them ascend—twenty feet, forty feet, sixty feet, eighty feet—and then the metal doors of the missile bay burst open, sending a shower of dirt and roots and cornstalks into the silo. The Tates disappeared through the opening and into the night, supernatural missiles of unknown proportions.
The dirt cleared, and lights shone down through the hole in the sky. And all was quiet again on the midwestern front.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE GAMBLER
“What the hell just happened?” Ethan asked, but given the silence that followed his answer, no one had any idea.
We stared up through the silo, as if the answer to our questions was somehow written in the Cold War–era walls.
“He split into two,” Ethan said, glancing back at Paige. “How is that possible?”
She grimaced and hobbled over to the table, where he leaned against it. “I have no idea.”
We looked back at the Maleficium, which still sat on the floor beside Mallory. It had been reduced to little more than a book-shaped chunk of charcoal. A few hints of yellowed pages were visible, but mostly the book was a cinder that seemed like it might blow away if someone breathed too heavily on it.
But if the Maleficium—the vessel—was destroyed, what had happened to all that it contained? “Paige, what about the dark magic? The evil?”
She shook her head. “I’m not really—”
“It’s gone.”
Mallory’s voice was quiet, and there was a melancholic thread of surprise in it.
We all looked at her. She was on the ground, still on her knees, staring at her hands. They were still chapped and raw, and they shook like she was an addict in withdrawal. She wrapped her arms around herself and stared into the distance, maybe ruing the fact that things hadn’t turned out the way she’d intended.
“Gone?” Ethan asked.
Slowly, she turned her gaze on him. “It was in the book, and the book is gone. So it’s gone, too.”
“How do you know?” I asked, but I realized I didn’t need her answer.
It was clear in her face.
Mallory didn’t look any better than she had before all this had started. She looked just as strung out. Just as tired.
She’d tried one more fix of black magic, and it hadn’t worked. And now there was no more magic to try.
She had officially reached rock bottom.
“She knows the magic is gone because she doesn’t feel any different,” I said. “Because she worked another spell, and she triggered the Maleficium, but it didn’t cure her. And now the book is gone, so it’s too late. There won’t be any more Maleficium-inspired black magic, right?”
Mallory looked up, and she must have caught the anger in my eyes. She looked away, tears spilling over her lashes. I wasn’t sure that emotion was remorse, but maybe—sooner rather than later—she’d own up to the consequences she’d been so quick to ignore earlier.
“Then, what happened with Tate?” Ethan asked.
I thought back to what we’d seen and what had happened seconds before he’d split in half. “He touched the book. If Mallory worked the spell but no other evil escaped, could it have, I don’t know, funneled into Tate?” I looked at Mallory. “Is that possible?”
“I don’t know,” she pathetically whispered.
Ethan wasn’t moved. “You don’t know? You don’t know? You just decided to unleash all the evil in the world from an ancient book, but you didn’t know about the possible outcomes? Stupid, foolish girl.”
“Ethan,” I quietly said.
“No, Merit, she needs to hear this.” He crouched before her, that new fire in his eyes and a thoroughly chilling expression on his face. “She didn’t care to consider the consequences of her actions before. Perhaps now she will.”
Mallory didn’t answer him; she just sat on the floor, staring back at him with wide and horrified eyes, as if suddenly and fully aware of her own fallibility.
All that work, all that research, all those spells—pointless. Fruitless. She’d gambled everything—her friends, her skills, her lover—and she’d lost it all for the sake of something she thought was a sure bet. But the cards had been stacked against her, and the house always won.
I put a hand on Ethan’s shoulder, and he rose and put a hand on my cheek. I think he meant not to apologize, but to comfort me for the things that would come, for whatever would happen with Mallory.
“We need to know what just happened,” Paige quietly said, and I could practically hear the magical gears clicking along in her head. “We need to know what he is—what they are. We need to understand it.”