Wicked Little Things

by Emma Dean

  Jacob cast spell after spell, but she deflected each one with Excalibur, landing small strikes on him with her knife, but someone had trained him and trained him well. Every move she made, he had a countermove.

  Thankfully, he couldn’t land a spell on her either and he relied on his magic more than his physical abilities.

  She threw her knife at him as hard as she could and released every blood beast she had in her necklace. Mika deflected another spell and gave them commands, relishing in the sounds of their snarls as they grew with every leap and bound.

  Then it wasn’t just her people screaming, but the demons too.

  And the blood beasts were able to cripple them long enough for them to be captured, killed, or tossed back into the portal.

  “Behead them!” she heard Emily yell, that whip killing more demons than she thought possible.

  Kenzie was able to steal their power and blast it back into them until they literally exploded. It wasn’t pretty, but they were starting to turn the tide.

  Still, there were too many bodies on the ground that weren’t getting up and Mika gritted her teeth and sped up her attacks.

  But that grin on Jacob’s face was messing with her and there was a darkness in his eyes that had never been there before.

  Finally, her sword sliced across his hamstring and she brought up another knife, stabbing it through his calf so he was literally pinned to the ground.

  Breathing hard, her free hand wrapped around his throat and she gripped every drop of blood in his body. “Why?”

  “I never knew about Brad,” Jacob spat, blood dribbling out the corner of his mouth. “I was never a part of his schemes. I only joined to keep an eye on Dad, and still you didn’t stand up for me. You let them strip my magic from me and punish me just as they did to everyone else.”

  “How was I supposed to know?” Mika sheathed Excalibur and twisted her fingers into the runic patterns as she bound him. “You could have said something, and you never did.”

  “They didn’t tell me what they were planning. I hadn’t passed the first initiation yet.” Jacob struggled against her spell and then laughed when three blood beasts came up, snarling at him. “I see why Azrael hates your kind. You’re an abomination.”

  Blood soaked the ground and she could hear it singing its mournful song, begging her to look – to listen. But Mika didn’t have time to walk the blood dreams. Instead she concentrated on each drop and twisted it, jerking her hand up.

  Bloody spikes burst from the ground, impaling demons left and right.

  Shouts echoed through the clearing and she saw Dagon disappear and reappear over and over. Now all she had to do was close the portal.

  “You’re coming with me,” she snapped, gripping her brother’s shoulder hard enough to sting. “And you’re going to explain to me what it is Azrael plans to do.”

  Jacob’s laugh chilled her to the bone. “This was just a test, dear sister.”

  “A test?” She dragged him toward the portal, stepping around the spikes and the impaled bodies.

  Mika had known that fighting Azrael was going to be a shitshow, but even with powerful allies she was left here with a bloody battlefield and the dead bodies of those she was supposed to protect.

  They needed the right weapons, they needed…

  She snarled and ran her hand over a spike and used her own blood to force the portal closed.

  Just as she thought, she and the others were pawns – on the front lines of this burgeoning war. Azrael may be hunting her kind, but there was more to his plan than just removing the children of death from this plane.

  “Clearly you aren’t ready.” Jacob shook off her binding spell like it was nothing and somehow dissolved her blood beasts.

  Mika didn’t know what to do – she couldn’t stop closing the portal or more would come and do the Fates knew what else.

  She tried to stop him, tried to force a spike into his body, but he batted it away and the blood turned back to liquid, harmlessly soaking back into the ground.

  Every blood beast and spike on the field disintegrated at the same time, and Mika didn’t know how. She didn’t know what power he had to even do something like that without being a blood witch.

  “I am a son of death,” Jacob told her, his voice vibrating through the air as if there were a thousand of them. “A death knight, and I challenge you for your place, Witch Queen.”

  Mika reached out and concentrated on the veins in his body, and then yanked.

  He fell to his knees and grimaced, but the veins didn’t rip through his skin like they were supposed to.

  Between one blink and the next, she felt something cold slide through her body, something that felt like fire and poison and pain—so much pain. Somehow her brother had moved—teleported.

  She screamed as that black spike pierced through her chest, through a lung. Mika felt it collapse and air was impossible to breathe.

  “I came here to challenge you,” Jacob growled, staring down at her with a hatred she’d never seen in him before. “When I win, I’ll rule over the witches.” He knelt beside her, gripping that black blade, and then twisted. “And Death will reign over earth.”

  Mika tasted blood, gasping as she held on to her brother. Tears spilled down her cheeks, and she knew she was dying – even with Excalibur on her back, she was dying.

  “You let me rot among the humans,” Jacob hissed. “You never once stuck up for me, a lowly male witch in a world where females have the final say. As his lieutenant, I’ll wipe out your kind and finally bring back equality to our world.”

  There were so many things she could say, so many excuses she could make. Mika hadn’t known Jacob was on her side, and no she hadn’t sought him out while she was essentially powerless. She hadn’t tried to help him while he was in exile.

  She’d been a little bit busy.

  But maybe if she’d just talked to him…

  Maybe they could have avoided all this.

