I jumped back, seized him around the shoulders and pulled him behind the table. The base wasn’t wide enough to conceal the five of us, but we kept low to the ground as best we could.

  “Get it out,” Auggy said, reaching down.

  I caught his hands and forced them up to his chest. “Can’t. Pulling it out now could do more harm than good. Just hold on.”

  I turned toward Cort, but he already knew what I had in mind. Reaching inside his jacket, he drew out a tourniquet and handed it over. I ripped it open, then fastened it around Auggy’s leg, above the bolt, and tightened until he gasped.

  “Down!” Cort screamed.

  I dropped low, as another bolt passed overhead, striking the stone behind us and snapping into several pieces. A flash of anger swept up my chest, worsened by the fact that I couldn’t return fire.

  “We can’t stay here,” Cort said. “We need a way out.”

  I nodded. “Warman! Talk to me!”

  “I can get the door open,” he said from the opposite side of the table.

  “How’s that?”

  “The table,” he said. “It’s like a big combination lock. Each symbol correlates to a metal.”

  “Okay, what about the numbers?”

  “Melting points,” he said. “The temperature in which the metal can be reformed.

  I blinked and then stared down at the table. It made sense. And it was the sort of thing only a blacksmith or someone capable of forging the rings would know by heart.

  “Tell me what to do.”

  Warman nodded. “Grab the first circle. Move it until I say stop.”

  I did as he bade. The circles were heavy stone, and took an effort to move, but I dug my feet in and pushed, sending it around the arc. Meanwhile, down in the chamber, battle continued to rage.

  The wraith nearest to us swung its sword in a wide arc, slicing through the face of a screaming wretch and sending it stumbling backward with blood between its fingers. Beside him, his black robed counterpart gripped his sword in two hands, stabbing it like a spear into any who drew close.

  It wasn’t all going their way, though. On the opposite side of the chamber, one of the wraiths swung its sword, then tried to bring it back around, but was a hair too slow. One of the wretches got in close, seized the wraith’s arm, and halted its backswing. The wraith tried to pull away, but other wretches saw their opportunity and poured in, seizing hold and driving him to the floor. They piled in on top of him, biting, kicking, and slamming heavy bricks down upon his form.

  “Stop!” Warman said, as the wheel clicked into place. “Next one.”

  I followed his direction, the two of us working in unison to align the wheel into the correct order. I didn’t worry about Warman being incorrect. He knew his stuff, and now that we’d figured out the puzzle, it went surprisingly fast. When the final circle shifted into place, the door behind us opened with an audible click and a hiss of steam as the two ends separated.

  “Let’s go!” I screamed, as another tremor rocked the floor beneath us. This one was bad enough to cause me to brace myself, but I didn’t have time to give it more than a passing afterthought.

  Alberad seized Warman beneath the arm and helped him to run through the door while Cort and I grabbed Auggy underneath the shoulders. Getting through the door meant turning my back to the raging battle, and phantom bolts pierced my back with every step, but we made it through.

  Beyond the door was another wide staircase. Once we reached the edge, I ducked out from underneath Auggy’s arm, then turned right around. The door’s surface was hot to the touch, not quite scalding, but enough to burn the tips of my fingers as I seized the handle. Old memories of fire scalding the back of my hands rose from the depths of my mind, but I pushed them back down hard. The more logical part of my brain suspected there must have been some sort of pipes running through the door’s interior, continuously pumping hot liquid through to keep it at that temperature. Likely it was a last line of defense against anyone who might try blowing their way inside. Any explosion would result in a spray of molten liquid akin to dragon’s fire. It was a heck of a deterrent.

  I heaved on the door and forced it shut. The bolts slammed into place, leaving the wraiths and wretches trapped back in the chamber with only one another for company. I stumbled back from the door and turned, taking in our fellowship.

