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Day 382 A.F.
Death kept taking me farther from Jack. I stretched my arms out, fingers splayed toward the heat of that seething pool of lava. "He can't be dead," I sobbed. "Can't. NO, NO, NOOOO!"
"You want to follow the mortal?" Aric demanded. "Get your revenge first. The Emperor mocks your pain."
I could hear that fiend in my head--laughing.
The red witch exploded inside me, a force that could never be contained. I shrieked, "You will PAY!"
As the Emperor laughed, Death murmured in my ear, "I have your grandmother, sieva. That was the gift I spoke of. We'll teach you how to kill the Emperor. You'll avenge Deveaux."
"Don't you understand? Jack's not DEAD!" I screamed that over and over. "He's alive!"
With my mind teetering on the brink, I spied something in the skies above us. I gaped, disbelieving.
Real? Unreal? Just before oblivion took me down, a mountain of water curled over our heads, racing toward that hell of flames.
Circe's towering wave. Taller than a skyscraper. --Terror from the abyss!--
--Quake before me!--
Circe's and Richter's calls boomed in my mind, jolting me back from the blackness.
"Come!" Aric snatched me into his arms and sprinted from the clash. "When they meet, the blast and then the flood . . ."
I stopped fighting him; the need to turn Richter's laughter into screams clawed at me, which meant I had to survive.
Aric gave a sharp whistle; a horse's nickering answered. Thanatos. With me secure in his arms, Aric leapt into the saddle, and spurred the warhorse into a frenzied gallop.
We all but dove down a slope--passing the mangled body of my own dying mount--then charged up the next rise.
I gazed over Aric's shoulder as that tidal wave crested above Richter's lake of lava.
Heaving breaths, Aric kept Thanatos at a breakneck pace. Up another mountain. Down another slope--
Circe struck.
A hiss like a giant beast's. A detonation like a nuclear bomb. The shock wave was so loud my ears bled. As loud as the roar preceding the Flash.
The air grew hotter and hotter. The world rocked as a blast of scalding steam chased us.
BOOM! The force sheared off the top of a mountain behind us. Boulders crashed all around as we careened into yet another valley. Still we rode.
"Surge comes next," Aric grated.
The ground quaked from the weight of an ocean of water. I could hear the flood roaring toward us. "Aric!"
He got as far as he dared, as high as he could. "Hold on." Clutching me tight, he dropped from Thanatos, who kept galloping away. Behind the cap of the tallest mountain around, Aric braced for impact. He wedged his metal gauntlet between boulders, wrapping his other arm around me.
Gaze locked on mine, he yelled, "I'll never let you go!" We each sucked in a breath.
The searing water hit. The explosive impact ripped me from his chest, but he caught my arm, clenching his fingers above my elbow.
Death's grip. The ungodly force of that flood. My watery scream . . .
Aric never did let me go--
My arm . . . gave way.
Separated.
_
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Day 383 A.F. (384?)
How long had I been carried in this furious current?
Days and nights. Nights and days. With no regeneration. One of my shoulders ended in a ragged stump, skin fluttering like fringe. My collarbone was broken, my cheek, my nose. Ribs cracked. Skin scalded.
Rain pounded, the snow a memory. Blinking against the downpour, I zoomed past mountain peaks . . . the hulks of old high-rises. . . . Barely keeping my head above the surface.
Aric, where are you? Had he lived? Or was he dead like Jack?
No, I refused to believe Aric was gone too. He was the Endless Knight. He was invincible.
Would he believe I had died? Probably about to. He would make sure to win this game, enduring endless nights to reunite with me again.
Dizziness. Spinning . . . in a whirlpool? A vortex had caught me! Circe, why are you playing with me?
Maybe because I'd betrayed and murdered her in past games?
Spinning, spinning . . . like the ball in a roulette wheel. The whirlpool was too strong! "J-just f-finish me, Circe!" My stomach lurched. When I heaved, water flooded my mouth, nearly choking me.
Sinking?
Sinking!
My lungs screamed for air. My deadened legs kicked. I sucked in a gasping breath at the surface.
Wails. I squinted. The whirlpool had trapped Bagmen! On the opposite side of the vortex, four of the zombielike creatures spun with me. Their wasted skin glistened, chunks of flesh missing. Their eyes were pale as chalk--and filled with hunger.
The circle tightened. I screamed when their grasping hands missed my face by inches. They snapped their teeth at me, desperate to bite.
To drink my blood.
For so long we'd thought they craved liquid in any form. All this water around them, and what they truly preferred was inside me. Bloodlust.
I was prepared to die. Not to be transformed into a Bagger.
The whirlpool spun faster, faster. Ever closer to them. Closer . . . One snatched my jacket!
I kicked, breaking its grip. The next rotation would be my last--
We drifted apart, the vortex weakening. How? The current swept us toward a church bell tower, the water dividing around it. Survivors, three men, clung to the tower. The bells rang in the night.
The Baggers went right of the steeple; I shot left, struggling toward it with one arm. Can't catch hold! One man held out his hand for me. I screamed as my claws scrabbled across the slate roof.
Adrift. In time, the current quickened again. A mountain loomed. Instead of parting to the sides, the current rushed straight for the center. Would I be bashed against the side?
My eyes widened when I saw the path of the water drop--into a tunnel. I was heading right for it!
Seconds later, I was swept down into that pitch darkness. Total black. Can't see, can't see! I kicked to keep my head above the surface. For air--and to hear.
Wails echoed off the tunnel walls. I jerked my head around, unable to pinpoint the sounds. Debris battered me. Things moved against my legs. Were Bagmen below me as well? I whimpered at the thought.
