Taken

Anne hesitated for just an instant, then I saw something flash across her face and she nodded. “If I get close.”

I sized Anne up. She still looked wobbly on her feet, though at least she’d repaired the gaping wound to her throat. But while her eyes were afraid, they were steady. “Do it,” I said. “I’ll draw him in.” And let’s pray it works.

Anne drew back to the corner of the room nearest to the door; she was weaving some kind of spell about herself but it wasn’t doing anything that I could see. A moment later a shadow fell over the doorway as Vitus Aubuchon stepped in.

I stood facing Vitus, weight on the balls of my feet, tense and ready to jump. I was maybe thirty feet from him, between the alcoves filled with the bodies of those who’d died here in Fountain Reach. Anne was to Vitus’s right, less than half the distance away, but his sightless eyes were locked on me. I looked back into those empty sockets and felt a thrill of pure terror.

The energies of a spell swirled around Vitus and I threw myself right. The space I’d been in warped and shrank, the air seeming to ripple. It looked like nothing but I’d seen what would have happened if that had caught me. I came to a stop next to the alcoves; Vitus’s head turned to track me and the same spell flashed out again.

The blast radius was wider this time and I only just made it out. Two of the skeletons and an iron partition were caught in the spell and there was a crunching, snapping sound as they were crushed into fragments, the space around them crumpling like a paper bag. Splinters rattled on the floor as Vitus gave a hissing sound and advanced towards me.

Anne moved the instant Vitus’s back was to her. Vitus was just about to cast a third spell when Anne’s hand touched his shoulder.

And in that moment I finally understood why life mages are feared.

Anne ripped Vitus Aubuchon’s life out of his body like tearing a page out of a notebook. It was over so fast I literally didn’t see it. There was a green flash and then Vitus’s body was toppling, dead before it hit the ground.

I looked down at Vitus, then up at Anne, eyes wide. Anne was staring down at Vitus’s body. There was something in her eyes I’d never seen before and for just a moment I felt a chill, and then it was gone and she only looked pale and tired. “We should go,” Anne said.

Vitus’s body was starting to dissolve, the misshapen form turning black and breaking away into ash and dust. I picked my way around it to meet up with Anne. “Why didn’t he see you?”

“He can’t see,” Anne said. “He senses life, so I masked mine . . . We need to go!”

We hurried back into the room with the table and the bathtub, now silent and still once more. “That was what you were doing before?” I asked.

“I played dead.” Anne’s face looked drawn but at least she didn’t seem hurt anymore. “After he . . .”

I gave the room a last glance, shuddered, and was about to leave when I stopped. There had been a stir of movement from the bathtub. As I watched, a ripple spread across the dark surface, followed by another. “Anne?” I asked carefully. “He’s going to stay dead, right?”

Anne shook her head.

The ripples were increasing, and as I looked into the future I saw that in a few seconds something was going to break the surface. I ran for the door.

*  *  *

“I thought you killed him!” I shouted to Anne as we ran down the corridor.

“It doesn’t stick!” Anne shouted back. “Fountain Reach keeps him alive; it’s what it was made to do. As long as he’s in this house, he can’t die!”

I swore under my breath. “So he can teleport, he can bend space, and he’s immortal. Wonderful.”

In the time we’d been inside the entrance to the building had become a battlefield. The doorway was open and ragged now, the door a pile of scrap metal, and Variam and Luna were crouched on either side with gashes torn in the walls around them. Outside, the dark hedgemaze was lit up with flickering orange light; several of the dead bushes were on fire. Both Variam and Luna turned towards us as we approached and Luna’s eyes lit up. “Anne!”

“You’re okay?” Variam demanded.

I grabbed Anne and pulled her to one side. An instant later a salvo of force blades came scything in from outside, carving through brick and metal. They cut through the outer wall, went over the heads of Luna and Variam and past me and Anne, cut through the inner wall on the other side, and kept right on going. Variam swore. “So I’m guessing Onyx is here,” I said.

“So’s Crystal!” Luna said. She sounded shaken, but she was holding steady. “It’s crazy out there, I don’t know who’s fighting who—”

“Can’t make it across that ground,” Variam said. “We need to go back the way you came.”

“That’s worse!” Anne said.

“She’s right,” I said. “We’ll be caught between them and Vitus.” I pulled a condenser marble from my pocket. “Variam, when I give the word put a wall of fire down parallel to the front wall thirty feet out. Then run. Go right, head for the far side of the maze, and don’t stop.”