The Serpent's Curse, Lisa Maxwell [new reading .TXT] 📗

to fail him, could feel the years that he’d lived in every aching bone, in every shuddering beat of his heart. And he could feel the pain in his side, sharp and strangely familiar, even though he’d never been shot before. There would be no magic capable of bringing him back, and his death would be pointless if Everett didn’t complete the job they’d come to do. No one would be safe if this tower activated—not Everett or Maggie or any of their kids waiting for him back at home. This had to be stopped here and now, and his boy was the only one who could do it.

North ignored the screaming pain in his side and wrenched himself free of the man’s fists. It wasn’t for long, but it was long enough. After all, he hadn’t come so far or taken so many risks to let his son die from indecision—so he’d take the choice from him.

He looked up at Everett. “Give your mother a kiss for me.”

North grabbed hold of the Guard and jerked to the right, throwing them both off-balance, and they tumbled through the opening together, falling away from the sound of Everett’s screams and into the void of light and noise below.

FALLING INTO DARKNESS

1920—Chicago

Esta watched the crowd in the arena surge to its feet in response to Jack throwing the lever. They stomped and whistled their encouragement as the lights of the arena flickered overhead. She looked up to see bolts of energy circling around the apex of the tower like strange lightning pulsing in the night sky—a beacon and a warning all at once to anyone within sight of the Coliseum.

Suddenly, two figures were falling through the split in the ceiling, caught in a strange embrace as they plummeted to the ground. At first Esta couldn’t understand what she was seeing—a stunt or a dummy? It had to be—but no. They were men. One had red hair—Esta was sure she saw red hair. North, she thought, her hope falling right along with him. Then the sound of their bodies hitting the ground seemed louder than anything. It was a dull, sickening thud that left the crowd gasping and Esta hollowed out by grief.

For North. For Everett. For them all.

Too late. Too late to run, too late to save themselves unless they stopped this. She had to find a way to stop it.

“You don’t have to do this, Jack,” Esta said, trying to speak to Jack instead of the demon that had possessed him.

Jack turned to Esta, and she saw that the watery blue had pushed aside the black. “Don’t I?” he asked, his voice somewhere between Jack and Thoth.

“You can fight him,” she pleaded. “Think of the people you’re about to kill. Think of what he’s turning you into.”

There was more blue in his eyes now than black, more of Jack in his voice when he spoke. “That’s exactly what I’m thinking of,” he said, and he pushed the lever even farther, causing the power to surge once more.

In that instant, the darkness swelled again in Jack’s eyes as well, overtaking the blue until only a deep blankness looked back at her. “Did you honestly think that anything he’s done has been against his will?” Thoth asked, laughing. “I forced nothing upon him.”

“You turned him into a monster,” Esta said, still trying to pull away. If she could only reach the lever…

“You’re telling yourself stories, girl. He dreamed of a machine that could create beautiful chaos—one that could destroy those who taunted him with their power—long before my servant in Greece found him. I didn’t create his hatred or his fear. I simply used them to my advantage. They provided me an entrance to his mind and a willing body to bring my vision to light, and in return I bestowed upon him the power to make every one of his dreams come true.”

A scream from the crowd suddenly tore through the room, punctuating Thoth’s words. Jack threw his head back and laughed as another scream split through the noise of the hall, and another. “You thought you could defeat me?” Thoth laughed at her. “You thought you could escape me, and instead you ran straight into my arms. And now it’s too late. There is no escape for you now. I will have your power—your life—at my disposal.” The tower was glowing and crackling with energy above them. “And then I will take Seshat’s power as well, and with it I will finally be able to control the beating heart of magic. I will become infinite.”

He was right. Thoth, Jack, it didn’t matter who was speaking to her now. It was too late to run, too late to stop the bright bolts of light streaming from the tip of the tower, searing like lightning into the night sky. But as the panic grew in the arena around her, Esta didn’t feel the cold power she’d expected to come over her. Something else was happening instead in the crowd of delegates and spectators.

At first Esta couldn’t make sense of what she was seeing, but then she understood: The medallions the Brotherhoods had given out were starting to burst into flames. It wasn’t the old magic that was being affected by the tower but the corrupted magic of the Brotherhood, and Esta could not repress her laugh at Everett’s cunning. He’d explained to her how they could give the Brotherhoods a taste of their own poison, and his idea had worked.

As each medallion burst, the flames began to spread at an incendiary pace, and in a matter of seconds, the arena erupted in pandemonium. Flames from the medallions consumed the coats and shirts and dresses where they’d been pinned, and the people who’d willingly taken them were screaming, tearing their own garments from their bodies to escape.

They did it. The relief flashed through her bright and hot and complete, but it was short-lived. She still needed to get