Consort of Light

by Eva Chase

  A laugh escaped me, and then I was kissing him again, with more hunger than before. Yes, this was right. Right, the way our breaths blended together. Right, the heat of his tongue teasing over mine. Right, the tingling of my skin as his hands eased up my sides.

  The longing swelled into a need. I shifted myself on the chair to straddle him. Gabriel gripped my waist, watching me for a cue but with eyes lit with desire. I drew a flicker of my spark to my fingertips with a twist of my wrist and spelled the door’s lock into place.

  I didn’t want any officials walking in on us—but they couldn’t tell us that the love we were about to make wasn’t valid.

  I’d worn a loose dress to bed in case I was woken and had to spring into action in a hurry, but I hadn’t bothered with a bra underneath. Gabriel’s thumbs traced the curves of my breasts and stroked my nipples into pebbles. I whimpered, rocking against him. Our kisses turned sloppy as he eased up my dress and eased down my panties. I fumbled with his fly, my urgency growing as he slicked his hand over the ready folds between my legs.

  When he pushed into me, I held him there for the first few seconds, just reveling in the sensation of being filled, of being connected in every possible way. “I love you,” I murmured.

  “God, Rose, I love you too,” Gabriel said, his voice ragged. He tugged me down for another kiss as we began to buck together toward our release. Each pump of his cock inside me echoed the eager thump of my heart. And when I came, my consort following me just moments later, our cries twined together in perfect harmony.

  If this wasn’t right, then there couldn’t be anything in the world that was.

  I was supposed to meet Investigator Ruiz in the front hall at eight am, and I made it there on time and with all my clothes in order, even though I’d ended up falling back asleep cuddled up with Gabriel on the office couch. The enforcer turned toward me with a faint smile.

  “We may need to wait a few minutes before we head over to the Assembly’s holding building,” she said. “The other enforcers assigned to this case will meet us there, but I’m expecting someone whose presence might benefit us.”

  My eyebrows rose. “Who’s that?” I asked. And then I didn’t need Ruiz to answer, because a young woman in a crisply tailored suit walked through the front doors.

  “Rose,” Caroline Almeida said hesitantly. Her face looked paler than the last time I’d seen her, any make-up on it only the remains of yesterday’s, and her shiny blond hair was rumpled.

  Caroline was the daughter of two of my father’s close colleagues—two of the Frankfords’ close colleagues too—and our last conversation had been when she’d dropped by my estate to see if I could tell her what schemes they might have been getting up to. I hadn’t been able to offer much information at the time. I guessed she’d gotten a whole lot of answers in the last day and a half.

  “Hi,” I said, feeling equally hesitant. I couldn’t imagine how she was feeling right now—about her parents, about the whole crazy situation, or about me. I’d wanted to warn her. The oath I’d taken with Frankford had prevented me. But emotions weren’t exactly logical. She might be upset that I hadn’t told her more anyway.

  She twined her hands in front of her, her posture awkwardly stiff. “I—I got into town last night. I heard what was happening, and I had to do something, especially knowing my parents were wrapped up in all this somehow…” She bit her lip. “Lady Northcott told me what you were planning to try this morning. She thought it might help you with some of the prisoners if I tagged along for the interviews. I might know some of them better, the ones who were closer to my family than yours.”

  “Of course,” I said, relaxing a little. “That makes sense. We were just about to head out.”

  Caroline kept worrying at her lip as Ruiz escorted us to the Assembly sedan waiting outside. “I talked with some of the other witches here last night,” the young witch said once we’d slid inside. “The ones these people used. They’re so—it’s like they’re missing something. Like something was taken from them, or they were broken somehow…”

  “They’re not broken,” I said with a fierceness I hadn’t realized I’d feel. I willed myself calmer. “They just need time to heal.”

  “Oh, I know, I didn’t mean—” She winced, ducking her head. “I just can’t help thinking it could have been me too. Maybe my parents would have roped me into that. I don’t know what they were planning. I never would have thought… I should probably stay back when you question them, because I don’t know how I’ll react, but I want to hear what they say.”

  A twinge of sympathy ran through my chest. I touched her arm briefly. “I get it. I know what it’s like, finding out your parents aren’t who you thought they were.”

  I’d spent so much time torn up wondering what my father’s intentions for me were, whether he could really have meant to carry out such an enormous betrayal after what had seemed like a loving childhood… My throat tightened.

  I shook those thoughts away, but stepping into the holding building sent an uneasy jitter down my spine. I’d been here once before—when my consorts and I had been held in those little white rooms for interrogation. The sight of the bland hallways and the faint ozone smell in the air made my stomach turn. I clenched my jaw, girding myself.

  Maybe I should get the hardest part of this task over with first, before I’d been worn down by this place, by the conversations I was going to have to carry out. As three more enforcers joined our little cluster, I turned to Ruiz.

  “I want to interview my father first.”

  She studied me with her dark eyes. “Are you sure?”

  “He’s been close with the Frankfords for a long time,” I said. “I’d bet he got more power from their awful rituals than most of their allies did.” Whether he still had any of it at his command, we’d just have to find out.

