as I crawled over them to reach the back of the room. Though there’d been a decent amount of blood oozing out of me when I’d arrived in the bedroom, there was now a lake pooling beneath me, a tributary running behind. I was beginning to feel the effect of the blood loss. My vision had begun to tunnel, the edges hazy and indistinct. My thoughts had become sluggish, chaotic; more so than usual.
Realizing how little time I had before I succumbed to my wounds, I dug through the debris with abandon. I ran my hands recklessly through the pieces of broken furniture and the shredded pieces of my house, searching for my gun. I was coming up empty.
I heard Rahim cry out from the street and redoubled my effort, only slightly reassured by the continued sounds of magical warfare. There wasn’t much time left for either of us. I crept closer to the Page 209 discarded mattress, digging through the wreckage. I had just about given up all hope, my thoughts wavering in my head, when my hand lighted on something cold and metallic. I sighed as I ran my numb hand over its surface, identifying it. I groaned. What little energy I had spiraled to nothing.
It wasn’t my pistol.
I collapsed in defeat, the vestiges of my resistance crumbling beneath the weight of my despair. My vision narrowed further as unconsciousness came to call, whispering soothing lullabies. My eyelids, far too heavy to resist the pull of gravity, drifted closed. I felt the darkness rising up to meet me. The end had come.
A whoosh of air startled me back to consciousness. I lifted my weary head and forced my heavy eyes open. There in front of me, laying flat upon the mattress was Rahim. He didn’t look so good. The places where his clothes had been burnt away by The Gray’s magical blasts, scorched and bubbled skin shone through. Patches of deep red and even blacker burns stood out against his natural dark hue. He lifted his head and met my gaze. I saw something in his eyes I’d never thought I’d see there.
Fear.
There was also disappointment in equal amount. I think he cared more about being beaten by McConnell than he did about dying.
Before I could say anything, I felt a gust of wind whip by as a pair of snakeskin cowboy boots dropped to the ground a few feet in front of me. McConnell turned and grinned as I peered up at him through fluttering eyes. Though his face looked a little worse for wear, puffy eyes, bruised, swollen cheeks, he didn’t look anywhere near as bad as Rahim did. That was a sobering realization.
“There you are. I’d wondered where you’d gotten off to. Figured you crawled off to die. Glad to see I was wrong,” he told me. “Give me a second to take care of your buddy here, then you and I can get back to business.” He chuckled and stepped to Rahim, energy building at his hands. Gray sparks fluttered to life. “Don’t worry, old boy, I’m not going to kill you. Not yet at least. The master could use a strong conduit like you. It’d sure save me a hell of a lot of grief.”
Though I knew there was nothing I could do, I couldn’t just lay there without trying. I moved to get up, sliding my elbows underneath me for support. That’s when I felt the cold steel of something clutched in the death grip of my left hand. I wracked my brain to figure out what it was while I quietly tugged it toward me through the debris. The increasing hum of McConnell’s magic covered the sound. He was charging up the batteries to be sure he could put Rahim out. I could feel the power washing over me. He was loaded for bear. Time was running out.
Unable to think clearly, I pulled the thing from beneath the wreckage and stared hard at the interlocking links. A second passed, and another, as I implored my brain to engage. Just as The Gray raised his hands to smite Rahim, it suddenly did. I held a pair of the magical manacles in my hand; the same chains that Asmoday had used to bind an angel. With nothing to lose, Rahim and I already dead in my mind, I mustered up the final remnants of my strength and pulled myself into a crouch. I hissed as I drew my broken leg up underneath me, but it held, barely. McConnell heard me and glanced over his shoulder. His eyes sprung wide as he saw what I held. He whirled around extending his arm toward me at the same time I leapt forward. The timing was perfect. The cuff hit his wrist and clacked shut as I tumbled to the ground clutching the other end. The dancing gray flames, which swirled at his palm, blinked twice, then died, dispersing without so much fanfare as a fart in an empty room. McConnell screamed, his voice shrill and crackling, as his free hand clawed at the manacle, trying to remove it. With the opportunity presenting itself, I sat up and snapped the remaining cuff over his free wrist. It clicked closed with a solemn snap.
