I shivered, scoring my nails down the whipping post like at least that’d mark a memory of this: a private execution in the Bailey.
The sun glinted off the cobblestones: the world ablaze. The noose on the scaffold sizzled with emerald fire; the gibbet rose from a raised platform next to the cannon. Rebel marched to it with a steely dignity, even in bare feet and his shameful gilt-edged shift.
Then he hesitated, scanning the Bailey. “Where’s the Brigadier, Blaze, Spark, Mischief, Commander Drake…”
Rebel’s sudden trembling desperation shot adrenaline through my limbs, which had been numb with shock or denial.
Rahab, who’d been lounging next to the three steps up to the scaffold, huffed, “Enough. Do not make a scene.” Yet he tapped his fingers against his palm in agitation.
“You mean like this, bro?” I snatched Star out of its sheath, but Rahab blasted me to paralysis with a casual flick of his wrist.
I hung, reduced to one of the Legion’s statues, whilst Rebel placed his foot on the first step. “All I want,” Rebel whispered, “is to say my goodbyes.”
“Why?” When Rahab leant forward, Rebel raised his head: this time, his expression was darkly righteous: it thrilled me with its terrible grace. It was Rahab who flinched back. “You shan’t even remember your companions…afterwards. Hangings aren’t the same as corporal punishments: spectacles as examples. Do you imagine I gain satisfaction from killing those I teach?”
“Then bastard stop this,” I hissed.
Rahab didn’t even glance at me. “Silence. Do you not think your presence a mercy? Or are you blind to all but your own suffering?”
“For the love of Christ, woman, stop grousing; I need you here with me.” Rebel cast me a troubled glance, only to be swung back to face Rahab.
“I’ve indulged you,” Rahab’s thumb stroked down Rebel’s neck. If he bastard touched the Mark… “But as my Phoenix, you’ll learn your place.”
“Cop on! My body’s not even cold yet,” Rebel snarled, wrenching himself free.
Then Rebel turned back to the platform, scaffold, and the fizzing noose. He squared his shoulders as he faced his execution.
18
The first time I’d slipped a shank between the soft skin of another kid’s ribs in Hackney, a part of me had died, just as another had arisen phoenix-like. I’d spent my life, dying and rising again, simply to survive.
Now, Rebel would truly die on this scaffold in the Bailey, whilst pale dawn awoke, and be resurrected as a Phoenix. Yet he wouldn’t be the angel I’d known: the one who’d fallen into my lap. And the hunter he’d awakened who could trust and love — who believed in fam — I trembled that she’d die too.
Rebel took a step — one — up the stairs to the platform.
My pulse fluttered in my neck, but I was still paralysed by Rahab. Tears leaked from my eyes at my bastard helplessness.
Rebel’s bare feet shuffled up onto the second step.
Two.
How could I stop time? Where was the bastard pause button?
Rahab crossed his arms, watching Rebel’s ascent to the scaffold with an assessing gaze.
Rebel didn’t even pause on the third step…three.
Where was my last-minute miracle? The posse riding in to save the innocent from being lynched?
J, he’s almost… You have to help him… Do something.
Sorry, Miss Eleganza is not at home. The Big Bad Mage is here, so unless you want him rooting around your head like it’s chockful of fabulous prizes, we’re on silent running, girl.
I don’t care. Screw the visions, world saving, and crowns. This is my bloke, and I won’t watch him die for me.
Then close your eyes because that’s the next feature.
When did you become such a bitch?
I’ve always been a bitch, and so have you. I know the choices are impossible, but they’re still yours to make.
Sugar-coating and sparkles sure are pretty and they make the world easier to swallow. But they still don’t change the truth.
Then I’ll have to step-up and kick truth’s arse.
Haven’t you learnt the Consequences Song yet? Because it’s playing now.
Rebel drifted to the noose in the centre of the platform; his eyes were dazed.
I quested through the bond: loss, anguish, and dread. Yet also lapping beneath those, as the noose lowered over Rebel’s head at a twitch of Rahab’s fingers: acceptance, calm, and peace. Because I’d lied to Rebel, and he believed that in moments he’d fly towards an eternity of light.
I bit back on the tears that threatened to choke me. Not now.
