17
I PAUSED OUTSIDE of Diamond Dolls and glanced up at the sky. It was early evening, but it felt like it should have been later after the time I’d passed in Chang’s private garden. A woman gave me a dirty look as she walked past me, her narrowed eyes jumping from my face to the front of the strip club. I fought the urge to flip her off as I shoved my hands in my pockets and trudged down the street.
Yes, Diamond Dolls was one of the sleaziest, dirtiest, most run-down strip joints in the city, but it also happened to be the easiest entrance into Chang’s. I might not be fond of the place, but I looked far less conspicuous walking into Diamond Dolls than through the other entrance in the dressing rooms at Layla’s Bridal Boutique.
With Gaia’s card tucked in my back pocket, I tried to relax with the reassurance that I had a lead on how to fix the elves’ little problem. Unfortunately, Chang’s promise that the goddess would know when I was ready was gnawing on my ass. I was pretty damn ready now. Arianna’s warning that time was running out had me worried. I wasn’t in the mood to wait on Mother Nature when I had other problems weighing on me.
Traffic was starting to pick up as kids got off school and first-shift workers started heading home. I couldn’t find any parking near Diamond Dolls, so I slid into a nearby lot about a block away. I didn’t mind the short walk in the warm early-evening air, as it gave me a little time to think.
As I reached the corner and started to turn down the next block, an explosion rocked the area. The earth shifted beneath my feet and the concussive force slammed into my back, knocking me to the ground. I tried to catch myself, skinning my palms and banging my knees in the process.
There was a ringing in my ears and my body protested this constant abuse. As the ringing faded, I could make out the sound of screaming and desperate shouting down the street behind me. Turning to look the way I’d come as I got to my feet, I was thinking that it had to have been a gas leak at one of the shops. Or maybe a meteor fell from the sky. Clearly, I was in denial.
My heart jumped into my throat when I spotted the two witches and the warlock strolling down the street through the billowing smoke. They all held wands in their hands. With a quick flick of the wrist or a broad swing of the arm, a building would burst into flames. I backed up, ducking behind the corner of the nearest building so that I wasn’t in their line of sight. Cars were overturned or simply stopped in the middle of the street, as the occupants preferred to beat a hasty retreat on foot, hoping to provide a smaller target for the magic users.
People tried hiding in the various stores along the street, which had worked in the past, but the deadly trio was blowing out windows, tearing off roofs, and setting structures on fire as they slowly progressed. A man darted out of one of the stores before it could be torn apart. He tripped and fell hard to his knees in front of one of the witches. Grabbing up her cloak in one hand, she gleefully kicked him in the head while the warlock landed a kick to his stomach.
Swearing a blue streak, I pushed away from my hiding spot. I didn’t have my wand, but I had to do something. They wouldn’t be permitted to continue causing this carnage unchecked through the city. Before I could step into view, a hand clamped down on my shoulder and swung me around until my back hit the wall I had been hiding behind.
I blinked in shock and found myself staring at Gideon. He was looking a little more pulled together than he’d been at our last meeting, but with him standing so close, I noticed that his tie had been pulled loose as if he were having a tough day at the office.
“What the f—” I started to shout, but Gideon cut me off.
“Shut up and keep hidden!” he ordered. I tried to push away from the wall as he leaned over toward the main street to get a better view of the carnage, but he immediately put a hand in the middle of my chest and pushed me back. “Stay here.”
“Why? What the f*ck is going on?”
“They’re searching for you.”
My blood ran cold in my veins with those words and I leaned against the wall for support. “Why?”
Gideon frowned at me for a second before he dropped his hand. “William Rosenblum came looking for you and he never returned to the Towers. Judging by your appearance, I’d say it’s a safe wager that he found you but didn’t survive the encounter.”
I nodded. In truth, I was a bloody, ragged mess because of Reave, but that was beside the point. Wild Bill had come looking for me and got to chew on the front bumper of a truck for his troubles.
“Rosenblum dies in Low Town, so these a*sholes decide to come to town and tear shit apart. What the hell!”
The warlock shook his head as he peeked around the corner. Whatever he saw made him pale, but he came back to me with his face wiped clean of expression and roughly grabbed my arm. He pulled me down the block until we could duck down another alley, farther away from where the trio was destroying the shops.
Gideon released me when we were far enough from the view of the witches and the warlock. He shoved one hand through his dark hair as he paced away from me. “Things are bad in the Towers. We haven’t gotten a lead on the elf and there are a number of occupants screaming to destroy another city.”
I pushed aside the twinge of unease and guilt and focused on the rampaging a*sholes. “But no one here knows what the Towers are looking for! Hell, people don’t understand why this is happening at all. How can they help if they don’t know?”
“Help? You think people would turn in the person who knows the locations of the Towers?” Gideon stopped his pacing and pointed back toward the street. “Those people are going to protect that elf and raise him up as a hero. And then they’re going to take that information and try to destroy the Towers.”
“But they can’t. No one has the power to destroy the Towers.”
He closed his eyes for a second and he looked ten years older. This life was wearing him down to an angry nub, leaving him with nothing. “I know that, but they can’t let themselves believe it. You convince those people of it and you will have taken away their last hope.”
“F*ck,” I said as I turned to stare down the alley, back the way we had come. “Fine. So the Towers are terrified that people will find their secret locations and do . . . something. Why come to Low Town and wreak havoc?”
“They have to blame someone. They don’t know where the elf is, but several members of the Towers have been able to figure out that you’re in Low Town.”
“And they thought that by killing a bunch of people, they’d draw me out?”
