by Lan Chan
All the light disappeared from the world.
58
Lex
I stood on one side of the river of souls. Azrael graced the other bank. “So this is it?” I said. A brush of fingers across my neck revealed that I was whole again. “It’s not so bad.”
His hooded head shook. “Even now you joke.”
I shrugged. How else was I supposed to react to dying? I watched a silvery soul slip past. “Shouldn’t I be swimming in there with them?”
Azrael just waited. I rolled the balls of my feet. Maybe I should whistle to pass the time?
Something punched me in the chest. I lurched forward. A rush of green light curled around me. One foot sank into the banks of the river. I couldn’t yank it out again.
For the first time since I landed here, panic gripped me. I couldn’t move. “Azrael?”
He pulled the hood down. Lucifer smiled at me. My non-existent heart stuttered. Oh, great. Now this bastard could imitate voices!
I gasped and tried to get away. My foot wouldn’t budge. It might have looked like water, but my damned foot felt like it was stuck in cement. “Did you think you would be welcomed in the afterlife?” Lucifer asked me. “In the same place where the innocent are laid to rest?”
“Do you always have to talk so much?” I spat. I yanked at the stupid foot. Where was Morning Star? If I was dead, there was no harm in cutting my leg off, right?
He laughed. It was a low chuckle that had my molars aching.
Upon death, Michael’s seal had dissipated. I glanced at the pool of my magic and everything stilled. All I could see was green.
“What the hell is this?” My tone was accusatory.
Lucifer actually held his arms up in a placating gesture. “Credit where credit is due,” he said. “This one belongs to the boy.”
He waved his arms and a tapestry of light appeared in the sky. It shimmered and then solidified into an image of Kai sitting in pitch darkness holding my limp body in his arms. The only visible light came off the hand he pressed against my semi-severed neck. It bathed his features in an eerie, fractured glow. His eyes were hollow. I might be the dead one, but he was the one without hope. My heart withered. I didn’t want him to see me like that.
“He’s so tiny and pitiful,” Lucifer observed.
The last thing I remembered was being thrown through a portal. Kai hadn’t been there when it happened. “How?”
“It seems he bonded with you without anyone else’s knowledge. A Nephilim bond creates a connection.”
“So he could track me?” My left eye twitched. I thought of the way my magic had changed colour. That jackass had tagged me like a science experiment.
Lucifer chuckled as he read my thoughts. “Only you would see it like that.”
How could anyone see it any other way? I turned away from the image. “How do I know this isn’t a trick?”
“You insult me,” he said. “You think I would waste my time on something like this?”
“All you do is sleep. You have plenty of time.”
The wolfish grin was a warning. A reminder that I was the key to his freedom. Except now I was dead. It occurred to me that in a roundabout way, he might actually be displeased about it.
“Why am I here?”
He shrugged off the replica of Azrael’s nondescript cloak. Golden light burst out from underneath it. I had to shield my eyes from the sudden glare. He wore a fitted navy three-piece suit. His skin was radiant. Morning Star indeed. Pompous idiot.
“You are here because this is where your soul belongs,” he said. He nodded at where the river had ingested my foot. “Fighting it will only make it stronger.”
I fought it anyway.
The incessant tugging of Kai’s angelfire was beginning to make my skin burn. A tingle warmed my throat. I wrapped my own magic around it thinking it would dampen the touch. The bone magic latched on to Kai’s essence and sighed. It fed the connection until every inch of me felt too sensitive. Why could nothing go my way for once?
Lucifer grew contemplative. “You would have said yes.”
“Eh?”
He came closer. His feet hit the water. It sloshed around him. Why wouldn’t this damn thing budge for me? “The bond. You would have eventually agreed to it.” There was an edge to his voice. It was subtle. The slightest hint of sharpness.
“What does it matter? I’m dead now.” I cast around at the barren, grey landscape. Hell was kind of boring. An eternity of this and I would probably end up as crazy as he was.
