Redemption: Alchemy Series Book #4 (28 page)

I didn't fault Burrom and his spells. N
o one had ever come up against anything like the senator.

"Do the best you can."
I patted Crash on the shoulder and crawled back over to the stairwell. I needed to get back downstairs. The situation was deteriorating so much quicker than I'd ever imagined and it didn't bode well.

When I hit the ground floor, the Fae were positioned along the windows
, trying to reinforce the wards the best they could and block additional attacks. You couldn't gain access to the castle through the narrow windows, but you could shoot.

Cormac was handling the brunt of the int
ruders at the main entrance with ease. He didn't even look winded, but there was only one of him and there were a total of eight entrances.

I made my way to the side of the castle where
Dark was covering another entrance. They'd already broken through the barricades there as well. There was nothing for me to do as he had it under control with Colleen taking care of anyone that slipped past him. There was a line of
changed
prepared to rotate in and out of the fighting. If I could help shore up the weaknesses, just maybe this could work.

I turned to leave
and take stock of the other entrance points when I heard Colleen's cry. By time I turned around, the other
changed
were already pulling her out of the action.

I crouched down by her side as I sa
w the blood soaking through her shirt near her shoulder. A bullet hole from a lucky shot marked the spot.

"I'm okay," she yelled and tried to get up
, in spite of me pushing her back down. Katie was on her other side doing the same.

"You're done fighting," I told her.

"It didn't hit anything vital." She sounded exactly like the pissed off teenager I often forgot she was.

"If you keep fighting, you'll bleed out."

"Katie, knock her out if you have to, but she's done."

As soon as she nodded
, I got up and headed toward the other entrances. That's when it really hit me. Even if we managed to survive, as long as the senator was free, we would never have peace.

The senator was right. Colleen was alive but many others would die. How many was it going to take before I did what I knew I had to? Should I wait for a handful of deaths
, or were thousands the amount I'd need before I stepped up to the plate?

I grabbed Sharon as she was running toward some of the windows with ammo.
She and Katie were shooting the senator's people through the windows as soon as they got past the wards. "Where's Burrom?"

"He went to the second floor to try and get a bet
ter vantage point."

I nodded and ran off. When I found him, he was in front of a window on the second floor, his arms to his sides and his head tilted up.

"What?" he asked as I approached. I didn't even think he'd be aware of me there, his concentration seemed so deep.

"I need
you to get me past all the people in the courtyard and near the senator."

His arms dropped and his gaze swung to me.
"The floors here are stone." He shook his head and went to go back to what he'd been doing.

I pulled his arm down when he would've ignored me.

"I know you and, as such, you have an escape route. Don't bullshit me and tell me that you can't get out of this castle unseen."

"What if I can?
Why would you do that?"

I felt a calmness come over me for the first time since I could remember. I knew what I had to do and I was at peace with it.

"This has to end."

"Why can't you wait and see what happens?"

"Because I'm the only one who can do it." I looked out the window to the senator, buffered by his troops about a hundred feet back.

"Get me there." I pointed to a small clearing near the senator.

"Are you sure you want to do this?"

"This has been my fate since the day I was conceived and I'm done running from it." I wasn't faking confidence this time. I didn't know if I'd live or die either
, but I was ready to face what came. My whole life I'd been hiding and avoiding who I was and I was tired of it. Sometimes it's in your darkest moments that you learn to shine.

"Yes."
Even as he was agreeing, he shook his head.

"You'll get me to him
?" He so clearly didn't agree I felt like I needed another confirmation.

"I'll do it.
Does Cormac know?"

"
He'd use everything he had to stop me. If that didn't work, he'd insist on coming. I won't let him die for me."

Burrom nodded and
silently led the way. With everyone's attention so fixed on outside, no one paid any attention to us as we made our way to the cellars.

"
Do you have a specific spot in mind?" I asked as I followed him down the dark corridors, wondering exactly how he was going to funnel through stone.

He didn't reply, just kept walking until we reached the furthermost room in the hallway. It was used to store hous
ehold items, like extra blankets and the like. I watched as he slid some boxes forward. He used his fingers to dig in the crevices around a particularly large stone. It was a fine sand, not the cement that should've been there. Digging out just enough until he could get his fingers on either side, he lifted the deep stone out of place, leaving a three feet by three feet area in its wake of dirt.

He stood up straight and wiped his hands off on his jeans.
"It's going to be tight."

"How do you even fit
in there?"

"Like I said, it's tight. Once I get past the opening, I'll open it up more."

He turned to me from where he knelt down next to the spot. "You sure you want to do this?"

"Yes.
" I clutched the flashlight I had grabbed on my way and tucked it into the side of my pants.

"I'll go first and then stop. You drop into the hole after me."

He funneled down into the ground and stopped, just as he’d said. I dropped into the hole after him, grabbed on to him for dear life and closed my eyes.

It was
less than five minutes later when he stopped but I knew we were still underground, even before I opened my eyes.

"You're sure about this?"

"Yes. But, Burrom, if I don't make it, tell Cormac I loved him and I'm sorry."

