Rachel Aaron - Spirit’s End

The man was dressed in black, but other than that it was hard to pin his clothes down. The long drape that hid his torso and legs could have been a coat or a well-cut robe, but the high collar reminded her of the League. His pale face was handsome and strangely trustworthy. It actually looked a lot like she’d always imagined Master Banage’s had when he was younger, and she wondered a moment who he was. A Spiritualist, perhaps, though she was sure she’d have remembered a face like that. Maybe he was one of the Shapers? Miranda was still trying to puzzle it out when she caught sight of his eyes.

Her breath stopped. The man’s eyes were golden yellow, just like Nico’s. The demon. She was looking at the Demon of the Dead Mountain.

The Lord of Storms went stiff beside her, and the air filled with the smell of ozone. But before he could do anything with the gathering power, Nico and Eli stepped out of the shadows behind the demon. Nico looked the same as ever, but the thief looked positively rattled. Somehow, that terrified Miranda even more than the two demons. Eli being anything less than perfectly self-assured felt like a betrayal of the world’s order.

Fortunately, the moment was fleeting. As soon as Eli’s feet were firmly in the snow, he started talking. “We need to break in now,” he said, looking at the Lord of Storms. “Since you’re being so quiet, I presume someone’s talked you over?”

“More or less,” the Lord of Storms said.

Eli shrugged. “Can you open the veil to the Between?”

“I used to have that power,” the Lord of Storms said, pushing himself up. “Let’s see if she’s cut me off.”

Miranda was about to say she’d never do such a thing when she realized he wasn’t talking about her.

The Lord of Storms raised his hand, and the air in front of him ripped open. All at once, the snowy valley was filled with blinding white light as Benehime’s wall was revealed again. “That’s the best I can do,” he said, dropping his arm.

“It’s a bit small,” the Demon of the Dead Mountain said, his handsome face falling into a sneer. “After all this time, I expected so much more of you, my dear Lord of Storms.”

The League Commander’s eyes flashed, and Miranda felt his killing instinct like a blade of hot steel in her gut. She yanked on their connection, and the Lord of Storms grunted.

“Not yet,” she whispered, panting from the effort of holding him back. “We need him to do this.”

The Lord of Storms shot her a look of pure poison, but he did not move as the demon walked up to the white wall floating in the air.

“Well, my daughter,” the demon said, smiling at Nico. “Shall we play our part?”

Nico snarled at the endearment, but she stepped up beside him, her little body tense beside his large form. “Let’s just get this over with.”

The demon laughed and held out his hand. All at once, his fingers flickered and vanished, revealing an enormous, black claw. A second later, Nico’s did the same. Her claw was slightly smaller, but the curved edges were just as wicked as they hovered above the white barrier.

“When you’re ready, love,” the demon said, his double-harmonic voice cloying as poisoned honey.

Nico’s hand clenched, and then she brought her claws down. The second they hit the white wall, the air began to scream. The veil squealed beneath her attack and began to pitch wildly. Smoke rose from Nico’s black talons, and her face distorted in pain and rage.

Just before her hand dissolved in the white light, the demon’s claw joined hers. They pressed together, and shadows began to gather despite the blinding light, the darkness clinging to their bodies like syrup. For several moments the white wall did nothing but scream and burn their claws, and then, with an ear-splitting crack, the barrier shattered.

The demons’ claws sliced through the white wall like knives through flesh. The blinding light faded, and Nico and the demon dropped their arms, the claws flickering back to their human shapes.

Josef ran over to Nico, and they exchanged a few words Miranda couldn’t hear. Eli joined them a second later, and the three began to whisper rapidly. On the sidelines, the demon stood back with a sardonic smile, his eyes fixed on the sky overhead. “Settle it quickly, children,” he called. “They’re almost through.”

Miranda’s eyes shot up. The bulging sky was lower than ever. Now that she’d seen demon claws firsthand, she could make out the traces of the same shapes straining against the sky’s surface.

The thought drained the blood from her face. Watching them digging into the shell, Miranda could already see what would happen in her mind’s eye. The dark claws would rip through the blue sky as they had ripped through the wall of light seconds earlier, and the creatures would fall on them, enormous mouths open to devour the world. With that, the fear came roaring back, and she began to shake uncontrollably.

“Who’s going in?”

The Lord of Storms’ voice cut through her panic, and she looked up to see him striding over to Eli’s group.

“I am,” Eli said, pushing Josef aside. “And I’m going alone.”

The Lord of Storms sneered. “Change your mind about paradise, thief?”

Eli’s expression flipped in an instant, and the pure fury Miranda saw there took her breath away. “Never suggest that again,” he said, his voice as cold as the snow underfoot.

The Lord of Storms crossed his arms. “Just checking.”

Eli shot him a final glare before turning back to his group, his face returning to its usual earnest charm.

“I’m the only one who can do this,” he said. “Benehime is the most powerful thing in the world right now. We can’t fight her, so it has to be me. Meanwhile, I need the rest of you to make sure the world doesn’t fall to pieces while I’m in there.”

“Easy for you to say,” the Lord of Storms growled.

“I’ll be quick,” Eli promised, and then he turned to face the Lord of Storms. “Do you still live for a good fight?”

“Of course,” the Lord of Storms answered. “Why do you ask this now?”

“No reason,” Eli said, smiling in the way that usually meant there were a lot of reasons. “Just hold tight, I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

He grinned at them one last time and turned around. Lifting his leg high, he stepped up through the ripped hole and into the white world beyond. The light ate him at once, and the portal in the veil snapped closed without a sound, the glowing line fading instantly into the air.

“He’s not coming back,” the Lord of Storms announced.

No one else said a word.

Eli took a deep breath as the veil closed behind him. He was locked in now, no turning back. That thought actually made him feel better. First rule of thievery: You can do absolutely anything when there’s a wall at your back.

He was standing alone in the Between. The white nothing stretched out forever in all directions, endless and blinding. But, though Benehime’s world looked the same as ever, something was different. There was a pressure in the air strong enough to make Eli’s ears pop, like the whole place was being squeezed.

With a muffled curse, Eli started to run. There was no time to stand around gawking. He ran straight forward, his boots slapping soundlessly against the white floor. He didn’t have a destination in mind, didn’t need one. All directions here led to only one place.

He’d been running for less than a minute before he spotted her. Benehime was sitting beside her sphere, her white hair swept back over her shoulders, leaving her perfect body naked. Her white eyes were narrowed, watching him run, and at her throat hung a shining white pearl on a strand of light.