"En garde."
Chapter Five
Aerin was forced to admit that she'd been wrong. It didn't happen very often. Like hardly ever. But she'd sorely misjudged Sir Barriston regarding his effectiveness, because he, apparently, was a bad ass.
The hand behind his back hadn't just been placed there for the sake of an appropriate fighting stance. Aerin had thought she was going to watch him die when three of the ten men reached for handguns, but the eloquent innkeeper merely produced a few throwing daggers and had disarmed two of the three with masterful aim before they’d even had a chance to thumb the safety.
"I am able to count ambidexterity among my many blessings." He strategically moved to place Brock and the Reverend between himself and the third gunman. "Now unhand the lady before I'm forced to demonstrate to you just how pointy this sword really is."
"Yeah." Aerin supported his threat, as she was still too breathless to fabricate one of her own, and really didn't want Brock to choke the shit out of her again.
She couldn't really blame the group of fanatics for the time it took them to react. They had to be dealing with a whole lot of inner WTF? Sir Barriston was a lot to process and that was before he started talking. It took twice the time for these ignoramuses to flip through their mental dictionaries what with all the three-syllable words and such. The bright ones were a lot more difficult to brainwash, so the Reverend Blanding wasn’t leading a team of geniuses here.
Blanding’s eyes narrowed as he turned to Barriston with the demeanor of a man on a holy mission. "If you're in league with this she-devil—"
"Again," Aerin interrupted, her voice gaining some strength back. "The devil and I are on opposite sides. At least I'm pretty sure."
"You can join her in hell," the Reverend finished, as though she'd not spoken. He gestured to the remaining eight men to attack.
Barriston advanced, his sword whipping through the air with a resounding swish. He would have sliced through the Reverend's middle had a bruiser with a bowie knife and his asp-wielding friend not gotten there first.
The asp provided a decent counter-weapon to the fencing sword as they traded a few attacks back and forth. Ultimately Sir Barriston's skill won out, and with a few deft strikes, the water lapped their blood from the pebbled beach.
A gunshot startled everyone, and chunks of brick sprayed the swordsman but, thankfully, the bullet missed.
"Ah ha! I see you brought a gun to a sword fight, what a shame. Let us see if the rest of you chaps are as fleet-footed as you are fanatical." Sir Barriston wisely leaped behind the brick building.
Aerin was about to use Brock's momentary distraction against him with a sound kick to the balls when a trio of familiar motherfuckers stepped from the alley.
"I thought I sensed a disturbance in the force," said Dru, as he wrenched the gun from the shooter's arm and pistol-whipped him. It appeared that the action took as much energy as swatting a fly, but the rather hefty gunman tumbled ass-over-end until he came to a stop several feet away, holding his shattered jaw and moaning.
Most of the men had made chase after Barriston, and therefore missed the arrival of the absolute last person on earth that Aerin wanted to see.
Chapter Six
Julian Roarke looked more like a gothic GQ model than one fourth of the reluctantly genocidal Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Every one of her molecules stood up to pay attention to his devil-may-care stride, even the ones that were pissed as fuck.
"What the hell is this, a witch-killing convention?" she bitched, glaring daggers.
All hope that she would escape this alive drained out of her as three of the Four Horsemen slowly approached the corner of the building where the Reverend and Brock still had her trapped against the brick wall.
If they thought she was Tierra, she might have a chance, as everyone was pretty sure they’d need her alive to get Death out of hell where she’d accidentally sent him.
Drustan Geddais, aka War, checked the clip and slid it home before taking aim and painting the brick with the brains of the two witch hunters that hadn't chased sir Barriston.
"I've said it before, and I'll say it again," Dru's midnight eyes inspected the .45 with frank appreciation. "I'm damn glad we made that pact with the Druid King, Malcolm de Moray, a thousand years ago to stop the Apocalypse. Because if we hadn't, I'd never have had the pleasure of playing with these." He spun the gun a few times spaghetti-western style before pointing it at the trio.
