by Emma Mills
‘That’s going to go down well,’ I said, thinking of Mac and his gang.
‘Lastly, after much consultation, we as a whole have decided on two immediate actions… Actions that will help gain your trust and set our path for the future. The first is to remove the immediate threat to our seedling society. On your behalf we have incarcerated the remaining members of the old Supernatural Council. We will yet decide their fate but they will not be allowed to return in any shape or form to the Council’s administration. We have also decided to strengthen our original law on half-breeds.’
Daniel’s eyes flicked to mine.
‘Currently it is illegal to consciously make a half-breed species… for example, turning a human-born witch into a vampire. Their combined powers are too strong for even angels to control. Can you imagine a creature with a vampire’s strength, reflexes, hunger and immortality, who also has the ability to fly in the ley lines, mix spells and chant lethal spells?’
She paused and no-one in our cell-block moved.
‘In the past there has been the odd error, what initially may have appeared to be an honest mistake, but we have now decided that we need to make a stand. Any surviving half-breeds will be executed for the good of the planet. Any species found to have created a half-breed will also be executed, and any creatures found to be harbouring or befriending these criminals will be dealt the same punishment.’
My cold skin suddenly flushed and I felt sick. They were going to kill me, and probably Daniel too. Did they mean Brittany, Eva and Luke as well? My legs began to shake and I allowed myself to slide down the stone wall until I was sitting on the floor.
‘Jess, look at me,’ Daniel said quietly.
I tipped my face upwards so I could see him through the bars.
‘Jess, in order to execute us they have to take us out of the cells. We won’t go down without a fight, I promise you. I’ll fight for you. They will not win,’ he said.
‘Luke, where is Caoimhe?’ Adaryn said quietly. ‘She said she would return… all we need is one of our keys… just one.’
Luke was sitting on the floor of his cell staring at me. He shook his head.
‘How do I know,’ he said.
‘If only you’d found Brooke,’ Eva said.
I looked across at Brittany and quickly shook my head, just enough for her to notice.
‘Well we didn’t,’ I said.
Daniel stared at me through the side bars. He had no doubt caught my head movement. His gaze searched mine. I bit my lip and smiled, but I knew it didn’t reach my eyes.
Seth and the others wanted to plan all through the night. I didn’t see the point. They were hardly going to open the cell doors all at the same time. Hell, they’d probably take us one by one and execute us alone in the underground execution room, where we would have no access to magic. I retreated to the rear of my cell and lay down facing the bars, reaching my arm all the way through into Daniel’s cell. He held my hand as I fell into an uneasy sleep.
We were left for two days and nobody came. Adaryn and Brittany had found tall steel jugs of water in the corner of their cells and a stale loaf of bread, but we had nothing. Luckily I had fed twice in Malden, once with Mac and once again before we left. Seth too said he had fed recently, but Daniel became paler and older looking with every passing day. His eyes lost their sparkle. I begged him to feed from me, but he refused. Eva talked incessantly all of the first night, but then she too saved her energy.
‘Maybe they are just going to bore us to death,’ Brittany said, on the third morning.
‘I don’t think so,’ Adaryn said. ‘We have both finished the last of our bread this morning and my water has almost gone. They’ll come for us today.’
And they did.
They entered Eva’s cell first, two angels pointing their luminescent swords at her heart. Her wrists were bound with silver cufflinks that made her wince as the metal burned into her skin.
‘Hey! Those aren’t vampire authorised cufflinks,’ I shouted.
One of the angels turned to face me, a sneer on his face.
‘So! What are you going to do about it, half-breed?’
‘I’m going to rip you to shreds when I get out of here, that’s what,’ I said.
‘Jess, just leave it,’ Eva said, her face pale.
They came for Daniel thirty minutes later. He refused to stand for them, refused to let go of my hand, so they entered his cell and threatened to slice his arm off instead.
‘I love you, Jessie, and I know you worry, but I don’t regret a single minute I spent with you. I only regret the precious, stupid days we spent apart,’ he said.
