Page 66 of Hijack the Seas: Tsunami

“Why not?He’s still alive!”She gestured outward, I guessed at the dying god, and had her wrist captured by a gloved, war-mage hand that had just broken through a fissure, because our shield was down to maybe an inch thick.

She screamed, Topknot swore, and Butch Cut stabbed the glowing end of her wand into the man’s hand, causing him to curse and withdraw.But the ward was crumbling now, and the Circle’s men were everywhere, and we were out of time if I didn’t—

Shit!

I increased the flow because, as dangerous as that was, the Corps reaching us would be worse.But the shield was all but gone now, with little left to shore up, and it was slowing us down to a crawl.So, instead of repairing it, I used it, sending all those crumbling pieces outward and blasting the surrounding war mages back off their feet.

They landed in the battle that had begun with their former captives while we’d been sidetracked, sending dozens of bodies stumbling, falling, and rolling—

And clearing a path.

“Go!”I wheezed at the witches, trying to be heard over the battle, but I was too out of breath.Before Alphonse grabbed me, cradled me to his chest, and sprinted for the portal.

Pritkin and the rest were somehow defending it, maybe because we’d been taking most of the heat.Well, we and the dark mages, whose bodies were everywhere, almost tripping Alphonse up before he started just jumping over them.While also having to dodge the spell fire that was starting to focus on us as the rest of the room realized what was happening.

But it couldn’t seem to outrun a master vamp who was taking a crazed, zigzag course across the chaos, merely a blur against the eerie shadows being thrown by the portal.

Until it did.

“Stop her!”I heard Jonas bellow, and his men listened that time, abandoning their fights to focus everything on us.

A dozen spells hit Alphonse at once from different directions, but they didn’t hit me as he had hunched over to shield me.We slammed into the ground with my palms, already puffy and swollen from catching the sprites, abraded further by the rough stone floor.It was enough to stun me all on its own, and then the big body of my defender landed heavy and breathless on top of me.

When I finally shook off the effects of that and crawled out from under, not knowing if he was still alive or not, I was confronted with a scene of utter devastation.Half of the room was on fire, with strange, magical flames burning in a dozen colors.The smoke was drifting everywhere and rising to the heights as if a bunch of nosy clouds had come in to see what the ruckus was about.

And they were getting a show.

Magical weapons were circulating everywhere, many of them masterless now and firing at anyone who came near their fallen owners.Fights were still going on, including up on the catwalk, where somebody’s burning body plunged over as I watched, still screaming.It joined the corpses from both sides that were scattered everywhere, unmoving, and some no longer in one piece.

The witches were about to add to them, being overrun by a furious group of mages, and Pritkin and the others were getting slammed hard.Another large group, including some of those I had sent shards of the shield into, was slowly approaching me, fanned out in a semi-circle, with faces no less terrible than they had been when distorted by that same shield.I wondered if they remembered Jonas’s command not to hurt me.

I wondered if I cared.

I didn’t seem to, suddenly, but not because of despair or even terror, which anyone facing forty or more bleeding, enraged, homicidal war mages would have every reason to feel.But I didn’t.Because I’d forgotten something.

It was the same thing that had slipped their minds as they approached with caution, only not nearly enough.Not with my skin starting to boil with light to the point that a golden halo began staining the floor around me as if I were a human torch.But it wasn’t fire in my case; it was power, and I was being fed even more through the umbilical cord attaching me to my energy doner, which was still in place.

And in my shock and panic, I’d forgotten to constrain the flow.

“No!”someone screamed, but it barely registered.Instinct had taken over, which was why I watched the big golden body strapped down in the middle of the carnage flicker once, twice, three times...and go out.

Its light was extinguished, but its power wasn’t.I felt all that energy hit me, flooding my starving cells right down to my fingertips, which felt like they hadn’t had a meal in months.And they hadn’t.

Not since that day on the Thames when I’d tapped into the power of my opponent, the All-Father’s boundless energy, and fed and fed and fed.It felt like that again, so wonderful, so perfect, so sweet, that I couldn’t help but laugh, and why shouldn’t I?Why should I deny myselfanything?

I looked around the floor, and they were so small suddenly, so petty, with their stupid wars and their little plans.What did I care for that, for any of it, when there wasthis?I sucked the last of it down, that wonderful, life-giving, life-affirming power, and laughed some more.

And saw Jonas’s face up on the ledge, where I guessed he’d gone to help direct the battle.Saw him suddenly understand and yell something I couldn’t hear because I couldn’t hear anything but screams as the war mages attacking me found out why that was a bad idea.Very bad, I thought, as I sent a dozen of them flying with a gesture, smashing them into their leader and burying him under a pile of his own men.

I didn’t see if he got shields up in time; didn’t care.It hadn’t been like this last time, I thought as I sent another group up in flames and watched them burn almost curiously.Maybe because, on the Thames, I’d been sending the energy I stole outward almost as soon as I sucked it down, channeling it into the battle, not holding most of it inside me.

I hadn’t thought that Icouldhold it, as the few times Pritkin and I had jury-rigged the power of a god by using his incubus abilities, it had almost burned us alive.I wondered what was different this time, holding up a hand and watching something move under the skin like sunlight rippling on a pond.I felt nothing at that moment but awe, wonder, and pure, unadulterated joy.

Until something hit me, and this wasn’t one of the pathetic little spells that some of the mages had been throwing.They hadn’t been holding back, having finally taken the gloves off, assuming they’d been using any.And there had been no stun spells in their barrage.

I’d registered them distantly—immolation spells, skin-piercing spells, spells meant to cause the flesh to slide off my bones.But they’d been no more than tickles or the stings of a particularly weak insect, some half-dead mosquito trying to suck a little blood and getting crushed by an absent-minded palm for its trouble.But this—this I felt.

And roared in rage, my voice magnified and booming around the room even though I hadn’t told it to.

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