Aerin froze, her eyes trained on War's twitchy trigger finger.
She didn't want Julian to be here. Didn't want to be fascinated by the silver striations in his otherwise ebony hair. Didn't want to face the regret mirrored in his beautiful blue eyes.
And she would. Because she couldn't help it.
If he was near, she was drawn to him. For Julian Roarke, the virulent bastard known as Pestilence, was a plague her heart just couldn't seem to fight off. She was immune to his lethal touch, but not to his killer charm. And she knew that in the end, his face would be the last thing she would seek before the darkness took her.
But Damn it all, she would hold out as long as she could, purposely looking everywhere but at him.
"Step away from the bitch," Nicholas Kingswood stepped ahead of his comrades, his hand smoothing a rather lovely Brioni Two-Button Colleseo suit down his impressive torso.
“I think you meant, witch,” Aerin corrected.
“No,” he said with a droll smirk. “I didn’t.”
Incensed, Aerin took a moment's break from her terror to appreciate how the dark oak color of his suite illuminated bronze highlights in his waves of hair only shades lighter than the richest German milk chocolate. He took control of the situation as only Conquest could, with the smile of a shark, the presence of a Caesar, and omg, were those Bruno Magli suede loafers?
Oh shit and holy fuck, she thought, tears of pure, gut-wrenching panic stinging her eyes. I'm going to die in a jean skirt and flip-flops! er, flip-flop... Singular. Like the tear rolling down her cheek.
A sob escaped her as the Reverend brandished the book in front of him like a shield. "I am charged with a sacred duty by the power of this holy bible to stop this witch from conducting her evil."
"We are in that fucking book," War said severely.
"Oh?" Brock challenged, “which one?”
"Revelations," Conquest answered. "And our sacred duty trumps the shit out of yours, so hand her over and I don't rip your spine out through your throat." Nick shrugged as though he thought it a perfectly reasonable condition.
"Do what you must." Blanding thrust his chin up. "Vengeance is mine, sayeth the lord."
"Well that witch is mine, sayeth my fist," Nick countered before squinting the couple yards up at Aerin. "Er, she's one of ours."
Aerin had kept her lashes swept down as their eye color was the only thing that visually distinguished one de Moray sister from another, and she didn't want Julian to know it was her.
"Which witch is she?" Dru queried. "I don't think its Claire, but beyond that..."
"How can you claim to be in this most ancient holy text? For surely you are no angels," the Reverend asked, his accent thickening with what she suspected was fear.
"Actually, there is some debate on that," Julian cut in pensively, his proper British diction sliding like the most expensive silk over chords so previously plunked with the artless strains of an Evangelical. "Whilst we're not the winged seraphim in that version of ancient mythology, we were fashioned by the creator in her image and given a heavenly task in which--"
Aerin couldn't take this anymore. Brock's hold was tightening on her throat again, and Julian's voice was causing her heart to squeeze with the same breathless pressure. "They're in every ancient text, you ignorant douche canoe," she interrupted. "You're arguing with three fourths of the fuckwits of the Apocalypse. So why don't you just do your job and kill me, because I'll be goddamned if they get the fucking pleasure, capiche?"
Dru, Nick, and Julian g
lanced at each other. “It’s Aerin,” they said, mystery solved.
"Nice flip-flop," Conquest snarked.
"Don't start, asshole, I've heard you look pretty in an apron."
Nick's brilliant eyes narrowed, but he muttered, "Touché."
"Leave her with us, and we'll see justice done." Julian's long wool coat hid what she knew to be an impeccable, if somewhat outdated, suit and an even more perfect physique as he took an unthreatening step toward the minister.
"How can we be satisfied that you are who you claim?" Brock called over the shoulder of his leader.
Julian's ice-blue eyes settled on Brock with a falcon-like alertness. "How, indeed?" No one moved as he more glided than walked over the stones toward them. With a chilling calm, he removed his glove and placed it on the nape of Brock's neck, which was exposed by his up-swept hair.
