But they’d forgotten about Sonder. Sonder had kept his mouth shut in the conversation and stayed behind Caldera, but now he put out his hand towards Will, his face set, and cast his own time spell, similar to Will’s but inverted. The two spells met and cancelled each other out and all of a sudden Will was moving at normal speed. He stumbled and came to a stop, a look of surprise flashing across his face.
Caldera hit Will in the chest. It was an open-hand strike, and she drove up off the floor with all her weight behind it. The impact lifted Will into the air and threw him the best part of ten feet, and he hit Dhruv on the way down. The two of them went down in a tangle of arms and legs.
Caldera glared at the adepts, her hands low and spread. “Who’s next?”
Will pulled himself up, gasping. He’d been winded and it took him a few seconds to catch his breath. “Shoot him!” he said, pointing at me. “He’s right there, just kill him!”
Captain America and gold-hair girl had both been ready to fire when Will had rushed in, but the people in the way had made them hesitate. Now they both aimed at me, and as they did I sidestepped behind Caldera. Captain America tracked me with his gun, saw that Caldera was in the way, and checked his fire.
Gold-hair girl didn’t. Red light flared around her hands and ground fire roared out. It was directed at me but hit Caldera instead, and Caldera disappeared in a flash of flame. An instant later the fire was gone. Caldera wasn’t. Her clothes were scorched and smoking but she didn’t even look scratched and I could see earth magic glowing about her, reinforcing and strengthening her body. “You,” she said to the adepts, “are starting to piss me off.”
Several of the adepts took a step back. Will didn’t. “You cowards!” he snapped. “We’ve beaten mages before!” Without looking back he charged straight for me. After a moment’s hesitation the rest of them followed, and that was when things got really messy.
The corridor dissolved into a melee, weapons and fire and confusion. Will was trying to get past Caldera, bullets and ground fire flashing out past them, and the hallway was a press of bodies and blows. There was too much going on and it was all I could do just to keep myself alive. Again and again I saw myself fall dead or wounded, stabbed or shot or burnt, and again and again I slid aside just enough that the strike would miss. The air heated from the fire magic, and bullets struck chips of stone from the walls. Caldera stood alone against the tide but the corridor was narrow and they couldn’t all reach her at once. They kept getting in each other’s way, and whoever was at the front would be focused by Sonder’s slowing magic and by Caldera’s punishing blows. One hit was all it took to send them staggering back, but as soon as they did another would move in to take their place.
The Indian boy, Dhruv, threw a set of metal spheres into the air; an invisible field caught them and sent them spinning around him in an elliptical orbit, moving faster and faster before zipping towards me as though hurled from a sling. I ducked behind Caldera and they slammed into her instead, cracking off her hardened skin. “Stop doing that,” Caldera said through clenched teeth, aiming another punch at Will.
“Some of us don’t have stone skin,” I said just as Captain America popped up around Will and fired at me point-blank. I was already dodging and the burst hit thin air; he fell back instantly, ejecting his magazine and reaching for a new one.
“Find us a way out,” Caldera said over her shoulder, but I couldn’t answer; Dhruv was sending another volley at me from over Will’s head and this time he curved them in, attacking from the side. I had to dive sideways, stumbling for a second, and as I came to my feet another blast of flame engulfed Caldera.
Ja-Ja was on her instantly. The life-drinker had stayed at the edge of the fight, lurking and waiting to strike, and in the second that Caldera was still blinded from the blast he struck. Green-black light flashed at his palm as he touched Caldera’s side, and even at a distance I felt a draining, tugging sensation, like being on the edge of a whirlpool.
Caldera gave a roar that was half rage and half pain, and struck at Ja-Ja with the ferocity of a wounded bear. I heard the crack as her blow landed and Ja-Ja went flying down the corridor, but Caldera stumbled and went to one knee. She was up again in an instant and I knew combat reflexes were keeping her moving—you never stay down in a fight, you always get up as fast as you can—but she was swaying and I could tell she was badly hurt.
Ja-Ja picked himself up. Caldera’s punch should have broken his bones but my heart sank as I looked at him and I saw that he was smiling. Whatever he’d taken from Caldera, it had been enough to let him shrug off the hit. “Tastes nice,” he said. “I could go for dessert.”
“What the fuck are you doing?” Captain America snapped at Ja-Ja. He was still holding his gun, but he wasn’t aiming it at me anymore.
“We said don’t hurt her!” Dhruv shouted.
Ja-Ja gave Dhruv a contemptuous look. “Yeah, you were doing so great.”
Will was hesitating, looking between Caldera and Ja-Ja. For the moment the adepts were distracted but I knew it wouldn’t last. One of the metal spheres Dhruv had been firing at me was lying on the floor, and I scooped it up. “Caldera!” I said sharply with a note of command in my voice. “Watch!”
Caldera turned, hurt but angry, and Sonder did as well. Before Caldera could speak, I flicked the sphere back down the corridor. It glanced off the wall and through the archway down to the basement, and I heard the clack-clack-clack as it went bouncing down the steps. Caldera and Sonder stared for a second, then their eyes went wide at the same instant. I put my finger to my lips.
“Keeper,” Will said, and all three of us turned to look at him. He was frowning at Caldera. “We’re not here for you. You and the time mage can go. We just want Verus.”
Caldera looked back at him, then gave him the finger.
Captain America raised his eyebrows; he actually looked impressed. Ja-Ja looked eager, and I knew he was hoping Caldera would say no. Will just looked pissed off. “You aren’t going to win this,” he said. “Get out of—”
The nocturne came out of the shadows, homing in on Will like iron filings to a magnet. Its body was black smoke and blended into the darkness behind it so perfectly that only its blue-white eyes were visible. Will leapt back, eyes going wide in shock, but even he wasn’t quick enough and a tendril of darkness twined around his leg, yanking him off his feet.
The corridor erupted into chaos, the adepts scrambling to get away from the nocturne or rushing to fight it, but this time I wasn’t watching. I grabbed Caldera’s arm and yanked at her. Even wounded as she was, it was like trying to move a rock, but it got her attention. “Come on!”
We fled towards the stairs. Before we got out of sight I took a glance back and had one glimpse of Will on his back, slashing at the nocturne as it pulled him in. Captain America was kneeling and firing, gun flashing in staccato bursts, the nocturne reaching for him, and then we were racing up the stairs with the shouts and gunfire fading behind us.
By the time we made it up to the second floor Caldera was staggering and I knew we wouldn’t make it out of the mansion in time. I made a snap decision and pulled a door open. “In!” Once they were inside I slammed it behind us.
Sonder looked around, dismayed. We were in a bedroom, old and neglected, the bed covered in dust and the light dim through the grimy windows, and I realised that it was my old room. I hadn’t been intending to pick it but my feet had remembered the way. “There’s no way out!”
“You’ll have to gate us from here,” I told Caldera.
Caldera looked around and I knew what she was thinking. Gating is one of the more general elemental spells, but also one of the most dangerous; it works by creating a similarity between two points in space and to do it reliably you have to be very familiar with both the place you’re leaving and the place you’re going to. Caldera had studied the copse of trees on her last visit here; that was why she’d gated us there and not directly inside. She hadn’t studied this room. Gating from here would be risky.