Tia had been looking down, tightening the straps on her thigh holsters, but looked up at that. “I don’t think a Goddess damned thing. The two of you are no more than a liability.”
“Liability? Oh, we’ll show you a fucking liability.” With that, Deelah held out her arms, splaying open her hands as power visibly began gathering within them. Genie’s hair was not only floating from the waves of magick wafting off her; her eyes had become a swirling vortex. Genie and Deelah walked farther into the room, clearly ready to show them they were far from a liability. Genie opened her mouth, and Deelah raised her arms, both getting ready to put on some damn show they didn’t have time for right then.
Tialanna, Anya, and Elyssia spoke in unison in a haunting tone drenched with so much power everyone within the realm felt it. “Enough.”
With that one word, they brought those two girls down to their knees with a crushing pain, snuffing out their power with the same amount of effort it took to put out a candle. Deelah clutched at her hands as the power had been burned away from them, her wolf no longer at the forefront. Genie’s hands flew to her throat when she realized she was unable to make a single sound, her eyes no longer swirling but wide with the constricting pain that held her vocal cords hostage.
The three now stood side by side in a united front. It was Tia who spoke to Deelah and Genie as they forced the girls to look at them without so much as being able to blink. “You dare try to attack us to attempt to prove a point? The only thing you’ve done is reassure me how not ready you are for this. Did you truly think your magick would harm us? What? Did you think we ruled by sheer force of will?”
Anya cocked her head to the side, continuing where Tia left off. “You may have some power rolling off and inside you, but you have no clue when to use it, or apparently who you should use it on. We are not your enemy. And we cannot use magick on the enemy we’re going up against, unless we want to make her stronger. Only brains and brawn are going to get Jelissa back home, and the two of you seem to be lacking in both. You wouldn’t even be able to take out one of our weakest guards without having your asses handed right back to you.”
“I know damn well the two of you were taught better than this.” Elyssia said in exasperation, “Were you actually going to try to attack us? You must be out of your rabid minds to pull a stunt like that.”
The sisters released Deelah and Genie from their grasp. The two placed their hands palms-down on the floor, their breaths coming in short pants as they tried to regain some form of composure. The sisters’ eyes reverted to their normal colors, their power dissipating back to a normal level.
Deelah continued to look down at the floor and tears pooled in her eyes. “The truth of it is, Jelissa isn’t only the glue that holds the three of us together, but the rock that holds us all in check. We need to be there. We need to find her.”
“I realize how much my daughter means to you, I really do. But what the two of you aren’t understanding is you will only be in the way if you do come. You’re right; you are her family, but we’re not letting the other families come either. Only ones coming are those who will definitely be of some help. Everyone else is staying the fuck here. No exceptions.”
“Tia, maybe we could let them come.” At Tia’s immediate protest, and the look of hope that gleamed in the girls’ eyes, Elyssia added, “But only by doing something in the background and staying away from the actual fight.”
For a moment, they all looked at her with expressions that spoke volumes and jaws dropping towards the floor. Anya was the first to recover. With one eyebrow raised almost all the way up to her hairline, she rolled her eyes and planted her hands on her hips before asking, “Have you lost your ever-loving mind? What are we going to have them do? Stand outside the building and be cheerleaders?”
“No, you jerk! Sometimes the two of you are so much worst when there was only one.” Elyssia proclaimed. “If we’re going to include the tech geeks in on this, we really do need someone we can trust to make sure they don’t flip sides on us. They can’t use their magick where we’re going, but it can be used against them.”
Tia plopped down into one of the chairs. “Actually, that would be a good idea.”
Giving her friend an incredulous look, Deelah said to Genie, “They want us to be fucking babysitters?”
“It’s better than nothing. Think they’ve already proved they can simply crush us like tiny little insects if they wanted to.”
