‘Of course I came. Everyone did,’ he said back, breathless.
She smiled against his lips, then thought suddenly, jarringly, of Harrow, and gently pushed Tommy away, her lips still parted. ‘I…’ She couldn’t think for a moment. Instead, she swallowed, and shook her head to clear it. Hella took a deep breath, then felt flustered so she checked her athame at her belt, the amulet around her throat, her hair loose around her shoulders which she knew she should tie back.
Tommy took a single step backward. All his former ferocity had been stripped away. ‘I’m sorry,’ he offered. ‘Perhaps we shouldn’t have…’ He, too, trailed off. Then he straightened. ‘We should, uh, prepare,’ he said awkwardly, but Hella reached for him.
‘I just… I… Harrow,’ she explained poorly.
Tommy raised a hand. ‘Say no more. Everything’s okay.’ A smile curled his lip, and he held her hand. ‘It’s okay, really.’
With their hands clasped, Harrow walked in and flinched as if he’d been hit, and shimmered. His tail flicked angrily, his eyes on Tommy. Hella and Tommy broke apart abruptly and Hella went to Harrow, but he stepped back from her, hurt in his eyes.
Then, of course, Remy decided to join them, totally oblivious of the situation. ‘Are you lot helping, or not? The witches just left, but we can do without them.’ She peered at Hella. ‘You, come on. We need your help. Amara and Meele are here.’ She turned to leave, and a familiar spark of anger curled in Hella’s chest.
‘You and I aren’t finished, old witch. You betrayed me. I’m not about to forget that.’ Her voice was low and dangerous.
‘Be as angry at me as you want, child, but do it later. We have a battle to win.’ Then she looked at the three of them. ‘Are we all clear on the plan?’ she asked seriously, and each of the teenagers nodded.
‘Get the potion, throw it, and Nerretti will do the rest, then say the spell and poof, no more angels,’ Hella summed up, her heart beating faster than ever.
Remy nodded. ‘If all goes according to plan, yes. Poof.’ And with that, she stalked out of the room. Hella couldn’t look at the broken blue of Harrow’s eyes, so she followed her guardian. Only once Remy had left the room did Hella wonder if she should leave the boys alone.
They were all in the main room when the store’s foundation began to shake. Any spells or warding Remy and the witches had the chance to put up were instantly torn down. The glass and wood of the front door blew inward, jagged shards flying.
A small transparent blade planted itself deeply into Harrow’s shoulder and he yelped. Tommy caught him as he stumbled with the force of the shaking.
Hella tried to steady herself, reaching out to lay a hand on the glass front counter. Crystals slid off shelves, cracking on the ground. Books tumbled onto the floor in a flurry of paper and broken spines. Then, with an almighty tearing sound, the roof collapsed into the store by the force of the most blinding white light Hella could have imagined. It felt as if she were being struck by lightning while an earthquake danced under her feet.
A squadron of angels landed among the rubble as their group tried to get into a fighting position. The angels outnumbered their group; Hella, Remy, Tommy, Harrow, Meele and Amara stood against seven towering angels—including Nerretti, whose once friendly face was now turned up in an identical smirk of disgust to match those of his brethren.
Malachai looked at Amara, her shimmered silver wings flapping. ‘You’re the Sana, aren’t you?’ he asked, then, without an answer, threw a ball of white angelic fire at her. Amara didn’t have time to duck or dodge, and the fire hit her in the shoulder, she stumbled, then the angels watched on in fascination as the faerie’s wound slowly began to heal itself. ‘She’s the healer,’ Malachai said. ‘Kill her first.’
Hella took a deep breath and let loose her telekinesis. An array of athames and slimmer daggers were pulled toward her, and she shot them out with blinding speed, each one finding a home in the flesh of the angels.
The angels snarled. Then attacked. And everything was lost to the jumble of the fray.
She didn’t know the names of the angels, other than Net and Malachai. One was larger than the rest, more toughly built and over seven feet tall. He backhanded Remy, and she landed in a display cabinet, the glass shattering. The old witch fell like a ragdoll.
The two warlocks, often arguing and opposed, stood side by side as they had practised and distracted the angels, Harrow’s shoulder bleeding from the shard of glass. Tommy summoned his powers to shake the earth, and sent dozens of curling roots through the arms of an angel who snarled and twisted, the roots burrowing into his skin.
