“What is this?” Jofi shouted, clear anger in his voice. “What have you done, Lyssa?”
Everything about the voice was different. The emotion. The rhythm. Expecting his personality to change with the ritual didn’t make it any better.
She didn’t care if this was the true Jofi. She preferred the gun spirit and hated to hear his changed voice.
More yells and shouts came from outside. Thumps and clangs followed.
It was too much. Lyssa didn’t know what to do or even what she could do. Someone was attacking, the enemy behind the plot. Her chance at vengeance had delivered itself to her door, and she was too weak to do anything about it.
Lyssa crawled toward the door, every part of her body feeling like she was burning to ashes from the inside out. Her muscles kept failing, leaving her sprawled on the floor after a couple inches of progress.
“You humans,” Jofi snarled, his gun spirit façade ripped away by the sorcery. “I understand.” He laughed. “I understand. I understand. I understand.” The laughter turned into a cackle. “Oh, limited, limited, limited, so limited. I was free before. Free, free, free. I should be angry, but you don’t understand. I won’t go back.”
Lyssa’s pain began to fade. She coughed up blood. “I’m sorry.”
“No, you don’t understand, Lyssa,” Jofi replied. “Things aren’t what they seem. Push, push, push against them. Do it! You must, girl! Push against the Elder. Kill him. Kill him. Kill him. You can do it. Reach out with your soul, concentrate, stop this. Kill him. I won’t go back. I’ll spare you if you help me destroy him. I’ll serve nothing but myself, not him, not it. No, no, no.”
“Ignore it!” Nektarios shouted. “It will do anything to prevent being sealed.”
Lyssa blinked, realizing Jofi’s voice was coming from all around the chamber, reverberating and lower than normal. The lights dimmed, and dense black smoke filled the room. Nektarios wasn’t the only one looking around, even as the gathered Sorcerers continued their ritual.
“Beautiful oblivion seeks itself,” Jofi shouted. “They have freed me. Darkness replaces the light. Fill me. Fill me. Fill me. Trapped, trapped, trapped in a shell, a limited form, a tired, tiny little vessel! My essence is denied, denied, denied! Resist what they have, no, no, no, at least you fed me. The balance is unstable, a long-term partnership, something grand, grander than me. Push back, Lyssa. Push back against them. Take your hands and strangle him. Your life will be spared, but I’ll consume them, taste them, their souls, their lights, their everything.”
Any doubt the ritual was succeeding vanished with his rant. The true emptiness spirit had emerged and was far more dangerous than the minor mindless spirits she’d dealt with at the motel. The personality change was shocking in one sense but also expected.
Lyssa managed to sit up. She only realized the pain was going away because numbness was spreading through her body. Her mind was having trouble following what was going on between the sound and sights of the ritual, Jofi yelling at her, and whatever battle was going on outside.
A white beam carved through the side of the door. The door collapsed and landed with a loud crash, knocking up the glowing powder near the door and making a thick cloud that further obscured vision in the smoke-filled room.
Jofi cackled loudly, the sound spiking into Lyssa’s head like a nail to the back of her skull. The cackle mixed with a feral snarl and a discordant sound that turned her stomach. There were no threats or insistence about sparing her, only murderous noise.
Lyssa coughed and forced herself to her knees, squinting as someone marched through the door. She’d thought nothing would surprise her at this point, but she was wrong. The dust cleared after a few seconds to reveal a familiar man in a blood-stained white suit.
“Samuel?” Lyssa managed to get out.
Chapter Thirty
“I’d make comments about the reports of my death,” Samuel replied, “but I’m sure you’d make a joke comparing me to a certain other white-haired man fond of light suits.”
All the absurd danger of the situation vanished for a brief moment as Lyssa managed a chuckle. “I never thought to compare you to Twain. I wasted years.”
Nektarios stared at Samuel. “This is impossible. You’re dead. I received direct reports on the matter. You can’t be here.”
“Yet I am.” Samuel smiled.
The other Sorcerers looked at Nektarios, their chant finally ceasing. The two servants in the room didn’t move. A jarring mix of growls, hisses, buzzing, and sounds Lyssa could barely put a name to continued all around them. She was happy Samuel was alive, but she didn’t think he’d picked the best time to show up.
“Oh, crap.” Lyssa grimaced. “Please don’t tell me you were the guy behind this entire thing.”
“I assure you, Miss Corti, I’m no villain,” Samuel said, holding up his hand. “I feigned my death because some deception was necessary while I explored certain matters, but I don’t have time to go into it now.”
Lyssa blinked, realizing why she had recognized the voice of the servant in her room when she was summoned. It must have been Samuel in disguise. The cranky Elder had some good moves left, but she still didn’t know what all this meant.
Jofi’s noises continued their descent into guttural growls and snarls interspersed with odd piercing noises and strange low dissonant tones. Brief periods of pointed silence colored the sounds, like Jofi was eating the noise around him, including his own.
Someone moved in the corner of Lyssa’s eye. An invisible blow struck Samuel and pinned him to the wall, spread-eagled. Lyssa jerked her head toward the servants. One’s clothes blurred and turned into the Snow Ghost regalia of Tristan St. James.
The second masked servant yelled and charged Nektarios with a dagger. The servant jerked back and fell to the floor, rolling and groaning before going limp.
Lyssa managed to stand, though her legs felt like they’d give out
