Page 110 of Dead Wrong

“Brother!” Lynette’s voice filled the room, surrounding us from all sides. “This is your destiny!”

This wasn’t going to end until Lynette was neutralized somehow.

“Help me up,” I told Bastien, struggling to lift myself from the floor. He hauled me to my feet, bracing me until I gained my footing.

“We need to get you out of here,” started Bastien, steering me toward the doors, but I held fast, planting my feet.

“No, we can’t just let her get away.”

“But no one can stand against her,” he argued. “The Saint won’t be able to protect us forever.”

My mind raced, running through our options. Lynette wanted me so we could leverage that. Draw her away from the council members, decrease the casualties. It was a start.

Reaching for the power now held in the stones attached to me, I wrapped myself in my aura, marveling at the rush of strength I felt from the magic. Bastien was right about me being supercharged. This was more power than I’d ever been able to conjure before. Maybe that would make the difference.

“We can draw her out. Let me get over?—”

The doors to the council room blasted apart, shreds of metal and wood spraying across the room. A lone figure stood in the opening, a flickering golden light wreathing their form in an ethereal light.

“Daughter!”

All eyes were drawn to Adoranda Greene—or what was left of her. Her clothing was tattered and blackened, with patches being indecipherable between melted cloth and her skin. Her hair hung in singed clumps from her head. But her face was the most horrific of all. Blackened, charred flesh hung to the left side of her face, peeling away from bone and sinew in a stomach-turning fashion, the opposite side scarred with angry red welts and blisters. It appeared as though she’d chewed her lips away, her teeth barred in an inhuman snarl that sent tingling fear spiking up my spine.

She was Death, walking.

Raising a skeletal hand in the air, the golden light flared, a blast of magical energy clearing a path between her and Lynette. Council members flew through the air, landing haphazardly in crumpled heaps.

Lynette’s magic brushed against my aura once more, but the pressure was like a finger running across my arm instead of the crushing weight of a boulder. To my right, Sancha groaned under the exertion—keeping us safe from the power that roiled off of my sister.

The remaining Council members under my sister’s control abandoned their pursuit of me, turning instead to charge at Mother with twisted, broken limbs and vacant expressions. Mother cast them aside like a child playing with their toys, advancing on Lynette with a limping gait.

With the assault on our group paused the others rallied around me. Azrael and his Urchins spattered in blood that didn’t belong to them. Bastien beside me, his hand on the small of my back as he watched on with horror. Cirian came beside the Cardinal, whispering incantations under his breath as he healed a wound that ran along his forearm.

Another wave of magic roiled over us as Mother crushed a councilman’s skull between her clawed hands, and Sancha’s knees buckled.

“Your Eminence!” Cirian exclaimed, catching her before she could crumple.

Shit. Without her protection, we were as good as dead. Thinking quickly, I pressed my aura out, enveloping the others. Before now, I found covering more than one person with my aura to be exhausting. But this felt easy, like I was wrapping my arms around each of them.

Now, I’d just have to hope it would hold.

A thunderous collision rattled my bones as Mother reached Lynette, the two of them clashing together in a blinding display of power. The wall of windows shattered from the force, glass debris raining down around us like sheets of snow in a blizzard.

Those council members still standing halted their movements, a dozen statues standing stark still as the pressure of magic spiked in the room. The waves of power rolled over us, butting against my aura like the ocean crashing against a cliffside, but my ward held fast, the pull on my power far less than I expected.

“Are you doing this?” Azrael asked, eyeing the violet stone over my heart.

I nodded, still focused on the struggle between Lynette and Mother.

Mother struck a blow against Lynette, sending her reeling, and she crashed against the framing of the massive window, her arm dangling over the edge and over the city sprawling below.

“You will not take this from me,” Mother seethed, limping toward her daughter with determined malice. “My power will stay with me till my dying breath, and I will destroy anything that stands in my way. Even you, daughter.”

Mother raised a hand into the air, an orb of pure golden light pulsating in her palm. Then, a shot rang out, a spray of fresh blood bursting from Mother’s shoulder. Lorelei was standing atop the wreckage of the council table, the barrel of her gun smoking as she leveled a steely glare at Mother.

“Get away from her!” she ordered, the weapon clicking, then firing again.

The second shot hit Mother in the back, and she wheeled around, bellowing with bestial rage at the mortal. Seeing her opportunity, Lynette moved, wrapping her arms around Mother’s torso. With a kick off the window frame, she heaved the two of them over the ledge, and they disappeared into the night air without so much as a whimper.

---