by Jaci Miller
The incubus clutched Dane firmly around the waist as he walked her toward a makeshift altar at the front of the mill.
Beside her Rafe swore under his breath but remained stationary his hand on the grip of his sword, his eyes never leaving Lucien.
They watched as he released Dane, walked to the altar, and lit the candles, four white and one red. He pulled the hood of his long dark cloak over his head doing the same to Dane’s. A large tome sat on a raised pedestal at the center of the altar, and he flipped through the pages until he found the one, he wanted.
His firm voice echoed across the open field, carried on the quiet night air as he recited an incantation. He spoke in a tongue Stevie did not understand.
“Why can’t we just go stop him?” she asked Rafe.
The warrior flexed his hands and through clenched teeth, he said. “It is futile to try to impede an ancient prophecy. Any attempt to do so will shift its course temporarily but in the end, it will find its way to a conclusion. Prophecies, especially those seen by the ancient Druids, must come to pass it is the way of our world. Until midnight, we remain observers.”
Stevie glanced back at Dane. Her eyes were barely visible under the hooded cloak. I hope Adaridge was able to reach you.
A deep bellowing noise filled the air interrupting her silent thoughts.
“What was that?” she asked searching the sky for the source.
Rafe moved in closer and his eyes lifted skyward. “It can’t be.”
“Can’t be what?”
Another throaty blast ripped through the dark sky.
“A battle horn,” Rafe said as he looked across the field to where Gabriella stood. Her wings were flexed straight out, and her iridescent eyes scanned the sky above.
The horn crescendo again, its deep bellow reverberating ominously through the clouds, a haunting din heralding in the unexpected. Gabriella recognized it at once. Turning her attention skyward her eyes flicked back and forth until she located the bright light hurtling toward earth.
The sky cracked and flashed as the light broke through the atmosphere and the protective dome around them rippled as the ancient power moved toward it.
“Open the dome!” she screamed at Alistair who’d assigned witches to ensure the quarter altars were protected.
Alistair looked at the bright light hurtling through the sky. “What is that?”
“Quickly,” she shouted over her shoulder as she ran toward the southern altar.
Without hesitation, Alistair sprinted to the altar in the east.
Pure white light shimmered through the dome as the light plunging down from above got closer.
“NOW!” yelled Gabriella, as she closed the altar’s connection to the magic infusing the dome. Alistair did the same and the dome between the altars began to crack. Small fractures appeared and pieces slid away leaving holes in its surface. The fractures enlarged and soon a quarter of the dome had disappeared leaving a vulnerable entrance point in the protective shield.
The bright light was almost upon them.
She ran to a spot in between the altars where the opening was right above her. Raising her sword, she muttered a few words. Iridescent light sparkled under her skin and flowed upward through her hand and into the sword, bursting out the blade’s tip into the night sky.
A beacon.
The light hurtling toward them shifted course heading straight for Gabriella as the horn bellowed again. A bright light burst through the dome’s opening and crashed into the ground yards from where she stood. The earth shook from the impact as the last of the horn’s deep roar faded in the distance.
Gabriella sheathed her sword and scowled at the Seraph standing yards away.
“Gabriel what are you doing here. I thought you were forbidden to come?”
He rose to his full height, two heads above every other man on the field. His gray armor gleamed enhanced by the iridescent glow of the ether ebbing under his skin. The tips of his enormous wings brushed the cold earth as he came toward her.
“You had no choice in your destiny sister, but I do in mine.”
She looked at her brother in shock. “You are betraying the Guardian of Deities.”
He shook his head. “The Guardian knows of my decision. He does not condone it, but he understands and accepts it. If this world perishes and the ancient bloodlines are tainted with darkness, then there will be nothing left for us to rebuild. The ether will become stagnant and us with it. Mortals knowing of our existence will be irrelevant if we fail.”
He walked toward her and placed his hand on her shoulder. “Fate has joined our worlds, Gabriella. This battle is not for me to watch from afar.”
The dome above them crackled as Alistair and another witch resealed it.
“There is no leaving now brother, even if you wished to.”
“Then it is a good thing I have chosen this as my destiny as well.”
His solemn face lit up as yellow light exploded across the field from inside the mill. The entire dome was cast in its eerie glow, and she raised her hand to shield her eyes from the blinding flash.
“You came just in time, Gabriel,” she said as the loading dock door began to open. It squealed as the metal wheels grated in their tracks heaving the door upward. The darkness encompassing the mill echoed an unnerving silence until a hollow shuffling sound penetrated the night air.
Across the field, Stevie and Rafe covered their eyes as the blinding glow burst from the mill’s interior. When it receded moments later, Dane and Lucien were gone, the altar was bare, and only the candles were left flickering on its surface.
Stevie’s eyes searched the area. “They must be inside the mill.”
The ground beneath them shook as the shuffling sound grew louder.
Rafe drew his sword and turned to look at her. “It is time.”
She checked her watch.
11.59 pm.
The witching hour was upon them.
