“Shoot him!” Pyre shouted.

  The chain wielder thrashed frantically, reaching out towards the people aiming guns and trying to say something that could have been “no.” A couple hesitated; most didn’t. I let go and spun behind the statue as the chain wielder died under a hail of gunfire.

  The chatter of automatic weapon fire filled the room, bullets sparking off the statue and whining past my ears. I checked Trey’s pistol calmly as the bullets flew past. Two rounds in the magazine, one in the chamber. Six gun users: four on the left, two on the right. The one on the far left was firing wildly, and I noted his ammo expenditure. Three, two, one, go.

  The rifle clicked on an empty chamber, and I was already stepping out from behind the statue, taking a marksman’s stance. The guy with the rifle was looking down at his weapon when my shot exploded his head. Fire tracked in on me; I selected a future where the shots missed, and aimed carefully as the bullets whined past. Headshot the second guy, reacquire, track, headshot the third. The fourth scrambled for cover as I stepped back behind the statue.

  Magic surged from the other side of the room: Pyre and the fire adept were bracketing me with flame blasts. I twisted the futures, broke into a sprint, heat washing over my back as I burst into the open. Pyre and the adept tried to track my movements; I threw the empty gun at Pyre, rolled and snatched up a knife, threw that too. Pyre threw up a shield that deflected the gun. The adept couldn’t shield and the knife took him in the eye. He twisted as he fell: fire gouted from his hands and turned the gunman next to him into a blazing torch.

  The roar of a shotgun echoed through the room; the guy with the sawn-off was firing. I managed to push away the futures in which I was hit, but only barely. The cone from the second shot was too broad, and I dived behind a crate. The guy pumped the action on the shotgun and started advancing. The one I’d disarmed earlier had retrieved his gun and was circling to my right, aiming left-handed. I lunged out of cover, closing the distance before he could fire, twisting his hand behind his back in a wrist-lock and putting him between me and the shotgun user. The guy with the shotgun hesitated. Pyre didn’t. I shoved the gunman away, letting him take Pyre’s fire blast in the chest, then broke left. The shotgun user didn’t react fast enough: his first blast hit air, he worked the action, then I caught the barrel before he could fire again. I kicked him in the crotch, twisted the shotgun to break his fingers, fired into him at point-blank range.

  A kid with dreadlocks who radiated earth magic came rushing for me, fingers hooked. I worked the action on the shotgun, fired into his chest, aimed left, shot another who’d been about to open up with a machine pistol. Another fire blast from Pyre forced me to roll, and I came up to see that the earth magic adept was still standing and glaring at me. I frowned, lowered the shotgun, blasted his legs out from under him.

  Another of Onyx’s gang charged me with a shortsword, yelling. I leant away from the first swipe, but couldn’t bring the shotgun to bear; two more were pressing in with a pickaxe handle and a Stanley knife. I pushed the knifer into the club man, giving me a second to focus on the guy with the sword. It was a cheap wakizashi, painted black. I blocked the slash with the barrel of the shotgun, shattering the blade, then hit the guy across the jaw with the shotgun butt. He went down and the knifer tried to get me in the back; I let him catch me, put the shotgun against his body, fired. It was the last shell; I let the shotgun go, moved into the guy with the pickaxe handle, threw him, ripped the club out of his hands as he went down, then pivoted with a full-body swing to bring the handle down on his head with a crack of splintering bone.

  The earth adept was up again and swinging. I ducked, hit him in the face with the handle, then slugged him across the jaw. It didn’t seem to do much but piss him off. He swung again and I leant back, took a windup, and hit him in the side of the head.

  The pickaxe handle broke. The earth adept shook his head, glaring, then kept coming. I looked at him in annoyance, stepped back from his punch, saw that the guy with the wakizashi was trying to get up, and stamped on the hand with the broken sword, making him yell and drop it. I scooped up the wakizashi, jerked its owner’s head back, cut his throat with the jagged blade, then rose to face the earth adept. He came in with a straight punch and I stepped into the attack, letting his fist brush my hair as I rammed the broken sword through his eye and into his brain.

