Thank you for being a great teacher, and an even better friend. I mean it. I’m off on another retreat, I’ll see you soon, okay? She signed the note and stuck it with a magnet to the fridge. It would have to do. Another screech echoed outside in the car park. Fia looked out her window, trying to adjust her eyes to the darkness. She couldn’t see the fox, but he was there. It had to be him.
“Wait!” she called out. Halvar would understand. The priority was getting back to Ohinyan and finding Alexander—the priority was the safety of the missing angels.
Fia was out the door, backpack resting on her shoulders, and racing down the steps to the car park within moments without a second glance back at her flat.
The fox was already trotting away. Her boots were heavy for running, but she could adjust. She couldn’t lose him this time. Every time she thought she had, he stopped and looked back over his shoulder, just for a second, until their eyes met, and he would dash off again, around corners and along walls, down through alleys and over bridges. Then the fox screeched just as an arm swung into her middle.
Fia doubled over, choking on her breath, the feet of her assailant coming into view. A flash of anger flared in her chest, a simmering heat that someone had caught her off guard. Fia didn’t hesitate. She swiped out a leg and knocked them back. A man ran out from the shadows, and this time she was ready—arms held up to fight because there was no time to fumble with her bow. She gritted her teeth to bite back the rising obscenities and let him run towards her, close enough that he could reach out for her. Then she pivoted to her left and swung around with an elbow strike that connected with the bridge of his nose with a sickening crack.
The first assailant clambered to her feet. A woman dressed in similar clothes to the man, but she was slow, and Fia didn’t wait, she swung around to land a hard kick to the woman’s chest, and she staggered back towards a low brick wall. Fia kicked again and the woman fell backwards, legs in the air.
Fia sprinted. She turned left and right down streets, cutting through side paths and alleyways in the dark, so they’d have no chance of following her. Her hands balled so tightly her nails bit into her hot palms. She ran until her chest was tight and her legs ached, and she doubled over to catch her breath. What the hell was that? Her heart hammered against her chest. That was not a random mugging—they hadn’t even tried to take her bag—they’d tried to catch her.
The fox called out from somewhere nearby. The fox. Fia followed after him as he dived into the park near the British Museum, the same one she’d lost him in just a few hours before.
“Not again,” she muttered, and ran around to the pedestrian gate, searching for the fox in the shadows. This was another place she’d rather not be after dark, but fortunately for her, it seemed empty. Empty apart from one scrawny fox, who sat beneath a tree beside a bench, waiting patiently.
“I see you’ve made a friend,” the fox said as Fia slumped down on the bench beside it. “They’re odd creatures, these angels.”
Fia laughed. “Odd,” she repeated. “You know I almost got the shit kicked out of me back there; thanks for helping.” Her heavy breathing and her temperature subsided as the fox blinked at her. “Can you get me back to Ohinyan—through Atlantis? Is there a window inside?”
The fox was quiet for a moment. Did foxes consider their words? He seemed to be choosing his carefully. “An acquaintance of mine can show you the way. I am simply here to assist, but there are risks.”
“I know. I know the window could close. I have to take the chance.” She knew she had to at least try.
“There are witches guarding the window. All windows nearby, as I think you already know. My acquaintance is also a witch. Her name is Hazel, and she’s a friend of the Lady Noor’s.”
Noor. Fia stole glances at the fox as he spoke, checking the park for signs of anyone else who might be out for a stroll in the middle of the night. Foxes were brave in London, but not so brave as to sit upright, like a dog, next to its owner. Maybe in the dark he would pass for a dog if anyone walked by, although Fia was sure the fox would not like that very much.
“They are guarding the window on rotation. Hazel is part of tonight’s group. She has a plan to get the others out of the shop, and all you need to do is head for the basement. Just run to the back of the shop, straight down the stairs, and Hazel will be waiting.”
“What about the angels? And how do I know I can trust Hazel—or you for that matter?”
