round bounced ineffectively off her barrier. She curled her lips, stood and swung her staff over her head.

“Oh crap,” I said as she unleashed all hell on me.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Bridging the Gap

Rancin’s tidal wave of energy ripped through the chorus area like a bulldozer, shattering chairs and hurling a wall of deadly shrapnel in my direction.

I dove to my left, narrowly avoiding the shards as they flew past. Behind me, the marble statue of a man cracked as the concussion wave slammed into it.

Rancin charged, whipping another hurricane at me. I scampered away, racing down the aisle between chairs toward the main sanctuary as fast as my legs would carry me.

Unfortunately, luck wasn’t on my side this time. A chunk of wood from one of the chairs sliced through my left shoulder like a scalpel.

Pain lanced through my body. I tried to channel it, but a mass of air hit me from behind. It lifted me off my feet and hurled me down the aisle. I curled into a ball half a breath before crashing to the hard ground. I slid along the floor, passed through a metal doorway, then bumped down a short set of stairs into the main sanctuary.

As I struggled to rise, Rancin walked slowly through the ruins of the worship area.

“You piece of filth,” she roared, rage billowing from her like heat from a bonfire. “Alone and overmatched, you are nothing more than an ant before a god!”

“A well-armed ant,” I muttered, and reached for the electricity in the bright lights overhead.

The bulbs popped as I ripped the electrons from the sockets, then hurled the element at Rancin like a fastball. The small sphere collided with her defenses, shattering on impact like I knew it would.

The Elder grinned, then her eyes went wide with shock as the tiny bolts of lightning wrapped around the barrier, striking her from behind.

Rancin screamed, more out of surprise than pain, but the distraction caused her to lose focus. I felt the barrier drop, so I fired the Glock. Two bullets made it through—one of which clipped her thigh—before she raised the wall again.

She grunted, but somehow maintained her hold on the barrier.

“Lucky,” she snarled, then swung her staff at me. The blast of air hit like a tornado, hurling me backward once again. I slid along the polished floor for several feet, stopping only by the grace of a row of chairs.

I eased slowly to my knees as the unholy howling sound filled the Cathedral once again. I glanced at Rancin, then flung myself toward the stairs of the podium.

Another spell missed as I vaulted over the podium, turned and raced down the choral area at a full sprint.

Up ahead, the rift pulsed with the intensity of a blue sun. I skidded to a halt before Pierce’s body, shoved the Glock into the holster, then drew my sword. I wiped the blade across my bloody shoulder.

“Forgive me,” I whispered to the corpse as I dragged the tip through the pool of red beneath it. Then I drove my blade into the rift.

Time froze.

Power, the likes of which I’d never encountered before, connected with my Skill. My senses overloaded—my soul screaming as it tried to process the influx of raw, unfiltered energy.

This was nothing like the other portals I’d encountered. The stability, the connection, the harmony between worlds...it was perfect. Blue light beat to the rhythm of my heart as I became one with infinite power.

But as I reached for the edges of the rift, the presence appeared, fighting me for control. The sense of familiarity returned as the emotions that surrounded it coalesced into the silhouette of the practitioner.

It was faceless, nothing more than a shadow, but it recognized me.

Hated me.

It struck, stabbing at me with psychic blasts. My soul twisted, dancing as I tried to avoid the onslaught. I failed.

Pain overwhelmed me and I screamed.

The shadow came at me again, but this time I drew upon the power of the rift, deflecting the shot. The imprint howled with frustration, then shrieked in surprise when I threw myself at it.

I pounded it, unleashing my fury with the surgical precision I’d learned at Oak Hill. The presence shredded—battered again and again by my unrelenting assault. It backpedaled, desperate to escape, but I grabbed a tendril of its existence with my Skill, yanking it back to me.

Our spirits connected and I gasped in shock. No wonder the imprint was familiar. I’d touched this Skill before, melded with it almost a year ago...

When I’d driven Hexcalibur into The Conduit’s gut.

The sword had consumed him that day, eating his Skill and his flesh. But a shadow of his soul had remained, synced to the spell he’d used. It wasn’t an existence, just an echo of the man long dead.

But it remembered me. And it knew what I was willing to do to protect the people I cared about. Even the ones I didn’t know.

It recoiled, aware of my intentions through our connection.

I wouldn’t let go.

Holding the imprint in place, I drew on the power of the rift, charging my Skill until it threatened to break. Then I unleashed a wave of destruction that swept over the echo of The Conduit.

It made no sound, only thrashed as my psychic blast consumed it. Its corporeal form ignited, burned like deadwood under the fury of my Skill. With a final push, I stripped the tatters bare, scorching the imprint into oblivion.

As the remnants of the shadow faded for good, so too did the rift’s resistance to my control.

I gripped the edges, wrapping my Skill around them like an iron fist. Then I pulled them together, sealing the portal once and for all.

The icy winds and the howls of whatever beast Rancin was trying to summon vanished in an instant. All that remained of the rift was a soft pulse of fading blue light.

Time snapped back to normal.

My victory was short lived. A blast of wind slammed into me from behind. I was lifted off my feet and hurled into the altar.

“No!” Rancin shouted, throwing herself at the space where the rift had been seconds before. She clawed at the air, sobbing as her fingers felt for the edges that no longer existed.

“He’s gone,” she shrieked, turning on me. “You took my son from me again!”

I gasped, stunned at her comment. The Conduit? Her son?

The Elder struck with another Air Spell before I could fully process the news. I twisted, grabbed the force with my Skill, and funneled it around me. Tile and plaster were ripped from the floor and walls, shattering into dust behind me.

The old woman raised her arms, but I drove my blade into the marble floor in front of me before she could complete the spell. Power flowed from me as I gripped the marble and swiped my sword skyward.

