Page 48 of Double Mager

Houston cursed under his breath. “That’s called cheating. You couldn’t make it as a creator god, so you’re just going to steal his post?”

The god’s smile faltered as he stared daggers straight through Houston’s skull.

“You know, you’ve got a massive ego,” I said. “Is that why you brought us here? Is this your twisted version of Valhalla? Where the hell are we, anyway?”

I’d hoped he wouldn’t notice that I was buying time, for Morrow, most of all. His fist wasn’t buried in the palm of his other hand out of frustration. He was fiddling with his implant, no doubt trying to reach Sakamoto.

He touched one finger to his auricle the way he’d done before. We locked eyes for a moment, the hardness of his gaze and the subtle shake of his head telling me all I needed to know. Wherever in the universe we were, all communication to Occultech had been cut off. We were on our own.

“Does it really make a difference?” Loki said. “It isn’t going to matter once I obliterate all of you. Actually, why bother lifting a finger?”

He snapped his fingers at Paralumen.

“You. Kill them all.”

She flinched, then grasped at her temple in pain. Then all at once her exhaustion faded, replaced by the same dreadful dullness we’d seen in the Black Market passage. Charms chimed musically as they struck the ground, as she slid off the pile of trinkets like a snake.

One of her many hairpins glowed when Loki issued his command. That one. If we could remove that hairpin from her hair the way we’d removed charm bracelets from the other victims, then maybe we could knock her out of her trance. But good luck to all of us when we were supposed to go on the defensive.

“The god,” Angelica barked with all the conviction of a commander on a battlefield. “Take him down and he loses his grip on her.”

Houston drew his revolvers. God, those two really worked together like a well-oiled machine. His guns banged, hexed bullets heading straight for Loki.

The god only cocked an eyebrow, either too arrogant or too unfamiliar with the concept of hexed ammunition to even attempt to dodge. Instead, he waved his hand with a little yawn. The bullets slowed in midair until he could simply sidestep them.

None of us had heard Morrow muttering an incantation, too late for me to copy. A volley of thorns zinged past Loki’s face so fast that he didn’t have time to repeat his slowing spell. One of them grazed his shoulder, another, the side of his cheek. Droplets of blood bloomed on his skin.

Loki scowled. Still poised to strike, Paralumen froze in place, wrinkling her brow. Could merely injuring the god loosen his hold over her mind?

But no time to think. Loki’s hateful gaze fell upon Morrow. My stomach wrenched. The god’s lips sped through ancient incantations, his fingers inscribing runes in midair.

A spear of glowing green energy formed in his hand. Somehow, Freyja must have predicted that he would use this exact spell. Goddess of magic indeed.

I uttered a small, silent prayer of gratitude to the goddess even as I copied Loki’s magic. The essence drained from my body, dull pain shooting through my limbs. But I knew what was coming. There was no way Morrow was going to die on my watch.

Loki hissed a final word as he hurled his lance. Morrow’s eyes widened as he scrambled for a shielding scroll. I flung my hand out, a paler, smaller version of the javelin zipping through the air to meet Loki’s in flight.

Thunder cracked through the room as the projectiles clashed and vanished, Freyja’s lesson on projectile nullification demonstrated to full effect.

I tried not to let the awestruck goggling of my friends get to my head. I did, however, enjoy the look of offended surprise on Loki’s face.

“Didn’t know I could do that, did you?” I said, my tired panting somewhat diminishing the coolness of my divine copying.

Loki crooked his finger at me.

“Kill them,” he snarled, even angrier this time. “But kill him first.”

Morrow was muttering something again. Lilting tones, sibilant whispers, hissing breaths. Holy crap. He was speaking the language of elementals. This wasn’t stuff that humans could just pick up on the fly, something that needed dedicated study to grasp. And that made it so much more difficult for me to mimic his magic.

But as power surged through my fingers and the wind picked up into a howling gale, I realized that I’d successfully pulled off my copy. Morrow and I thrust our arms forward, beating Paralumen back with a gale so strong that it crashed against her like a wall of solid air.

She snarled in anger as the spells buffeted her toward the far wall, comically depositing her in Loki’s vacant throne. The god himself stood stalwart, unmoved by the arcane wind, his eyes steely as he gazed from me to Morrow and back.

I held back a grin. Not to get too cocky — we were only mortals, after all — but I had to wonder if Loki knew exactly what kind of mortals he was dealing with.

Paralumen quickly regained her bearings, moving inhumanly fast as she crossed the floor toward us. Morrow cursed. I copied that, too. We’d blown our load too early. Sorry for the imagery.

A can of setting spray materialized in Xtra Xtra’s hand. She murmured an incantation as she pumped the noxious fumes into the air. I groaned as I instinctively copied that spell, too.