Making them gasp, Tia threw out her hand, encircling the girls in a ring of fire. “Oh, we could do much worse than that.” Taking both hands, she spread that fire upward until the two were in a cage of flames. Allowing it to smolder for no longer than a minute, she let the flames die down as her point was proven, given the looks of terror on both Deelah and Genie’s sweat drenched faces. “But more to the point is that we won’t. We understand how much Jelissa means to you. Take this offer, and let it be enough. Otherwise, we will not hesitate to lock the two of you up until we get back.”
Acquiescing, Deelah looked up to Tia and asked, “Do we at least get to wear one of the kick-ass leather outfits like all y’all?”
“No!”
19
Battle Plans
Reconvening in the war room, Tia, along with Anya, Elyssia, and the squad leaders went over the blueprint of the building they had someone covertly retrieve from the human realm. Their mates were busy choosing which of the other missing young ones’ family members would actually be helpful in a physical fight. They explained to everyone any magick may be completely useless. While they might be able to use it against who she had working for her, because they knew damn well she wasn’t alone, to use it against Seraphina herself would be the same as signing everyone’s death certificate.
“Hey, Lady Bosses, geek patrol just dropped these boxes off.” Butch, the burliest of the guards, plopped the packages down right on top of the schematics they were in the process of looking at. “What’s all this for anyhow? Y’all heard from Boss Man yet?”
“These little goodies are so we can communicate with each other.” Tia pulled one box closer to herself, took out a barely visible earpiece, and began passing the box around. “These little pieces stick right into our ears, and they’re all connected with each other. And, no, we haven’t talked to our dad. He’s still over there helping his new-found mate get some of her things to ‘make her feel more at home here.’ If we had what’s in those other boxes, maybe we could have. They contain some phones that work between realms. As much as everyone hates the human realm, we need to be able to communicate with one another in times like these whenever someone does travel over there. We’ll deal with handing those out later. That’s the first batch anyway. I want every faction in Underlayes to have one; that should keep the tech mages busy for a while, since their minds running idle is a dangerous thing.”
“Couple of those geeks stayed. I left ’em in the sitting room looking like Harry Potter rejects. What you want me to do with ’em?”
“Nothing. Just leave them there for now and keep an eye on them. They’re coming with us. We’re going to pick up one of the cleanup vans and stick them in it with some of their equipment and see if they can get us some eyes on the inside. Jelissa’s friends will be keeping watch over them.”
“Hey,” Elyssa cut in as she was sticking one of the tiny devices into her own ear, “Can’t you do that dream thing your dad used to do to check on you to speak with Jelissa, and see what they’re doing to her? Get whatever info she might have that could make all this easier?”
Anya rolled her eyes at that. “Don’t you think she tried that? Didn’t work. They’ve got something blocking her. Probably something masking her completely otherwise Dad would have picked up on someone of his bloodline being in that realm, especially given the fact he’s in Detroit too.”
“Yeah, well, that’ll change once we get over there. Once he feels the two of us and Darvyn, he’ll know something’s up.” Tia spoke up so the guard knew wha
t she said next was to them as well. “You don’t have to speak into these earpieces to operate them. Remember, we’re going for stealth for as long as possible, so even whispering would give us away since I’m more than sure it isn’t humans she has working for her. Just direct your thoughts to the device and to whom you want to speak with.”
Just as one of the guards opened his mouth, Anya interjected. “Before you ask, no, do not use telepathy. While some of you have that ability, others don’t, and we want everyone in contact with one another. Not only that, no magick is to be used. We have no way of knowing if and or how she could use it against us. We’re already walking in damn near blind; let’s not also walk in stupid. We aren’t giving that bitch anything she can and will use against us. There wasn’t much magick used to power these things up, and to be safe, the tech mages who powered them are staying on this side.”
“Okay, ghouls and gals, let’s rev up and roll out.”
“Elyssia!” Tia and Anya exclaimed at the same time, looking at their baby sister as though she was out of her damn mind. Then Anya turned to Tia. “I thought you were exaggerating about her obsession with Transformers.” Tia shook her head.
Elyssia laughed at her older sisters. “I have been waiting so long to be able to say that. And the look on y’all’s faces is plain priceless.”