I could have gotten frostbite from the sudden chill in his eyes. “This isn’t death,” he said. “This is stubbornness. His bond held your soul in place. The same way your magic refused to let him go. Poetic, but ultimately worthless.”
“You mean like this diatribe?”
I literally had no filter here. The shots of terror that burst in my chest at his approach made me blurt things out.
“Careful,” he said.
“Or what?” Okay, now that wasn’t from a place of fear.
The world flickered around me. My foot slid forward. I hopped out of the river like it was electrified. A grin split my face. Lucifer matched it. All of my bravado shrivelled.
Step away from the smiling serpent, my brain compelled.
He glided over the expanse of water. Another figure materialised beside him. Jacob Buchanan watched me with a flat expression. Everything about him was thicker than the picture on his dust jacket. But I knew him the second I laid eyes on him.
“You’ve gained weight,” I said. “Hell must agree with you.”
The flatness was replaced by dislike. I had a real knack for pissing people off. Lucifer laughed. “Proof that she’s mine,” he commented.
“Amusing,” Jacob said. His rigid posture said otherwise.
My hands were suddenly gloved with green light. The angelfire ran up my shoulders until my whole body glowed. I was enveloped in a familiar, comforting sensation. Bloody hell. I suddenly knew the exact moment Kai had set the bond in motion. The night of our moonlit picnic. That jackass had been playing me this whole time!
Jacob inched forward, but Lucifer waved him back. “We can’t hold her,” he said. “The boy is determined. Pretty impressive for one of Raphael’s bleeding hearts. His bond will take her.”
He turned to me. “You will live, Alessia. I need you still.” His gaze flicked to Kai’s image. “But I can’t have any more Pendragons. They’re a pain in the backside.”
Jacob stepped forward until he was a foot in front of me. A wicked curved blade appeared in his hand. I tried to draw a circle to protect myself, but it wouldn’t manifest in this place. The magic was there, I just couldn’t get to it.
The mage stabbed me in the gut. No, not the gut. Lower than that. In my womb. Pain exploded in my side, in my chest, in my head. I screamed and tried to lash out at him. But my body had become incorporeal. Kai’s angelfire rushed to the spot of my new injury, but when it was five inches away, Jacob’s magic counteracted. I whined as my soul burned. It felt like a million tiny fires ablaze in my cells.
My knees buckled. This place of limbo began to recede. Lucifer slid over and crouched down. I tried to punch him, but my hand just slid through. He was more solid than I was at this point. My eyes rolled back in my head. Lucifer leaned in and placed his lips against my ear.
“Let me tell you a secret,” he said. “One nobody else in the world knows. When Malachi dies, so does Raphael. There will be no destruction of the dimension. That’s what my brothers gave up when they blooded their Nephilim.”
I snarled at him. He grinned at the shot of pure hatred that radiated off me. My anguish was a game to him.
The pain in my side became too much. It was like there was lava flowing through my body. I scented charred flesh. The world turned upside down.
It spun in such turbulent rage that all I could do was shut my eyes and groan.
Starlight burst all around me. The Ley dimension ripped me back from t
he brink of death. There I was once more. A bright spot of blue laced with black, silver, and now green. Kai’s light was no more than a soft blur beside me. And converging around us were hundreds, if not thousands of brown dots interspersed with black.
My eyes fluttered open. The pain in my side expanded. It grew like a virus and infected the rest of my body. I couldn’t touch the origin of the pain because Kai held me hard against his chest.
A scream echoed in the darkness. It was followed by keening from inhuman throats. Kai set me down in a stupor. I felt his weary determination. He wouldn’t let the demons get my body. I had never seen him so completely lifeless. A single demon skidded into view. It had four arms and two razor-lined tails. Before it had a chance to shoot those razors at him, Kai stepped forward and latched his hands around its throat. The thing thrashed and threw razors at Kai. One of them embedded in his thigh. The other in his side.
