I screamed after her, but she didn’t stop, and she didn’t reply.
But the storm did.
The ceiling exploded, raining enormous slabs of stone and goddess only knew what else all around me. Carla’s men swore and released me, stumbling for the door, trying to escape. The rain of destruction chased them, stopped them, but none of it touched me. I remained in a small bubble of calm while destruction fell on the men who’d held me prisoner.
As the last of them died, I called to my knives. They thudded into my hands, their fullers glowing brightly, their light breaking the veil of darkness, allowing me to see the hallway beyond the half destroyed door and the ceiling high, high above. There was no sound up there, no light, no panic. The place was empty. Empty except for me and the dead woman running.
I called to a thread of air, wrapped it around the hilt of one knife, and directed it to the ropes binding my wrists. Once they were cut away, I retrieved the blade, sliced through the leash binding my ankles, and carefully stood. Pain slithered up my legand across various bits of my body, but they were all distant things and easily ignored.
Again, the thunder rumbled, a deeply furious sound bidding me to hurry. I picked my way through the destruction and scrambled over the stone half blocking the door. Dust hung heavily in the corridor beyond, making it impossible to see. I called to the electricity that danced through the air and forced it through the blades. Lightning shot out left and right, briefly illuminating the corridor and the destruction the storm had caused—was still causing. There were stairs to my left, and while there was no sign of Carla, the swirling wind brought me the sound of her steps. I could have ordered the wind to chase her, capture her. I didn’t. The bitch was mine, and she would not escape me.
But just to be sure, I ordered the storm to unleash on whatever vehicles might wait beyond these walls.
Then I ran after her.
The dust caught in my throat, making me cough and causing the madmen in my head to renew their frenzied digging. Warmth flowed from my shoulder, soaking my sweater, but I didn’t care, and I certainly wasn’t going to stop.
She was not escaping me.
I reached the stairs and half ran, half limped up them as fast as I could. The wind was fiercer up here, the thunder closer. Lightning split the furious skies, hitting the side of the building to my right. Rocks and glass exploded in all directions, but the wind rose, directing it all away from me.
More lightning. In its fierce white glow, I saw my target.
I raised one knife, wrapped a sliver of wind around it, then flung it at her. Not to kill her, but to kill the magic that resided within her. The magic that allowed her to shift shape.
Thunder cracked once again, and the entire building shuddered. Lightning hit the still-intact portion of the roofabove me, sending tiles and chunks of lovely old oak beams flying. The pixie in me mourned its destruction, but the darkness held sway right now, and it was fixated on the woman and revenge.
The knife hit her shoulder, slid deep into her flesh, and she stumbled, going down on hands and knees. I didn’t know if she screamed and didn’t really care. I slowed, weaving through the rain of stone and timber and tiles, untouched, uncaring, as the lightning crawled across Carla’s body and she shuddered and shook, her nails digging into the stone and her flesh shaking and crawling and shifting.
Then she pushed up and staggered on, through the doors and out into the storm-held night. I caught the wind, retrieved my knife, followed her down the first few steps, then stopped.
Ahead of us lay more destruction—a black van and a silver Renault lay in smoking pieces. Last time I’d hit a car with lightning, I’d shorted the electrical system. This time, the tires and windows had exploded as well, rendering both useless.
Carla screamed and swung around, the knife in her hand pulsing furiously. Her face was pale, waxy, and nondescript, her eyes the same brown as her short hair. “What have you done to me?”
I smiled. It was not a pleasant smile. “I killed your magic. I stopped your ability to shift shape.”
“You can’t do that. It’s impossible?—”
“Unless you wield godly relics capable of not only protecting you against magic but killing it.” I raised my knives. “Mom possessed such knives. Shame she wasn’t wearing them the day you killed her.”
“I didn’t?—”
“Then who did. Give me a name.”
Her gaze narrowed, and the knife’s intensity grew, its light spearing the darkness, lending it a bloody hue. “I order you to restore?—”
“You can’t order me to do anything, Carla,” I cut in coldly. “You see, the thing about godly relics is, they don’t always work on the gods themselves.”
Anger ripped through her expression, and I could almost taste her desire to attack me, kill me. There was a part of me—a deep, dark, dangerous part—that wanted her to. Silently begged her to.
“You’re no fucking god,” she growled, and took a step forward.
I didn’t move, didn’t react. Though I wanted to. Gods only knew how much I wanted to. Not for what she had done to me, but for what she had threatened to do to Sgott.
“No, but I am a godling. My father was a god of storms and lightning, hence the show that happens above.” She didn’t look up, as I’d half expected her to. “Name, Carla, and you will live through this.”
She snorted. “No, I won’t. He’ll kill me. He already has the means inside my head.”
