The flames were approaching at an alarming rate. Soon they would be upon them.
All animals were afraid of fire. It was programmed into them. Mankind and Desmond himself were no exception to that rule. Even though Desmond knew with reasonable certainty that even the flames would not be able to kill him outright.
Still, Desmond had no intention of moving an inch, not unless it was absolutely necessary, despite the fear he had.
Until the boy would finish his job, saving Amy.
And then Christina, of course. He had to admit with shame that he'd almost forgotten about her.
Her injury was less serious, clearly, but no less important for that. Amy... No, the shadow, though not directly, had stabbed her in the chest.
He didn't think she would die from such a wound, the stab had missed her vital organs, but he could be wrong. He might have come up with the wrong idea on purpose, to make himself feel better, to calm the fear and pain in his heart, if only a little, and it needed to be treated. The sooner the better.
But first things first, he thought.
"Shit," the boy mumbled. He was shaking like a leaf in the wind and his eyes were full of tears, but he was doing his job. "Why did things have to end like this?"
Good question.
Until a few hours ago, he had been sleeping peacefully on the train, that infernal death trap. He could not have imagined this disaster.
Just as he could not have imagined the massacre that happened that day.
The boy was caught between the fear of being devoured by the flames and the fear of being killed by that thing.
It wasn't that he couldn't sympathize with the boy, he just didn't care. Nor did he care that this might not be the best condition in which to do his job.
Because he had no choice.
Desmond had threatened him because he had been willing to run away, abandoning Amy to her fate.
Stabbing in the back the three people who had protected them while they trembled in the corners like normal children, instead of soldiers.
That they had tried so hard and had paid dearly for that..... Altruism was not the right word, by any means. He at least hadn't thought of protecting the students, but of protecting only Christina and Amy, and that the other students should be kept away from him simply so they wouldn't be a hindrance.
Still, regardless of his intentions, the fact remained that he had protected them.
That was an immovable truth.
The truth was that Christina and Amy had protected them, with pure intentions he was sure, and they had paid dearly for it. Amy on the verge of death, Christina suffering, she could be dying too.
And yet he had wanted to run. He could sympathize with him, but he didn't deserve his sympathy.
For a moment, he felt vaguely disturbed by the direction his feelings had taken. Not so long ago, he had entered a train, embarking on the path of the soldier, to protect others.
To fulfill the role of a soldier.
His intentions hadn't been entirely pure of course, in part he was clinging to the one connection he had thought he had with his savior, of course, but....
But what?
He was trying to paint this as if he had changed. He had always been a twisted person from the bottom of his heart.
Hadn't he?
Even back then, in the woods, he....
The wound on Amy's neck closed all the way.
All this time, Desmond had kept the sword against the boy's neck, to make his situation clear to him, so that he could not move an inch or even think of doing so.
Now he didn't lower it either. But he released one of his hands to take Amy's. And squeeze it.
To feel her life, which had been so close to being snuffed out. His eyes filled with tears like that boy's.
Desmond bit his lower lip hard. And then he wondered...
Why strain himself, what reason did he have to hold back?
None.
He stopped biting his lip. He would let the tears fall when they had to fall, or not. Whatever had to happen.
Amy opened her mouth to say something. But nothing came out of her throat.
Nothing except a hoarse sound of effort.
Desmond looked up at the flames. They were practically on top of them already. He was going to tell the boy to help him, to move Amy himself while he got busy helping Christina.
But suddenly the idea became unbearable. Nauseating.
So what he did was lift Christina up, letting her lean on his shoulder.
Then he did the same with Amy on the other shoulder.
The three of them and the boy set off toward the other end of the room. As far away from the flames as they could get.
"What do we do now? "shouted the boy.
To make himself heard, over the roar of the flames and the panic of the students.
"You don't have to worry about that now," Desmond replied. He gently set the two down on the floor. "You haven't finished your fucking job yet. Heal her."
"But..."