I bit my lip hard, feeling my fang pierce through the skin. I wouldn’t cry. I wouldn’t give the angels the pleasure. I nodded instead, desperately trying to swallow my tears so I could speak before he was dragged away.
‘Daniel,’ I croaked finally. ‘You are my world, my light. They can’t take that, no one can.’
Once the door clanged shut I fell to the floor, my strength gone. I would not fight. It was exactly as I had suspected. One by one… alone! There were only ever opportunities to escape in the movies. I mean, really, if a homicidal serial killer appeared in your house would you really run upstairs or would you run out of the nearest ground level door? The same rules applied here. In a movie we would all have been escorted upstairs, outside to some elevated stage surrounded by the public, where we would have the space to have a massive battle, cast spells and fight for our lives… but in real life would an evil, power-hungry angel do that? No, she wouldn’t take the risk. She would keep us down in the cellars where we had no magic, and then they would take us out of the cells one by one. There would be no escape.
Brittany and I were in line next but the guards walked straight past us and took Seth next. He stood tall and offered his hands out for the cufflinks before they asked.
‘Jess, stay strong,’ he said quietly as he passed my cell.
I nodded and watched him leave.
‘We should bet on who they take next,’ Luke said, from the next cell down. ‘They’ve taken all the vampires… but not you, Jess. I reckon they’ll leave you till last.’
‘What’s your problem?’ Brittany yelled. ‘Imagine how she’s feeling, Luke. They’ve taken Daniel and god knows what’s happened to him…’
‘I know exactly how she feels,’ Luke said quietly. ‘What do you think has happened to Caoimhe?’
‘I don’t know, but as you said she did a damn good job of making them think she was on their side. Maybe she is on their side, Luke!’
‘Shhh, both of you! This isn’t helping any of us,’ Adaryn said. ‘And in any case, it’s me they’ll come for next. You girls need to know that if they do take you upstairs at any point, you will be able to ground exactly five steps away from the cellar doors. I don’t know what your chance will be if you’ve got a great hulking sword pointing at your back but try anything… and I mean anything! Desperate times and all!’
So I wasn’t the only one that would use dark magic to survive. I smiled at that.
‘You don’t need to tell me how to survive,’ Brittany said. ‘I’m a born survivor.’
‘Oh please, like we’ll get any chance,’ Luke said.
I was inclined to agree with him, but I kept my mouth shut and the door opened once more. This time four angels entered the room. They unlocked Luke’s cell and dragged him from his cell.
‘Hey boys, come on! You know me… we trained together… What are you doing? What have I done wrong?’ he begged, eyes wide as panic began to set in.
‘Luke… Luke!’ I called, distracting him. ‘Remember what you told me when my dad died?’
Luke paused and looked at me, the tension on his face melting away.
‘You said he’d be fine. He was a good man… well, you are too.’
He smiled and nodded, thrusting his shoulders back and followed the angels out of the room.
‘Just us now, girls,’ Adaryn said. ‘L
et’s ground our energy.’
‘But we can’t,’ I said.
‘We can’t connect with the energy outside and we can’t cast spells, but we can meditate and find every last drop of energy within our bodies. We can prepare in case we are given a chance,’ she said. ‘Come now, you’ve said your goodbyes. Let’s remember who we are.’
I looked at Brittany in the cell opposite me. She already sat cross-legged on the floor. She grinned at me.
‘Let’s do this,’ she said.
I smiled and sat down.
‘Now girls, close your eyes and I want you to spend the next twenty minutes finding every bit of excess energy in your bodies. Zone in on it and imagine it to be tiny little zippy balls of green light, zapping around your body, energising you. Allow some to carry on travelling round your body but slow them down, let them visit every knotted muscle, every tendon. Turn them into energy magnets and collect all those little extra ones. Store them somewhere where you can unleash them, the moment you get the chance.’
