by Becca Blake
“Then how does it work?” Heat rose in my cheeks. “Because from where I’m standing, it looks like you’re trying to help Maki, not stop him.”
Orion pulled back the hood of his sweatshirt to run a hand through his sandy brown hair. “Right now, I need you to trust that I’m doing what needs to be done. That’s the only way I can keep you two alive.”
I took a deep breath. “If we’re going to trust you, we need answers about the people in the basement.”
He closed his eyes. “What about them?”
“Do you know what Maki plans to do with the emerald you gave him?”
“Yes.”
“And you’re not going to stop it?”
“Riley—”
“Are you going to stop it?”
“No. I’m following my orders and doing what I have to do.”
“I don’t understand,” Jacob said. “You’re telling me the Council wants these people dead? They want this guy to do a ritual to make himself more powerful?”
Orion’s eyebrows arched in a look of genuine surprise. “Where did you hear that?”
“We came back to Omaha to find the other cultist girl from the warehouse,” I said.
“Riley tried to call you, but you didn’t answer.”
“And that girl told you Maki is trying to gain power for himself?” Orion asked. “Are you absolutely sure that’s what she said?”
“Yes,” I said. “She said something about Maki ascending to take the place of a demon lord. Does that mean anything to you?”
The color drained from Orion’s face. “That changes things.”
“What—“
“I promise, I’ll explain everything after. For now, just trust me when I say that if we don’t stop him now, we’ll never have another chance.”
Inside, we found the Oathbreaker waiting for us in front of the altar, looking out at the overgrown church. Earlier, I hadn’t been able to see the rest of the sanctuary through the crack in the door, but now that we were inside, I took a better look at it. Judging by the disturbed carpet of ivy and moss that coated the ground, the pews piled in the center of the sanctuary had been moved there very recently. Above them, an opening in the ceiling let in the soft evening light from outside.
“If you told me ahead of time that you were bringing guests along, I would have saved them a seat,” Maki said.
“This is over, Jay. Give the emerald back to me.” Orion approached Maki with his sword drawn at his side. He held out his hand expectantly.
Maki remained where he was and arched an eyebrow. “Why the sudden change of heart?”
“Because you lied to me, and I won’t let you get away with what you’re planning to do tonight.”
“Is that so?” Maki asked. “What exactly do you think I’ve lied about?”
“Do you really think you can challenge a demon lord?” Orion asked.
Maki’s self-assured smile faltered. “It sounds like you had quite a discussion out there.”
“Whatever power you think you’ll get from this isn’t worth it. It will destroy you.” Orion lifted his blade, holding the tip inches away from Maki’s chest. “Stand. Down.”
“I’m doing this because no one else will.” Even at the end of Orion’s blade, Maki didn’t flinch.
“No one else will do what?” I still wanted to understand.
“Kill a demon lord.” He slipped around Orion’s outstretched sword and moved in close to him, lowering his voice to a whisper I could hardly hear. “You know what the Arbiters do is wrong, but you aren’t willing to do anything about it. You’re complicit, Orion.”
“Try to justify it however you want, but this is nothing more than a power grab to feed your ego. Turning yourself into a demon lord? That’s not justice.” Orion shoved Maki away but didn’t take the opportunity to attack him. “Do you even hear yourself, Jay? What happened to you?”
“Tell us why you’re doing this,” I said. “I want to know.”
He cocked his head to the side and looked at me. “It’s Riley, isn’t it? Riley Collins?”
“You have no right to speak to her after what you did to Owen,” Orion snarled.
Maki ignored him and continued to approach me. “You’ve noticed that something doesn’t feel right about the Arbiters. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? It’s why you broke the rules to dig deeper. Just like your father. And your mother.”
Who do you think killed her?
I wanted to be furious with this man. I knew I shouldn’t listen to anything he had to say. Orion said he was a liar, that he was the one who killed my dad.
But I was here because of his note. I needed the answers I came to Omaha to find.
“What do you know about my parents? What happened to them?”
“The Council wants you to believe that I killed your father, and a pack of demons killed your mother,” Maki said. “But the same Council sent Commander Orion here to help an Oathbreaker perform a human sacrifice ritual. Why do you think that is?”
Every instinct I had screamed that it was time to attack, that listening to him was a waste of time. My sword hand twitched eagerly, but I remained silent, waiting for him to finish.
“This sacrifice was going to happen whether Orion and I were involved or not.” He paced in front of the ruined pews, running his fingers along the wood. “If it wasn’t us, there would have been someone else standing here because Raxael demanded it of the Arbiters. My people and I just did the dirty work.”
“You’re saying the Council is behind this?” I couldn’t hold in the laugh that broke my words.
“My people gathered the victims for slaughter. But the Council—they made the arrangements for this. They found this church for us and covered up the disappearances. And when those girls stole the emerald, the Arbiters recovered it and returned it to me.”
“That’s absurd.”
“Is it?” Maki asked. “This is bigger than one night and one ritual. This is centuries of the Arbiters of Shadow serving at the command of the demon lords.”