  The earth adept’s death gave Pyre a clear line of fire. I turned and ran, following a curving arc as bolts of flame flashed past, yanking the machete from the body of the dying force adept and bending to scoop up a handgun. Another adept blocked my path, this one carrying a longsword that blazed with fire. I leant away from his strike, cut his arm, then had to jump aside from another of Pyre’s bolts, snapping off a shot as I did. Pyre’s shield flared red, sparks flashing as he deflected the bullet. Before he could recover, I was on him.

  I pressured Pyre, machete in my right hand, handgun in my left, trying to find a way through his defences. Pyre backed away, shooting hurriedly aimed blasts. I watched the flow of his movements, studying his shield in my magesight; a weak point appeared and I aimed my gun, trying to force a future where the bullet broke through. At the last second I realised it wasn’t going to work and I had to jump aside, shooting at Pyre’s face to make him flinch. The kinetic component of Pyre’s shield was slipshod, but a bullet didn’t carry enough mass to destabilise it.

  The adept with the sword attacked from behind, flames roaring around his blade. I ducked, fired again at Pyre, twisted to dodge the follow-up. Futures opened up and I chose the one I wanted. Pyre aimed a fire blast at the same time that the adept tried a downward slash; I spun aside and Pyre’s spell hit the adept, giving him time for one agonised scream before his head and chest were burnt away. Pyre turned on me, snarling, and I fired my second-to-last bullet to make him miss, then lunged in with the machete held low.

  Pyre saw me coming, strengthened his shield, and I picked the future where the weak points aligned. The machete sank into the shield, destabilising it: the shield ruptured in an explosion and a flash of flame, and the machete flew apart into red-hot shards. Pyre stumbled back, his shield renewing itself almost instantly.

  Almost, but not quite. I’d already dropped the broken machete and was aiming my gun. Time seemed to slow. I could see Pyre, his face narrowed in concentration as he worked to repair the shield. My finger tightened on the trigger and the bullet left the barrel with a bang. The hole in the shield shrank as the bullet flew; I found the future I wanted, pushed, and the bullet threaded the needle, reaching Pyre’s body just as the shield closed behind it.

  A hole opened up under Pyre’s ribcage. He staggered, coughed, threw up a wall of flame that forced me to jump back. “Kill him!” he shouted.

  The last half dozen thugs were between me and Onyx. They hesitated.

  Pyre spat blood, glared at them. “Get in there or you’re dead!”

  The three at the front looked at each other, then charged.

  I was getting faster with the fateweaver the more I used it, and I had all three categorised before they’d taken their second step. An adept with curved claws growing from his fingers, an illusionist with a butterfly knife, a normal with a hatchet. By the time the claw user slashed and missed, I had one of their deaths plotted and was setting up the second and third. It felt so inevitable that I almost couldn’t understand why they were still coming.

  I drove the claw adept back with a kick to the stomach. The hatchet user came in from behind as the illusionist engaged me from the front, butterfly knife whirling. The illusion he was using was a displacement trick, appearing a few feet from where he actually was; it might have worked on someone who couldn’t see the future. The visible knife passed harmlessly through my chest as I caught his arm and spun him, choosing the future in which the hatchet user’s swing met his. The illusionist screamed as the hatchet sank into his back; the hatchet user let go of his weapon and backed away wide-eyed. I hit the illusionist in the throat, reached past him as he fell to yank the hatchet out, and turned to meet the claw adept’s rush.

  The remaining guy with an AK-47 was aiming it at me: he’d reloaded but now the claw adept was between us. “Get out of the way!” he shouted. “Let me shoot!”

  The claw adept was tunnel-visioning on me and didn’t react. He attacked, and I pulled my stomach away from a swipe that would have spilled my guts out. I slashed at him but the hatchet was clumsy; he dodged and the future I was trying for wisped away.

  “Get down!” the guy with the AK shouted. “Let me—!”

  The claw adept’s and the AK user’s heads came in line and I threw the hatchet, the weapon spinning through the air with an eerie whickering. The claw adept had enough time to dodge. The AK user didn’t. The blade sank into his head with a thunk as the claw user charged, and the now-hatchetless thug tried to grab me from behind. I spun him around, let the claws go through his stomach, then while the adept was still struggling to pull his claws free, I hit him in the gut, then again on the back of the neck. He went down and I grabbed the illusionist’s butterfly knife and rammed it into him, stabbing over and over as he struggled to rise.