"Didn't you hear me?"
He was a coward. And cowards always let themselves be dragged down by the will of the strong. So he bent down to do what he had to do.
Desmond also did the same.
That is, he gave him another cut on the arm, without needing to say anything again.
Without saying a word himself.
But there was really nothing to be gained by handling things this way. Desmond took a deep breath, trying to control himself.
Yes, there was a better way.
"Listen, kid. You just need to heal her... and then I'll make sure you get out of here alive. I can promise you that. This promise is as sure as the threat from before. Okay?"
The boy nodded in response. His tremors didn't drop in intensity, however.
He supposed he had gone too far for a few simple words to change anything. His tremors had dropped in intensity compared to before, he corrected himself.
But that was only because he no longer had his sword against the boy's neck.
Not because of anything he had said or done right.
Someone grabbed his hand.
It was Amy. He tried to speak, but once again he was unable.
"Why can't she speak?" Desmond asked the boy. Was it that he had done a half-hearted job, leaving her vocal cords unhealed?"
The boy grimaced.
At first he thought it was because he had been right, that he hadn't completed the job.
Then he realized that that was simply the reaction he had to the sound of his voice, and would have for quite some time.
"She'll talk," he explained. "Just not right away. It has... She has to get used to it. To her new... vocal cords. And wait... for them to fully heal. It's a process."
Desmond nodded. But the boy wasn't looking in his direction, he was looking down at the hands he was holding over the open wound on Christina's chest.
"Okay," he said, then.
Desmond looked back at Amy.
He wished he knew what she was trying to tell him and why she was trying so desperately in the first place.
But...
"Don't try so hard," he told her. "You're safe now. Tell me when you can. It's not like it's going to be...."
Your last words, he was going to say, evidently. It wasn't as if she had to be in a hurry to speak because her life was coming to an end. It was true, but he wasn't able to utter those words.
A lump formed in his throat and they got stuck there.
He swallowed back a mouthful of saliva.
Gods, how close he had come. To lose Amy.
Of losing them both in one fell swoop.
If that had happened... Desmond didn't know what he would have done, to be honest with himself.
"Desmond," Christina said.
Desmond shifted his gaze to her, in time to see her struggle to her feet. Her face was white as salt, except for splashes of her own blood, and her breathing was ragged.
Nevertheless, she managed to get to her feet.
And she was healed.
The dried blood prevented him from seeing the wound, but it had to be healed, if she was able to move and if the boy had stopped working, turning away from her.
The boy went over to him to heal his broken arm, without him having to say anything. It didn't take long.
"What do we do now? "asked the boy.
Desmond looked at Christina, and wondered if she was up to it. He wondered why it was happening, with the storm of emotions that was raging around him.
But he had no choice but to depend on her.
Earlier he had tried, with all his might, to break down the door to reach the escaping enemy and had failed to make a dent. Not a single dent.
Therefore, if there was anyone among those present who could break the protection over the door made by the director's magic, it was Christina and her shadows.
She had to act fast. The advancing flames were not only bringing them closer and closer to total destruction.
As the flames passed, the shadows in the basement were dying.
Christina looked back at him and nodded as if she had read his thoughts.
So he would trust her. He did, had always done so... and on this occasion he literally had no other choice, anyway.
She was cured, wasn't she?
She should be able to withstand the strain, right?
Those questions were really unimportant. If she didn't get them out of here, they would all die, including her.
"Okay, listen up! "Desmond shouted at the top of his lungs, hoping to draw everyone's attention to him. And it worked. But only partially. "Listen up, everybody! We're getting out of here! And all you have to do is stand still and wait! My partner will break down the door!"
This time it really worked. Every remaining pair of eyes in the basement turned in their direction.
All except Christina's eyes, who were staring at the door, one hand on her chest as if she was still in pain from the wound that had been healed.