I bumped into something afloat. With a cry, I latched on to it with my remaining arm. I clung, bobbing like a cork. My skin was so numb I couldn't tell what it was.
The blackness lightened to murk, and rain drummed my head again. Out of the tunnel!
I blinked at my raft. Blinked again. A skull-and-bones tattoo? A bloated belly. I was clinging to a headless, limbless body.
"Ahhh!" I flailed away, but it seemed to follow me. I kept my eyes on that corpse as it floated alongside me for what might have been days--
I collided with something hard. Metal gouged my skin. I craned my head up: a cell tower! The current trapped me against the structure, pinning my back and arm.
I couldn't move. A pinned insect. The tower groaned in the waves, swaying.
More Bagmen sped toward me. I was completely vulnerable, laid out for a bite. If they turned me into a zombie, would I float forever?
Maybe that was how the game would be won. By an Arcana who would never quite die.
The Baggers thrashed to reach me, pale eyes frenzied. The flood defended me for once, sweeping them away like twigs.
Ah, God, a house rushed toward me. Adrenaline flared; I gritted my teeth and somehow twisted my body to face the tower. With one arm, I climbed the service ladder.
I imagined Jack climbing out of that lake of lava unharmed. We would both reach the top. He'd be waiting for me there, offering his strong hand and his heartbreaking smile. Missed you, bebe.
Another rung higher. Memories surged like Circe's wave. Agony ripped at my chest as I recalled my last words with Jack. He and I had marveled at the snow. At tiny drifts of falling white.
Another rung. The house bore down on me . . .
It passed the swaying tower within inches. I wouldn't be so lucky next time.
Lucky? I laughed into the wind.
At the gusty top of the tower, I coiled my arm around the ladder and laughed till I sobbed.
Jack is dead.
2
Day 385 A.F.?
Tess.
My eyes shot open, my shaking arm tightening around a ladder rung. Tess had the power to go back in time!
Jack might be dead. He didn't have to stay that way.
She and I had saved his sight by reversing time; we could save his life! And Selena's. We could save Jack's entire Azey army. I just had to reach Tess.
She, Gabriel, and Joules had been a couple of days out of Fort Arcana. The three would have heard the attack, would've returned.
I had to get back there. How? I didn't know its location--or my own. I believed the fort was in northern Tennessee. Or Kentucky. Ish.
The storm had dwindled, the winds not as fierce, and the water had receded until the depth looked to be no more than a few feet. Which meant I teetered a hundred feet in the air.
From this height, I craned my head around. In the gloomy dimness, I spied rocky foothills to my left. To my right, I could just make out the remains of a town. I could determine my location there.
Energy filled me, my mind sparking with purpose. The stump of my arm finally twitched with regeneration, my scalded skin beginning to heal. My glyphs radiated like a spotlight, a beacon in the black.
With one arm, I started climbing down. Muscles so stiff. Each time I released my grip, I had to lean into the tower to balance my body, then painstakingly place my feet lower down. So slow.
And every moment since that massacre counted. Each second that Tess went back in time drained her of life; she'd nearly died when I'd forced her to go back just eleven or so minutes. With my claws sunk into her arms, she'd withered away to a husk, her hair falling out, her bones jutting.
How much time had passed since the Emperor's attack? I could have been unconscious for hours--or days. How far away had the flood carried me?
Why hadn't Circe killed me? Didn't matter. Gotta get to Tess.
I would need so much more from her than minutes. But I could work with her until her power bloomed, until she could withstand the demands of her ability.
What if I got her to reverse time by days, yet we still missed Jack by an instant? We needed to go back long enough to take out the Emperor before he struck. We could get Circe to attack him sooner!
I frowned. I'd heard Richter's evil laughter in my head . . . after Circe's flood, not just before. How had he survived? If the Priestess couldn't take him out, was Richter invulnerable?
I couldn't worry about that. Not yet. Aric had killed the Emperor in a past game, so he knew Richter's weaknesses. My grandmother would be a wealth of information as well. Because of Aric, she was alive and safe at his castle.
With their help, I could learn how to destroy Richter. For now, I just needed to get to Tess. On a clock. Tick-tock. No time to waste descending one rung at a time.
Sucking in a breath, I closed my eyes and let myself pitch backward, free-falling from the tower.
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Falling . . .
Landing . . .
Pain!
Rebar jutted from my side. Shit, shit! Don't panic. . . . I forced myself to examine the wound. Wasn't as deep as I'd thought, but I was trapped on the ringed metal. No time for this!
I huffed in breaths through gnashed teeth, then pushed with my arm. The bar scored me inside, inch by ragged inch, till I freed myself. I struggled to my feet, reeling for balance. My wobbly legs didn't want to hold me. Each breath was agony.
If I could take one step, it'd be one step closer to Jack.
I took that step. And another. And another, until I was slogging through filthy water toward the town. I wound around debris--and half-submerged Baggers trapped under storm wreckage.
That could've been my fate. How close those Bagmen had come to biting me! No wonder Aric had held on to me so tightly.
Aric, where are you?
No answer to my telepathic call. No Arcana voices at all.
Baggers snapped their teeth at me as I passed. For each one I could see, how many were concealed? Would I step on one? Like a Bagmine?
Focus. In this situation, Jack would keep his cool and work out logistics. Everything depended on me reaching Tess as quickly as possible.
When Aric had abducted me from the Hierophant's mine, I'd believed Jack had died, and I'd decided to live for vengeance. But this time, I would simply refuse to believe he was gone.
I swung my head left and right, searching for any clue about my location. As I trudged, supplies floated past me--food, bottles of water. I never would've passed by these treasures when I was on the road with Jack, but I didn't have my bug-out bag, nothing to stow them in.