The look on his bearded face, the quivering lower lip, his twitching eyelid, was priceless. He looked like I’d just sexed up his horse. That alone was worth the beating he’d given me. When I look back on my life, the twisted, agitated look on his face was an image I’d always remember. I might even masturbate to it on occasion considering the amount of pleasure it brought me at that moment. It was that good.
“That’s gotta suck.”
I fell back with a smile, too exhausted to hold myself up any longer. His eyes swiveled to me. They were like two simmering coals, flickering red. I didn’t know what to expect when I’d slapped the cuffs on him, but I had thought it might physically restrain him as well as neutralize his magic.
Seems I was wrong.
He growled low in his throat and drove the point of his boot hard into my stomach. I gasped as the blow knocked me back into the wall, my lungs aching. With no mercy, he pulled his leg back and soccer kicked me in the face. My head snapped back, spider-webbing the plaster of the wall behind me as my mouth filled with the tangy taste of blood. My skull rang like an old brass bell and my jaw throbbed, but I noticed something as it did. Earlier when he’d been beating me, each blow was crippling, bone-jarring. It was like being hit by a speeding truck, but now, his blows seemed like love taps in comparison.
I smiled big and wide, no doubt a crimson mess, as I realized what it was. With the manacles shutting down his magic, he wasn’t this almighty powerful wizard, he was human. Everything he did to me would heal. He couldn’t kill me anymore. I started to laugh, a sick, maniacal laugh that would have made any witch proud.
It just enraged McConnell. With no clue as to why I was laughing, he worked himself into a frenzy. Frothing at the mouth and screaming obscenities, he rained down punches, the chain of the manacles long enough it didn’t limit his motion too much. Blow after blow bounced off my face and skull, streamers of blood trailing in the passage of his hands. After each, I would laugh a little harder, doing my best to smile up at him. This just infuriated him further. Like a whirlwind, he swung his arms and battered me. He showed no signs of stopping until I heard a crack and he reeled back with a shout, clutching at his right hand. Through the blur of blood and swelling, I saw he’d broken it. That made it all so much more amusing. I laughed a little harder.
McConnell snapped and started stomping me, his cowboy boot slamming into my side and bouncing away only to return a second later, as if it were a trampoline. Though I knew none of it was permanent, I started to reconsider my provocation as I felt a couple of my ribs snap inside my chest. I sucked in slow, shallow breaths as he thumped out a double bass rhythm on my side so well any metal band would be glad to have him as their drummer. It hurt so bad I couldn’t see any more, my eyes washed out with white. Barely conscious to begin with, I felt the dark creeping back to claim me once more. I wasn’t dying, but it sure was starting to feel like it.
Rahim spared me that fortunate release. Coming up behind McConnell, who was far too worked up to notice, Rahim laid a 2x4 across the back of The Gray’s skull. His eyes went wide with surprise before rolling back into his head. He collapsed in a heap, his slack face laying just a few inches from mine.
“You killed Santa Claus,” I muttered as Rahim pulled me up, setting my back against the wall. I tried not to whine too much.
“He’ll wish he was dead before I’m through with him.” Rahim kicked McConnell, more out of spite than for any practical reason, causing him to roll a few feet away from us. He glared down at the man, doing his best to control his raging temper. I could tell he wanted to kill him, but he had something else in mind. I was too tired to care, either way.
I watched the wizard lay on his back like a dead fish with a twinge of satisfaction running through me. I couldn’t feel any pity for the guy after all he’d done. Shit! What he’d done.
Veronica.
“Veronica was here when McConnell attacked. I don’t know if she made it out,” I blurted out, my voice cracking on the last.
Rahim looked at me like he’d hoped I was joking, having seen the catastrophe of my marriage. When he saw the worry etched across my battered and bruised face, he shook his head, dropped the 2x4 in my lap and started toward the back of the house.
“I’ll check for her.”