"Wait!" She thought the protest was coming from the same boy who had healed Christina and Amy, but no. It wasn't even a boy's voice. It wasn't even a boy's voice. It was from a girl in the crowd. "Even if... even if she breaks down the door, then what? How are we going to get across?"
The ever expanding sea of flames was definitely an obstacle.
And not just the flames themselves, but what they brought with them.
His body was reinforced, but that didn't stop him from being affected by the smoke. Reinforcing his lungs was too risky and brought rather few benefits. Like strapping a time bomb to his chest.
But there wasn't that much room, that much time.
Surely no one would be choked to death by the smoke before the flames could reach them.
No, they would all burn to death. Screaming.
If no one did anything...
But Christina could take care of that too.
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Wait a minute.
Now that Desmond had time to think, he realized it made sense. He needn't have asked her that question.
In fact, things shouldn't even have gotten to this point.
They were mages, and fire was dangerous, but normal fire, it was nothing compared to magic. They should have put it out with fire, with water, with anything else that would do.
Yet they were in this situation, as if they had no way out.
He had no proof. But perhaps... Had the shadow gone after them, killing them all? Those who had an affinity related to water or wind, to kill them?
Because this had been the plan all along?
Lock them up, only Jack had done that part of the job for him, and then set them on fire.
Desmond had no proof, but he wasn't going to ask for confirmation. Because he knew he was going to get the answer he expected and no other, that there would be no point in even trying.
Besides, it didn't matter.
"It won't be a problem," Desmond said. She can create a bridge over which we can cross without the flames reaching us.
Yes, that would even be easy for her. Quick and effortless.
But it wouldn't do any good if she couldn't break down the door. Everything depended on that one thing. And she was confident that Christina would be able to do it.
The only thing that worried him was how the effort would affect her, since she was newly recovered.
How could he doubt that Christina would be able to break down the door even though the director had said it was impossible to break down? They had fought together many times, he had seen her rise up in all kinds of situations.
She had proven, time and time again, that her magic was unrivaled.
That there was nothing that could stop her, least of all an insignificant wooden door, magically supported or not.
Christina lifted the book she was holding.
It was open.
Now he knew it would be open to a random page and that it meant nothing, because each and every page was blank. But appearances had to be saved.
Christina gathered the shadows from the basement.
She even used the shadows of some of the people, and with that pile of shadows she formed a kind of battering ram.
She threw it towards and against the door.
The sound of the impact was deafening. Like two giants made of metal colliding, and that unfortunate metaphor made him think of the spider, of course, the Empire's signature war machine.
It made him think of blue fire.
Despite all the force behind that crash, not only was the door still in place, but it appeared to have sustained no damage.
Desmond bit his lip, starting to get seriously worried.
He told himself that this was nonsense, that he was overreacting for no reason.
To no avail.
Christina pulled the ram back as far as possible. For the next attempt, she gathered the shadows of everyone present, making the most of the resources at her disposal.
Now the battering ram was incredibly large, incredibly thick.
It now seemed capable of bringing down not only the door, but the whole fucking building.
In his heart the spark of hope ignited again.
For no reason, it turned out.
The large battering ram, which should have been strong enough to reduce an entire crowd of people to pulp in a single blow, slammed into the door.
There was that resounding metal"on"metal sound again, so loud that it was deafeningly audible even above the roar of the flames.
But nothing. It was no use. The door was still standing.
Two blows, one ten times louder than the previous one, at the very least. Neither of them had worked.
She could keep trying, of course. But now he was convinced that the door would not budge no matter how many times it was struck by Christina's shadows.
Incidentally, too, even if they all joined forces.
And what was the alternative?
He had already come to a crushing conclusion. There was no alternative.
It was either that or death.
This basement had but one door and no windows.
So what now?
Nothing?
No. He couldn't let things end this way. There had to be some way, even if it was just the teachers coming to rescue them! Some way!
There was.
Christina launched an attack again. But not at the door, but at the wall to one side of the door. This sank inward with ease. And it was filled with cracks, but some of them had been there before.
