by Jamie Magee
Scorpio arched a brow not sure what the hell ravens had to do with this, unless their job was to kick Reveca right across the judgment line.
“What is there?” Scorpio asked Dust as he nodded to the box, doubting Toril would hear his words or find reason to answer him. Her mind was far away in the swamps of New Orleans, gauging the paused battle at hand.
Dust swallowed tensely as he kept to his work.
“Answer me,” Scorpio demanded.
“A blade much like this,” Toril said keeping her stare on the spell but lifting her armed hand just slightly up. “Reveca found the magic to make such a thing when she was with Zale. Zale was taught by Akan.”
“There are two weapons that can take down immortals with ease?” Scorpio nearly yelled.
“No,” Toril said. The blade in the sealed box is only meant to slay one.” She met Scorpio’s stare. “Akan. Upon the blade is the blood of those he had slain for his power. The blood of the council he moved to hush when they doubted his rise.” She glanced to the one in her hand. “The magic upon them is balanced, but only dangerous in the hands of pure vengeance. Deserved vengeance.”
“There was no other way to kill him?” Scorpio snapped. He wasn’t a fan of knowing this blade was hidden from him this entire time. Now he discovers the power it had? Weeks ago, he could’ve marched into Akan’s cell and ended his branch of this fucking drama.
“It exists in the possibility of our failure to unite.”
Scorpio sneered. “The Throng may not agree on the fall of the gray witch, but I’ll assure they will all line up to take a stab at Akan.”
Toril was quiet as she watched the spell, listened to the thoughts of those far and wide. “They must exist when the time comes...”
Not one damn thing about her last sentence was awesome news. The power Scorpio had defeated and now felt pumping in his chest was a prevailing weapon, but nothing surpassed the power of an untied Throng. Just as nothing predicted failure like the moment one of them failed or fell. The shock waves would give anyone, even a witch one step from judgment, a hope of rising at the last moment.
There was not a single second to waste. Dust and Scorpio zoomed in every direction burning oils, slicing herbs, balancing candles, and writing runes. They were taking no chances. Their side of this spell would be fortified twenty times deep. They were showing up clear-headed and hungry for an end that was long over fucking due.
Chapter Two
One extreme to another was the current flow of Talon’s life, and he was about over it! For the first time, he discovered what he had been missing his entire life. He understood what was missing between him and Reveca and had drawn him to Saige. It was supernatural, heavenly—a bond that superseded all known words. It was perfect.
Then it was fucked over.
From the high of his mind, body, and spirit he had thought he felt someone rattling his cage, it was a distant call, the one you hear when you’re deep in a dream then slowly roused back to the land of the living. Talon had argued with himself, swore there was no way King had the balls to march into the one peaceful moment Talon had found this century.
Right when the annoying pull was stopping him from diving deeper into all that was Saige, two things happened. First, he felt a painful rage rip right through him, the kind of rage that breeds betrayal, and then he felt a blow so hard that reality locked around him like the shackles it was.
With all his might, he’d gripped Saige turning her so the worst of the yet to be determined blow would land on him. A breath later Saige was back in the hell of reality with him. It was her terror that stroked Talon’s rage. He turned expecting to see King. To see the fuck who showed up to fight Talon all because he was off doing angel shit and not protecting his female and the end didn’t work out like peaches and cream.
Seeing Reveca there shot the same shrill of terror Saige was feeling inside, through Talon.
Talon didn’t fear the dead. Why should he? By all means, he was one of them. He didn’t even fear the crazy dead who had no idea what was what, or the blood wraiths that were just as dangerous as they were mad. If he gave a second thought to any of the dead, it was to those like Windsome who thought death was a party, just another dimension with an air of unpredictability. Those maniacs were just as volatile as the world they called home.
The thing was, Reveca was none of those. She was mist, just shy of taking the form of flesh. Every wound Talon had seen sliced into her was there, but they were dry and gray, a shadow of the gore they once were. It was as if she were nowhere, not here nor there.
To further compound and fucked matters, King was much the same. His body was not marred the way Reveca’s body was, but he was a mist. It was like someone had thinned the walls between dimensions and suddenly worlds that were never meant to collide in the natural were side by side.
King spoke, but not a word of it reached where Saige and Talon were. For precious seconds, Talon questioned if he was awake at all. At this point in the game, there was no telling when or where he had left the land of sanity and landed where he was.
What Talon could hear were the ravens, two between him and them and one just behind them watching silently. Before he could question what the fuck was going on, much less fight the explosive need to explain himself—like he was in the wrong or some shit, Reveca attacked.
She attacked the way he always knew she would, with the vengeance of a scorned woman who had nothing to lose. The first blow had caught both Talon and Saige off guard. They were still stuck on the idea they were being haunted. The second they managed to get a common defense in place before it landed home.
The third and forth they let happen because they could see King struggling to hold Reveca back. When it became clear she was just as slippery, maybe not even tangible to King, they had to fight back. The first blow Talon sent her way was meant to clear the way out. He was not a fan of being in a room with no way out.
