He could get used to this, except maybe he wouldn’t get the opportunity.

  It was just when Bradley and Caxus’ team of turncoats were turning a corner onto what looked like some kind of observation floor that it happened.

  Vali stood, his form outlined by the light spilling in from the wall of windows to his side. His physique was big, but as the light played along one side, it cast the other into shadow – and the effect was like staring at half a man. And the other half?

  Vali the god took a step forward. He locked a hand on his tie pin. His large hand tensed, his knuckles snow-white as he let his fingers clasp that brass ornament.

  Bradley felt magic pulse through the air. Without the scrap of paper in his hand, he wouldn’t be able to feel it. But with it, he could sense just how much magic gathered through the corridor and swelled towards Vali. It was like the god was a lightning rod. And Bradley would have to act before that same lightning could strike.

  Though Caxus’ four turncoats all instinctively ducked back at the dramatic sight of Vali half-cast in brilliant luminescence, Bradley didn’t.

  He knew exactly what he had to do.

  Sure, his heart practically exploded with fear, and his knees weakened to the point of buckling out from underneath him, but he still acted. He didn’t have a choice – Caxus’ magic surged.

  According to Caxus, if Bradley acted at the right moment, and disrupted Franklin’s transformation into Vali, Vali would go down. Not permanently. Just long enough to buy Bradley the time he would need to find Lilly.

  Bradley just hoped Caxus was right. As Vali took a solid step forward, the entire hallway shook, the windows juddering to the point of shattering.

  By now, the four turncoats were bucking back and dropping their guns in fear.

  Though half of Bradley sure wanted to do the same, he didn’t get the opportunity. He felt his right hand jerk up, controlled by a sudden surge of magic that spiraled out from the scrap of paper and sank into his palm.

  His teeth shuddered in his skull as an electric-bolt of power hammered his spine.

  The magic that spilled out of Bradley was no ordinary force. Darker, so much darker than anything he’d ever felt, for a split second, he wanted to scream until his voice went hoarse.

  But the horror immediately gave way to a thrill so exquisite, it was like Bradley had just snorted down a kilo of cocaine. Pulses of heady satisfaction slammed into his skull and rattled his brains. He didn’t ever let his hand drop. He shoved it forward, his fingers releasing as the paper spiraled from his grip and sprang into the air. It didn’t fall to the floor. It just sat there, a meter up and a meter from Vali.

  Before Vali could jolt back or react in any way, the paper exploded.

  The explosion arced out in a wave of magic and force. It knocked Vali off his feet and sent the four turncoats behind Bradley scattering over the floor like felled bowling pins.

  Bradley remained standing. The excess magic still charging through his body rooted him to the spot. He started to jitter. His whole body began to buck as every muscle cried out to be reunited with the pure power of that paper.

  Before Bradley could sink to his knees, and just as his teeth began to chatter so badly they could break, he felt something squirm in his breast pocket. It felt like a mouse pushing and writhing against his skin.

  He used the last of his coordination to plunge a hand into his pocket.

  He pulled out another scrap of paper, this one so soaked in blood, he could barely feel the paper beneath the viscous blood dripping off the page and pooling along his palm.

  As soon as Bradley’s power-starved fingers clasped the new scrap of magical paper, his body calmed. Calmed enough that he could swivel his head to the side and stare at Vali.

  His body was still. The tie pin had been blown right off his tie and rested just in front of Vali’s limp hand.

  A sudden flash of curiosity blasted through Bradley’s otherwise addled mind, and he got down on one knee. He reached a hand out towards Vali’s tie pin.

  He didn’t grab it. As soon as his fingers neared the brass clasp, some kind of magical effect field burst up around it and Vali. It rebuffed Bradley, forcing him back with the power of a mountain pushing against his chest.

  Gasping for air, he took several more wary steps back as golden light spilled over Vali’s still form in waves.

  Caxus had already warned Bradley that he wouldn’t be able to take the tie pin off Vali, just disrupt it for a time.

