My swelling rage subsided. Calm swept over me—followed by a wave of holy shit panic as another blast of electricity assaulted the wall.
“Did it work?” she asked. “Are your emotions back to normal?”
“Uh … yeah, I think—” As her face lit up with a proud smile, disbelief scrunched my brows. “Wait, that’s what your spell did? You made me immune to the empath?”
“You asked me to—”
If my hands hadn’t been cuffed, I would’ve thrown them in the air. “What about the electricity? The hellfire? The maelstrom of death magic about to explode us into gooey mist? That’s what I wanted immunity from!”
Her scowl returned. “Magic isn’t that simple. At least you can think straight now. You should be thanking me.”
Yeah, sure. I’d thank her if I made it through this without being skewered by lightning.
Rising to her full height and setting her feet, she faced the corridor from hell. “Just stick close to me.”
With that, she leaped from behind the sheltering wall and sprinted into the melee. I took one step—then stopped. She was right. I could think straight again, and for some reason, charging after her held no appeal.
Instead, I inched to the corner and poked my head out. Two yards away, she whipped another marble artifact at a woman lit up with crackling white electricity. The electramage stumbled and fell backward, her power snuffed out—but she wasn’t the only crazed mythic in the corridor.
It looked like a WWE cage match on supernatural steroids. A dozen bodies in various stages of giving or taking an ass whooping were tangled in a mass brawl. Some were criminals freed from their cells, while others were MPD agents and employees.
An alchemist and a diviner, whom I’d last seen in the holding cell beside mine, were very non-magically punching the ever-loving shit out of each other. Nearby, a short, wiry man was waving his arms and yowling incoherently—and a whirlwind was forming in the middle of the hall. Dust and debris sucked into the growing tornado, the roar of wind rising above the shrieking alarm.
Lienna gave her cube a twist and shouted another incantation. A wall of blue light swept outward, and the tornado died to nothing—but magic continued to flash and blast and flare and boom while mythics flailed and bellowed and bled.
She chucked a third marble at the aeromage and he pitched over backward. As she stooped to pick up the artifact, an angered-up MPD agent with a goatee kicked her in the side, sending her, her marble, and her Rubik’s Cube sprawling.
I leaned farther into the hall. Was I supposed to do something here? Run into the chaos with my cuffed hands and bellow creative but totally pointless threats at Lienna’s assailants?
The agent went for another kick, but Lienna rolled out of the way, sweeping his other leg out from under him, then elbowed him across the jaw when he hit the ground. She didn’t just kick magical ass; she kicked literal ass too. And she looked good doing it.
Well then! It sure seemed like Agent Shen had things perfectly under control, so my services were definitely not required. I couldn’t help anyway—not with her fancy-dancy anti-magic cuffs around my wrists.
I waited a few seconds more for her to reclaim her wooden spell cube before sliding back into the safe stretch of corridor. I awkwardly dusted off my jumpsuit, even more awkwardly ran a cuffed hand through my short brown hair, then strode away from the brawl.
Looking back on my life—which I’d spent, more often than not, on the proverbial wrong side of the tracks—I hadn’t developed a soft spot for law enforcement. As a general rule, people who became cops, detectives, and agents were also the types who delighted in wielding their power like a goddamn sledgehammer. And I didn’t enjoy taking the hits.
Not that I was fragile or anything. I wasn’t a pane of glass here. More like a solid and reasonably handsome marble statue. You know, the type that would crack under a sledgehammer, but not straight-up shatter.
Anyway. The point is I don’t trust cops, I don’t like cops, and I’m confident those feelings are mutual. Same for MPD agents and their ilk. So, with only the mildest twinge of guilt, I waltzed toward freedom.
Okay, “waltz” isn’t quite the right word. I bolted like a desperate fool. Can you blame me?
Bound wrists poised in front of me, I careened through the double doors, down another hall, and body-checked the push bar on a door conveniently marked with an exit sign and a staircase sign. Gotta love municipal safety regulations. Not even the mythic freakin’ police could ignore them.
As I charged up the first flight of stairs, the alarm went silent. My ears rang with a phantom echo of the discord. Taking the steps two at a time, I considered that I was about to run into the streets wearing handcuffs and a gray jumpsuit. Problem for future me. Right now, present me’s priority was getting the hell away from this place.
I reached the first landing and glimpsed an open door, a bland carpeted hallway beyond it.
In mid-step, my whole body lifted off the ground as though gravity had called it quits. I kicked like a drowning deep-sea diver, but it was no use. I was an untethered helium balloon in an empty stairwell.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
Captain Blythe stepped into the open doorway, one hand stretched toward me. Her arm quivered from strain, but it didn’t show on her face—surprising, since a telekinetic’s mental strength was limited by their physical strength. My six-foot frame wasn’t that lean, which meant Blythe was hella strong.
She jerked her arm sideways. I flew into the wall and the solid thwack shuddered through my bones. I slid down and landed on wobbly legs.
“Was that necessary?” I moaned.
Her fingers curled into a fist. My throat tightened, cutting off my air, and I clawed helplessly at my neck. Holy shit, she was Force-choking me! It would’ve been so cool if I hadn’t been dying.
My lungs burned for air and my vision faded. Just when I thought I’d pass out, her hand relaxed. My throat opened and I gasped. Giving up on dignity, I slid down the wall and sat hard on the floor.
As I sucked in lungfuls of sweet, sweet air, Blythe strutted toward me. She crouched to meet my eyes, her pale blue gaze promising all kinds of regret for my rash escape attempt.
“You don’t want me as your enemy, Morris,” she said, barely louder than a whisper. “But you just can’t help yourself, can you?”
Chapter Three
When I first landed in an MPD holding cell, I’d realized immediately that a spell prevented any magical high jinks from going down within the cell block. It’d been easy to guess—even without anti-magic cuffs on, it’d felt like having a limb amputated.
Somewhere between then and my interrogation, that spell must have failed.
Gripping my elbow with painful pressure, Blythe steered me through the diminishing chaos. We passed unconscious people, bleeding people, and angry people. Everyone was angry, but it wasn’t “tear out the throat of anyone nearby” rage anymore.
Avoiding provocative eye contact with anyone, I slunk beside Blythe as she passed the interrogation room and turned the corner.
Lienna, with the help of a few agents, had extinguished the battle. Various mythics were in handcuffs or magic-snuffing bracelets. Others were unconscious and/or bleeding all over the floor. Lienna was leaning over one such victim and chanting softly. Something small glowed in her hand.