As a result of the first two blows, which had been aimed at the door.
That was how she had noticed it.
He felt stupid for not having thought of that before. The door was a pre"designed entrance and exit, but that didn't mean they couldn't make themselves one.
This showed, again, that he wasn't too smart, he supposed.
Christina knocked down the left wall. And, although it was not necessary, also the one on the right.
The door was left without support and fell to the floor.
The symbol was still burning, its magic still protected the door, but it was no longer an obstacle. They had a clear path.
Why?
He didn't see it as necessary at all.
In the hole that had been the left wall there was enough room for all the students to rush through, panicstricken. There was no need for her to tear down the other side of the wall.
But that was the least of it, evidently.
It wasn't even worth wasting time thinking about it. Who cared?
Christina dissolved the battering ram and with those shadows created a bridge, as he had said, so they could cross between the flames.
No, she didn't stop there.
With part of the shadows she surrounded the bridge, as if it were made of glass. That is, in other words, what she did wasn't create a bridge, but a tunnel, exceeding his expectations for the second time in a few seconds.
Bueno.
Well, this was much better.
They entered through the tunnel.
Desmond did so by helping both Christina and Amy, who could move, albeit with difficulty. Holding on to them tightly. As if their lives depended on it.
They all passed through the tunnel, hurriedly, squeezed into the narrow tunnel. Sweating and desperate.
Still coughing hard, because the tunnel could protect them from the flames, but not from the smoke. That was not possible, not quite, apparently.
It felt...
Desmond felt... like this... like this was a birth canal.
As if he were being reborn, little by little, in this lightless warmth, surrounded by flesh, being crushed. And that stench of sweat.
After an eternity, he came out on the other side.
He fell, rather.
Along with Christina and Amy on either side of him.
Some walked over or past them.
Some literally trampled over them on their way to the exit, desperate, not caring that without the three of them they would have no way out in the first place.
Desmond gritted his teeth. He stood up, lifting his teammates as well, of course.
They helped.
They weren't up to moving well on their own, but at least enough strength remained within their bodies to help him. They weren't dead weight.
Desmond grimaced.
What an unfortunate choice of words.
Amy was in better shape than Christina, but, still, since she had lost a great deal of blood, he couldn't pretend nothing had happened.
When everyone had finished passing through, Christina dissolved the bridge and the "crystal". With the shadows of the basement, she grabbed the door that had fallen to the floor, which glowed as if burning in a blue fire.
A weapon.
That's what she'd knocked down the wall on both sides, knocking the door down.
To procure a weapon.
Good thinking.
Desmond made a decision before stepping through one of the holes like the others.
A soldier... he was supposed to do his duty.
To put the mission, his kingdom, above all else.
Long ago, with nothing to lose, he had been determined to carry out that duty to the letter.
To the end, whatever the cost.
But now... Now he was much more than a soldier, and he had priorities.
The decision he had come to, therefore, was to run.
To run away, far from here, or if that was not possible, to find a place to hide and wait for everything to pass. For it to end as it had to end.
They had risked their lives enough.
They had bled enough.
The sound of something scraping the ground. A metallic, annoying sound.
The firmness of Christina's grip on the door had weakened, causing it to sag, to touch the floor, scraping it.
But Christina didn't drop the door.
Instead, she clutched it tighter, wrapping her shadows around it as if trying to crush it. Except that she could do no such thing, even if she tried.
The meaning of that action was clear.
She wasn't taking into account the desire of her companions. Christina, at least, wished to go on. She wished to fight despite her condition.
She didn't think she had done enough.
In the hospital bed, she had confessed to him that she was beginning to think that this life was not for her.
That she was beginning to think about quitting.
And before that happened, she had exposed to him her inner contradiction, the conflict between the way of a soldier and what she wished to achieve, to avoid.
But still...
Still, she was unwilling to back down.
Desmond bit his lip. He had said earlier that such tenacity was to be admired.