“You must.” The fox’s lips curled into what Fia could almost believe was a smile, and with that, he was away, out of the park, and heading towards the bookshop.
Fia leapt after him, until she was back in the shadows of Museum Street, hidden from sight as she watched the comings and goings from the Atlantis bookshop. A group of five individuals dressed in black let themselves in. There were no pointy hats or cloaks here, no broomsticks or wands in sight. Just some men and women, talking quietly as they entered the shop. The fox casually nibbled at an apple core metres away.
Moments later, four of the witches reappeared, splitting off into pairs—two towards the museum, two towards the park. They broke into a run.
“Go now,” the fox hissed, and Fia darted from the shadows, across the street, and into the darkness of the shop. She paused to let her eyes adjust as she closed the door behind her. It’s not a trap, just keep going. Dreamcatchers spun gently above her head, and crystals dotted here and there reflected the lamplight from the street outside. Books, floor to ceiling, lined the room. The smell was like her old community library, but the air was palpable as though she could grab fistfuls of it and mould it like clay.
A shadow stirred from behind the counter. Fia crouched low to the floor behind a bookcase and froze. She breathed through her nose, bracing herself, ready to lunge forward—but someone was asleep behind the counter. They coughed and readjusted their position, and she heard slow and steady breathing, with the occasional snore. Now or never. Fia held her breath as she tiptoed to the back of the shop and down the wooden staircase in the darkness, praying the steps would not creak beneath her feet.
A woman was waiting for her. Light brown eyes looked up from behind waist-length blonde hair. “There’s no time for questions,” she whispered in a hurry, catching Fia by the wrist as she reached the bottom step. “Look straight ahead, walk confidently, and don’t look back until you’re outside.”
A voice called out from above them in the shop. They were running out of time.
“Outside what?” Fia whispered, pulling at the woman’s grip. The witch towered over Fia as she slid a wooden wall panel to one side, and in front of them, carved out of the earth, was a tunnel.
“Hazel, is that you?” a man’s voice called out from above.
“Don’t look back until you’re outside,” Hazel repeated and shoved Fia through the gap in the panels.
Fia felt it immediately. A slight pressure shift, enough to make her want to hold her nose and pop her ears. She resisted the urge to look back, to see who was calling out to them and what would happen to Hazel. With only a few footsteps, Fia knew. This was not a tunnel under London.
This was Ohinyan.
Chapter Two
Alexander
A lexander sat atop a steeple, out of sight of the witches gathered amongst a circle of benches in the courtyard ruins below. A siren wailed nearby, and a few drops of rain soaked into his feathered wings. The moon was concealed by heavy clouds, and somewhere in the distance a car horn sounded.
He’d been lucky with the window. Three days before, he’d found part of a wing back in Ohinyan, as if it had been sliced clean from its owner, directly beneath where there had once been a window to Earth. He edged a little further away from the window behind him—nothing more than an opening in the night air—at the thought of it.
Shadows moved below. The old ruined church he sat above was overgrown with foliage—such an oddity amongst the city buildings. The lights of London glittered around him; the Thames reflected
purple and green lights from structures along its banks.
More witches gathered, a group of twelve now, holding long wooden batons amongst them. But none of them were Hazel, his witch contact here on Earth. She’d been infiltrating an Earth coven for years now—long before Fia’s arrival into Ohinyan.
He let out a breath and dragged his fingers through his hair at the thought of Fia. She’d said she didn’t want to go back to Earth… that she kept thinking about what home meant to her and how it wasn’t back here in London. And then something had changed… was it Erebus? Why didn’t you notice? He should have realised, should’ve known before he brought her back.
The right thing isn’t always the easiest, do you understand? That’s what Fia had told him back in Ohinyan. I’m not ready to give this up, not now, not ever, she’d said when they were watching the sky spirits together. Was it really what she wanted, to be back here? Or was he just letting his own feelings get the better of him? He just knew he had to find her.