The flooring exploded into thousands of large, deadly chunks that raced toward Rancin.

The Elder snarled, lowering into a defensive crouch and leaning into the onslaught. Several projectiles reached her before she threw up a new barrier, one of which clipped her shoulder. There was a loud pop and the woman cursed—but she seemed to feed off the pain, dumping more power into her barrier. The rest of my marble missiles crashed into it and were reduced to nothing more than dust. I hurled another barrage, then another.

Exhaustion scratched at the edges of my Skill. Despite the overload of energy provided by the rift, I could feel my stamina wavering. The stonework grew heavier with each blast of my spell. Eventually, shards of old tile bounced harmlessly against her protective barrier like insects against a windowpane.

Running low on juice, I reached for my gun. As it cleared the holster, a flash of light gleamed between us. Fire erupted in my right leg. I screamed in agony, dropping the Glock and doubling over.

A small knife was buried to the hilt in my quadriceps.

The ornate handle glinted in the overhead light and, like a fool, I yanked it from my body before common sense could stop me. Blood poured from the wound like a sieve, soaking my pants beneath my robes, and running down my leg into my shoes. I slapped my hand against the injury and began a basic Healing Spell.

The skin slowly knitted together, but was hampered by my weariness and my lack of focus due to the pain.

Thankfully, not all my senses were dulled—I was aware of the air before me suddenly growing heavier. Without thinking, I removed my hand from the wound and slapped my palms together in front of me.

The air rushed together in the shape of a wedge a heartbeat before a shockwave of wind struck it.

Rancin, however, was more than a match for my Skill and she knew it. The first blast ricocheted around me, but the second pushed the tip of my wedge inward with little effort.

My barrier cracked, then collapsed.

I reached for the stonework around me, trying desperately to block the blitzkrieg of magic, but her Air Spell blasted through my defenses. I was thrown like a rag doll against the altar once more. The impact knocked the air out of me and I slid to the ground, gulping for breath. Blood pumped from the gash in my thigh.

Rancin limped slowly toward me, one arm holding her bloody leg, the other dragging her staff.

“For months I’ve been forced to tolerate you,” she seethed. “Act like I didn’t hate the man who’d murdered my son. But the Council had eyes on you, preventing me from the vengeance you deserved. So I waited, suffering your insolence. Your arrogance. So I promoted you, praying you’d get yourself killed on the rift repair team. Yet somehow you survived.”

She winced as she walked up the podium stairs, then stopped and glared at me.

“You sad, pathetic excuse for a Warlock,” she said, her voice tinged with disgust. “Inexperienced, cocky and weak. You’re just a puppet for the Council, dancing before the media, being paraded as a hero. You, who are nothing more than walking proof of what’s wrong with a joint society.

“Look at your pedigree, Marcus,” she hissed. “Your parents are gods among mortals, yet you are barely able to get by. And that’s just because you walked away from our traditions. Yet even with all your training, you’re still not back to full strength. Plain and simple, you’re a broken commodity.

“But it’s not just you,” she continued. “It’s the whole damn system. We created the treaty with the Normals to preserve the longevity of our people. At the time, joining our two societies seemed the logical path to secure a future where the Skilled would thrive, but it’s proven to be a greater threat than any war ever could. And it’s all my fault.”

Tears welled in her eyes and her voice caught.

“I spearheaded the treaty, knowing full well that melding our societies was risky. What if it was all a ruse? What if the Normals still burned with the hate that I knew as a child? You don’t know what it was like growing up in a world where you lived in fear of being butchered in your sleep simply because you were different.”

I gritted my teeth, fighting against the pain in my leg.

“But that didn’t happen. Normal society welcomed us with open arms after thousands of years of persecution. It was glorious and, for the first time in a millennia, we were at peace. Ironically, that was our greatest undoing. As you saw.”

“The birthing charts,” I said, as realization dawned on me.

“The signs were there early on,” she said in disgust. “But we didn’t see them. At first, no one was bothered that there were fewer applicants for training, but as the years progressed, it became apparent that something was amiss. So I began researching. Only now, a full generation after melding our societies, the true extent of the danger is apparent. Children of mixed-world birth lack Skill or are too weak to be effectively trained. And their children, the ones being born now, are nothing but
Normals
.”

My head was beginning to swim. “You think we’re breeding ourselves out of existence.”

Rancin offered a sad grin. “Perhaps you’re smarter than I thought. Yes. The more integrated our societies become, the more diluted our stock. You saw firsthand what happened with Alistair Monroe and he’s only one of hundreds coming up through our ranks. What happens in another twenty years? Or another?” She shook her head. “Shannon thought he could fix everything by letting war sort the wheat from the chaff. But you killed him before that happened. Only in the wake of his death did I realize that while peace may be the slow death of our people, war isn’t the answer. Our only hope of survival is isolation.”

“You can’t put the genie back in the bottle, Rancin,” I said, battling the gray that was seeping into my vision. “Our societies have grown together too much for you to drive a wedge between them now.”

The fire returned to her eyes. “It
will
happen. You may have destroyed the last remnants of my son when you closed this rift, but I have had decades of practice opening them. I
will
find more creatures willing to bind themselves to me and use them to sunder the peace. It’ll be even easier now you are no longer capable of stopping me.”

I tried to get up, but my head was heavy and my limbs slow to respond.

She knelt beside me. “Silly boy. You are not worthy of the Skill you so blatantly disrespect.”

She pressed her index finger against my forehead. I raised an arm to deflect her, but she simply swatted it away.

“See?” She smothered my powers with hers like a thick blanket. “A true Warlock would be able to defend himself against a simple spell like this. Yet here you are, nothing more than a puppet with his strings cut. Dying. Some of us learn from our mistakes, Marcus. Some of us try to make the world a better place because of it.