Layla was unfathomably angry. Mostly at herself for not stepping in to stop it sooner.

  She’d allowed herself to… no… she’d been unable to bring herself to step in when it mattered most. Excuses could be made as much as she liked. Blaming the approach of the vampires from the one way, the claustrophobic feeling of being trapped in the other, the fact that she still balked a little at the sight of blood, in spite of the overabundance of it that got spilled every day now…

  But deep down, she knew the truth. As much as she tried to hide it, behind Exotic Domains or fancy enchantments or even this damn cheap makeup that felt like wearing wet sand all the time, deep down she was still that same scared little girl that had hid from the wolves when they tore nearly every last shred of her life to pieces.

  She’d seen the look in Gordon’s eyes, and simply frozen up in fear. By the time the shock had worn off, it was already over, the man responsible for the flash of wanton violence running off with his makeshift weapon – and precious treasure – to escape into the night once more.

  Some hero she was. As much as Cavendish liked to tout her around in his propaganda pieces as one for her contributions to his cause, it was moments like these that made her feel like a complete fraud whenever she heard one.

  This, and so… so many other instances. No one ever heard what happened to those who didn’t make it during those speeches, not unless their deaths could serve a purpose as martyrs.

  The steel bulkhead door came to a halt with a shrieking groan. The dim, red-tinted light of the bunker entrance glistened off the trembling prone form left in the aftermath, beaten and bloodied.

  All she could do was stare down at Henry’s pulped face in horror. Her breath hitched as her thoughts circled around the realization that she could have prevented this. It would have been easy, really. All she would have had to do was get between them for one, maybe two seconds, and the path out would have opened.

  A little voice goaded her, telling her that she might as well have smashed his face in herself.

  There was a bit of a habit she’d developed, whenever that voice came up. No matter what, push it to the side. Address the situation at hand best as it can be in the moment, and clean out whatever caused the problem in the first place.

  There would be time to cry herself to sleep over it later. Just as there always was.

  Don’t think. Act.

  As Henry mumbled incoherently through broken teeth and a mouthful of blood, she lifted him to his feet and got him through the door before the vampires had a chance to close in on them. The distance between them and the pursuing pair of monsters had dwindled to mere meters by the time she dropped the lock on the bulkhead door into place.

  Just in the nick of time.

  As she held the door shut for a few moments longer, gale-force winds generated by the Harpy during its take-off whipped past her ears in a deafening roar. They yanked the hood from her face, tugging at her hair and making Layla feel like she was being tested for how tornado-proof she was.

  Her muscles tensed, protectively holding Henry upright by the crook of his shoulder while she tried to prevent him from passing out for just a few moments longer. She didn’t trust that he’d ever wake up again, if he did. The instant the winds died down, she was already in motion, determined to get perhaps her one real friend left in the wastes of Hallow London to safety, if it was the last thing she ever did.

  He can make it… I know he can! He’s done it before… this can’t be any different, surely…

  Words felt empty. But, they were always enough to keep one foot moving in front of the other, for as long as she needed to. If her fears were visible for the world to see in this moment, so be it. It was time to be the hero she was supposed to be.

  I need… more strength to pull this off!

  The brutal counter-punch she’d delivered to the third – by now most certainly deceased – vampire had run her reserves of stored Domain magic dry, but the heavy blanket dropping down from above would be more than enough to replace her losses and then some. Focusing her mind on the flow of the mana in the air, she pressed on. Lifting Henry over her shoulder with one hand while using the other to balance herself against the smooth wall of the chasm.

  As she had done so many times before, she called out to the mist, and it answered in turn. Siphoning into her body, infusing her with the familiar sense of power as the raw mana embedded in each molecule worked to invigorate her. The cool, soothing micro-droplets danced along the surface of her skin as they entered, fueling the virtuous cycle of her Exotic Domain, refining potential energy into the usable form she had grown so accustomed to in such a short time.

  Desperate rattling and banging echoed from below, as she first took the steps slowly, then two at a time, then almost running while doing so. As important as maintaining concentration was, every moment she wasted was a moment that Henry might need to stay alive. She didn’t care that there were near-perfect copies of him waiting above. Didn’t care that he would have fed himself into the grinder much sooner had he been given the clarity of mind and the opportunity.

