OLIVIA
"Such adorable conversation in the car, you two," Zagan drawls, slinking out from behind the silhouettes of the abandoned equipment that litters the warehouse. He waves his phone at us. At the press of a button it replays a short burst of our exchange on the drive over. How humiliatingly whiny my voice sounds now, begging Lee's gruff silence for love. "Oh I really bet you're feeling so warm and fuzzy right now, Noble."
Lee's expression is practically a vacuum of emotion. Not even his usual scowl remains, lost to an emptiness more terrible than rage.
"Lee... what's going on?" I don't want to believe my eyes. Surely this isn't Lee's plan to fix this. "When you said get Otis's soul into someone else, are you saying it's-"
"Zagan, yes," Lee finishes. "Wasn't my first choice. Or my choice at all, actually."
"What does that mean? Lee is he controlling you or-?"
I look back at Zagan, standing so casually across from us. His easy handsomeness and the stark cleanliness of his clothes mixes with memories of Robert. Lee's father had lived in near-poverty, face withered and hands too gnarled to vacuum without help. Something begins to build deep in my stomach at the sight of the youngest Creed's many gold chains gleaming like the eyes of their owner. It's not the fear I thought it was, nor is it the energy from Otis's growing power in my bloodstream.
Only when I feel my feet moving beneath me, pacing back from the two men, that I recognise is the emotion within me. Anger.
Lee is a smuggler. The words came from Katy's lips themselves, his history of following orders and moving trophies across from Earth for money and fame. His sudden outburst of spending on lavish meals and wine begins to make sense, let alone his refusal to look Otis and I in the eyes in the last few days. It wasn't fear for me, it was knowing guilt.
"You sold me out." The words are flat as they leave my lips but I breathe fury into them as the full implication of what's happening hits me. "You sold Otis out."
"That's not what's happening," Lee says placatingly as Zagan mimes the drop of a penny, accompanied by the theatrical 'whoosh'. "Nobody is being sold. This little shit is only paying to bring you here. Then we go back to Earth. You and I, Olivia. You get your life back?"
"And Otis?" I snap.
"Otis is looking after himself first and foremost, Olivia. We need to do the same." Lee extends a hand that I don't take. "Him or us."
"But this could kill him. He said he needs someone from Earth to take his power, or it will-" My words overtake my thoughts, it's only when I catch myself seconds later that I look back at Zagan. Otis's brother, barely nineteen and carrying on like a Spiderman villain. "Or they'll be..."
Blown to a million pieces.
That's how Lee had phrased it.
All the power in the world. Universal entropy.
I think back to Otis describing his power, the blinding white current that poured out of him and electrified everything it touched.
In my early days of nursing placement, I'd worked on an industrial worker who'd suffered burns from an arc flash. His hands looked as though they'd been blown apart from the inside out. The electrical current had charred the fingers to the bone. A shiver wracks my spine to think of how many times that voltage could come from Otis straight into my own flesh. Unless, like Lee said, someone else took it on.
"It's him or us," Lee repeats and I realise that he's not talking about Otis.
"Forty-eight minutes left," Zagan declares, glancing at his phone and turning back to us, ember-eyes blazing through the gloom. He remains eerily still, his words as casual as though planning a lunch date rather than the end of his life. "Are we doing this or not?"
"No."
"Olivia..." Lee says in a low, warning tone of voice.
"No." I step back from the both of them, tugging at my hair. The weight of the choice they're forcing me to make comes crashing down. I just want to sink into the pain of the iron plated floor, dissolve into the pain rather than face this. My life of that of a teenager. "No. No. No. What is wrong with the both of you? Lee, how could you? You haven't even told him?"
Zagan twitches sharply, a hand leaping from the depths of his pocket with sparks at his finger tips. "Told me what?"
Lee's eyes roll, muttering a series of swears and prayers for patience under his breath. Revealing the trick up his sleeve, I expect anger or fear, but he simply sweeps his arms in an 'are you happy?' gesture. "Fine. You think that's going to make a difference? Hey, Zagan. If you take your brother's soul it's going to kill you. You're going to die. La-di-dah, my evil plan."
"That's your plan?" Any concern in Zagan's response is drowned under the sheer derision in his voice. There's no flicker of emotion on his face, no back-pedalling or retreat. "You think it will hurt me?"
"Well, something has to."
A soft, hacking sound echoes through the gloom, as rough as stone scraping across asphalt. It's several moments before I realise that it's the sound of Zagan laughing. He throws back his head, sharp teeth flashing as the laughter turns to snorts and then to a single rough growl.
"You're both pathetic."
"Satisfied you saved him?" Lee mutters at the sight of the young god laughing.
"You're both pathetic," Zagan repeats, words spat so viciously it makes my muscles flinch. "Do you know who I am? Do you know what my family is? We're so far beyond you it makes me sick to be near you and you think you can hurt me?"
"I think I dipped my balls in your brothers mouth like corn chips in guacamole. You're going to do the hurting all by yourself." Lee shrugs, unperturbed.
Zagan's jaw clenches at the dig, but he's too wound up to let it cut him off. The cuffs of his sleeves begin to char, the deep hatred we'd seen when he'd attacked us returning to him. Red and green beside each other, he and Levi appear equally monstrous, equally dangerous as the frisson of volatile magic seeps back into the air between them.
