The COMPLETE Witching Pen Series, Boxed Set: The Witching Pen, The Sands Of Time, The Demon Bride, The Last Dragon and Wilted

by Dianna Hardy

  Too fast for him to see, the angel had disappeared, only to reappear facing him and holding said sword extended from his body, its deadly tip millimetres away from his throat. “Teach me, will you, Lucifer?”

  He fought to regain his composure. “My mistake.”

  “It certainly is. Not your first.”

  “Meaning?”

  The angel smiled a smile that was devoid of all warmth, yet a faint golden glow began to radiate from his body. He was either taking great pleasure at holding the sword to his throat, or preparing to lob his bloody head off. “Tell me, when you betrayed God, did you later laugh behind his back as you took angel after angel with you?”

  Lucifer glanced at the blade of the sword warily.

  “Is it a hard question to answer with this weapon by your throat? I hear this sword never misses its mark; that it cuts more cleanly than any other. Not immune to a beheading, are you? You know, I believe some humans throughout history have a tendency to behead those that mutiny.”

  “And yet,” he gulped, “they are still not as vicious as some Gods.”

  That earned him a laugh.

  The blade pressed into his throat, drawing blood, and Lucifer wasted not a moment longer. He threw himself backwards, summoning the one ability he had that no other angel had – the one aspect of himself he hated above all others, because it reminded him of how weak he had been when he’d fallen. How he had fought to re-find himself since that day, finally realising neverlasting moments of sanctuary within the pip of an apple – the seed of all things…

  He transformed into a snake.

  The moment his muscled body hit the ground he sped away on his belly, the early darkness and the cover of the grass his only allies, as they had been that first day of his ‘betrayal’: his penance for crossing The Boundary.

  He knew that scent now. Being in this humiliating form he thought he’d conquered, for the first time in millennia, he could taste the smells of the earth and the air tenfold.

  He heard Karl laugh louder behind him. “Disgraced, Lucifer! That’s all you’ll ever be… Disgraced.”

  ~*~

  “My Lord!” called Michael, striding into the belly of the cavern he had made theirs. “It’s time to leave. I got word this morning while I was out hunting: the Malattal have all disbanded now. They have done so to spread their final prophecies. Demon tribes are disappearing. They’re saying the apocalypse is…”

  What the hell…?

  The clothes adorned by God lay in the centre of a cluster of rocks where he slept, God himself, nowhere in sight. He never left this cave – never.

  “My Lord?”

  No reply. Nothing sounded. Nothing stirred.

  Michael approached the clothes, wishing the deep sense of betrayal which had taken root in his gut wasn’t there … and he was angry. It was like no anger he’d ever felt. After all he had done, after everything he had sacrificed…

  A fading, golden glow surrounded the pile of cotton and leather on the ground. God didn’t glow – only angels glowed, and all angels had their own signature.

  He picked up an item – trousers – brought it up to his face and sniffed. It was a trail.

  His eyes widened as understanding seeped into his mind. No, it wasn’t an understanding – it was a fucking catastrophic epiphany.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Elena awoke to candle light, and the sound of a blade being sharpened.

  She froze, keeping as still as possible, unsure of her surroundings or why she was here.

  She braved a glance down and noted that her skin was almost back to normal – human once more; no grey, no cracks – and that’s when the events of the night flooded her system.

  Oh … my…

  She couldn’t even bring herself to finish the thought, instead struggling to block out the vile images of what she’d done.

  A twisted, sick feeling punched its way through her, starting from her sacral – that same place her sexual hunger originated from. The same place that had demanded fulfilment when she’d…

  “Urrrgh…” It was half a retch and half a sob, disgust taking hold of her.

  The sound of the rubbing metal ceased. “There’s a bucket by the bed on the right hand side – try not to miss, ‘kay?”

  She threw her covers off, scrambled for it, grabbed both sides of the rim, shoved her head in and puked.

  The bed behind her sank and soft hands pulled her hair away from her face as she emptied everything inside her. “You have such pretty hair. It’s so thick and wild.”