A shudder ran through the dome as the full moon peaked. Crackles of lilac hued energy snaked across its surface as the ancient magic flowing through the portal stones ignited. The perimeter fires hissed and flared. The water in the lake surged upward as whitecaps formed on the surface. A ripple beneath the earth caused the grass to sway and small tufts of air funneled in circles.
As the ancient prophecy came to pass like a ripple carried through time, the sky darkened. Gabriella felt the static in the air as it breached the atmosphere. The energy surrounding them was ancient. Magic, she had been born from and which the others were tied by blood and destiny.
The static surged, ruffling the feathers of her wings as it passed. She glanced at Gabriel whose eyes locked with her own. He felt the same thing—the ancient ether and the magic of their realms were at full power.
Stasis was over.
The Thanissia Universe, their home was once again as it had been.
Her eyes flicked to the altars. The glow of the portal stones no longer pulsed but emitted a steady, strong beam of light upward. The magic of the ether swirled inside the dome as midnight came, the prophecy passed, and all their destinies collided.
“For Etheriem,” Gabriel said, drawing his sword.
“For the Five Realms,” Gabriella echoed, as a wave of daemons poured from the bowels of the abandoned mill.
The first wave hit the spell Celeste had cast. A type of reverse necromancy that pulled the dark magic animating the corpses from within. The sickly yellow light throbbing under their skin extinguished and their decomposed corpses crumpled to the ground until they were nothing more than piles of bone and ash. The spell was not as strong when the second wave of daemons encountered it and although it slowed them considerably, it didn’t fully remove the dark magic.
“It will be a few minutes before I can re-cast,” Celeste said looking at Alistair and Jon.
They both nod
ded and drew their swords.
“We will take out this side of the flank,” Alistair said. “You stay here. Jon has cloaked this area. If you don’t move, you will remain undetected.”
Celeste removed the fabric doll and the black powder from her coat pocket. “I will begin at once. Be careful.”
An echo of gunfire followed her words as the Coven’s sharpshooters opened fire from their perches in the trees along the left side. Daemon heads exploded as the bullets tore through their skulls.
As Jon fought the daemons heading toward the water, Alistair signaled to Rafe.
“They are adapting to the frontal attack,” Alistair said as he met them near the back of the east quadrant. “Moving away from the middle and heading toward the outer flanks. Celeste’s spell will be useless if the daemons go around it. If the dragons can circle the boundary inside the outer fire barrier, maybe we can keep the battle away from the edges of the protective dome.”
“And give us less ground to cover,”
“Yes”
Stevie held her hands in front of her. Soon, a gray mist spun upward. As it rose it expanded until the smoke dragon hovered menacingly in the night sky, its red eyes glowing. Twisting her hands around one another she compacted the smoke until it began to spark. The sparks ignited a flame which funneled like a beam toward the sky, swirling ferociously until the fire dragon was born.
The fire dragon was substantially bigger than the other and its charcoal black eyes shone like empty pools as they reflected the flames. Long tendrils of fire streamed behind its wings as it twisted and turned in the air above her and when it inhaled its entire body flared.
It was magnificent.
The two dragons circled overhead waiting for direction from the dragon gypsy they served. Stevie muttered her command sending them to the outer edges of the dome where they blasted the daemons with their fire breath.
Daemons squealed as they burned their deathly screech echoing through the night.
The three Warlician warriors watched as the daemons collapsed under the necromancer’s spell. Hundreds more poured from the belly of the mill clambering over their fallen brethren.
Like the ones that emerged from the depths of the caverns in the Dead Lands, these too were macabre skeletons of rotting flesh, broken bones, and death. They shuffled and lumbered; their eyes lit with the sickly yellow glow of dark magic. Translucent skin hung in strips from their bodies, and they moved as if they were ghastly marionettes controlled by an unseen puppet master.
Brannon unsheathed his sword as the daemons surged toward them. His green eyes sparkled as he turned toward the other two warriors and raised his blade.
“May this night see The Order victorious,” he said laying his free arm across his chest so that his hand rested on the medallion on his right shoulder.
Sebastian, his black armor gleaming, lifted his sword and placed the blade across Brannon’s. “The Order.”
Killenn repeated the motion—three blades laying across one another. He smiled at the two Warlicians. “May the fate of this night smile kindly on our paths. And may the power of earth and fire fuel our swords to victory.”
The three warriors pulled their swords back, turned, and ran toward the oncoming daemons. As they slashed through the corpses of the risen dead, the steel of their swords gleamed under the full moon.
The battle for mankind had begun.
Chapter 37
Lucien stood in the gloom to the left of the mill, hidden behind a stack of old flour crates. He clasped tight to Dane’s hand as the battle raged before him. It had been an hour since he’d performed the ritual, which released the daemons from their pods, but the humans and immortals still fought. Their perseverance would be admirable if not so annoying. Some had fallen under the onslaught but those who remained seemed more determined than ever.
His face twitched as his eyes scanned the bodies of the daemons littered across the property. He’d underestimated the power of his enemies. Even without Dane’s magic, they were organized and formidable.
