“Dry up! Don’t ever talk about my Da.” Rebel’s eyes sparked. “He was hardly more than a babby—”
“He was a male witch.” When Sibyl scowled down at Mischief, who was defenseless on the floor, I swallowed, holding back the howl to not touch him…because the more the Wynter’s knew that I cared, the more they’d hurt him. “A mage, misfit, and monster…” She spun to me, pulling her fur coat more firmly around her shoulders. “Just like our latest acquisition in our collection of the bizarre: our monstrous zoo.” I flinched. “What strange sensitivity. You are a monster, are you not?”
I smirked. “You’d better believe it, wicked witch of the buttugly.”
What had she said about hurt feelings…?
Sibyl’s eyes flashed with silver lightning; it streaked through her hair, crackling in electric waves. She rose up, levitating off the floor. Her mask of youth dropped away, until all that was left was an ancient power. I quaked, chained before it.
Elinor slunk behind Rebel, glaring at me as she slid her hand down his bare arm.
“I need not be kind.” Sibyl’s soft voice had deepened, sizzling with power. Hell, that had been her being kind? “Shall I show you the second path?”
I rolled my eyes. “Don’t bother with the demonstration. I’m not a visual learner…”
Rebel hollered.
Where Elinor had rubbed over his arm, scarlet glowing words had risen up out of the skin, as if they’d always been there: BAD ANGELS ARE PUNISHED.
Rebel whimpered, sweating like the words were burning him. When he gritted his teeth, Sibyl tssked. “Say it.”
Rebel shook his head.
The words glowed brighter, and Rebel wailed.
“I told you enough heroics,” Ash barked. “Say what they want. It doesn’t change you. They can’t—”
“They can,” Rebel whispered. “They have.”
How did they both know what was going on? Had those words always been carved there?
Bad angels are punished: it’d always been Rebel’s mantra, or maybe one that his adopted witch family had forced on him.
The words throbbed again. At last, Rebel screamed, “Bad angels are punished.”
Finally, the words bled back into his forearm. Rebel stared down at the ground, avoiding my gaze. His shame booted me in the gut through the bond.
Sibyl glided closer, stroking over Rebel’s arm where the words had been. “My, you don’t remember your daily lessons, pudding candy? So sad. I shall have to increase it to hourly until you do. Am I still talking shite?”
When Rebel shook his head, she gripped him by the base of his neck, and his eyes widened.
“The game is to answer with words,” Sibyl ordered, “and we call our kind new adopted mama: Mama Wynter.”
Rebel bit his lip. “Yes, Mama Wynter.”
Rebel couldn’t have hidden that daily ritual from me, could he? Made to recite his shame…badness…every day to take away the pain? To see it carved in his own flesh?
Yet I’d heard him say it — mutter it — and I’d merely thought…
Rebel had been tortured every day, and I hadn’t seen it: I couldn’t stop it. I struggled not to let the burning tears fall.
“Sparkles, levitating, and schoolboy lines,” Ash rolled his eyes. “I’ve been Lucifer’s personal whipping boy, so let’s just say that you gave this whole Evil Dead thing your best shot, and we’ll be on our way.”
“What happened to Rule Number Three?” I demanded.
Ash shrugged. “Who says Rebel should hog all the glory?”
Sibyl floated to Ash, whilst Elinor couched over him, clasping her arms around his shoulders and sucking purple bruises along his neck.
“Charming that a Seducer can still imagine glory for himself: how self-deceiving.” When Sibyl scrutinized Ash, a storm built around her; the static spat and jumped. “The apprentice that you deceived to free you, wailed your name, whilst we burned her. Do you think that she truly believed you loved her?” Ash blanched. “One more added to your list of sacrifices, dark Brigadier.” She bent down, sniffing him, just as her sister snuffled along his throat. “Death. I haven’t supped on such darkness for centuries. You shall make the fiercest familiar, Pet 52. Although…”
The lightning died, and Sibyl landed back on the floor.
Clap — at the clap of her hands, a fluffy white cat with sapphire eyes fell through the ceiling and into her arms.