  “Oh … shit…” Her blubbering, wrecked voice echoed back at her from the bucket. “What I did … what did I—”

  She heaved again, this time throwing up nothing, her stomach already emptied.

  Katarra rubbed her back, hands directly on her skin.

  Am I naked?

  It should have been a mute point after the atrocity she’d committed, but she reached down for the covers anyway and brought them back up to hide herself.

  “Here.” A tissue was shoved in her face.

  She lifted herself away from the bucket, took it and wiped her mouth. “Thanks.”

  “I’ve got a shower you can use. Water’s only lukewarm though, and I can’t promise anything’s clean.”

  For the first time, Elena looked around at where she was. It was a tiny bedsit – barely that – stains on the walls and carpets, damp and mould in the corners of places… “You live here?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. It’s just a stopping point. And the Hilton was fully booked.”

  She stared at Katarra. The Brujii queen made a joke?

  Sure enough, the corner of her mouth tilted, albeit tentatively. More than that, she looked as uncared for as this accommodation. Her red hair was unkempt, a couple of smudges of dirt decorated her right cheek, and her clothes were … wow. Not at all the exquisite design she would expect to see her in.

  She must have noticed Elena taking in her appearance, because she lost her smile and looked away. “Our little safe haven in the Amazon disappeared as soon as the Bleeding took place. I’ve housed my tribe in pockets of Wiltshire for the moment, so they can feed on the magic there – some of the stone circles down that way are really active, although nothing like the heart of the Brazilian rainforest. Anyway … I came here to find you.”

  “Good job you did,” she whispered. Her stomach quivered again, the queasiness threatening to take hold once more. “I can’t believe … I was in a state.”

  “You were hungry.”

  “What I did…”

  “You did what a hungry succubus would do. Don’t beat yourself up over it.”

  “Are you kidding? How can I not? I … Jesus Christ,” her vision blurred, “I…” Fuck – she couldn’t say it. She couldn’t say the word.

  Katarra didn’t seem to have the same problem. “Raped a guy?”

  Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck… She shuddered and reached for the bucket again, although she couldn’t manage to do anything but lean on it for support.

  “Have you forgotten where that fuckwad was before that happened? Between your legs, and not by invitation.”

  “I had no right—”

  “He had no right.”

  “Two wrongs don’t make a—”

  “You were hungry! Every demon who’s hungry feeds. Fallen angels and vampires drain blood; succubi drain sexual energy. That idiot presented himself to you on a great big silver platter when you were hanging from your last thread.”

  “I should have been able to control it.”

  Katarra laughed. “Honey, trying to control a hungry succubus is like trying to control a cyclone. You can’t. Even the Wicked Witch of the West or East or wherever couldn’t control the cyclone, remember?”

  She looked up at the Brujii in disbelief. “That was fiction.”

  She shrugged. “Nothing’s really fiction, is it? I mean, from thought comes reality – you know that. It’s the basis for all magic.”

  Sh
e shook her head in bewilderment, stunned at her companion’s blasé attitude, but then, she’d always been like that, hadn’t she? “Why did you stop me?”

  Katarra paused and sighed, but didn’t answer straight away.

  “If I needed to feed so badly, why not let me finish?”

  A few seconds later, the demon met her gaze again, her citrine eyes clouded with something Elena couldn’t quite grasp at. “Because you would have hated yourself forever.”

  “For killing him?”

  “No. You’d have gotten over that. I know you haven’t accepted it, Elena, but you’re a Shanka demon – the power of life and death is so easy for you to wield… You might hate to admit it, but taking that man’s life isn’t something that would have ruined you.”

  She was right: she didn’t want to admit it. A part of her recoiled inside. “Then wh—”

  “Because you’d have had to tell your soul-bonded that you were carrying another man’s child.”

  Every single cell in her grew cold with dread as understanding seeped in like poison.