Adaryn was the next to go and a mere fifteen minutes later they dragged Brittany, kicking and biting, out of her cell. I grinned as she managed to elbow one guard in the eye socket. He swore as his mate managed to swing her round and clamp the handcuffs on her wrists.
‘I’m going to teach her a lesson, stupid witch,’ he said.
‘No you’re not,’ the other guard said. ‘We have to deliver them unharmed. We are their superiors. Don’t fall to their level.’
They dragged her away. She turned and saluted me. I smiled and mouthed, I love you, to her. She gave me a last wink and was gone. I was alone.
It was a full half hour before they came for me. I guess Brittany had a lot of grievances to be sentenced for, so no wonder they had left me till last, but instead of the guard arriving it was Ariel herself who appeared in the hallway.
‘Hello Jessica,’ she said, playing with a golden locket she twisted around the fingers of her left hand.
‘I thought I would bring you this. He said it would bring you comfort and I thought about how unfortunate it was that we couldn’t work out a way to use your talents… how regrettable that you so despised working for us…’
‘Is this what all this is about?’ I asked. ‘You are miffed that I wanted to leave… that I found working for you so incredibly boring?’
Ariel rolled her eyes at my pathetic display of rebellion.
‘Still such a child, Jessica, but no, that is not why, it was just helpful when I needed reasons to persuade other members of the guard of your uselessness. I always wanted you dead,’ she added, her eyes cold. ‘Here, I don’t know why I brought it really.’
She handed the locket through the bars and I knew I could either take it or risk a quick right hook with my other hand. I might just get it through the bars and into her face before she could move out of range, but I couldn’t resist the lure of the necklace.
‘Have you killed him then?’ I asked, taking the locket and tilting my chin towards her.
The locket burned against my skin, but I refused to look at it, instead looking her directly in the eye.
‘Would he give up the locket if he wasn’t dead?’ she asked, turning on her heel and striding from the room.
I sank to the floor and opened my palm. The locket was his mother’s, given to him when he left home for the front in World War One. He had ripped the photos of his mother and fiancée out as soon as Eva had ordered him to. It was part of how he turned his back on his old life and forged a new one, but he had always refused to give up the locket. For the last nine years it had held a photo of me in one side and a locket of my hair in the other. It carried memories… memories of me lying naked in his arms, my hand stroking his chest, fiddling with the locket as I day-dreamed. A tear slid down my cheek and I hastily wiped it away as the door was unlocked for the last time that day.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
They had sent four angels to escort me, but they need not have done. I could feel all the energy Adaryn had told me to find singing in my body. I felt alive and yet I had never felt so dead in all my life. If I had the chance to run now, would I? My aunt would take me in, but I would never go to her, as their house would be the first place the Council would look. Instead I held out my wrists for the silver cuffs, biting my lip to stop myself wincing as the silver burned my skin, and followed them out of the cell.
We turned into the corridor with the stairs to the ground floor and I glanced at them as we passed by. I was pushed through another wooden doorway, each one being locked behind us. No chances were being taken. I was being kept downstairs. The room I entered was a large underground cellar, easily spanning the main section of the house. It was lit with electric wall lights, almost bare except for a single row of wooden seating, a long desk for council elders and a podium for the accused. Pushed to one side was a large metal cage, presumably for the more unruly prisoners. I wondered if Brittany had been put in it.
Angels lined the walls. There were almost too many to count. It seemed everyone had turned up to witness my sentencing… or maybe it was the execution they were waiting for because, as I had witnessed in York, the punishment would likely take place in the same room. Ariel sat at the desk flanked by two male angels, neither of whom were Balthazar. Even if he hadn’t been sick, rumour had it that Balthazar never liked executions and always stayed away. It seemed he was the only one with that opinion.
I scoured the walls for Caoimhe or Leo but could see neither. There were simply too many angels to see everyone clearly. Many hung back in the shadows, their green hoods raised, faces bent in piety. I scowled at them, hating them more than the ones who dared to look me in the eye. I was pushed up onto the podium and chained to a silver bar that ran around it.