Stone cracked beneath Alexander and the ledge he perched on began to shake. The steeple point snapped clean away and fell, just as he flew off the edge and watched it smash into the gardens below. The window… it’s closing.
The witches called out, pointing up into the darkness. They’d seen him. He paused for just a second, just as a corner of the steeple tower fell away above him and hit him. It pressed him down, tumbling and spinning him with its weight to the ruins below.
The witches were on him immediately. The wooden batons struck like matches and became torches, red hot flames threatening to burn him alive.
“Move and we’ll burn you,” a man shouted, the flames tinting his skin orange in the darkness. He held a baton outstretched before him, and attached to it was a small talisman—woven strands of wood and moss. Alexander couldn’t move his arms or his wings. Earth magic.
“A safety measure,” the man said, following Alexander’s gaze as he examined the talisman. “This little charm on these magic sticks of ours keeps your arms and wings paralysed so you can’t skip away whilst we’ve got our backs turned. And the baton part, well, that’s just for the fun of torching you, really.”
Alexander kicked out, but it was no use, his arms and wings were lifeless. He had no protection against magic.
“Try that again, and I’ll burn your wings to cinders,” the man sneered, waving the flame close to Alexander’s wing.
“The van’s here, Aidan,” a young witch, about the same age as Fia, explained.
Alexander struggled once more against the strange enchantment, but still his arms and wings hung limply. One of the witches pulled him to his feet, and Alexander took in as many details of his assailants as he could in the torchlight.
Darkness fell across faces and against the ruins of the courtyard, dangling ivy casting flickering shadows across them all.
“You four—go back to Atlantis for the others, the rest of you, you’re with me,” Aidan replied, holding his burning talisman so close to Alexander’s wing that the feathers singed.
Alexander weighed up his options. How far would he have to run before the effects of the talisman faded? He’d never make it away quickly enough.
“Well bugger me,” the driver snorted as they shoved Alexander into the van. “That’s not just any old angel you’ve got there, Aidan.”
Alexander raised an eyebrow. How could they possibly know who he was? He hit his head on the roof as he stumbled. He’d never been inside an Earth vehicle before—the stench of greasy food and tobacco was overpowering.
“What? What are you talking about, Eddie?” Aidan prodded Eddie’s arm off the passenger seat as he climbed in.
“That’s Alexander. As in the Alexander. Leader of all the bloody angels,” Eddie scoffed, pushing at a lever in the centre of the two front seats.
Alexander said nothing. These witches seemed about as intelligent as the last bunch of mercenaries he’d met. But what were they doing? The last time he’d seen Hazel, Earth witches had all but chased him to a window on more than one occasion. He should have investigated sooner, but he’d prioritised Ohinyan over Earth. Another mistake. He still hadn’t found the right balance with his duties as leader and his bad decisions in the last few months weighed heavily on him.
“Did you hear that? He says it’s Alexander,” the young witch laughed as her and the others walked away into the night.
Aidan beamed at Alexander and patted his hand on the back of Eddie’s seat as they sped off. A witch sat either side of Alexander, two in front, three behind, the witch beside him flicking incessantly at a lighter.
Hazel told you they were up to something. Alexander chastised himself for letting his responsibilities slip—again. He’d been so focused on Fia. So focused on Fia you’ve allowed yourself to get captured. His arms and wings were still immobile—it must have been the proximity to the talismans. Magic sticks. He’d have to observe them closely if he was going to escape.
“Leader of angels,” Aidan finally said, putting his hands up behind his head and his feet on the ledge in front of him, the soles of his boots touching the glass. “What did I tell you all earlier? We’ll go down in the history books for this.”
The other witches howled and cheered in excitement as the streetlights cast shadows across their faces. But Alexander remained silent, watching his assailants as carefully as possible without staring, listening to the way they spoke to each other, the way they responded to Aidan. The others seemed to hold little regard for him, and it wasn’t hard to see why. Aidan fiddled with a knob on the centre console, music flickering from melody to melody as he fiddled.
