by Ella Summers
“The territorial urge is too strong,” Nerissa continued. “The angels quickly start fighting over every little scrap. I warned Nyx it wasn’t a good idea having you here now that you’re an angel.”
“Trying to get rid of me, Doc?” I winked at her.
“Now, why would I do that? You make such an excellent restraining device.” Her gaze flickered to the soldier I was holding down.
“Why do I have the feeling I’m being mocked?”
“Must be those highly-developed angel senses,” she said.
I snorted. “Must be.”
“So you don’t think Leda is infected with the demons’ curse?” Harker asked her.
“Neither of you are. You’re both acting far more rational than he is.” She indicated the red-faced soldier on the cot, his muscles bulging under the strain of trying to break free. “You two seem to be just engaging in normal angel territorial conflicts. But just to be safe, I’ll take a look at you both when I’m done with him.”
Awesome. Just what I needed: someone to test my magic.
“Now that we got your conscious sample in here, I need to go quell the fight in the canteen,” Harker said. “While the canteen is still standing.”
I could hear the noises filtering up the stairs from the level below. It sounded like the sleeping soldiers had all awoken and restarted their fight.
“Isn’t knocking them out supposed to end the curse? It always worked before,” I commented.
The sparkle in Harker’s eyes had dulled. “Apparently, we can no longer count on that.”
The demons’ curse was growing more powerful, more complex. It was evolving. If we didn’t stop it, it would tear the Legion apart. And if the curse didn’t tear the Legion apart, Colonel Fireswift’s interrogations would.
“Do you need any help?” I asked Harker. I had to do something. I had to stop this.
“No, you have your hands full as it is,” he said as the soldier shouted and thrashed against my hold.
Harker left the room, passing Nerissa on the way out. She was looking through her magic microscope and frowning.
“What is it?” I asked her.
“There are no foreign potions or spells in his body.”
“No sign of the demons’ curse?”
“His magic is incensed for sure. I just can’t explain why. It’s streaked with color.”
“Streaked with color?” I asked.
“Our magic changes color with our moods.”
“And you can see that?”
“Only with this.” She indicated the magic microscope on her desk. “Though there is one person whose magical changes are visible to the naked eye.”
I thought of my hair and wings. Both of them reacted to my moods and magic, changing color. “Me.”
“Yes.” She looked contemplative.
“What does your microscope tell you about this soldier?” I asked, putting her back on track. She needed to focus on the curse, not on my very odd magic.
“The colors of his magic are indicative of someone in a jealous rage,” she said.
“The battle in Demeter began when two soldiers fought over a woman. First, it was just the two of them, but soon everyone was fighting, including the security guards who came into the room later.”
“Those feelings of jealousy and anger transferred to others?” Nerissa was clearly asking herself the question.
I answered anyway. “That’s what it looked like. They were all expressing the same emotion.”
“I can see he’s agitated. I can see that emotion painted here, right in front of me.” She frowned. “But I can’t find the cause. Besides his agitated mood, his magic is completely normal… Wait a moment.” She adjusted a few dials on her microscope. “There’s something going on inside of him. A weird echo.”
“Weird echo?”
“A foreign echo in his mind,” she clarified, then adjusted more dials and knobs. “Triggering these emotions.” She looked through the microscope. “It almost looks like…”
“Yes?” I asked. “Like what?”
She looked up from her microscope and met my eyes. “Like it’s telepathic.”
“Telepathic? The demons are administering the curse telepathically,” I realized. “Is there any way to trace a telepathic spell to its source?”
She shook her head. “No. Telepathy is a strange and elusive kind of magic. It’s the branch of magic we understand the least. It’s so intangible.”
“So you can’t find the source of the curse, the person or thing telepathically attacking our soldiers.” I chewed on my lower lip. “But can you block it?”
“No. There is no Magitech that can block telepathic signals. Only a ghost, a telepath, can block them.”
“Or a telepathic angel.”
The man on the cot suddenly stopped struggling. A dazed expression washed over his face, and his eyes darted around the room.
Harker stepped through the door.
“The fight in Demeter?” I asked him.
“Is over. When I walked into the canteen, everyone just stopped fighting. They don’t even know why they’d suddenly grown angry.”
“We do,” I told him. “Someone is sending out telepathic signals targeted at manipulating emotions, flooding our soldiers with strong negative feelings, ones that bury their rational thoughts and make them lose control.”
“A telepathic attack.” Harker’s phone buzzed. He glanced at the screen.
“Trouble?”
He looked at me, his expression dark. “There’s been an incident in the Legion’s New Orleans office.”
The New Orleans office. That was in the South, the territory commanded by my friend Jace.
“A fight?” I asked.
“Yes. At precisely the same time as the one here broke out. And one broke out in the Chicago office as well, also at the same time.”
“It’s escalating, growing with each wave, with each telepathic attack.”
“If it’s spreading, it will soon reach the next Legion office,” said Harker.
“Los Angeles. Legion headquarters.”