"He'll understand." I felt Burrom's arms tighten around me. "It's been real
, kid."

"Same here. Now drop me off and get the hell out of here, okay?"

"Don’t have to tell me twice."

I closed my eyes and
, less than a minute later, I could feel the fresh air hitting my face, the smell of freshly churned dirt lessening.

I opened my eyes and saw the senator staring at me from ten feet away, the fighting still ensuing full force behind him. His people around him just stood still, as he did.

"This is unexpected, Josephine," he finally said.

"You were right. I don't want to watch them all die.
I'm yours."

His face lit into a brilliant smile and he made a motion for his people to approach me, but I held up my hand and held them at bay.

"I have a condition."

His smile remained, but not quite as bright. "What?"

"I want you to send whatever it is of you that controls people into my body. I know you affect people's emotions. I want you to make it so I don't care about this place or any of them anymore."

His smile dropped completely. "
You know I can't do that." The senator's hands fisted as he stood watching me. "This was a trick."

"
No." I raised my palms up in placation. "I think you can if it's something I want. You've only tried on unwilling hosts. I want this. You do this, and then we will all leave here together and I'll never want to return to him."

"You want this?" He took a hesitant step toward me.

"Yes. I want to take you into me. It's the only way. You're so strong that I know you can do it." I held my arms out toward him, coaxing and hoping.

He took another step than paused. "I don't know."

"I can't hurt you. You created me. This is how it should be." I took a step closer to him.

He stood still for a minute and then with excruciating slowness, started toward me again.

"You're right. I can."

"Yes. You are the strongest being I've ever met." I waited patiently as he finished closing the distance. We'd gathered an audience
, but everyone near the castle was still deep in battle. Please, let this work.

He was smiling ag
ain as he reached for my hands and I hoped that I was right, that this would work.

His hands solidly grasping mine, I saw his relief as his energy started to infuse me. I let him offer it willingly at first. I just prayed I was right, that I could maintain myself long enough to pull this off. God
, he was strong. Less than thirty seconds and I could already see the magic floating in the air in rainbow swirls.

I could see him, his magic, but it wasn't attached to anything. When I stared down at my body, I could see the magic flowing into me. It was darker and isolated
, unlike my own. His was a cancer, unwanted.

His eyes squinted. "I don't think it's working."

"It is. I can feel you."

"But, I can't feel you?"
His eyebrows raised as confusion flashed across his face.

I tightened my grasp on him. I almost had enough
, now. If I could simply hold on a little longer, I could do this. I watched as the strength of his magic started to waiver in front of my eyes.

"Stop." He pulled at me but I was much too strong now. I watched as I pulled his dark magic from him, and I could see the magic gain its brilliance again as it left him. This creature, whatever he was, never should have existed.

His form, needing the magic to exist, was diminishing as I drained him. He was losing tangibility, now almost just a sheer hologram of himself.

Please
, I saw him mouth the words he lacked the ability to say. I trained my attention solely on him as a funnel of wind started to form around us. So close, I just needed to hold on a little longer.

Until I had absorbed everything he was. There was nothing left of him and I collapsed, nearly out of my mind. I shook with the need to unleash this power churning inside of me
, but I couldn't even raise to my knees. I lay there, alone, in a funnel cloud of power.

"Give it to me."

I heard the voice come out of nowhere but I recognized the speaker. It was the Earth King.

"How?"
I looked around my small empty area. I was alone.

"Place your palms on the ground. I will take it from you."
I didn't question how or why, just followed my instincts and did what he asked.

Lying on the snow, cheek flush to the ground, I placed my palms face
down. I immediately felt the pull of the Earth King upon them. I hoped my instinct was right, as I didn't know if I could stop the purge of magic that was happening. The magic I had taken from the senator was pouring through me into the ground. I watched as it seeped out, brilliant colors as it had never been when the senator possessed it.

The colors dimmed as the tornado wall around me started to ebb. When I had almost nothing left to give, I felt the pull of the earth subside and I la
y there in the snow, amidst the senator's leaderless army. They were no longer fighting, lost for what to do.

"Jo!" Cormac screamed my name from across the courtyard and I watched him run to me.

I used the last of the energy I had left to force myself up. I got to my feet by sheer will alone, and I wasn't sure how I managed to remain standing.

Cormac's arms were around me in the next second.

"He's gone." Tears ran down my cheeks for all to see and I didn't care. I clung to him. "I did it."

"Yes, you did."

I pulled back from him to assess the situation. I eyed the crowd, so subdued now. A
changed
covered in black scales was the first to move. He took a single step forward out of the crowd, knelt on one knee and laid his axe down in front of him, bowing his head. Slowly, the rest of the crowd followed until every last one had followed suit.

"If you leave now
, I will not pursue you. If you don't…" I let my words trail off, the threat clear.

Cormac's hand still in mine, we
walked back through the crowd toward the castle as they retreated from it.

Everyone parted as we walked and Cormac's arm circled my waist. "Only a little f
arther."

I nodded but didn't speak. I was barely holding on
; defeating the senator had taken everything I had and more. I saw the crowd part in front of us as my vision blurred, black spots starting to blur together.