Chapter Twenty-Three

THE CHANGE WAS instantaneous. It was as if the world around him suddenly came back into focus, and Cary’s body was all at once his own to command. The fog that had bogged his thoughts was gone; he could breathe, and he could see and hear with absolute clarity. Neither Leland’s nor the amulet’s magic could touch him.

The tendril of smoke that flowed from his mouth to the spinning vortex vanished, as if severed by an invisible hand. The window was still there, but it grew dimmer, and the edges of the silver surface wavered. A tremor ran through the stone, down into the ground, shaking the walls.

Cary heard Leland’s gasp of surprise and outrage. He only had a second’s worth of opportunity, so he threw himself off the altar, instinctively putting out his left arm to shield his head. He hit the wooden steps (so hard stars danced in front of his eyes), and rolled down to the floor, hoping the sickening cracking sound had come from the rotting wood and not his ribs. He wasn’t sure his body could take any more abuse.

Pain flared in his arm, dashing his hopes at a clean escape. It definitely felt as if the bone cracked. Apparently, he’d misjudged the height of the stone block and how cramped his muscles were, and he was too weakened by the life-draining magic to have made a graceful landing.

A bullet whizzed past his head, sending splinters flying as it hit the floorboards. Cary hissed and flailed with the agility of a newborn kitten, trying to push himself up to get out of the line of fire. The amulet was burning against his chest, but he ignored it in favor of more pressing concerns.

“Don’t kill him, Vince!” Leland shouted. His regal features distorted, and his outstretched hands shook as he fought to maintain control of the magical whirlpool that swerved in the air. Another tremor shook the long-suffering barn. “We need him alive to hold the portal open!”

But Vincent had no chance to respond. Ty grabbed at the chain that bound his wrists and swung himself in a violent arc, using the momentum to kick Vincent in the back and sending him sprawling. The gun cluttered out of his hand and skidded on the floor, two or three feet off to Cary’s side.

Cary heaved himself up on all fours and lunged for the gun, though perhaps “lunged” was too big a word for his awkward scuttling. He never knew two fucking feet could be such a huge distance to cover. He reached with his good hand, but it was just a split second too late. Vincent, who wasn’t encumbered by a broken arm and bruising, grabbed the gun, swatting away Cary’s extended hand, and rose to his feet, pure rage coloring his face in shades of purple. Cary cowered, waiting for the shot, but apparently Leland’s admonition had some effect, because Vincent hesitated, weapon in hand.

“What are you waiting for?” the sorcerer cried, his voice strained. “Bring him back here, now!”

Behind Vincent, Ty swore. The wound on his forehead had opened again, and a thin trickle of blood oozed down his cheek and neck behind the collar of his jacket. The chain rattled as he tugged at it in frustration.

“Cary!”

This was it, Cary thought. No more second chances. He could feel the magic flowing inside him, but now it was his, not something poured on him, drowning him. He could control it. He’d done it before, hadn’t he? It had worked when he wanted to get out of Giordano’s lake house basement. This was no different—he’d just have to amp it up, draw the energy and direct it with razor-sharp precision. And after all, there was no shortage of magical energy in the barn at the moment.

He took a shaky breath just as Vincent bent down to haul him to his feet, and whispered an opening spell, imagining the invisible currents streaming through the air like a river flood.

The metal bands around Ty’s wrists snapped open, and he tumbled to the floor as he lost his balance. Not having a chance to steady himself, he rolled with the fall, and yanked the chain off the high beam. Holding it in both hands, he launched at Vincent from behind, using the chain to crush the man’s windpipe.

Vincent made a gurgling sound and let go of the gun to clutch at the chain at his throat. Cary crawled to the gun again, cussing at every inch of ground he had to cover. Agonizing pain radiated from his left forearm into the rest of his body with every jolt. Don’t pass out. Bad shit happens when you pass out. Suck it up and deal with it later.

His fingers closed on the gun handle just as he heard the wooden stairs by the altar creak under Leland’s steps. He was coming down, presumably to drag both Cary and the amulet back on the altar himself, despite the limp that was hampering his movement. The clouds of purple smoke thinned, and the window was getting smaller now that there was no living creature to feed it. Leland’s magic wasn’t enough to power it without an external source.

Leland raised his hand, and Cary could almost imagine something vibrating in the air around him, dissipating before it could hit him. The ring he was wearing had neutralized whatever spell Leland had directed at him.

The sorcerer’s expression changed. He glanced at his own hand and then back at Cary.

“You thieving little shit,” he hissed.

Cary didn’t bother telling him it was quite a compliment, especially coming from him. His right hand shook as he raised the gun, pointing it at Leland. The weapon seemed to weight a hundred pounds. Guns were never his forte, and Cary had the vaguest idea of what he was doing.

“Stop right there, or I’ll shoot,” he said.

His voice was trembling as badly as his hand, so it was no wonder Leland didn’t seem to take him seriously. But instead of coming at Cary, he turned and walked to where Ty was strangling Vincent.

