by Lan Chan
It said a lot that she left me with that order without making sure I followed it. I counted to fifty. It was overkill but I didn’t want to chance it. She was an Amazon. It would have taken her no time at all to get to anywhere inside the Academy grounds. It took me fifteen minutes to make the same sprint back to the outer edge of the Herbology sector. The Fae lights in the walled garden were on. Somebody must be up. Using the lights as a guide, I cut through the garden.
“Alessia?” Peter’s voice called out as I passed the little potting shed at the entrance of the garden. I turned towards where he was standing at the door with a mug of warm tea. “What are you doing up at this hour. It’s three in the morning.”
I stopped short. “Beg your pardon?”
He scratched at his head. “It’s very early to be running around the school. But I suppose you were woken up by the same flux of energy that woke me. Darndest thing.”
It wasn’t his explanation that had my pulse thrumming. It was his timekeeping. Or mine, to be exact. The clock inside Samantha’s house had said eleven. If Peter was right, and I had no reason to disbelieve him, then four hours had passed. Four hours where anything could have happened. A Knowing flooded my chest. I was too late. Lucifer had sent me a vision knowing full well I’d be too late to stop anything from happening.
Just as though my thoughts had conjured it up, a deep-throated howl broke the tense silence in the air. Peter flagged me over. “Stay here,” he said. Of the two of us, I had more chance of dealing with this than he did.
“I need to go,” I told him.
He put down his mug. “Then we’ll have to go together.”
He was a lot quicker on his feet than I gave him credit for. The sound had come from one of the many guard posts around the perimeter. In my short stint as a guard, I learned these posts were stationed at intervals to allow those on shift to take a quick break without having to go back to the Academy. It saved the supernaturals that couldn’t teleport a little bit of time. Peter and I were just coming around the side of a copse of fig trees when the sound of raised voices filtered through the air.
“Give her to me!” Bradley shouted. Somebody produced a snarl that sounded like a wild, rabid, animal.
“Step back,” Astrid’s even tone commanded. “Nobody is going to touch her until we can make sense of this.”
“Make sense of what?” a voice I didn’t know snapped. “She killed Desi!”
My heart lodged in my throat. I must have heard wrong. Desi was invincible. She couldn’t be dead. But as I came around the obstructing fig trees, my heart threatened to burst altogether.
On the right side of the lawn Adam had Desi’s limp body in his arms. His usually amused features were stony. A pair of Nephilim guards flanked him. On the other side of the lawn, Astrid stood in front of somebody who was covered in blood. Bradley was floating in the air above Astrid, his sword flaming, his eyes flashing murder. The person behind Astrid turned her head in my direction.
My legs almost gave out.
“Rachel?” Peter said. He ran towards her. Bradley reared. Astrid rose into the air to meet him. That’s when Rachel produced the modified gun concealed inside her jacket. One of the Nephilim guards noticed. He whipped his sword at her at the same time she fired at Bradley.
In my mind, a surge of magic rushed out in concentric circles. I screamed as the dark power took hold of me. It lashed against everyone in the open space. The dark magic flared and became barriers that slowed the trajectory of the angel blade and the supernatural poison. The Nephilim threw their arms in front of them as though bracing against an oncoming storm. I stepped slowly towards them. I was so tired of this. So sick of watching them fighting each other. The waves of glittery black cascaded over the scene. Bradley and Astrid dropped to the ground clutching their stomachs.
“Blue!” Kai’s voice cut through the air. I halted for a second. And then another voice urged me forwards.
Keep going, Lucifer tempted. You’ve kept the peace for too long. Silence them forever.
Kai landed beside me. Sweat crowned his hairline. For some reason his teeth were gritted as he reached out and placed his hand on my forehead. The last thing I saw was an imprint of Lucifer lunging towards Kai on a battlefield. And then everything went dark.
36
I came to inside what appeared to be an infirmary. But it wasn’t the one inside the Academy. The scent of wolfsbane was in the air. The familiar decorative flourish in the corners of the ceiling confirmed it. I was inside the same place where the Council chambers existed. A warm hand swept across my forehead. I turned to find Kai holding vigil in the armchair beside me.
Everything came rushing back. “Where is she?” I asked.
His retracted his hand. They laced in front of him, his elbows resting on his knees. “They’re holding a sentencing,” he said. I tried to get up, but he blocked me from moving. “Only her.”
“That’s not fair! She thinks a vampire killed her grand mistress!”
“He did. But that doesn’t justify what she did. Desi’s patrol wasn’t the only one attacked. They all were. We’ve got dozens of casualties.”
I wanted to ask whether he thought Terran should take kindly to having their territory patrolled by supernaturals but it seemed pointless.
