by T. G. Ayer
Braxus seemed to deflate as he read the letter, but then he stood taller, straightened his sash with one hand before tugging the hood of his robe back over his head. Then, in a parting retort, a show of defiance to the end, Braxus said, “I will have the rest of the Masters read this over. Be assured that we will get back to you if there are any objections.”
Then he turned on his heel and scurried away. He’d made his escape too fast to hear Jess murmur, “And you may be assured that there will be no objections.”
Evie had to force herself to control the urge to laugh. She was in the company of a Titan who was representing the SHC. Jess was meant to be a neutral party. But again, things didn’t seem to be as it should be. But Evie didn’t want to test her fate. Every step she took was on thin ice and if she pushed too hard, she was likely to ruin all her chances.
The Titan sighed and turned to face Evie. “I will return when your next meeting is set. I do believe your counsel has already negotiated the time and place. You will receive notification soon.”
“Thank you,” Evie said. “I’m grateful that you’re here to ensure things are done fairly.”
Jess inclined her head her eyes said. “Sometimes, Evangeline, Justice can be as far from fair as the distance between the tides of Titania and that of X.”
And then Jess faded into thin air, leaving Evie alone in her cold cell. And for some reason it felt as though the Titan had taken every bit of warmth with her. Evie rubbed her hands up and down her arms, trying to work up some warmth, still so grateful that she’d been freed from the Angel Bonds. She was pretty sure that the spell of the bonds did something to the mind of an angelic being as well, something that dulls one’s senses.
Now she felt the weight of the silence press down upon her as she stared around at the stone walls. But, a few moments later, the guards could be heard tudding their way toward her. Beyond the sounds of marching, Evie could hear Castor’s pleas. He only called out when there were people around, and Evie just realised that she hadn’t heard Castors voice while the Titan was around. Jess’s privacy spell was certainly powerful.
The door opened, but this time, the guards didn’t slam it. Evie’s ally walked in calmly, then stood aside to let two more gargoyles inside who were carrying a bed. They walked it to the far corner where they set it carefully on the floor. A third guard followed with an armful of bedding and a pair of pillows which he placed at the foot of the mattress. He faced her, eyes dark and unreadable. “Would you like me to ready the bed for you?”
Evie was too stunned to speak. She shook her head slowly then smiled, a little too awkwardly but it was all she could manage. The guard gave a quick smile then left the room followed closely by the two who had brought the bed.
Curious, Evie looked over at her ally. She really should get his name. She could call him her ally forever. “Who sent the bed?”
He tipped his head. “The SHC overseer has seen to it that you’re given everything you rightfully deserve.”
Evie swallowed, aware of the unspoken words between them. “Clearing her throat she held his gaze and said, “Thank you.”
He nodded, both understanding what she was thanking him for. Now she had to get him to come back later. Alone.
Taking a deep breath, she looked over at the milkmaid stool, at the pad of paper where the guard’s message was written. A message that would be invisible to anyone who wasn’t angelic.
And then she froze, ice filling her veins. She hadn’t thought to turn it over just in case someone entered who she couldn't trust. Her face must have revealed her horror because the guard took a step toward her, forehead creasing with concern.
Evie shook her head and thrust out a hand. “Will someone come later...with something to eat?” He looked back at the page. From where he stood, he wouldn't be able to read the words of the note. He’d think it was what she’d written to give to him, not what he’d given her. He’d have no idea that he could be in deep trouble.
And he didn’t appear concerned. He gave a short bow of his head, and she knew already that he’d understood she was asking him to return for her message to him.
Then she said, “Oh, if it’s meat, will I be given utensils? A knife and fork, preferably.”
The man nodded. “Of course. But someone will have to be close by to take the knife away. It is still a weapon.”
“That’s fine. We can use it then you can take it away.” Another message that had the man’s eyes widen. But he simply nodded, agreeing to Evie’s request faster than she’d expected.
Did that mean she could truly trust him? Or was he playing her, using her for some nefarious reason the way Marcellus had used all the warriors of the Irin?
Unaware of her inner turmoil, the gargoyle left her alone, closing the door quietly this time before walking off. As his footsteps faded, Evie turned to study first the bed and then the pad of paper.
How careless had she been.
The Titan would have seen his message. Titan’s possessed an ancient power, one which renders them just as powerful as the angels. Jess had seen enough of Evie’s cell to notice the lack of a bed, and she’d cared enough to have one sent almost as soon as she’d left the cell.
Heart racing, Evie grabbed the pad and sank onto the mattress to read the message again. If Jess had read the gargoyles message, what would she be thinking? Would she assume something illegal was going on? That someone was attempting to help Evie when the scales ought to have remained balanced. Sure, Evie knew in terms of Marcellus and his minions, the scales favored them, and the help of the gargoyles simply evened things out.
But the Titan wouldn’t know that.
Evie’s skin was icy-cold, but she forced herself to regain her calm. She had to think things through properly, and she had to make decisions without allowing them to be fuelled by paranoia.