  Auggy was on the ground, his teeth bared in pain. Alberad sat beside him, gripping his hand. Warman had slumped down on the first step. He looked hurt and exhausted. Likely he was having trouble breathing. He felt my gaze and his eyes rose to meet my own.

  “I’m alright,” he said. “Just need a minute, and then I’ll be okay to continue on.”

  “You would,” I said. “But they won’t.”

  I motioned toward Auggy and Alberad, and he glanced over, seeing the truth of my words.

  “Tobin’s up there,” I said, motioning up the stairs. “I can’t abandon him.”

  “Easton is too,” Warman said. “You’ll need someone to watch your back.”

  “She’ll have it,” Cort said from behind me.

  Warman stared at the pair of us, then glanced back at our wounded friends and nodded. “Go. I’ll look after them.”

  “We won’t be long,” I said. “Then we’ll come back.”

  “I know you will,” he said. “Now, go!”

  I hated leaving them, but there was nothing else I could do. So long as the wretches couldn’t get through the door, they were safe. The same, however, couldn’t be said for Tobin. I glanced over at Cort, who nodded.

  Together, we ascended the stairs.

  The Top of the Tower. Saturday, August 8th 0127hrs.

  As we climbed, we rounded the tower twice before reaching the final door. All around us, the tower continued to shake, vibrating hard enough to leave my teeth rattling.

  The chamber atop the tower’s pinnacle consisted of a circular room with burning sconces on the wall and a stone table occupying its center. Carved from the same stone as the tower surrounding it, the table’s broad surface was veined with silver quartz, its base shaped in the form of entwining leaves and trees reminiscent of the Liberty, Great Elm, and White Oak. The Harvard coat of arms adorned the table’s center, and there, between the three books meant to symbolize truth, was a circular opening just large enough to fit a ring.

  Wilhelm had Tobin pushed up against the table’s edge. Gripping him by the shirt collar, his eyes bulging in fury as he raged. “Give it to me, you stupid boy!” he screamed. “It’s mine, by right.”

  “Begging your pardon, sir, but you can go straight to hell.” Tobin reached up, seized the crossbow bolt still lodged in Wilhelm’s hand, and twisted.

  Wilhelm screamed and released his grip, falling back near the wall and clasping his hand to his chest. He glared murder at Tobin, then turned to cast a venomous look at Easton. “Well? You think I’m paying you to stand around? Get the ring!”

  Easton glanced over, contempt giving way to obvious reluctance as he said, “Alright, Tobin. That’s enough of that. Let’s have it.”

  Tobin reached up and pointedly tucked the ring back inside his collar. “You can go right along with him, Easton. The only way either of you is getting this ring is over my dead body.”

  Easton made a considering sound. “That’s an option, but why let it come to that? Just hand it over and you can walk away.”

  Tobin snorted. “You must think me an idiot.”

  “Come now. There’s no call to make me hurt you.”

  “Just like there was no call for you to hurt Warman. Or Alberad.”

  “That was different. That was business. Let me prove it to you. Simply place the ring down and walk away. No one will come after you. I give you my word.”

  Tobin shook his head. “I’ve seen what your word is worth. You want the ring? Then come and take it.”

  Easton let out a heavy sigh. “Fine, have it your way.”

  He started forward, but something twanged from the darkness a split second before a black bolt shot across the chamber. It flashed past Easton’s face and struck Wilhelm in the chest, sinking all the way to the fletching and sending him crashing back against the wall. He rebounded and peered down in mute shock before dropping to his knees.

  “No,” Wilhelm mumbled. “Oh, God, no. Not like this. I can’t go this way. I’m supposed to… I refuse to die… poor…” Blood gurgled out past his lips with the final word, and his eyes glazed over a split second before he collapsed, his leg bending awkwardly beneath him. His chest fell, never to rise again, and Cort and I shot forward into the room.

  Cort outpaced me and drove his fist straight into Easton’s face. The mercenary’s nose broke with a resounding crack, and Cort went to work on his body, sinking his fists into his midsection.