His gaze landed on the winged Seraph just as he mowed down three daemons with one violent swing of his massive sword.
Lucien scowled. Another thing he hadn’t anticipated.
Glancing skyward he saw the dragons coming toward them. Streams of fire billowed from their mouths and scorched trenches in the earth. The fire dragon careened toward the right side of the mill and blasted the loading dock area followed by the smoke dragon who destroyed the back corner of the mill. It crumbled under their wrath sending stone, glass, and timber flying in all directions. When the dragons circled over the lake gaining momentum for another attack, he searched the grounds for the dragon gypsy until he found her near the back of the property. She was trying to destroy the mill, but it was a futile attempt to obstruct the beast’s rise to the surface.
The other immortals had been pushed to the far edges of the field and most were separated by raging fires and advancing daemons.
“It is time for you to work your magic,” he said taking Dane’s hand. “Remember, they must be divided.”
Her black irises reflected the horror of the battlefield, but her face remained an emotionless mask as she followed Lucien. They moved from the shadows along the front wall careful to avoid the sides of the mill the dragons were destroying.
“Those who possess ancient magic must be contained until the beast has surfaced. The prophecy isn’t theirs to guide, but ours.”
His searched the destruction for Rafe. Locating him he pulled Dane across the smoky battlefield in his direction just as the dragons attacked the mill again sending debris showering over them.
Through the chaos, they ran. He wanted to see the look in the warrior’s eyes when he realized Dane was no longer his. To see him suffer as those around him perished. Rafe, along with Claaven Callathian had stolen his legacy, taken his home, and cursed his family to mortal life. His revenge would not come in the form of death but in the endless suffering, the warrior would endure. There would be no place for a Morrighann in the new world, no magic for him to control, only an endless life of anguish as he was forced to feel Dane’s dark and sensual emotions for eternity.
In time he would wish for death.
“Now,” he instructed as they reached the center of the field. Dane bent down and placed her hands on the cold ground. The snow melted under her touch as she began to mutter. Rafe battled a group of daemons a few hundred feet away oblivious to her presence. Her darkness cloaked her emotions and altered their binding.
With growing excitement, Lucien watched as the fighting intensified. The daemons spread across the field, mindless corpses, hunting, searching, drawn to the warm blood of their enemies.
Lilith had made him proud. She’d created these ghoulish specimens without even knowing she was doing it. Even while succumbing to the madness brought on by the beast, she’d produced an army of darkness unlike any this world has ever seen.
The ground shuddered beneath his feet as Dane’s murmuring increased. He took a step back, so he was closer to where she crouched. The earth beneath her hands began to crack. Snow, soil, and dormant grass flew as a fissure formed. The crack enlarged, racing out along the ground until a yawning gap opened from the right side of the mill diagonally across the property.
He watched with fascination as she turned the other way, placed her hands on the earth and repeated the process. Another crack split the ground, this one running transversely back toward the left side of the mill and trapping another group of her friends near the western altar.
Lucien admired Dane’s handiwork.
The cracks in the ground had cut off access to them and the mill. There was no way for any of the immortals to traverse the fissures without falling to certain death. Dane had cut the field in three and now Lucien, her and the mill stood alone on one piece of the property.
“You have don
e well, my love. Now the beast can come forth without hindrance. The dragons may destroy the structure, but their magic can’t penetrate the portal to hell.”
He glanced down at Dane who remained in a crouched position. Her eyes were shadowed by the hood of her cloak but for a moment he thought a flash of bright green flickered in the black abyss of her irises.
Soon. He thought as he took her hand and helped her to her feet.
When all this is over, she will emerge as the queen of darkness ready to rule by my side.
Chapter 38
Thick smoke billowed into the dark night as the bodies of the dead fueled the fires burning around the property. The horrid stench of burnt flesh and decay mingled with the blood-soaked earth and saturated the air.
They were trapped.
The altar hummed behind them as the dome began to shudder.
“I can’t hold it,” yelled the witch who was manning the altar. “The others must have failed.” Her ashen face was marred with worry as her eyes locked on Drow.
He sliced down another daemon, its rotting body collapsing in a pile at his feet. “Do whatever you can,” he said, his voice barely audible over the rushing wind the others stirred up around them.
Above him, the dome started to crack.
Fissures of glowing light rippled through the invisible field and small pieces of its surface began to slide away. Holes appeared in the protective shield as the entire dome began to crumble around them.
Drow swung his sword again as another daemon surged forward. They were trapped by the fissure which had opened in the earth and there was nowhere to flee, at least not until the dome collapsed. Bodies lay piled up around him, mostly daemons but also the corpses of those who had fought bravely beside him.
He looked around counting those still standing.
Besides the witch managing the altar there were five left including himself.
To his left, Marlee created small tornadoes that picked up the corpses of fallen daemons and flung them at those still attacking. Elyse and a New York witch were near the far edge of the breach battling a squat, rotund daemon whose bulbous eye made a squishing pop when the witch stabbed it with a saber.
