Mark Teppo - Lightbreaker

I distantly heard the boom of Nicols' shotgun, a reverberating echo rather than a local thunder. In its wake came a howl of fire and, through the door on the far side of the dining area, I saw the reflected red glow of flame. A smoke detector went off in the hallway, an alert that passed to the other alarms scattered throughout the penthouse.

I hesitated for a second, torn between going to help Nicols and dealing with Bernard. Julian was going to catch the detective. It was only a matter of time and, at that point, the fight would go badly for Nicols. Bernard was still dealing with his melting trachea. He wouldn't be an issue for a little while yet.

A second later the decision was made for me as Nicols came barreling through the dining room. Flames wreathed the dome of his helmet, chewing at the synthetic material of the bandana. Smoke leaked off the back of his tactical vest and ash darkened his face.

"Shit!" He jerked his gun to the side and dodged toward the living room, avoiding me. He didn't slow down as he reached the leather sofa, tumbling over the back like he was diving for the end zone.

Smoke billowed out of the doorway and flame licked the edges of the arch, darkening the walls. Julian, red fire fluttering along his frame like he was standing in front of an industrial fan, stood in the kitchen like a burning efreet . Smoke poured off the wreckage of his left hand, a black plume that was sucked into the dining room by the gravity well of the artifact.

I was between Julian and the device.

He released his flame as I went to the left, diving for the carpet. A phoenix with bright wings and hot talons manifested through his Will and streaked across the living room. It came apart-crackling fingers of fire-as its magick was shredded by the influence of the theurgic mirror. The firebird scorched the atmosphere, leaving an acrid taint of ozone in its wake, and collapsed into a fiery funnel about the three statues. The windows behind them shattered as the fire was explosively decompressed and absorbed by the facets of the mirror. The light of the fire went from ruddy to pink to pale in the span of a heartbeat.

Wind, shrieking like a murder of outraged crows, swept into the room. Naked flames, still caught on the wall in the dining room, flickered and stretched. Nicols peered around the end of the couch, his helmet askew. Down my back, on the right side, I could feel flesh cracking-I had been tagged by the firebird as it had come apart.

Julian stepped around the edge of the dining room table, the smoke from his ruined hand reduced to a tiny strand of black mist. Fire danced on his forehead, mixing with the stars suspended over his head. His eyes were black stones. The right shoulder of his robe was dark with blood, crimson tracked halfway to his waist.

The mirror's suction was strong. I would need to keep the Chorus tightly bound. I shaped them in a line of psychic barbed wire and cracked it at Julian. Poorly anticipating the drag of the artifact's vacuum, my whip missed its mark.

He snarled at the line of sparks and made a grab at the twisting expression of the Chorus with his good hand. It snaked out of his grasp.

Nicols popped up from behind the couch, and fired the shotgun. Time splintered near Julian's ruined hand and the slug from the shotgun slowed, striking his raised forearm. A slow-motion tracery of blood and fire exploded.

In a fast-forward return to normal time, his Will reached into the gas fireplace. Nicols was knocked down by the explosive eruption from the narrow grate. The furniture caught fire and the molded plastic of the occasional pieces steamed and melted.

With my second toss, I managed to wind the psychic wire around Julian's neck. He grabbed my wire, steadying himself, even though the psychic current of the Chorus was shutting down his nervous system. Napalm dripped from his ruined arm and he hurled a spray at me.

Most of it missed, pulled off course by the mystic gravity well, but some of it spattered on my clothes. The napalm seared, lancing my flesh. Burning deep.

He was too strong. Too much power available from the soul crown. His spells were overcharged, a vicious ferocity I couldn't withstand. My Will wasn't enough.

My focus wavered, flickering for just a second, and he acted in that tiny vacuum of intent. He pulled the psychic wire right out of me, and I staggered, feeling the Chorus tear. Down in my core. Again. Her hand in my chest. That pain. That despair.

He knocked me to the floor with a burst of fire. I tried to breathe, and sucked in flame. My throat felt like I had just drunk lava.

Before I could recover, he was on me. His good hand touched my throat and fire sang throughout my head. I beat at his hand, but it was like trying to break stone with a peacock feather. Color bleached from my vision and his skin became opaque. I could see his skull as he leaned close to my face.

A pair of pistol shots. Thunder in an enclosed space. Julian jerked forward, grunting from the twin blows in his lower back.

His hands vanished from my throat and I rolled onto my side, coughing up soot. Each breath felt like I was fueling an inferno in my chest.

Julian held Nicols' arm in his hand, the pistol shaking in the detective's persistent grip. The magus beat at Nicols' vest with his stump, smearing burning napalm on the Kevlar material. Nicols strained against the magus, trying to get the barrel of the pistol lined up. Julian shook his head, and bodily threw the detective against the statue.

Nicols groaned from the impact, and he dropped the gun. Flailing his arms, he tried to regain balance against the gravity of the mirrored sphere. His left arm drifted against the silver ring in the middle and, feeling something solid against his wrist, he reached with his hand to steady himself.

He touched the sphere.

A primal howl ripped out of him, a scream echoed by the hidden fear in my heart. The Abyss. The sound one makes when confronted with that nothingness, that complete emptiness. Nicols' cry was filled with both despair and anger-the nihilistic sound of enlightenment of an abandoned Heaven.

A string of soft lights coursed down his arm and vanished into the mirror. Much like the ibis-hound had sucked energy from Kat, the facets of the mirror drank from Nicols' soul, draining his spirit through the contact afforded by his flesh. He tried to break the connection, but his hand was fused to the mirror.

I tried to reach him, but Julian grabbed the collar of my coat. The iron force of his Will wrapped around me, and kept me from reaching John. Nicols swung his free arm out and our fingers just missed.

Julian wrapped his bloody forearm around my chest, tucking his body against my burned back. My raw skin twitched from the hot contact and I felt the napalm of his blood dripping down my chest, scouring tracks as it flowed. "I want you to watch," he whispered in my ear. I struggled, straining to move closer to the mirror and John-almost close enough to touch-but the effort only tightened Julian's cage about me.

Nicols tried to reach me again, but his strength was fading too quickly. Each pulse of light down his arm lessened his life force. Already he could barely stand, his knees leaning against the statue for support. Tears ran from his eyes, and when he tried to speak, his final words weren't loud enough to be heard.

When his head fell forward and rested against one of the bronze shoulders, Julian released me. I reached Nicols' body as the mirror let go of his fingers, the contact no longer needed. The body was just an empty shell. Detective John Nicols was gone.

I cradled his body across my lap and his face stared sightlessly at the ceiling. His expression was like Gerald Summers' face. The flesh, wondering why its light had failed.

Julian capered nearby, waving his bloody stump over his head. "One more," he shouted over the sound of the fire alarm. "One more for the party." He danced close and bent down toward me, bringing his stump to the side of his head. "I can hear him. Right in here."