Soulbound

by Bec McMaster

  But he tugged it gently through his mother's hair, enjoying the rare moment of kindness, and not knowing how soon those moments would vanish.

  Execution was one thing. Giving her over to the demon, quite another. It would be easier if inconvenient memories didn't keep lodging in his mind. Damn Lady E for giving him that journal.

  Taking up the leash around his mother's wrists, Sebastian stared down at her black hood. She was smaller than he remembered, or perhaps hunched over from her recent incarceration. "I wouldn't try anything, if I were you."

  "Don't do thish," Morgana hissed around the gag she wore. "I'm your muver."

  Even to the end, she sought to manipulate him. "And he's my father. He, at least, has earned my loyalty."

  Tugging the leash, he dragged her forward.

  "So it begins," Lucien said, tugging his gloves off as he stared up at the manor.

  "Yes." Sebastian forced his mother's words away. He needed a clear mind for the coming event.

  "No." Bishop strode ahead of them, his black cloak fluttering behind him. "Now it ends. Watch your backs. I doubt the demon's going to simply let us walk in here unmolested."

  Torches lined the driveway as they walked through the snow. The gardens seemed far too silent, as if last night's snowfall muffled the sounds of the world. It was a hush filled with anticipation, for he couldn't escape the feeling he was being watched.

  "Unless it's a trap," Lucien pointed out.

  "It's a trap," Sebastian said, as the ladies fell in behind them. "But it won't spring shut until we get there. It wants us alive—for the moment—and it wants the Relics."

  "And you're vringing it everyshing it wants," his mother hissed. "Are you inshane?"

  "Shut up."

  "Look at the clouds," Ianthe whispered, turning her face to the sky.

  Thick white clouds boiled over the manor, tinged with hints of dark gray. It almost looked like they were going to birth some enormous monstrosity into the world, heavy and pregnant with portent.

  "Cleo said the skies go dark when it all happens," he said, feeling an itch along his skin. "What is that hum?"

  Bishop looked grim as they grew closer to the manor. "It's set up a major working. The spell must have been laid weeks ago, with the demon building the ritual day by day." His breath caught as a fluctuation in the energy suddenly burst through them all. "I've never seen anything like it. The complexity...."

  "I have," Ianthe replied, her face serene and her emotions locked within as she picked her way through the snow. He'd missed the tearful goodbyes as she gave her daughter over into her apprentice's hands, and sent them north just in case this all went wrong, but Verity had mentioned it. No sign of turmoil on Ianthe's face now. This was a Prime, determined to right wrongs and face down a creature that threatened all those she was responsible for. "Drake created something like this years ago, when he was trying to set an elaborate trap for an incubus. This is merely the eye of the storm. It hasn't begun the final ritual."

  If this was what it felt like before the ritual even began....

  "There it is," Bishop said, as a figure in a red cloak moved onto the snowy lawns.

  A ring of torches lit the stormy afternoon. The demon waited in the center of the torches, watching them come. It stood alone, but the hum of that seething magic began to pick up as they cleared the terrace. It pricked at Sebastian's skin, hungry for blood, tasting him and clearly liking what it found.

  "Are you all right?" Ianthe murmured, as her husband flinched.

  "The ritual's keyed to the three of us, I think," Lucien replied. "Unless you're feeling it too?"

  "Drake's blood calling to yours," she muttered darkly.

  "Three Relics, three brothers, three sacrifices." Bishop spoke of the long-ago prophecy that had set all this into place. "It must have used Drake's blood to set the spell into motion."

  A bloodied hexagram was painted in the snow, with a discarded body at each point, their throats and wrists slit. Runes were painted around the hexagram, the kind of thing that made his vision waver every time he looked at them and tried to see what they were.

  Nothing human. Nothing he could recognize. The heat shimmer of raw power hung in the air above each symbol, though the snow wasn’t melting.

  An enormous wooden cross in the shape of an X stood at each of three points. A man was crucified upon one of the crosses, his clothes fine and his body slack. A woman hung from the second, blood dripping from her empty eye sockets. Suddenly this felt real, and he looked for Cleo, both heartened and disheartened not to find her.

