Better off Dead Book Three Read online

  As they whirled out of the records room, Sonos stayed rather than following them.

  Until now, I hadn’t realized that he’d been standing in a very specific spot in the room. I simply assumed that he had paused there because it was sufficiently far behind the priests that he would be able to react lest they saw him. But as he took his foot off a patch of carpet, I realized it was far more worn than the rest of the thread around it.

  He watched the door with a calculating gaze before getting down onto his knee. He ran his hand along that one section, a few stray blasts of magic sinking from his fingers into the carpet. The next thing I knew, a magical circle burned its way through the pile.

  Sonos was sure to keep watch on the door. The priests were still out there – evidenced by the fact I could occasionally hear their earsplitting screams. At first count, they sounded more pained than their victims. But the only thing destroying them was their greed.

  Sonos’s wings were unfurled. They were open all the way. Fortunately the records room was large enough that they didn’t bang into the walls. Now I could see them – though they were still slightly transparent due to his invisibility spell – I could appreciate how different they were to the wings I’d seen recently. Just how injured had Sonos become in the present?

  He kept his eagle eyes locked on the door. It was clear that at any moment he could be sprung. Though he was still technically invisible, lines of light occasionally raced around his form. My magical senses were still working fine – better than fine, in fact. They told me that even if the most junior of priests saw that light, they would be able to ascertain that Sonos was in the room even if they wouldn’t be able to see him fully.

  Sonos now moved quickly. With darting, dexterous fingers, he plunged his hand down into the carpet. At first glance, it was solid, but it gave way easily as he pushed his hand in. He rummaged for a while, his eyes half-closed as he concentrated. He finally found what he was after. He pulled out a file – one I’d already seen twice today. It was my orphanage records.

  He pushed them behind him into his own subspace pocket. Unlike mine, his was rimmed with gold and red.

  He did not leave. He got back down on his hands and knees. He went to shove his hand back into that hole, but that’s when he heard a scream. I heard it too. It practically cut through me. I’d been down on my hands and knees following Sonos’s every move, but now I bolted up, total terror gripping me and ripping at my intestines like a hungry wolf.

  Sonos jolted over to one of those large wrought iron windows. Flame was lapping up it from the outside. It didn’t bother him, even though as I’d already ascertained it wasn’t hellfire. Gripping a hand on the window, he leaned forward. I shifted past him. My eyesight wasn’t that brilliant, but I zeroed in on a scene near the gates. Even if every other confusing shape and sound in reality had been between me and that scene, it wouldn’t have diverted my attention. Because Hilliker was about to kill the younger me. He had his hand around my throat, his face pressed up close.

  “Bastard,” I whispered.

  “Monster,” Sonos whispered. He gripped hold of the cast iron bars, his fury burning into them and melting them until they splattered around his feet. Then he banged a hand against the window. Ostensibly you would think he would have the power to break right through, but rather than shatter, the glass bent in, moving like a wet sheet under a wind.

  I stared, not at Hilliker killing me, but at Sonos. I watched the sweat beading down his brow. I saw the tension playing across his jaw, marching up his cheeks, and narrowing his eyes until they were two pinpricks of total fury.

  He smashed the window again.

  Then he turned. There was a scream behind him. I whirled on the spot in time to see Sister Mary throw herself in. “You’re here. You came as planned. Could you save—”

  Sonos looked at his feet. “There’s nothing I can do against the chaos flames. I cannot save those they are destined to burn. The only reason you have been protected, Sister, is because of the charm I gave you. Clutch hold of it, run down whatever stairs you can find, and leave.”

  Sister Mary fell onto her knees, her whole body quaking with terror and grief. Tears rushed down her cheeks, getting quicker with every second. She clutched her cross. “There must be something we can do—”

  “There is nothing.” Sonos pressed his hands into his eyes. He ground his palms in until soot and dust transferred over his face. He let his hands drop. “I have the file.”

  “But you must get the snow globe. It’s in the vault.”

  “The priests will return—” Sonos began.

  Sister Mary replied by snapping onto her feet, her habit whirling around her legs. With her hand still clutched on her cross, she took up position in front of the door. “When they return, I will be ready for them.”

  “Sister, they have the power of the Banished—”

  “Retrieve the snow globe,” Mary snapped.

  Sonos didn’t look happy, but it was also clear that he didn’t have any other option. He got down on his knees right in front of that worn patch of carpet and shoved his hand down into it once more. As I watched, I locked my senses on it and realized he was using it as a transport portal to reach some kind of vault. Where that vault was located, I didn’t know.

  Outside in the corridor I heard more screams. The priests were coming.

  I didn’t know what to do. My heart was beating with terror despite the fact this was not real. There was nothing I could do. The past was the past.

  I still raced over to Sister Mary and tried to place a hand on her shoulder, for what good that would achieve.

  “They are here,” she snapped. Yanking one of her hands up, she let magic blast out of it. She tried to create a wall in front of the doors.

  I heard the sound of the priests racing forward. Experimentally, I placed a hand on the force field. I could easily push right through. I knew it was stupid. I knew there was absolutely no point, but I still raced through and tried to tackle the priests. My arms drifted right through their middles. At least I got close enough that I could see their expressions. Pure total hatred didn’t do them justice. Their anger and violence were on a level I’d never seen before.

