The Long Way Down (Daniel Faust #1)(86)
I was fast. Lauren was faster. She spun and threw up her empty palm. The air shimmered, turning to jelly, and a wall of shotgun pellets hung in the web of her makeshift shield before tumbling to the ground. She twirled her other hand in a spinning motion, pointing, and suddenly I wasn’t holding a shotgun anymore. A fat rattlesnake nestled in my hands, its head twisting around to bite. On instinct, I threw the snake as far as I could. By the time it landed the illusion was gone, and my weapon clattered against the edge of the stage.
I only had the one cartridge left anyway. I went for my cards, but then I saw Sheldon running up on me, his fists glowing with furious red energy. I couldn’t let him get close, not yet. I circled the closest table, a four-seater draped for dinner and displaying a dozen candles in tiny silver cups.
“For my next trick,” I announced and grabbed hold of the tablecloth’s edge. The cloth whipped away in one smooth movement and left the candles standing on bare wood, untouched. Keeping the momentum, I swung the tablecloth over my head, bringing it around and letting it fly. It hit Sheldon square in the face and wrapped around him like a needy ghost, enveloping his arms and legs and sending him to the ground in a kicking tangle.
A lance of green light flashed past my eyes, striking the wood-paneled wall and leaving a sizzling hole in its wake. I raced across the room, jumping over Sheldon, as my cards leaped from my pocket in a riffling stream to land in the palm of my outstretched hand. I ducked another of Lauren’s blasts and offered my retort, sending a pair of luminous poker cards screaming across the room like razor-edged boomerangs. Lauren threw herself behind a potted plant. Meadow ran over to help Sheldon, tugging at the clingy enchanted tablecloth.
“Gimme your gun!” she shrieked at Sheldon as he forced one arm free. “Give me your f*cking gun!”
Lauren and I darted from cover to cover like gunfighters at high noon, taking shots where we could, keeping our heads down and our hands fast. I was almost to the stage when Sheldon got loose, shoving Meadow away and charging like an enraged bull. He had his pistol, all right, but he was good and pissed and wanted to finish this fight with his bare hands. Perfect. That’s what I was counting on.
I backed up a few steps onto the stage and turned to face him. My timing had to be absolutely flawless, or it was all over. I raised my open hand, invoking the threads of a spell.
He lunged out with a curled fist, sending a shockwave of power that hit me point blank in the stomach from five feet away, knocking the wind out of me and shattering my concentration. Then he leaped, his foot a blur as it whirled toward me. I felt ribs crack as I flew backward, slamming into the table with the soul-trap pouches and sending it clattering to the ground, leaving me prone in a puddle of broken glass. Sheldon crouched over me, grabbed me by my collar, and hoisted me up, his fist drawn back.
I didn’t see it land. I just felt the sudden white-hot pain as my nose cracked, painting my vision blood red, and then nothing.
I must have only been out for a couple of minutes. I woke up, propped up against a railing off to the side of the stage. I tasted blood, my upper lip wet and sticky. My nose and ribs throbbed with icy pain.
Meadow Brand stood over me. She had Sheldon’s gun now. He and Lauren were working to touch up the stage, fixing the paint I’d smeared and setting the soul-traps in their proper place once more.
“Can’t blame a guy for trying,” I said with an exhausted smile. Meadow’s finger tightened on the trigger.
“Spirited,” Lauren said, walking over to join us, “but you’re on the wrong side, Mr. Faust. You act like we’re trying to destroy the world, when we only want to save it.”
“Yeah? I know a dead little girl who probably thinks different.”
She looked wounded. “We aren’t sociopaths, Mr. Faust. A sociopath is, by definition, incapable of human empathy. Opening the Box requires a sacrifice of loved ones. We have all paid for our work, paid in pain and tears.”
“Not nearly enough,” I said.
“You’ll understand,” she said with a faintly condescending smile. “Ms. Brand has requested that you be kept alive, in order to see the glory of our work. And to…make amends for injuring her.”
Meadow stared down the sights of the gun with a killer’s eyes.
“When our new slaves get here,” she snarled, “the things I am gonna make them do to you—you’ll wish you’d never been born. And before I let you die? I’m going to make them gather up all your friends, everybody you ever cared about, so you can watch them suffer and die first.”
“Oh, yeah,” I said to Lauren, ignoring Meadow. “I can tell you’re a bunch of real saints. This one’s humanitarian of the year material.”
“The Enclave project requires a woman of Ms. Brand’s unique talents,” Lauren said with a long-suffering sigh, then shot her a warning glance. “I tolerate her eccentricities. Within limits.”
“Yes ma’am,” Meadow hissed, her eyes fixed on mine. She held the pistol in a steel grip.
Sheldon clapped his hands from the stage. “We’re ready!”
“Very good,” Lauren said, adjusting the signet ring on her left hand. “Sheldon, you have the honor of opening the lock. I will bind Belephaia as soon as she emerges, then Sitri as he arrives.”
She ascended the stage, standing in an arcane circle painted in daubs of yellow and white. Sheldon stood before the box, arms outstretched, the tray of pouches at his side. Latin words rumbled from his throat, twisting in the air as they slipped back, regressing to a coarser and more barbarous tongue.