by Ella Summers
Grinding my teeth, I stayed on my feet and made my way toward her, one agonizing step at a time.
“You really are so stupid and stubborn,” she cackled. “Like a street dog.”
“I am so tired of being talked down to because I’m different,” I ground out, pressing forward.
I shot my magic at her. A tornado of swirling dark and light slammed into her. She doubled over and stumbled back, recovering her balance.
But I was faster this time.
“I am no street dog. I am Pandora, the Angel of Chaos,” I declared, grabbing the goddess.
My hands closed around her collar. The glowing metal burned my hands, but I didn’t let go. I gripped it harder. Meda bucked, trying to throw me off of her. As I held on, I concentrated my siren’s magic on breaking the collar’s control over her mind.
I felt it—that sharp pop the second I stole control over her mind from the collar’s spell. The collar froze for a moment as its programming tried to access the self-destruct spell. It was building up.
I prepared to unlatch the collar and toss it away.
Wait, no, I couldn’t do that. Arina had told me the power of the self-destruct spell was proportional to the power of the being it had fettered. The monsters weren’t all that powerful, but Meda was a goddess. Even if I tossed the collar as far away as I possibly could, it wouldn’t be far enough. The explosion would still destroy the whole town. The shock wave might even reach as far as New York City.
I couldn’t toss it away. I had to overpower it with my siren magic. Arina had also said that if I could overpower a collar completely and all at once, I could knock out the self-destruct mechanism too. I hadn’t been able to do that when it was on Meda. It was time for a different approach. A direct approach—one the Guardians would not expect, and hadn’t accounted for.
I unlatched the collar from Meda’s neck and closed it around my own. That put me into direct contact with the spell that powered the collar. Unfortunately, it also presented me, front and center, as its next target.
The compulsion spell crashed against me like a stormy ocean wave. I fought back, countering its magic with my own. It tried to enslave my will; and I tried to put it under my power. Around and around our magic went like two great tigers circling each other in a battle for supremacy.
My head hurt. Everything hurt. The world hadn’t stopped spinning since Meda had knocked me down. And my battle of wills with the Guardians’ spell had sent everything whirling out of control.
I felt a hand on my back. I glanced behind me. It was Nero. He froze when he saw Cadence. Beside him, Damiel was gaping at her like he couldn’t believe his eyes.
Nero set his hands on my shoulders, his eyes honing in on the collar around my neck. “Leda, what have you done?”
Meda was waving her hands around, quickly reeling in the sparkling web, pushing the magic back into the Magitech network. She was back to normal. The world-killing web had dissipated.
“We did it,” I told Nero, smiling. “Purgatory is safe. The Earth is safe. We’ve won. And you’re all going to be all right.”
The iron fist of the collar’s magic locked around my mind, dropping me to my knees.
32
Guardians of Magic
“Leda broke the spell over Meda,” Cadence told everyone as they closed in around me. “To stop the collar from self-destructing and taking all of us with it, she put the collar around her own neck.”
“Giving it a new target,” Nero said.
“Yes. And now the collar is trying to take over her mind.”
“It appears to be winning.” Ronan’s face suddenly came into sharp focus in front of my eyes. “And if it succeeds, we’ll have a very big problem. Leda’s magic is even more dangerous than Meda’s.”
“She’ll beat the collar,” said Nyx.
Ronan frowned. “I hope you’re right.”
“I’m not waiting to find out.” Nero waved his hand. “Tessa, get over here.”
When had Tessa gotten here? And how much time had passed since I’d put on the collar? Everything was bleeding together. I was so dizzy, and my head hurt. It hurt so much.
Voices echoed in my head. So many voices. They promised they could take away my pain, but they were all liars. They were just part of the spell the collar was weaving around me. It wanted me to give in.
“The moment I get the collar off of Leda, open a portal and send the collar through it before it explodes,” Nero told Tessa.
“I haven’t completely mastered my magic.” My sister’s voice trembled. “I can’t guarantee that I can create a portal to another world right when you need it.”
“You can because you have to,” Nero said. “Or Leda will die.”
Tessa nodded, her fists clenching with determination. “Leda saved me from hell. I will save her.”
“Stop.” Damiel’s voice cut through their plans. “We can’t send the collar to another world. The power of its self-destruct spell is proportional to the magical capacity of its last prisoner.”
“This is Leda we’re talking about,” Nero growled.
“Yes, this is Leda,” Damiel replied calmly. “And we both know how powerful she is. With both her light and dark magic to power the self-destruct spell, the explosion would be catastrophic. You would be sentencing another world to destruction.”
“I refuse to let her die,” Nero said, his voice almost savage with desperation.
“And she won’t,” Cadence said to him. “She is fighting the collar.”
“That’s the problem. If she wins, the collar explodes, killing her and everyone else. And if the collar wins, it takes control over her and forces her to kill everyone anyway.”
“I don’t think so,” said Cadence. “She is the Angel of Chaos. There’s another way.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know, but Leda did. She knew what she was doing when she grabbed that collar.”