"Please," I beg, trying again. "Zagan, I'm being serious. This is where you and Otis were born right? He told me what they did to you. You can feel it too? How wrong it is? Everything that happened here, it's going to happen again if I give you Otis's soul. If you know so much magic then help us fix this together."
The instant the words leave my mouth, I realise they were a mistake.
"'Together?'" Zagan snarls, incensed. "There is no 'together' with humans. When magic was shunted from the Earth just to keep you safe there was no 'together'. When you people slunk through the veil to the Edifice to leech our land and magic there was no 'together'. There's no 'together' with a disease. There's no 'together' when the future my children will have is in the fucking pocket of a world you humans gave us."
"You are so right, man," Lee replies, nodding. "Maybe if you had your brother's magic you could do something about it."
Zagan breathes deep, the sigh hissing like steam through the air. With a single breath his composure returns and in the sudden coldness of his eyes, I see something more terrifying than the heat of his rage. His lips quirk in a wry, diplomatic smile. Quietly, almost conversationally, he says, "I think we've both underestimated each other, warlock. I didn't think you'd have the guts to try and see me dead like this. Your girlfriend certainly doesn't. Does Otysses like her, too? That's what you've been doing this last week, right? Hiding away and breeding? Right when I thought Otysses couldn't get any more pathetic."
"Are you making this deal or not?" It speaks to the tension of the moment that Lee refrains from jumping on the easy bait of another 'fucked your brother' joke.
Zagan finally straightens from his casual slouch, hands sliding from his pockets to be immediately engulfed in thin flames. "No rush. You've given me a good idea. I have you to thank for that."
The last words are addressed at me, along with a smile that on any other day would be flirtatious, but is crushed beneath the malice with which he directs my way. Lee takes a cautious step between us as Zagan approaches, noting the shift of energy in air as much as I do.
"Easy," he says.
"Come here," Zagan coos, tapping his thigh like he's calling for a dog. He laughs at the look of disgust I reply with. "It's OK. You don't have to worry about me. If Levi wants to use this opportunity to kill me, that's on me. Let's do the deal. It's what you've been looking for all week, right? Only thirty-six minutes left."
"Zagan, I'm not having anyone's blood on my hands. Not Otis's. Not even yours."
"I wouldn't worry about my blood," he purrs. "And I don't recall saying this was a choice."
I'm almost at the door, ready to fly into the woods as fast as I can away from Zagan. Each minuscule step I've stolen however, has only brought me closer to the blistering iron. When I reach for the handle to the door it's like I've plunged my hands into sulphuric acid. The proximity eats at my flesh, drawing a scream to the back of my throat.
"I am not."
"Olivia, just make the deal. Zagan gets Otis's soul when he breaks his deal, Otis keeps yours and it's happily ever after," Lee argues. True, genuine sincerity echoes in his voice for the first time since we met. That alone stops my heart for a beat. He doesn't cower behind jokes or his temper when he all but begs, "I don't want to lose you, OK? I want to keep you safe. I promised to keep you safe. I-"
The words are torn from Lee's lungs in a blink of an eye and replaced with a cry of shock.
Zagan didn't so much as mutter a spell, but without warning he has Lee crumpled on the ground with beneath his outstretched hand. Sharp bolts of electricity crackle from his fingers, a cage that latches onto the back of Lee's throat like shackles.
"Oh, no," the youngest Creed murmurs. "That's not how this goes at all."
"Lee!"
Unthinking I lunge forward, knowing nothing but to throw myself between Lee Noble and the source of his pain. Zagan releases the spell the instant I move, however. He wags a finger at me, a theatrically sympathetic pout on the stony skin of his lips. Lee twitches beneath him only to receive the tread of Zagan's sneaker press down against the back of his head, holding him to the floor.
"Steady there, Olivia," Zagan Creed says. His head tilts sideways, he flashes teeth in a predatory smile. "I know what you're thinking. You're just trying to be kind to me. Very, very kind. I think you're right, too. There is a chance what Otysses has could kill one of us. You're right. I don't want that."
He kneels, increasing the pressure on Lee's skull to the point where the warlock gives a strangled scream of pain. Something pops in Lee's neck as he writhes, but soon enough Zagan withdraws his foot and wraps his arm around the man beneath him.
Like a lynx holding down a lion, there's a petrifying unnaturalness to the ease with which Zagan subdues Levi despite their age and size difference. I freeze, too scared for Levi to run, too afraid for myself to interfere.
For an nonsensical second it looks a though Zagan is about to kiss the man at his feet. His thick arm slides around Lee's throat, cupping his jaw and tilting his head backwards at an angle that strains the already tenuous integrity of Levi's spine. Instead, however, his fingers ram themselves in Lee's mouth, prising his teeth apart and curling roughly around the inside of his gums.
Holding Levi like a hunter over a carcass of live game, Zagan settles into their awkward crouch, barely phased by Lee's desperate thrashes to free himself.
"No, instead, little Noble and I are going to sit here and watch you, Olivia. If you can survive Otysses's soul in one piece, you and Levi get your deal and we all leave happy. If you're blown to shreds, well..." He glances down at Levi, a sick facsimile of Mother Mary gazing at the babe in her arms. "I think I want to see that light die in his eyes. I guess you weren't right about me after all, huh?"
AN// Uh... so... umm....