Sibyl cradled the cat like a baby. “Pet 19, sweetums,” she cooed. The cat lay unnaturally still like it’d been trained. I was no cat expert, but surely even their tails twitched. Then its gaze met mine, and I realized that it was a familiar. And it was bastard terrified. “I’ve always liked the idea of my sister owning a black cat. You’ll be as pretty as Pet 19.”
Elinor nodded eagerly, winding around Ash to lie her head in his lap like she was the cat.
Ash’s expression darkened, until I thought he’d spit lightning. The way his gaze lingered — anxious and guilty on Pet 19 — yeah, he knew the furball. “Sorry, but kinky pet play just doesn’t do it for me.”
“Silly, Pet 52.” Sibyl dropped Pet 19 at her feet, before running her nails through Ash’s hair, scraping his scalp. “What does it for you no longer matters.”
“That’s where we have what I call a conflict, bitches.” I waggled my hands in their shackles.
Sibyl barely even glanced at me. “Then maybe you shouldn’t watch…? Pet 52 had such awkward notions of control, the first time that he delighted us with his rebellious presence. Do you know how to curb a defiant child?”
“Chocolate and computer games…?”
“Tough love. You take away what’s precious to them.” Sibyl tilted her head in thought. “Lamechial so hates to have his words stilled. But you…? I believe that you fear the loss of sight.”
I stared at her. Was she threatening to pluck out my eyes again? Yet she hadn’t moved towards me…
Instead, there was a sudden pressure on the back of my eyeballs. I whined, whilst my breath hitched; black pressed down.
“Please, I’ll obey,” Ash urged, low and intense. “I’ll do your tricks, perform for you, and become your kitty. Just don’t do the same to Violet as you did to me.”
Pop — the pressure burst like a bubble, and I hollered.
And everything became black.
I blinked desperately, but my vision didn’t clear. My eyes were open, but I couldn’t see.
How couldn’t I bastard see…?
“I stole Pet 52’s sight for two weeks to train him,” Sibyl’s voice sliced across the dark with a smug slyness. “By the end, he was a broken doll, rocking and weeping. Not much of a soldier. You know, maybe I should change him into a mouse, rather than a cat. Pet 19 could hunt him. What splendid games we could have!”
I growled, but it echoed too loudly in my head, like my breathing, pulse, and the clinking of the chains above my head.
When cold lips explored my neck, inhaling deeply along my skin, and a hand grabbed my hair, wrenching my head to the side to give them better access, I startled. Lost in the dark, everything was more intense: every caress and blow. Only by the cranberry scent did I know that it was the sisters.
Then Sibyl whispered into my ear, “Little monsters shouldn’t wander uninvited into a witch’s house. Not unless they want to be played with.”
Tears pricked my eyes. How could I battle these ancient spell casters, when I’d been blinded?
16
Black, black, black…
I gasped, blinking rapidly, but it didn’t clear the night pressing on my eyes.
Chained in Honesty Tower, how many hours had passed since my sight had been stolen?
The backs of my wrists itched, as if the dried blood was burrowing its way back in, I could taste sickeningly rich berries, and I choked on my own saliva.
Too much, make it stop, make it—
Are you asking, girl?
J…?
Do you know any other fabulous bitches
who’ve raised you and taught you to hold your own against the world’s freaks and floozies?
They’re the Head Coven. No one’s ever—
You’re not no one: you’re the Bitch of Utopia.
If you hadn’t shied like a shy virgin from the magic gift that the Fae Underserving gave you, then you wouldn’t be the one hanging in darkness.
Instead, you’d be the Queen of Chaos and Shadows.
The Silver Queen.
My magic curled at the name, stroking me in reassurance. I sighed, brought down from my panic by J. For the first time, the silver didn’t feel alien but part of me, twining with the shadows.
But then, I started at the sound of footsteps and a gasp.
“And there I was feeling quite left out.” Mischief: raspy and low.
I grinned, flooded with such joy that I forgot I couldn’t see and blinked hard, as if that would clear my vision and I’d see Mischief: alive and punking the spell casters.
Wait, punking the spell casters…? What was it with my family and heroics?
“Let’s call it an epic fail on following your rules, Brigadier.” I booted the wall.
