I must have made some small movement because the gun pointed itself at me again and Eoul's face sobered. "I'll deal with the girl. Get rid of him," he told the mage as he began to come round the revving constructs. I lurched in the opposite direction, slipping on the ashes of my burnt employee record.

Eoul fired. The shot went wild but managed to wing my right arm as I dove around the middle row of cabinets. I cried out at the wave of searing pain needling my flesh but didn't stop running. Eoul fired over the top of the cabinets, missing me by inches when I ducked. I heard the man cursing as I made a beeline for the door.

I have to get Eoul away from here, I told myself as I gripped my streaming arm and ran in a crouch. I have to get him away from the mage and Darius, then find a way to get back and stop the mage before I'm too late.

Even I could admit it wasn't the greatest of plans.

The fifth shot pinged off the metal door as I slipped over the threshold, and I felt the small slivers of metal strike my face but didn't pause to inspect the damage. Eoul's heavy, running footsteps followed in my wake, trailed by his huffing breath.

Darius' inhuman shouting echoed in my ears and spurred on my tired legs.

I bolted through the slim hallway, angling for the stairwell. I meant to run for the ground floor, but two bullets embedded themselves in the drywall not centimeters from my head—so I diverted course and clamored upward to the third floor. I barely had enough time to flatten myself on the landing before Eoul fired three rounds from the bottom of the stairs. All three burrowed holes into the wall and misted my hair with white dust.

I pried open the door and crawled into the next room. Eoul's thundering steps began to climb the stairs.

Panting, I slammed the door shut to the stairwell, locked it, and took in my surroundings. I had never visited the third floor before, so I was unsure what I would find. Little lines of clerical cubicles stood in the darkness, illuminated only by the fuzzy ambiance peeping through the covered windows and a forgotten desk lamp. The beige carpet was drab and riddled with various dirty splotches, and the smell of the lunch someone had microwaved the day before still lingered.

The sight of so many abandoned cubicles with personal belongings strewn about was almost...apocalyptic. Sad.

Eoul had to shoot the lock twice before it crumbled and the sweating man could barrel through the doorway. I slipped into one of the nearest cubicles and sunk to my knees, holding my clammy palms over my mouth to hide my scared breathing.

"Let's finish this game, Gaspard," Eoul grunted. I heard him stomp near the entrance—but he didn't move farther than the crooked plastic fig tree at the end of the row. "I know what you're trying to do. You're trying to get around me, trying to get back downstairs to Emerson. It isn't going to work, sweetheart. Your hound's about to be put down."

I gnashed my teeth but said nothing. I gripped the wound on my arm until the pain was almost unbearable. I could taste the bitter twang of copper and gun powder upon my tongue.

A desk fan whirred in the cubicle across the aisle, fluttering a stack of receipts. Eoul fired two rounds into the empty space without bothering to inspect the noise first. I couldn't see the balding CEO from my hiding spot, but I could hear his quiet, displeased swearing.

"Come out, Gaspard. Let's...discuss things." His footsteps moved first toward the left, then the right as the man paced. I could almost sense his beady, hungry eyes scouring the tops of the cubicles as he waited for me to pop up. "I'm a businessman, after all. I can be amicable."

I slowly flattened myself onto the grungy carpeting. My blood seeped into the fibers as my wet hair fell across my eyes. "Fourteen," I whispered as I bit the inside of my lip and closed my eyes.

Darius' next bellow shook the foundation of the building. I felt it rise through the floor and vibrate in my chest. Exhaling, I shouted, "Eoul!"

The CEO blindly fired into my cubicle. I cowered as the bullet tore through the flimsy divider and struck the monitor, which proceeded to cough up a slew of sparks. Papers caught the sparks and began to smolder—but not before I rolled out of the cubicle and rose to my shaky, failing legs.

Eoul stood within the doorway, his feet spread as he held the pistol steady with both hands. He grinned as he watched me—grim-faced and bloody—march closer. "Ah, I wasn't being serious about being amicable, Gaspard," he laughed as the tendons in his hands braced themselves to pull the pistol's trigger. "But thank you for making my life much easier."

The fire in the cubicle grew, gorging itself upon the dry, life-sucking decay of the corporate world. The smoke tickled the alarms overhead and sent them into a full riot. The sprinklers burst into life, dousing my already soaked body as I continued to shorten the distance between myself and Eoul.

"Adan ladd vallan faevannada, you stupid woman."

Eoul pulled the trigger. The click emanating from the empty magazine was audible over the wail of the fire alarms. Eoul's eyes rounded.

"Fifteen," I said as I quickened my pace. "Fifteen shots. You're out."

Realizing the truth of my words, IMOR's CEO reeled back in an attempt to retreat, but he wasn't fast enough. I collided with the heavy man and wrapped my arms around his torso, holding tight. The momentum of my body ramming into his toppled us through the doorway he had been so intent on protecting. Together, Eoul and I tumbled down the stairs.

The resulting tumult of flung limbs and jagged, choked cries ceased when we crashed into the landing below. Eoul lay slumped beneath me, unmoving with a slender line of crimson easing from under his sparse hairline. Gasping at the ache in my bones, I clamored from the vile man to snatch his fallen gun from the cracked floor. My ankle—twisted in the fall—protested, but I endured the pain. I stumbled upright and used the wall for support as I hurried to the records room.

A fourth ring of effervescent green had joined the three others, creating a veritable cage around the agonized Sin. There was a prominent puddle of blood pooling beneath Darius as he convulsed upon the tile. With dawning horror, I realized the blood was coming from a series of large, claw-like cuts centered upon Darius' chest. The Sin had tried to rip out his own heart.

