Night Magic: A Wing Slayer Novel

by Jennifer Lyon

  Hope eased his chest. “What?”

  “Maeve. She performed the ceremony, added her blood to the binding on Ailish’s arm to seal the coven’s fate to Ailish’s. Her blood and Ailish’s blood are on that binding.” Carla turned and faced him, her eyes full of green, brown, and yellow. “The death to break the contract, I think it can be Ailish or Maeve.”

  It was so simple! “Like when Axel killed the demon witch that cursed his sister, it freed Hannah of the death curse.”

  Axel frowned. “Unless it kills Ailish, too. If her mother dies when she does, why wouldn’t she die when they do?”

  Darcy answered, “Because the coven sealed their fate to Ailish: As this witch goes, so do the Deus’Donovan coven. But they didn’t seal Ailish’s fate to them. Yes, I think it’d work.”

  The relief was intense.

  Axel added, “We need to go after them anyway. It’d be best to catch them at their Infernal Grounds where they all gather.” He turned and looked at Phoenix. “But only the mated hunters.”

  He opened his mouth, but Ailish jumped in.

  “You won’t get through their wards. They are deep and horrible.”

  Sutton said, “How do we break them? Can earth witches do it? Or can you do it?”

  Phoenix snarled, “Hell, no. She’s not going near that place.”

  “Yeah, I am. This is my battle, my soul. I have to make this right. You heard Carla. It’s not just the price to break the handfast, but I have to make reparation to the Ancestors for renouncing them. I can’t do that by hiding while you do all the work, take all the risks.”

  Silence fell except for the static of the phone connection, the ticking of a clock, and the sounds of breathing. His heart twisted in his chest. Everything inside him screamed out in agony. Finally, he said, “Is it true?”

  “Yes,” both Darcy and Carla answered.

  Then Carla said, “Being an earth witch is a tremendous gift. We reincarnate over and over to learn and gain more power. But with that gift, that power, comes responsibility. There are consequences when we make poor choices.”

  Ailish added, “I nearly let Asmodeus get hold of my siren magic. Why should the Ancestors trust me when I die, and allow me to go to Summerland and reincarnate with that same power?”

  He got that there were consequences, but, “That doesn’t mean you have to die.” He knew that’s what she was thinking, she’d told him that last night. The bird started panicking, fighting to get out. It was stretching his skin until it felt as though his biceps were going to rupture like an overripe watermelon. But he fought for logic, to make her, all of them, understand. “We’ll kill your mother and that will break the handfast. Then you’ll have the rest of your life to show the Ancestors that you are worthy.”

  He heard her breathing through the phone. “I—”

  Joe burst into the room. “Darcy! Morgan’s having contractions!”

  Phoenix set a sandwich in front of Joe. “Eat it.” The condo was a mess from people traipsing in and out. Cups set down randomly, herbs and candles all over the small kitchen table, jackets and sweatshirts tossed, a blanket on the couch from when Morgan had rested there.

  Joe ate. The man had been in Special Forces, he knew the value of keeping up his strength. Phoenix watched him methodically work through the ham and cheese and doubted he tasted a bite. His eyes kept darting toward the bedroom.

  “I’ll go check.” Phoenix shoved off the counter he was leaning against and went into the room. The king-size bed dominated the room. Morgan lay on her left side, a pillow between her legs, eyes closed. The room was sweet with candle wax, herbs, and heavy magic. Darcy’s hair was stuck to her neck, her brown gaze furious. She sat on the bed, her hand on Morgan’s belly. “Carla, I can’t hold the baby!”

  Carla sat on the other side of Morgan, holding her hand. “Okay, we’re back,” she said, her voice soothing.

  On the bed next to Carla was a laptop. Carla’s mom, Chandra, was on-screen. “We need more witches.”

  Phoenix said, “It didn’t work?”

  “Is the baby okay?” Morgan said.

  “He’s fine,” Darcy said gently. “He just didn’t want you pulling your spirit from his. He loves you. You’re his world.”

  Carla picked up the laptop and scooted off the bed. “Morgan, try to sleep. Let your baby feel you there with him.” She walked out of the room to where Joe was just finishing his last bite.