“Don’t worry, monster, we shall help you learn to love rules. And you, prickly but pretty mage…? We brand male witches with the letter of our house,” Sibyl’s taunting voice dripped with sadistic pleasure.
“You wouldn’t dare…” Mischief whispered. “T-that’s sacrilege…to inflict on a magic user… Your own magic would cry out to denounce you. B-better to take my h-hands or my head…”
My heart ached at Mischief’s tears. I’d never heard such devastation: he’d been broken at a threat.
Sacrilege?
What the hell were the bitches going to do to him? Brand him?
“The pretty prickly one is mine,” I growled, “and he’s not into branding or any other type of witchy freakery.”
“How rude of us to allow you round to play, then stop you watching the fun.” I jumped at the soft stroke to my cheek. Sibyl’s lips mouthed against mine. “So, watch.”
There was a sudden pressure on the back of my eyeballs; gray bled into the black.
Pop — when the pressure burst, I whined.
Light streamed in an agonizing burst. I screwed closed my eyes, panting. At last, I cautiously opened them again, as the lights haloed.
Rebel and Ash, paler than before, studied me anxiously. Mischief, still tied facedown on the floor, writhed — not asleep, poisoned, or dead. He was horror-struck, however, as Elinor straddled his back, pulling aside his hair to reveal the base of his neck.
Sibyl’s porcelain doll face smirked, close to mine; I craved to shatter it. “My busy, busy brain has been pondering all night, why do you fight on the side of nasty mages?” She tilted her head like she truly wanted an answer. “Hide as you like behind your childish insults, but we’re not the wicked witches, or haven’t you worked that out yet?” Her tongue darted to wet her lips, lizard-like. “We battle vampires, save Addict angels from themselves, and fight mages who resurrect angels from the dead. Now then, who sounds evil? Maybe it’s you who’s on the wrong side?”
“There’s nothing as simple as sides.” I met her intent stare. “Or evil.” I smiled at Rebel, softly. “There’s only righteousness, and you, bitch…? You’re not righteous.”
And that’s how to shatter a mask.
Sibyl’s eyes lightning flashed. She snarled, backing towards Mischief. Only then did I notice the small silver wand in her hand, which was topped with a white-hot brand: M in coiled snakes.
“Men possessing magic is unnatural.” Sibyl crouched over Mischief. When he tried to pull away, Elinor held him tighter. “M for male, mage, misfit, monster… I’ll lock away your magic, pretty, where you’ll never harm a witch or use your perverted powers again.”
The brand sizzled as it pressed into Mischief’s flesh, flashing silver. Mischief howled, drumming his legs — thump, thump, thump — on the floor.
At last, the brand was lifted, although the flesh beneath throbbed red and blistered. Elinor slid off Mischief, carding her fingers through his hair, whilst he sobbed.
Sibyl knelt over him, running her thumb through his tears. “Hurts, doesn’t it? Your magic there but…out of reach.” Mischief whimpered, convulsing. “Only if you’re a truly good boy will you ever play with it again.” She smiled, coldly cruel. “Maybe we’ll never let you out of your magical chastity.” Mischief quivered, torn apart between two witches. Elinor licked down his ear. “Maybe we enjoy you frustrated.”
It was a sacrilege, which one magic user should never do to another. I got it now: the darkness of their binding. Ripping away part of your soul, no different to taking someone’s mind or memories because the magic was Mischief. He hadn’t learned to access it, like me. Instead, like Rahab, Mischief had known the truth of his magic from the moment that he was born, and now suddenly it’d been torn from him.
He’d been blinded. Except, his mental powers made him who he was. And the witches wanted to punish him for that…?
The slivers of Mischief’s magic, which he’d transferred inside me, howled at the assault on their kin; they rose in fury, surging through me, until I trembled, breathless. They whipped the shadows and violet fire into an equal rage: I was the Queen of Chaos and Shadows.
I was the Silver Queen.
With a roar, I snapped the cuffs that shackled me.
The Wynter sisters’ looks of surprise that their caged zoo exhibit had broken free would’ve been comical, except my shadows had already reached out and caught Elinor, pinning her against the waves of clothes and smothering her, until there was nothing left but a tarred witch.