And right now she had an invisible message to write.
Chapter 21
Evie inhaled slowly, eyes focused on the inkwell and the pad of paper that sat quietly atop the seat of the milkmaid stool. The guard would be by soon, if they remembered to bring her evening meal to her. She’d given her ally her message but she had no idea how many of the gargoyles were supporting her. Safer to refrain from making assumptions.
Determined now, she stalked over the stool and knelt beside it, drawing the pot of ink into her hand. She studied the dark blue of the ink, so dark it looked black, and thought about the invisible ink.
Perhaps if she imagined what she wanted the ink to do then her magic would transform that thought into reality. She also remembered to use the simmering energy that had coiled within her flesh these past few days.
She felt the energy pass through her body, and fill her spirit, an intangible thing to put words to. Then she felt the light buzzing in the ink that she'd felt when she'd touched the paper before the words had been revealed to her eyes.
Feeling the buzzing had been confirmation enough to Evie that the magic had worked, that the spell she'd wanted to imbue into the ink had succeeded. She reached for the inkwell and dipped the tip into the dark ink, then tapped it lightly on the edge of the bottle.
Ready now, she tore the sheet bearing the message off the tablet and tucked it into her back pocket. Then she bent to the paper and began to write out a message.
Thank you. I cannot say that enough. Why you are helping me, I do not yet know, and I hope that you would soon trust me enough to tell me the truth In the meantime I will place my trust in you and ask that you contact one person for me and ask him to come to meet me. Where that meeting place will be, I do not know and I am hoping he will have some ideas. Even so, I desperately need his help. The person I want you to call for me is Hades. Please find a way to go to the Underworld and give Hades a message for me. Tell him Evie is in need of his help. And if he needs some form of information that only he and I know, tell him my answer is Julia.
Please get him to come as soon as possible as I do not know how much time I have left.
/> Sitting back, Evie read the letter again, It sounded insane, and almost as though she was begging. but she was above begging if it meant she'd receive some form of help to get herself out of these horrible situations any wheels were turning but she was sure one more cog wouldn't hurt.
With the letter completed, Evie realized she was still able to see the dark ink. A second spell was needed. She studied the paper, unsure at first how to create the final spell. She decided to just allow her magic to work, to stop thinking so hard. And then in her instinct seemed to instruct the words to turn invisible.
Odd as it seemed, that was all that it took and suddenly the words shimmered silver right before Evies' eyes. She felt a little cross-eyed looking at mercurial lines of the message, the script appearing a little out of focus. But when she concentrated, her vision resettled and the letter’s lost the strange blur. And she was able to read it perfectly.
So that was how it worked.
A flutter of excitement ran through her body, and she found herself smiling at the paper. She felt a little dorky but she had to acknowledge the one little success in the almost unending line of failures she'd been experiencing over the last few weeks.
Better to enjoy the moment than to continue to be morose.
Happy now that the message was ready, Evie ripped the page from the notepad and folded it up carefully. She wasn't entirely sure how she would give it back to the guard, and returning the pad of paper would seem like a strange thing to do when she was meant to be preparing for her trial. She tucked the message into her pocket and then made the bed, needing to keep her hands moving. The light exercise helped enough to inspire Evie to put in some physical training time. It would be silly for her muscles to turn into mush while she waited for her trial and then her freedom which would follow.
How was that for positive thinking?
Evie smiled as she shrugged off her cost and rested on the bottom of her bed. The inside of the heavy leather coat contained a multitude of pockets filled with bullets many laced with a variety of poisons, toxic blends capable of bringing down the strongest of supernatural creatures.
In her past, Evie had killed many an enormous beast, mostly those responsible for rampages and mass killings. Although some of her past deeds made her feel ill, like killing all those innocent demons for no reason other than to further Marcellus' agenda, she couldn't denby that she had done some good.
Over the years, teams working for the Irin were sent out on missions across the world, mostly to investigate death on a grand scale that could be attributed to supernaturals going batshit crazy--as Barry would put it.
Evie had once killed a dragon in mid flight, watched the berserker rage fade from the creature’s eyes as he fell. She'd never been cruel in her kills, and that particular dragon she'd carried to safety as he shifted back into his human form. The dragon had decimated three cities, his mind crazed from age or fury, Evie never knew.
She'd had to use a kill-strike, straight to the eye, with a curved, twisted dagger laced with a rare poison. The dagger's unusual shape reached a portion of the creatures' brain that rendered it vulnerable while the poison could be delivered straight to the brain allowing a quick and painless death.
Evie had often demanded the cases where she knew her fellow warriors would use force, and would likely cause the rampaging creature harm. She'd never been comfortable with taking joy from a kill, and she hated that she saw that enjoyment in the eyes of even those she considered her friends.
She'd often thought there was something wrong with the way she'd been built, that perhaps her genes had created a nephilim with a mental attitude nod in keeping with her fellow brothers and sisters.