  He was not going to die. He was not going to die.

  Her magic reservoir was nearly full to bursting, and yet she continued to pull in more. Straining against the limits of her talents, the excess realigned mana searched for somewhere, anywhere in her body that it could make immediate use of itself. Her stride lengthened, and now she was bounding up the stairs three at a time. Henry’s weight gradually lessened more and more in her perception. Her veins practically thrummed with shimmering motes of grey light, her body was so densely packed with magic.

  She didn’t stop. Not when she had a perfect target in mind to receive this energy. One who needed to be repaid for his actions.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  By the time she reached the top of the stairs, it was taking all of her willpower to keep hold of that magic, to prevent it from bursting free in an uncontrollable storm that would tear her apart. And yet, she still continued to cycle it throughout herself, not wanting to let a single drop of it go unused. Where she could, she condensed the mist around her like a cloak on her back, woven from dark clouds.

  She didn’t care if the Harpy saw what was about to happen. If she had to fight it, too, she would. There was only one thought on her mind, now that she had laid Henry down gently on the pale stone floor and laid her eyes on the man responsible for his current state.

  The idiot had a dumb smirk on his face, carelessly abandoning the 8-ball as he walked towards her, rummaging around in his pocket for something. Probably thought he was in the clear, that whatever there was left to do, it was only a matter of time before he was done.

  Well, he got that part right, at least. He was done.

  Pressure mounted in her right arm. Her magic concentrated around her fist, pumping through her veins so quickly now she could hear her heartbeat in her ears. She readied her strike, pulling it taut to he side and ready to strike with the force of a ballista bolt.

  Gordon had only a moment to look shocked before she was upon him.

  Twisting her hips to throw her entire weight behind this single strike, she punched. Magic surged, separating from the gathered mist entirely and empowering her strike. Thin jets of spent fog released from her arm as it flew, adding propulsion behind her swing as her knuckles dug deep into the man’s breastbone.

  She heard the crunch of bones breaking. It wasn’t her fingers. Refined Domain magic was enough to strengthen those to the point they were liable to withstand being run over by a freaking bus, she had so much live energy in store right now.

  The force of the blow was literally enough to knock the pistol out of the holster at Gordon’s waist, falling to the ground at her feet with a clatter while the rest of his body was propelled head over heels into the abyss. Every last drop of energy she’d accumulated in her climb was dumped straight into that piece of trash.

  Ironic, that the move she’d used to save his worthless life would be the one to end him.

  And, as her arm started pushing, a secondary burst of pressurized mist erupted from the point of impact dispersing from her hand in a circular arc around her wrist. Like an oxygen tank bursting, the damage to the man’s chest was crippling, tearing a hole nearly the size of his head through his torso. And the fall that it propelled him into was even more devastating, she had to imagine.

  Layla skidded to a stop, watching as Gordon fell over the edge deep into the foggy expanse below. She kept staring, waiting until the heavy blanket of fog enshrouded the dying thug entirely before she looked away. Her chest heaved, her nostrils flaring as the adrenaline that had been cycling through her at breakneck speed slowly began flushing out. Breathing felt like a chore, but the kind that you make sure gets done at any cost.

  Gulping down air. One lungful at a time, by whatever means she could get it. Her head felt light, the excess oxygen making her scalp tingle.

  It was over. It was… done.

  She thought it would have made her feel better, making sure he never hurt anyone ever again.

  But, now that she’d done it… she wasn’t so sure. She just felt small. And not in the literal sense of the loss of muscle mass that followed her strikes.

  She just… felt small. Any descriptor besides that didn’t do it justice, in her mind. It was that little voice again, making her feel exactly how it tried to imagine her as.

  It made her feel sick to her stomach.

  She needed to get away from this pit. Hide her shame from the world, seal it back up, whatever. Maybe it fell into the bottom along with Gordon, and she could lock it away with him.

  Surely this time, it would work. Surely.

  Still panting heavily, she staggered over towards the hastily-repaired altar they’d worked together on mere hours before. Redirected some of the ambient mana from the air into the receptacle, activating the inscriptions within for one final time. Two of Henry’s copies were gawking at her wide-eyed, shocked by the dramatic show of force she’d displayed mere moments before.

