Her scream shook the house. I sprawled to the floor as Mara crawled the last few feet to close the circle. The rush of magic as the circle closed rattled my teeth, and the temperature plummeted ten degrees.
"Mirror!" Carlos yelled. I could see his groping hand for a moment under the barrage of Sergeyev's assault.
Edward grabbed a ragged piece of the broken mirror and threw it. Carlos's hand reached for it, dark, dead blood flying wide. The ghost flung himself against the sparkling shard of mirror. It cut into his form, slicing the hot threads of power that cloaked them, melting and flowing into him.
Alice's heels beat the floor into buckling ripples and her teeth snapped as she pawed at the rod through her chest. Beside her, Sergeyev shimmered silver and red, inching toward solidity as his appearance slid and wavered over his uncanny surface.
The room heaved and shuddered. Sergeyev screamed and dove at Carlos, slashing him with razor hands. Cameron and I both lurched forward. I pulled up short, held back by a stab across my chest.
Mara snatched him back. "Don't break it or we're done for," she cried.
"Fire!" Carlos shouted, one hand groping as he tried to roll away from the glittering monstrosity that tore at him. "Please!"
Mara caught her breath and Edward froze. He gave a jerking nod and Mara scrabbled in her pockets, yanking out a wooden kitchen match. She struck it and tossed it over the chalked circle.
The lines and charms blazed upward in flame, then bit into the dry wood of the floor. Beyond them, Carlos muttered, gasping and waning. Edward backed from the fire, stumbling, blind, over Alice, while Cameron pounded the floor with his fists, howling, "No, no, no!"
I looked toward the door and saw more flames. The fire was spreading on the lines of force. Alice dragged herself from the floor, lurching for Edward through the growing inferno. I couldn't move to stop her and live, and I couldn't help Carlos. Only stopping Sergeyev would save anyone, but I'd made the wrong choice—under the weight of Alice's geas and my own fear, my own weakness—and my friends would die for it.
Dead if you do and damned if you don't. I wouldn't survive if Sergeyev won, whether Alice took me out later or not. But if she needed to threaten me, then I must have a choice. And she'd have to find me—or my body—first. I started crawling forward, pushing against the pain in my chest. The house shook, bucking and roaring with a sound like a freight train bearing down.
A gut-tearing chill ripped into me and I rolled onto my back. The huge shape of the black guardian beast burst from the flame, vaulting upward, through the ceiling, trailing fire and smoke, then rushing back toward us, frenzied, roaring. Its maw gaped an infinite, lightless pit above me as I lay cold in motionless terror.
I pushed my hands uselessly against the pressure rushing before the monster and felt fire sear along my arms. "No, no, not me," I gasped, "not now." The knot in my chest burned and twisted like a blade as the jaws closed over me. I was too slow, too late, and I couldn't help anyone now. I sobbed and let go, not caring what the monster did to me. Who cared if the Grey swallowed me whole?
I gave up struggling. I let it have me.
I felt the knot in my chest loosen, blooming open, pouring the writhing, living Grey through me, knitting it into my body and mind. I let it wash across me and I felt bright as the soft snow-mist that enclosed me.
Then the floor slapped my back and I looked up into a blaze of light, streaming and boiling around a black void. The guardian breathed out an odor of tombs and poised above me, confused. I pointed at Sergeyev.
The beast reared back, spinning and shrieking, and its tail of pure pain lashed across me. I gasped and sank toward the dark as screams erupted nearby.
The creature plunged toward Carlos and Sergeyev, forms of fire and shadow, engaged to death. It whipped a circle around the two figures. For an instant, the awesome horror reflected in Sergeyev's shifting mirror, spinning, its terrible jaws agape. Then the beast reared and the ghost shrieked as the black creature swallowed him and dove down, through the buckling floor, vanishing under a boil of black smoke and the reek of inferno. The scream swelled and roared, consuming, powered upward and outward by the flick of the flaming tail.
Crackling and groaning pierced the vacuum of sound left by the monster's rushing exit. I rolled to my knees and looked around. Alice lay still nearby, skewered to the floor between Edward and Cameron. The house was still shuddering, the flames of the circle now gobbling at the floor and walls, gouting noxious smoke. Behind the ring of fire, Carlos struggled, making weak, broken movements, pulling himself up against the organ, which shivered and collapsed against itself, sending him to the burning boards. Cameron leapt up, but Edward grabbed him before he could cross the fiery line. I curled into an anguished crouch.
Edward touched my shoulder and I shuddered. "Out," he ordered. "Before the house collapses."
Mara dragged me to my feet and toward the door. The house seemed ramshackle and doomed, staggering beneath us as we stumbled and crawled for the stairs. I glanced back, blinded by smoke, tears, and pain, ears ringing, seeing the parlor in flames, three dark shapes moving within it, tearing the organ to pieces.
Halfway down the tilting staircase, Mara and I met Quinton coming up. He grabbed me by the shoulders and I winced, yelping, the pain so sharp I gagged on it. Ignoring that, he hustled both of us out through the kitchen at a furious pace, yanking something out of the electrical panel with gloved hands as we passed.
I gasped. "Cameron, Carlos—"
Quinton snapped at me, "They can take care of themselves. They're vampires. We're not!"
I whimpered and folded myself around the memory of pain at my core. Quinton and Mara dragged me down the rain-washed driveway and out the gate. I was all heels and slippery ankles. Between the two of them, they shoved me into the backseat of the Rover. Mara climbed in beside me, shaking. Quinton pickpocketed my keys and drove through the grim, ash-darkened rain. Finally, he parked on a side street and turned to look back at me.
"I think this is a safer place, but you can see it from here."
My head clearing in fresher air, I raised my head. "See what?"
"The museum. It's burning."
Chapter 31
Car alarms shouted in the distance as frightened people tottered into the street and toward the hellish glow. No one seemed to find it strange that we were sitting in our vehicle, looking dazed and injured. They were all as confused and frightened as we were.
As we three battered humans sat in the Rover, we could see the Madison Forrest Historical House Museum consumed in a conflagration even the rain couldn't slow. A column of fire crowned the night-darkened hillside, the shape of the house becoming obscure in the black smoke, white steam, and flickering yellow light. For a while, only the sounds of the car alarms made any impact on the night. In a few minutes, fire crews arrived in their hopeless cacophony, attacked the fire, but fell back, bewildered by its fury. They turned their hoses on the grounds to keep the fire from spreading and then gave up and watched the mansion burn. We stared at it and at each other and felt as helpless as the firemen and the wandering neighbors.
The shape of the building remained bright as noon to me even as the walls began to crumble, Grey memory holding the energy in place as the grid reabsorbed and distributed the overflow in its own time. How long would the ghost of the house linger? I wondered.
Someone tapped on Mara's window. We all looked and saw a white face streaked with black under a tangle of gold and black straw. Mara opened her door.