After…
I could let out the wails locked in my chest…after.
Instead, I forced myself to smile at Rebel, even as the electrified rope began to tighten. The corners of his mouth curved into a smile. Then he gave a strangled gasp, as the trapdoor sprang open beneath him and the hangman’s knot jerked shut. His feet kicked, whilst he struggled against the agony.
I’d bastard promised it wouldn’t hurt…
And that was it: the moment I broke. When I knew I couldn’t give up Rebel or let him suffer for me.
“Anything,” I pleaded. Rahab raised his eyebrow. “Punish me in any psycho way. Make me march to your fascist tune. Do anything. But not this.”
Rebel gurgled; his neck blackened. He swung back and forth more slowly, as his struggling weakened.
Rahab glanced between Rebel and me. “When we first met, I saw you, hiding behind your sunglasses. Yet you still hide. Desires mistaken for pain, lessons for punishment. You don’t even know who you are.”
“I’m yours,” I breathed, “if you let Rebel go.”
Rahab grinned, wide and feral. He clicked his fingers. “Done.”
The rope snapped. Rebel yelped as he slammed through the trapdoor.
But he was alive…
I sobbed at the relief tearing through both sides of my nature.
Yet why did I feel like I’d been outfoxed?
Rahab sauntered closer, stroking his fingers through my hair. “You don’t belong to the unnatural witch magics, which have infested you. You’re ours: The Brotherhood’s. In return for Zachriel’s life and slavery, I take your loyalty and servitude.” I stiffened: J had told me about the Consequences Song, and it was splitting my head now with death core metal. “How about I show you the Bleeding Chamber? By nightfall, you shall be in no doubt that you’re our Phoenix Queen.”
I shuddered even in my paralysis. Rebel was alive, and I quaked with joy that I’d be able to touch, kiss, and love my punk angel again. Yet I’d sacrificed myself, along with everything that I’d promised Mischief.
Instead, I’d be moulded into the Legion’s Phoenix Queen.
Gold arteries whirled from the sides of the Bleeding Chamber, which pulsed like a bronze heart, wrapping around my arms and slamming me against the wall.
Crack — my head crashed against the metal.
I groaned; my toes wriggled, dangling above the rust-stained floor. I gagged, choking on the coppery stench that mingled with a tang of sour lime; I half-expected the walls to be sticky with tequila rather than blood.
Rahab scrutinized me in full-out Blofeld mode from his metallic throne across the chamber; he even stroked his own pussy on his lap. Tiger curled awkwardly on Rahab’s knee; his humiliated gaze met mine, whilst Rahab petted his ears. He flushed, wrapping his twitching tail more closely around himself.
Yet Rebel was alive… My breath hitched. Hell, he was alive.
Still, I’d promised loyalty, not to transform into a grovelling house-elf. Rahab wanted a queen? Then he could bastard have one.
“I’m not digging the kinky coronation gear.” I swung backwards and forwards from my wrists, which were bound by the slippery pipes. “What would the Queen of England say?”
Rahab tossed his curls. “Luckily for us, Her Majesty’s not here, and you’re not yet crowned.” His fingers tightened in Tiger’s snowy-white hair; Tiger’s
back arched. “When you are, the darkness will lift, and you’ll Lazarus Rise. I wonder, did you hope I was ignorant to this abnormal Fallen’s status as Blood Lover to the leader of the Under World?” He shook Tiger.
“Why? Does the whole Cat Man look do it for you?”
To my surprise, Rahab gave a low laugh. “I believe humans call that projection. Isn’t the better question: whether the look does it for you?” I pinked, squirming in the pipes’ hold. “Because to me, appetizing or not,” he ran his thumb down Tiger’s back; Tiger stilled, tremoring, “he’s still a dirty Fallen.”
I stiffened. “Why this outing? Why here?”
Rahab leaned forward, gesturing around the lime and copper stench of the Bleeding Chamber. I gazed around at the trenches, which ran into an angel-sized turquoise bowl in the central hollow. When he pointed at the gore slicked bowl, Rahab’s shirt fell open over his creamy chest. “Everything’s about blood. This is the heart of the Brotherhood. Do you remember how it felt the moment your Blood Lover swung on that noose…?”
