The young man nodded, his eyes wide. “My father used to buy potions there. He’d never let me go.”
“Well, you’re going now,” John said grimly, and saw the boy swallow. “Watch out for yourselves, and for those still fighting the spell—”
“W-what happened?” The first mage asked, and yes, he was still half under.
“You were enthralled,” John told him sharply. “Guard against it happening again!”
“Enthralled?” the man looked offended. “I can’t be enthralled—”
“Yes, sir!” the young mage said, and to his credit, he barely flinched when a new portal erupted in the street behind him.
The effort almost sent John to his knees. Opening a portal was always difficult, but opening one large enough for this many people to pass through, without it destabilizing and killing them all partway, was not the work of one man. Unless, of course, said man was half demon and the target of the portal was the hell regions. His power was stronger there, and as soon as the connection was made, he felt a familiar surge.
But not enough.
Not close to enough.
“Go!” he yelled. “Now!”
The mass of fire imps hadn’t needed to be told. They’d made straight for it, since their own portals had just been swallowed by the walls encroaching on either side. John shut the trio of smaller portals down, redirecting all of his power to widen the only one that mattered anymore. But it was getting harder.
No, it was getting impossible.
He’d already channeled enough magic tonight for a few dozen men, and while it somehow felt like he still had power to spare, it also felt like it was ripping the tendons from his flesh and the skin from his bones to utilize so much of it. There was a reason the human body only manufactured so much magic at a time, and this was it. God, this was exactly it.
John felt something in his neck pop, his skin crack, his eyes water. And heard the scream that had been boiling in his throat rip out of his mouth, causing a nearby woman—a vendor caught in the crossfire—to shriek. But it also did what his previous command hadn’t. Mages started running through the portal’s mouth, dragging and pushing people along with them, with some carrying their fellows while others crashed through alone.
“I can’t be enthralled,” the older mage kept repeating, yelling to be heard over the powerful whub, whub, whub just ahead. “I’m a war mage! I demand to know—”
John kicked him through the hellmouth, and he kicked him hard.
“You’re not coming.” That was the young mage, from beside him.
“I can’t and hold it open—
“Then I’m not leaving you.”
The boy—no, the man—sounded serious. It almost made up for the fact that he was a fool. “You have to get them through!” John snapped. “Tell Rosier . . .” he paused, because this was difficult, even now. He hated asking his father for anything, but Rosier could protect them and get them back to HQ, and right now, he was the only one who could. “Tell Rosier that Emrys sent you.”
To John’s relief, the young man didn’t ask questions, maybe because there wasn’t time.
“I will. And as soon as we’re back, I’ll send help—”
“No!” John grabbed his arm. Goddamnit! “Tell Jonas: send no one. They’ll simply be enthralled and turn into reinforcements for whoever is behind this! I’ll find out what’s going on and report back. Until then, do not send more men here!”
Again, the young man didn’t ask questions. He just nodded, clear eyed and determined. And saluted again before disappearing into the darkness.
He was the last, at least of those living. John waited a moment for him to clear the other side, then let the portal close with another scream, just because he felt like it. All around him, on the rooflines of the buildings, the vampires had returned, what looked like thousands of them. Some were standing, others had found seats along the ledges, and still more clung to the sides of the buildings, like insects about to pounce.
But none were trying to drain him.
They preferred to wait for the show instead.
Keep waiting, John snarled, gathering the last of his strength, every scrap he had left. And used it all to throw a wind spell at the ground. It was the same one he’d sent at the fey in that vision in Caleb’s office. Only this time, the only person it sent flying was him, up, up, up into the air, high enough to make him dizzy, high enough to make him worried, because if his shields didn’t pop—
And they didn’t.
John had a panicked moment to see the two blue walls crash together below, to see the vamps and weres on the surrounding rooftops gesturing and pointing at the insane mage who thought he could fly, to see the shimmering, golden city spread out below him, where fires were already breaking out in multiple locations, where hundreds of enthralled war mages had broken into clumps to attack . . . something. And, finally, the harbor far in the distance, as dark and mysterious as the well of power beneath it.
And then he was falling.
Chapter Seven
T he multicolored lights that the sandwich seller had draped across the front of his cart were popping on John’s tongue like bright candy. The smells from the grill were hovering almost visibly in the air above it: hazy peppers, ghostly onions and fat tomatoes still tinged with a blush of red. The slight hiss of rain hitting the cracked sidewalk just beyond the canopy of the little cart was fading in and out, an echoing silence one minute, a rushing torrent the next, so loud that it almost drowned out the beating of his heart.
He was going to die.
Or maybe he already had. He couldn’t feel the scarred wood of the peddler’s countertop under his fingers. He was gripping it hard enough to turn the tips of them white, yet it was like grasping mist, and felt as if they'd fall through at any second. It didn’t seem real, like the hazy street beyond, streaked with headlights. Or the splattering coolness of rain on his trouser legs, one of which protruded from underneath the too-small awning and was slowly getting soaked. Or the cursing demon toiling over his grill, sucking on a fingertip that had brushed the hot surface. Or the woman beside him . . .
Who was bright and vivid and there, rock solid in a way that none of the rest of this was. And who was looking at his sandwich covetously. He slid it over and she all but buried her face in it, because Cassie had learned the hard way to never miss a chance to eat.
He watched her, because it was probably his last chance, and because he found her endlessly fascinating. She'd grown up in a situation not unlike his own, or at least, his own after his father had come to earth to claim him. John had been born in sixth century Wales with little understanding of his peculiar ancestry, just thinking of himself as another magically gifted child, part fey like so many others. But all that changed when a demon lord came to carry him away to a land of enchantment and danger and strange beauty. And creatures who wanted to kill him for supplanting them in the succession, and a father who intended to prostitute him out for whatever advantage that would give him, and a ruling council who had watched this strange hybrid from the beginning and hadn’t liked what they saw.
They’d liked it even less after he managed to kill one of them.