  Pyre threw another fireball. I dived and rolled, heat washing over me, a scream from behind dying away in a gurgle, then I came up in a run, aiming for the fallen AK. I caught up the assault rifle, worked the action, then opened fire, short controlled bursts. Pyre fell back, staggering, one hand held up before him to focus his shield, the other clutched to the blood leaking from his body. Bullets sparked off his shield, melting and bouncing away, but the assault rifle had far more power than the pistol, and Pyre was hurt. The shield weakened, fracturing under the hail of bullets. I held Pyre’s gaze and saw the dawning realisation in his eyes. “Wait!” he shouted, throwing up his other hand. “Wait! I’m done!”

  The futures aligned and I picked out the one I needed. A three-round burst shattered Pyre’s shield, then another went through his chest. Pyre jerked and fell. I emptied what was left of the magazine into him just to make sure.

  Turning, I saw that only three others were still standing. A guy with a handgun, another with a combat knife, and behind them, Onyx. I started walking.

  The two boys looked at me wide-eyed, then raised their hands. “Don’t shoot!” the one with the gun called.

  “We give up!” the other shouted. “Okay? We give up!”

  I kept walking.

  “You said we could go if we dropped our weapons,” the guy with the gun said, the words spilling out hurriedly. He dropped his handgun. “I’m going.”

  “Yeah.” The other guy dropped his knife. “I’m done. We’re both done.”

  I walked up and they backed off to the wall. I dropped the empty AK-47, bent and picked up the handgun. It was an old-model 9mm, scuffed and damaged. Five bullets left.

  “Just let us go. Okay?” The first guy glanced fearfully at Onyx, but when Onyx didn’t react, he looked at me. “We won’t do nothing.”

  I looked back at him, then raised the gun. His eyes went wide and his voice rose to a scream. “No, wait, don’t—!”

  I shot him through the head. His friend tried to bolt for the door and I shot him too.

  All of a sudden, the room was quiet. After the shouts, screams, gunfire, and explosions, the silence was eerie. The only noise was the quiet crackle of fires and the moaning of the last one of my attackers still alive and conscious. It was the one whose hand I’d half severed, and he was curled up on the floor whimpering. Without turning to look, I put a bullet through his head and he went still. Now the only sound was the fires.

  Two others were left alive. One was Selene. Pyre had dropped her early in the fight and she’d scrambled away into the corner: she was staring at the carnage with eyes wide in horror. And there was Onyx, standing in front of the door, arms folded.

  I looked around. The floor was covered in bodies, killed by fire and bullets and blades. Blood was everywhere. I studied the slaughterhouse for a moment, then turned to Onyx.

  “Well,” Onyx said. “Guess Morden was right about one thing. You want a job done right, you got to do it yourself.”

  I glanced down at the 9mm and tossed the pistol aside. It clattered to the floor and I walked to the body of the adept with the sword.

  “Had a feeling it’d be this way,” Onyx said. He walked forward into the room, kicking aside the 9mm. He turned his head to watch me as he moved. “I’ve been waiting for this a long time.”

  Without taking my eyes off Onyx, I bent down and took hold of the weapon’s handle. Most of the gang’s equipment had been junk, but this wasn’t. It was a focus item, well-crafted, designed to channel the wielder’s magic through the metal. Not really meant for a diviner, but it would resist spells better than a normal sword and had a slight ability to pierce shields.

  “So let’s do it,” Onyx said. “You and me.” A plane of force sprang out from his right hand, the length and shape of my own weapon. He held his left hand out towards me and beckoned.

  I advanced, studying Onyx’s shield. Onyx wasn’t Pyre; his shield was a shimmering weave of force, planes meshing and overlapping. It was optimised against ranged attacks, but effective in melee as well. Futures of the next few seconds unfolded, a thousand Veruses attacking a thousand Onyxes from every position and angle. None broke through.

