Marc Zicree - Angelfire

“He’ll kill him,” I said. “He’ll kill Goldie if we don’t get him out of here.”

“What do we do?” Colleen asked.

“Split up. Try to distract Primal. Confuse him. I’ll get Goldie.”

I sheathed my sword and crab-crawled toward him on my hands and knees, using dangling hanks of cable for cover, flattening myself to the floor when slivers of Primal’s light flew too near. I wasn’t sure what I’d do when I reached him. I’d have to trust my instincts-pray there was some way to separate Primal from his power supply.

Your thought is your reality , Doc had said. Colleen had complained that life’s rules had been suspended, and Mary that they had changed so much she no longer knew them. They were right. There were new rules, new laws of nature; perhaps even nature itself was fundamentally changed. Before, if you wanted to set off an explosion, you had to take the indirect route offered by science. You had to manipulate matter. Now, the connective tissue between thought and reality was exposed. And that exposure presented us with a whole new set of tools, a whole new realm of arts and sciences.

New rules, new ways to set off explosions.

I heard a shout from the shadows somewhere near the front of the room. Colleen. A moment later mundane fire flared and rocketed toward Primal on a crossbow bolt. I didn’t see it connect, but Primal let out a roar that sounded like a train wreck and flashed white-hot. The red missiles stopped falling.

I scrambled to Goldie’s side, grabbed him with both hands and shook him as hard as I dared. “Goldie, come on! Get clear. Now .”

He shook his head, cringing as Primal roared again, firing lightning in every direction. “No good. He’s turned me into a boomerang. I could’ve killed you.”

“You didn’t. Goldie, come on. I need you. Clear your head .”

He raised his hands, tangling his fingers in his rampant hair. “ He’s in my head, dammit! I’m a fucking puppet!”

I shook him again, cringing as Howard let out a wild howl somewhere in the dark. “Let it go. I have an idea. Take my hand.” I held it out to him.

He raised his eyes to my face. He looked less like a man and more like a wild thing-a satyr surprised in a forest glade. But he obeyed, lacing his fingers into mine. I could feel the power in him, hot and raw and reckless. Darkness and light colliding; converging and separating. I’d had no idea how strong he’d become.

Looking down into his eyes, I drew my sword. “Feed me power,” I told him. “He may have your number, but he doesn’t have mine. Not yet.”

He gripped my hand tighter. “Be sure of this, Cal. Be fucking sure of it.”

“I’m sure.” I stood, hauling him to his feet, and aimed the point of my sword approximately at Primal’s head. “Fire.”

I can’t even begin to describe it. A wild tide of power leapt the physical connection, welded the two of us together, and roared through me like hot lava, scalding every nerve. The sword erupted with it, spewing gold glory at the target I held in sharp focus. We were a cosmic flamethrower-Agni, Lord of Fire. Rage and exultation, pain and ecstasy, tumbled through me. I think I screamed. Maybe we both did.

Primal couldn’t absorb the attack. All he could do was throw up a shield, and he was too late to save himself completely. The blaze of power caught him, spun him around and flung him against the deeply tinted window behind him. A thousand tiny traceries of brilliance raced out from the point of impact, letting in a ruddy glow from outside. The wash of light caught Colleen in a far corner of the room, frozen in the act of reloading her crossbow.

I lowered my sword. It still burned white-hot and vibrated in my hand as if an electrical current crackled through it. Beside me Goldie hummed under his breath, quaking. Chills rolled between us through our entwined fingers.

“Anything left?” I murmured, my eyes still on Colleen. “Nothing,” he panted. “Nothing left.”

That was bad news. Primal was staggering upright. In a moment he might be raging and sending bloody missiles at us again. We had to move fast. I grabbed Goldie and forced him into a shambling walk. To our left, in the shadows along the walls, I could see Doc and Howard. They were also moving toward the head of the room.

Fire flared again to Primal’s right as Colleen unloaded a blazing crossbow bolt right at his head. The thing’s reflexes were good. He wrenched his head aside and the bolt caught his shoulder instead, carrying away a volleyball-size chunk of it. There was no blood, only a spew of blood-colored light.

We were maybe twenty-five feet from him when Primal reared back and unleashed a fresh storm of power. It rolled over us in a crushing wave, smearing itself on Goldie’s aura, darkening it. Goldie groaned and went to his knees; nausea hit me like a gut punch. Doubled over, I saw Doc and Howard buckle, saw Colleen duck and roll.

The flares above Primal pulled close, pulsing radiance, giving up their energy to him along the bright umbilicals- energy he was going to destroy us with. And I noticed for the first time that luminous cords also connected them to the walls-to the pulsing arteries in the walls.

A tether? A conduit? If so, which way did the power run?

I didn’t have time for conjecture. Primal raised his hands above his head, a ball of fire raging between them. The deadly star grew swiftly-it was the size of his head, then three times the size.

“Now,” he roared. “Now, you die.” He loosed the thing.

The sword, still gleaming with the residue of Goldie’s power, was the only defense I had. I stepped in front of Goldie and raised it, hoping it might deflect the deadly ball and recalling that an angel with a burning sword had driven Adam and Eve from Paradise.

A brilliant streak of aqua sizzled over our heads, slashing between Primal and us. It met his blast head on, engulfing it in a billow of pale fire. In the center of the billow Magritte blazed into being, electricity in every line of her body. She flung her hands defensively toward the enemy, and what rolled out of her grasp was a roaring piece of the sun. It hurled Primal’s missile right back in his face.

He recoiled, throwing up a shield of the clotted magic, then fought back through it, aiming all his powers at Magritte. She weakened swiftly-she was alone; Primal had a dozen flares in his rear guard.

Beside me Goldie let out a shriek of useless rage, trying to gather his resources. Amber light flashed around him, but it wasn’t enough to help Magritte.

Sword in hand, I rolled away from him, out from under Magritte’s protective cover. As I came upright, melody surged over me, cutting through the chaos in the room like a sonic knife. Around Goldie and Magritte, Primal’s furious onslaught melted, the murky colors of carnage muting to pastels.

I turned. Enid stood in the dark opening at the rear of the room, harmonica to his lips, blue notes-piercing and bittersweet-cascading from it. Over Primal’s head the flares pivoted toward the musician in eerie unison and began to drift toward him as if Primal had ceased to exist. The giant’s glory dimmed, blushing ruby.

I started toward the head of the room again, sword ready. Once the flares were gone, Primal would be at a disadvantage. I intended to be in a position to do something about it.

But I’d reckoned without Primal’s will to live. In a movement that belied his size, he reached out and literally snatched Magritte out of the air.

Straightening, he held her out before him and thundered, “Enid Blindman! I swear to you I’ll break this creature in two if you don’t stop now .”

Enid faltered, and the flares-who had almost reached him-hesitated, bobbing in place.