And it was. It was, of course...
But now it only filled him with fear, to be honest. He was afraid that Christina was going too far. Unlike him, she couldn't go back even once.
Unlike Desmond, she didn't have a safety net waiting to catch him every time she did something too brave. Or stupid, depending on how you looked at it.
She was as human as anyone else, despite her incredible magical powers.
Of her legendary lineage.
Of all that her shadows could do.
For her, death was death. The same went for Amy, of course.
Me, he thought, and couldn't finish the thought. He was stuck in his identity as if time was on a loop. Me...
Yes. A loop.
He also had the feeling that he wasn't moving forward. That he was moving, but not taking a single step, as if the whole hallway was covered with.... quicksand, or something.
Desmond felt like throwing up.
Time doesn't move forward, of course not.
The same tragedies repeat themselves over and over again, he thought.
If this was like a replay of that day.... If someone had to die... let it be him again. Desmond wished it with all his might, from the bottom of his heart.
Even if this was a final death, let him be the one to fall.
But wishing wasn't enough.
The gods undoubtedly existed. But he didn't think they cared about the wishes of human beings.
If Desmond wanted that to be fulfilled, he would have to build it.
He would have to mold his ideal future with his own hands.
That I will do, he promised himself. That I will.
Silence.
The building was shrouded in silence. Of course, it wasn't quite true. By breaking down the doors, Christina had not only opened the way out for them.
She had also opened a path for the fire to continue to spread.
The roar of the flames went on and on.
But the important thing is that that was all he could hear. No screams. No explosions, no gunshots or other loud noises that could be the effects of one of the teachers' magic.
There was no indication that there was a battle in progress.
At least from here he couldn't hear any. And that was worrying. Because the teachers hadn't come for them.
And it was fine to be optimistic, to assume that there was no battle because the teachers had taken care of the intruder, but Desmond was not noted for his optimism.
That is, he was far from naive, such as to expect that something so rosy had actually happened.
But neither was he willing to accept so easily that the battle was over, only with the enemy's victory and that's why nothing could be heard.
So fast. So... effortlessly, all the teachers gathered here?
He couldn't believe it.
He didn't want to believe it, yes, but he couldn't either.
It couldn't have been that easy.
One against more than a dozen teachers. Okay, most of them may not have had experience in a real battle, but the teachers at his academy did, and even so, if they were teachers, it was because they were skilled, it couldn't have been that easy, with just one....
Then Desmond understood.
He was stuck on that idea because he didn't want to accept reality. With just one it couldn't have been that easy, that's for sure.
But what was telling him it had to be just one?
Nothing, of course.
It would be too optimistic to assume it was a lone resentful mage for some reason, acting on his own, unlike Laura who had joined the enemy.
It would be crazy if the Azure Empire had sent a single assassin.
That it wasn't a large-scale attack like the attack on the Four Seasons.
The teachers might as well be dead.
Each and every one of them, already, killed while, at the same time, the shadow was sent to deal with the students.
Maybe, maybe not.
But surely a hellish welcoming party awaited them upstairs.
And it didn't matter.
Nor did it matter whether the teachers were alive or not.
Desmond had already made a decision, even if it was a deeply selfish one, even if it didn't make sense, nor did he have the right to do it.
Regardless, Desmond would follow his heart, which had had enough with seeing Amy with her throat slit and blood slipping through Christina's fingers, who had fallen to the ground on her knees.
It was the second time he had seen Christina on the verge of death.
It was like that night.
But this time he wasn't going to turn his back on her, trusting Amy to carry her to safety.
Desmond would not turn away from her. He would not abandon her. Not her and not Amy.
That was his new duty.
His mind was clear and things were clear, and it felt good, despite the situation. It was always good to have a path to follow.
They went up the stairs.
Desmond realized that he hadn't seen the corpse of a teacher in front of the door.
Hadn't they left anyone to watch them?
Of course they had.
That had to be the answer.