“The first incidents occurred in this office,” Nerissa said. “I think the source of the telepathic curse is in New York, branching out as the spell gains momentum. You need to call the First Angel here immediately. I don’t have any Magitech that can shield our soldiers from these attacks, but Nyx is a demigod. She might be powerful enough to block the curse long enough for us to find a cure.”
“Can it be cured?” I asked her.
“I hope so,” she replied. “The curse is escalating fast, reaching out further with each wave. And if we don’t figure it out soon, in a few days there won’t be anything left of the Legion’s formidable fighting force.”
“The demons won’t even have to lift a sword,” I hissed. “All they have to do is wait and watch us wipe ourselves out.”
10
Meeting of the Angels
Six hours had passed since the battle in Demeter, and Harker and I had spent nearly every moment in motion, putting down fights. The curse was hitting the Legion’s New York office every hour now. Reports from the Chicago and New Orleans offices confirmed their soldiers were always being affected at exactly the same time. Nyx was off world right now, but I hoped she got here soon. The Legion wouldn’t survive much more of this before it imploded.
There were no accounts of incidents like these outside the Legion of Angels. This curse did not seem to affect the normal population of humans and supernaturals—only Legion soldiers. That made it pretty likely it was an attack targeted directly at the Legion, rather than someone just trying to create general mayhem in the world.
Harker, Colonel Fireswift, and I went to meet the First Angel when she finally landed on the rooftop of the New York office. She didn’t waste any time getting down to business.
“I have been following your updates on the situation. I am taking over the investigation,” she declared, much to Colonel Fireswift’s chagrin.
> I hadn’t seen such a sour expression on his face since the gods had assigned him to be my partner in the Crystal Falls training.
“Well, what did you expect? After all, your own team has been compromised,” I pointed out to him.
One of the Interrogators had been caught up in the Battle of Demeter. That’s what everyone was calling the incident in the canteen.
“Compromised,” Colonel Fireswift repeated, his nose crinkling up as though he’d smelled something foul.
We followed Nyx to her office, the opulent room set aside for the First Angel. Except it wasn’t looking particularly opulent right now. During one of the recent outbursts, several affected soldiers had found their way inside and trashed the place. The curtains were burnt, the paintings on the walls slashed, and the furniture in pieces. And since the outbursts were happening every hour now, we hadn’t had any time to clean up the place.
Nyx stepped over the shattered remains of the chandelier and leaned her hands back against her mahogany desk. Only the sheer impracticality of throwing something that massive had saved it from mutilation.
“Close the door,” she said.
The door to her office was half off its hinges, but Harker managed to set the lock in place.
“This situation has completely spiraled out of control,” Nyx declared, a hint of reproach in her voice. As though it were our fault the demons had cursed the Legion. “How are you three faring?”
“We seem to be resistant to the curse’s effects,” Harker replied. “Though I would be lying if I claimed I wasn’t feeling a bit testy myself lately.”
“So you think the curse is affecting you?” Nyx said. She was looking at all three of us.
“Well, I did stick a fork through Harker’s hand,” I admitted, feeling altogether embarrassed that Harker and I had fought over something as silly as a slice of cake.
Nyx wasn’t laughing, but her eyes were. “That is just your territorial angel instincts—most likely aggravated by what’s going on here.”
“Angels are immune to this ailment afflicting the Legion’s lower ranks,” Colonel Fireswift proclaimed, casting a sidelong glance at me and Harker. “Some of us more than others.”
I frowned at him. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“You don’t possess the power of Ghost’s Whisper. Your resistance to telepathic attacks is minimal.”
“You didn’t think my resistance to telepathic attacks was minimal the last time you tried to read my mind,” I shot back.
He gave his hand a dismissive wave. “Everyone gets lucky occasionally.”
“Maybe if he ever got lucky, he’d be in a better mood,” I muttered.
Harker choked down an emerging chuckle.
“Luck is a fickle ally,” Colonel Fireswift continued, oblivious to my bawdy joke. “And unlike other people, it is not something I’m forced to depend upon to shield me from this telepathic curse.”
His narcissism, his sense of absolute superiority, hung so heavy in the air that it made me want to gag.
“You’re forgetting something, Colonel,” I told him.
He let out a short, derisive laugh. “I doubt it.”
“You’re forgetting how magic at the Legion of Angels works.”
His forehead crinkled with agitation. “You dare—”
“Yes, I dare. I always dare.” I smiled. “We might not yet possess the power of Ghost’s Whisper, but we Legion soldiers train our resistance to a power before we gain it.” I nudged Harker in the shoulder. “In fact, after this ordeal is over, I’d say our telepathic resistance will be pretty well trained.”
He picked up on what I was getting at. “Bringing us both closer to the next level.”
“Yep.”
I’d been working on my resistance to telepathic attacks for a while now actually—at least when it came to blocking people from reading my thoughts. I guess you could say that I was very motivated to keep both angels and gods out of my head.
Colonel Fireswift favored us with a scathing look. “It’s not prudent to strategize your path to promotion in front of the First Angel.”
“You mean, to strategize how to be stronger, so the Legion can be stronger,” I said. “How is that not prudent? Don’t we want the Legion to be stronger?”
Colonel Fireswift glowered at me.