Aerin couldn't smother just a bit of a victorious surge of smugness beneath the fear that she might be the next one to die.
Bye Bye, Brock, she thought as her captor released her and staggered backward, his hands falling to his sides as though he found them too heavy to hold aloft anymore.
But Julian didn't let go. Not when Brock started to sniffle. Nor when he began to cough, and then strangle, blood running from the corners of his lips. He didn't let go when the witch-hunter's smooth skin erupted in boils, or when his hair began to fall out. Nor when every pore and orifice began to bleed and his lungs filled with his own fluids.
Julian didn't let go until Brock's organs liquefied, his joints disintegrated, and he collapsed into a disgusting puddle of gore onto the stones.
"Satisfied?" Pestilence queried, replacing his glove.
The Reverend dropped his book and fled.
Chapter Seven
As quickly as she could, Aerin tore the talisman off of her neck and made to teleport out of there. Though it wasn't as painful as it had been before, the thing still pulsed with tangible power from where she held it away from her by its leather thong, and prevented her from using her magic.
She was going to have to drop it in order to escape, but if she did, she'd be leaving one very powerful unknown weapon in the hands of three men more ultimately dangerous than a few bible-thumper inquisitor wannabe's.
"We're not going to hurt you, Aerin.” Dru held up a staying hand.
"Fuck off," she snarled stepping away from them and inching along the brick wall. "You think I trust a word you say?"
"How about a thank you for saving your life?" Nick suggested, changing the subject.
"How about you make up your fucking mind?" Aerin shot back, grateful for another outlet for her ire. "First you want to kill me, and then you rescue me. What gives?"
"At this point, your death might prove more dangerous to our cause than your life," Dru explained. "We've come to offer you a truce, of sorts."
Aerin's eyes narrowed, but she lowered the talisman. "Okay," she breathed out slowly, trying not to let her fear and anger get in the way of logic. "I'm listening.”
“We think that Lucy might have figured out how to harness your powers, maybe even your souls, if you die.” Nick Kingswood dropped that bomb before he paused to inspect the damage, glancing around them. He visibly noted dead bodies on the ground, and the two live men who’d had their gun hands skewered by Barriston’s well-thrown knives struggling to stand and escape.
“They can’t overhear this.” Nick didn’t have to say more than that as War put bullets right between their eyes without even looking.
Aerin flinched as the gunshots echoed off the brick and resounded across the water with a sharp and ominous augury. She’d seen the bodies of the dead, and the undead, but to watch the princes of the biblical scourge snuff out human lives without so much as a blink was more than a little unsettling.
They were killers. Each and every one of them, in their own way, lived for human suffering.
And yet were plagued, for lack of a better word, with a conscience. With humanity… of a sort.
“We should discuss this elsewhere,” Julian suggested with a furtive glance at Aerin. “We won’t be alone for long. Either the police, the undead, or the devil will be drawn to this place.”
“You’re nuts if you think I’m going anywhere with you.” Aerin summoned her chilliest glare, the one that shriveled the balls of many men who dared question her authority as President and CEO of Westwind Tech. “The police are keeping the zombies busy and are working double time trying to deal with this whole apocalypse thing, so spill the beans, and make it quick, and tell me about what fresh hell we have to deal with.”
“Don’t blame us.” Nick shrugged. “You have Tierra to thank for this.”
Aerin hid a wince. She thought she knew where this was headed and didn’t want to follow them down the road to hell paved with Tierra’s good intentions.
As per usual, Julian explained. “There’s a vulnerable instant between the moment a person dies, releases their soul, and death or one of his reapers come to collect it. Because Tierra, in a fit of temper sent Death to Hell, Lucifer now can count our brother’s potent soul as one of her own.”
Yup, that’s exactly where she thought this was going. Well…Fuck.
“But he’s not dead, right? So how is that possible?” She grasped for any hope she could.