I felt the pain as sharply as though I’d been hit. It was minuscule compared to the evisceration of my womb. To a mortal, it would have been debilitating. Kai ignored it. He was too intent on curling his hands together. It constricted the demons throat. Closer and closer until I heard a pop. The thing’s eyes had burst. Thick green jelly leaked from the sockets. I would have dry-retched if I could. Kai twisted and the demon’s head hung limp He tossed it aside as more demons streamed into the room.
Kai held out his hand for his angel blade. It clattered against the stone floor for a second before it spun through the air and into his palm. The spark of his light grew dim. If we didn’t get out of here soon, he would die at the hands of the demons.
I tried to get up, but my strength was non-existent. Almost dying kind of did that to a person. I cast around for something to use to help me. My palm touched on velvet. I latched on to the ring box. It was disposable to them. Those pricks were so intent on killing me, they didn’t even care about Gabriel’s Key.
This time when I touched it, no automatic teleport happened. I flipped the box open and slotted the ring on my right index finger. It reshaped to fit.
“Basil,” I said.
Kai’s back grew rigid. He held a demon by the throat and was about to slice into its stomach. Instead he pushed it across the room and turned back towards me.
“Blue!”
My eyes bulged. “Pay attention!” I snapped. A demon clamped its vicious jaw on his forearm. Kai roared and punched it in the head. Meanwhile, smoke sizzled all around the ring. Of course. The prison was warded. Even with the ring I couldn’t just call anyone in here. There were no mirrors down here.
A steely new conviction travelled along the bond. Kai snapped the demon’s jaw back until it dislocated. He latched on to both jaws not caring that it lacerated his palms. He jerked and the thing groaned. A second later, it stopped thrashing. He cast it aside. More and more demons poured into the room. I tried unsuccessfully once more to push myself up. My palms slid against metallic liquid. It felt both slimy and coagulated. I lay in a pool of my own blood. Nice.
Dozens of demons barrelled into the room. Kai cut down most of them. One was tiny. It barely reached up to my knees. Its claws and teeth were disproportionate to its size. They scraped along the stone floor making a sound that had me shivering. While Kai was distracted, the thing skated over to me. It raised a clawed hand with some effort. It was like somebody had microwaved a bunch of demon bits together and this poor thing was the result.
I flinched as its claws inched towards my face. The tip of a broadsword lanced through its protruding gut. Kai twisted his wrist. The demon dropped to the ground in four separate pieces. Bile coated my tongue. Gross.
“Go!” Kai rasped. His bleeding arm caught my eye.
Where? I wanted to scream at him. But he had already turned and was charging towards the oncoming demons. They wouldn’t stop streaming into the room no matter how hard Kai fought. His angelfire was barely a speck. He’d used most of it bringing me back so he couldn’t even teleport. Now he was just running on pure adrenaline and determination.
Without the bond, I would be convinced he could last forever. Even though fatigue snapped at his heels, Kai continued to hit back at the demons like he was limitless. There were so many things for me to be afraid of in this world. But nothing scared me quite as much as when Kai wasn’t able to evade the blow of a demon’s punch because there were too many other dangers in the way. We were being overrun.
The room was too small.
I groaned as I shoved at the floor with all my might. The effort had the world spinning again. It wasn’t until the room shook that I realised it wasn’t just a result of my weakened body. Something massive was coming. It bled through the Ley sight like a huge red, glowing force. In the periphery of the Ley sight, I caught a spark of white light. On closer inspection, I was surprised to see that it was Fred. He was sealed off dozens of levels above me. There were other guards in the room with him. It appeared that they had been caught in the crossfire. I pressed my lips together. Fred hadn’t run. His cell was on the uppermost level. When stuff had started to go down, he’d stayed.
Of all people, Fred hadn’t chickened out. Neither would I.
Blood coated my hands. It became sticky and made my skin tight when I flexed my fingers. Kai’s enraged roar had my attention pinpointing. A poisoned spine stuck out of his chest. No!
An enormous, hairy leg appeared outside the door. The rest of the demon was too big to fit. It made no difference. The thing slammed its foot against the opening. Rock sprayed into the room.