  Looking up into his eyes, such a dark blue they were almost black, she didn’t know what to say to him. There was no way to make this better.

  “Mika!” Corbin yelled her name from across the clearing, but she couldn’t take her eyes off her brother. She couldn’t risk Jacob knowing who she couldn’t live without. All she knew was they had the skills to survive.

  When this was all over, then she could make sure they were all alive.

  “I accept your challenge,” she gritted out. Mika stepped back and yanked on the blade until it clattered to the floor. “When would you like to make it official?”

  Jacob grinned. “Dad will be pleased to hear it.” Her brother inspected her from head to toe and wrinkled his nose in disgust. “And here I thought you would be so much stronger than me. Ah well, at least it’ll make my victory quick.”

  Her brother reached out and she stabbed another knife through his arm, twisting and unsheathing another knife, using regular magic to force his feet from the ground. Jacob landed on his back and she struck down, piercing his neck.

  A single blast of blood magic and his heart burst from his chest.

  Mika caught it as it still pulsed.

  Still, he wasn’t quite dead yet. Tears streamed down her cheeks, but she felt nothing as she stared down at her brother – his heart in her hand. “I protect what is mine,” Mika told him. “I already have a brother. I don’t need another.”

  She squeezed his heart, blood gushing down her arm and it dissipated whatever power her brother possessed – gifted from a death god.

  Just like her.

  Her brother’s body went rigid as if the magic was forcibly leaving his body, taking his life force with it, then he collapsed; dead.

  “You had the magic,” she whispered, reaching down and closing his eyes. “But you weren’t trained by assassins and warrior queens.”

  “Mika?”

  The portal was still open, there were still demons, but they were popping out of existence now that her circle was broken.
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  They’d been watching her long enough to know what she’d use and had planned for it. Nothing could pop in and out of a blood circle – and somehow her brother had known that she’d fall back on that.

  Which meant Azrael knew.

  “Mika, you’re still bleeding.” Corbin was bandaging her wound and still all she could look at was her brother.

  “How many died?” She concentrated on the heart in her hand and tossed it to the only remaining blood beast – the one she’d made herself.

  It looked like whatever her brother was, he couldn’t dissolve what was made from her blood.

  Something to think about.

  “A few,” Malachi told her, slamming his sword down and cutting Jacob’s head from his body.

  Mika looked up at him, unable to block out the sounds of the squelching.

  “Just to be sure,” Malachi muttered.

  Mika didn’t fault him for it.

  She’d ripped her own brother’s heart from his chest after all.

  “Mika, you’re not healing.” Corbin sounded panicked. “I can’t stop the bleeding, and you’re wearing Excalibur.”

  Every breath had been shallow, and she only had one working lung, but she was still alive.

  So far.

  “Mika?”

  “We need to get her back to the eyrie, now.”

  “No.” Dagon’s familiar scent wrapped around her a moment before she felt his arms lift her up. “I will take care of this. You two take care of the wounded.”

  One moment she was staring down at her brother’s head, and the next…

  Darkness.

  11

  Mika didn’t recognize where Dagon had taken her. It wasn’t hell, and it wasn’t Aine’s ranch in Australia. They weren’t in Eisheth’s loft, or back in the eyrie.

  Where the hell were they?

  “Morrigan, please hear us,” Dagon whispered, setting her down.

  Freezing cold water covered her body and Mika shivered as she remembered just how cold that blade had been when it pierced through her like she was warm butter.

  “Your daughter needs you.”

  She looked up at the sky and saw the statue of the Morrigan towering over her.

  So, he’d brought her to Morgana’s Island.

  “Dagon, what happened?” Morgana demanded, as she appeared next to the Hellhound like the phantom she was.

  “Azrael is making death knights. Morrigan, please hear my prayer. We need your counsel.”

  “Mika.” It was hard to feel anything. All that made it through the strange haze was the sensation of being lifted so she floated on the top of the water. “My daughter.”

  Her eyes flicked from the statue to those endless black eyes she still saw sometimes in her dreams. “I’m not healing.”

  “No, but you will.” The Morrigan sighed and brushed her hair back from her face. “You did well.”

  She looked away from the goddess and back to the statue. “I ripped my brother’s heart from his chest.”

  It felt like she’d ripped out her own heart.

  “I need you to focus on his blood,” the Morrigan told her. “Use it to see into his memories. Where did he come from?”

  If she could go back far enough in the blood dream…they could track Azrael.

  “Why am I not healing? I can feel the damage, but it’s not getting better. I’m not dying either.”

  The Morrigan pressed her hand to Mika’s chest and closed her eyes, concentrating. She murmured something in ancient Celtic that Mika couldn’t quite place. Everything was under the goddess’s breath.

  A second later she felt it – a cold shard that must have broken off inside her body.

  It slid through her slowly before erupting from her chest. Mika wanted to puke. She wanted to scream, but all she could manage were more tears and a gasp as it finally left her body.

  “Demon glass,” the Morrigan spat. “Enchanted obsidian. Seems Azrael is testing me.”