  He stood up. “Carla?”

  “They’re okay, but it’s not working. The baby panics when I try to draw Morgan’s spirit away from her body. I can’t help her until I get her in the astral plane. I need her there, in her doppelgänger body where she won’t feel stress and fear.” She sank into a chair. “That bastard buried a suggestion in her brain. I never saw it when we worked together, never realized …”

  Phoenix put his hand on her shoulder. “You couldn’t have known.”

  She looked up. “But it’s there. Because Eric wanted that baby if it was a boy, I am almost a hundred percent positive he buried a command to find him when she hit about seven months in her pregnancy. That way he’d have control of her.”

  Phoenix went into the kitchen, poured the water simmering on the stove over a teabag in a mug, and returned to set it in front of her. “But she’s not trying to find him, she’s acting like he’s trying to find her.”

  Carla nodded. “That’s because Morgan’s own brain is fighting the suggestion. She knows Eric is a danger, so she’s trying to protect her baby from him. In essence, she’s fighting her own brain. That woman is tough.”

  Phoenix saw why Carla was so good at helping to treat brainwashing in mortals. She had a deep empathy that allowed her to understand people and their actions and reactions.

  Joe said, “Carla, if she loses this baby, it’ll break her.”

  And it’ll destroy Joe, Phoenix thought. He loved Morgan. They all knew that Morgan’s pregnancy gave her the will to fight back against Eric and the brain damage he’d inflicted on her.

  “Phoenix, we just don’t have enough power to hold this baby while I take Morgan to the astral plane. I was thinking … Ailish could use her power to enhance Darcy’s magic and help hold the baby. Make him feel safe.”

  Joe jerked his head up. “Will she do it?”

  Phoenix wasn’t sure. “How dangerous will it be? She’ll be enhancing all magic, not just your magic. Young knows about her ability to enhance magic. He might harness it if he can.”

  Her hazel eyes filled with yellow. “They’ve been getting more earth witches lately. Too many are dying, slaughtered.…” Carla looked at Joe, then at Phoenix, and her shoulders drooped. “It may be our only hope for this baby. We’re only going to be able to stop the contractions for a while. Morgan’s just under too much stress trying to fight this suggestion.” She dunked her teabag, her forehead crinkling in thought. “You’re her familiar, and you’ve exchanged blood. If you’re nearby, that might help her keep the power more focused.”

  He wasn’t sure. “How does that work? The siren-phoenix thing, I mean.”

  She walked into the kitchen and dumped her teabag in the trash while answering. “The siren witch only enhances all magic while calling for her familiar to rise from the flames. Once he has risen, and she performs the ceremony of impressing her familiar on a silver item to keep close to her body, the siren gains full control of her power. With her phoenix’s help, she then enhances only the magic she is directly involved with … like if several witches were casting a spell together and the siren was there, she would enhance only that spell magic.” Carla sank into a chair.

  “If I made love to Ailish and sealed our bond, it would do the same thing, right? Make my bird her familiar and give her full control over her siren magic?” He forgot Joe was sitting there, but he wasn’t doing the macho kiss-and-tell shit, he was trying to understand.

  “Yes. But I’m not asking you to finish your bond and risk your soul. Just to use the connection you already have to he
lp focus and contain her power.” She warmed her hands around her mug. “This child, he deserves a chance. If a child isn’t worth the risk of Ailish using her siren magic for just a few minutes, then who is?”

  Carla’s compassion made the answer clear. He started to reach for his phone, saying, “I’ll call her and—” The alarm on his phone sounded. He yanked it out, thumbed to the screens showing the outside of his house, and saw Kyle Whaling walking from the door to a cab.

  He speed-dialed Ailish.

  Ailish worked with Dee, creating maps of the Infernal Grounds, where she thought the wards were, trying to remember as much as she could. She listed all the names of the demon witches she knew, with her mother, Maeve Donovan, at the top. Dee was her eyes, telling her what the map looked like, making changes Ailish told her, writing in notations … It was different working with someone like this. They were also working with Sutton, sending him all the info she had, and he was doing his own version of magic with the computer. He had Google maps of the Infernal Grounds. Her mother had moved since Ailish left, but Sutton was fairly sure he’d found her residence.

