Desperate, I looked around, wondering how I could keep from being crushed to death by tons of falling, broken rock. Once again, I reached for my own Stone magic, and once again, it slipped away from me, as though it were water that I was trying to hold in the palms of my hands. Through the thick, choking dust that had sprung up from the shattered marble, I could see Sebastian standing outside the mausoleum, pouring more and more of his magic into destroying every last part of the structure. Through the other opening, Porter waited, ready to put a bullet through my heart should I try to escape that way.
I was trapped, with nothing but cold, hard stone raining down on me.
Still, I looked around, trying to figure some way out of here. Sebastian sent another surge of magic into the mausoleum, and a large chunk of marble broke off from one of the columns, sailed through the air, and hit the top of Cesar’s tomb. But the marble shattered instead of the stone slab.
My eyes narrowed as I wondered if I’d really seen what I thought I had. Because that shouldn’t have happened, not unless . . . unless . . . the tombs were heavier and stronger than the marble columns.
And a thought finally occurred to me, a crazy way I could save myself from the falling stone. I didn’t like it, but it was the only chance I had.
Even as the floor shook under my feet and more and more pieces of stone cracked off the columns, I staggered over to Cesar’s tomb. Sure enough, it was made out of a tougher granite, rather than the more delicate marble that made up the mausoleum. Lucky for me, the granite slab was just resting on top of the tomb and hadn’t been bolted or welded down. I pushed and pushed against the slab, trying to get it to move, but it was far too heavy for me to lift on my own. I doubted even Porter could have managed it with his giant strength.
I screamed with frustration, even though I couldn’t hear the sound over the continual crashes of the plummeting stone. Desperate, I reached for my magic again. It was difficult, as difficult as catching raindrops in my hands, but I managed to grab hold of a small trickle of power and send it flowing into the top of the tomb, even as I grabbed the edge of it with my hands. I couldn’t lift the tomb lid, but maybe I didn’t have to.
Slide, I commanded the stone with every bit of magic and muscle that I could muster. Slide, damn you, slide!
Slowly, very, very slowly, the granite began to obey my frenzied orders. It slid to the right one measly inch. I tightened my grip on the edge and sent another wave of power into the stone, even as I shoved at it with all my might. It moved another inch. Then two more, then five more, then an entire foot.
The stench of death wafted up out of the tomb, and I found myself staring down at Cesar Vaughn’s pale, waxen face. His eyes were closed, his arms crossed over his chest and the expensive suit that he wore. He seemed to be at peace, which was not at all how he’d left his life, thanks to me.
I killed an innocent man.
The thought slammed into me, as sharp and brutal as before, and I knew that it would always feel this way. And that what I was about to do now would only make it worse.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, although the crashes of the crumbling rocks drowned out my voice.
But there was no time for remorse or regrets. Not now. So I sent another wave of magic into the stone, making the slab slide a few more precious inches to the left.
And then I lifted my leg over the side of the tomb and hoisted myself up and inside it.
Another blast of Sebastian’s Stone magic erupted through the mausoleum, making me pitch forward onto Cesar, as though he were a lover I was about to kiss. I grimaced at the cold chill of death embracing me, a death that I was responsible for, but I forced myself to wiggle past Cesar, so that his body was the one that was exposed to the falling rocks, while I was partially covered by the tomb lid. Even then, the left side of my body was still out in the open, so I gritted my teeth, reached out, and grabbed Cesar, pulling him close and using the dead man as a shield.
It was one of the cruelest and most horrible things I’d ever done.
“Die, bitch!”
Perhaps it was my imagination, but I could have sworn that I heard Sebastian scream those words even through the cacophony of the falling rock. I pressed myself more tightly against the inside of the tomb and closed my eyes, knowing what was coming next.
Then the rest of the mausoleum collapsed in on itself, burying me in the tomb in the cold, dead embrace of the innocent man I’d murdered.
24
I don’t know how long I lay in the tomb, my fingers digging into Cesar’s stiff, lifeless shoulders, the marble shrieking and wailing all around me, like banshees calling out for death—my death.
But I lay there, and I endured it. There was nothing else I could do. At some point, I opened my eyes, although all I could see was darkness. Clouds of dust from the broken stones wormed their way down into the tomb, trying to choke me, and I buried my nose and mouth in Cesar’s suit jacket to keep from inhaling the dust, even though the stench of death filled my nostrils instead, along with the faint scent of his roses.
But the cracks, crashes, and bangs eventually slowed, then stopped. I felt the marble give out one final, great, heavy shudder, before the foundation settled back into place, the jagged edges scraping together like the tectonic plates of the earth after a violent quake. The stone continued to wail, though, its anguished cries ringing in my ears.
Somehow I managed to shut the sound out of my mind and focus on my own body. The lid of the tomb had shielded me from the worst of the falling rocks, so I was in more or less one piece, although the same couldn’t be said for poor Cesar. His body had been buried in the rubble, the mountain of stone blocking my easy escape from the tomb.
Once again, I’d used him, hurt him, ruined him. Even in death, Cesar Vaughn couldn’t rest in peace. At least, not from me. The thought sickened me, the cold, hard knowledge that I’d killed an innocent man and had then been forced to desecrate his mausoleum, his tomb, and his body in such a horrible manner.
But it had been the only way for me to survive, and I still had a chance to live through this—and to warn Finn and Fletcher. They might not be innocent, not like Cesar had been, but they were my family all the same, and they were in danger because of me.
I’d just started to move when I felt a presence ripple through the shattered stone.
Sebastian.
I froze, my hands curling around Cesar’s half-buried shoulders again. The vibration surged through the mausoleum, and the dark mutters started once more. Sebastian must have been using his magic to listen to the marble, to try to figure out whether I was still alive. For a moment, a wild, panicked desperation rose up in me to get as far away from Cesar as fast as I could, to get out of his tomb, out of his mausoleum, and just run, run, run away from all the reminders of how wrong I’d been about everything.