Page 78 of Fire Bird

In front of me, the door to the old ballroom is closed and covered with the same black weeds that bound Kayla. It bows and creaks, like it’s trying to swell beneath them, but the weeds hold it shut.

I slice them free with a wave of fire.

They squeal, and squeak, and slither back into the shadows. Then the door slowly opens. Blackness, like ink, fills the air and bleeds toward me. I blink but can’t see, so I close my eyes and listen.

I tune out the sounds coming from the grounds—the screams and the hollering and the fighting—and the feel of the crumbling walls. I search for his breath. I find it slithering through the air; raspy, uneven, hollow.

I hear his heart beating fast and urgent in his dark, evil chest.

I feel his darkness and, instead of running from it, I follow it.

It makes me scream. It’s a scream that threatens to rip my chest open and tear my heart from my ribs. When it stops, the mist clears, and he is there.

He fills the doorway, more than double my height with gray, translucent skin stretched tight over his angular bones. I see his black heart beating and the blood in his veins. He opens his mouth and shows me lines of shark-like teeth. His eyes flash, then he grabs me.

His long, gnarled fingers tighten around my throat, and he squeezes. “You shouldn’t have come back, Fire Bird. You should have stayed where it was safe.”

As my breath constricts, my wings flicker and die. My fire fades. Its heat is replaced with a cold so violent it brings another scream from my lips.

As pain ricochets through me, I force myself to look into his eyes. A thousand visions batter my brain. Phoenix Falls crumbling, the earth turning to darkness, demons consuming the world, humans in cages, death, sickness, and destruction.

“It’s a shame you will miss it,” he whispers, a forked tongue sneaking out to moisten his lips. “But it will be worth it to taste your flesh.”

I go limp in his grasp. I let the fight fall from my limbs as he lifts me into the air, staring up at me, one hand around my throat and the other snaking up my thigh.

When his dagger-like fingers reach the spot where Johnny once inked his name onto my skin, my eyes fly open. It all surges back. The power, the heat, the flames. They pummel through me, surging to life on my skin and in my eyes.

The Shadow King’s hand shakes. It sizzles. Smoke fills the air and surrounds him. He yells and lets me go, then I run. I hurtle through the dying corridors of The Hollow, through the kitchen, down the steps, straight into the belly of the fight.

He surges after me, moving like a shadow, slithering, screaming, searching. When he appears, he roars. The demons flock to his sides, turning to face me as my mages, Ava’s ghosts, and the people of Phoenix Falls form an army behind me.

At my side, Ava grabs my hand. I nod at her, and she tightens her grip.

Pushing my feet off from the ground, I rise into the air, taking Ava with me. We hover above the heaving gash in the ground, then reach out our splayed fingers and scream as we pull his darkness toward our light.

The rain falls harder, the wind blows stronger. Our faces sting, and our hair blows, and I feel like my body will collapse under the weight of his resistance.

His demons roar. They reach for him and try to hold him down, but we have him now. Our fire swirls around him, capturing him in a vicious burning vortex of heat.

We drag him toward us. He is trapped. He tries to speak, but we burn his lips shut. We lock eyes, take a deep shuddering breath, then plough through him with our magick.

Just like I did to Johnny and the wolves and the demon from the bar, I penetrate The King with my magick. Ava’s power joins mine and grows and multiplies inside him. It fills every sinew, every fiber of his body. It nestles deep; it wriggles and grinds its way into his bones as he writhes and resists. But his darkness cannot overpower our light. Not this time.

A crack appears in his face, like the jagged rivets that now pepper the walls of The Hollow. His skin becomes liquid, slipping down his skull. He screams a silent scream.

Then our light breaks him open.

Fire burns him from the inside out. It bursts free, filling the air with brightness and heat, and chasing away the darkness. The flames that were holding him fade. He is nothing but ash now, a swirling cyclone of ash.

Ava waves her hand and sends the ash hurtling toward the ground.

The second the ashes disappear inside The Split, the earth heaves, and shudders. The Hollow groans. The walls buckle. The mansion falls.

With a gust of air, Mack and his ghost sweep the demons back toward The Split. They fall one-by-one, screaming and howling as we return them to the realm they came from. The Hellhounds bark and try to hold onto the earth, but it is no use.

When the last creature has been sucked into The Split, Kole stretches out his arms. Muscles shimmering in the moonlight, he roars like the Viking he is and seals the ground shut.

As the earth heals itself, returning to the way it was, Tanner brings a wave of water from the river to wash the ground clean.