  One of them roared and, with an electrified fist, tried to punch right through the force field. I thought it would buckle, but clearly Mary was a much stronger practitioner than I had ever given her credit for. With a wheeze, she simply opened her hands wider and managed to force more magic into the force field. “Hurry,” she called to Sonos.

  I turned over my shoulder to see that he was now arm-deep in the rug. So much magic was blasting around him that it was clear he was having to fight against multiple force fields to breach the vault.

  More priests arrived. They all began attacking Mary’s force field. Both her hands were spread forward now. Her veil had almost fallen from her face. Strands of sweaty hair stuck against her cheeks. She forced more magic into the field as she held it as if she was bodily propping up the wall.

  “I can’t hold on much longer,” Mary hissed.

  “Just one more minute,” Sonos snapped back.

  He shoved his arm even deeper in. Now flame crackled around him. It was this dense dark red. Before I could conclude that it had something to do with chaos energy, I realized he was directly fighting against the force of the vault now. Rather than sweat sliding down his brow, flame licked around his form instead. It shot up high as, with a grunt, I heard a crack. Sonos finally broke through something. He yanked out the snow globe. It was the exact same one Sato had given me.

  “What the hell?” I stammered.

  Sonos shot forward and grabbed an arm around Mary’s middle. It was just in time as the force field cracked. That head priest I’d seen earlier had just marched toward it. Without even reaching it, all he’d done was open a hand and utter a single curse. As the force field broke, Sonos used the bulk of his wings to protect Mary. Sparks and flame spurted out everywhere. Sonos flapped his wings once and lea
ped across the room. He reached the windows. Earlier I’d seen him try to crack one, but he’d failed. This time he put everything into it. With a scream that could have broken the orphanage and the rest of the city beyond, he smashed through the wall. As it left a gaping hole in the side of the orphanage, I saw him fly down and land in the yard below.

  The priests screamed and jerked toward him.

  The head priest got down on his knees. Sonos hadn’t closed the hole down into the vault. Screaming, he smashed his hand repeatedly into the carpet. Sweat and strange black tears trailed down his brow. I spent entirely too long staring at him. I needed to follow Sonos. I went to jerk away, but that head priest shoved a hand into his pocket. He pulled out a strange crackling green syringe. Without waiting, he injected it into his neck. I watched as his body bulged momentarily. It looked as if he had swallowed a spatial anomaly, and it was about to tear him apart from the inside out.

  Stunned, I couldn’t run away. I remained right by his side as he discarded the syringe onto the carpet. It immediately disintegrated, pulling apart to its constituent atoms and energy. Gas swirled around it. Then it just popped and fizzled as if someone had kicked it out of reality.

  The priest jerked his head around. Sorry – it looked as if something else jerked his head around. The movements were so chaotic, it was as if his head had been replaced by a flag in a tornado.

  Finally his body stilled. Then he clenched his jaw and tightened his fists. Black energy marched up from where he’d injected himself. His veins bulged.

  I clicked my fingers. I’d seen this before. That concierge I’d encountered in the elevator in the tunnel system had looked exactly like this. But the black energy had been attacking him. With this priest, it bolstered his magic until he opened his hand and pure damn force built within. I was so shocked by it, I jerked back and fell on my ass.

  The guy twisted his fingers and appeared to gain complete hold of the orphanage. “Stop the demon from taking her. Everybody, move,” he boomed. He shoved a hand forward and sent a blast of energy spiraling through the hole in the wall.

  I pushed toward it, now knowing full well that there wasn’t a thing that could hurt me here. That being said, as I got between that magical blast and its target, I certainly felt something as it traveled through me – and it wasn’t kind nor pretty. This unholy sensation blasted into me and shot on by. If this hadn’t been a memory, it wouldn’t have just broken me – it would have destroyed me on every level, ripping me out of reality like an unwanted weed from the garden of the universe.

  The priests were now crowding around that hole in the wall. It was time for me to head down there and see what was occurring. I wasted no time in pushing right through them and sailing down. I didn’t need to be cautious about my ankles or the rest of my ailing health. I shot down the side of the burning orphanage. The flames tried to lick at me, but they could not. I landed in the dust. It did not sail around me – nor did it cushion my fall. It was just there, as was the rest of this memory, waiting for me to understand its darkest secrets.

  I shot across the yard. The play equipment was on fire. The trees were burning to a cinder. The only tree, however, that was still standing was my oak. It made no sense that it hadn’t been engulfed by fire yet. It was close to the burning-down garden shed. And yet it remained as if nothing in this entire world could ever touch it.

  Though it was tempting to head over and see why it was fine, I focused on Sonos.

  He’d managed to avoid that attack by the priest. The ground, however, had not. The area where it smashed into was completely destroyed. It looked as if it had been attacked by multiple nuclear blasts. It created a hole 100-meters deep. It smoked, this unholy vapor rising from it. Lines of strange light zigzagged out and into the sky.

  Hilliker still had me by the gates, his hand around my throat.