  “Life and death, Elena. The Shanka’s sole mission, as succubi and incubi, is to impregnate – to create life here – so they can leave their shadow world. Your body is super fertile, all the time – you’re a sexual energy-stealing, baby-making machine. Now, since everything’s merged, and their shadow world isn’t there anymore, I don’t know if that’s still how it all works, but did you want to take the chance?”

  She lost her ability to hold herself up in any way, shape or form, and fell back onto the pillow. Cynical laughter left her, no doubt triggered by the hot mess she was currently made of. “I’m surprised you stopped me – kinda always thought you’d like it if Karl was out of the way.”

  Hurt sparked in Katarra’s eyes for the briefest of seconds before a defensive anger masked it. “Where the hell is your angel in shining armour, anyway? Why has he left you starving?”

  “We had a fight.”

  “What are you both? Five? A soul-bonded doesn’t leave because of a stupid—”

  “He attacked me.” Her cheeks burned at the admission. “He forced himself on me, and I had to throw him off – not as bad as what happened tonight, but … it could have been.”

  When the silence got too heavy, she finally sneaked a glance at Katarra. Her hairless eyebrows were raised, but her voice was completely steady when she said, “He’s possessed.”

  Elena sighed. “I already checked for possession. There’s no sign of—”

  “Then it’s something else; something like possession, but not possession. Whatever it is, it wasn’t him.”

  Long-awaited hope flared in her chest from the sudden, odd comfort of having an ally – someone who actually believed what she believed. “How can you be so sure?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Oh, my God! Have you met your antique-loving boyfriend? He’s the most boring, dull person on Earth. The most interesting thing he ever did was steal scrolls to save you. Attack you? I’m surprised he knows how to fuck you.”

  “Hey!” Elena crossed her arms in indignation.

  Katarra snorted. “You know I’m right.” She pushed herself off the bed. “I don’t care who you are, you don’t go from saint to sinner in the blink of an eye unless your hand is forced, or you’re possessed. Did you force him to attack you?”

  “No.”

  “Then it must be possession. Easy, see? The powers of elimination. So, are you okay now?”

  “Say, what?” Her head spun at the demon’s change of course.

  “Are you okay now?”

  “Okay?”

  She huffed impatiently. “Are you feeling better than you were five minutes ago?”

  Better than—“No, I’m not okay!”

  “Great!” she smiled, as if she hadn’t heard her. “I’m so glad you’re all better. Demon tribes are disappearing.”

  Elena gaped at her.

  “That’s why I came to find you. The Malattal have split themselves up and they’re individually going around the globe spewing their prophecies, which they’re now calling their final prophecies. Here, I wrote them down.” She pulled a square, yellow piece of paper out of her pocket; on it, the tiniest handwriting you’ll ever see, covering both sides.

  “You wrote the final prophecies down on a sticky note?”

  “Yuh-huh. Okay … are you listening?” She cleared her throat.

  “Seven lines tell seven tales of seven tribes beyond the Veil:

  On ruined sand ends Dessec reign, never to bend time again.

  Lagool shall swim the murky deep ‘til water beckons sight asleep.

  The Totilemi, young and wise – age will herald their demise.

  Disease shall rule immortal land – the Brokk will die by nature’s hand.

  When magic fades, the curse will wane and Brujii blood will run humane.

  As Shanka fall, old love will wake eternal sleep: the final quake.

  And the Malattal shall speak no lie, forever mute once dragons fly.”

  “Wow,” Elena eventually uttered into the silence. “The final prophecies told in rhyming couplets.”

  Katarra smirked. “Yeah, and in your English tongue, too. Guess this really is your world now.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Hello? Did you hear a word I just read? The demons are dying, or dead. The Brokk are already gone – extinct. It happened three days ago, exactly how the Malattal predicted: they caught some weird, incurable disease and died. They were supposed to be immortal, but all demon tribes are losing their powers now.”

  “You still have your magic.”

  Katarra looked at her, sadly. “No, Elena. You were just too far gone to realise how little I had. I used next to no magic to knock you on your arse.”

