Eve of Destruction (39 page)

“It should conceal us,” he told her. “Just stay low and quiet.”

Eve nodded and pressed herself deeply into the seat. The rear door blasted open and a single warning shot splattered against the wall. She closed her eyes and squeezed her hands together to stay calm. Danev was crouched up and peering over the edge, apparently confident in his illusion’s ability to conceal them. Eventually she decided to take the risk and follow his lead.

“Stay down and you won’t get hurt,” the leading man ordered in a commanding voice as he looked over the other passengers. He carried a short rifle she believed was called a “shotgun.” The three men behind him all had at least one revolver. Their eyes scoured the benches one-by-one as they crept forward.

The Dusties were halfway up the isle when a passenger popped up from one of the rear seats with his own gun. He fired, and the rearmost thug lurched backwards and screamed. His companions were fast—before the attacker could fire a second shot, a barrage of bullets peppered the bench he was using as cover. Eve ducked, fearing lethal ricochets, and pressed her hands into her ears to shield them from the din. It took every ounce of willpower she had not to cry out in terror.

The firefight was brief, and she assumed the would-be hero was dead. As the smoke began to disperse around the crouching goons, one of them shoved their wounded comrade—still crying out in agony—away from the pack. He hit the bench she and Danev were crouching behind and tumbled over right on top of them.

She shrieked as the body rolled over them, clamping her mouth far too late to make a difference. Danev was more dignified, but he didn’t fully succeed at avoiding the flailing limbs. Eve had no idea if the illusion could hide them after something like that, but it didn’t matter: as blood poured liberally from the man’s wound, he managed to pull the trigger on the gun still in his hand. It was a completely wild shot, but it went straight through Danev’s calf. The illusionist screamed, and the faint cloud of magic shimmering around them vanished.

The goons turned almost as one. The leader smiled broadly as he reloaded his shotgun. 

“Well, well. Looks like you finally did something right, Gurney.”

 The wounded man tried to speak, but his breathing was erratic as he clutched at his chest on the floor. Eve tried to look away from the blood but couldn’t. Her muscles had frozen, and she could barely breathe. She just sat there, staring down at the carnage in horror…

“Nothing to worry about, little lady,” the man assured her with a twisted grin. “We ain’t here to bag you. Your friend here, on the other hand…” He finished loading the weapon and pointed it at Danev. The illusionist sat clutching his leg, wincing against the pain and staring straight at the barrels in front of him.

“I’d look away if I were you,” one of the other men said as he shifted his own aim towards Danev.

He fired.

***

The two magi atop the train never stood a chance. They were competent weavers, certainly, and if not for her immortality, Shaedra might have actually paused before charging at two of them full bore. But even if she hadn’t managed to remember the reversal spell that reflected their own magic back at then, it wasn’t as if they could hurt her anyway. Neither could the Talami woman, no matter how many bullets she fired.

Shaedra watched as the explosion consumed the two magi, the flames and electricity reducing their bodies to twitching piles of ash. But somehow, despite the intensity of the blast, the Talami woman managed to flip away at the last moment and vault back down into the open-sided boxcar. It was an impressive feat of agility, to say the least, though Shaedra could hear the woman’s pained scream even above the screeching rails. And more than that, she could feel the Talami’s pain echoing through the Fane.

It was like blood spilling in the water, and Shaedra couldn’t resist the frenzy. They were only a few kilometers outside Cadotheia, but already her Vakari senses could feel the difference. As the train whipped across the grassy plains, she could once again sense the throbbing energy of life all around her—and the hunger inside her stirred.

She clenched her teeth together and leapt from the train again. With her magic she twisted the invisible force of gravity to control her own momentum, and a split second later she landed atop the boxcar that still glowed from the fiery explosion just moments before. From here Shaedra could hear her prey whimpering, and it pushed her over the edge—it was time to finish this.

She swung down into the boxcar and eyed the
yohisha
. The woman was short but athletic, a compact little bundle of muscle who might have been fearsome under a different set of circumstances. But now she was little more than a sniveling ball clutching desperately at her wounded arm.

“You’re lucky I’m hungry,” Shaedra said. “It’s much cleaner.”

The Talami smiled and abruptly swung her pistol to bear. She fired, and the shot tore cleanly through Shaedra’s left arm.

And it hurt.

Shaedra stumbled. She always felt a little pain when she was shot, but normally it was dull and listless—more like the memory of pain than the real thing. This time it burned. It was like someone had doused her arm in liquid iron, and she dropped her saber and clutched desperately at her wound. 

“Wha…?”

“You don’t get up from this one, bitch,” the
yohisha
sneered, and fired again.

Shaedra turned reflexively, and the shot pierced her left shoulder. She shrieked and tumbled backwards against the boxcar’s rear wall. The pain was excruciating, but even as her vision clouded and her mind raced to understand what was happening, she felt something even more surprising.

Fear.

She was never afraid. Fear was a response from those with something to lose, and she had lost everything long ago. She had no righteous cause, no driving purpose, no grand crusade that got her out of bed every morning. For a time raw vengeance had sustained her, but eventually even that had atrophied. Her loyalties to anyone, even a man who had helped her many times like Maltus, were ice thin. She was an empty shell, a bitter husk of what had once been a vibrant woman, a powerful mage, a human being…

But the terror was real, and it froze her blood even as she collapsed helplessly to the ground. She raised her chin and met the eyes of her killer.