“He’s unable to die, but are you familiar with the adage that possession is nine-tenths of the law?” Julian queried.
Aerin nodded, dread thickening in her already sore throat.
“Eternal laws are not often very different from mortal ones, many of the things that rule your world and the Other World are the tangible constructs of belief. Currency is only such because you’ve assigned it a specific value. National boundaries only exist because someone drew a line on a map. Government is only powerful because people allow themselves to be governed.”
For the first time since they’d met, Aerin sensed anger beneath Julian Roarke’s generally implacable facade. Just what did he have to be mad about? She wondered as he continued.
“You humans are ruled by fear, and you use faith to counteract that fear. But your faith is not contained to a benevolent or vengeful creator; it is split between a deity above…and one below. Faith is an instinct of the soul, and it is that belief that lends a deity power.”
“I thought we were going to keep this short,” Aerin bitched. Half because she wanted him to get to the point, and half because she was afraid of what he would say next.
“Hell is a place from which there has historically been no escape, no redemption, and no forgiveness. Hell is her domain, and whilst Lucy holds Bane in her clutches, it gives her a certain… power over the dead. Now, if she wants, she can play reaper, and she doesn’t have to answer to Death, himself, because he’s imprisoned and, essentially, powerless.”
Well. Fuck.
Again.
Aerin swallowed around a dry tongue. She couldn’t say that she blamed Tierra for her fit of temper. There were those pesky pregnancy hormones to deal with… and who wouldn’t have been pissed upon learning that she’d been secretly married, er, soul-bound without her permission? Aerin couldn’t say she wouldn’t have done the same were she in her sister’s place, especially because there was no way Tierra could have known her actions would carry such weighty consequences.
But because of it, they were royally fucked. Like sideways.
“So you’re telling me that demon bitch now has the ability to steal our souls and our powers if we die, and she doesn’t even have to use the zombies to do it?” Aerin used a technique she’d used in the corporate industry just to keep things straight. Repeat what you don’t understand. What you don’t want to hear. Put it in your own words.
“We think so,” Dru answered.
“You think so?”
“We’re pretty fucking sure,” Nick confirmed. “Lucy was there when I shot—when Moira went into the water, and when your sister was saved, the devil blew a gasket.”
“She’s not exactly keeping h
er plans a secret,” Dru remarked wryly. “I don’t think she feels that she has to.”
“She’s powerful, Aerin,” Julian’s voice had become more urgent than she’d ever heard it. “More so than ever as fear is beginning to build and she feeds upon that. She’s closer to attaining her goal of world domination than she’s previously been…” He didn’t say that it was Aerin and her sisters’ fault.
He didn’t have to.
Chapter Eight
“So, let me get this straight,” Aerin held up her hand. “The only reason you’ve decided to stop trying to murder the four of us is because you don’t want Miss Mephi-syphilis to nab our elemental powers before we gain entrance into the afterlife?”
“That’s the only reason we’ve decided to stop trying to murder you,” Conquest clarified, fingering the diamond cufflinks beneath his suit coat. “We’d actually regret the loss of your sisters.”
Ouch, kinda. Aerin shrugged it off, used to people not really liking her.
Not caring if she lived or died.
From the moment she’d been thrown off a high rise building by a well-meaning witch, to the orphanage, group homes, foster care, and so on, she couldn’t reach back into her memory and touch a single person who’d truly cared. She was just another unwanted soul.
The expendable de Moray witch…
“If we can figure out how to get Death out of Hell, our problems should be solved and we can go back to trying to kill each other,” Nick said.
“I’ll take it.” She sounded more indifferent than she actually felt and was proud. “The enemies of my enemy are my friends… for now,” she amended. “But know that we make no apologies for trapping Bane in hell as he totally deserved it for being a devious douche nozzle. And don’t think for one second that I’ve forgotten that you skewered Moira,” she pointed to Nicholas.
Which Witch is Wild? (The Witches of Port Townsend Book 3) Page 3