  I went toward Tobin, but the shooter hit me before I could reach him. I wasn’t sure how she’d found her way up here. There must have been some sort of hidden entrance, something that allowed her to bypass the iron door. I didn’t know, and in that moment, it didn’t matter.

  She landed on my back and sent the pair of us crashing into the table. I tried to right myself, but she was like a spider, scurrying around to my front and interlocking her legs behind my back. Her face swept up to fill my vision, and I snagged her jacket hood and cast it back to reveal the face I already suspected was waiting for me.

  Sickle smiled. A cruel, mad, psychotic smile that sent shivers running through me.

  I hadn’t seen her since the Boiled Sons Street case. She’d hated me from first sight, even back then, and urged Evangeline to kill me. Then, when that failed, she tried to do it herself during the attack on the Westin-Copley downtown hotel. I’d gotten the better of her, and she’d disappeared in the ensuing confusion. I’d hoped she was gone for good, but that was wishful thinking. I should have known she would turn up again. And at the worst possible time.

  My hand shot down toward the knife at my belt, and I yanked it from its sheath. I raised my arm up, but she caught my wrist before I could bring it down, pushing with her weight and slamming it back against the table.

  “Mayfield,” she said, more like a curse than a name.

  “What are you doing here, Sickle?” I snarled. “What the heck do you want with the ring?”

  “Isn’t it enough that you want it?” she snarled. “I’ll kill you for what you did. Kill you again and again and again. And everyone you care about. You destroyed my people. You cast us down into the darkness, to dwell among the rats and roaches.”

  “You were already living in darkness. And you still are. You think the ring can change all that? How? You’re going to sell it back to the university? Use the money to lead your people to freedom?”

  She blinked at me, a flash of confusion informing me that she had never even considered the possibility.

  “You mean to keep it,” I said.

  She snorted. “I mean to bury it in the deepest, darkest, tunnel in this city, where none will ever find it.”

  “What about the entity? Cthulhu? You feel the tower shaking? Aren’t you worried it’s going to destroy the city?”

  “Worried? Stupid cow. I’m counting on it.”

  A cold chill went through me, slithering deep into my soul even as it offered me a glimpse into her diseased psyche.

  Every cop on the force works a familicide case at some point in their career, and every one of them will tell you that it is equal parts horrifying and sickening. Technically, Sickle wasn’t trying to murder blood relatives, but she was a Bostonian, which followed along the same vein. To her mind, if she and hers couldn’t rule the city, then they would rather see it lie in ruins. Hence her quest to steal the ring.

  I shifted and tried to strike from another angle, but she was faster. She caught my hand in both of hers and stripped the knife from my grasp, tossing it over her shoulder and across the chamber. I heard it hit the stones but lost sight as she spun back around and pressed her face against mine. Her crazed, too wide smile leered large in my vision as her fingers stretched toward my eyes, threatening to steal the light of the world.

  There’s an idiomatic saying about beating your head against the wall. It’s meant to convey the sense of frustration you get when it seems as if forces beyond your control are continuously aligning themselves in order to prevent you from achieving your goal.

  My goal was to keep the city of Boston and its citizens safe from those who would do them harm. And I couldn’t quit. Couldn’t stop. Not even long enough to take a breath. Not if it meant that people were going to die as a result.

  This past year had been one of the hardest of my life. I’d been beating my head against the wall, physically and mentally, and more than anything I just wanted a break. Just a little time to rest and regroup. To gather myself, to heal, and to sit back and know that, at least for a little while, the city was safe.

  But that moment was never going to come. Not when there were people like Wilhelm in the city. People like Easton. And cruel, vicious cockroaches like the one in front of me.

  Sickle.

  I’d had enough beating my head against the wall. I wanted to beat it against something else for a change.

  Like her face.

  I jerked forward and drove my forehead into her nose. Something cracked, a nose or some teeth. I couldn’t say. Her grip snapped open and I seized her by the front of her jacket and snapped my head forward again, with similar results.