Then Sibyl’s expression flickered between fear, grief, and rage.
High on the silver, whilst the shadows whispered revenge on the sacrilege, Sibyl looked tiny. A doll. Even as she crackled with fire, I merely grasped her by the throat.
Sibyl choked, as I rammed her against the wall. Her youth withered, and she became as ugly as Rebel had said.
Sibyl wheezed, shoving at me with wizened hands. “There are sides, monstrous child.” Her cracked lips burned; her words sounded as ancient as a prophecy. “Magic frees us to rise or Fall. The mages have those confused, as do you.”
Shivers trembled down my spine, but I tightened my hand around her throat. “We voted for a burning.” Silver flames flickered from my lips. “I don’t let down my fam.”
A bolt burst from me in roiling waves, which was followed by a shriek and the stink of roasted witch.
I staggered backwards, staring down at the pile of ash. The silver inside me lapped in satisfied swells. The shadows quietened, as both sides of my natures bellowed in victory.
Yet when I turned back to my family, I flushed, expecting them to cower back like they had when I’d gone nuclear at the Pure fanatics in Hackney.
Instead, my blokes were grinning at me, as if they’d been watching the most epic Game of Thrones finale.
“That was brilliant!” Rebel glanced at Ash. “Do you think that counts as heroics?”
“It counts as hot.” Ash waggled his eyebrows.
“Perhaps once you’ve finished performing your victory dance, you could untie us?” Mischief’s voice was hoarse, but his eyes still twinkled.
I knelt next to Mischief, pushing his hair back on his forehead. “What about your magic?”
He flinched. “The infernal brand will always be with me, but the witches’ deaths have freed my magic.” He met my gaze, levelly. “I may not kneel for you, but you have my eternal gratitude for unbinding me. For a magic user that means I’m coupled to you in ancient customs, which are stronger than any oath. In every way, I am yours, queen.”
I stared at him, shaking at his intensity and the way that my silver reached to his, stroking and intimate.
Yours…
When had Mischief called me queen? It hadn’t felt as if he’d been calling me his queen but acknowledging that I was worthy of the title. And why should that ma
tter so much that my eyes burned with tears?
At last, Mischief knocked his forehead gently against mine. “Come now, let us return to trading insults and blows or we’ll spook your faithful lovers. Do you imagine these chains will fall from us by fairy wishes?”
I smirked. “You’re rusty. You’ll have to up your Snark-O-Meter.”
His eyes glinted. “I do so love a challenge.”
Suddenly, a moan echoed from the far side of the tower, and a wave of clothes undulated. There was something large burrowing underneath them and peeking out at us with sapphire eyes.
Still flaring with silver, I stormed past the tarred witch, throwing Rebel’s leather jacket and pants off the cowering head of…a vampire.
Nope, not a vampire, unless I’d been slurping on the crazy juice. Because the creature who was cowering…naked…in the clothes and gazing up at me in blinking innocence, had soft cat ears poking out of his shaggy white hair, as well as a fluffy tail.
“How flexible were you on the whole pet play?” Mischief smirked at Ash.
“I’m sure I can work another branding,” Ash’s eyes narrowed. “How are you with leashes?”
“What? He’s adorable. Can we keep him?” Mischief’s gaze darted to mine.
The silver faded away, soothed by Mischief’s gossamer soft strands, which sang calm and safe. I sat cross-legged in front of the Cat Vampire; he shied away, curling his tail around himself to shield his modesty.
“I’m not adorable,” the Cat Vampire hissed, “I’m Tiger.” He nuzzled his chin against the studs in Rebel’s jacket, scenting them. He peeked at Mischief. “And I’m not the one with sparkly hair, angel.”
Mischief arched a brow. “Meow, the cat has claws. I hope he knows that I scratch back?”
“Dry up, muppet.” Rebel’s gaze was serious. “Do you think that Pet 19 needs your blathering? The Head Coven is dead, now for the first time the familiars are free or…the Halfings are…”
Rebel Angels: The Complete Series Page 91
