Ruler [Blood Magic, Book 3]

Chapter 66: Going Topside

The compound was a crater. As we drove past its edge, I stared out my window at the asphalt roadway, cracked and missing in places from the explosion, and the great gaping chasm beyond it. I found myself thankful I couldn't see any evidence of the countless sorcerers, Nosferatu, and bleeders buried beneath the debris, but just the thought-

And what if Arthos was still inside? What if he'd been buried with the rest? No one had heard from him in hours.

What I was staring at was absolutely apocalyptic. There was nothing left of any of it, of anyone.

How were the sorcerers ever going to do damage control on this? Was this "Hello, Extinction Day"?

I closed my eyes and leaned my head back against the seat. My brain kept returning to the morbid math of the thing over and over. Working numbers that were impossible to know or even take a ballpark guess at. How many hadn't made it out? Would they haunt me after I shut my eyes each morning and, if so, for how long? I remembered what it had been like after I'd burned all those Nosferatu in the loading bay, the nightmares. Would I ever sleep eight straight hours again? This wasn't self-defense, nor the execution of a carefully laid-out strategy, it was annihilation. Pure loss of control.

I don't know how long we drove and I don't recall a single thing from that drive after we passed the crater. It was like moving through molasses. My whole world rendered thick and suffocating and numb. All I could see in my head was the destruction, the jagged outcroppings that used to be walls, doors, rooms, and all I could hear in my ears was the sound my father made when Bruce had been killed.

Eventually, we came to a rundown motel. Ephraim killed the engine in front of the main office, forcing me to acknowledge the decrepit two-storey, 1960s-style structure. The exterior was pocked with peeling blue paint and flower beds given over to weed. It exuded the atmosphere of a place that no one stayed at by choice. These were lodgings of sheer desperation, and perhaps, with any luck, anonymity. That thing we so desperately needed topside.

My father went inside and arranged for three rooms. When he returned, he started the van back up and drove us around to Room 10. Only two other cars occupied the lot and the whole of the place was surrounded by dense woods. Our rooms were far enough to the side that anyone looking for us wouldn't be able to spot the vans from the road. If they entered the parking lot, all bets were off, but it was the best we could do for a place that didn't have spots in the back.

Boras pulled in less than five minutes after us and after exchanging some words and a set of keys with Ephraim, disappeared into his room. Having now concluded all the necessary human interactions and having dispersed all the keys, my father grabbed his bags from the back and vanished into his own.

Keel dangled our key, along with the oversized yellow plastic fob it was attached to, in my direction. "Shall we?"

I nodded sombrely and we got out of the van, collecting our own go-bags from the back. Our room was up a shaky metal staircase on the second floor. A crooked, rusty 11B hung on the door just below the peephole. Keel inserted the key into the lock and, with a grinding click, let us in. Even after we'd flipped on all the lights it remained a dingy place with wall-to-wall dirty grey carpets, compete with cigarette burns; sun-bleached curtains; and one of those big boxy TVs from '90s. The two queen-sized beds were topped with slightly shiny, brown-gold, faux satin covers that were probably chosen to hide certain types of stains. Maybe it would be best to sleep in our clothes, I thought, even though Nosferatu and sorcerers were largely immune to human maladies.

Keel was about the shut the door behind us when a foot stopped it short.

I turned and saw Ankor. He looked as shell-shocked as I felt. His wide eyes flitting from us to the parking lot below to the woods. "Any room for me?"