  I read once that every time you see stars after a head injury, it’s likely a concussion. I hoped it wasn’t true, because they filled my vision, dancing and twinkling as I bashed my head against her face again and again, until blood blurred my vision and she collapsed, unconscious to the floor.

  I slid off the edge of the table. The room was vibrating, although in fairness it was doing that before I knocked myself senseless. Now it was spinning as well, and the combination made me want to purge my stomach.

  Unfortunately, I didn’t have time for that. I wiped my eyes clear and peered around the chamber, focusing on the first figures I saw.

  Easton had rebounded from Cort’s assault and come back swinging. He was the taller of the two, and he knew how to use that to his advantage. A hard knee up the middle caught Cort in the solar plexus, drove the wind from him, and caused him to instinctively curl up.

  Easton read his movements, sidestepped around him and snapped his leg into the back of Cort’s knee. Cort’s balance went, and he hit the ground, crashing to the stones face first a split second before Easton pressed his pistol into the back of his skull.

  “That wasn’t half bad, all things considered,” Easton said, wiping at his mouth. “You’ve clearly had some training behind you.”

  “Shut up and finish it,” Cort said, spitting blood onto the floor.

  “As you wish. You know the old saying. Hope there’s—”

  I never got to find out the old saying. I threw myself forward and crashed against him, swinging my arm around and driving my forearm into his wrist.

  Easton’s hand snapped opened and his gun tumbled from his grip, slamming down onto the stones. I shoved myself against him, and the two of us crashed into the far wall, rebounded, and spun again so I ended up pressed against the stone.

  In pure strength, I didn’t have a prayer against Easton. He knew it too and angled his body to leverage a better position as he seized my throat and held me pinned against the wall.

  “I always liked you, Chloe,” he said, reaching toward my pistol at the small of his back. “Shame it had to end like this. It was nothing personal, I hope you understand. It’s just business—”

  His voice cut off with a strangled cry and he straightened, eyes wide in shock and pain. His arm dropped, the strength fleeing as he sunk to his knees. It wasn’t until I slid off the wall that I saw the source of his distress.

  Warman’s Blade was sticking out of his back. It had passed through his palm, pinning his hand to the small of his back before penetrating deeper inside.

  Tobin stood a step behind him, panting and bleeding. There were tear streaks down his cheeks, but his mouth was fixed in a stern expression. “You don’t get to turn on my friends and then tell me it’s nothing personal.”

  “Tobin,” I said.

  The floor rocked beneath me, no longer content to shimmy, and I stumbled to the table’s edge, seizing hold to keep from falling. The tower groaned and shook, large cracks appearing in the stone as if being pulled apart by invisible hands.

  “Sergeant!” Tobin yanked the necklace off his neck, pulled the ring free and tossed it underhand toward me.

  I caught it out of the air, taken aback by the sheer heat emanating off it. It practically sizzled in my palm, but I forced my fingers around it. Two steps brought me to the table’s center, and I slammed the ring down into the embedded space in the middle of Harvard’s Coat of Arms, driving the ring into the stone and feeling it lock into place a split second before the world went white.

  Journey’s End. Sunday, August 9th 0800hrs.

  I woke up the next morning in the hospital with no memory of how I got there. A nurse came by and checked my vitals, then let me drink water from a paper cup. A couple of Jello cups later, and the world started shifting back into focus.

  Rickson was there. He’d waited all night at the hospital. Warman too. The two of them crowded together inside my little room and filled me in on everything that had happened.

  I couldn’t remember much past when the ring touched the stone table, but according to Warman, it had sent a shockwave of energy down through the entire tower, scattering the wretches and blowing a hole through the wall right out into the neighboring offices. Luckily, no one was working that time of night. Warman and Alberad carried Auggy up the stairs, and they, along with Cort and Tobin, got me outside just as the first firetrucks began to arrive.

  Things got a little strange after that.