The chain burst, the individual links flying and scattering across the floor. Ty staggered and took a step back. Vincent sagged to his knees, coughing. His face was now a deep shade of red, and an angry welt ran across his throat.

Ty’s gaze flickered between Leland and Cary, and Cary couldn’t discern his expression. There was grim acceptance, and sorrow, and something almost tender as their eyes met, and that single look knocked Cary’s breath away as effectively as any magic spell.

Leland extended his hand in Ty’s direction.

“I wanted to give you a chance,” he said, fake regret underlying his words. “A chance to walk away, for old times’ sake. But you’re just too stubborn, Ty. You always have been. And as much as it pains me—”

Cary had no idea what Leland was about to do, but he had no intention of waiting till the end of his self-indulgent tirade to find out. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and squeezed the trigger.

A shot rang out, deafening despite the noise of the rushing wind, the creaking wood, and Vincent’s coughing. Cary opened his eyes. For a moment, he was sure the shot had gone astray, or worse, hit the wrong target. Then Leland sank to the floor, as if in slow motion, going down on one knee and hunching over. He clamped a hand over the wound in his side, blood dripping onto the dirty floorboards, obscenely red against the years-old grime. Cary couldn’t see his face, but judging from Ty’s expression, he didn’t really want to.

The purple and silver vortex above the altar quivered, and the window grew entirely opaque, the otherworldly scene no longer visible behind the veil. With no readily available magic to hold it stable, it began to break apart, plumes of smoke tearing away and drifting to the ground like chunks of shredded fabric. The entire structure around them seemed to convulse at the release of the unstable energy, shaken violently as if by a powerful earthquake.

“No!” Vincent pushed himself up, but his look of horror was directed at the disintegrating portal rather than his partner in crime bleeding out a few feet away from him. He cast about, his look wild, almost deranged. Cary tightened his grip on the gun, but Vincent’s attention wasn’t on him at all.

Ty rushed to Cary’s side and hauled him to his feet. The feel of his warm, solid body pressed against his own nearly made Cary faint with relief, and he had to bite back unexpected tears. He was trembling, and the words “I just fucking shot someone” blazed in his mind’s eye like a neon sign, making it difficult to focus on anything else.

“I got you, baby,” Ty whispered, though he was hardly in a better shape. He put his arm around Cary’s shoulder, steadying them both. Cary was grateful when he took the gun away from him, because he couldn’t have pointed that thing at another human being even if his life depended on it.

They nearly stumbled as another shock wave ripped through the ground. There was a high-pitched, keening sound, and a part of the roof near the barn door caved in, showering them with dust and splinters and effectively cutting off their escape route.

“Fucking shit,” Ty breathed.

Cary closed his eyes. He was too exhausted to care. If this was the end, at least they would face it together, and that was more than he’d had any right to hope for.

“Come on.” Ty pulled him away, going to the back of the barn, keeping to the walls and ducking when pieces of the roof fell down around them. Cary had no choice but to open his eyes and follow him reluctantly. It was pointless. His entire body was wracked by agony, and he wanted nothing more than to lie down and go to sleep.

He saw Vincent picking up Leland and carrying him, slung across his shoulder. The sorcerer’s head was lolling from side to side and his blood was staining Vincent’s shirt, but from this distance, Cary couldn’t tell if he was still breathing. But the illusion of loyalty only lasted the number of seconds it took Vincent to reach the steps to the altar and haul Leland’s unconscious body onto the stone, as if it were a game carcass. He waved his hands desperately through the thinning smoke, frantically paddling it toward Leland’s half-open mouth.

“Work, damn it!”

He’s insane, Cary thought. But the realization was dull and distant. Ty dragged him, almost bodily, around the altar toward the far wall, where he left Cary standing under the flaking sigil. Cary sagged to his knees, watching in apathy as Ty leaned against the altar and, with all his strength, pushed his foot between the stairs. It took him a couple of tries, but then something clicked, and a portion of the stairs moved apart, revealing a square hole in the floor with a steep stairway running down into the damp-smelling darkness below.

Cary stirred, blinking at the sight. A secret passageway was like something out of an action flick—an unexpected twist in a contrived plot, but hell, he wasn’t complaining.

There was a loud crack, like a tall tree snapping after being hit by a bolt of lightning. The purple and silver vortex collapsed on itself, sending out billows of smoke that immediately turned black and putrid. The ground shook, and two upper beams broke in half. Another portion of the roof came down, burying Rossi’s body under the wreckage.

“No, no, no!” Vincent wailed, and clawed at the air where the portal had been. “I need to go back! I want to go home!”

Cary stared, fascinated by the display of utter frenzy, but Ty grabbed his good hand and pulled him down the secret stairway before Cary had the chance to see what Vincent was going to do next. It probably wouldn’t be much, considering the barn was coming down right on top of them. Cary ducked as the wall behind them burst outward, and skidded down the stairs, Ty following right on his heels. He heard Vincent’s final cry of despair as the remnants of the roof crashed down with a deafening roar, sealing the opening above their heads.