At the very least, he could think of no reason for them to make the corpse disappear. Everyone was aware that they were under attack, hiding a corpse wasn't going to do anything, especially as a prelude to incinerating all the living students.
The door at the top of the stairs was locked.
It was glass, though. Desmond blew it into a thousand pieces with one kick and everyone passed through as before.
The sound of the rain of glass echoed down the empty hallway, but eventually even those echoes disappeared.
Bringing everything back to silence.
That's right. On the other side of the door, as before, there was nothing.
No noises, no bloodstains. Nothing.
As if what had happened in the basement, the shadow, the fight, the corpses that had been left behind to burn like everything else, had not really happened.
As if it had been nothing more than a bad dream.
Or as if this was the dream, perhaps better said. This silence. This calm. He wanted to wake up the faster the better.
He couldn't stand this tension.
He would a thousand times rather stop having to guess, than predict where the attack was going to come from, or the form it would take. Simply having an enemy in front of him.
A clear enemy within reach of his sword.
...But he wasn't here to fight.
He had decided to flee.
Actually, this was for the best. If the Empire wanted to take their time, good for him. The more time he would have to get out of this war zone.
"How quiet," another of the students said, raising his voice too much for his liking.
"Where are the teachers? "And this one didn't just raise his voice, he shouted unconcernedly.
"With the teachers..."
"Have they left us behind?"
"If we don't find them, we're going to die. We're going to die even though we managed to get out of that hell."
Putting everything in the hands of the teachers.
Soon, that chorus of voices became too numerous for him to make any sense of it.
Didn't they understand the situation they were in?
Now he could start shouting to shut them up, but it would be quite counterproductive and no one would listen to him anyway.
Desmond shook his head.
Let them do what they wanted, he had nothing to do with those idiots....
"Keep your voices down! "Christina shouted with unexpected force, "We're in a war zone! If you don't want to die, stay calm."
"I don't want to go through this again," someone in the crowd said.
Again?
"You're a soldier. This is what your life will be like until the day you die."
Harsh words, but true.
There would never be peace.
There could never be peace. He had told Laura what he believed was the only way to end the war between kingdoms, and he was still sure of it.
The war would continue until one side was exterminated.
Every last enemy had to die for there to be peace.
Of course, there would be periods of false peace like the last five years. No society could sustain itself, much less prosper, by always being at war.
But war would never end. So that's what his life would be like, that's what everyone's lives would be like.
It was what it meant to be a soldier.
"We can do this. The three of us, our team, have already survived one attack. And so have you, and others who are here today. We can do this... like we did before. But we have to stay in control, we have to act as a team, as real soldiers. Do you understand?
By the time Christina finished, all the voices had died down.
Desmond supposed she had the makings of a leader, making strangers like them, gripped by the heavy awareness of their own mortality, listen to her with a few words.
Yes.
There wasn't what you'd call a leader on the team.
Not formally.
But if there was, he would have voted for Christina. No doubt about it. He of course would be a lousy leader.
He suspected Amy more of the same.
Because if either had spoken exactly the same words, he believed they would have gotten the opposite result.
It wasn't all about what to say or how to say it.
There was something else beneath the surface. He didn't know what to call it, charisma or something else, but it was essential. And impossible to imitate.
They kept moving forward.
This time they advanced slowly, carefully, checking every corner. They advanced like a group of soldiers instead of a group of preschoolers. But it didn't do them much good.
They crossed a sliding door to slip into the kitchen.
Soon after, an impact jolted his body. Desmond's back hit the kitchen counter and his head was slammed against one of the drawers above.
The shadow.
The shadow had come back to finish what it had started.
To throw him, it had also thrown Christina and Amy, of course. Christina was lying on the floor. Amy had managed to stand, but barely, leaning on the kitchen table.
The shadow grabbed her by the neck with both hands, squeezing.
Those eyes.
Those burning white eyes, that seemed to be able to consume him like the flames he had recently escaped from. And that face is completely devoid of humanity.