I raised my arm up to cover my face. Kai backed up to shield me from the worst of it. The spine sticking out of his side was covered in blood.
I lay in a slick of blood.
The walls were painted with it.
My hands moved as though of their own accord. I soaked my palms in blood and drew it into a circle. The Angelical word bounced around in my thoughts. If I spoke the word aloud, what would it do to Kai and me? To Fred and everyone else still in the prison? The little human girl in me screamed that it didn’t matter. My fear was like a tornado. It shattered everything in its wake and didn’t care what it spat out.
My lower abdomen ached like there was no tomorrow. I closed my eyes and thought of those long nights in Ravenhall. I’d sit out in the garden with Basil and absentmindedly draw circles. Without realising, I had etched Angelical words into the circles. At the time, I hadn’t given it much thought. I had been sealed. The words meant nothing. But the writing of the words had quietened my mind.
When I did it now, the ring of red flared with magic so bright, it bathed the room in a frightening glow. All of the demons froze. I glanced inside me at the pool of magic and almost wept. It was full to the brim and churning to be released.
Maybe speaking the Angelical had always been the problem. I was human and a low-magic user. My gift was in the drawing. By writing the Angelical word, I stripped it of the thing that had always botched my pronunciation. My human limitations.
I wrote one last word in the circle. Mawatah. Death. I slapped my bloody hand down on it and sank all of my magic into the circle.
The world exploded in a waved of red. It chased through the prison, up through the crevices, floor after floor, until it reached the ceiling. The roof came off at the same time the wards disintegrated. Every demon mind in the place winked out.
Kai fell to his knees.
I let out a quiet breath as the magic roared from me. I was smiling when I fell unconscious.
59
The scent of sunshine and clean linen woke me. It was a drastic contrast to the acidic smell of blood and guts. My suspicions were on high alert. It was too quiet in here. Outside, a wind chime tinkled.
The bed I lay in was foreign. It was so soft, I almost sank into it. The architecture was not foreign. Seraphina’s beautifully arched ceiling came into view. I groaned. Even the warm sunlight couldn’t chase away my apprehension. Why was I here of all places?
I did an injury check. All digits and limbs account
ed for. I could see and smell and hear. So why the soul-deep ache that kept rearing its head?
I turned onto my side and blinked. A velvet ring box sat on the table. For some reason, my hand suddenly clutched at my lower abdomen. Everything came racing back.
I tore the covers off and pulled down my pyjama bottoms. There was no scar. The skin was smooth and unblemished. But when I slipped into the Ley dimension, my aura in that spot was depthless. Great swathes of blue circled around it, but within that region, it was lifeless. Lucifer had destroyed my ability to bear children.
Tears filled my eyes. Someone knocked on the door. I swiped at my face and took a gulping breath. “I’m awake.”
The door flew open. Sophie shot inside. She screamed and ran at me.
Her body blanketed me. It did more to warm me than the sun could.
Nanna arrived a moment later, followed by Jacqueline.
Sophie snuggled under the covers with me. Nanna and Jacqueline sat at the foot of the bed.
“What happened?” I asked.
“The Dominion prison has been destroyed,” Jacqueline said. I coughed. I kind of figured that part out. She raised a brow at me. I tried to crane my neck out of the window to see if there were guards outside this room. “They don’t blame you, Lex.”
Colour me shocked. “Everyone knows they tried to kill you,” Sophie said. Her voice was soft. “Both Councils have been arrested.”
My jaw dropped. “All of them?”
Sophie nodded. “The elite guard have launched an investigation into who was involved. Durin is really pissed.”
I paused to let it sink in. “How many fugitives?”
Jacqueline cracked her knuckles. “Enough that we’re in lockdown until order has been restored.”
“Get this,” Sophie said, “Basil’s been asked to take over as the First Order’s presence in the Dominion Prison once it reopens.”
“You’re kidding me?”
She laughed. “I can’t believe it either. But right now, he’s the only one they can trust not to abuse his power.” I had never really noticed it because he was sealed inside a doll, but Basil was packing some serious firepower.