  So Bradley took a breath and turned.

  With Vali down, for now, there was nothing stopping Bradley. He knew a manic grin spread across his face and hardened his lips like they’d been injected with concrete.

  He tightened his hand on the new scrap of paper – just like the demon had told him to. Instantly, even more magic spilled out from the blood-soaked page, the blood beginning to slip between his fingers and drip down his wrist.

  A blue and black dance of magic crackled into the corridor, charging down Bradley’s legs and sinking into the carpet. It spread from his body like a wave crashing into the shore. As it did, the corridor changed.

  The windows disappeared, the hall narrowed, and a door appeared right in front of him.

  Bradley smiled. Or maybe it wasn’t him who initiated the move. The harder he clasped the paper, the more he felt the demon Caxus’ power and personality spill into him.

  It didn’t matter. All that mattered was fulfilling Caxus’ demands. Bradley would finally get his hands on Grandma White’s estate.

  Then there’d be no stopping Bradley. For Grandma White had possessed far more than wealth and property….

  …

  Lilly White

  Finally, I heard it – a knock on my door.

  I threw myself up, coming to a skidding stop right in front of the door as I opened it. I expected to see Vali and that soft, reassuring smile spread across his lips.

  “Bradley?” I shrieked as I jerked back and tried to close the door. Though I managed to get a hand on it and shove it with all my might, Bradley pushed his foot in the way at the last moment. There was a dull thump as the door struck his shoe.

  Bradley didn’t have a magical bone in his body. Or at least, he hadn’t until today. Now he locked a crackling hand on the door and shoved with all his might. There was nothing I could do. I was pushed off my feet as the door swung around and struck me on the face.

  I fell against the carpet and began to scamper backward on my hands, my eyes pulsing wide as I stared at him.

  Bradley pushed in, meticulously neatening his tie as an ugly sneer spread across his face. “There you are, Lilly. It’s been a pain in the ass finding you. This tower is a warren. But now I’m here—” He didn’t finish his sentence. He didn’t have to. There was only one thing Bradley wanted to do with me.

  Sure enough, as he took a commanding stride into the room, his sneer cut so deeply across his cheeks, I swore it would carve his face in two.

  He jerked his right hand up as he hovered over me. In his tightly clasped fingers, I saw something – a scrap of blood-soaked paper. It was sending charges of magic washing over him in crackling, sparking waves.

  My body froze as I remembered that scrap of a note I’d seen taped to Captain Smith’s fridge.

  Bradley darted his tongue around his mouth in a jerky move as he obviously tried to fight against the itching tingle of the magic. He took another step and loomed over me, that awful smile splitting his face even further in half.

  As he held tightly onto that scrap of paper, more and more magic burst up it and powered across his hand, biting into his elbow and jolting up his arm until it looked like a flag flapping in a gale. “Time to come back home,” he said. Except it wasn’t him. I heard Caxus’ voice.

  Without any more hesitation, Bradley leaned down and wrapped his solid grip around my wrist. He threw the paper against the wall. It stuck there, plastered against the cream paint until blood began to drip down from it. The blood splashed onto the floor and soaked through the carpet. It brought with it an unmistakable charge of magic so powerful it set my teeth on edge and felt like lightning crackling through the air.

  Suddenly and violently, the wall gave way. The cream-colored paint singed off as the plaster beyond cracked and crumbled to ash.

  Beyond, the broken wall revealed a dark passage.

  A sense of terror struck me, one so powerful it felt as if it would wrench my heart from my torso and crush my lungs.

  Bradley swung his head towards me and locked his dark gaze on mine. “You deserve this,” he spat. Then he pushed me through that dark expanse.

  As the blackness wrapped around me, so too did a familiar magic: Caxus’ dark power.

  He was calling me back to him. This time there would be no escape….

  12

  I almost passed out. That dark tunnel spat me out onto a cold, cracked, concrete floor. My face slammed against it as my weak body gave way from underneath me. As my nostrils pressed against the floor, I drew in its musty, awful smell.