There weren't many of her kind. A few thousand scattered across the various realms, two who had agreed with Evie, and who'd been unhappy with their placement in the EarthWorld. They'd eventually chosen to live and work in the realm of Av'rith, a plane which nobody was meant to know of, or be allowed to mention.
But Evie had elected to remain and to try her best to avoid carnage and bloody senseless murder by demanding she be given the most dangerous of cases. It had worked in her favor, only in that she'd gotten those jobs, had terminated the rampaging supernaturals quickly and easily, and without causing anyone further harm. But it made her an outlying, a threat to many of the more ambitious warriors who saw her as being given special preferences because of who her guardian was.
It had been a secret to the Irin for the first few hundred years, that Evie was his child in every way except for biological, but the truth, as most truths do, eventually came to light and ever since, Evie had to fight a second smaller battle after each of her kills.
She didn't much care, especially when she did her very best to respect the person she'd killed.
The problem with Evie was that she saw her targets as people. They were people, supernatural people whose powers had taken them over and rendered them senseless, filling them with a rage that even a tranquilizer was unable to curtail.
The second level of the dungeons had been for those targets, the ones who used to be brought back unconscious when it was believed they could be turned back, that they could be saved from the insanity within which they'd fallen.
Very rarely had they brought a berserker back from the rage, but Evie had insisted to be the executioner. She'd seen the craziness that went on in the old days. The crazed creatures used for target practice, the betting on who could render the prisoner unconconscious, the shedding of unnecessary blood for sport.
And she'd often thought that despite their state of apparent sanity, the willful mistreatment of the prisoners was far worse than the deranged actions of an unhinged mind.
So she had persevered. She'd convinced Patrick to eliminate the use of the lower dungeons. She'd helped him convince the Irin to allow her to take down the most dangerous and the largest of the targets. Those were the creatures who would receive the most horrific treatment.
Evie had once witnessed a group of warriors kill a dragon together, using ten volleys of poisoned arrows after the creature had been dealt the blow that brought him to the ground.
She'd been there, unable to stop the horror forced to watch as they shot arrow after arrow into the downed dragon, not even caring as the beast turned into man in the final moments of his death.
Patrick had used a DeathTalker to give testimony on behalf of the dragon in order to convince the brotherhood to change their rules. Evie was more than unpopular since that day but she hadn't cared. And yet she'd still ended up being a cold-blooded killer. In the purest form of the term.
She'd been killing for someone else's greed, and just her ignorance of that fact didn't excuse her in the slightest.
Now, Evie went through her training, practices her poses, and got the surprise of her life when her magic decided to make an unexpected appearance.
Chapter 22
Lost within the workout, the adrenalin racing through her body, Evie's thoughts found an easy route through her mind and spirit, discovering an outlet in her power. The energy had built slowly as she'd exercised, working muscles, situps, press-ups. She'd gone through as many exercises as she could do anything to work muscles she'd ignored while she'd remained in Hades. And she'd felt her power building slowly. Her Marks though had remained silent. She'd checked on them every so often, having removed her shirt to train in her singlet, and they hadn't moved an inch.
So the collecting of her power within her body had been interesting, though not surprising as she'd felt the power move within her before of its own accord.
Perhaps it was the thoughts of her past of the bloodshed that had angered her, or the pain she'd suffered at the senseless killings she'd witness, whatever it was something had fuelled her power enough for it to reveal itself and surprised Evie.
She'd performed a roundhouse kick to the air in front of her and then moved smoothly into a hard downward stroke, her mind envisioning herself holding her sword as she struck. That was when the light had
flared from her hands, shooting from her fingers, surprising her so much that she tripped herself up and staggered backward, ending up falling gon her butt, hand still wrapped around a magical, glowing sword.
"Wow." Evie found herself at a loss for words.
The cool air of the cell soaked into the perspiration coating her skin but she ignored it. Her entire mind was focused on her right hand on the sword made of light and magic that still lay there, as though it were real.
Evie closed her fingers over the grip of the sword, aware that the sword of light very much resembled her own sword, given to her by Patrick who'd claimed it to be a gift from her father. Now, the magical version of that sword had materialized in her hand.
Evie took slow breaths, trying to steady her racing heartbeat as she studied the sword. It was solid, that was the first thing she confirmed. Beneath the white glow, the sword was very real. She shook her head. Maybe she was going as crazy as those berserker supernaturals she used to hunt.
She wasn't sure what to think. So instead of trying to understand how the sword had appeared, Evie figured she should see what it was made of and what it could do. When magical swords presented themselves, it would be smart to use the gift than to question its existence.
Or at least that was what she told herself as she slowly got to her feel taking care to keep the magical sword from knocking against the stone. Now, wouldn't that bring the guards running?
Evie took another slow breath, wiping cold sweat off her forehead as she lifted the sword of light up to get a close look. The blade shone and she had to squint in order to see the writing engraved on the metal. She couldn't yet tell what the blade was made of, but whatever it was, Evie had to wonder if she'd fashioned it from her own magic. Was she really that powerful or was this kind of power similar to those of the angels who had first roamed the earth.