  Sonos was still technically invisible, but it was pretty easy to know where he was considering he had Sister Mary in his arms.

  He placed her down. “Run,” he snapped.

  Sister Mary fell to her side, then jolted up. She locked a hand on her cross and shook her head. “I will help until the end.”

  “There’s more you must do. Run. They will concentrate on me.”

  Reluctantly, she pulled herself away. I assumed she would head out of the open gates and into the rest of the city, but she didn’t. She made a beeline straight to my tree. I turned my head over my shoulder and watched as she ran right into the trunk. She wasn’t trying to knock herself out. As she flattened her hands on it, she pushed right through.

  It was clearly some kind of portal. A priest had pared off to chase her, but when he tried to jump through the trunk, he was rejected. He smashed into it and was knocked back.

  Meanwhile, that head priest who’d injected himself with whatever foul substance reached Sonos. The guy opened his hands, and I watched as unreality hexes built in them. He suddenly snapped his fingers in, and the air around Sonos bulged then contracted. Sonos was forced down onto his knees. His whole body shook, but he did not succumb. Hell symbols raged across his skin as a scream blasted from his lips. He forced himself up and called on his damnation sword. It manifested in his hands, and he shot forward. Rather than directly attack the priest who was after him, he spun the blade around and stabbed it into the ground beneath the guy’s feet.

  Hilliker still had the young me in-hand. He wasn’t directly fighting – just concentrating on killing me. But with a bloodcurdling cry he snapped, “Snap the demon’s neck now.”

  But the head priest had no damn chance. Energy blasted out from Sonos’s blow. It smashed into the priest. It directly counteracted the magic pulsing through his veins. The priest screamed as lines blasted up the side of his face. They opened the channels of energy that had been pulsing within him. Blood splattered everywhere – and it was followed by this pernicious black smoke that escaped with hisses like snakes.

  The guy fell down to his knees. Sonos wasted no time in spinning the sword around and slicing it across his throat. He cut the priest’s head off – or at least, what should have been the head. As Sonos’s damnation blade sliced through the guy’s neck, the only thing that was dislodged was energy. Chaos flame burst high through the priest and disintegrated him.

  Sonos spun his sword around.

  Several of the priests screamed.

  Hilliker sneered. I was still in his grip. Or at least the 16-year-old version of me was. She was limp. Tears covered her cheeks. Terror engulfed her expression – until she saw Sonos.

  Recognition opened her eyes wide.

  ... My true memories might’ve been hidden from me, but I hadn’t known Sonos, had I?

  I reminded myself of what I’d overheard from those gossiping girls. Sarah – who’d always been relatively trustworthy – had admitted that she’d seen a demon over my bed sometimes. What if that had been true, and what if Sonos had... always watched over me?

  “Kill him,” Hilliker tried again, but it was plain to everybody listening that fear engulfed him. I watched as the bastard’s eyes grew wide. He tried to snap my neck again, but something was getting in his way. I didn’t know if it was my power or Sonos’s. Perhaps it was a combination of both.

  Sonos fought tirelessly. He was either more powerful in this memory than he was in the real world, or Hilliker’s priests were much weaker.

  No matter how many priests threw themselves at him, Sonos dispatched them until it was just Hilliker. As realization dawned in Hilliker’s wide-open greedy eyes and his jaw slackened in fear, he jerked backward. He attempted to open the portal with his hand, but Sonos got there first. He brought the sword down and sliced Hilliker’s hand right off. Hilliker screamed. He lost no blood, though. A few droplets tried to splash out, but they quickly dried up and turned to some strange black goo.

  The 16-year-old me could finally see an escape. She reached a hand out to Sonos.

  He reached a hand out to her.

  Hilliker screamed.


  And the memory just crumbled.

  No.

  Something snapped hold of my shoulder – my real shoulder – and pulled me out.

  You see, my time was up.

  Chapter 6

  It was one of the most discombobulating experiences of my life to be pulled out of a pocket-space true memory as quickly as a bullet being fired from a gun. My thoughts turned into this turgid, swirling mess, and I wasn’t sure which way was up or down.

  I heard something thump beside me. It was the box. Then there was another bang as my body fell face-first on the floor.

  Someone grunted.

  “Sonos?” I whispered.

  That person grunted again.

  Sonos was a lot of things, but he was always eloquent, no matter what he went through.

  I opened an eye. My vision was swirling around me. I tried to focus on the dust covering my floor and the holes through the floorboards. I couldn’t. But focus came to me when a tight knuckled grip locked on my shoulder. I felt myself being wrenched up and back into the chair. A strong arm locked me against it. I struggled. I immediately tried to call on my magic, but only a few sparks came.

  I could hear footfall. It was racing through the castle. My defenses had been breached.

  Dammit. Sonos had promised me I’d be safe here.

  That arm pinned my neck. It forced me hard against the long back of my chair. I struggled with all my physical might, but that sure as hell wasn’t enough. I could feel magic sinking into my skin. It darted across my chest and tingled into my belly. It was a restraint hex.

  Whoever was holding me grunted once more. It seemed to be the only noise they could make.