As if we’d be sure to meet again. Then her lids slid shut.
More rocks fell, pinging me on the head. A big one connected. I staggered, seeing four of the dead clone.
“They’re goan to overrun us.” Jack drew his pistols, picking the Baggers off.
“Climb up here!” I’d thought he and Aric would be right behind me.
The snarling grew louder and louder.
“If we don’t stop them”—Aric’s swords flashed out—“they’ll power their way through the top of the cab.”
I raised my gaze. “There’s another floor, maybe thirty feet up.” The doors at the elevator stop had been blown wide from the grenade. Red lights pulsed from that landing.
Jack snapped, “Get her out of here, Reaper. NOW!”
Before I could argue, Aric leapt up to join me, grabbing my bloody waist. He drew back to the opposite side of the shaft. “You can do this.”
“Do what?”
He tossed me. I flew upward, arcing toward the opening.
Oomph. The edge gouged my wound as I landed, half of me inside, half clambering.
“Climb, Empress!”
My boots scrabbled against the uneven shaft. Before I could hoist myself in, pain shot through my head.
Another rock? Cracked skull? Blood poured down one temple. My glyphs flickered. With the last of my strength, I hauled myself up into some kind of storage room.
Louder snarling below. No more gunshots. Jack?
I couldn’t release my thorn tornado without risking him. Poison wouldn’t work on them. I had no ground to grow vines, no plants to revive.
I flopped onto my front and shimmied to the edge. “Aric!” I saw him through a frame of dripping blood. A crimson slick gathered around me, pooling over the lip of the floor. “Don’t leave him!”
After a heartbeat’s hesitation, he seized the coil of severed elevator cables, ripping them free. “Deveaux!” He threaded the length through the hatch. “Grab hold!”
“Got it! Go, go! Fuck—they’re in!”
In one motion, Aric heaved on the cable and vaulted toward me. Midway, he lost momentum, snagging the edge of the floor with the tips of four fingers. “The mortal’s caught on something.”
Jack dangled halfway out of the hatch; Baggers scrabbled to drag him back down, clinging to his feet.
Cable in one hand, crossbow in the other, he fired. For every Bagman he killed, two more took its place.
Hanging by his fingertips, Aric grappled to heft Jack—and the chains of Bagmen suspended from each of Jack’s legs. A Bagger tug of war. “Can’t hold this for much longer. The mortal’s probably been bitten.”
A rock the size of a soccer ball struck the back of Aric’s head, knocking his helmet off.
It fell. . . .
Snagged by a small jut of stone—right above the rising tide of Baggers.
“Must have that.” Aric’s gaze darted from where it balanced to Jack and back. How long before he dropped the “mortal” to save his all-important armor? What if he didn’t drop Jack?
If I lost them both . . .
Never again to see Jack’s clear gray gaze.
Aric’s unguarded smile.
The Empress didn’t get collared or caged—and she didn’t lose those she loved. Despite my injuries, the heat of battle welled inside me. My heart thundered as I wobbled to my knees. Aric wanted me to unleash the red witch? I was ready!
But how to fight Bagmen? My eyes darted. How?
Dig deep, the witch whispered. As you would in earth.
Could my arsenal come from . . . within me?
“Goddamn it,” Jack bellowed. “Out of arrows too!”
“Sievā, I can’t hold this.”
My body began to thrum in unknown ways. As an almost electrical pleasure spread inside me, my breaths shallowed until I panted.
I was familiar with the feel of roots churning beneath the ground. Now they seemed to churn within me.
And it was sublime.
The red witch rose—watch out Death, here she comes—and I let her free. Light exploded from my glyphs, radiating from my face, through my clothes.
The Baggers screeched, shielding their sensitive eyes.
My body vine shot upward from the back of my neck, dividing into a mix of ivy and rose. Writhing green ropes fanned out behind me like a giant aura.
I snatched the base of the vine, ripping the wriggling mass from my skin. With a scream, I hurled it into the shaft.
A grenade of my own.
I envisioned spears of green shooting out, branching like arteries, invading—growing not from earth, but from my own power.
My lips curled with bliss as I let myself go adrift—until I could perceive vines as they punched through slimy chests and impaled skulls. As they opened up Bagmen from the inside out.
Yes, sublime.
Baggers wailed as ravenous ivy suckers burrowed into their skin, prying hands from Jack.
“That’s it, Evie! I’m loose!”
Before my eyes, rose stalks and ivy slithered up the sides of the shaft, blanketing the rock. Shimmery green painted everything. Vines wove a net above me to catch falling debris.
Aric released his hold on the stone lip and dropped down a few feet to grasp one of the strong stalks. He reeled in that cable, hauling Jack up.
Then Death and Jack ascended—like mysteries brought to light.
Once they’d reached my floor, Aric demanded, “Were you bitten, mortal?”
Jack inspected his legs, yanking up the slime-covered material of his jeans. No blood. No broken skin. “Non. It was close, but no.” We’d saved him in time.
I commanded that net to drop, trapping the swarm of Baggers below. They tore at it, clawing to rise up—just as the red witch continued to clamor within. My outside battle mirrored the one inside me.
With the scent of roses flooding the air, my gaze slid to Death. Five icons from him alone. He had no helmet to protect him.
“Rein this in, Empress.” Death’s face was tense, his brows drawn. “Remember: I will not fight you.”
I turned to Jack for help. Yet as I met his eyes, I realized he wasn’t my anchor.
He was my reminder—that I wanted to keep my humanity.
Wasn’t Aric a reminder as well? Of my vow never to hurt him again?
Inhaling deeply, I grappled to contain the witch. Anxious heartbeats passed before my claws retracted, my glyphs fading.
I’d used my powers as never before. A handful of icons had been there for the taking. But I’d muzzled my witch!
Eerily carried by my vines, Death’s fearsome black helmet floated upward. I retrieved it, handing it to him. “How’d you like that?” I said between breaths. “Unleashed enough for you?”