Harrow created a bubble of water, then floated it to the heads of three angels, watching them choke and gasp, bubbles appearing within the water spheres as the angels tried to breath and choked instead. A smirk crept across Harrow’s face, pleased with his success, while, Hella noted, Tommy looked worried, but determined.
It showed a significant difference in personality, Hella thought, as she conjured her own purple flames. An angel advanced on her. Malachai.
‘Little witch, little witch,’ he sang. ‘I liked our talk earlier, but I’m afraid we’re just not on the same page.’ His hand became a glowing ball of white fire to match Hella’s.
But she was faster.
She plunged an athame into his hand, slid under his legs while he groaned in annoyance, then climbed onto his back and ripped the halo from around his head, forcing it down, around his own throat. She put her flaming hands on his arms, trying to clamp them down, to keep him from clawing at her. He gagged under her weight and the burning halo. She hadn’t really expected to be able to choke an angel with his own halo.
She watched from Malachai’s back as Harrow successfully choked an angel to his knees. The angel, to her surprise, burst into a shower of feathers and silver blood. As he exploded, a feather sailed through the air and pierced Harrow’s arm.
‘Come on,’ he growled, pulling it out with a grunt, and then extracting the glass more carefully. The other two angels he’d trapped in water bubbles now shook them off and advanced on him, but had difficulty moving forward, still coughing up water. Tommy was twining roots through the entire body of an angel, who was writhing and cursing.
As Hella became distracted, Malachai managed to throw her off, and she landed with a painful thud against a wall and slid to the ground near Remy. She crawled over to her guardian who was laying half-under the shattered cabinet, broken glass littered the floor around her. Hella shook Remy by the shoulders. The woman had never looked so old, or feeble to Hella before as she did now. Pale and unconscious did not suit her.
From the next room, Hella heard Harrow yell, then a crunching sound, as if he had been tossed into a bookshelf. ‘Hella, hurry!’ he called desperately.
She shook Remy, harder now. ‘Wake up, you old crone, we need you! Get your potion and help us!’
Remy stirred, her blue eyes shining. ‘Hella,’ she croaked, with none of her usual bitterness, ‘get the book in the backroom. Do the spell.’ Her eyes rolled back and forth, then suddenly a flood of blood erupted from her mouth.
Hella could see Tommy behind her, still battling with the angel who sneered at him. Tommy was so brave, she thought. Hella noted that the angel had a few glaring white-light marks upon his skin; he was cut, injured. The roof hung in pieces, letting in the moon’s soft glow. She could see the sweat glistening on Tommy’s forehead as he strained to hold back the angel who was unarmed, but his wings were spread in threat, as if toying with Tommy.
‘Hella!’ he called, not risking to glance at her. ‘Hurry! We need you out here.’
Meele, it occurred to Hella, did not seem to have any actively helpful powers to be used in battle. She had gathered up an athame and was trying her luck at hand-to-hand combat with mixed success. Hella saw Amara on the floor, two angels taking turns kicking at her, silver blood splattered everywhere.
Hella glanced back to Remy who was pale
but for the scarlet splattering her lips. A spear of the wooden cabinet had pierced through the old woman’s torso, slick with dripping blood. Hella looked away, her eyes shining. They were losing, she thought, terrified. Her friends were moments away from being slaughtered.
She wouldn’t let herself think of those who had already been killed, the children and all the innocents. The witches. Even her father. Their loss pressed heavily on her chest as she ran into the back room, her feet sliding on something wet and slick on the floor. She didn’t stop to look at what it was. Hella found the book, open at the page she needed, then scooped the readied dark vials up into her arms. She called for her friends.
Hella cradled the book against her, needing to protect the one thing that could save them all. Carefully, she held the vials of potion. Distracted, looking for the guys, Hella did not see the angel slip out from behind a cabinet, her wings splayed, a feather larger than Hella’s entire arm came slicing down toward her, whistling toward her skin. Then a shadow moved between them as the angel yelled, and Hella heard someone cry out in agony.