  I heard someone clapping.

  Somehow, I knew it was Caxus.

  “I did it. I did it,” Bradley said, his voice garbled with pride, arrogance, and adrenaline. He sounded like a teenage boy who’d just won his first game of football. “Now give me that fucking estate.”

  Caxus stopped clapping. Abruptly. I heard him let out a sharp exhalation, and I just knew he was shooting Bradley a dangerous smile. “All in good time.”

  “I upheld my end of the bargain. Now you uphold your end. Kill her and give me the keys to the mansion.”

  I heard Caxus let out a laugh. It wasn’t pleasant, and it sent tingles spiking up my back.

  Bradley clearly didn’t get the message. I heard his shoes squeak as he took a jerked step towards Caxus.

  “I see the magic has gone to your head,” Caxus commented quietly. “Remember, however, that without it, you are nothing more than a man. And without me,” Caxus now took his own dramatic step forward, his shoes thumping against the floor and making the whole room shake, “you are nothing more than a man. A man who has just attacked the god of revenge.”

  “That bastard is down—”

  “Yes, but not for good. Without my protection, he will come for you.”

  Vali. God, what had they done to him? At the mention of his name, my heart soared yet sank. Obviously they’d struck him some kind of blow, but just as obviously, he’d be able to recover, eventually.

  That gave me time, right?

  Wrong. I heard someone take several loud steps towards me. My sight resolved just long enough to see a pair of expensive shoes stop right before my nose. They didn’t belong to Bradley. No, it was Caxus.

  I heard the fabric of his suit shift as he leaned down to me. He reached out a hand and tapped one finger along my limp wrist. I felt a charge of magic zap through my skin and sink into the new armlet Vali had given me.

  … I started to fall back, even though I was already lying on the ground face-first. My consciousness felt as if it had been attached to a pair of charging horses who were trying to drag my awareness right from my very body.

  As I detached, I lost the connection to my magic. When Bradley had attacked me, I hadn’t had the time to draw on my ice. Now I wouldn’t get that opportunity again.

  “Where did that other woman go?” Bradley asked off-hand. “Did you kill her yet?” He snorted.

  Despite the fact I was numb, my heart exploded with fear.

  Cassidy!

  “She’s someplace safe. And, no, she is not dead. Perhaps I won’t kill her if Lilly here decides to play nice.”

  “What exactly do you want with Lilly, anyway? She’s fucking useless, waste of goddamn space,” Bradley answered his own question.

  “Not particularly perceptive, are you?” Caxus commented offhand.

  “What the hell does that mean?” Though I couldn’t see Bradley, I could tell from his stiff tone that he was getting defensive. Just as I could tell from my knowledge of Caxus that that would be a really bad idea.

  “It means you have no sense of the extraordinary, no taste for magic.” There was a wet slapping sound, and the thrill of terror that raced down my back told me it was Caxus running his forked tongue over his lips.

  “Ha, you sure about that?” There was a note of disdain in Bradley’s tone, a note of hubris too.

  “You think I don’t know about Mrs. White’s fortune? Both mundane and magical?”

  A sharp silence filled the room.

  “We made a deal,” Bradley hissed through his words.

  “Yes, we did. I will uphold my end of the bargain. You can get your hands on White’s fortune. But be warned – others will come after it.”

  “I know how to look after myself.”

  “Indeed,” Caxus muttered under his breath. He turned back to me.

  Though my eyesight was a complete blurry mess, I could still resolve enough to see the outline of him right above me. His head was tilted to the side, and I knew his eyes would be alight with curiosity and desire.

  Though it still felt as if some force was trying to drag my consciousness out of me, I held on. I fought with everything I had.

  I felt Caxus’ finger drag down my wrist. Another, far more powerful charge of magic ate into my skin and jolted up my arm. My head began to spin like a washing machine on a rinse cycle.

  I… I couldn’t hold on.

  “What do you want with her, anyway?” Bradley insisted once more.