  Finding the other witches was proving to be nearly impossible; Ailish knew only their first names.

  Darcy and Carla were checking in when they could, but they were busy trying to help Morgan.

  “Ailish.”

  She jumped at Kyle’s voice. “Yeah?” She looked up and saw his shadow. It was shorter and thinner than Phoenix’s.

  “I’m leaving. A cab is out front to take me to the airport. I just can’t stay here.”

  Ailish stood up and began walking toward his voice. “Kyle, it’s too dangerous.” She put her hand on his arm.

  He jerked back. “Don’t!”

  She dropped her hand.

  “You aren’t who I thought you were. You dragged me into some freak show. Look—” He sucked in a breath. “I know you didn’t mean to, I know you’re like a good witch, or whatever. But this isn’t my world. Not my reality.”

  “At least let me call Phoenix and—”

  “I’m leaving.” He turned and walked away. Then he paused. “For what it’s worth, I should never have treated you like that in high school. Sleeping with you, then ignoring you. I regret that.” Then he opened the door and set off the piercing alarm.

  Ailish’s phone rang before she could get to the door. She put it to her ear, and Phoenix yelled, “What the fuck is Kyle doing?”

  She stood in the opened doorway. “He’s going to the airport. I have to stop him, the coven—”

  “Screw him. Get back in that house and close the damned door!”

  She was really getting tired of his orders. “I won’t let them hurt or kill him!”

  “Ailish, please.” The plea sounded real, and thankfully, the screaming alarm shut off. He added, “I’ll send someone to make sure he gets to the airport, but I’m more worried about you and about Morgan.”

  “Morgan?” His friend. “Is she worse?”

  “Go back inside and close the door. Once I rearm the system, I’ll tell you about it. Trust me, I’ll make sure Kyle’s okay.”

  She turned and went in, shutting the door behind her. The reality was that Kyle wanted to get away from her. “I’m in. Can’t the witches stop the contractions for Morgan?”

  Ailish walked back into the kitchen as she listened to Phoenix explain. “Would you be willing to use your voice to help Darcy hold the baby while Carla takes Morgan to the astral plane?”

  Her chakras swelled and pulsed with the desire. She’d be doing real earth witch magic, healing and helping a mortal and her baby. But would she be doing harm? “I don’t have control over the power. What if I do harm?”

  “The baby isn’t going to make it, Ailish. We have to try.”

  Feeling a part of something special, she said, “I’ll do it.”

  “We’ll bring her tonight. Darcy and Carla want to force her to rest for a few hours before trying it again.”

  Phoenix moved quietly through the dark backyard of the ranch house set on well over an acre of land. Maeve Donovan’s house was next door. Sutton approached from where the house backed up to woods. Axel flew overhead, circling, checking things out.

  They needed to find and kill all the demon witches in the coven, but they wanted to start with the most powerful of them and cut off their leadership. They hoped to find the names and locations of the rest inside.

  Axel had ordered him to stand down and stay at the warehouse.

  Phoenix had said absolutely, just as long as he stood down next time Darcy was threatened.

  Sutton had pulled them apart.

  A low growl yanked him back from his thoughts. The backyard had a pool, swing set, trampoline, and … a huge German shepherd standing tall, his fur ruffling as he recognized the threat of an intruder in his territory. Though the dog was twenty feet away, unable to see Phoenix as he was shielding, he could scent him. Phoenix materialized and stared at the dog in concentration. He couldn’t memory-shift an animal, but he reached through the optic nerve and disrupted his instincts.

  The dog whined and sat down, confused.

  Shielding again, he turned and ran silently. The dog would recover unharmed. He made it to the six-foot block wall, put his hand on it, leaped over, and slammed into a spiked shield. He fell straight to his ass. Blood welled up on his forehead and arm where he’d hit some kind of magical shield.

  The dog whined again, still not recovered, but he knew something wasn’t right. Phoenix got up and ran down the side of the house to the front, caught the edge of the fence, and hoped like hell a shield wasn’t there.