True to the rage he had always known Reveca to have, it did little to stop her advance. He struck his vim out once more. This time when it nailed Reveca center mass, the stunned look on her face was humbling. What was the slightest of pauses in the battle crumbled as soon as he watched Reveca do the math. She knew Talon had never been as strong as he was then in his entire life. As of late eighty-year-old mortals had more stamina than he had. She knew it would’ve taken a lot to get him where he was then.
Factoring in that Ambrosia might have fallen and Saige was his true soul mate and could empower him by just standing by him wasn’t anywhere near her calculations. Reveca was sure Talon and Saige had fucked their way to where he was standing. It didn’t matter that her soul mate was at her side yelling and grasping for her to slow her roll. In didn’t matter that even if she would’ve survived this night, Talon would’ve never graced her bed again. Reveca was pissed.
Talon was property, and her sister damn sure knew that. This was the coldest betrayal she had ever felt from her coven, and she’d be damned if it went unanswered.
Left with no choice, Talon retaliated. He aimed his vim to soar her back toward King; it was all he could manage to muster. The idea of a single abrasion on her already marred flesh sickened him. Saige was too stunned to fight at first, even if she wasn’t Talon would not have let her strike, he could not let her live with the guilt of it for the rest of her life.
With each blow, Talon advanced until it was clear he wasn’t getting out of this bathroom, at least not if it meant going through Reveca. He struck the wall at his side making a door of his own then manifested on the other side of it with Saige in his arms. Feeling quick as ever on his feet he was prepared to zoom them both outside. Fuck a barrier. Obviously, Reveca had found some other kind of immortality to cling to.
Talon didn’t make it very far, vim slammed into his back, knocking Saige from his grip. The blow was different, and when he glanced back, he knew why. It was King that was coming after him now. Whatever had just hit Talon was a warning shot.
“G
o,” Talon growled pushing Saige to run. She knew this game better than him, knew where her coven was along with any friendly allies they had lurking about. Saige took off in nothing but the t-shirt she was wearing. Holding on to his pride, Talon tightened the towel around his waist then turned.
King had a grip on Reveca now, the pair of them were cursing back and forth, an argument Talon could recite at this point in his life. Taking the opening in the battle, he went to zoom down the stairs he had his eyes on before. That was when he discovered King had not sent a blow at him, but had put up a fucking wall, trapping them all in. FUCKING bastard.
Talon took off toward Saige. She’d know how to break through angel witchery. He found her three rooms down sliding back into the clothes she was wearing when this night began. When she wordlessly tossed him jeans and a shirt that had Dust’s scent all over them he thought to tell her it would serve her better to wear them. Reveca seeing Saige even halfway mimicking the life Reveca had would turn the dead witch nuclear.
The idea of wearing pants when he went head to head with King and Reveca won out. Talon may not have been bashful, but some things, history making things, needed to be thought through. Barefoot with his jeans on and one arm through a shirt was exactly how he was when one raven, then another flew into the room and squawked up at him and Saige.
“Bastards are working for her,” he grumbled pulling his shirt on and dashing for the pair of boots he saw tossed on the floor.
“Apparently not,” Saige said hastily as she rearranged shit on what could only be an altar in Dust’s room. Talon would’ve told her to pick up a fucking phone and leave the hocus-pocus shit for another day if the assault of peppermint that was hitting his nose had not somehow stilled the tension. Lavender came next with shit he never liked because Reveca lit it up every time she was trying to knock his ass out. Rosemary followed, by then Talon didn’t care what the room smelled like as he’d dressed and armed himself. Not that a single fucking weapon he had was going to help him, still, it was all about security.
Security was exactly what he fucking needed. He had thought how this day would play out a million times over. Not one wistful daydream had ended well. He knew Reveca too well. He knew Saige too well. They were not fire and ice, but wind and fire. The wind had the power to soothe, build or extinguish the fire. The fire had the reliance of man. It was never truly over for even a dark coal dormant to the naked eye could grow into a beast that would destroy lands.
“Call your brother, call all of them. King is where she is. This is fucked.”
Before he could shout more orders and see if King’s vim was blocking the windows too, Reveca appeared in the threshold of the door. King was a shadow at her side, neatly gripping her waist. Reveca was calmer, but it did nothing to ease Talon. His failure was right there for all of them to see. What he said to Reveca at her death was not enough; she died vengefully and would always be so now.
In a real way, the failure and not the truth making its way to light was dominating Talon’s emotions. The regret and loss were so rich in his emotions it was hard for him to notice the others at first.
He grieves...Saige said into his thoughts.
The sound of her voice deep inside him both lulled and exalted him at once.
Saige wasn’t wrong, King was not the happiest of blokes right then, but who would be when their witch was out for blood over another man.
She is in judgment... Saige said in his mind.
Clearly, they were ill practiced at this new trick of theirs. Saige’s words sounded like a dream, far away, and lacking speed in reaching him. Not awesome when a raven is landing at your feet, and your best friend is looking at you like you’re the devil himself.
Talon swayed his head, sure judgment was not where Reveca was, she was in a place called—fucking pissed off.
She doesn’t know that she is. To her this is the present, not part of her past life.
Talon tossed an ‘are you fucking kidding me’ glance Saige’s way.