Well, at the time, I’d thought I’d known what I was doing. I was starting to question that conviction now. I hadn’t anticipated the collar would put up such a fight, or that it would hurt so damn much. The Fever wasn’t exactly doing wonders for my self-control right now. I was holding on to it by the tips of my fingernails and ends of my teeth.
“She’s losing it,” Damiel said, drawing his sword.
What he hoped to do with it was anyone’s guess. If he killed me, the collar exploded. He knew that, but I supposed having a weapon in his hand made him feel better. It made him feel like he was in control.
“She’ll make it.” A potion vial appeared in Cadence’s hand. “But she could use a helping hand, Nero.”
“How can I help her?”
“You and Leda are connected by magic,” she said. “You’ve marked each other. I can sense it. You need to use that connection you share to offer her your strength.”
Nero looked at the potion inside the vial, the sparkling silver liquid moving as though it were alive. “That’s Life potion.”
“That’s right,” she said. “It will activate the other side of your magic, the side that has remained dormant your whole life. Your dark magic.”
“You know about our Immortal blood,” Nero said.
“Yes, and this is the key to unlocking it.” She set the vial of Life in his hand.
Not hesitating for a moment, Nero uncapped it and drank the potion down in one go.
I blinked. I didn’t know how much time had passed. All I knew was everything had gone blurry. I couldn’t hear anyone anymore. The only voices left were the ones in my head, the voices of the collar as it worked its magic on me…no, wait. There was something else, not a voice but a presence.
Nero. He was lending me his strength. He was helping me fight the collar’s spell. His magic popped with power, a firestorm and a blizzard both at once. The Life potion had worked. It had ignited his dark magic, blending it with the light. And the end result was beautiful. His magic burned through my veins, hot and cold, gentle and explosive
.
Thank you, I told him, hoping he could hear me.
With Nero to strengthen me, I pushed back against the collar’s spell.
The voices grew louder. More voices joined in. The collar was fighting back.
My mind followed the connecting strand between the collar on my neck and the Sanctuary. I felt like I was there on the Guardians’ world, inside an unfamiliar room. It was hot. And the voices were louder here.
That was when I realized they weren’t voices at all. They were machines.
Racks and racks filled with humming computers surrounded me, their lights flickering rapidly. The machines were powering the collar around my neck. Collectively, they were fighting me.
The lights raced faster. The machines stared at me like they were alive.
The humming had grown louder. The fans spun faster. The machines’ mocking rumble was deafening. The noise crashed against me, trying to crush my freewill.
I buried my fear beneath my resolve to silence the machines once and for all, to never again allow the Guardians to use them to enslave anyone’s mind.
There was a sizzle. One machine exploded.
A pop. A computer melted.
A click. Another machine blew up.
Sparks flew. Parts snapped. One by one, the Guardians’ machines were destroyed—until there wasn’t a single one left. But I didn’t stop there. As my connection to the Guardians’ machine room died, I sent a final jolt of magic across the spell that linked my collar to it. The burning, melting machines burst into flames. The last thing I saw before my mind whipped back to Earth was the roof of the building crashing down.
The collar’s clasp clicked open, and the metal ring dropped to the ground. I looked down upon the now-inert metal piece, smiling. I’d beaten it. I looked at Nero. We had beaten it. And with the Guardians’ machines destroyed, it would be a very long time before they could try that trick again—if they could ever try it again.
“You know, you really should listen to your mother.” I smirked at him. “My plans always work.” I took a step forward, stumbling.
Nero was right there, catching me before I fell. “Your plans are always dangerous.”
I looked into his eyes. “I swore that I’d come back to you, and I did.”
“Technically, I had to come to you,” he pointed out.
“Don’t be such a know-it-all, General.”
“Even if I know everything?”
I laughed. “You are insufferable.”
“And you are reckless,” he countered. His thumb massaged deep circles into my palm. “Will you still marry me?”
“Of course I will, you crazy angel.” I reached up and touched my hand to his cheek. “There’s never been anyone else but you.”
His hands closed around my waist. “Good.” His mouth swooped down on mine, and he drew me into a deep kiss that made my knees buckle.
But we weren’t alone. The loud chorus of clearing throats reminded me of that. As Nero drew back, I threw a sheepish glance at our audience.
“Behave yourself, Pandora,” Nyx chided me. “I’d hate to have to arrest you after you saved the world.”
“Come on. Surely, I’m allowed to kiss Nero by now.” I pointed at the pink and blue splashes lighting up the horizon. “Look, it’s already morning. A new day is here.” I winked at Nero. “Our wedding day.”
“Don’t count your wedding bells before they ring, Pandora.” Nyx’s voice cracked like a whip. “You’re not married yet. And formalities must be observed.”
“Of course they must,” I said with a heavy sigh that rattled my chest.
“Cadence, is that really you?” Damiel reached his hand toward her.
She touched her palm to his. “Of course it’s me.” Her blonde brows peaked. “Don’t you know your own wife?”
“My memory’s a bit fuzzy. I need to reacquaint myself with your qualities.” His eyes slid over her body.
Cadence folded her arms over her chest and shot him a sassy smirk. “I’m sure you do.”