  Caxus sighed. I heard him reach into his pocket. He threw something behind his shoulder, and it sounded like a set of keys as it struck and rang against the concrete. “There are the keys to the mansion. Go find your fortune. Be sure to come back to me when you realize you will require a true practitioner to unlock its secrets.”

  I heard the unmistakable sound of a man scrabbling as Bradley likely threw himself at the keys. His sharp breath seemed to cut through the air as did the jerked movements of his shoes squeaking against the floor.

  “Go now,” Caxus said.

  “But—” Bradley began.

  “Go.” Dark power boomed out from Caxus, making his voice sound like an explosion.

  Bradley didn’t wait. I heard a door open and close.

  Then I was alone.

  “No time to wait, my frozen witch. Time to lock you away before Vali can regain his connection to this world.”

  Connection to this world? Was Caxus talking about the bridge that connected the gods to the mundane realm? Though my consciousness still felt like it was being dragged into some void, I had just enough awareness to cobble together that thought.

  It led to another. The Drift. The very Drift I was meant to have the power to bridge.

  Could that be where Caxus was trying to push me?

  Suddenly I felt him wrap his whole hand around my wrist. The force of his power was sickening as it washed over me, concentrating on my hands, eyes, and neck. It felt like with his mere touch he was binding me to the floor with the power of chains.

  Maybe he chuckled to himself, maybe he taunted me further – I could no longer tell. Everything was… dull….

  Yet I held on. Somehow, I found some scrap of awareness to tether myself to. The rest of me slipped back into the expanse of dark void beyond.

  The Drift. A place I came from yet couldn’t remember. A place where I belonged yet would fight with my dying breath to be free from.

  Those thoughts rose from my mind unbidden. They brought with them just a flash of a sense, just a hint of a long, long-forgotten memory, not from this life, but another….

  I felt my body being hefted up. The sound of Caxus’ once-loud footfall was now so dull it sounded as if we were separated by a wall. Except we weren’t separated – I could vaguely feel the press of his fingers around my back as he hefted me into something. It was his chair. Instantly I felt its power.

  “Are you still awake?” he asked.

  I couldn’t reply.

  He chuckled. “Finally slipped back to your true home, have you? And there you shall remain until I can wrench this city from Vali’s grip. Then? Then, my sweet frozen witch, it’s time to bridge the gap between gods and men.”

  Though I couldn’t move, a pulse of terror pounded through my stomach.

  “It’s time to bring Hell onto Earth.”

  “H-hell?” I asked. I shouldn’t have spoken – I shouldn’t have found the power to move my lips, let alone reveal I was still fighting for my consciousness.

  There was a sharp pause. “You’re still awake, then? Stronger than I thought,” he commented to himself.

  “H-how can you bring Hell to Earth?”

  He chuckled. This one was darker, edgier. “Has Vali not explained to you the difference between the realms? That of the gods and that of man? Two worlds separated by the eternal drift of nothingness, that eternal realm of the coldest cold. A realm where nothing exists, nothing can move, and nothing can change. And yet, a realm of the purest potential and rawest power. It is your home, frozen witch.”

  I jolted. It was the first move my body had made. It didn’t signal that I was regaining control of myself. I felt even weaker as a new wave of terror struck me.

  “To answer your question, if you are still with me, the realm of the gods has a Hell and demons and dark creatures of destruction. We may not adhere to your human concepts of the Inferno, but we still exist.”

  “But… what… what do you want?”

  He laughed, and this time it was even edgier than before. I swore I could detect a note of anger, maybe even fear. Perhaps he was frustrated that I wasn’t being controlled quickly enough.

  “Though your Christian myths do not paint an accurate picture of Hell and its denizens, they get one thing right: we exist,” I felt his breath right by my cheek, hot like a pulse from a soldering iron, “to consume the souls of man. By bringing them into their darkest desires, we release power from their souls. That power? It feeds us.” On the word feed, I felt an even hotter blast of breath singe my cheek.