He placed his hands on the shadow's hands.
Desmond poured "force" into its body.
He managed to break its grip without even having to use the sword. The shadow seemed surprised at this. Or maybe that was just something he himself had attributed to its expressionless face, no, without even features.
In any case...
Desmond kicked it in the chest.
The force of the impact tore the shadow's feet off the floor and sent it flying over the table.
He had made a promise and had every intention of keeping it.
No. Desmond had made two promises, to be exact. Both were important, but one of them clearly much more important. The first of the promises could wait.
He grabbed Christina by the arm, helped her up.
"We have to get out of here."
She had been in the process of lifting the door again, which had slipped from her grip from the blow, but then she stopped, turned to look at him.
"What?"
"They can handle it on their own. We can get out of here, the three of us! We've done enough."
The shadow was on all fours, on the other side of the table, surrounded in all directions.
It was crouched like a tiger waiting for the right moment to pounce on its prey. The more he looked into those burning white eyes, the more it seemed as if... as if they were moving in its face.
Trembling like real flames.
"No," Christina said firmly.
There was no anger in her face, no disappointment, none of the things she had feared to see in it.
There was simply confusion there. As if she couldn't understand what he had just told her, let alone accept it. Actually, he should have expected that kind of reaction.
Still on all fours, the shadow jumped, straight at him again.
As if they had taken it as a signal, this time the students reacted like the soldiers they were supposed to be.
They launched all kinds of attacks towards the shadow, but none of them had any effect.
They couldn't have had any effect because not a single one of them hit it. The shadow dodged them by skillfully spinning in the air. But a few attacks missed it simply because the mages missed the target.
He had seen it coming, of course. So Desmond had plenty of time to get out of the way.
But he didn't do so until the last moment, pushing Christina away as well with a shove that knocked her off balance, throwing her to the ground.
The shadow fell between the two, still crouched like a wild animal.
Like a panther.
The shadow lunged at him...
It tried to, rather. Christina was the one who stopped it.
She grabbed the door and used it as a bat, sending the shadow, with one good swing, across the room. Practically burying it in the wall, in fact.
Fuck, such strength, he thought.
Christina had thought right.
If Jack's magic, the organizer of this, had made the door so strong, it could also serve as a good weapon.
Of course it could.
A chuckle escaped Desmond. He couldn't help it.
"Did you see that, you son of a bitch? You should have made sure the job was finished."
Now it would pay for it.
It would pay for everything.
A giant made an appearance in the middle of the kitchen. It wasn't on the enemy's side.
It was not a human being, not a being of any kind, but an earth golem created by one of the students.
Only he hadn't seen the student working on it until the creature appeared.
Right.
Creating golems was one of those common affinities, which came with a twist to distinguish them. He didn't care what the twist was in this user's case.
It didn't matter to him.
What mattered was that golems were hard to take down.
And that, even if they were knocked down, the mage could rebuild them again and again as long as they didn't run out of the necessary resources.
A great ally, in other words.
In more ways than one.
The golem stood next to a girl he mistook for a man at first glance. Clearly worked hard, she seemed to be able to get into a fistfight with her creation. And maybe even win.
And then it wasn't. The girl, with a wave of her hand, sent it after the shadow.
The shadow remained motionless, curled in on itself, tense, waiting.
The golem had a spear as big as itself in its hands, with which it tried to skewer the shadow. It failed.
Not because the shadow split its body as it had so many times before.
It dodged the attack in a normal fashion.
The spear came within millimeters of its waist, of splitting it in two. This time for real. He believed that thing wouldn't have been able to react quickly enough to avoid it with its usual trick.
Then it put both hands on the golem's spear shaft.
As if it intended to fight him.
As if it thought it could snatch it away from it.
Desmond found it ridiculous, the very idea unthinkable. But he was wrong. He was wrong, ah yes, and how.
