A howl tore through the cavern, and the pain in my missing hand screamed. Stars blurred across my vision. The Hell Hounds were close—so close—and all I had to do was keep Madame Marineaux here.
I staggered toward her, reaching frantically for any piece of her I could grab. But my right hand flared blue, blinding in its agony. Madame Marineaux’s eyes locked on it.
A grin swept over her face, and I knew she understood that the Hell Hounds were here for me, not her . Her grin shifted into a frown. “I am sad,” she said. “This is no way for a girl with your talent to die. Yet, you made your choice—and it was not me. Too bad, too bad. If you had only seen things my way, then they could have lived too.” She waved disinterestedly toward the Spirit-Hunters. Their backs were to the wall, and an ocean of skulls and groping fingers surrounded them. But they weren’t defeated—not yet.
“But c’est la vie, Mademoiselle. The bad choices— c’est la vie. And now I must wish you adieu. ”
She surged for the gaping black tunnel in the right corner. It was the only way out now that the left tunnel was swarming with Dead. Before I could even try to lunge into her path, she swept around me, soaring for the exit.
“Ollie!” I screamed. “Hold her! Sum veritas!” Then I launched after Madame Marineaux, sucking in all my power. Every ounce of soul in my body I drew into my chest, and in a wave of heat that scorched through me, I let all my magic loose.
“Stay! ”
Madame Marineaux froze only feet away from the exit. I could feel her pulling, pumping her own magic into a counterspell.
“Stay, stay, stay!” I shouted, and from the other side of the room, Oliver bellowed, “Mane, stay!”
A thunderous roar filled the cavern. All the torches whipped out, leaving only the electric blue of my magic and Joseph’s crackling attacks to see by. Not that I could see—not now. The agony in my hand was too much. I toppled forward, my arms windmilling and all focus on my spell lost.
The Hell Hounds had arrived.
Time seemed to slow. I heard the Hounds’ monstrous jaws snapping behind me, coming closer each fraction of a heartbeat. I felt each throb in my hand and each tiny gust of unnatural wind.
“Bring back my hand, Oliver,” I whispered, still falling forward, still trying to regain my balance.
“Sum veritas.”
A body hurled into me, screaming in Latin. I crashed down, and the squalling Hounds boomed over us. In that instant the pain in my hand ceased. It was its usual phantom limb—flesh and blood—once more.
Yet the Hounds did not stop their frenzied chase. They blasted straight into Madame Marineaux.
Her body rose up and up, and the Hounds swirled around her in a tornado of blue flames. Her shrieks pierced the cavern, shaking my soul.
I am not ready. Not ready . The thoughts cleaved into my brain. Her thoughts—her fears. Claire! she yelled into my mind. Claire! Help me—save me! I am not ready. . . .
And then finally, a thought that nestled so deeply into my heart, I knew it was meant only for me:I was wrong about you. You will topple him. An image flashed next—the cane . . . no, only the ivory fist. Then the vision shifted to a gray Oriental fan on a low shelf in Madame Marineaux’s sitting room.
The image vanished.
Her agonized screams crescendoed, dominating every thought. I watched as she spun . . . as the
Hell Hounds’ roars shook through everything.
Then her body bent backward, snapping in half like a stick, and in a final rage of howling, the Hell
Hounds swirled Madame Marineaux from this world and into thin air.
Into oblivion.
Chapter Twenty-four
Vibrations from the Hell Hounds shimmered in the air, and I waited for the sounds to vanish. My stomach pressed to the cold ground. Oliver’s heartbeat stuttered against my back.
One breath, two breaths—the sounds of struggle were not lessening. If anything, they were growing worse. Bones clattered and lightning blasted from the back corner. A pistol cracked and
Daniel bellowed, “Empress —help! ”
Oliver rolled off me. I scrambled to my feet and surged for the flashes of blue. Toward the horrors of the Dead.
No, not Dead. Hungry. For these corpses were no longer under Madame Marineaux’s control. They were free now, and rabid.
Skeletons crawled over their brethren, tatters of clothes loose on their bodies and chunks of brittle hair on their gleaming skulls. Hundreds poured from the mouth of the tunnel, crawling and climbing and scuttling for the nearest life: the Spirit-Hunters—their backs still to the wall and surrounded on all sides.
A corpse, its ragged shirt falling off its bone shoulders, twisted around and lurched at me. Without thinking, I latched onto my spiritual energy and flung. Magic flared from my fingertips and raced out, blasting into a skeletal rib cage.
And for half a moment I was bound to the ball of soul that animated the body. I did the only thing I could think to do. “Sleep,” I said. “Sleep.” The soul flared once and winked out like a match.