Out of the Black - Lee Doty [147]
Disappointed, Shiva realized she might as well just kill her. W mental shrug, her hand came up, her smile broadened. She paused, waiting... Hopefully, when the cop realized, she'd get just a taste of satisfaction.
The cop must have understood the look in Shiva's eyes, because she held her trigger down, releasing a stream of ineffective hypersonic needles at her. Still, it was frustrating determination behind the cop's eyes. Maybe once the evisceration began...
The fear emerged first from the bruised and broken landscape of Alex's senses. Shots filled the air, desperate and pointless, their rapid snaps crested over the ringing in his ears. Blood filled his mouth, covered the dusty floor beneath him. Not far away, he could hear the urgent and hushed pleas of one of the doctors to a God it was clear he wasn't that familiar with. He heard a woman's mocking, confident laughter.
He was about to lose everything. Before he saw it, he knew.
No strength left, yet somehow Alex managed to get a hand beneath him and press away from the floor enough to see the scene at the other end of the room. Rae was on the floor, her legs sprawled out, both hands holding her gun firmly, pumping out shots that ricocheted harmlessly away from the laughing woman. Rae's broken and bloody face was set in grim determination, but Alex knew her well enough to understand that she knew that this was the end.
The laughing woman's hand stretched out toward Rae, "My turn." she snarled.
Slower. Alex could see eddies of the Loom's power responding to the woman's dark will- but that power, though substantial, was a clunky, clumsy thing. Alex wondered briefly if it was a blessing or a curse that time seemed to be lengthening for his last few seconds with Rae.
Weaker. He has no power left, every template and weaving had been swept away by the woman's initial attack. Though he seemed to remain connected to the workings of the Underworld somehow, it was now like standing in a desert. Some of the mental speed remained, but he had no power to act. She was too strong and he was too weak to do anything but watch as everything that mattered to him was wiped away by this arrogant, careless woman. Rae's eyes were hard and filled with angry, hopeless tears, but Alex didn't even have the time to weep.
Closer. Through the skeins and currents of the Underworld, his consciousness drifted closer to Rae, letting her desperation and fear fill his vision until he could almost taste the tears. Loss surrounded him, but his pain was only her pain, his frustration became hers, and he was empty and alone, only wanting somehow to help her. Around him, the music of the Loom resonated with his compassion.
Then there was a moment of clarity that he felt before he understood- Coldness, a spark of fire, then an ocean of warmth surrounded him. He was alone then realized he wasn't, that nobody ever was. Hope touched briefly on anger then he was afloat in a love as boundless as the sea.
That was when Alex realized what Ivo had been trying to teach him- the magic behind the science of the Loom.
Shiva almost didn't feel it in time. Distracted as she often got while killing, the tingle of warning came almost too late. As it was, she barely had time to temper her shield before the current of power struck. She was knocked off her feet, through the wall into the hall, through another wall into a bathroom, through three stalls but only two toilets, through the exterior wall, tumb almost dind spinning through the air above the street- shattering impact- and she fell to the cracked concrete floor halfway through the parking structure across from the hospital.