“Fine.” Cym choked down his protest. It was foolish of him to keep railing against what was happening. Unless Cym decided to blow up the entire building and them along with it, he was going to need Fourteen to get them out.

“I’m holding you to that.” Fourteen’s bound and gloved hand squeezed Cym’s briefly.

“I don’t know how you think you’re getting us out of here. If my whole family is here, you’re looking at fighting off at least a hundred people.”

“I know what the situation is.” Fourteen came to his feet in a graceful motion. “Is it possible for you to accept that you might not?”

“And what do you think you’re—” Grant’s demand was cut off by a boot to his throat.

“Oh for Vis’ sake!” Hester exclaimed. “This is ridiculous.”

Grant was one of the few members of Cym’s family who had only a small amount of magic to call his own. It made sense that his grandmother had him in the room. Out of everyone in the family, Grant was the only one who had any self-defense training. Cym would have been worried for Fourteen, but it only took a few seconds to show him that fear would have been wasted.

Hester was dispassionate in the face of her great-something-grand nephew quickly losing ground to Fourteen. “You can’t fight all of us, champion. It isn’t like we didn’t prepare for this. Did you think we wouldn’t be suspicious when you showed up on our tracking spell? You just stood there and let us take you. I mean, we aren’t morons.” Despite her nonchalant words, she began edging away from the fight.

“You just let them take you? What is wrong with you?” Exhaustion swept over Cym at his stupidity. “Now we’re both probably going to die horribly in the immediate future. How is that going to help anyone?”

One of the young men grabbed a tool from the workbench and jumped in to help Grant, who was bleeding from multiple places.

“It was the most efficient way to find you.” Fourteen dodged the tire iron swinging toward his head and used the momentum to kick the other young man—Cym’s fourth cousin twice-removed, Clint, he thought his name was—in the shield, and his foot sank in, slowing his momentum. Fourteen recovered in time to twist away from the glittering knife that had appeared in Grant’s hand.

The fight was too close for Cym’s liking. If Fourteen had been fighting norms, he wouldn’t be as worried—he’d seen what he’d done to a dozen trained mercenaries by himself—but with his hands tied and without a gun to eat up his opponents’ shields, this fight would last only as long as Fourteen’s body did.

Cym inspected the damage he’d done to the crate during his frenzy. If Fourteen thought he was going to sit around twiddling his thumbs while Fourteen slowly fought himself to death, he was out of his mind.

“This is the dumbest thing anyone has ever done!” Cym was certain only dogs could hear his voice at this point.

“I imagine you would have suggested running away?” Fourteen asked as he dispatched Grant by throwing his arms around Cym’s uncle’s head and slamming his face into Fourteen’s knee. Cym was irritated Fourteen didn’t even have the decency to sound winded.

“It would have been better than coming here alone against an army!” Cym was trying to keep himself calm, but the way his voice was making his own ears buzz made him think he was failing.

More people poured into the room—some of them members of the Blaike family, some of them mercenaries. Cym did his best to force his already battered feet through the hole he’d made and ignored the bolts of pain that shot up his legs as he did so.

Fourteen’s cold facade cracked, and he gave a savage smile as he asked, “Who said I was alone?”

Chapter 17Cym

An explosion shook the ground beneath them, and Fourteen’s smile turned cocky, making an impression on Cym’s mind he would keep for the rest of his life.

The word MINE resonated throughout his entire being, and Cym redoubled his effort to get out of the cage.

“Please don’t do that,” Fourteen called over his shoulder as he threw Cym’s uncle into the new people flooding through the door. “It’ll be easier for me to get you out of here if you haven’t collapsed from blood loss.”

Grant stayed on the floor where he’d been thrown, his head lolling at an impossible angle. Fourteen was still fighting the two young men who had dragged him in, and it looked like a badly choreographed movie scene. They tried to magically throw random items from around the room at him, apparently having missed the memo about Fourteen’s shield. As soon as the magically charged item got within a yard of Fourteen, it dropped to the floor, robbed of its momentum.

Fourteen would strike out at their shields and be slowed significantly. Apparently his armor could only do so much. Everywhere his shield collided with one of Cym’s cousin’s shields, the air would distort and time would appear to slow down.