“Mate, that was a tune!” Eddie complained, banging his hand on the steering wheel.
The two of them bickered back and forth for the rest of the journey, and Alexander listened in silence, searching for familiar landmarks and sitting upright in his seat when they began to ascend a tree-lined road that he recognised.
The van pulled up in front of large metal gates and a great gothic building loomed over them, the entrance to the west side of Highgate Cemetery. Aidan jumped out first and slid back the heavy passenger door.
“You’re going to be a spectator along with the rest of us, and what a show it’s going to be,” he said, striking his baton alight and waving it in Alexander’s face like a flag. Alexander noticed another of the talismans attached to the baton—they all had them.
“What, you mean he’s not goin’ with the rest of ‘em?” Eddie asked, leaning back from the driver’s seat.
“Shut up, Eddie. No, he’s not,” Aidan leered, touching the flaming baton to Alexander’s wing for a second. Feathers singed and he recoiled at once, clenching his teeth together at the pain. “This one’s already surplus to requirements, and I think he’ll be the cherry on the cake for the Big E when he makes his appearance later on. Come on.” Aidan pulled Alexander from the van, just as a white-haired man opened the heavy gates behind them.
“Another extra?” The man nodded his head in Alexander’s direction.
“Well look at that, Eddie, two cherries,” Aidan said as two witches kicked an angel towards them, his golden eyes glimmering in the torchlight.
“Halvar, old friend, are you injured?” Alexander asked, staggering forward, his arms lifeless at his sides, but Aidan shoved him back. He didn’t know every angel by name—far from it, but Halvar was the general’s son, a friend Alexander had spent much of his childhood with.
“Sire—” Halvar began.
“I don’t think so.” Aidan threw his torch in between them. “Everyone, positions. We don’t want any screw-ups tonight.”
The witches stepped into formation, torches blazing menacingly close to Alexander’s and Halvar’s wings as they led them across an open courtyard and up stone steps into the cemetery.
Alexander knew this path well. The last time he’d walked it, because his heart was too heavy to fly, he’d left Fia sleeping peacefully in her bed. Moss-covered headstones lined the way, their inscriptions t
oo old and crumbling to read in the torchlight. Ivy covered even the tallest of graves, wrapping its way around columns and urns, carvings of angels and crosses.
The dense trees gave way to a small opening. He’d failed her. He’d failed Fia, and he’d failed all of Ohinyan, too. If Aidan had been talking about Erebus, both Earth and Ohinyan were at risk. No one was safe, and he had allowed it to happen. The witches had predicted it, and he’d left it too late—the darkness was coming for all of them. And they were no match for an ancient darkness that had thousands of years to plan his return.
Up ahead, two great stone obelisks rose high amongst the gravestones and the trees, giving way to a corridor of tombs. Voices cried out from the darkness beyond, cries of panic mixed with laughter. Above a circle of tombs stood a great cedar tree, and around it knelt twelve angels, arms bound behind their backs with the talismans, and eyes wide with fear as an old witch waved torches amongst them. The cedar tree glowed, its branches casting flickering shadows over them all. Alexander recognised a few of the angels—not by name, but he’d greeted a few of them before on their arrival back to Ohinyan between shifts. “Let them go,” he called out. He struggled against the magic of the talismans again but it was no use, and Aidan kicked him sharply in the back of a knee.
“You can watch from here.” Aidan pulled Alexander up onto the stone steps opposite the tree. “It’s the perfect spot for spectators.”
Halvar tripped and fell as a witch behind them pressed the tip of his torch onto a wing. An exasperated sound escaped from Halvar, but he said nothing.
“You’re making a grave mistake.” Alexander seethed, his arms dead weights at his side. You’ve failed them all. Aidan kicked the back of his leg again and he fell to his knees beside Halvar, witches surrounding them with flaming batons and talismans.
The Eternal Dusk (Daughter of the Phoenix Book Two) Page 2