Know how Jelissa had been narrating her own part of this story? Well, due to certain circumstances, she won’t be doing that anymore since she doesn’t remember any of the following events. Did she black out, you ask? Something like that…
Jelissa was no longer capable of coherent thoughts. Torn away from her mates, she was thrust into a room full of humans. Her captor had feasted upon all the energy Jelissa had inadvertently stolen from her mates, leaving them beyond weak and with no way to feed themselves. And leaving Jelissa herself ravenous.
The moment she was over the threshold of this new room that was even more enormous than the last and with not one stick of furniture, a smell hit her so hard and fast it woke yet another dormant part of her she had no idea lay in wait. The only physical change when this side arose was to her eyes. Turning into a black so deep to look inside them would make one feel as though they were falling into a never-ending abyss; there were no visible retinas nor pupils, just complete and utter darkness that reflected back at her through the eyes of her soon to be victims. An abyss that was about to swallow each one of those humans’ sin damned souls as her sin eater side came fully online. And it had awoken to a smorgasbord.
Closing her eyes, Jelissa inhaled deeply, savoring all the different flavors she could almost taste upon her tongue. She shuddered as she exhaled all the delectable aromas and rolled her head on her shoulders, cracking her neck in the process. She licked her lips, then opened her eyes as they latched on to her first victim of choice. Once the human female’s eyes locked with Jelissa’s, the woman was lost.
As though she were a marionette on strings, the small, terrified, frail human walked directly to Jelissa. When she stood before her and became completely lost in those endless depths that were Jelissa’s eyes, her every sin came to the forefront of her mind; from the tiniest of infractions to the ones that had ruined not only her own life but others as well.
But Jelissa didn’t see any of that. She wasn’t there to judge. She was there to feast. And that was the thing about sins, they truly were something judged by the eye of the beholder, not something etched in stone. Humans rated their own sins; whichever actions they deemed were sins, and which weren’t. It was why sin eaters only feasted on humans and no other species. Humans could see jaywalking or wanting to kiss their neighbor of the same sex as a sin. The factions in Underlayes didn’t waste time or energy on such nonsense; they did whatever it was they felt was right. They didn’t play by the human rule book; a book that seemed to rewrite itself on a daily basis.
So, when the woman opened her mouth, Jelissa began sucking all those sins out of her before she had a chance to make so much as a squeal as the other humans looked on in sheer and abject horror. And as Jelissa sucked, she didn’t see what those sins were—she sucked out what emerged looking like a black essence that the human had allowed to taint her soul. It could have been something so simple as to have stepped on an ant—however the human viewed a sin determined how potent that sin was. Humans always judged themselves more harshly than anyone else ever did, most anyway. Some plain didn’t give a shit, but none of those were in the room.
Jelissa’s captor had made sure to choose those who judged themselves the harshest of all. Unlike Jelissa’s grandfather, the Vampire King, she didn’t a flying fuck who she had sentenced to their deaths so long as the end results were what worked out best for her. As she continued to feed on them one by one, discarding each one in turn like empty bubble gum wrappers, Jelissa had no idea the majority of her prey were college students, school teachers, nuns, virgins; innocents who had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. She didn’t know that, and she was way beyond caring anyway; all she knew was the delectable taste of all the so-called sins they had allowed to weigh down their souls.
And she was loving every last bit of it. Jelissa was no longer there, no coherent thought, no care for anything or anyone, just the need to feed this newly found insatiable hunger.
After tossing aside her seventh victim, something tugged at Jelissa’s neck, some type of device that seemed to be attempting to steal the meal she had feasted upon. The beast that was Jelissa did not like that one bit. She reached up and snatched the offending piece of steel off her neck like it was nothing more than a scarf, practically shredding it with her claws, paying no heed to the gashes it left behind nor the blood that began to run down and soak the shirt and sweatpants someone had put on her before bringing her to this room to feed. Those gashes closed almost as quickly as they had appeared as she feasted upon the few remaining humans. But she was still hungry.
