I stood helpless. Hala’s essence was augmenting my body shields, but they were only defensive in a fight. I couldn’t use the staff itself, so I held it out to her. “Take it!”
Mistake. It seemed to break her attention, and her own shields wavered. “Keep it away from me!” she cried out.
I wasn’t going to argue. I could see the fear in her eyes, but I didn’t know why. My gaze roved the floor, looking through the scattered equipment. I edged toward the door.
Without taking his eyes from Hala, C-Note gestured toward the door Murdock had run through. The fire danced across the floor and blocked the exit. The floor began to undulate from the stress of the two of them drawing essence. Hala stepped back again, broken glass piercing her feet. I looked down at the glass. Sometimes essence works like electricity. Sometimes like light. It doesn’t work well through glass.
I opened the window. Cold wind whipped my hair. No fire escape, but a wide ledge. It ran along the building to the corner, past the burning wall. We’d have a few seconds of protection.
“Hala, take my hand!” I held it out to her.
She looked at me, uncertain. It seemed to finally dawn on her that this was not a winning fight. Keeping her shield up, she grasped my hand and let me pull her out onto the ledge. The wind lashed her hair into a frenzy. She didn’t even shiver.
“Hit him with everything you’ve got!” I yelled.
She let loose a burst of essence that bloomed like a star in the room. C-Note reeled under it and fell back. We ran. I pulled Hala behind me, her body spent of its Power. The windows rattled as C-Note recovered and tried to grab us with a binding spell. It passed harmlessly through the glass. As we reached the corner of the building, wind blasted at us around the corner. I steadied myself with the staff.
“Don’t let it touch me,” Hala said, her voice strained. If possible, she looked even more ill. We sidestepped around the corner. I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw the fire escape. The relief vanished instantly. The wrought-iron stairs ended two flights below. We had to go through a window or up to the roof. I decided to go up.
The tar roof rattled under our feet as I helped Hala over the parapet. At the back of the building, smoke roiled upward. “We have to keep moving,” I said to Hala.
We ran for a stairwell penthouse near the front. A blast of essence hit us halfway to the door. I sprawled on my face, and the staff skittered away from me. I rolled over to see Hala lying facedown. Beyond her, C-Note was pushing his huge bulk through the penthouse at the back of the roof. He pointed at us, and let loose with another blast. It flew over our heads and shattered the front stairwell penthouse.
I rocked to my feet. With two quick steps, I grabbed the staff and hauled Hala up at the same time. I could feel her strain to gather essence from around us, but we were out of her element. I hustled us toward the front.
“He’s not trying to kill us,” I said. Hala didn’t respond. He could have killed us twice over by now, but he’d let his shots go wide. He wanted Hala alive. We made it to the remains of the penthouse. C-Note shot another blast, sending bricks and wood timbers into the air. Without a thought, I hugged Hala to my chest and flung both of us into the exposed stairwell. She landed harder than I did.
“Come on. We can make it,” I said. She pulled herself up, heavy with exhaustion. Holding her waist, I forced her to walk down the stairs. The essence holding them drained away and vanished. Gravity asserted itself, and the stairs sagged beneath us with a nauseating slowness. With a roar, the remains of the roof flew up, taking part of the stairs and walls with it. We fell, tumbling over each other, arms and legs tangling, and collapsed roughly on the floor.
A knife of pain stabbed into my forehead. I curled into a ball, retching. I cursed loudly. Of all times, someone was scrying. I shook off the pain and crawled to Hala. Her head lolled against my shoulder.
“Come on, come on. He’s coming.”
Her eyes fluttered. “Don’t let him get the staff.”
I had dropped the damned staff again. I searched frantically through the chaos of the hallway, feeling my way more with my ability-sensing than vision. Its essence flared against the dullness of the building. I grabbed it and rushed back to Hala, as plaster dust from the ceiling poured on our heads. With a thunderous sound, C-Note plunged through the ceiling in a rain of brick and mortar. As he landed awkwardly, I pushed Hala into an adjoining room.
The wall exploded behind us, and the building shuddered. The essence holding it together receded, coalescing up and out in the hall as C-Note pulled more into himself. Cracks appeared in the floor, and it canted sideways. We tumbled against the far wall. Smoke from the spreading fire poured in from the next room.
C-Note stood at the door. “Give me the staff.”
I didn’t bother answering. He wouldn’t just let us go if I gave it to him. C-Note stepped into the room. Whether from his weight or from its own overloaded stress, the floor groaned loudly. With a screech of metal, it slumped and shattered into the club below. I could hear screams as the music stopped.
I clutched Hala to my chest as we perched on a small patch of floor still clinging to the wall. Fifty feet of open space yawned below us. People scattered from the dance floor. The rumble of an explosion shuddered up from below, and the lights went out.
In the surreal silence that followed, the fire surged into the remains of the room. With my back to the wall, I could feel the building swaying with a nauseating rhythm. Hala was lying next to me, unconscious.
“This isn’t the way to die with a naked woman,” I said. I stroked her hair. She either didn’t hear me or didn’t think it was funny.
Gusts of wind pushed the smoke back. On the opposite side of the cavernous hole in the floor, C-Note hung with his arm wrapped around an exposed beam. He stretched a clawed hand toward us. The staff moved, pulling away from me. I tightened my fist, but the field around it made it slick. I gripped it with both hands. C-Note flexed his hand, and the staff wrenched itself from my grasp. It sailed across the open space to the other side, flying directly into his outstretched hand. As he closed his taloned fingers around it, the staff shimmered and morphed into the black staff he had had with him earlier.
Hala jerked her head up with a scream. C-Note pointed the staff, and she began to slide away from me. I grabbed her hands as she clawed frantically, her eyes wide with fear. We both slid toward to the edge. With a subtle flick, C-Note lifted the rod. Hala flew from my hands, her fingers raking my skin. She flailed backward through the air, screaming. She didn’t fall but careened across the gap. C-Note held out the staff. Hala’s body twisted into an ugly smear of flesh and bone. What was left of her hit the staff and she imploded, a burst of green essence that the rod sucked in.
C-Note swung himself into the exposed hallway and faced me. “You fight a pointless battle, Connor Grey. A new day dawns, and the old order passes away. I will bring order where there is only chaos.”
He lifted the staff and pointed at me. The envelope of essence on it shimmered, and Teutonic runes blazed whitely along its length. An arc of yellow essence hissed through the air and hit my ledge. It jerked away from the wall, sliding off its support rods with an ear-piercing whine. It bent under my weight. I rolled to my stomach and clutched at whatever exposed beams I could reach. The wall began to slump like wet clay. The building shook violently, and the whole front of it fell into the street.
I slid to the edge, my feet swinging out into the open space. The concrete beneath me became pliant and malleable. It welled between my fingers, locking my hands in place. Something hit me in the back, thrusting my face against the remains of the floor. The air vibrated with so much essence, my vision blurred. The ledge sagged, dropping like soft wax. I dangled in the air as the last connection to the wall stretched thinner and thinner. The concrete became a thing alive, a viscous flow that filled my mouth and my nose. It oozed around me like wet clay. I felt one final wrenching jolt as my weight finally pulled the ledge free.