I swallowed, tears burning the back of my eyes. I cocooned myself in Rebel’s emotions, which were seeping through the bond: exhaustion, concern, but love too.
Please let him be safe.
“The bond of blood will break Misrule, the Under World, and worlds. Then, having used the blood of Phoenix’s son to raise my personal army of angel slaves — the weapons of my devoted Lazarus Mages — I’ll wipe the contaminated blood of the Fallen away forever.”
Tiger hissed; his steel claws sprang from his nails, raking down Rahab’s chest.
Rahab bellowed, clouting Tiger to the floor and towering over him. Scarlet oozed down Rahab’s skin, dribbling to stain the golden perfection of his trousers.
“Looks like the Fallen have drawn first blood,” I smirked.
Rahab fastidiously wiped at the scratches with the edges of his shirt, whilst Tiger watched him from a crouch. “Except this won’t be war. This’ll be an extermination.”
Suddenly, my mouth was too dry because this was vampire genocide: The reason that I’d refused to back the Legion on Angel World.
Had Rahab known Tiger had been held as the Wynter’s familiar all along? In which case, had the Mage’s Challenge been about bringing down the Under World and forcing me to become his bitch, whilst I’d thought that I’d been saving my brother?
Crack — the golden arteries rammed me into the pulsing wall again.
I yelped, then screamed, as the arteries released me into the air, hurling me over the bowl.
I flapped frantically but too late, landing with a crunch on my knees. I winced, shuffling backwards towards the vibrating wall behind me. “You have more chance of tiny warlocks whammying rainbows out of your arse.”
Rahab’s wings flared in flaming arcs. “Why do you defy me?”
“Why do you have a hard-on for dictator impersonations?”
“Hush. Does your wagging tongue never stop? Truly, I am intrigued.”
I curled my fingers along the wall. “You bought yourself a new monarch, but not my silence.”
When Rahab snatched for Tiger, I dragged Tiger — yowling — by his tail towards me, winding my arms around his waist and shooting Rahab my best challenging raised eyebrow.
Rahab only shook his head. “Long ago, I bought your brother. Except, your mother was in fact disposing of him, rather than selling. Much like my own.” Rahab pulled at his cuffs, for once fighting to hide his flare for the dramatic. But I caught it anyway: cast out, abandoned, and left to die… Why the hell had our mother done that to my brother? The shadows stirred inside me, blackening my eyes. “She considered her experiment with Phoenix, who she’d been most insistent to try out, a failure.” Only Tiger’s tongue licking my cheek, brought me down from the quivering rage: The Matriarch had forced Phoenix, just like she’d forced my dad, Lucifer, to conceive me. “She bore a boy, rather than a girl. Instead of allowing the child to be putdown, however, merely because he wasn’t a Glory…” Hell, were those tears wetting the corners of Rahab’s eyes? “I raised him here alongside my own son. Duma loves him like a brother.”
Why did both Drake and my brother get to know each other — love each other — whilst once again I was the outsider?
Was Drake’s love for my brother the only reason that Drake had ever helped me?
Yet my guts twisted sickly too because my brother had been rejected for being a boy, whilst my mum had gone on to have me as her heir. And I’d rejected her, the Crown, and the entire Angel World.
That had to be a boot to my brother’s balls.
“Maybe it’s all the time you spend in despot mode, but on Planet Sane dads don’t usually bleed out their sons. They protect them, just like sisters do.”
“You mean sacrifice for them?”
I drew in a breath. Tiger rested his chin on my shoulder, nuzzling me with his nose. “Always.”
Rahab stalked towards me. “Remarkable how alike you sound to Duma: the things he’s sacrificed for the prince...” I hungered to let out the monster raging inside and rip away Rahab’s smirk. Despite centuries of abuse, Commander Drake had fought to protect his kid army on Angel World, and now I knew he’d done the same for my brother. How could Rahab miss the worth in his own son? “Duma’s greatest use has always been as whipping boy to the prince.” Rahab spread his arms with a smile, as if I’d join in the joke. “In fact, it’s Duma who’s the slave.”
I growled, letting go of Tiger. Before I could launch myself up, however, Rahab struck the wall behind me.
