Page 25 of Of Flame and Fury
“Jesus Christ, Bren.” This shit is worse than what I saw earlier with Tye and Destiny. “You have two seconds before I fry you towerebits.”
Bren lifts off Emme and turns, spitting thorns the size of fingers and more than his share of blood. He wipes his mouth and tugs her clothes back in place. “Come on, Em,” he tells her, giving her a small shake. “The poison is out. Heal for me, baby.”
I was right. I didn’t want to be right. “How did you know?” I ask. Her greenish skin fades to white, still pale, but no longer that shade of death she developed before. I stroke Emme’s forehead, the perspiration gathered cooling, and the pinkish tone returning to her skin. “Bren?” I ask when he doesn’t answer.
He sets her back in my arms and perches himself on all fours, spitting out more blood and black fluid. “I could smell the thorns.” He spits some more, his stomach muscles clenching. I think he’ll puke until he turns into a sitting position. “I found Emme fighting that bald bastard over there,” he says, jerking toward Tweedle. “Another guy, thing, whatever the fuck it was came out of nowhere, all covered with thorns. He shot them at us. I tried to shield Emme with my body, but then this other thing with the mouths landed on me, and I think the thorny bastard had another go at Emme.” He shakes his head. “T, I didn’t sense them. I couldn’t smell or hear them. At least, not right away.”
“That’s because they’re hidden by Johnny’s magic.” He scowls, unsure what I mean until recognition breaks across his features. I nod. “Johnny Fate is here, Bren. He’s the one sending these creatures and infecting the spells.”
“You’re sure?”
I cuddle Emme closer. She’d almost died in my arms. “I recognize the magic and can sense part of him around me.”
His gaze shifts to Emme. “Where’s Celia?” he asks gruffly. “Tell me she’s safe. Tell me that little punk doesn’t have her.”
I can’t tell him anything when I don’t know myself. I motion to the foyer. “She’s there, I think. Aric and the others are with her.” Heaven help us. Celia has protection. Emme had none. Celia may be stronger and tougher, but she heals close to a human’s pace.
Bren crouches, trying to stand. “Can’t they get through?”
“I don’t think so. I did, and Gemini was allowed through keeping close to me, but it was a lot of work and took some time.”
“Whatever you did, start doing it, T. Celia needs to get out the back way.”
He doesn’t mean the rear entrance. He means Plan D. Our last-ditch safety net I’m supposedly in charge of.
“I don’t know if I can,” I admit. Plan D is our “all hell has broken loose and we need to separate plan.” The first part has come true. That doesn’t mean I’m prepared to leave those I most love under these circumstances. I swallow down the panic churning my stomach.
“You can, and you have to,” Bren replies. He reclaims his hold on Emme when he’s sure I’ll drop her. He strokes her cheek, attempting to wake her.
“Bren, you don’t understand. If I can pull off this spell, we’ll end up outside. Destiny told me it’s not safe out there. These creatures are swarming the grounds.”
“You don’t know that for sure,” he counters. “Have you been out there?”
“No,” I admit. “But anyone who’s stepped close to the entrance was reduced to blood and bones.”
He motions around. “It has to be better than this shit,” he says. “What if that thing at the entrance is the worst of them? It won’t know Celia is gone, and it’ll give you a chance to escape.”
The anarchy in the ballroom begins to dwindle down, unlike the mobocracy in the foyer. “Bren, I don’t know.”
“T, we’re the only ones aware of the escape route. Get Celia in here, and then you girls get out. We’ll meet you in a few.”
Bren’s leg is shredded, and blood and poison ooze from the exposed bone. His inner beast is trying and failing to heal him. For all Bren tells me he’ll make it out, I think he knows he won’t, not that he’ll ever admit it.
My legs tremble as I rise. This escape route is our Hail Mary play. I don’t want to take it, but I will. I only hope we’re not leaping from the frying pan and directly into the mouths of these creatures.
Pale-yellow light streams along the floor as I stride in the direction of the foyer.
“That’s right, baby,” Bren tells Emme. “Heal. I know you’re tired. I know you want to sleep. But we ain’t done fighting yet.”
Gemini jogs to me. “What’s happening?”
The way Bren holds and speaks to Emme tears me up. “Bren says it’s time for the Hail Mary pass.”
He glares at the magical partition where bloody corpses lay piled against it. “What if we just bring Celia in here? It’s safer than before.”
I like this idea better. Yeah, maybe we can just stay in here.
Except when I reach the invisible wall, I can’t step through. A timber wolf with three heads appears at the entrance, its predator eyes locking on my pregnant sister.