Page 25 of Raze
I scan the building for a person. “What are you talking about? I don’t see anyone.”
“The windows are all broken to let the smoke out. Fire doesn’t break windows,” Aiden explains.
“And that automatically means it’s him?”
“Go. I’ll keep him busy.” Jack moves toward the burning building.
Aiden steps in front of him. “Wait. You can’t face him alone. It took all of us last time to take him down. And we had the element of surprise. We should leave now before he knows we’re here.”
“He already knows. Either I distract him here so youguys can leave, or he’ll follow us.”
I grab his hoodie sleeve. “If this guy is as bad as you said, then I’m not leaving you or anyone else here alone.”
“Then we’ll all stay and fight him together. Either until he’s dead or incapacitated enough for us to get away without being followed,” Aiden says.
“Fighting to run away, huh?” Kellan punches his palm. “Not usually my style, but I guess we don’t have much choice with him.”
Dane raises his glowing hand. “I just need an opening to grab him.”
Jackson glances at my hand on my gun, then up to my eyes. “No shooting him or throwing anything at him. He’ll just deflect it back at you.” My hand drops from my gun. Well, shit on a stick. “Come on, he’s waiting for us.”
Kellan kicks the door down and more smoke pours through the opening. Jackson waves his hand in a tight circle and the smoke pushes away from us. Like an air current flows between us and the smoke and it circles around us and out.
Once we get through the door, there’s no more smoke. I look up and see it moving along the ceiling and out the door rather than filling the room. Jack’s looking at it with a serious expression, and I know that it’s not him doing it.
“Ah, look. The crew’s all here. And I see you’ve found the girl you were looking for, Jackson. You must have thought you’d gotten your happily ever after. Until you learned I’m still alive, I’m sure.” The man, who I’m assuming is Thorne, grins, but there’s a manic energy to him that twists my gut in warning.
He’s standing at the edge of the hole that’s been opened up from the second floor and looking down at us. His hair is the blackest black. Matte and dead even in the fire’s glow while it’s slicked back at the sides. His face is all sharp points and his nose is a bit tweaked, like it was broken so many times that it finally just healed crooked. One of his eyes is a pale blue with a scar straight through it from eyebrow to cheekbone. From Jackson stabbing him, no doubt. The other is too dark to see, but an obviously different shade from the other.
Thorne is wearing a black trench coat that’s buttoned all the way up and is moving behind him from an invisible breeze. Or maybe from whatever he’s doing to keep the fire and smoke away from this bubble we’re in.
Point is, he looks like a super villain.
“I would have come for you all sooner, but GE has some trust issues I had to help them with first. But now it’s time I punished you for what you did. The Guild is mine, and I’m taking it back.”
Aiden pulls his sword from his back that unfurls like a whip and slams it down. The sharp blades running down its length on either side cut into the softened floor like butter. “We’ll make sure to take your head this time. No coming back.”
Thorne laughs. It’s a hollow, creepy sound that makes me think of an echo in a mausoleum. “Oh, how little you know. I should take your head and mount it in the Guild for everyone to see what happens when you try to supplant me.”
Holy shit.
Jackson leaps into the air and throws knives at him, the time for idle threats and chitchat apparently over with. Thorne lifts a handat him, and a gust of wind knocks Jack and the knives back to the ground.
Aiden’s arm arcs over his head, and his sword moves like a snake in the air. Thorne jumps aside to dodge it, but Aiden doesn’t let up. His arm keeps swinging back and forth, over and up. He keeps his blade chasing after him, so Thorne’s forced to avoid it rather than attack.
I call on my gift, spreading the fire through my arms to my hands and then holding it there.
Jackson appears behind the ex-Guild master, and slashes at him with a longer blade than his usual throwing ones. It catches Thorne in the back and he falls to the first floor. Kellan runs and grabs him, pinning his arms to his sides. “Dane!” he roars.
Dane’s already running with his hand outstretched and glowing white with his gift.
I could come at him now, but with Kellan already holding him and Dane about to grab him, I could risk hitting them, too.
Thorne laughs again. “You think I’d be foolish enough to let him touch me now that I know what he can do?” He clenches his hand at his side, and Kellan’s eyes widen. He releases Thorne and grabs at his throat, dropping to one knee. Thorne kicks him in the shoulder to knock him down. “And you. You may be tough on the outside, but there’s no healing you can do from lack of oxygen.”
Dane lunges forward to grab him, but Thorne slashes his arm at an angle in front of him. Dane screams and falls back. There’s blood in a line across his chest, like he’d been cut with a blade.
Thorne sneers down at him. “I’ll be taking you back with me.You’ll only wish you were dead like your friends by the time GE is through with you. If I accidentally kill you, I’ll be doing you a favor.”
