Sparks of Light (Into the Dim #2)

Collum fired. A yelp of pain answered.

“Screw this.” A spotty-faced guard with a beard stepped out and tossed his gun aside. He sidestepped toward the door, clutching his wounded shoulder as blood drenched the arm of his tuxedo jacket. “Don’t shoot,” he said. “I’m out of here.”

He ran. Sleeves covering their mouths and noses, the other two took off after him.

Ropes still dangled from Mac’s wrists as he hobbled over to pull Tesla to his feet. I helped Phoebe saw through the sinewy ropes that secured Doug and Jonathan. The instant Doug was free, Phoebe threw herself on him. Eyes screwed shut, he kissed her fiercely on the top of the head. Jonathan Carlyle rubbed at his wrists, his face a mask of sorrow as he surveyed the wreckage.

“Stop!” Blasi’s shout echoed off the ceiling. “Stop! Don’t fucking move or I swear to God, I’ll kill her.”

Gunnar Blasi edged out from behind the untoppled tower, pistol jammed into the soft flesh beneath Gabriella’s chin. Her hands were clasped together, begging. Her red-rimmed eyes were huge with terror.

“Where is my enhancement, Tesla?” Blasi coughed and spat on the floor. “Where is it?” He screamed this last part, like a furious toddler denied his animal crackers.

“Gone.” Mac, hoarse but utterly composed, stepped forward. “I told your men, but they wouldna listen. Douglas and I, we found the professor’s hiding place and destroyed the thing. See for yourself, ’tis over there, smashed to nothing.” He wheezed in a breath. Tilted his head toward a dark opening in the wall where several bricks had been removed.

On the counter lay a smashed and mangled metallic tube. Tangled wires and electrical guts and small piles of what looked like minerals were strewn around close by. “The thing is done, lad. So let the girl go. Let’s all leave while we still can.”

Blasi laughed. He laughed. “Whoo!” Hacking, he wiped his eyes with the back of his gun hand. “That’s not good. Oh, that is not good at all. You have no idea what you’ve done.”

No warning as Bran made his move. In a lightning-fast sprint, he shoved Gabriella out of the way and slammed Blasi to the floor. Gabriella stumbled. Her bad leg crumpled beneath her. She cried out as she went down hard on hands and knees. Bran’s attention wavered for only an instant, but it was enough for Blasi to wrench his hand free and slam the gun into Bran’s temple. As Bran teetered, Blasi thrust him aside and bolted for the door.

Phoebe made to run after him but Collum grabbed her. “What do you plan to do, then? Kill the man? Take him back and turn him over to the authorities?”





Bran got to his feet and moved toward where his cousin was kneeling in the center of the floor. Gabriella de Roca lifted her head and wheezed through a silky curtain of hair. “Is this true, Professor Tesla?” She inhaled, coughed. “The enhancement device, it is destroyed?”

And I knew then what had bothered me when I saw Gabriella emerge from the carriage. Knew what I had not seen when she hopped down and strolled across the sidewalk with Gunnar Blasi.

“Yes.” Tesla—?nineteenth-century gentleman that he was—?took a step, hands out to aid the poor, helpless girl. “Do not concern yourself with that anymore, miss. I shall never again—”

“Look out!” I tried to scream the warning, but my throat was ripped from coughing.

Bran looked at me like I’d gone crazy as he reached Gabriella’s side. “Hope?”

Only Mac and Collum reacted. Mac was closer.

Just as Gabriella leapt to her feet with an uncanny—?and undamaged—?dancer’s grace, Mac raced forward and knocked Bran aside.

The bullet meant for Bran took Mac in the chest, spinning him to the side.

“Mac!”

I think it was Phoebe who screamed the name, or maybe it came from me. Everything was smoke and heat and blood and nothing . . . nothing was real anymore.

From his spot on the floor, Bran could only gape up as Gabriella aimed once more. She pulled the trigger, but the gun either misfired or was empty. She chucked it away in disgust just as Blasi burst back into the room and grabbed her hand.

Bran knelt in the center of the room, staring at the girl . . . the friend . . . he’d grown up with. His face held no expression, though he looked suddenly like the little boy from the forest.

I wondered why no one was moving. Why weren’t they moving? Then I saw the reason. Such a small thing. It fit into Blasi’s hand like a miniature black pineapple. He’d already pulled the grenade’s pin, though he clamped down hard on the trigger as he and Gabriella backed toward the doorway.

Blasi smiled broadly as he hugged Gabriella tight to him.

She looked at Bran. “I am sorry, Brandon. Truly. Gunnar and I both wanted to keep you with us, but Do?a Maria would not have it. I warned her”—she waved a casual hand in my direction—?“to keep you out of this. To take you back to her home, where you would be safer.”

“You were like a sister to me, Gabi,” Bran told her in a flat, emotionless voice. “All those times I protected you from Celia. Every time your mother abandoned you, I was there.”

Gabriella at least had the decency to look ashamed as she glanced away.

“Yeah,” Blasi said. “Shame. We could have used you. And while I may not be all into Maria’s whole ‘Restoring the True Faith to its former glory’ rhetoric, as long as she lets me loot and plunder while we hunt for the Nonius Stone . . . I’ll do whatever the fuck she says.”

Jonathan and Doug were speaking quietly to Mac as they knelt over his prone form. Collum and Phoebe stood nearby, but their attention was glued on Blasi and Gabriella.

Gabriella’s eyes watered, though whether from tears or smoke I couldn’t tell. “Gunnar may not be a believer, Bran, but I am. I—?I had to make a choice.” Coughing, she wheezed out, “Do you remember the day last winter when it snowed? Bishop Mendez and Father Pietro were there. They spoke with us in the sculpture garden. Do you recall what they told us?”

Bran’s head tilted, unsure. Then his jaw dropped as the memory returned. “Wait,” he said. “You . . . you can’t be serious?”

“Trust me,” Blasi said. “They aren’t kid—”

Moving with a synchronicity only those trained together since childhood could manage, Collum, Doug, and Phoebe charged.





Chapter 45


TOO FAR. TOO LATE.

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