“Shoot him!” ordered the terrified officer.
“ Stand down! ” The voice that came next seemed to drown out the entire world. “You heard the man,” Dan Garrett said, angry magic seething from every word. “ Back off.” The soldiers lowered their rifles. The Mouth was pushing so hard that even Faye wanted to surrender, and she was already on his side. “That big fellow is going to save your life.” The Mouth decided to take it up a notch and put his new allies to work. “Protect this man. Fix bayonets and keep these idiots out of his way.”
“Yes, sir!” the soldiers shouted in unison, and formed a protective circle around Sullivan.
“Faye, listen to me,” Whisper pleaded. “I was sent to watch you, even to kill you if necessary.”
But Whisper was her friend. “Kill me?”
“Because you are the Spellbound.”
Faye didn’t know what to say. She recalled Whisper’s strange story, but it didn’t make any sense. “The murderer?”
“You have no idea how much I wanted to simply murder you and be done, at first… But I was wrong. The last Spellbound was evil. You are not like him, you are nothing like that grey-eyed monster, but you could become like him. The possibility was there, and that was enough.”
Faye looked away from Whisper. Sullivan had finished the spell from the Coordinator’s book. Now he was concentrating on the small design, binding it to the ground, connecting it to his own Power.
“That was his spell! That was his curse! You inherited it when Jacques killed him. Can’t you feel it? All of that death? Every time someone dies near you, you grow stronger, don’t you?” Whisper had gone crazy. She didn’t know what she was talking about.
Except she was stronger, like before, like when she’d fought against the Chairman.
Where so many had died.
“The Power bonds to us, lives through us, and when we die, it takes that bit of itself back, larger than before. The Spellbound subverts the order of things. That energy, instead of going back to the Power, it goes to the Spellbound for a time. It isn’t like your regular magic that will regrow. When you use this stolen Power up, it returns home, and that leaves you hungry for more. That’s how the first Spellbound became evil. He needed more and more magic, so he began to take it. That’s how he became a monster, and the same thing will happen to you.”
Faye’s mind had always moved rapidly, and now it was spinning through the implications of Whisper’s words. The first time she’d had a jump in Power had been when Grandpa had died. After stabbing a kanji-bound man in the heart, she’d had enough Power to beat Delilah in a fight. She’d grown stronger again during Mar Pacifica amidst the dying Iron Guards, and then even greater aboard the Tokugawa, and all of that extra Power that she’d been granted had been burned up in one epic Travel, when she’d dragged the entire Tempest a thousand miles through the walls of space. And it had started again with the sudden death of George Bolander. He’d died fighting Crow… and Faye had taken his connection to the Power.
Faye was different from other Actives. She’d just never understood how different. It made sense. She was stealing magic when people died. That was horrible. Whisper was right. Only a monster would steal somebody’s magic.
She snapped back to reality. Why had Whisper decided to tell her all this now when there was other important stuff going on? The strain was going to kill Mr. Sullivan. Veins stood out on his neck. Sweat poured down his filthy face. He gathered up every last bit of Power he had and shoved it into that design and then he went back for more. They only had seconds left.
“When a Normal dies, it isn’t much. Just the little connection that was there from when the Power first checked to see if it could bond to them, but with all of those poor people…” Whisper trailed off as she looked across the mall. “Are they enough? Could they ever possibly be enough?”
But Faye didn’t know what to do.
The god of demons’ rampage was almost upon them. Its footfalls were shaking the tanks. Shells were exploding across it with no effect. Soldiers and marchers flinched away, prepared to die.
The air seemed to shimmer around Mr. Sullivan. He lifted one hand, and with a roar, slammed it down into the middle of his spell. The sidewalk cracked. The world seemed to flex in an expanding blue wave out from Mr. Sullivan’s hand. It washed over the soldiers, over the refugees, and over her. The wave passed them by and the world behind seemed to return to normal, except for an electric hum audible just beneath the ringing in her ears.
Mr. Sullivan collapsed, seemingly lifeless, onto the broken sidewalk.
The wall of blue surged outward until it collided with the unnatural bulk of the Summoned. The demon recoiled as if it had driven itself into a mountain. It drew back and crashed into the wall again. The spell did not budge. Furious mouths opened and the demon hurled fire against the shield. The heat that came through was brutal, but the flames washed over the blue wall, leaving them all in what felt like a hollow dome of fire.
He did it! He’d saved them! Dan went to try and help Mr. Sullivan.
The Lexington had gotten into firing range, and the next shells that struck were the biggest of all, the biggest Faye had ever felt. The demon rocked back under the mighty impacts. Shrapnel whistled through the air and the spell did nothing to stop it. Soldiers and marchers died all around her. A mighty strip of flesh was ripped from the demon’s side and flaming ink poured across the ruined lawn.
Angry at being unable to break through Sullivan’s spell, and finally being challenged by something that could actually injure it, the demon took two mighty steps back, roared at the airship, and-
“Wings?” Faye shouted. “It can’t grow wings! ”
The black smoke that was pouring from the thousands of wounds on the Summoned was coalescing into two vast shapes across its back. Sullivan’s sacrifice had been for nothing. The wall had only saved the lives of those assembled in one spot. The god of demons was simply going to continue past them. It would tear the Lexington from the sky; then there would be nothing nearby that could hurt it. It would find a place to hide, maybe in the depths of the ocean, while it grew stronger. Even her head map couldn’t fathom just how big the god of demons would get on this world if given enough time.
The wings became solid.
“Faye!” Whisper said. “Look at me!”
She turned to face the young woman that she’d thought had been her friend. This whole time Whisper had been prepared to take her life, and it seemed that in these final desperate moments, Whisper had decided to fulfill her mission. There was a small black pistol in the French girl’s hand. “What’re you doing, Whisper?”
“All of those Normal deaths aren’t enough for you. It is the connection of a Powerful Active that you need.” She was crying, tears cutting through the soot on her cheeks. “No one else can stop this demon. Only you. You’re this city’s only hope…” Whisper seemed to grow more determined. “Promise me you’ll stay good, Faye.”
“I don’t-”
“Promise me!”
“I promise to stay good.”
“You must always. Find a way to kill this beast. There are children here, and they are hiding, scared, in the dark. They need someone to come and save them. When this is over, find Jacques Montand of the elders. He will know how to help you… Stay close to me, and do not waste my Power.” Whisper lifted the pistol and put it next to her temple, then thought better of it, and moved the muzzle down against her chest. “I would like to make a pretty corpse at my funeral.”
“No!” Faye reached for her but Whisper pulled the trigger and shot herself in the heart.
Time came shuddering to a violent stop. Faye could see the slide traveling back and forth and the single gleaming brass case spinning out. Whisper’s eyes were wide, earnest, with just a hint of mischief and sadness, but that changed, and for an instant there was only hurt and fear and doubt, and then that too was gone, and so was Whisper.