The
yohisha
had dragged herself to her feet, and her satisfied grin widened. She leveled her gun down at the helpless mass beneath her and pulled the trigger—

The train lurched violently as a terrible screech cut through the air, and suddenly the small woman was violently flung from her feet. She smashed into the metal wall above the Vakari and then tumbled to the ground, her pistol clattering away and eventually skittering up and out of the train altogether.

Shaedra grimaced against the pain and the churning in her stomach. The conductor must have finally figured out what was going on and slammed on the brakes. Unfortunately, that probably meant something had happened inside the train to tip him off. She just had to hope the Eclipsean was up to the challenge of whatever thugs Chaval had put onboard.

But for now, fate had once again given her another chance. A part of her wanted to refuse, to just leave the wound be and bleed out. It would be a merciful end, really, considering all that she’d done. And it would finally mean she could escape from the hunger.

Instead she reached out with her good arm and clutched the
yohisha
by the throat. A minute earlier it would have been easy to snap such a soft and fragile neck, but now she found herself barely able to keep her fingers clasped around it.

It was enough. Shaedra broke the Fane, using the woman’s life energy to tear a path into it and drink its energy. The air hissed and popped as she Defiled, but soon a soft blue glow bathed her palm, and she wove a healing spell into her wounds. 

It didn’t work. She growled when the pain refused to subside, but knew she shouldn’t have expected otherwise. If her Vakari healing ability wasn’t up to the challenge, no spell was going to work, either—at least, not one that healed directly. She tightened her grip around the Talami’s throat even as the smaller woman struggled to break free, and this time she drew power for a much simpler spell.

A burst of flame flashed from her hand and seared her arm and shoulder. Shaedra screamed, and in that moment of agony the
yohisha
managed to kick herself free. Her yellowish skin was deathly pale and her arm sagged like a useless stump, but the biggest transformation had come in the woman’s dark eyes—they gaped in horror at the writhing monster in front of her.

Without waiting for the train to slow any more, the
yohisha
dove out of the boxcar. But by that point Shaedra was barely even paying attention. Now she really had really had dipped her arm in molten iron, and she couldn’t even feel her hunger through the pain. But despite the searing agony, her wounds had been cauterized. She would live, even if she didn’t deserve it.

Shaedra closed her eyes and waited for the train to stop.

***

Eve screamed as a crimson streak spread across Danev’s flawless white coat. He barely even twitched when the shots hit him; he just slumped over, eyes gazing emptily at the ceiling.

“I said you didn’t have to worry, love,” the Dusty leader sneered. “At least it isn’t you, eh?”

The men behind him chuckled. They were numb to death, numb to pain. Their companion had been shot right next to them and they’d thoughtlessly shoved his corpse aside. They were cold, heartless men robbed of their humanity by the suffering all around them, and like most others in their position, they didn’t even know it. They couldn’t see how they were working for the very man who had destroyed them, the one who had taken simple farming villages and turned them into ashen cities where wealthy men lived like kings and the poor struggled worse than ever. All they could see was the temporary power they’d been given, the steel tool of death in their hands that had wrought a great but terrible equality across the land. Now even the simplest torbo was lethal. Even the humblest brigand could sew chaos and misery with the squeeze of a finger.

Someone had to stop them. And it might as well be her.

Eve brought herself to her feet. One of Maltus’s spells, once an undecipherable mess of stray formulae and theorems, crystalized in her mind. And now it was time to unleash its wrath.

She opened her palms, and they immediately burst into flames. The smoke-filled air popped and hissed as three fiery rings coalesced around her, each swirling dangerously like an immolated hoop daring a circus beast to leap through it. She was vaguely aware of the other passengers screaming at the display of magic, but she wasn’t paying attention to them. She was focused on the now horrified faces of the three Dusties standing in front of her. They could have been the same ones that killed her mother; they could have been the same men that had ruined her life.

She would never find out, because they would never get the chance to tell her.

The rings leapt from her body, and the Dusties screamed. The acrid stench of scorched flesh filled the car as the rings lashed from one body to the next, literally burning the men alive. The writhing flames hungrily charred several nearby crates and superheated the metal in the benches until they glowed a bright red. The outer box-car wall liquefied and peeled open, and a burst of cool air whipped in and sizzled as it tried to douse the insatiable pyre.

Eve shivered as the power coursed through her. She had never felt so alive, so in control, as that moment. For the first time in her life she was no longer a student; she was a master, and the Fane was her loyal servant. But even more importantly, she was no longer a victim. Her fate was hers alone to make, and she didn’t need to rely on anyone or anything.

This was power. And she liked it.

“Eve!”

She turned and blinked. The wind had nearly extinguished the flames by now, and it swirled up to chill the sweat on her face. The bench across from her was little more than a steaming pile of slag, and the nearby crates had been reduced to ash. The other passengers in the train had fallen deathly silent, and they trembled as they looked upon her—just as if they were staring into the face of death itself.