Harrow dropped to the ground, bleeding a river of dark blue blood onto the floor, his eyes fluttering. He had shot a burst of ice into the angel’s eyes. The angel blinked them away through her fire. Hella reached for Harrow on the ground, but the angel took her in the middle, kicking her in frustration. Hella dropped the vials and the spellbook.
‘You. Pathetic. Little. Human,’ the angel seethed, landing a blow to Hella’s ribs with each word. Angels wore surprisingly sensible rib-stomping boots.
Hella gasped and groaned, feeling the blood flow inside her all wrong. She suspected she was bleeding internally. Between blows, Hella found it hard to focus her chakras, so instead, she let herself feel. She thought of Meele, Amara and Tessa and how they had been captured, tortured. Hella’s eyes glowed as brightly as the angel’s wings, a fiery purple. The angel paused, letting Hella take a painful breath, sharp and jagged.
Hella felt something rattle around her lungs, like a rock in a soda can. Hella held a hand up, blasting the angel in a purple-red fire that even Hella could feel the heat from. The angel yelped, stepping back. It was a satisfying sound. If she could move, or breathe, she might have smiled at that.
Hella thought of the witches who had burned just for helping them, for aiding the Cambions who had always been punished wrongly, labelled as ‘evil’. Hella realised she was yelling at the angel, screaming at her as she let loose the strongest fire she had ever conjured. The angel was on her knees, bullied down by the purple flames engulfing her, spreading over her head, wings and down her body. Hella saw the surprise that lit the angel’s grey eyes before she exploded into a messy ball of white gooey feathers and a dull golden halo.
The exhaustion, and the pain of her stomach, threatened to overwhelm her. Then she saw Harrow, laying in a pool of his own dark blood. He had jumped in front of an angel’s blow to save her life and paid for it with his own. When Hella tried to scramble over to him, she slipped in the blood, falling, splashing herself with it. It was warm and sticky.
‘Harrow!’ She shook him, but he was pale and still. Tears fell down her cheeks. ‘No.’ She sobbed, sliding to sit in the sticky dark blue pool on the floor. She shook her head of the pain and grief that wanted to drown her from the inside. Her head snapped up. ‘Tommy?’ she called, her voice hoarse and broken.
Tommy’s head swivelled to find her in the darkness. ‘We have to do it, now,’ he said, and she could hear the meaning behind it, While it’s only Nerretti and Malachai left, before he kills us.
The pain in her stomach, the throbbing in her head from grief and from overusing her magic was so strong she could barely see straight. She grabbed the book from the floor and, with relief, gathered the unbroken potion vials. Tommy slid to her side.
‘Can you do it?’ he whispered, noting how she could barely breathe.
Hella took a deep breath, a painful thing. Then nodded, thinking of Remy and Harrow. She touched Harrow’s cheek, still warm. ‘Hell yes,’ she growled.
Tommy saw Harrow laying still on the slippery hardwood floors, and his pale-green skin turned paler. He quickly averted his eyes and instead looked down at the spellbook, blinking hard. Hella was focused on staying conscious. Only she and Remy knew the spell, the ritual. If she passed out, everything was over.
Malachai slithered out from behind a bookshelf, his face a pale mask. His mouth a hard line, a slash across his face. Hella smiled at the raw circle around his throat where she had almost choked him with his own halo. His green eyes were nothing like Tommy’s, or her own; these smouldered with a vicious contempt. Behind Malachai, Net lurked in the shadows, waiting.
‘There are only two of you left?’ Hella asked. Her voice was low, angry. She had meant to sound victorious, but she just couldn’t.
Malachai smiled, like a cat toying with a mouse in its claws. ‘I could say the same to you two.’ Malachai looked pointedly at Harrow, then Remy, the wood still pointing out of her, dripping with her blood. Meele lay on the floor, a feather deep in her leg, Amara was sprawled on the ground, surrounded by silver blood, pale in the moonlight. Then the angel looked at Tommy, smouldering eyes raking over his exposed skin, a gouge taken out of his leg, the exhaustion in his eyes and face from exerting his warlock magic.
Then, finally, he looked down at Hella.