  He sailed over, landed in a crouch, and ran to the street. Keeping his shield around him, he said into his headpiece, “Hit a shield of some kind.”

  “Me, too,” Sutton said.

  “There’s a force field shooting off electrical bolts at twelve feet.” Axel’s voice settled next to him.

  Phoenix felt the movement of his wings but didn’t see him. “Thought it was spikes.” He wiped blood out of his eye, hoping his invisibility shield held. “We’re supposed to be immune to most demon magic.”

  Axel nearly growled, “But not all. She’s creating real force fields, we’re not immune to that. We’ve always needed witches to bring down wards.”

  Sutton’s voice moved up to them. “She probably can’t shield the front with that force field. She wants to blend in, not be noticed.”

  Phoenix looked at the dingy white house with the posts and front rail covered in vines. The side of the house along the walkway had a trellis covered in more of that vine. Weepy trees covered the yard. “I’ll go up and see if I can get to the door.”

  He headed up the driveway, stepped on the sidewalk, and immediately dread filled his chest. He took another step. The dread radiated down his arms. Another step and it spread so thickly that it was a struggle to move air in his lungs.

  Another step, and his head began to ring.

  He focused on the plain brown door, forcing another step, and sweat broke out on his lip, armpits, and back. Five more steps.

  The ringing bellowed in his head.

  Then images of blood, death … his dead mother.

  He heard weird clicks and pops and shuttling from inside the house. Low growls of something … horrible.

  Saw his mother dead.

  The ringing in his head exploded.

  His knees buckled, but he caught himself.

  “Phoenix”—Axel’s voice knifed through it all—“get your ass over here!”

  He turned and hurried away, then caught a light pole, bent over, and vomited. He shuddered.

  Quietly, Axel said, “Your shield dropped by the third step. If she’s in there, she saw you.”

  Wiping his mouth, he said, “There has to be a way in. A way to get that bitch.” Although Maeve had moved, Phoenix realized that Ailish had lived in a house like this until she was sixteen. That enraged him.

  “I’ll try.” Sutton walked up the neighbor’s side,
then tried to cross over to the window to at least see in. Six feet from the window, his shield dropped. They could see the sweat coating his body. Three feet away, his legs buckled.

  Axel flew over, trying to lower himself to the front door or window. He puked while still flying.

  After another futile and utterly miserable hour, Axel said, “We need the witches to figure out how to break the wards.”

  Phoenix opened his mouth to argue …

  Axel roared at him, “Either walk to the SUV or swear to Wing Slayer, I’ll tranquilize you and shove your ass in there.”

  Phoenix fumed but told himself this wasn’t failure. He’d find a way to kill Maeve Donovan and free Ailish.

  After showering and eating, Sutton and Axel stood with their arms crossed, their faces set, as Darcy, Carla, and Joe helped Morgan. She’d had another bout of contractions, but they’d stopped them. They’d debated back and forth about the wisdom of taking her to Phoenix’s house and attempting to heal her.

  Morgan put an end to it. She insisted on going.

  It was late, close to three A.M. It’d been a long night. Key, Linc, and Ram had been out hunting. They’d made kills but were still no closer to finding Young or where the Rogue Cadre’s headquarters were in Glassbreakers.

  Using his BlackBerry, he called Ailish to wake her up and let her know they were coming. But she sounded awake when she answered. “Didn’t you go to sleep?” He liked the idea of her sleeping in his bed.

  “No. Watching TV.”

  He heard the sounds of a movie playing in the background. She couldn’t see it, so how did she watch it? It hurt his chest to think of her sitting there … what? Imagining what was happening? “What are you watching?”

  “Chuck Norris. He doesn’t talk much, does he?”

  He closed his eyes and rubbed a spot between his ribs. He’d told her about Chuck Norris when they were sparring in his gym. But she’d never be able to see what he’d been talking about. And yet she was trying. Like she was trying to get to know him. He said roughly, “Norris’s movies are mostly action. Why didn’t you get some sleep?”

  “I slept late after you left and I didn’t want to get trapped in a dream. Plus …”