The circle meets and brings release. The light burns through the dark.
Joe fluttered up and coughed as a downdraft of smoke hit him. “What the hell are you talking about?”
I gestured at the gargoyle. “Virgil. He’s being ominous again.”
Joe pulled a long face at Virgil, then turned to me with one eye closed. “You never told me these guys talked to you.”
“Virgil does. He’s had some good advice,” I said.
Joe’s eyes went wide. “No wonder you’re so screwed up, Connor. The ’goyles are crazy. They’ve been repeating themselves for a hunnerd years, all stones and hearts and circles.”
“You hear them?”
“ ’ Course. We flits all can. Flits ignore them like sane people. They have no brains”—he glanced down—“or clothes.”
The words “flits” and “sane” are not often used in the same sentence. Regardless, hearing Joe say that saddened me. I never understood Virgil, and now had an inkling why. If the gargoyles were repeating themselves over and over for years, they were likely nothing more than old recording wards, fanciful ones, but still recording stones. I thought they were sentient. It took the fun out of being one of the few people that heard them.
The tattered shield dome dimmed more around us, the essence prickling off my skin. Guild agents continued their defense above, unaware that the real enemy was trying to escape, not enter the building. Essence-fire was getting through, damaging the towers and supports. More turrets went down in a roar of wood and stone.
A door at the opposite end of the flat roof slammed open. Vize stepped out, intent on the chaos above. I didn’t wait for him to talk or make a move. The time for conversation was over, the moment I had always known was coming had arrived. I aimed and threw the spear at him. I aimed to kill. It blazed across the roof, a sliver of white that dimmed the air around it.
Vize sensed it. I expected that. We sensed the same things the same way. I understood that now, but why was a question for another time. Vize shifted his attention to the spear and held out his hand. I expected that, too. He had seen the move work for me. Before he reacted, I let the darkness shoot out from my chest, intent on the essence trail left by the spear. A heartbeat later, I yanked the spear back and watched as the darkness slammed into Vize. It splintered into sinuous lines as it struck an essence barrier.
Donor staggered next to Vize, his body shield hardened, a thick wall of green essence that pushed back against the darkness. He thrust his hand down, a bolt of emerald elf-shot spiking into the roof. Essence spiraled from the point of contact, rippling the pavers. The wave knocked me off my feet, blasting apart the parapet behind me. I clung to the crumbled opening, the darkness snapping back with a painful recoil.
Joe hid behind the chimney. “Good plan, except for the not-killing-him part.”
He plunged feetfirst down on my hands. On reflex from the pain, I let go and landed several feet below on the roof of a wide bay window. A stream of elf-shot destroyed the rest of the parapet, showering stone dust down on me. Joe dodged over a valley between two gables. “Hmph. He’s not a bad shot for an elf.”
“Thanks for the save,” I said.
Joe rotated in the air, sniffing. “The barrier’s completely down. I say let the big guns up there take the Elven King out, and we go get beers.”
“I don’t care about the Elven King,” I said.
The last of the Guildhouse barrier shield collapsed. A roof slumped on the neighboring gable. The building was shedding years’ worth of additions like dead barnacles off a boat. The window bay lurched under my feet as if it had risen a few inches, then resettled itself.
I grabbed the edge of the wall and swung myself over. Donor faced away from me, holding the faith stone above his head. Green light revolved around him in ribbons, wrapping him and Vize in a sphere of bright light. On a gust of essence, they lifted into the air, white light flashing around the sphere, swirling the green ribbons faster. They hovered in place, below the main aerial fighting, essence building around him.
“What the hell is he doing?” I said.
“Oh, that looks bad,” Joe said from behind me.
A volley of essence burst from the sphere, streaking like ball lightning across the sky. The streaks homed in on Guild agents, hit with concussive force, and threw them out of the sky. They weren’t stun shots. Appalled, I staggered back as bodies fell limply into the flames below. The remaining agents wheeled away, struggling to regroup.
The air crackled with a sound like thunder. Donor tapped essence as only the most powerful fey can, pulling directly from the air and anything around him. A sustained burst of energy from the bottom of his sphere struck the Guildhouse. The roof exploded, slate and stone flying into the air. I ducked as more debris hurtled toward me. Another tower fell, smashing into the one next to it, and both collapsed into the floors below. Donor’s sphere grew, solidified into a mass of burning white heat. It expanded, incinerating the building wherever it touched.
Elf-shot came at me and snagged on the tip of the spear. The streamer of essence lashed like a whip slicing through the air. The spear jerked in my hands, and I grappled with it. The streamer flared brighter and spun around me. Joe screamed, and I whirled. The elf-shot wrapped around his legs and flung him about. He struggled against it, his essence flashing as he tried to teleport away. The spear convulsed in my hand, sucking in the streamer of elf-shot. Still bound to it, Joe’s body twisted and elongated, then vanished into the spear. Dumbfounded, I stared at the weapon in my hand.
“Joe?” I shouted. I shook the spear, feeling like a fool. It undulated in my hand. Intermittent touches of Joe’s body signature danced along its length, then faded into the spear’s burning brightness.
Fury raced through me. The darkness leaped within, feeding off my anger. I let it. I let the darkness rise, let it break through my body essence. Streams of black shadow shot from my face and chest, lunging across the fractured roof as they sought the most powerful source of essence nearby. They burrowed into Donor’s sphere with ravenous greed. They sucked at the essence, funneling back into me, back into the source of the darkness. I gasped as it coursed through me, through my chest, my face, draining inside me to the nameless dark place. I was a conduit, meaningless in the transaction, as the darkness pulsed and sucked. My feet lifted off the ground as the roof crumbled away beneath them.
The sphere paled, its essence leeching away. Donor realized what was happening and dropped Vize, concerned now for his own safety. Vize plummeted and hit a pitched roof. He flailed as he went over the edge. He fell hard against the remains of a turret and didn’t move.
Donor reinforced his body shield, shrugging off the smaller tributaries of my darkness feeding on him. He wasn’t strong enough. One of the most powerful fey in the world wasn’t strong enough to fight off the darkness. It broke through—I broke through. I fed the darkness with all my anger and fury. Shadows coiled around Donor’s chest. He fought me as I hauled him toward me. We revolved around each other in a halo of green light and dark shadow. Donor grinned, his teeth framed red with blood. “You think I’ve never fought this darkness before, Grey? Give in to its desire, let it draw you in close, then strike its vulnerability.”
With his fist clutched around the faith stone, he swung at me. I blocked him with the spear in a shower of white sparks. Sensing another source of essence, the darkness coiled around the spear. I was losing control—no—I never had it. The darkness did what it wanted. Donor seemed to sense it and laughed. I didn’t have control of the darkness, but I had the spear. I spun my wrist, brought the sharp tip of the spear forward, and shoved it through Donor’s shield.