  I did a short lunge, testing Onyx’s defences. Onyx blocked the first attack, let the second glance off his shield. He stabbed for my eyes and I leant away, the thrust stopping an inch from my face.

  “Come on, Verus,” Onyx said. “Show me what you got.”

  I attacked, careful not to overextend. My bladework was better than Onyx’s, and more than half of my strikes got through. None broke his shield. The planes of force shifted to block the incoming blade, the focus item’s magic meeting Onyx’s with a tiny flash at each contact. Onyx counterattacked from time to time but his strikes were casual, almost careless; he was feeling me out.

  One of my thrusts glanced off Onyx’s shield, and his face twisted in disgust. “Come on!” He walked towards me, his arms spread wide. His shield glowed brightly in my magesight as he reinforced it. “Hit me!”

  I backed away. Onyx swiped his blade through the air in short cutting arcs, pushing me into the middle of the room. “Hit me!” Onyx said again. “You beat me with that fateweaver once. Made me run. It was the first time, you know that? After I became Morden’s Chosen, I never lost a battle until you. So hit me with everything you got!”

  I kept backing up, watching Onyx warily. The last time we’d done this, I’d used the fateweaver to redirect Onyx’s attacks, turning one back into him. He was being more careful this time.

  “Morden never treated me the same after that,” Onyx said. “When I found out you were going to Fountain Reach, I was ready. It was going to be a rematch, just you and me. Except you didn’t, did you? You ran away.”

  I was still studying Onyx’s shield. It was strong—very strong—but there were gaps between the planes of force, chinks where an attack might slip through if he were distracted.

  “Pissed me off so much when I learnt what you did,” Onyx said. He slashed as he advanced; each time I skipped away. “Yeah, I could kill you, but I wanted to face you full strength. That was half the reason I took that statue. Pyre thought he was going to get the fateweaver for himself, but I didn’t give a shit. I knew if I waited long enough, you’d come. So bring it, Verus. Give me your best shot. I want to take you on with that fateweaver and kill you with it!”

  Onyx had backed me up against the statue, and with the last words he lunged. I stepped aside and brought my sword up, picking out the future I wanted. Onyx’s blade drove into the statue just as my own sword slid through a chink in his shields and scored his arm.

  Onyx jumped back with a snarl, raising his left hand. I dived aside as the statue exploded into a hundred pieces, shards of stone cutting my back and pinging off the walls. Onyx came on again, teeth bared; blood was dripping from his right hand but he was obviously more angry than hurt.

  I parried, backed away. There were no futures where I broke Onyx’s defence, and I had to give ground. Onyx forced me into a corner, then raised his free hand: blades of force appeared from every direction and arrowed in. I saw myself die in a hundred futures, found one in which Onyx made a slight mistake, pushed. It was close. Two of the blades were too accurate to dodge and I had to block with the sword, the impact jarring it out of my hand.

  Onyx slashed and I rolled under his blow, jumping over a body and snatching up a machine pistol. I fired at Onyx blind, the automatic weapon chattering; Onyx advanced through the hail of fire, bullets glancing off his shield until the gun clicked empty. The combat chain was lying near the ruins of the statue and I caught it up.

  “Come on!” Onyx snarled. “Room’s sealed, only way out is through me, so stop running and fight!” He slashed for my head and I leant away, lashed the chain against his arm to deflect his next strike. I took the second’s breather to step back into a ready stance.

  Onyx kicked a body out of his way and kept coming. “Morden wouldn’t shut up about you, you know that?” The sword whipped out and I dodged back. “‘You should get on with Verus.’ ‘You should work things out with Verus.’ ‘You and Verus could learn from each other.’” Another slash; again I dodged. “Without the fateweaver, you’re nothing. I beat you every time. You were the one who kept running away. And then Morden picks you for his aide. I was his Chosen.” He slashed again. “It should have been me!”

  This time I stepped into the blow, ducking down. Onyx’s blade snipped a few strands of my hair as the chain whipped out to coil around his leg. Force shields are good at absorbing blows, but they don’t do much to stop a pull. I jerked Onyx’s leg out and he hit the floor, the blade vanishing as his concentration wavered.