We have to help her resolve it. She’s too far from where she should be. If she stays in judgment with rage, she will be judged as so.
Talon would’ve loved to debate this, but he passed the point of playing defense. Especially since Reveca was looking at him like he was property and Saige like public enemy number one. His primal instinct could not stand for Saige to take the brunt of the punishment. If it were up to Saige, they would’ve never spoken again once they both left the garden. It was Talon who forced her to face the way she felt about him. Talon who made her remember even when time proved remembering was agony.
When Reveca sent her next wave of vim, Talon lunged to stop it, but instead fell to the ground. Saige was at his side. It felt like he was getting his ass kicked by Casper. The urge for his soul to leave and fight this force was overwhelming, more driving than the drama he was locked in just then. He would’ve left, damn straight, if Saige had not vaulted her body onto his. Her stare hit him like a tidal wave, her words of warning even harder. We leave and it’s over for her, rage will walk her into forever. This is our war now.
Fighting to stay wasn’t near as hard as it was enduring the blows that were rippling through his being and knowing Saige was feeling them too, his arms wrapped around her then he turned her to where she was under him. The change in position did nothing to heed the pain. It was just an instinct he had. Once he spied her under him, saw fear in her eyes, the brutal reality that Reveca had died much the same way, in the same swamp slammed into him.
Talon had to leave to stop the pain, and would have if Saige had not held him just as tightly as he had, only she was holding him with more, she was wrapping her soul around him. The hell went on and on. And then there was a pause. A pause that gave way to another, then another, in the stillness Talon lifted his head higher to examine Saige. Like him, she was waiting for the next lashing.
“All this time,” they heard, and at once, looked up to see Reveca standing over them with a single tear trailing down her cheek. “You’ve made a fool of me.”
It was unclear if she was speaking to Talon or Saige, or even both. What was clear was Talon’s former state of mind—that he was taking the blame was front and center all over again. He stood in a beat and had Saige behind him just as quick.
“I was never unfaithful to you,” Talon said gently.
“Liar,” Reveca said as her eyes sheened and she pushed King’s gentle strokes away from her. “I have caught you with other women. I fucking walked in on you conceiving your own fucking daughter.”
Other women, Ambrosia herself, were just as faceless as they were meaningless. There had always been two and only two females in Talon’s life, wind and fire.
“Not once have you caught me with her.”
Reveca swayed her head in denial, the way she gripped her stomach and searched for breath she no longer needed warned Talon he was ripping her apart. Which was all good, until she raged back to her wrathful self who always came just after she had been stung by life.
“I saw her first,” Talon said. It wasn’t a secret, but a truth the three of them all knew.
“You fucked me first, but who’s keeping score?”
“I haven’t slept with her,” Talon said through gritted teeth. Now wishing he had, if he were to be blamed for it then it would be nice to have swum in the spoils.
“You lie,” Reveca said in a tear-laced voice. She pointed to the floor. “I saw her soul reach around you.”
“And,” Talon roared. “It is because of you I had never felt such a thing until now. She has given everything up, bent every way she could for you!”
Reveca threw an accusatory stare toward her sister but looked away before Saige could lock eye contact. “That is what she has told you. I was a pawn for them. You know this.”
“So was I,” Talon snapped. “I was there for you. A toy as she once called me. I was there to listen to you, to protect you. To give you a reason to live.”
His words only made matters w
orse. Reveca stepped back, as she did all her wounds became more vivid. An evil he had never seen glinted in her eyes. “You were playing me?”
“No,” Talon answered with no hesitation. “You’re my best friend. The woman I made a family with. The woman I saw the world with. Who I fought on bloody fields with. I could’ve walked away. I could’ve told you that your sister stopped me from doing so when it all began. That she looked me in the eye, as her heart broke, and pleaded that I love you. That I stay so you would fair well across the pages of time.”
“A pity fuck, a really fucking long one, is that what you are saying?” Reveca said.
“It is how you chose to see it. She asked me to stay. If you think I would’ve stayed out of pity or because I bowed then, you don’t know me at all. I stayed because I wanted to.”
“Because of her,” Reveca yelled pointing at Saige. “She held out, and you stayed looking for a way in, a conquest that must be mastered!”
“You’re mad,” Talon spat, and he didn’t stop when he felt Saige’s palm landing on his arm in warning. “One second you stand there and tell me that I’ve played you from the start and must have had Saige as my own across the ages all because her soul reached to protect me—she wanted me to stay here, with you, again! She wanted us to square this and let the demons barking at my door wait their turn. You see this, right before your eyes then in the next beat accuse her of being a fuck I hung around for eras to conquer!”
Like all the other times in their past, when Talon put unquestionable facts before Reveca she swayed back and looked at him like he had just humbled her beyond reason.
Just as he wanted her to!
Talon advanced, “This between you and me. When we were on, I was there. Even when we were off, I was still at the head of the family we created. You were not,” he said with a flick of his stare to King. “I knew you were playing me. I was a tool for you to rebel with. And like you I rolled with it until one fucking day I looked up and realized I wasn’t playing a game anymore. I was where I wanted to be, no matter how fucked up it had begun, or would end. I was confident I had found where I was to be then.”