  “And me.” Mika could feel her lung slowly heal, and she took a deep breath when the holes were sealed. A massive weight had been lifted from her chest, but still, she clung to the Morrigan.

  “You passed the test.” Mor held her close, stroking her hair. “Now concentrate on his blood.”

  Mika did as the goddess asked, forcing each drop from her body, from her clothes, from her hands and the water until they combined in a liquid ball just above the water.

  “Before I go in, tell me why I didn’t die.” She should have.

  The goddess’s eyes flashed and for a second she could see the end of the universe.

  “You are one of the last until the others are discovered. As such, I gave my last daughter my blood and all that entails.”

  Mika pulled back from the goddess and studied her with narrowed eyes. “What?”

  She’d drank the Morrigan’s blood during the ceremony that freed the goddess from her prison, but that had been part of the spell in exchange for spilling her own blood.

  The goddess looked away and Mika stepped back, flicking her gaze to Dagon and then back to the Morrigan.

  “Explain or I will burn this.”

  Mor sighed. “I gave you a piece of me. You’re not as powerful as Aine, but you’re not mortal.”

  Not…mortal?

  Mika shoved the goddess away and tried to remember how to breathe. “I can’t die?”

  “You can, just like any of us.”

  “So, I have to be killed with the right weapon, but if I’m not?”

  “Then you can live for thousands of years.” The Morrigan’s attention wasn’t focused on Mika though. It was on the floating sphere of blood.

  “Why?”

  “Blood witches will not go extinct on my watch. I refuse to lose any more children. Now look, Mika. Or I will make you.”

  She shoved the goddess.

  And the Morrigan actually fell backwards.

  “When were you going to tell me?” she screamed, pushing her again. “When I watched Lucien and Ethan grow old and die? When I outlived my own children?”

  “When you were ready.” The goddess reached out and grabbed Mika by the neck, her black eyes flashing with the end of the world in them. “Now look, Mika. Or those you love will not have the time to grow old.”

  Mika snarled and called the sphere to her. It floated in between her two hands. “Do it yourself.”

  “Insolent child.”

  And just like that everything stopped – time, space…everything.

  Dagon was mid-blink. Water was frozen as whatever blasted from the Morrigan forced it outward. Even a bird was completely still in the sky.

  “He is clan blood. You can go back further than I.” That voice echoed with the screams of millions of deaths. It held the secrets from the beginning of time, and it made her skull feel like it was being ripped open. “There are things you cannot possibly understand.”

  Mika glared up at the Morrigan and wiped away the blood that was dripping down her nose.

  “There are many possible futures, and you die in most of them.” The goddess slammed her spear into the empty bottom of the fountain and Mika could see the sharp canines. There were four on top and on the bottom – so unlike what Hunter had showed her.

  “I’m aware.” And Mika wasn’t even sure she really cared anymore, not if she could prevent Azrael from tearing through her world like a disease that couldn’t be cured.

  “You are not the only one who dies.” The Morrigan lifted up a hand and blood pooled in her palm. It was so red it was black. “I’ve seen my own death, the death of Aine, and every death god there is. The more power he takes, the more unstoppable he will become. I gave you what I could without becoming too weak I cannot fight off Azrael. Hopefully it is still enough.”

  Mika wasn’t sure it would be, but if there were so few options that wouldn’t end in death and ruin…

  Before she could panic, she buried both hands in the sphere of her dead brother’s blood.

  Walking t
hrough the blood dream was easier now and she skipped backward so she didn’t have to relive his death. Mika gritted her teeth when she saw herself through his eyes, and wished…

  She wished her family hadn’t hated her. Only her mother and grandmother really loved her, but they’d lived their lives under the restrictions of high society and had enforced them upon her.

  What was it about Mika that made them dislike her so much, even before they knew about the blood magic?

  And her father was still out there. Somewhere.

  “There,” the Morrigan murmured, appearing next to Mika in the blood dream just like Hunter had.

  Trying to find the killer on campus felt like a million years ago.

  Mika bore down on the blood, making sure to call on what was tied to her as she hitched a ride from the forest to wherever Jacob had come from. Her brother had been able to teleport – just like a demon.

  Had Azrael gifted him the same powers that Jess had? Is that why his magic had been the equivalent of hers? The Angel of Death must have given him the same strength and speed that the Morrigan had given her as well – to even the playing field.

  Then they were there. Wherever ‘there’ was.

  “Do you recognize where we are?” Mika asked.

  The goddess studied their surroundings with a frown on her face. “It’s not hell.”

  “Is it earth?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  Mika watched as her brother spoke to someone. She followed after him, careful of the rocks and the cracks in the ground. It was like a desert, but not any desert she’d ever seen before. The sand was black, and the rocks turned into boulders, and then cliffs.

  “I’ve just got word of her location. Take a small team with you.”

  She recognized that voice.

  Another step forward, and she could see his face.

  Her father.

  He looked older, but still really good for his actual age. Her mother was about fifteen years younger, but they said their age difference was due to the times. Mika wasn’t so sure anymore.

  “I don’t think I need a team,” Jacob told their dad, crossing his arms over his chest. “All I need is her.”