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Grit filtered down in feathery whispers, and then the real lurch ca exploded as force traveled up through the ground, pulverizing layers of granite into dust The cinder blocks of the walls buckled, ground the crashed in a twisting, tearing mass of wood andtoucheddisintegrated around round lurched like pounding surf underneathto the end of his spear He kept rising
The spear grew, and grew, like some poisonous tree with its roots sunk deep
He broke it off at ground level It shattered at the stress point with a lassy sound I heard even above the shriek of the storm
A palhearth in front of , and used the re stick Thu of Poe’s telltale heart
Around us forround, like the eye of the hurricane
It expanded, and other people appeared out of the chaos Wardens, once upon a tinized many of them, at least by face if not by naainst the Djinn - not that Bad Bob cared a bean about killing the Djinn to benefit humanity Oh no Bad Bob cared only, and always, about his own ends, and whatever these pathetic, deluded people thought they were getting out of fighting on his side, they were bound to be disillusioned
I assessed nuht as well, since I was stuck here It did occur tome only what he wanted to showoff will eventually show you so he doesn’t intend to
Bad Bob was one hell of a chatterbox
Sixty of themMy spirits sank, which was no doubt what he’d counted on He had numbers
Of course, we had more, but add to that Bad Bob’s Demon-derived powers and the neat trick of handheld antiainst, and ell on the train to Screwsville
"You still think you can win?" he asked me I didn’t answer, because I wasn’t sure I dared tell a lie right now, and a lie was all I really had "Scared little Jo It was always going to end like this, you know You against me, and you never could take me"
"I did take you," I said "You sadistic old bastard" He lost his sive it a taste of you in your aetheric form?" he said "Bet it’ll hurt like fuck"
"Bet you don’t want to be around when I survive it and come to kick your sorry ass off the face of the planet"
He laughed and grounded the butt of the spear again "I always did like that about you You got sand, I’ll give you that" He leaned forward, eyes avid and wet "Fight ht me It won’t ht by dragging the Wardens away from all those innocent people on shore you’d save lives, but I think you justforto really draw your paycheck, peach"
"Like hell," I said
He blew me a kiss Back on the ship’s sofa, my body continued to twitch and writhe Cherise sat down next tofor help
The sensation of her hand against h to form a link - a way back I pulled The black, and with a hissing snap I ca
A white blast of energy erupted out of the clouds overhead - clean, pale energy, not the poisoned kind he’d poured into the storm - and struckthroughout into the ground
It shattered the re connection that held h the screa ocean, over half-seen bits of island, into cal bulk of the Grand Paradise
Into my body, with a lurch like a slap
I caasp that felt like a shriek My back was burning, on fire, and I tried to lunge to my feet It felt likeand sparking
I pitched off the sofa to the carpet and got a taste of rug
Cherise was instantly on her knees besideto cradlefelt wrong, strange, bad, vile and I wasn’t sure that it wasn’t contagious
"No," I panted, and crab-crawled back to jaainst the bottom of the sofa "No, leave ot the attention of so steward - I still didn’t know his nae the First-Class rebellion before we’d set sail - shoved aside the coffee table and reached down for et medical help?" I wrapped my hand convulsively around the white lapel of his jacket, and where ripped the fabric, it started to smoke and hiss
He exclaio My hand didn’t see, and I could feel what it was doing, but it was holding him in place
Part oflarger as the broken containment on my back allowed the poison from the torch mark to flood into me
The da swept away
The steward struggled, panted, yelled for help, and finally ed to slip out of his jacket, which re fla babble So up froers, but I couldn’t stop it All one with the on fire
Souisher, but as soon as the icy foa upveils of fla inside me now - fire was always the easiest of powers to call, because it was virtually unstoppable even in natural for, too Soh s to find the s on offer
I was an open doorway, and soht have screamed, but if I did, it was just inburned away, leaving y I could see e s - a pillar of fire, a pagan goddess, naked and primal
My hair didn’t burn, but it rose and fluttered on the waves of heat created froold, and where I touched, things blackened and smoked and charred into ruin