“It’s working,” Gideon said in a low voice, his eyes narrowed on me. “You nearly charged out to meet them, unarmed. Since we’ve been talking in this alley, you’ve edged back down toward the street and I doubt you’re even aware of it.”
I looked around as he spoke to discover that I was now standing near the mouth of the alley, several feet away from where we had stopped just moments earlier. Smoke was clogging the air and darkening the sky. I could still hear the screaming mingled with the high-pitched cries of terrified and hurt children. There was a slight tingle of magic in the air, but I couldn’t tell if the warlock and the witches were still in the area or if they had left to search for me elsewhere.
“I’m supposed to just hide back here? Let those people die for me? That’s bullshit!” I shouted before I turned and started to walk out of the alley. I didn’t know what the hell I was going to do if I did encounter the trio, but it was going to be more than just hiding in some goddamn alley like a coward while the people of the Low Town suffered for my presence.
Gideon’s quick footsteps echoed off the pavement a second before he grabbed my shoulder. His fingers tried to dig deep but I shrugged him off. He wasn’t using magic and I could only assume that the reason for it was that he was afraid of catching the attention to the a*sholes one block over.
“What are you thinking?” Gideon demanded in a harsh voice, sounding like he was straining not to shout. “You’re going to march out there and let them kill you. What’s that going to solve?”
“It’s going to stop them from killing anyone else,” I said, turning back to face him.
“No, it’s not! You die and they might continue killing people in Low Town. Nothing’s solved. We both know they’re going to kill people in the future because that’s what the Towers do. Only thing that would be accomplished would be that you’re dead.”
“Then go out there with me. Between the two of us, we can take them.”
Gideon’s earnest expression disappeared and he straightened, his spine becoming a steel rod before my eyes. “No.”
“What?”
“No. It’s too risky.”
“What do you mean? We can take them. End this.”
He shook his head. “And what if one of them escapes before we can kill them? The Towers will know that I’m helping you. I’m dead. There will be no one to protect my family. I won’t leave them defenseless. Not for a bunch of strangers.”
“Gideon—”
“No. I’m sorry people are dying, but I’m not willing to risk the lives of my family for them. At least, not how you’re willing to risk Trixie’s life.”
“What are you talking about?” I snarled, balling up my fist at my side.
“If you throw your life away on this trio, who is going to protect your girlfriend? And your brother? And your friends? Does she mean that little to you?”
I shouted, rage pouring through me. I was angry at the Towers, angry at the deaths occurring just yards from me that I could do nothing about, angry that I was so helpless in this horrible world despite all my abilities. I swung my fist at Gideon. The warlock wasn’t quite fast enough and I clipped the edge of his jaw. Pivoting on the balls of my feet, I shifted, throwing my weight behind another swing, but something had changed in his expression. His head was turned away from me and slightly tilted as if he were listening to something. I froze, watching him as my billowing fury deflated.
“They’re gone, aren’t they?” I said numbly.
He nodded and a part of me hated him. He’d pulled me away, hidden me, and then distracted me when I was determined to run to my death.
“You’re going out there,” he said in a low voice, but I think he meant it as a question.
“Yeah.”
“Don’t use magic, even if it is to help them. They won’t see you as a savior. You’ll just be another warlock.”
I turned to look over at him, to tell him to f*ck off, but he was already gone. With stomach churning, I walked down the alley and headed down the short block until I came to the street that contained Diamond Dolls. Closing my eyes, I swore softly, hating myself a little.
In less than five minutes, two witches and one warlock had turned the little commercial district into a war zone. The windows in every building had been shattered and most of the buildings were burning. Cars were overturned and a few trees had been uprooted so they could be thrown into storefronts.
Diamond Dolls was split open like a festering wound and was smoldering as whoever remained behind struggled to put out the flames. I briefly thought of Chang, but pushed the thought aside. The old man knew how to take care of himself. There was no way he was ever going to be caught by the Towers.
Bodies littered the area, broken and torn. Blind eyes stared up at the darkening sky while blood spread steadily across the fractured pavement. Old and young. Human and other. The spell weavers had killed indiscriminately, striving to cause as much damage as possible.
Scanning the area, my eyes lit on a little girl in a dirty dress, sitting in the middle of the street next to the dead body of a woman. The child’s face was streaked with tears as her little hand smoothed the hair back from the woman’s face. I started to walk toward her, but I stopped myself after two steps. How could I comfort this child when it was my fault that her mother was now dead? If I had come out to face the killers, would they have stopped? Would most of the victims at least have escaped this brutal death?
Maybe Gideon was right. Dying today would not have fixed anything. It wouldn’t have saved these people. The attack on Low Town was only the start. The warlocks and the witches of the Ivory Towers were going to keep coming, tearing apart the world until they located the person who had breached their defenses. People were going to be violently tortured and killed. Cities were going to be destroyed while others were starved. No one would be left until they had what they wanted.
If I wanted to help the tear-streaked little girl, I had to find Reave and stop him before a new war ripped this world apart.
Emergency vehicles screamed, announcing their approach to the scene. People who could offer more immediate help were coming to put out fires, mend broken bodies, and gather up the dead.
Swallowing back the bile that had risen in my throat, I forced myself to turn back and start walking toward my car. I hadn’t been alive during the Great War, hadn’t witnessed it firsthand, but the destruction of this little block was only a faint glimpse of what was coming. I knew the image of the little girl and her mother was going to haunt me for the rest of my life. Things had to change. If my world was going to survive, things had to change. I just didn’t have a clue as to how that was going to happen.