  “I felt it – you fed me your magic.”

  Her smile widened a little. “Remember that, do you?”

  Elena blushed. Yeah – that and her orgasmic reaction. Somewhere inside her, the succubus stirred.

  The Brujii queen pressed the sticky note down on her grimy, kitchen counter, avoiding her gaze. “I gave you the last of what I had. It’s all gone now.”

  Gone? Elena rose from the bed and made her way to Katarra, still clutching the bed covers to her. “You gave me the last of your magic?” she asked, stunned. “Why?”

  She fidgeted with a crack on the counter. “I already told you why.”

  Elena reached across her and pulled the sticky note up, inspecting it for herself. “‘When magic fades, the curse will wane and Brujii blood will run humane’… If your magic’s faded, is your curse gone?”

  The Brujii had had their ability to feel pleasure of any kind taken from them when Lokoli, the creator of the seven demon tribes, had birthed the Brujii to wield the most powerful magic in existence. Lokoli had believed that sexual pleasure in particular, stole energy from magic, so had made them sexless to avoid their magical energy being drained. The tribe had been bitterly angry about it, Katarra herself, latching onto Elena because drinking the blood of ‘the Great Shanka Witch’ was the only way she’d been able to feel sexual pleasure without losing her powers.

  And now her magic was gone.

  “Yes, the curse is gone. Have you forgotten? You weren’t the only one to enjoy the feel of my blood in your veins.”

  “Oh.” Now that she mentioned it… The heat in the room went up a few degrees, along with visions in Elena’s mind of limbs entwined, skin rubbing, moaning…

  “Don’t worry. You needed it – it wasn’t a betrayal, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  “Betrayal?”

  She shrugged. “Against golden angel-boy.”

  Karl. Oddly enough, she hadn’t felt like she’d betrayed him – not over any of the acts she’d committed last night. Her disgust was with herself and her ability to do such things, but not once had she ‘strayed’ in her heart and soul from Karl. Her succubus had been savagely hungry, yes, but she had also been in great pain, and she knew that if K
arl had been there, he would have been her choice of meal. No – he would have been her choice, full stop. Her choice for anything. He wasn’t a meal, he was … everything, and she knew that her succubus agreed.

  Her anxiety for him heightened. She had to find him, no matter what state he was in, especially now knowing these prophecies.

  “‘Brujii blood will run humane’. What does that mean?”

  Katarra shrugged again and looked away.

  Elena placed a hand on her arm, but she shook it off. “So,” the red-haired demon changed the subject, turning away and taking a few steps back, “how do you want to proceed? I came to find you so that you knew about the Shanka’s role in these prophecies – looks pretty big with all that stuff about old love waking, wouldn’t you say?”

  Baffled by her reaction, Elena was about to press further, but then changed her mind. Instead, she re-read the line about the Shanka. “It says ‘as Shanka fall’.”

  “Most of them have.”

  “They have?” she looked up, shocked.

  “Yep. Only a few remain – they’re dotted around … sort of like my own tribe,” her voice dropped.

  “I’m sorry.”

  Katarra shook her head. “Whatever. Look, the reason you’re super-starving is because the queen or king of each demon tribe is the one to absorb the powers of tribe members that die. See this?” Katarra held up a hand and a very small, almost imperceptible amount of magical energy crackled over it at her will. “That’s it. That’s all I’ve got and it’s not coming from me anymore. This is what I’ve absorbed from the members of my tribe that have passed. You’ll have absorbed the powers of creation and all that sexual hunger from yours.”

  Seriously – her jaw had hit the ground quite a few times this evening. “But I’m not the Shanka queen.”

  “Duh, Elena. Why do you think the Shanka had so many problems choosing a ruler once Nathaniel was gone? Because he had no offspring and no relations. Darius, your father, had been his only brother, which makes you the dead king’s niece and the rightful heir to the Shanka throne – not that there’s a throne anymore. You’re absorbing your tribe’s power, and more of it with each Shanka that falls.”