‘Jessica James, we have brought you here today to face charges relating to your illegal witch blood. We believe that you no longer have the faculties to control the warring abilities in your body. The vampire DNA has slowly overpowered your white witch bloodline and forced you into succumbing to the lure of dark magic.’
I rolled my eyes. What an excuse!
‘Do you have anything to say in defence of your actions?’ Ariel asked.
‘Why? Would it matter?’ I asked. ‘Would it matter if I suggested to you that if the Council had done its job and turned up at Exodus… helped to protect Sebastian, who was the best vampire boss you could have ever have wished for regarding human welfare…’ I paused and centred myself. ‘If you had helped to protect Exodus, and If I hadn’t been desperately trying to avoid flame throwers, stakes and shotguns, then I am pretty damn sure I would have restrained myself and not used any dark magic… As it was I had to choose between their lives and my life, and I chose mine.’
Ariel nodded and smiled.
‘You always have an excuse Jessica, don’t you? Well I’m afraid the verdict is not going to swing your way this time. There is no one here to save the day. If you’d brought me Brooke that first night maybe we could have done something… but beyond forty-eight hours and you just have to work with what you’ve got, and we’ve got a whole new world. You are going to be our sacrifice. So unlike the others you can at least die with your head held high. There is a point to your death, Jessica. You will be used to show the humans that we put their lives before our own… and to the other species out there, your death and that of your friends will show them that we ultimately have the power. We will make the rules now.’
I blinked and looked sharply behind her. I was sure I heard a growl.
‘Let’s get this over,’ she added, as the executioner stepped forward.
I shook my head a little, and focused my eyes across the room, but there was nothing to see other than more angels. One seemed familiar. He had his hood up, covering his dirty blonde hair and his blue eyes stared straight at me. He winked and as he did the flash of a blue sword sliced through the air by my side. The executioner was lifting the sword. This was it. I closed my eyes and squeezed the locket tight.
&nb
sp; ‘Stop!’
I opened my eyes and my mouth dropped open. Ariel swivelled round in her seat and Sebastian strode out of the gloom, dressed head to foot in angel uniform, his chocolate eyes masked with crystal blue contacts.
‘Kill her!’ Ariel shrieked. ‘And then kill him!’
The blade swung, slicing through the air. I tried to move, but was chained tight. I ducked instead and was knocked backwards by a woman with long grey hair. Appearing out of nowhere and landing almost on my lap she stood defiantly, almost leaning into the sword as it struck home.
‘No-o!’ Ariel yelled in fury and frustration as Brooke crumpled to the floor, blood pooling all around me.
The executioner stumbled backwards, staring at the dead woman at his feet. I looked at Brooke who had aged at least fifteen years since I had last seen her and felt my body begin to shake.
‘Kill her! Somebody kill her, for God’s sake!’ Ariel screamed, as a group of angels unsheathed their swords and Sebastian leapt across the floor towards me.
‘How? It is you, isn’t it? But I don’t…’
‘Shhh,’ he said. ‘Let’s get you out of here.
Ariel’s screams were suddenly cut off and I looked up in time to see the blonde angel rip off his cloak, along with the five angels next to him. They transformed before my eyes and shook out their shaggy coats. The room had suddenly become a much more dangerous place. Mac howled and pounced, his pack following his lead.
‘What the hell?’ Sebastian roared, jumping up. ‘I thought I smelled dog! I thought I was losing my mind. What do they want?’ He tensed ready for a fight.
‘It’s Mac. I met him in Malden. I think he’s here to save me,’ I said.
‘What is it with you? Haven’t I told you, vampires don’t get on with Weres,’ he said with a smile, as he ripped my chains out of the wood.
We stood up and took in the scene unfolding around us. Angels were leaping out of the shadows to fight the Weres and Ariel was standing in the middle of the room shrieking orders as Mac advanced towards her.