  “This way, then.” She motioned for us to follow. We went up a flight of stairs and partway down another familiar hallway. One of the other enforcers unlocked the door.

  My father was sitting on the padded bench across from the doorway. It was the only furniture in the room. His clothes, which I guessed he’d been wearing since he’d been taken in, were wrinkled, and his face looked drawn. I noticed with mild satisfaction that his hands had been padded and chained like mine had been.

  Townsend might have been sowing doubt about how much power the witching men in this faction could have wielded, but the Assembly had taken every precaution anyway.

  “Rose,” Dad said, staring, his voice somehow hopeful and apprehensive at the same time.

  “I’d prefer Lady Hallowell from now on,” I said in the most even voice I could summon. “I have just a few questions for you. One of the enforcers will put you under a truth compulsion to ensure you answer truthfully.”

  “What? I—”

  “Under the approval of the Northcotts,” Ruiz said, and nodded to one of the other enforcers. The other witch wove her fingers through the air to draw the intricate spellwork into being.

  Dad stiffened as she cast her magic toward him. The tendons along his jaw flexed.

  “We’re going to talk about the magic-like power the demons gave some of your faction in exchange for being ‘fed’ by the witches you trapped,” I said. “Did you ever take any of that power into yourself?” No point in beating around the bush. I wanted to spend as little time as possible in the company of the man who’d planned to essentially sell my soul.

  Dad’s shoulders sagged in what looked like resignation. “Yes,” he said in a dull voice. “I did.”

  “Do you have any of that power in you now?”

  “No. It’s been quite some time. We can’t handle very much of it at once, for it to last us beyond one or two acts.”

  I should have been glad that he was cooperating so well, telling me more than I’d asked, but my gut twisted. If the demon conspirators couldn’t hold onto very much power, that meant there was less chance that we’d find any of the witching men who hadn’t
used anything they’d taken in already.

  “Do you know who in your group most recently absorbed that power?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “Charles did, frequently,” he said. “But I don’t know for sure when last. The others—we usually came separately.”

  Charles had used his last bit of demonic energy trying to kill me.

  “All right,” I said, relieved that the interview could end here even if I was disappointed not to have learned more. “I’m sure others will be back to ask more questions when the current emergency is dealt with.”

  The enforcer motioned to dispel the truth compulsion. Dad’s head jerked up. He stared at me again, but this time his eyes were frantic. “That’s all? The demon—Rose, with it on the loose, you have to— You’re our best hope of controlling it.”

  Was he telling the truth or guilting me with more lies? Did it even matter? I was already here, already doing whatever I could.

  “You’re not going to make this my fault for not submitting to being a demon’s meal,” I said, unable to completely keep the edge out of my voice.

  “If there’s something specific you can think of that might help us bring it under control,” Ruiz said, “report it to us immediately, as you’ve been told.” The enforcers must have done an initial round of questioning on that subject, as soon as the demon had made its appearance.

  Dad slumped back against the wall, clearly with nothing else to add. I turned to the enforcers and Caroline, who was watching me with wide eyes.

  “Fine,” I said. “Let’s move on to the next one.”

  Chapter Seven

  Rose

  “So you’re just going to go out there and face off against this thing?” Damon demanded. “With no one but a bunch of these Assembly idiots backing you up?”

  “They’re not all idiots,” I said, but I had to cut him a little slack for his frustration. Out of all the guys, Damon had the hardest time staying cooped up. “And that’s not all we’ve got. A couple of the men from the Frankfords’ faction were still holding a little of the demon’s power. There’ll be a bunch of enforcers there to keep them in line and help amplify that power to push back the demon.”

  “And then what?” Kyler asked from the desk, where he’d turned away from the laptop. We were all gathered in our little office.

  I was less sure about that part of the plan, mostly because I wasn’t completely sure the first part was going to work. “Well, if it all goes well, we push the demon all the way back to the Cliff and force it back through the portal. Then we seal the portal and close off the cave—permanently, if we can.”

  Jin gave me an unusually serious look. “The other witches—they said they had to use blood to keep the portal secure.”

  I wet my lips. We’d heard the same story from the faction members, under much duress. A bodily sacrifice gave the magic maintaining the portal a certain power. Unfortunately—or fortunately, depending on how you looked at it—they’d all agreed that similar techniques weren’t likely to do us much good against the demon now that it was out on our plane. The sacrifice works to add power to one spell, one spot, one had put it. An ongoing effort… You’d all bleed yourselves dry.

  He hadn’t looked exactly sad about that idea.

  “If we can get it through the portal, we’ll do what we have to do,” I said. “The witches the faction used have been making that sacrifice for years. I’ll happily spill a little of my blood if it means we never have to worry about those creatures again.”

  Damon shoved himself off the couch, his hands clenched. “You shouldn’t have to do it alone. I’ll come with you.” He glanced around at the other guys with a glower that seemed to dare them not to make the same offer.

  “Hey,” I said, stepping closer to him and taking his hand. “I know how badly you want to be part of the fight, but I don’t think it’s a good idea. This is going to be all magic, from start to finish—and a bigger magic than I could send into some baton for you to use. I’ll be able to focus on driving the demon back so much easier if I know you’re safe back here and not in its attack range.”