As Cym contemplated how helpful having a nervous breakdown would be, Fourteen reached for the hem at the bottom of his jacket and appeared to tear something out of it. Cym saw a glint of metal in his hand as Fourteen made to strike one of Cym’s cousins.

Instead of slowing down this time, Fourteen’s hand punched through the shield and connected, tearing a line of flesh off the man’s face. Cym’s cousin screamed in terror—he was young enough that it was probably the first time he’d been wounded so badly in a fight. Fourteen allowed him to turn and flee from the room.

Several more explosions followed the first one, and all the Blaikes except Hester ran out of the room, glad for the excuse to leave the five mercenaries behind to stabilize the situation.

“This is getting out of control.” Hester was behind Cym, tying a rope to the crate, presumably to drag him out of the garage while still keeping a safe distance.

Cym did the only thing he could think of, he grabbed Hester’s arms tightly with both hands.

“Why, you little…” His monster-mother’s face began to twitch as Cym held on for dear life.

As the creature twisted and screamed in his hold, he felt his body begin to heat up and the pinkness inside him flowed into Hester, much like it had with Fourteen, only a hundred times stronger. He felt incandescent as the power poured through his body, scouring away everything in its path.

If he had been able to scream he would have, but his jaw had locked tight along with the rest of his body. At this point, he couldn’t have let go of Hester if he wanted to. No matter how much it burned, no matter how much his injured arm and hand complained, he was stuck tight. As the pink inferno grew to intolerable levels of pain, he realized he was about to burn to death. Hopefully, at the very least, he would take his grandmother with him.

Without warning, he felt himself detach from his body, drifting away from it until he hovered over the scene in the garage. He could still feel the magic roaring through him, but it felt distant and unimportant. Idly, he noted that his body hadn’t actually caught on fire.

Wild.

He looked down at the woman trapped by his corporal body and felt the world around him change. The garage had vanished, and in its place was a cemetery on a hill overlooking a smog-covered city. What should have been a breathtaking sunset was almost completely drowned out by the smoke coming from the city below.

A horse whickered behind him quietly, and he turned to see an ornate carriage draped in black bunting coming to a stop several yards away. The driver of the carriage hopped down from his perch and opened the door of the carriage after letting down the steps. A woman, dressed in black from head to toe, held out a hand and allowed the driver to help her down.

“Leave me.” Her voice was cold and imperious as she ordered the driver away.

He hesitated, worried about leaving a lady alone in a cemetery at night.

“Go!”

His lady’s sharp rebuke was enough to convince him. Nodding once, he said, “As you wish, mum.” Tugging his hat, he climbed back up on his perch and drove the carriage away.

Cym couldn’t see the woman’s face under the heavy veil she wore, but something about the way she moved was familiar.

As soon as the carriage was out of sight, the woman strode over to a large stone structure, stalked up the stairs, and with a sharp gesture, sent the heavy doors flying open.

Cym followed her inside, curious.

A second gesture caused the lanterns on the walls inside the mausoleum to burst into flames. For a time, the woman stood in the center of the room silently. Slowly her shoulders began to shake. At first, Cym thought she was crying, until a loud peal of laughter rang out from the woman’s small frame.

“I finally did it.” Her voice was raw with triumph. “I beat you, you bastards.” Her laughter grew wild and unhinged, continuing far longer than any sane person would.

“You know, you weren’t what I was expecting.” A harsh, confident voice spoke from a corner of the room, halting the woman’s bout of mania in its tracks. “Not at all.” In the darkness, a pustulant, oozing wrongness radiated outward, filling the room. Cym recognized it as the same nightmare that had set up shop inside his mother’s body in the present day.

The woman held out both hands, crackling with red fire. “I’m a match for you, nightmare. Go find someone smaller to feed on.”

Laughter rolled out from the dark corner, slow and rumbling. It was a tangible thing that crawled over Cym’s skin, leaving him feeling like he needed a bath.

“My sentiments exactly, my dear.” Part of the shadow in the corner broke away, writhing and undulating toward the woman, growing brighter until it was the shade and consistency of bread mold. It stopped at a respectful distance. “I’ve been watching you, Hester. You lost much of your family in the revolt, so you should have been an easy meal for me. Nothing is more tempting, more delectable than the pain and guilt of a survivor. Imagine my surprise when there was little sustenance for me to feast upon.”