What was the mage doing to him?!

By this point, the Blue-Iron mage was on his knees as well. Copious amounts of perspiration dribbled from every pore of his body, and his hands dripped with his own fresh blood. Whatever spell the man was weaving took its toll upon his body as well. The magic it exuded tasted foul—like sulfur and dead, rotten flesh. This is what Saule meant by mages perverting blood witch spells, I thought as I stared at his self-inflicted injuries. This is black magic.

I shoved the muzzle of the gun into the mage's temple and held it there. "Let him go, now. Let him go, or I swear to God or whatever King you people worship—I will not hesitate to shoot."

The mage did not stop the spell, but his blue eyes did flicker in my direction. "Do not be foolish," Emerson scolded. He either couldn't or didn't bother to push the gun away. "Your issue with Eoul and his ilk aside—this is a Sin, girl. Allow me to continue my work and leave this place."

"No," I snapped, pushing the gun closer to his skull until I was certain it left an impression upon his skin. I prayed he wouldn't call my bluff. I had counted every shot Eoul fired. There were no more bullets in that gun. "I said let him go!"

"Let me kill him," the mage returned. The green circle was fading as his concentration suffered. The chains of emerald ivy were unraveling, allowing the Sin of Pride to lift his head. "You idiot—if I kill Pride, your contract with him will be voided! You will owe him nothing! You will be free!"

My grip upon the pistol's handle faltered. "Free?" I asked, confused by what the mage meant. Free? Of what? Did the mage think I had entered into my contract against my will? Was that even possible?

My perplexed eyes found Darius'—and in his ancient, scorching gaze I saw the knowledge that he expected I would allow the mage to have his way. Darius' past hosts would have stepped aside if granted such an opportunity. They would have allowed the Sin of Pride to die. The fatalistic creature assumed I would be no different.

But, somewhere beyond that ugly emotion of resignation, hope existed. The mere fact that Darius had met my gaze, had searched for my face in the delirium of his pain, meant the Sin hoped in some vague, unfathomable depth of his primeval, traumatized, lonely mind that I would be different. That I saw him as someone worth saving.

That I cared.

"This your last chance," I told the mage as I dropped Darius' gaze. The Sin continued to groan, but the green circle was gone. "Let him go."

"Then shoot me, if you're so ignorant," the mage hissed. His back straightened with his resolve, and the green construct began to ghost into existence once more. "I am a jailer of the Blue-Iron Containment Facility. Kill me, and a swarm of Syndicate mages will descend upon this cesspool of a city. They'll have you in a cell before my body burns."

Cursing, I lifted the pistol and swung it toward the mage's head. The butt collided with his temple and snapped the temple of his glasses. Emerson's eyes rolled as he collapsed onto his side. The constructs dispelled with a displaced snap of freed energy.

"Darius," I said as I ignored the mage and limped to the Sin's side. Darius slumped forward, his arms curled beneath his torso. His jagged nails were red with his own blood. I tried to roll him onto his back—but it was impossible. I couldn't shift him in the slightest, even when I wrapped my hands upon his shoulders and heaved with all my strength. "My God, you're heavy! How do you not break the furniture you sit on?!"

Darius remained quiet. His chest didn't rise.

Panicked, I smacked the Sin's visible cheek and grabbed his arm with my bloody, sore fingers. Was I...too late? Had I taken too long? "Darius—Pride! Dammit, wake up!"

His eyes opened, but whether it was because I had called out to him or because of coincidence I did not know. The scleras of his eyes were red, and his pupils were dilated with unrelenting discomfort. He bore his sharp teeth in a fierce, feral grimace, and more blood and bile dripped from his lips.

"Darius—." I reached for him, but the Sin shoved me away. He pushed off of the floor with his shaking arms, tipped his head back, and exhaled.

The room exploded.

The temperature shifted from cold to hot so swiftly the resulting friction caused by the violently tossed currents caught every scrap of paper within a six-foot radius of the demon on fire. I yelped as I landed on my rear—nearly putting my hand through a filing cabinet now spewing a cloud of choking embers. I expected the sprinklers to click on as they had upstairs—but the energy Darius had displaced had melted their nozzles into deformed metal lumps.

"Go home." I turned and caught the leather briefcase before Darius could chuck it at my head. "Go home, now."

"Darius, are you all right?" I demanded as I tucked the case under my good arm. I coughed as the smoke grew thicker. "What can I do to help?"

The Sin slouched again. In the orange, destructive light, I watched the gouges he had ripped into his own flesh knit together. He focused on me, his irritation plain. "You can go home. I can hear them coming now. You have to hurry. Go home."

"Dammit, Darius—."

"I cannot help you," he said without allowing me the chance to speak. I assumed he meant he could not help me from the building, but the Sin's words were oddly...ominous, ringing with meaning far beyond my comprehension. His voice faltered and his breathing grew more labored. "Please, Sara—go now."

I tried to stop him, to grab a fistful of his sleeve so I could tell that moron he was going to come with me, that I wouldn't leave him behind—but Darius had vanished. I caught nothing in my fingers but sparks and ash.

Worried, I managed to rise to my feet one more time. I stared at the spot Darius had disappeared from as I tightened my hold upon the case. The alarms were louder now, echoing farther and farther as the entire building filled with smoke and flame. Water dribbled from the warped sprinklers but it didn't touch the blazing hellfire Darius had ignited.

The Sin had gone on without me, leaving nothing behind but a bloodstained floor and the memory of his agonized screams.

Swearing, I wiped ash from my damp face. I hitched the briefcase higher and rushed from the blazing tower that had once been IMOR Advances.