  Damon looked as if he were going to argue. I squeezed his hand. “Please. If this goes the way the Assembly is hoping… we might be able to go home tonight.”

  He made a disgruntled sound, but he settled for giving me a quick but intent kiss. The rest of my consorts embraced me one by one. Gabriel pressed his lips to my forehead before he let me go.

  “We’ll see you when you get back,” he said firmly, neither his tone nor his expression betraying any doubt that I would make it back.

  I didn’t really like leaving them behind, as much as I would have hated to bring them within reach of the demon. Even a few hours later, as a jeep carried Thalia, Caroline, and me out to the fiend’s current location, my stomach stayed knotted tight, apprehensive about both the battle ahead and my consorts’ fates.

  How safe were they in the Assembly building? We’d uncovered Lady Townsend’s treachery, but she might have had other allies, people who were against the mingling of witches with the unsparked.

  I’d asked the guys to stick together. And I’d also asked Investigator Ruiz if she could arrange that at least one enforcer she trusted could be keeping an eye on our rooms while I was gone, just in case.

  Thalia’s knuckles had turned white where her hands were clasped in her lap. She’d come out to the Cliff with us when we’d exposed the Frankfords, but she hadn’t seen one of the demons since whenever her husband had last let them feed off her magic. She’d insisted on joining us even though none of the other recovering witches had been able to consider the idea.

  “Are you going to be all right?” I asked her.

  “I feel better taking it on than cowering back in my room,” she said. “But… it’s going to be difficult holding my ground. I don’t blame the others for not being up to it yet. I’ll make sure I’m not in anyone’s way if I have to retreat.”

  “I guess I should say the same,” Caroline said at my other side. “The best I might be able to do is stand back and offer the boost of my magic to anyone who needs it.”

  “That’s mostly how I’ll be contributing too,” I said. “The enforcers have a lot more training in offensive and defensive magic than I do.” I nodded to the witches at the front of the jeep.

  But I had plenty of magic at my disposal. My spark was blazing brightly in my chest, barely used since I’d come out to help the Assembly. If I could make the difference between this plan succeeding and it not, I wanted to be here.

  The demon’s unnatural energy wavered into the air around us and quivered down to my bones. I rubbed my arms against the crawling of my skin. Caroline shuddered, and Thalia’s shoulders stiffened.

  “If it looks half as horrible as it feels,” Caroline murmured, and then she didn’t need to finish that sentence, because we came around a treed bend into view of the creature itself.

  The demon was still taking a slow exploratory route across the farmlands and forests in this isolated section of the state. At least that part of the Frankfords’ plan—setting up their portal where no one was likely to stumble on it—had worked to our advantage. Right now, the monster was moving with its lurching gait across a meadow spotted with trees. As we watched, it tested its massive clawed hand against one. The way its mouth twisted in apparent gratification at the sagging of the rotted branches made me queasy.

  The cars in front of us pulled off onto the sides of the road. Our driver followed suit. We clambered out alongside several dozen enforcers and the two men from the Frankfords’ faction.

  “Everyone in the positions we agreed on,” the sergeant in charge hollered, managing to pitch her voice so it wouldn’t travel too far across the field. “Cautious with the approach. Begin the push on my signal.”

  Thalia stuck with me, as we’d agreed on back during our strategy meeting. Another squad of enforcers moved off with Caroline. The older witch and I and the eight enforcers who made up our squad marched wi
th cautious but steady footsteps into the tall grass. The blades rustled against our calves. The delicate smell of wildflowers rising from the patches here and there might have been comforting if a prickle of decay hadn’t reached my nose from the demon’s path.

  The squads who were escorting the men gathered in front of us. We were coming up beside the creature. Its path had been winding, and we didn’t need to push it straight back, just to the left of the way it’d been going, to get it back toward its “home.”

  The demon’s head turned toward us, and the sergeant waved for us to stop in our tracks. My heart thudded as those opaque eyes scanned our ranks. There was nothing but malevolence in them now.

  It started to swing its hunched body toward us, and the sergeant jerked her hand again. We were only about fifty feet away now—we’d have to hope that was close enough, because if we waited any longer, there was no telling what it might do to us first.

  My arms lifted into the air, twining and releasing as I summoned the energy from my spark and cast it out toward the enforcers ahead of me. All of them were moving too. Their bodies swayed in sync with each other through practiced magical forms, with a few new twists to account for this unusual strategy. The two men who’d joined us stretched their hands out in front of them, palms toward the demon.

  It’s through the palms, one of the faction members I’d talked to yesterday had told me. I don’t know why. That’s how we take it in, and how we let it back out.

  A different sort of hum dispersed the unnatural quivering in the air around us. It was a warbling of our own magical energy that the great Spark had blessed witching kind with, as much a part of me as the thump of my pulse and the strands of my hair now tossed by the wind. Tremors of that dissonance ran through the wave of magic from the men, but mostly away from me, toward the demon. Only a hint of it touched my body.