He reclaimed her hand, kissing the top. “Will you be my date at our son’s wedding?” His voice was formal and polished, like he was proposing marriage, not a dinner date.
“That depends,” Cadence said.
Damiel’s brows lifted. “On what?”
“On whether or not you can keep your hands to yourself, Damiel.”
He folded his hands together. “I will be a perfect gentleman.”
“Will you?” Her smile faded. “How disappointing. After two hundred years apart, I was hoping for a warmer welcome.”
Magic flashed in Damiel’s eyes. “That can be arranged.”
There were sparks flying between him and Cadence. Literally. It was a full-on fireworks show.
“Sooo,” Harker said to me, looking away from Cadence and Damiel. “How did you beat the collar anyway?”
“Through sheer force of will—and a little help from Nero.” I winked at my husband-to-be. “But only just a little.”
“Admit it,” Nero said, his voice like a slip of dark silk. “It feels good to shed your modesty.”
I bit my lip. “I’m not done shedding my modesty yet, honey.”
His hand traced my sleeve. “I cannot wait to witness more…shedding.”
“Nor can I.” Then I glanced at Harker. “In the end, the collar failed because it didn’t know how to deal with my balanced chaos magic.”
“Chaos magic,” Harker repeated. “Truly a contradiction to stump even the most brilliant scientist.”
I brushed off my hands on my pants in an exaggerated display of accomplishment. “Then my work here is done.”
Harker laughed. “But willpower alone wasn’t enough, was it? There was a trick to it.”
“Tricks? Why, I would never stoop so low.”
“You toss water bottles in sword fights,” Harker reminded me. “And you get your opponents twisted up in ropes during training.”
I shrugged. “I do what works.”
“And what worked here?” Nyx asked. “Every other time you wrestled control over a mind from the collar, the collar exploded.”
“This time, the collar was fighting me for control over my own mind, not another’s mind.” My gaze flickered to Nero. “And this time I had some help,” I added, more solemnly this time. It was all in good fun to tease Nero with my angelic ego, but the truth was that he had helped me a lot. “Together we fried that collar’s magic, through and through.”
Gin plucked the collar from the ground and looked it over. “She’s right. Everything is fried. It’s no longer functional at all.”
“The Guardians can’t handle anything outside their way of thinking, anything outside of the box.” I pointed my thumbs at myself. “Like me. And that’s why they want me dead.”
Damiel laughed.
Nero scowled at him. “This is hardly funny.”
“The joke is on the Guardians,” replied Damiel. “What made her a target is also what saved her life.”
Meda strode up to me, looking very regal, once again draped in her long cloak. “Leda Pandora, it appears I owe you a debt.” She said it like the words hurt.
I gave my hand a dismissive wave. “Don’t mention it.”
“I know,” she hissed, her voice low. “I know who you are. What you are. You’re the child born from Faris and Grace. That’s the only way you could possibly have had enough magic to do this.” She pointed at the broken collar. “I felt your light and dark magic at work in my mind, unraveling the spell’s control over me.”
Then she vanished in a puff of purple smoke, but the bitter taste of her damning accusation still lingered in the air.
“Well, Meda sure knows how to leave a girl hanging,” I said quietly. “At this point, I’m not sure if she’s going to throw me a party for saving her life, or light my funeral pyre in punishment for what I am.”
“I have to go,” Ronan said to Nyx, then he vanished too.
“Gods,” I sighed. “They do love makin
g an entrance. And an exit.”
“Ronan will speak in your favor,” Nyx said.
Well, I guess that answered the whole will-Meda-expose-me-to-the-other-gods question.
No, I wasn’t going to think about that now. The cat was out of the bag, and there was no putting it back in again. From my personal experiences with a feisty feline, I knew that was impossible.
“How did you get back to Earth?” I asked Cadence. “I thought the Guardians still had you under observation.”
“They do, but I’ve been doing some observing of my own on them. And after I heard what they were planning to do with Meda and the collar, I had to come here to help you.”
“But why now? Why not leave earlier?”
“I knew from the start that the Guardians were up to something, but I kept those thoughts buried deep inside my mind.”
A smart move. The Guardians had many telepaths under their ‘care’.
“I had to learn what they were planning,” said Cadence. “And now, finally, after all these years, I know. Quietly, secretly from the shadows, they have been pitting gods against demons for millennia, ever since they betrayed and destroyed the Immortals.”
“Do you know what the Guardians did to the Immortals?” I asked.
“Yes, I do. They killed them and trapped their souls away inside immortal artifacts.”
My mouth fell open. “All of them?”
“Yes. The Immortal magic smith Sunfire designed the process of creating immortal artifacts. The Immortals used it to capture the souls of their own who died in battle or otherwise; they wanted their magic to continue to serve after death. The Guardians forced Sunfire to use his magic against his own kind. Against the other Immortals.
“Then, with the Immortals out of the way, the Guardians moved on to the next stage of their plan. They pitted the gods against the demons, keeping them busily locked up in this immortal war, as the Guardians manipulated events to further their agenda.”
