Page 355 of Alchemised
The effect of the sedative was worse now with the necromancy. The focus required was exhausting. It was fortunate they were all intended to perform nearly identical tasks. She gritted her teeth as she began transmuting each bomb, performing the final step before sending the necrothralls away as quickly as possible.
It was a delicate balance between staying far enough away that she wouldn’t get caught in the blast zone, but near enough that the phosphorus wouldn’t ignite prematurely after the initial activation.
She watched them reach the warehouse and start climbing up the walls.
She started to back away, and her eyes went out of focus as she followed the greys, up, up. No pain centres to feel their fingers shredding.
She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to focus on their progress.
They reached the pipes and slits in the warehouse. A few were on the roof, pulling off the vent covers. Her heart pounded as one of the necrothralls with clearer vision held a sphere up to the pipe and confirmed that it would fit through.
In unison, the necrothralls pulled out the delicate pins that Shiseo had transmuted for her, then dropped the spheres down the pipes. Sending them into the reinforced, sealed-off warehouse.
As the last of them dropped, Helena turned and started running.
There was an almost perfectly simultaneous muffled bang behind her as the initial blast went off. She looked back and saw tiny clouds of dust, some glittering, some white.
The world exploded.
The air was shattered with the violence of the blast, a wave that twisted the air as Helena ran, a searing heat that seemed to chase her down.
The fire was trying to swallow everything, cannibalising itself as it burned, raging and starved, dragging in the air to fuel itself until it created a tornado of wind. Every pyromancy sin Helena had ever warned Luc over, she’d committed.
Warehouses were designed for storage, not structural integrity. The blueprints had shown exactly where the few structural supports were located. The building collapsed in on itself and then blew apart with another sudden explosion. Whatever weapons Bennet had been developing, whatever dangerous, flammable, incendiary resources they had from their own bombs, the fire had found them.
The ground moved like liquid under her feet. The paving stones cracking open.
She was flung against one of the buildings.
Fire was still roaring when she blinked again. The sedative had absorbed the pain of the blow. She lay on the ground, trying to catch her breath, a pulsing throb that should be agony pressing against her skull.
Everything was on fire. She could feel the heat, could dimly make out more explosions. There was a sharp, painful ringing in her ears that muted all other sounds. She looked where the lab had been, but there was only rubble and flames.
Her legs wobbled, giving out when she tried to stand. She collapsed, gasping unsteadily. Her lungs were burning, but breathing made her head swim.
There might be nullium.
She pulled off her jacket and pressed it over her mouth and nose, trying to breathe slowly.
Get up. Run.
But she was so tired. Nothing felt real. It had to be a nightmare. All that time. All those years, everything she’d done, telling herself it would all be worth it in the end. All lies. She’d killed Luc. The first person she’d ever been meant to save, she’d stabbed through the heart.
She lay falling into her loss. Pinned by the weight of her grief. How could she get up now? How could she bear it?
Kaine.
Her eyes snapped open, and she clawed at her throat, trying to push back the sedation, fumes filling her lungs. She’d told him she’d be waiting for him.
If she didn’t go back, he’d return to find a mess of hastily assembled explosives and her scrawled note.
I love you. I love you. I love you.
She forced herself up. She wasn’t going to die. She wouldn’t leave him behind. She had to go back.
She managed a few steps before her legs gave out again. There were figures approaching through the smoke, but she couldn’t make her legs hold her.
She scrabbled in her pocket, finding the vial and syringe she’d put there. Last resort.
