Nocturna (A Forgery of Magic #1)(112)

Still splayed on the ground, the guard was breathing heavily, his eyes closed.

“Are you all right?” Luka knelt and shook his shoulder. “We’ve got to help Alfie, we—”

The guard opened his eyes and they were black as night from edge to edge. His veins were raised and dark as eels. Luka shot up out of his crouch. The guard rose off the ground with a terrifying grace. He rose chest first, as if a string tied to his clavicle were tugging him up.

This is really it, Luka thought, his mind skidding to a halt. This is when I die.

The guard looked at him for a moment before turning away, seeming to lose interest. Without pause he launched himself at another screaming victim. Luka stared after him, somehow alive. He’d be offended if he wasn’t so afraid.

What the hell was going on?

Running bodies, some black-eyed, some not, tore past him as he wheeled around, looking for Alfie in the pandemonium. Bruxos flung their elements at the black-eyed to no avail. They surged forward even as their bodies burned, even as they were pelted with stone, drowned with ice, and flayed with gales of wind. Words of magic could not hold them for long either; they shook it off like dogs did rain.

“Luka!”

He turned to see Paloma running toward him again. A black-eyed woman was trailing her from behind in a ruby gown—a party guest turned monster.

Luka dashed to Paloma and pulled her behind him before opening his palm, setting the woman alight with a stream of fire. Then, with a punch, he sent her flaming body skidding across the ballroom floor.

Paloma stared at him, her mouth agape.

“Don’t ask, I have no clue,” Luka said, motioning at himself.

Paloma shook her head. “I need your help. What the dark magic searches for—the pieces of his body—they are in the vault.”

There were pieces of Sombra’s body in the palace? He’d lived here all his life and he’d somehow missed that? Though he supposed the few times he’d been in the vault, he’d paid attention to nothing but the jewels. His adrenaline was burning through him with too much fervor to dwell on his surprise further.

“I can’t leave Alfie here. I can’t—”

“If you want to help him, you’ll protect the vault. If these monsters reach the vault then all are lost, not just Alfie.”

The naked fear on her face was chilling. Luka had never thought Paloma even carried fear in her emotional range. He’d thought that decades of study had reduced her emotions to nonchalance, wizened due?a-ness, and rigidity, but as the look in her eyes stole into his heart, he knew he must help her.

Luka swallowed, his throat dry. His eyes scanned the crowd, searching for Alfie once more to no avail. He would help him in whatever way he could. “Lead the way.”

Paloma grabbed Luka and pulled him toward a wall. Embedded in the tiled wall was a tiny statue of a bird that Luka had never noticed. Paloma twisted it and a square of the wall swung inward. She pulled Luka in and shut it behind her.

Luka looked around the dark passage, a globe of flame lit above his palm. He was almost insulted that he hadn’t known about these passages.

“What about the others?” he asked. The screams of the ballroom still echoed beyond the wall.

Paloma shook her head. “We need that man distracted while we get to the vault.” Luka opened his mouth to protest. “There’s no time!” She grabbed his arm and then they were running down the winding passage before exiting into the nest of halls that led to the vault. The halls were empty and silent, a deafening quiet compared with the shrieks of the ballroom.

Finally they were speeding down the hall leading to the vault. Luka nearly tripped over his feet at the sight. The filigreed door to the vault had been torn from its hinges.

“No, no, no,” Paloma whispered as she ran faster.

At least twenty guards lay crumpled on the ground. Some with necks that sat twisted at broken angles, others with their throats slashed, their bellies torn open. Luka put his hand over his mouth at the sight of the blood, but Paloma didn’t even pause. She dashed into the gaping maw in the wall where the doors once stood. Luka followed her in and nearly bumped into her back.

“Paloma, wha—”

A crackling sound, like a strike of lightning, silenced him. At the far end of the vault a trio of black-eyed women wearing colorful ball gowns were surrounding a glass case. Inside was a pair of stone hands. Each time they tried to touch the case, a spark of energy shocked them. With every shock Luka saw the translucent silhouette of a barrier blocking them. The more they touched it, the more the barrier attacked them, peeling the flesh from their arms as they reached forward. But they didn’t scream, didn’t move away. They leaned into it. Black shadows spread over the barrier, eating away at it like acid.

“No!” Paloma shouted, but it was too late. The darkness poured over the barrier until it winked out of existence. One of the women punched through the glass, her hands bleeding and covered in shards. She gathered the stone hands in her arms.

“We have to stop them,” Paloma said.

Luka blinked at her. “From taking a statue?” Then it struck him. Sombra turned to stone, not bone. These were the hands of a god.

“Fuerza!” Paloma shouted, and two of the black-eyed women were thrown back against the stone wall. Then with a turn of her wrists, thick coils of stone from the walls pinned the women down as they writhed and fought. Luka could see the stone already beginning to crumble. They were strong.