Alex tore off along the balcony and around to the stairs. By the time he reached the bottom, Sorsha had the man’s head in her lap. He looked to be in his late fifties with gray hair, a salt and pepper mustache, and a weathered face. A large purple bruise had spread across the side of his face and his white waistcoat was dark with blood.
“I’m sorry,” he was saying. “He had a spell breaker. When the enchantment on the door broke, it exploded. I tried to stop him but—” The man coughed and blood stained his mustache.
“Don’t talk,” Sorsha said. “I’m going to get you to the hospital. Where are the cook and the maids?”
“Sent them away in the floater,” he gasped.
“You should have gone with them,” Sorsha said, stroking his face.
He looked up at her, as if he were about to respond, but there was no life left in his eyes. Sorsha just sat there, weeping openly. Alex reached out and closed the old man’s eyes.
“Sorceress,” Alex said, trying to rouse her from her grief.
He didn’t have to say anything further because at that moment the entire floating castle trembled and shook. Alex stumbled to his feet and put out a hand for Sorsha, pulling the Sorceress up.
“Where are your spells that keep this place flying?” he asked as she stumbled against him.
“In a vault in the basement,” she said, pushing herself away from him and starting off toward the back of the grand staircase.
An elaborately carved door with painted panels hid a wrought-iron staircase that spiraled downward into the dark. Sorsha kicked off her high heels, then took the stairs two at a time. As she moved down, lights on the inner pole of the stairway lit up to guide her passage.
Alex plunged after her. At first the spiral stair was encased in a wall of rock all the way around, but after he’d gone down a story or two, the rock fell away and it seemed like the stairway floated over a vast, dark expanse.
When Sorsha hit the bottom, lights bloomed in a cavernous room that turned out to be Sorsha’s workshop. Large closed doors occupied one entire side of the room and a massive crane on a metal track sat just inside. Pallets of boxes lined one wall of the room with iron bar stock on the other. A long row of tables ran down the middle of the room with a line of bars, waiting for Sorsha to enchant them.
The Sorceress gave no heed to the workshop, turning and sprinting in her stocking feet to a simple door set in the far wall of stone. Beyond the door, a stone passage ran along straight and then curved to the right. Several doors were set in the wall at various points, but Sorsha ran by them without stopping. At the end of the corridor was a simple, square room with papered walls and walnut wainscoting. On the far wall hung an enormous vault door, at least six feet in diameter and two feet thick. It stood open, revealing a short hallway beyond that led to a wide room. The outer plating on the door had been blasted away and Alex could see the mechanisms that operated the lock.
The sharp sound of a crack, not unlike a gunshot, sounded from inside the vault and the castle shook so hard, Sorsha slipped. She almost fell, grabbing on to Alex’s left arm in an effort to stay upright.
Alex gasped and felt the blood drain from his face. His ribs were healing faster than normal thanks to Iggy, but they hadn’t healed completely. Pain sprouted from his side and spread through his body, making his fingers and toes tingle. He swore, and Sorsha realized what she had done.
“Sorry,” she said, releasing his arm. She moved forward, across the vault threshold. “Stay behind me,” she said.
Alex was about to protest, but Sorsha had already moved into the short hallway. Beyond the end of the hall, he could see the intricate patterns of dozens of spells, swirling slowly. Some were blue, while others were purple, green, orange, and occasionally white. Ethereal tendrils of energy emanated from some, reaching out to join them with others, forming a net of pulsing cobwebs overhead, like a dome. The floor was cut into broad steps, like an amphitheater with spells laid out on each level going up.
Sorsha reached the end of the hall, then stepped out into the main chamber. She raised her hands, and power crackled through her fingers.
“Davis,” she cried, lowering her hand and sending a bolt of greenish lighting off into the room. A sound like a hammer hitting shatterproof glass rang out and Sorsha raised her hand again. Before she could strike, two shots rang out. Alex saw the first shot hit an invisible shield around the Sorceress and it flashed with light at the impact. The second round hit the shield and shattered it. Alex flung his good arm up over his face and turned away as decaying fragments of the shield hit him. Most just slammed into his suit coat and vanished, but one sliced across his cheek, and he felt blood dripping down his face.
Sorsha cried out and Alex turned back in time to see her fall. He couldn’t tell if she’d been hit by the bullet or by shards of the decaying shield, but she clamped her hand to her hip. Another shot rang out as she fell, but it missed its target. Alex darted forward and grabbed Sorsha by the arm, pulling her back into the hallway. He stepped over her and pulled his pistol from his pocket, waiting for Davis to approach.
A booming impact followed by a sizzling sound like a broken electrical cable rang out and the castle shook again.
“Get back,” Sorsha gasped, her face a mask of pain.
“You hurt bad?” he asked, still covering the end of the hall. Sorsha forced herself into a sitting position, a grunt of pain escaping her lips.
“I’m not hurt good,” she gasped, once she was upright.
“Funny,” Alex said. “How bad is it?”
“My shield slowed it down some,” she said. “Got me in the hip. Doesn’t…doesn’t seem too bad. Hurts like crazy, though.”
“Stay put then,” Alex said, moving to the corner. “Where is he?”
“Don’t bother,” Sorsha said, her breathing shallow. “He’s got some kind of magical shield. A charm of some kind, powerful one too.”
“That means it won’t last long,” Alex said.
The ringing gong sound filled the air again and the castle shook.
“What’s he doing?” Alex asked.
“Hitting the central levitation spell with a crowbar,” Sorsha said. “Mus… must have a spell breaker rune on it.”
“Multiple ones,” Alex said with a nod. “Each time he hits a spell, the rune is spent. How much longer can your spell hold up?”
“Don’t know.” Sorsha shook her head.
Alex took off his hat and laid it on the floor, then inched up to the corner with his weapon at the ready.
“What are you going to do, Alex?” she whispered. “Please tell me you have a plan.”
Alex nodded but didn’t respond. A moment later the crowbar hit the spell again, ringing like crystal. This time the note wasn’t a pure ringing tone like it had been before; this time it sounded flat, sour. The moment the blow was struck, Alex leaned around the corner. Davis stood over a large purple incantation in the center of the room. He held a heavy crowbar of some greenish metal in his right hand with runes of fire running down its length. Alex could see the one on the end unraveling as it was discharged. Davis would only be able to use that spell breaker so long as he had runes to charge it, but with at least four charges left, he was likely to succeed in smashing the levitation spell. Already the spell was spinning slowly, like some immensely tiny galaxy, but with a wobble that made it look sickly.
The floor shook, and Davis held on to the next tiered level. Alex braced himself against the wall and brought his pistol up. Davis’s gun was tucked into his holster. He caught sight of Alex just as the room stopped shaking and dropped the spell breaker, going for his gun instead.
Alex fired.
The bullet slammed into the magical shield and it glowed bright yellow for a moment, a perfect sphere around the FBI man.