  Only the third cross remained empty.

  Foreboding crept up his spine.

  "Well met," the demon called, guarded safely within the hexagram.

  "Where is my wife?"

  Its black eyes flickered to his. "Safe."

  A demon couldn't lie, but there were always ways to bend the truth. "I want to see her."

  "She will be joining us shortly. She's still preparing herself. Show me Morgana," the demon called, standing safely within the hexagram.

  Sebastian reached for the black hood she wore. His mother's dark curls were in disarray as he dragged it from her head. The gag she wore cut into her mouth, and she glared at him. He tugged her gag down to hang loosely around her throat.

  "It's time she paid her dues," the demon said.

  "No," Morgana breathed, her face paling as she stared at the enormous crosses. She pulled against the spelled manacles she wore. "No!"

  Sebastian felt sickened. It was one thing to want his mother dead—he hadn't even been able to look at her all morning—another to understand what the creature wanted with her. The single cross filled his vision, no matter where he looked. The demon needed three sacrifices to begin powering its spell.

  They'd always thought the three sacrifices would be each of the brothers.

  "Sebastian, please!" She gripped his sleeve, and for the first time he saw true fear in her eyes as she too gazed at the cross. "Don't do this. Don't do this! I'm your mother—"

  "We brought the Relics," he said, turning toward the demon. "But I don't trust you. You're not getting my mother until I see my wife. Where's Cleo?"

  The demon's black gaze cut to him. "She betrayed both of us, Sebastian. Morgana thought she could bring me into this world all those years ago, thinking to master me with these Relics." Its lip curled up. "She will pay the price of that with her life. This is a fitting end. This is justice."

  "It's not justice." Even he knew that.

  "Do you think she gave a damn about you, when she gave your control ring to those women?" The demon stalked closer, seeming curious. "Do you think she ever cared when she put a knife in your hand and pointed it at her enemies? Do you think, for one second, if you were the one in chains today, that she wouldn't hand you over to me."

  No.

  The words were barely audible in the crisp evening air. "But I am not her."

  "Pardon?"

  He stared into those demonic eyes, his voice becoming a little stronger. "I am not her."

  It seemed perplexed. Beside him, Morgana was sucking in panting gasps of relief, her hands clinging to his sleeve. "Thank you. Thank you."

  "I'm not doing it for you," he said coldly.

  "Morgana for Cleo. That is the deal," the demon said.

  His lashes lowered and he nodded. "I will hand her over when my wife is at my side, and not before."

  The demon turned, its cloak flaring behind it as it paced back to the safety of its hexagram, but he'd thrown it. It looked at him, and he remembered the little conversation they'd had about pressure points. "Place the Relics at each point that doesn't hold a cross. When your wife appears, you will hand over your mother."

  It wasn't as though they had much choice, not until Cleo was safe. Bishop stalked slowly toward the furthest point, which also happened to be the one behind the demon, the Chalice in his hands. Lucien moved toward the northern point of the star with the Wand, which left Sebastian with the
last.

  He tugged the Blade from within its sheath, feeling the heavy weight of it in his palm. Last chance. He didn't want to let it go, but the demon held all the cards, and if he could distract it while Bishop got close...

  Sebastian gently laid the Blade in the snow at the point.

  The man on the cross beside him suddenly moaned, and he almost lashed out with his sorcery. Sweet mercy. He was still alive, still....

  "Malachi Gray?" Sebastian breathed in horror, recognizing the face that had tormented him so when the incubus danced with his wife.

  The incubus bared bloody teeth in a pained smile, sucking in breath. Blood dripped from his palms where the spikes had been driven in deep. "In the... flesh."

  Jesus. Horror finally penetrated the cold mask he'd been wearing. He turned to face the demon, fighting to keep it off his face. "Do you treat all your allies this way?"

  "Gray made the mistake of thinking he could break faith with me," the demon replied. "He tried to kidnap your wife, and remove her from my care."

  Sebastian looked at Gray sharply.