I smirked at him. “Come on, admit it, Colonel. You’ve missed conversations with me since we went our separate ways after the gods’ challenges.”
“Hardly.”
“Sure you have. You couldn’t stay away. That’s why you came here. You were aching for a good laugh.”
His fists clenched.
“Don’t kill her,” Nyx told him.
As Colonel Fireswift stepped back, I commented, “People keep having to tell him that.”
“And you stop provoking him,” Nyx told me sharply. “We need to get to work. You will all report to Dr. Harding’s office for a full examination. Angels are apparently resistant to this curse. We might be able to create a magic vaccine to protect everyone else from the malicious telepathic signals. It would buy us time, so we can find the source of this curse and put an end to it.”
Her voice vibrated with frightening conviction. Whoever had cast this curse should be very worried. Nyx’s Legion had been attacked, and she was going to hunt down the guilty party and obliterate them. Just like a mother dragon protected her young.
Colonel Fireswift nodded briskly to the First Angel, bowed, then unlocked the broken door and left the room. He was undoubtably heading straight to Nerissa’s office as ordered. I lingered in front of Nyx’s desk.
“What is it?” she asked me.
Harker was already halfway to the door, but he stopped at her words.
“Is there something else, Pandora?” Nyx asked me, her brows lifting.
Her gaze dipped to the name I’d taken the liberty of putting on my jacket: Pandora. Amusement twinkled in her bright blue eyes. Unlike Colonel Fireswift, the First Angel, scary mother dragon of the Legion, actually had a sense of humor. That was Nyx’s duality; she had a foot each on Earth and in heaven, standing between the worlds of humans and gods. That’s what I liked about her. She could somehow be both; she could balance both. If only she hadn’t stolen from Nero and tried to manipulate me—if only I could truly trust her—we would have been good friends.
“Yes, there’s something else,” I told Nyx. “Aren’t you worried what Nerissa will find if she does a full examination on me?”
Nyx glanced at Harker.
“He already knows,” I said. “He figured it out.”
“You are fortunate Colonel Fireswift did not figure it out as well.”
“We are both fortunate,” I told her with a forced smile.
Nyx sighed. “Leda, you take everything so personally.”
She wanted to use me as a weapon. She’d tried to blackmail me, promising to keep my secret if I wielded the weapons of heaven and hell for her.
“Of course I take things personally. Because it’s normal to take these sorts of things personally,” I said. “And, just so we’re clear, you take things personally too.”
Nyx frowned at my reminder that she and Ronan weren’t getting along right now—and that everyone knew it. But she immediately shrugged off her discomfort and went right on with business.
“Dr. Harding is your friend.” She stopped to let the words settle on her tongue, like she was sampling a taste of wine. Then she pulled out her phone and quickly typed out something. “I have just forbidden her from discussing the results of my angels’ tests with anyone except me.”
Apparently, Nyx wasn’t putting all her eggs in the friendship basket. I wasn’t surprised. Unlike Colonel Fireswift, she understood and appreciated the bonds of love and friendship, but that didn’t mean she had complete and absolute faith in them. Nyx was someone who always needed a backup. She needed layers of armor, of protection—probably now more than ever, after learning Ronan had kept secrets from her.
; As Harker and I left Nyx’s office, going back to see Nerissa, he commented, “Nyx is even scarier than Fireswift.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “Colonel Fireswift ignores his emotions; he bottles them. But Nyx doesn’t. She feels every bit as much as we do. I know she sympathizes with my situation—with me—and yet that doesn’t stop her from seeing her plans through. It doesn’t freeze her. And it doesn’t stop her from manipulating me if she feels that’s the best way to ensure the Legion’s survival.”
We reached Nerissa’s office as Colonel Fireswift left it.
“What are you two doing, skulking about?” he demanded gruffly.
“We weren’t skulking,” I replied. “The First Angel just wanted to have a few words with us.”
Colonel Fireswift looked like he didn’t believe a word I said. His ego wouldn’t allow for the possibility that Nyx would want to speak to us, but not him, the ranking angel of us three.
“I will be watching you,” he told me, then left.
No, Colonel Fireswift wasn’t at all like Nyx. Because he always suppressed his feelings, he couldn’t handle them when they reared their ugly head. Like when his daughter had died. The emotions that he kept prisoner had broken free, overloading him completely.
“Are you just going to lurk in the doorway, Leda, or are you coming inside?” Nerissa called out to me, drawing me out of my reflections.
“Sorry. I was just…”
“Daydreaming,” Harker said with a roguish wink.
Nerissa was already drawing blood from him. “Isn’t she always? Honestly, I’ve never met an angel with her head so much in the clouds.”
“Haha. Very funny,” I said drily.
She chuckled.
“How is Soren?” I asked her as she took samples of Harker’s blood.
“He’s doing fine. Thankfully, he wasn’t affected during any of the curse’s later outbreaks. It seems almost random who’s affected.”
“The attacks at the other offices don’t seem connected either,” said Harker. “Some of the soldiers haven’t been in close contact with the other affected people. Some who were unaffected were friends or worked closely with the affected soldiers.”