“The Arbiters don’t serve demons,” Jacob said. “We kill them.”
“The lesser demons, yes,” Maki agreed. “You’re the cleanup crew. You take care of the mess when the trash becomes too much of a problem. But the greater demons—the demon lords? The entire purpose of the Arbiters is to serve them. Just ask your commander. He’s not denying any of this.”
I looked over at Orion, waiting for his denial. For him to confirm that this was all as insane as it sounded.
But he’d said the same thing outside, hadn’t he? He handed the emerald back to Maki, and he said he was following the Council’s orders.
He stared forward at Maki, refusing to meet my gaze. “It’s more complicated than that.”
“Complicated.” I breathed out the word as I tried to force it to make sense. If what Maki was saying was true, we were working for demons. Powerful ones, from the sound of it. What exactly was complicated about that?
“We have no other choice,” Orion said. “If we didn’t meet the demon lords’ demands, they would destroy everything and everyone just to spite us.”
“So the Council says.” Maki wiped his hands on his robe, leaving behind a trail of dirt and dust from the pews on the black silk. “But I’ve been in Raxael’s presence. He is powerful, but he’s far from the god they claim he is. The same must be true of the others.”
“My dad wouldn’t do what you’re saying,” Jacob said. “You’re lying.”
“If the Council is cooperating with demons, why doesn’t anyone else know about it?” I asked.
“That’s the beauty of what the Arbiters of Shadow do. They don’t tell their hunters the truth. Not until you’re in too deep to protest without living the rest of your life on the run as an Oathbreaker.” Maki gestured to himself with a wide, sweepi
ng motion.
“So, you’re saying you’re doing all this so you can take down the demon lords yourself, since the Arbiters won’t?” I matched my strides to his as he paced around the front of the church.
“Yes. This is why I broke my oath and left. My solution may not be a pretty one, but the Arbiters of Shadow have already killed countless innocents to appease the demon lords. What difference will a few more make?”
“We can’t just let those people die,” I said, looking again to Orion for help.
“I’ve tried everything else,” Maki said. “I don’t want them to die any more than you do, but their fates were decided as soon as Raxael demanded this ritual. If I take the power for myself instead of giving it to a demon lord, at least their deaths can mean something. I can stop this from ever happening again.”
“You don’t know what that kind of power will do to you, Jay,” Orion said.
“That’s a risk I have to take.”
“Stand down. I won’t ask again.” Orion shifted into a defensive stance.
I freed my sword from its sheath, and beside me, Jacob did the same. I didn’t know what to believe, but I wouldn’t stand aside and watch these people die.
“I was hoping you would understand,” Maki said. There was a deep sorrow in his eyes as he spoke, but he recovered from it quickly and steeled himself. Without giving us any warning, he raised his palm, and a burst of energy shot forward.
Putting up a quick ward, I crossed my arms in front of my head to shield my face from the dust and debris that flew up around me.
“Stop the Arbiters!” Maki’s voice boomed through the sanctuary.
Five cultists dressed in robes just like his leaped out of the shadows and surrounded us. The one closest to me lunged for me before I had time to react and caught me around the waist. As we fell to the ground together, he disarmed me.
I struggled to wrestle my arms free, but he held me tighter and dug his knee into my back. Orion and Jacob lasted longer than me, but not by much. It wasn’t long before each of them had two cultists pinning them down.
“Restrain them.” Maki breezed past us with long strides, not sparing us another glance. “We have work to do tonight.”
Chapter Fourteen
As the cultists bound us to the altar, I suppressed the energy that flowed through me. The fire pushed at my mental barriers, howling and begging to break free from my hold.
I couldn’t let that happen.
If Jacob saw me use dark magic, if word got back to his father and the rest of the Council, I’d be put to death.
But if you don’t, you won’t make it out of here at all, an unhelpful voice in my mind chimed in.
I’d been so focused on Maki’s every word that I never thought to check my surroundings the way I’d been trained. We should have been more careful. More cautious. We should have known Maki had men waiting around in case he needed help. It had been stupid to let them catch us so off guard.
I pulled at my bindings to test them. The irritating rope rubbed at the skin on my wrists, and the more I pulled, the more it hurt.
Each of us had our wrists bound in front of us, and another rope circled around the altar to hold us all in place. The cultists left our weapons piled on top of the altar, just above our heads. Close enough to touch if our arms were free.
I jerked my body again, but the rope didn’t budge.
Once the cultists were satisfied by the job they’d done, they stepped away to speak with Maki, leaving us unattended. At least for now.
“Any ideas?” I whispered, turning my head toward Orion.
He leaned his head back and gazed up at the sky, visible through the hole in the ceiling. “Not yet.”
We quieted as Maki and the other cultists walked past us.
“Why didn’t they just kill us?” Jacob asked, once they disappeared into the back room.
“He wants us all to watch the show. That’s why we’re facing forward.” Orion strained against the rope, but just as it had when I tried, it held firm. “He’s always had a flair for drama.”
