Deep red eyes borne of unspeakable evil moved across the crags as if tracking me, and an eerie howl rose in the distance.
I fell to my knees under the weight of a vast inconsolable loss and reached for my blood armor, but I no longer had magic. I was an insignificant speck and I was going to die here.
An enormous ghostly face appeared in the burning sky. It rushed toward me and I ducked, screaming. The face swirled around me, ice crystals forming on my skin, and my teeth chattered.
It fired inside me like a spear, lifting me off my feet. I hovered in mid-air, impaled and shrieking. Suddenly, it jerked with an anguished cry and deposited me very gently on the ground. The specter swam around me again, but its touch reminded me of Mrs. Hudson seeking affection.
I swatted at it. I mean, I’d just survived Repha’im and my quota on all things ghostly were full up. “What do you want?”
The face hovered, two burning blue eyes trained on me.
My breath caught. Levi. With that thought, I pierced the illusion. No, that hadn’t been me. I couldn’t see through illusions, especially not one created by a level five Houdini. Levi had recognized me. He wanted me to find him. “It’s me. Ash. I’m alive. Show yourself. Please,” I added, because he was very fond of his precious etiquette.
The face disappeared.
“No! Come back. Show me where you are.” Now that I was aware this was an illusion, I could use my powers. I sent my magic into the rocks, but it bounced harmlessly off.
Another howl rent the air, this one close enough to lift the hairs on the back of my neck. I spun around, certain of a hot breath of foul air and nip of fangs at my back.
“You asshole! Don’t you dare Hounds of Baskerville me.” It was kind of sweet in its own incredibly fucked-up way.
More sets of devilish red eyes blinked open in the rocks.
Think logically. I wasn’t in a Sherlockian nightmare. I was in the corridor with the jail cell that nulled magic. Levi was here, but what stood between us?
I fingered the wooden ring on the chain. I could get out of here and wait for him to either black out and end this or come to his senses, but what if he was already out cold and that face was his unconscious cry for help? What condition was he in now?
“I’m coming,” I called out.
The ground rumbled, knocking me to my knees.
More howls shivered through the fog, coming at me from my left.
I eyed the crag face—my only way out. I had to go through the boulders, but I couldn’t make my feet move. Ninety-nine percent of me was positive they were illusion, but that other one percent was very insistent otherwise.
“We’re going to have a little talk about waiting a suitable period of time to verify I’m actually dead before going all crazypants.”
Calling up my blood armor, I marched determinedly up to and through a boulder.
That was the plan anyway, executed admirably except for the part where I bounced off the damn rock hard enough to crash onto my ass.
The ground rumbled again, a chasm splitting the rocks at my feet.
“You say I’m defensive?” I stomped my boot. “I swear to God, you are the most emotionally guarded man alive. Especially for someone who constantly puts himself out to protect other people. I’m trying to help you and you’re so determined to be locked into your misery—a misery which is totally unfounded since I’m alive, by the way—that you’re fighting me.”
The world stilled into a watchful silence.
“Did you know you always touch me when you sleep, even if it’s just my arm? And though you spent years on your pathetic need to one-up me, you let those old guys cheat if it earned them a point. Your love of anchovies on pizza is abhorrent, and I’ve never felt for anyone what I feel for you. So, fine, you big baby. I won’t use my magic again, but I’m still coming for you, because you’re not getting rid of me that easily.”
Eyes closed, I rushed the closest boulder. Like Harry Potter, I escaped facial carnage, though there was no magical train waiting on the other side.
Arms askew, I skittered to a stop on a slippery rock ledge, knocking pebbles into the waterfall that fell from above me. They immediately burned up, as things do when the waterfall is made of spitting and hissing orange-red corrosive lava. My eyes watered from the stench of brimstone and hate.
It was the Reichenbach Falls on a bad acid trip.
“You. Need. Therapy!” I yelled into the wind that whistled like a tortured scream. I tapped my foot, seeking any other way possible to keep moving forward and get to my stupid boyfriend. There wasn’t one.
“Damage me and you are paying for very expensive reconstructive surgery and a fuckton of drugs.” Edging forward, I peered over the edge. My foot slipped on a wet patch and with a screech, I hit the rock on one knee, my other leg dangling over the chasm. I grabbed an outcropping of rock to keep from falling backwards.
My knee throbbed and tears stung my eyes, but I pulled myself to my feet, and cautiously leaned forward. The bottom of the falls ended in a frothing river of—surprise!—more corrosive lava. It was very far away. I gnawed on the edge of my thumbnail. It was just an illusion.
Ten minutes later, with two wet spots on my thighs from where I’d been wiping my palms on them, I hurled myself off the top.
Apparently, I only had the capacity to break one part of this very fine illusion, so while the lava didn’t burn, I fell and fell and fell, screaming all the way.
At some point, it almost seemed pointless to keep screaming, except I was only halfway down, which was a good reason in and of itself to keep going.
I
