The Spirit Thief(84)

Miranda jumped down from her alcove and ran to him, flinging herself face down into his swirling fur.

“The king?”

“Still hiding and safe enough,” he said quietly. “Not that any of us are ‘safe’ at this point.” He voice thickened to a snarl as Nico stirred. “Get the thief.”

Miranda nodded and looked around for Eli. The thief was still on his back where he had fallen, coughing painfully.

She ran to help him. “Can you stand?”

Eli nodded and took her offered hand, groaning as she pulled him to his feet.

Gin gave a warning growl. Nico was stirring, her cracked limbs righting themselves as they watched.

“What do we do now?” Miranda said.

“We do what we should have done when this mess started,” Gin said. “We kill her.”

“The dog might be right,” Eli whispered, his voice thin and pained. “At this point, without Josef, I don’t know anything else to do. Every moment she spends like this, our Nico goes further away. But whatever we do, let’s do it quickly, otherwise”—he tapped his foot on the acid damaged stone—“the castle will do it for us.”

Miranda froze. Now that he’d pointed it out, she didn’t know how she’d missed it. Now that Gin had injured the demon and broken the spell of fear, every spirit in earshot was awake and calling for blood. Every piece of the throne room, from the broken glass to the stones under their feet, rumbled with desperate anger. Showers of dust cascaded from the ceiling as the marble strained against its mortar. Even the support pillars were edging closer, preparing to break free and let gravity do the rest, even if it cost them their lives, if that’s what it took to kill the demon.

With a sickening series of cracks, Nico sat up. She stretched out her arms, and the joints snapped back into place. As she moved, the terrified dust flung itself off her, creating a low cloud that obscured her movements. Even so, Miranda could feel when Nico turned, feel the girl’s regard sliding over her skin. Then Nico opened her eyes, and Miranda’s blood turned to lead. The girl’s eyes, which were too large to be human anymore, glowed with a steady, otherworldly light. They shone bright as candles through the terrified dust, brilliant but illuminating nothing. The rest of her face was lost in shadow, but Miranda could see clawlike hands scraping as the girl edged to the rim of her crater, and that was enough.

Nico moved along the wall, gathering herself for another leap, but Gin didn’t give her the chance. He charged with a howl, barreling toward the demonseed. She snarled in answer and sprang to meet him, winking through the darkness faster than Miranda could follow. But Gin’s sight was better than Nico’s, and the ghosthound’s teeth caught Nico’s arm just before she landed a killing strike on his skull. She whipped her other arm around and caught his jaw before he could bite down, stopping his momentum like an iron wall. Gin struggled against her grip, and Nico cackled, her terrible eyes narrowing to glowing slits. She slammed her feet into the screaming stone and lifted the ghosthound off the floor. Gin yelped in surprise as Nico swung him over her head and slammed him into the cracked wall where she had landed before. The hound rolled as he flew, landing on his feet. His paws barely touched the stone before he pushed off again with a roar, barreling straight for Nico. The demonseed had no time to dodge before the flat of Gin’s head hit her square in the chest and the two of them went flying in a tangle of shifting fur and snapping fangs. But when they landed, Nico was on top. With a triumphant cry, she plunged her claws into Gin’s back, and the ghosthound howled. He fought her as hard as he could, rolling and snapping, trying to knock her off, but her hand was deep in his muscle, and he couldn’t dislodge her. Dark red blood flowed down his sides, matting his fur and hiding his patterns. His movements grew sluggish, but he would not stop fighting, even when his legs collapsed. Miranda’s throat was raw before she realized was screaming, though she couldn’t make sense of her own words, or if they were words at all.

Without thought or warning, her spirit flung itself open, and Miranda’s power roared to life. Spirit voices shot through her, clearer than ever before, flooding every sense until she could almost taste where one soul ended and the next began. Without thinking, she swept her spirit across them. The response was immediate. Every spirit was desperate for action, desperate to fight the intruder. A direction was all it took. She thrust her hand toward the demonseed, and the spirits leaped forward, screaming vengeance. A volley of broken glass, stone, and metal came from every corner of the throne room to strike Nico wherever there was room to strike. The impact ripped her hand free of Gin’s back, and she toppled over. The marble floor was ready for her. The moment she hit, the stones sank beneath her, going as soft as clay at Miranda’s command. As soon as Nico was mired, the stone surged over her arms, legs, chest, and neck before hardening again, pinning the demonseed to the ground. Miranda ran forward, flinging out her hand. The throwing knife that Nico had flung away clattered across the tiles and leaped into her grip. Miranda clamped her fingers on the hilt as she jumped, aiming the point to land deep in Nico’s exposed throat.