It managed to move the spear, still in the golem's hands, with its strength. Causing the spear to strike the head of its wielder.
Then took it away.
Just like that.
Like taking candy from a baby. Fuck, where did it get that strength from! That was the first thing that had crossed his mind, but in reality, in the short fight they'd had in the basement it hadn't had a chance to demonstrate its strength.
Desmond had had to break an arm to escape the shadow's grip.
But it had enveloped him with its whole body, it wasn't the same, until now he had had no reason to think that the shadow was physically strong or weak.
Christina tried to send it flying, hitting it with the door again.
The shadow parried the blow with the huge spear it had just gotten itself. At first he thought it wouldn't be fast enough. That it might have the strength to lift it, but that didn't stop its size from being a hindrance to wielding it properly.
However, it was fast enough.
For the second time in about that many seconds, it was saved by the skin of its teeth.
What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object?
The answer, in this case, was that the unstoppable force wasn't so unstoppable after all.
The shadow was spared the impact, but the blow split its weapon in half.
The girl controlling the golem didn't mind the loss of the weapon too much.
As soon as Christina pulled back the door to strike again, she sent her creation after the enemy.
Or so Desmond thought.
He was thinking that the golem was the type that had to be given every command, controlling them like a puppet, rather than those with some level of autonomy. Limited as it was.
The golem punched it several times, in the head and in the chest.
The blows from such a huge thing should have made its head and chest explode like a watermelon.
However, the shadow suffered no apparent damage.
In fact, those fists... seemed to get stuck in the darkness of its body like quicksand. For a brief moment before pulling them out.
In any case, those blows hadn't hurt the thing.
The golem picked up the shadow with one hand, as if it were a child's toy, such an insignificant thing as that, and threw it against a wall.
Just as Christina had done a short while ago. And she herself repeated the action, hitting him with the door before it could recover, smashing it against the wall behind it, filling it with cracks.
Chunks of the wall broke off and fell.
There was a fine cloud of dust.
The shadow fell to his knees, his head fell as well. It was a posture as if he was accepting defeat.
Of course, that was not true.
Despite what it might seem, they weren't winning. They were dominating the fight, but not winning, because so far they hadn't hurt it at all.
Its magic had to have some trick to it.
Limits, some weakness.
But they didn't know any of that. Information was power and they lacked information.
Damn it.
But that abomination...
Desmond didn't even have time to finish the thought before the abomination did just that. That is, turn into black smoke.
I'm not going to let you get away, he thought out of his mind with fury. Not again.
Eyes wide as saucers and teeth clenched so hard he could break them.
But it was a hollow thought. There was no way to stop it, not that he knew of at least. Christina couldn't do it either, even though that thing was like a living shadow.
That much had been made clear to him.
That didn't matter, in the end. Because the shadow turned out to have no intention of escaping.
The black smoke...
Smoke billowed into Desmond's mouth. He couldn't stop it, it forced his mouth open and held it that way as it drifted down his throat.
Pain.
Pain, pain, pain, pain, pain.
It was as if something was tearing at his neck with its hands, and immediately it got worse.
Desmond fell to his knees, struggling to breathe, completely unable to do so.
It felt like his insides were being torn apart. He intends to kill me from the inside, he thought. And I won't be able to recover. Not from this.
He felt blood in his throat.
He felt, for some reason, that even his eyes might burst like balloons swollen to the limit
He stopped feeling his arms and legs.
His chest was... a black spot. A numb emptiness. As if his heart had been taken away.
I'm dying, he thought. Oh gods, I'm dying.
But the reality, as usual, turned out to be even more terrible than he had dared to imagine.
Because the pain stopped.
Because Desmond rose to his feet, still clutching his sword, but that movement had not followed his own will.
It had followed the will of the one inside his body now.
Pulling the strings.
"Desmond?" The trembling, hesitant voice of Christina who was hunched over the table, leaning on it with one hand, the other holding the book.
The abomination that had taken hold of him raised the sword above his head.