Time returned to normal.
Whisper’s eyes rolled back into her head and she began to fall.
Faye caught her friend. At best, she only had seconds to get Whisper to Jane or the other Healer. “Whisper, don’t die! Don’t die!”
But it was too late. She was already gone.
It wasn’t fair.
Faye knelt there, crying, another dead friend in her arms, in a field filled with smoke, blood, and exploding bombs, under a shimmering dome of magic, beneath the spreading wings of an angry god, as she grew… furious.
Had Whisper been right? She’d certainly thought she’d been telling the truth. But why? Why choose Faye? Why did it have to be her? Was Whisper a noble sacrifice or a selfish, deluded fool? And Faye hated herself for even asking. Was Whisper right? Had her death fed the furnace of Faye’s magic? Fearful, Faye peeked inside.
The connection to the Power had grown. Faye could feel new magic humming through every bit of her body.
Whisper had been right. She was the Spellbound. All this time, she’d thought she was special, but she was just a thief robbing the dead. She was a monster.
And it would take a monster to beat a monster.
The demon roared and leapt into the sky. Powerful wings beat and wind struck them like the edge of a tornado. Faye looked toward it, a great black shape blocking out the sky, as it surged toward the Lexington. She let go of Whisper’s body.
Faye reached the demon in one effortless hop, landing precariously between the spines on its back. It didn’t even notice her. She may as well have been a flea. The air whistled around her. They were climbing fast. Below was the city, people shrinking into flailing dots and tanks looking like toys. A desperate biplane flew past, so close that Faye could see the pilot’s mouth open in astonishment. Above, the searchlights of the aircraft carrier illuminated them. The main gun fired and Faye’s heightened senses actually watched the gigantic shell pass between the massive, flapping wings to explode far below.
Even with all her Power, Faye didn’t know what she could do against this thing. Hot smoke was pouring through thousands of wounds. She knew that she could tear up bits of the creature and Travel them away, but it was so very strong that it would take hours before she could break it down, if that would even work since it seemed to be growing so quickly, absorbing matter from this world to feed its body. And she knew it wasn’t stupid. It would find a way to adapt against her attacks. She needed to destroy the demon quickly or not at all.
Her head map said that the god of demons was a shell. Inside was ink, smoke, and evil. There was no heart to stop, no lungs to pierce, no brain to destroy. They were poking holes in it, but it simply fixed itself and moved on. Faye’s mind was quick, quicker than anyone else that she’d ever met, but she didn’t have time to figure this problem out before the Lexington would be torn from the sky. She needed to buy time.
Faye spied one of the wings and that gave her an idea.
Where the wing intersected with the body, it was only as big around as a stout tree. Traveling directly to the base, Faye picked a hot gash in the unnatural flesh and drove her hand deep inside. It burned. The airship was only a few hundred yards away and the body beneath her seemed to swell as the demon sucked in oxygen, ignited it, and prepared to spray deadly fire across the Lexington. Faye concentrated on the base of the wing, gathered up a harsh burst of magic, and Traveled away with as much mass as she could tear free.
She did not need to go far. Appearing in the air, Faye yanked her injured hand away from the thousands of pounds of unnatural flesh she’d ripped from the demon’s hide. One wing tore away, and, surprised, the god began to fall. Fire that had been meant for the airship escaped, boiling out the hole toward her.
Calm, Faye faced the fire. Her head map expanded outward, heedless of the fact she was falling, clothes and hair whipping hard against her frame, and she searched for another weapon. She found what she was looking for one quarter of a second before the flames would have incinerated her.
Faye hit the grass too hard. She’d been in the air just long enough to build up some speed. The truck that Francis had intercepted was parked before her. The back was absolutely packed with barrels of explosives, and it was a very big truck. Behind her, the demon was spiraling toward the ground. Even from here it was making a noise like a broken kite fluttering. Her head map showed her where it was going to hit, how fast it was going to be moving, and she was already running the calculations as she Traveled into the bed of the truck.
There was a single black cord that was tied into a bunch of other black lines, and those were spread to all of the other barrels. It was cannon fuse. There was quite a bit, since the OCI men who were meant to set it weren’t suicidal. She tore most of the fuse away, just leaving a short stub.
Faye pulled her matchbook from her pocket, struck one on a barrel, and held it to the end of the coarse black line. It caught fire with a sizzle, burning rapidly, sputtering toward the flash point.
Even a mile away, the demon’s landing was so hard that it shook the truck springs. Her head map told her that it had created a crater in the city, but even that wouldn’t be enough to stop it. She needed to release all of the demon’s smoke at once.
The truck was heavy, but she’d done heavier… though that single time had been physically too much, and had knocked her out and nearly killed her. This wasn’t even near that far, but Faye was going to do something very difficult. She was going to Travel inside a demon.
She had no idea if she would be able to make it back out.
Gathering up her magic and placing her palms flat against the truck bed, she took in the entire thing and Traveled into the core of a god.
It was so very dark.
She was floating, not falling, not flying, merely hanging suspended in a void of infinite blackness. Pressure and heat touched her skin and alien feelings touched her mind. Faye let go of the truck, and-
Nothing.
You could not think it would be that easy.
The demon’s quiet thoughts hit Faye in the face. Frantic, she tried to escape, but she was trapped, encircled by the demon. Her head map was only a single spark of light in an ocean of smoke.
You are mine.
The cannon fuse ceased to burn. The demon had extinguished the fire.
I will take your Power and make it my own.
She couldn’t even scream, because to do so would mean opening her mouth and breathing in the alien smoke, but Faye was furious. This stupid demon thought it was so clever. Well, she’d show it.
Faye reached deep inside, gathering up all of her Power, and then she pulled harder, gathering up all the Power she’d stolen from the hundreds that had died that night, but rather than throwing it all at once like she’d done with the Tempest, she focused it as tight and hard and mean as she could. The spark of her head map grew into a beam, bright and straight as a Tesla ray. It pierced the darkness, and Faye saw her way out.
The demon screeched in agony. How dare you deny me!
But it wasn’t enough to escape. She’d come to win.
Only seconds had passed inside the gullet of the demon. If she stayed here long enough to light another match, which instinct told her wouldn’t work anyway, she would surely die. She needed to do something else and she needed to do it fast.
The blinding beam of her head map pushed outward, toward the Power itself, and she looked and beheld that bit that she’d temporarily stolen-Whisper’s sacrifice. Faye grabbed hold of that bit of Power, pulled it toward her, and…
All of the bomb fuses burst to life with a cleansing fire.
Thanks, Whisper.
And Faye stepped into the night.