Horsemen's War (The Rebellion Chronicles #3) - Steve McHugh Page 0,129

put distance between him and his crowd.

Instead, Arthur dragged Demeter into the blast, disintegrating her upper torso. The magic still smashed into Arthur, lifting him off his feet and throwing him back into the monument.

He unleashed his own magic a second later, and the monument began to crumble from the impact of vast amounts of magic.

Shadows continued to leap out of the ground, pulling down the remaining creatures who got too close. Their deaths kept my magic at full power while I calmly strolled toward the monument as it toppled forward.

The crowd of KOA realized they were in deep shit about ten seconds before it hit them. Over five hundred feet of monument crashed down onto the watching masses, most of whom had tried to flee only to find themselves trapped by their own people. Huge amounts of dust and mud were thrown into the air, covering those closest to the impact.

I ignored the screams, the pleas for help. They’d murdered and destroyed with impunity. I figured a monument falling on them was probably about as close to karma as I was ever going to see. Besides, I wasn’t feeling particularly charitable at that exact moment.

To compound their misery, the creatures had managed to get free and were—to put it mildly—freaking out. The fight-or-flight instinct had kicked in, and most had run into the park, but quite a few had chosen the direction where the remains of the KOA audience stood. Which meant fresh meat and blood, driving those who went that way into a frenzy.

I ignored the sudden and inevitable betrayal of animalistic monsters and continued on toward Arthur.

Part of the monument had fallen onto him, and I’d reached the earth steps when it exploded, raining pieces of stone and metal all around. A shield of air kept me from being injured in any serious way, but the same couldn’t be said for the KOA. It really was turning into a bad day to be a follower of Arthur.

“Why do you insist on ruining everything?” Arthur shouted as I walked up the stairs toward him. He was covered in blood, although whether it was his or Demeter’s was hard to tell.

“Bet you wish you’d worn armor,” I said. “But you just had to be a show-off. Just had to be sure that everyone knew how powerful you are.”

I charged the last few feet, dodging a punch from Arthur, and drove my left elbow into his ribs. He gasped, taking a step back, as I created a sphere of lightning in the palm of my right hand, which I slammed into his chest and detonated.

The platform of earth we both stood on was decimated as the power from the sphere tore it apart, and Arthur was thrown back off the platform, collided with the side of the Washington Monument, and remained there as I picked up a small microphone from the floor, attached it to my lapel, and leaped across the gap, using my air magic to make the jump possible.

Arthur spat blood onto the ground and got to his feet. “You want to complete what you were made for,” he said and spat again.

“Your people are dying,” I told him as some of them cried to Arthur for help.

“I don’t care,” he said.

“They can hear you,” I said, pointing to the microphone.

“Let them,” Arthur sneered. “I don’t need them. I don’t need anyone. I was born to rule all. I will not let some experiment stop me.”

I flicked down a whip of fire toward Arthur, who caught it in one air-wrapped hand, smiling the whole time. “You will have to do better than that.”

I removed the fire whip and rolled my shoulders. I created a blade of lightning in each hand and closed the distance between Arthur and me. He rushed to intercept me. I drove one of the blades toward his face, and he blocked it with a shield of blood magic, the tendrils leaping out to wrap themselves around my hand. Pain lanced through me, but instead of trying to pull free, I detonated the magic in the hand that was covered.

Arthur screamed in pain as the lightning tore the blood magic apart, leaving him open for me to drive the second blade into his chest and immediately explode the magic. Arthur headbutted me and drove his own blade of fire into my side, twisting it as I noticed that the clothes he’d been wearing had taken the brunt of the impact from my magic. So he