I wasn’t so sure I believed that was the only reason.
Maki sounded so certain about his cause. He didn’t just want us to watch—he wanted us to help. And assuming everything he said was true, and the Arbiters really were working with powerful demons… well, he wasn’t wrong if he assumed I would want to stop them.
I just wasn’t prepared to sacrifice dozens of innocents to do it.
Maki and the others returned, leading a train of people into the sanctuary. The victims shuffled forward in a daze, their downcast eyes glazed over. He bellowed out a command for them to stop, and they obeyed with no hesitation or reaction, as though they were in a trance.
“How is he doing all this?” I whispered. I’d never seen magic that could control people.
“Maki is very gifted in alchemy,” Orion replied. “He trained under Ed Moran for years, so he learned plenty of tricks.”
Maki pulled out the pouch that held the emerald and looked up at the full moon against the inky black sky. He removed the emerald with a gloved hand. As soon as the moonlight touched it, it bathed the sanctuary in a brilliant green light.
The energy rippled through the air and swirled around his body in emerald waves. He began chanting in that same ancient, guttural language I heard from Ed, then set the gem on the pile of old wood.
With a blast of dark magic, he set it aflame.
The kindling erupted, engulfing the pile of wood in a monstrous bonfire. The green flames licked at the pews and encircled Maki, who appeared to be untouched by their heat.
“This sacrifice will be what saves humanity from the clutches of the demon lords!” The robe swished against Maki’s thighs as he approached the altar. “This will be the final human sacrifice made in the name of the greater good.”
Maki snapped his fingers. The line of people walked forward as a single-minded unit. At the front of the line was an elderly man, thin and frail. He stepped into the bonfire, unflinching and unafraid. His body disintegrated upon contact with the flame, and green energy flowed into Maki.
The next victim, this time an older woman, walked forward, and her aura flowed into Maki as well. Then another, and another, each obediently filing forward one at a time.
With each death, the green aura surrounding Maki pulsed in an endless flow of energy.
“Stop!” I screamed, though my cry was lost in the roaring flames.
The trail of victims ignored me, too captivated by whatever trance they were held in. They continued into the flames without so much as blinking.
I wished I could get through to them—make them realize what was happening so they could run away from this damned church. But without knowing what magic he used to enchant them, I had no way of stopping it.
With every minute that passed, Maki’s body transformed further into something unrecognizable. His exposed skin shimmered as if it were embedded with millions of tiny diamonds, which caught the green light in glowing patterns. A tail appeared behind him, popping out below the black robe. The silky material tore as his size increased, and his hands morphed into grotesque claws. His fingers fused together to form two long, pointed talons on each hand.
Maki crouched in front of us. When he spoke, his voice echoed with demonic energy. “You have an admirable sense of justice. But in this world, that will only get you killed.”
I spat in his face.
Maki wiped it away with the back of his hand. “It doesn’t really matter to me what you do after tonight, but you are welcome to join me if you’d like. If you do return to the Arbiters, though, I will kill you along with the rest of them.”
He left us alone and returned to the bonfire, watching as the ritual continued. The emerald’s magic reacted differently than it had in the warehouse. Maki’s transformation was slower than Ca
sey’s had been, and the process was more gradual. Each death stripped him of his humanity, changing him in some slight way.
And I could do nothing about it. I didn’t want to watch, but I couldn’t tear my gaze away from the horrific sight. The lack of the victims’ fear and the eerie quiet as they marched made it all the more horrifying. My heart lurched in my chest as I caught sight of the teenage girl I found in the basement earlier. I promised her I’d come back for her, that I would get her out.
I failed her, and all the rest of these people. They were dying because of me.
She stepped forward, and in an instant, she was gone.
My emotions broke the dam in my mind and bubbled to the surface. My despair mixed with the rage and fear, creating something so powerful that it tore down all of my mental barriers. Who cared what Jacob saw? Let him tell the Council. Let them hunt me down. I didn’t care anymore.
Using dark magic couldn’t be worse than watching these people die.
I accepted the energy, let it ripple through my body. The rope fell away from me in a singed heap, and after freeing Orion and Jacob, I took my sword from the altar. It felt good in my hand, as though my arm was complete again. The sword’s energy was every bit as furious as I was.
The cultists who had been guarding us were so captivated by the ritual that they had stopped paying attention to us. I took advantage of their distraction and sliced through the throat of one and the gut of another. Blood coated the blade and dripped down to my hands.
But it wasn’t enough. I needed to spill Jay Maki’s blood.
As though he sensed my fury, he turned around to face me, his eyebrows arched in amusement.
The expression only served as fuel for my rage. I lifted my hand, and a stream of white hot fire sailed toward Maki. It connected with his shoulder, and he stumbled back.
“You should be careful with those emotions, Riley. They’ll kill you just like your mother.”
Who do you think killed her?
The note flashed through my mind once more, and it was enough to make me hesitate. No matter how much I wanted him dead, I couldn’t kill Maki. Not yet, anyway.