A jarring screech.
I grimaced, falling back. The aroma of sour lime flooded me, more powerfully than before. The back wall parted: a spiked flower unfurling. And Drake collapsed out of its insides.
Startled, I caught Drake, lowering him to the ground. My shaky hand hovered over him. Where could I even touch…?
Almost every inch of Drake’s skin was seared with burns or purpled with bruises — courtesy of the Reformation Room. Yet even that was veiled under blood, which seeped from the holes through his chest.
I stared up, transfixed, at the chamber that Drake had been trapped inside: an iron maiden attached to the pipes, which had been wrapped around me, sucking Drake’s blood.
Bleeding him.
I guess these angels weren’t big on the whole like bastard vampires irony.
Rahab steepled his fingers. “Just helping the physical learner.”
“I am to be your whipping boy as well, am I not?” When Drake coughed, scarlet spotted his dry lips. Its aroma of frankincense wove through me, battling against the tang of lime; I drew my fingers through his curls.
Tiger peeked over my shoulder at Drake, who lifted an eyebrow at him.
I lifted Drake’s chin. “You’re fam.” I licked the blood from his lips, before gently kissing him. His brow furrowed in confusion. He shuddered with pain. “And I love my fam.”
His eyes widened in shock, even as his fingers curled into mine.
“My son’s fondness for you has ever been amusing and an embarrassment.” When Rahab’s shadow fell over us, Drake blushed, moving as if to try and stand or at least to kneel. Not happening in a month of drunken cupids. “And your use of it almost as Machiavellian as my own.” Why did Rahab have to use long words when what he meant was: devious? Except, he thought it was a compliment, and I thought it made us both the Big Bads. “Yet your fondness for my son is unexpected, since no one has ever shown such an interest in him before. Although, he’s not missed experience of a certain sort as the Matriarch’s Marked Wing.”
Way to turn up the cringe factor, and now Drake looked like he’d rather be squaring off against an army of vampires on the battleground, rather than here with his dad telling me how no one had ever loved him, but not to worry he wouldn’t know how to shag because he’d been used as a bed slave…
I kissed Drake again. “My love,” I whispered.
“First,” Rahab wound his hand in my hair, and I yelped at the burn to my scalp, �
��you’re my Phoenix Queen.”
Rahab dragged me backwards away from Drake and Tiger, flinging me into the turquoise bowl like I was a giant’s supper.
Clunk, burble, clunk…
I peered upwards at the hole in the roof, which was opening like a winking eye.
Or the spurting end of a cut artery.
My eyes widened, before crimson gushed down: lime, copper, and life. Then I was lost in my brother’s blood.
19
Yesterday, my brother’s blood had anointed me as Phoenix Queen. Today, I’d rise to the rank of Lazarus Mage by raising my own slave.
I twisted the gold angel ring on my left hand: the ring of an angelmancer.
The final test.
My eyelid twitched, but otherwise I stood motionless.
The trestle tables had been pushed back to the sides of Phoenix Hall. A plinth rose out of the centre; a golden statue of an angel perched on it like it was poised to escape. The sun caught the red in the stained-glass windows, until the phoenixes blazed, and their fire seared across my cheeks.
I breathed out, burning with the power of the Legion.
Let me walk in the Code and join the Brotherhood!
Joy sang through me, whilst the nobility of the Code wound around me: comforting and warming like I’d known it since birth.
Yet at the same time, a numbness had settled across my skin where the blood had soaked in from the Bleeding Chamber. It was a coating that blocked out everything but the truth — nope, not truth: propaganda, conditioning, brainwashing…battle to remember that — which Rahab had murmured telepathically into my mind, whilst he’d held me against his chest, rocking and petting my hair.
Why had I fought against my true father: the liberator of the Legion?
When Rahab swooped over my head, circling eagle-like, I smiled.
He’d set me free.
A nagging awareness that I’d forgotten something…someone…prickled the base of my neck, as if fam who weren’t Brothers could matter. Feelings floated just out of my grasp, brushing against me, until I flinched at their disapproval: unease, disgust, and rage. Like resurrecting your own slave wasn’t a glorious gift from Rahab, as well as the ultimate celebration for finally becoming a mage.
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