I clung to its back, but my grip slipped, and I tumbled into empty air as we plummeted towards the earth.
21
I slammed into the ground, hard. I lay there for a moment, dazed, my head spinning. From the splintering pain in my chest, I’d cracked a few ribs, but I’d have to deal with the pain later.
“Miles?” I struggled upright, but the others were nowhere in sight. The wyrm must have crash-landed somewhere, too, because I didn’t see its sinuous shape in the sky. All I could see was the flickering outline of the warehouse… and ruined houses on either side of me.
I pushed to my feet, biting pack a gasp of pain, and bone crunched beneath my feet. I recoiled, realising I’d landed on a skeleton buried in the remains of a collapsed house. Elf or human, I didn’t know. Tears burned my eyes. I blinked them away and walked on towards the flickering light. If the warehouse contained the cure, I’d snag it. Even if it didn’t, it was past time I stopped the Family’s new operation in its tracks. This must be where they were manufacturing the instruments of death they’d unleashed on Elysium.
I slowed my pace as I neared the warehouse, yet I didn’t see anyone guarding the doors. I reached the entrance and peered inside.
Horror struck me like the force of a blow. Inside the warehouse, a large number of bodies littered the ground, all wearing the same drab grey clothing. Golden cantrips lay among them, each of them blank.
I pressed a hand to my mouth. The people who’d been carving the cantrips were dead. And from the look of things, they’d been killed by their own cantrips. I looked around, for any signs of a living person who might offer an explanation, and movement pinged on my vision.
One person stood among the dead, unmistakably alive. I approached him, my throat closing up. “You.”
Shawn the spirit mage approached me, his eyes alight with malice. “I wondered if I’d run into you or Miles first.”
“You got out of jail,” I said.
“The vampires let their security slip,” he said. “They aren’t the only ones, either. I’m here to deliver you to your family.”
“Did you kill all those people?” Anger rose inside me like a tidal wave. “Did you use the cantrips against them?”
“They’d outlived their usefulness,” he said. “Problem with most people is that they’re only too willing to work for you as long as you give them what they want. But there’s always a small number who insist on asking for more than we’re willing to give. So it was simpler to take them down. They’ve fulfilled their purpose, after all.”
“You’re one sick bastard,” I said.
I was almost certain he’d been fed that line by Adair… which meant the odds were high that my brother was somewhere nearby, too.
“I’m on the winning team,” he said. “Like that family of yours. You know, they’re still willing to give you another chance, even after everything you did. Can you believe it?”
“So you broke out of jail to come back to the Family?” I raised an eyebrow. “Didn’t know you cared that much for them. I thought you’d be fighting alongside Hawker at the citadel with the other spirit mages. Or did you miss your chance to get in there before they locked the doors?”
“I was more interested in finding your friend Miles,” he commented. “I knew the two of you would be together, and that you’d be looking for a way to stop the virus from spreading. So I came here to wait.”
“It’d have been awkward if I’d never showed up, wouldn’t it?” The guy seemed to be operating according to his own agenda, but there was no way he’d reached this place without running into at least one of the Family. He wouldn’t have killed their people without their say-so, as much as he seemed to enjoy pretending to be acting alone.
I heard a rustling sound behind him, and trod forward, trying to see who else might be there. Adair?
In a blur of movement, Trix appeared, leaping at Shawn from behind. He startled, tipping over, as the elf slammed his head into the floor.
“You killed them!” he said. “You killed the elves.”
My mouth fell open, and I looked more closely at the bodies on the warehouse floor. Some of them were elves, as well as humans. Where had he captured them from?
Shawn’s hands lit up with spirit magic and he pushed Trix off him. I ran up to help him, the best I could with the broken ribs, and shot a fireball at him. He deflected with a blast of spirit magic, and the two attacks rattled the walls of the warehouse. The place wouldn’t stay standing for long, but it’d already served its purpose in the Family’s eyes.
Just like the people inside it.
Anger clenched my hands and I fired off another ball of flame, pivoting behind Shawn. The next fireball caught him in the small of his back, while Trix gave him an uppercut to the jaw which sent him sprawling onto the ground.
“Good punch,” I said to the elf. “Where’s the wyrm?”
“I think it crash-landed,” he said. “It’ll be dazed, but it should recover soon.”
“How did you control it like that?” I asked, unable to help myself.
“Haven’t you ever learned how to use elf magic?” he said.
“No,” I said. “It’s not like I ever had much contact with other elves.”
“Oh,” he said. “That’s a shame. I can teach you, if you like.”
The offer took me off guard. I’d always looked like an elf, but I’d assumed my mage powers were all I’d had. Yet my resistance to death hadn’t come from nowhere.
“I’d like that,” I said. “Once we’re out of