  She didn’t care. Let them. This was done now, and she had bigger issues to take care of.

  With a gradual rumble, the pillar twisted back into place, closing a part of her off along with it.

  For a time, at any rate. Try as she might, that voice always found a way to come back.

  < -|- -|- >

  Even after the consequences of what had happened finally started to sink in for Layla, she couldn’t bring herself to leave his side. Somehow, it always seemed to end up this way. It was always him getting into dangerous situations which he’d barely survive, leaving her to worry over him as he recovered. He’d done it when the werewolves had first arrived, he’d done it after they’d been attacked by the first vampires, and now, here she was again. Clutching his hand in hers as she told herself over and over that everything would be okay.

  She’d moved him to lie on one of the stone pews in the temple, both the artifact and the revolver retrieved from where Gordon had once stood and laid out by his side. In the background, the Harpy stood stock still, the occasional errant spark bright as an arc flash dancing over the surface of its body. Unbending dented metal, filling cavities in the surface and slowly but surely returning itself to combat readiness.

  Time was running short, and their options were limited. All she could think to do now was either run away with Henry and his duplicates, and hope the Club didn’t catch up to them… or risk a fight here and now.

  The two copies worked tirelessly on their progenitor, cleaning him as best they could and dressing his wounds where they could be dressed. From the look on their faces, though, his condition seemed grim. Eventually, the one closest to her paused his attempts to clean the blood from Henry’s face and posed the question it had been working up the courage to ask.

  “Do you know what happened to him?”

  “I…” she started, clearing her throat as her words came out shaky at first. “He and Gordon… that other man… they got in a fight. His hands were tied, so…”

  She trailed off, gesturing towards the zip-ties at his wrists.

  “...It didn’t go too well.”

  The copy nodded solemnly. “You can say that again. Head looks more like an overripe banana than anything else. Lucky to still be breathing, at that point.”

  “Then… is he…?”

  She couldn’t bring herself to say it. Didn’t even want to entertain the idea.

  “Well…”

  Thoughtfully rubbing his chin, he gave Henry’s body a quick glance over, from the top of the mangled face down past the still faintly pulsating crystal in his chest. He pondered for a moment longer, before glancing at his watch. After flicking the side of it twice to check it hadn’t stopped, he turned to his partner.

  “Hey, does just north of two hours sound like the right amount of time left?”

  They glanced down at their own timepiece quickly. “Looks about right, yeah.”

  The lead copy pondered that answer, tilting his head back and forth as if weighing his options.

  “…Yeah…”, he eventually concluded. “Yeah, that’s close enough, I suppose.”

  Layla was lost entirely at the back and forth. “Sorry, am I missing something?”

  “Oh, don’t mind us. We’re just running up on the end of the three day limit ourselves, is all. If we’re still breathing past that point, well…” he trailed off himself, frowning slightly as he considered the best way to word things. “…It’s not pretty,” he eventually settled for.

  “Now, normally in situations like these, the two of us would regrettably have to put him down so that one of us gets passed the role of host, but-” he held up a hand, seeing that Layla was about to vehemently object to that course of action. “-that’s not really an option this time. He’s got a better understanding of the situation in the trip than either of us do, understanding that will flat-out be lost if we just let him expire like this.”

  “Not that either of us would hold up to scrutiny for long,” the other chimed in. “Even if we’re the same person physically, we’ve been doing our own thing long enough for differences to start adding up.”

  The first copy nodded. “That being said… as it stands right now, his body is going to die. Which leaves us with just the second option.”

  “The second option?” Layla was puzzled, and it showed on her face clearly. “What’s the second option?”

  “Well, it’s just the body that’s buggered, so…” both copies unsheathed their combat knives, one taking the bloodied dress shirt off of while the one speaking prepared a tube of medical adhesive and pulled off his shirt as well.

  Placing the tip of his knife between the edge where the embedded crystal met his skin, he waited for the other copy to do the same with the damaged body before sidling up close to it and finishing his explanation.

  “…Now all that’s left is to take the gamble and see if we can’t loan him a spare.”