Taking off that atrocious piece of metal must have set off some sort of alarm, because a group of beings came swarming in as she threw her last human aside. At first Jelissa’s mouth spread into a malevolent grin, thinking they were more delicious snacks, but they smelled wrong. That marvelous tang that came with sins wasn’t there with them. That meant they were nothing more than a bunch of obstacles in her way, because she needed to find more food.
So, like any other obstacle, Jelissa began knocking them out of her way; shoving a few into walls, throwing others more than halfway across the room. One had the audacity to make a grab for her arm. Jelissa took a look down at the offending appendage, clamped down on it, and ripped it clean off right from the rotary cuff with the same amount of effort it took to rip off a hangnail. The screams of perpetual agony she heard as she continued out of the room were nothing more than background noise.
One room in particular seemed to be compelling her, drawing her towards it like a beacon calling for her attention. As she finally stumbled upon it and looked inside, she didn’t recognize the three males. Cocking her head to one side, Jelissa attempted to ascertain who they were. Something inside her nagged at her, tried to force her to recognize who and what they were. But the only reconciliation that her mind was able to come to terms with was maybe they had been pets of hers. They did seem to be cute and cuddly as they lay haphazardly about.
What she did recognize were the collars around their necks, and she opened her mouth and growled so ferociously it made the hair on the backs of their necks stand on end as her fangs sprang fourth. Faster than any being’s eye could blink, human or other, she went to each one in turn and ripped off the collars, as she had done to her own. Jelissa took a few seconds to stroke each of them before leaving the room as though they truly were pets. She would have stayed to play with them, but the hunger was still in control, and she needed to feed it. The three males were too weak to do anything more than look on as she walked away.
“I don’t give a damn what you have to do. Stop her before she gets out of here!” Seraphina shouted in outrage as her mo
tley crew of minions dropped like useless flies, and one of them had the audacity to come to her empty-handed with no more than excuses.
Bowing her head in subservience, the female Lycan, a bitten werewolf not a born one, tried again in vain to explain the situation to her employer, her southern twang full on as her nerves began to get the better of her. “Ma’am, there isn’t anything we can do to stop her. She is literally ripping everyone apart who dares to touch her. And magick is more than useless against her; it’s downright dangerous.” When she spoke that last, she had a haunted look in her eyes.
“What the Hel are you talking about? That child can’t possibly be a syphon. No two witches in my line can hold the same power at once, unless they’re twins. Except for…” She let that sentence trail off, not willing to reveal that particular secret to anyone, especially a hired minion. One power everyone in her line possessed was the ability to steal another’s life force, but that was something they needed to be taught how to do. The ability to drain someone of their magick was hers alone. Seraphina was dealing with a bunch of idiots. Maybe hiring the outcasts hadn’t been her brightest idea. Then again, who else would dare to go up against the royal family?
“She’s not syphoning anything.” The Lycan’s eyes went as round as saucers. “Whatever magick is thrown at her not only bounces right off her, but back to the user ten-fold. One witch threw a spell meant to back her up, and it came right back at her, pushing her into the wall and crushing every last one of her bones in the process. And one of the pixies? I don’t know what type of dust he tried to sprinkle on her, but it bounced right back to him, and he exploded. Tiny little bits of him went everywhere. There isn’t anything any of us can do. No offense meant, ma’am, but she’s scary as shit.”
Seraphina plopped down in her chair like a sack of potatoes and mumbled to herself, “The bitch is a fucking reflector?” Aghast with the news she’d just heard, she vaguely recognized the female still standing there. “The last witch with the ability to reflect was my mother.” It was a good thing she was sitting down because thoughts and memories of her mother came at her so hard and fast it was a physical blow. A blow that stirred up feelings so strong they threatened to rip the spell that had been wrapped around her cold heart for over nine hundred years. Scrunching up her eyes as though she were in physical pain, Seraphina pinched the bridge of her nose, doing the best she could to reinforce the walls of the spell, before they came tumbling down.
The Succubus, the Demon and the Witch Page 12