  "I don't know what he did to her, but she's not your wife anymore," the incubus rasped. "She wanted... to drink my blood. Whatever is in there right now... don't trust it."

  Slowly he turned toward the demon, and it all became horribly clear. The demon had said he could have Cleo back in exchange for the Relics, but what if she refused? "What did you do to her?"

  "All I did was unchain the girl's true self. She is more precious to me than you could ever know."

  A demon sired me....

  This demon?

  A figure in black moved just behind Drake's shoulder. Bishop. Sebastian let his face blank of emotion. They had one chance left. He drew in enough power to prove a threat and keep its attention. Watch me, you bastard.

  "Don't be foolish," the demon chided. "Don't do this, Sebastian. You're no match for me."

  "I'm not leaving until I have what I came for."

  The demon's eyes narrowed. "You're bluffing."

  "No, he's not," Lucien called, drawing its attention. "We came for Cleo."

  It looked between them, and sweat sprang down Sebastian's spine. He didn't dare look behind it, but out of the corner of his eyes he could see the demon's wards shimmering at the bottom, as Bishop set to work in sliding through them.

  "I'm watching the wrong brothers," it whispered, as if it picked up on their intent somehow.

  Blazing with sudden power, the demon spun toward the threat at its back, throwing a wave of force out.

  Bishop's legs went out from under him, and he landed heavily in the snow with a grunt.

  "Adrian!" Verity screamed.

  "Move!" Lucien bellowed toward Ianthe and the others.

  Everything happened so quickly. Sebastian stepped back toward the point where the Blade rested, swiftly unbuttoning his cufflinks. Drawing a small knife from his pocket, he sliced it across his finger, squeezing blood to the surface. It dripped onto the snow at his feet, some of it spattering on the Blade.

  Sorcery whispered through his veins as the Blade of Altarrh woke. He could feel it hungering now for more blood, his mind connected to it, but they weren't quite ready.

  "Bishop!" Get up.

  "Do you truly think you could do it?" the demon taunted his fallen brother. "Kill your own father?"

  Bishop staggered to his feet, forging a knife of raw matter in his hand, slicing his own finger and letting his blood drip into the Chalice. "Whatever it takes. Drake didn't want this."

  "So be it." The demon hissed. "Alshandra di lemos an scythios!"

  The star lit up. An enormous blaze of energy soared up through the earth, as if the leyline were suddenly unlocked. Heat and light soared toward the murky skies overhead, blinding Sebastian in the crossbeam. Morgana's startled scream echoed as the demon made a jerking motion, and yanked her through the air toward him.

  "One more sacrifice," the demon promised, grabbing Morgana by the throat and slamming her back against the cross. It had a knife in its hand, though it paused to look in Sebastian's direction. "Remember this."

  And it drove the knife through Morgana's throat, pinning her to the timber.

  Energy had gushed into the sky as the star lit up, but now it came crashing back down, turning the lines of the hexagram molten. Little gold lines of spell work lit up all across the snow like a grid, as if Morgana's blood somehow activated the next phase of the spell.

  Malachi Gray screamed, and the other woman on the cross—Odette?—threw her head back as if she were racked with new pain. All Sebastian could do was gape as Morgana's wide green eyes met his, choking, gurgling sounds coming from her throat. This wasn't meant to happen this way. And then her face softened, her body slumping forward, and the cross she was pinned to suddenly went up in white flames, as if her death powered some new aspect of the spell.

  Dead. It felt like hollow drumbeat in his chest, but he didn't have time to think his way through the shock of it.

  The demon moved with vicious intensity. It cut the blind Odette's throat, making her body jerk. A flash fire of white exploded up around her body, consuming her. A second hexagram began to glow inside the first.

  "Oh, no you don't." He needed to stop this. Somehow.

  Summoning his sorcery in a blaze of energy, he turned and sheared through the bottom half of the cross with exquisite skill, honed by Bishop's teaching. It fell backward, Malachi screaming, still pinned to the wood as the cross landed with a soft whump in the snow.

  Sebastian skidded to his knees beside the incubus, reaching out to grip the steel spike driven through his palms.