‘I’m surprised you’re still alive, little witch,’ Malachai said softly. ‘But by the looks of you, not for long. Even as I’m speaking, your lungs are filling with blood, aren’t they? I saw Tamara stomping you down, and then I saw you end her. But you’re broken now, little witch. What are you going to do to me? Where’s your fire now?’
She could see the marks on his wing, the ones she had left hours ago, and it still gave her satisfaction. For a moment, she thought of their conversation, if you could call it that.
He watched her, as if enjoying the sight of her life slowly draining away. As darkness crept at the edges of her vision, she thought of all the reasons she had fought today. Like she had told her father, she was doing the right thing, and angels or not, these were the bad guys.
Tommy jostled her. ‘Hella, stay with me.’
Then Malachai seemed bored. ‘You’ve lost,’ he snarled, then leapt for her, spreading his blindingly white wings, lighting up the night sky as if it were day and the sun had exploded in a shower of white fire. Hella threw her hands up to protect her face, and then it happened, almost in slow motion, but so very fast. A torrent of purple fire erupted from her and washed over the angel. He yelled, a harsh and angry sound.
‘Net, now!’ she screamed through the fire and stabbing of feathers as Malachai’s wings scratched at her.
Hella let her powers go, exhausted and depleted. Malachai took a step back, frowning and indignant, soot streaking his cheek, singeing his feathers. Net stepped up behind his partner, his hands glowing with white fire.
‘Mal, I’m sorry,’ he said. Before Malachai could turn at his words, Net buried his glowing hand into his partner’s back. Smouldering green eyes flashed in pain and shock. It was an odd thing to see on Malachai’s cold face, so afraid, he could have been a human. Net took a moment, as if hesitating, then ripped Malachai’s heart out through his back, splattering dark silvery blood all over his white uniform and up the walls. Shining silver poured out of Malachai’s mouth as he turned his head to look up to Net in betrayal, his eyes wide.
‘Now,’ Net commanded them.
Hella handed two vials to Tommy. Together, they started chanting the spell that Sian and her coven had been working on before they were murdered. Then they threw the vials of potion at the ground by Malachai’s feet as he swayed. The vials landed with a burning sizzle, searing the wooden floors, creating a ring around the angel.
Malachai was trapped.
Net slowly crossed the room, past Malachai, around the burning circle, still holding his brother’s heart dripping silver blood like mercury, darker than Amar
a’s blood. It gloved his hand and forearm. He approached Hella and Tommy, then lowered himself to his knees, holding on to one of Hella’s hands as she held Tommy’s, connecting them and the spell.
Nerretti held up the heart as an offering, the price of the magic and the final ingredient.
Malachai fell clumsily to his hands and knees, the gaping hole in his chest a torn and bloody mess. The once magnificent wings on his back now drooped sadly, the feathers slowly falling out, landing on the ground around him. ‘What have you done?’ he demanded, eyes blazing. His voice was hoarse, choked.
Hella watched their comrade. Nerretti could scarcely look at him, and she knew that they had grown up together, trained together, been brothers. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she felt sorry for Net, for what he had to do.
‘I’ve saved them, from you. From the angels,’ Nerretti said sadly.
Hella and Tommy continued chanting, and the world began to change. A moment ago, it was night-time, the stars shining and the moon’s soft glow pouring through the open, broken ceiling. Now, looking up, Hella could see thousands of shining lights, like comets, but they were coming from the Earth, and going up into the sky.
Malachai looked up too, tears falling down his cheeks, breathing hard and heavy. ‘No,’ he said. ‘How could you send us away? It’s our mission to be here, to destroy those monsters. Net, the demons, the Cambions, witches, they are all supposed to die!’ He growled, still beholden to his vicious prejudice even with his final breaths.
Net shook his head sadly. ‘No, brother. You’re wrong. It’s time for you to leave them all be. They’ll be safer without you, without us. You were never supposed to hunt them. They were never the evil ones.’ Then Net edged closer to Mal. ‘Train harder, brother.’
Malachai opened his mouth in a silent scream, but Nerretti closed his eyes, looking away from his brother as he crushed the heart in his hand over the spellbook, setting the pages aglow in small white flames that did nothing to damage the pages of the book. With a final cry, Malachai exploded in a burst of white feathers, his halo thudding loudly to the ground.
Feathers, Tails & Broomsticks Page 31
