Unknown - Scorched

The smart ones went looking for weapons that could be used from a distance. An arrow nicked him. The two he had already taken were slowing him down. He could feel his own blood beneath his shoes, slippery, treacherous. Though he felt no weakness or pain, his injuries were still taking their toll.

Invincibility, even in a demon, is illusion. There is always a way to die.

The whole place stank of magic from the pond. It was growing thicker by the moment, egging him on, feeding his killing trance. Only his darker side remained, burning to sear away every trace of the guardsmen and their ritual.

Even swallowed up by the demon, Mac tried to protect the one he loved and the ones she loved. Though many fell, Sylvius remained safe, untouched, and secure.

But in the end, there were too many enemies, even for a warrior made of fire. Already wounded, bleeding out, his energy consumed by bright flames, Mac couldn’t watch everywhere at once.

Death surprised Mac for the moment it took him to die.

Constance tore the bar from the cage and let it drop, as she had the door, on an advancing guardsman. The links that bound the cuffs together dangled free with a sinuous, snakelike motion.

Atreus stretched out his arms, testing the play of the chain. “Brave, Constance, but it is still not enough.”

“What do I need to do?”

“Silver drains my power and defies your strength.”

She’d heard that part already. She grabbed his wrist, twisting the cuff around so she could see how it closed. “I have a knife. Maybe I can pick the lock.”

“That would take time.”

Constance glanced down. Sylvius had crawled away and was hiding beneath the scaffold, away from trampling feet. With a sick lurch, she saw the trail of blood he had left in his wake.

Then she nearly fell out between the gap-toothed bars. Horror and wonderment hit her like strong liquor, forcing her to grab the cage for support.

Mac had become a creature of fire. A halo of pale flames covered him like a second skin, moving and swirling as he fought. She watched him dodge and thrust, his big, strong body lithe and quick as the blaze itself. Mac, what have you done?

“He has become his demon, a perfect killer,” Atreus said, answering her silent question.

No. The man I love is still in there. And if he was going to stay in one piece, the battle had to end. Now. There were too many guards for even a demon to fight.

There was no doubt he needed Atreus’s help.

Defiantly, Constance slid her thin fingers beneath the rim of the silver cuff, pulling the hinges apart. The edges of the silver cut into her skin, coating the metal with slick blood. Her grip slid.

“This is useless,” Atreus snapped. “If these shackles could be so easily bent, no one would bother making silver chains!”

“Let me try!” she snarled back. She resettled her grip, closed her eyes, and threw all the force of her vampire strength behind it. Please! Please!

She strained, ducking her head and using her shoulders. The hinge pin snapped, allowing the cuff to bend. Atreus pulled his arm out of her bloodied fingers and ripped at the metal.

“Huh,” he said, clearly annoyed she’d proved him wrong. Immediately, he brightened. “This silver can’t be pure. Of course you can get the better of it, my girl!” One hand now free, he held out the other, his black eyes bright as stars. “Break the other. Bless you for claiming your vampire blood, Constance, you’ve saved us.”

Now filled with confidence, she had the second cuff off in a moment. Atreus hurled the chains out of the cage, stretching out his arms in triumph. Constance felt the rush of his gathering power. It seemed to swirl around them, whistling through the bars as it gained speed.

Sylvius, Mac, we’re coming!

She moved to jump out from where the door had been and launch herself down below, but Atreus caught her sleeve. “Stay one moment,” he said, barely turning his head. “It’s safer here.”

Constance stiffened, something in his words sounding ominous. “What do you mean?”

His attention was fixed on the knot of guardsmen below, Mac burning bright among them. “The guards will never touch my son again.”

He rose to one knee, leaning out of the cage. The whoosh of energy grew to a cyclone, rife with a mad, restless energy so like Atreus himself.

Constance had wanted the sorcerer to help. Now she was suddenly terrified. I used my powers to free him. Did I make a terrible mistake?

“Stop!” she cried, but the word died in the sudden absence of air.

White lightning filled the cavernous hall, nowhere and everywhere at once. It flicked like the tongue of a serpent, touching pillars, the scaffold, the balcony where Constance had stood. She fell against the bars, flinging her arm over her eyes, praying Atreus could keep it from the metal cage.

Thunder cracked, shaking her through and through, rattling dust from the ceiling. She bit her tongue, the taste of blood confused with the smell of hot stone and the crisp tang of storms.

Atreus stood at the very edge of the cage door, conducting a rising wind as if it were a band of musicians. Blinded by tears from the brightness, Constance barely blinked her vision clear in time to see the lightning gather itself into a bright, throbbing glow, a single ball poised above the battle below. Her eyes sought Mac in the confusion of milling bodies.

All the guardsmen, including Mac, battled directly below the burning globe of energy.

“No!” she cried, grabbing at Atreus. “You’ll kill them all! You’ll kill Mac! You might kill Sylvius.”

But her words were lost in the funnel of wind that held the ball poised on a cushion of air. Anger rushed through her like Mac’s red-hot fire. Atreus was laughing. Constance jerked the sorcerer’s arm hard, forcing his attention to her. She had only seconds to make him stop.

Atreus wheeled, unable to resist her new strength, and missed his footing. He stepped onto thin air. His mouth opened as if to speak, his eyes holding Constance’s in a blank stare Of surprise. Another time, he could have saved himself, but all his power was in the storm.

All his power was bent on killing.

She had to stop him. But maybe she already had, deep in her heart. She didn’t reach for him, couldn’t bring herself to grab his hand.

He had reached out to her, but only so that she could free him to massacre the men below. Enough was enough.

In that instant, Atreus’s power speared downward and dragged Atreus with it. He fell like a wind-tossed scrap of paper, drifting, spinning down through the stone cavern to the cruel rock below.

Magic was hanging all around Mac, like fog. Part of him had been aware it had been there all along, growing stronger as he’d been fighting. Now it clogged his mind. Memories from the past few hours flickered, but refused to coalesce. Lightning. Blood. Fire. Pain.

He shook his head to clear it. It helped a little. Enough to notice where he was.

He was sitting in the front row of one of the balconies, looking down at the chaos below. He seemed okay. Unhurt. Even his clothes were clean and unwrinkled.

For some reason that made him afraid.

“Thank you for putting me back.”

He whipped his head around, half jumping to his feet.

A woman was sitting next to him, her legs crossed casually under long skirts made of some gauzy rainbow-colored fabric. Mac’s first thoughts were of Renaissance fairies and organic gardening. She looked the tofu type, with one of those ageless faces and long, long straight hair.

She seemed familiar.

He looked harder. There was something about her that was hard to see, as if his eyes kept trying to shift away. He had to force himself to study her face. Black eyes. Hair so pale it looked silver. And then it clicked. She had Sylvius’s features.