  "What are you doing?" Malachi gasped.

  "Don't take it personally. It needs you dead. Hence, I'm going to save your life."

  He yanked the spike free, and an utterly raw sound poured from Malachi's throat. The second spike was driven too deep. Their eyes met as Sebastian grabbed the bastard's wrist. There was no other way....

  "Do it," Malachi panted.

  He tore the incubus's hand from the spike, and Malachi screamed, curling into a pained ball on the snow.

  "Sebastian," a woman's voice whispered through the bond. "You're going to ruin everything. I can't allow that."

  "Cleo?" he rasped, looking around.

  A shadow blurred. Bishop, trying again to break through this phenomenal ward. The second he hit the lines of the hexagram, he slammed into invisible walls of pure force that threw him back.

  He hit the snow beside Sebastian, sliding several feet, his arm flung out to stop himself. The knife vanished. And then he didn’t move.

  "Bishop!" Sebastian sank to his knees beside his brother and shook him.

  Glazed eyes met his, blood dripping from his brother’s nose. "G-get… out… of here."

  "Like hell." All around them the world spun into chaos as Ianthe and the others joined the fray in order to distract the demon.

  Imps erupted from snowdrifts, proving the demon had never had any intention of seeing them leave. Mage globes exploded, and he could hear Lady E cursing under her breath, followed by sharp little detonations that showed she was probably causing the enemy one heck of a headache.

  "You have to focus," Sebastian snarled, the words an echo of those his brother once said to him. "Get up. You don’t get to just lie here, not now. Not like this."

  But Bishop flopped like a deboned quail.

  He couldn’t do this without him. Despair licked along Sebastian's spine, but with it came the memory of lying in the dirt as his brother demanded he get up; a brutal month-long training program, but perhaps now he could understand Bishop’s intention. Kid gloves would only have ended in his death. Bishop had known what was coming.

  "If you give up now," Sebastian said coldly, "then Verity dies."

  There. There was the spark of fire in his brother’s eyes.

  "I won’t save her." Sebastian forced himself to continue. "I cannot save both Cleo and Verity, and if I have to make a choice…."

&n
bsp; A fist curled in his collar, and Bishop yanked himself half upright with a snarl. Broken blood vessels in his eyes gave him a demonic appearance. "You little shit. Verity’s the last person who’d bloody need saving."

  "Aye." Sebastian winced, and tried to loosen the hold on his collar. "But if she sees you on your back, then she’ll break protocol and she’ll come in here to rescue you. Even if it means taking on the demon by herself. You know that."

  It was the first time he’d ever seen his brother look beaten. "I don’t know if I can… get to him."

  "You know Drake's wards. You know a way through them."

  "I've tried twice."

  "Then try again." The problem wasn't in the wards, it was in the intent. Some part of his brother knew getting through those wards meant his father's death. This was the same sabotage Cleo had been doing to herself all month. "He begged you to save him. This is mercy, Bishop, not murder."

  Bishop met his gaze. "And will you say the same when it's your black queen you have to put a knife in, and not your wife?"

  They all had their weak spots.

  "It's not going to get that far."

  A red mage globe spun to life. Sebastian barely had time to notice it, before Bishop shoved him out of the way. They both went down in a snowdrift, and an explosion of red light behind them lit the world.

  "Move!" Bishop screamed, scrambling to his feet and staggering.

  Sebastian yanked him upright, slipping beneath his arm. "Lucien!"

  "Here." Their eldest brother appeared out of the heart of a burning cloud. "We need to get inside the hexagram."

  "How?" Another mage globe struck the brick of the wall beside them, and chunks of mortar blew out. Sebastian flung an arm over his face.

  Something caught his attention.

  A slender figure, dressed all in black, picking her way through the snow, moving slowly, as if in a dream. His blood ran cold. Cleo.

  She wasn’t even looking at him. She barely noticed the blood. Instead, she walked with deliberate purpose toward the star and crossed the line, bending to pick something up as she went. The Blade of Altarrh by the look of it. The demon held his hand out toward her, a satisfied smirk on its face.