Lucifer materialised in my thoughts. Dense, isn’t he? Lucifer said. I tried to shut my mind off so he couldn’t see. What happened instead was that my airways closed up. I clawed at my throat. Kai’s hands glowed green as he pressed him palm over my hands. It eased the stabbing pain but couldn’t do anything for the locked-up feeling. Or the limb of the wraith compressing my chest.
“Blue!”
I slumped down onto the bed. Lucifer’s ice blue eyes bore into my mine. Get out! I screamed in my thoughts. He refused to comply. There was no way I would be able to resist him. He was seraphim.
“Blue,” Kai pleaded. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
My eyes began to water. Frantic, Kai wrapped his arms around me. His entire body radiated with green light so bright it almost burned through my eyelids. Every nerve ending in my body electrified with glowing warmth. His healing power crept up my neck. The moment it came into contact with Lucifer’s phantom thoughts, a wall of my dark power erected around my mind. The dark power didn’t want Kai to know about the seraph. Because this was a two-way street and there was no way in hell I was going to allow Lucifer access to Kai. Not after all of my nightmares. The darkness curtailed Kai’s healing magic. To him, it appeared as though I was trying to conceal something from him. To be fair, it was true. It just wasn’t the thing he thought it was. His muscles tensed.
The green light dimmed.
“What was that?” he asked. He held me out in front of him.
“Nothing.” The unfocused blast of his magic had eased my breathing. Or maybe it was because Lucifer decided to stop playing with me.
His expression clouded over. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“Nothing!” I said. “It’s got nothing to do with Terran.” He shook me gently.
“Alessia.” It was the utter fury in the way he dragged out my name that had me standing to attention. I pushed at his buttons all the time, and though he lost his temper, there was never anything vicious behind it. The look he gave me now was stripped of all affection. “I’m only going to ask you one more time. What are you hiding from me?”
What. The. Hell?
I shoved at his chest. “My apologies, Councillor. I didn’t realise I was under investigation.”
“Why are you protecting them?”
“Why wouldn’t I? Why wouldn’t you? Isn’t that what you were made for?” I didn’t know why I had to remind these Nephilim idiots of their mission.
“I have no obligation to any of them,” he said.
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Disbelief had me speechless. Not for long, but it was still unheard of. “I don’t understand. Your first obligation is to protect the humans from demons. It literally say
s so in the manifesto of the Council.”
“Just because I have to protect this world in general doesn’t mean I have to care about the humans specifically.”
I reeled back like he’d slapped me. “Why do you bother if you hate us so much?” I couldn’t help the stone in my throat. Deep down, did he secretly despise me?
He shoved off the bed. His eyes were hooded. “The demons that came for my family were summoned through the portals by humans,” he said. “How long do you think it will take before humans learn to do the same when our existence is revealed?”
Understanding has me swallowing hard. I was caught between sympathy and frustration.
“I might be able to stop it from happening if I can find Gaia!”
He smirked. At that moment, he turned back into the arrogant jerk I’d first met. Thinking on it now, he’d been antagonistic towards me from the beginning. And now I understood why. “It’s too late for that now,” he said. “We’re going to war.”
“It doesn’t have to be like this! What’s wrong with you?”
He turned to me, his shoulders tensed. “Desi was my friend.” It was the last thing he said before he wrenched the door open and stalked out. Stupid idiot and his stupid loyalty. I was going to wring his neck when this was over.
I had a vision of a field of battle and I was on the other side. Why was I always on the other side? Despite being in my pyjamas, I marched over to the door and yanked it open. Two Nephilim guards stopped me from leaving by crossing their blades in front of the doorway.
“Move it or lose it,” I snapped. So Sophie was right. I did often just do things because I felt like it.
“The orders are for you to remain inside,” the one on the left said. “It’ll be your turn soon.”
Samantha shouldn’t have taught me binding spells. With my hedge magic, they were nothing but restraints. With the darker death magic, they leached energy. I heard the first gasp as I drew a circle around both of the Nephilim. Inside my mind, I pictured the circles constricting around them. The one on the right attempted to manifest his wings in order to break my hold. I squeezed tighter. With a flick of my fingers, I pushed them aside. They both toppled to the ground, their arms flattened to their sides.
I marched through the corridor. I’d never been on this side of the chambers before. It was a new experience. I had no clue where I was going, but a slip into the Ley dimension showed me a concentration of powerfully lit sparks of light just up ahead.
The Nephilim guards there saw me coming. “I’d move if I were you,” I said. It was hard to look badass in a pair of cupcake pyjama pants and a loose T-shirt, but I thought I managed it. That was two seconds before Jacqueline emerged through the door. She waved me forward.
Nobody was more surprised by my entrance than Rachel. She was struggling to prop herself up in front of the Council. Jacqueline took her place just inside the door. Peter sat placidly in an armchair at the back of the room. I remembered the way he’d said her name. It was the same way Basil said mine when he was worried about me. The way a father called his daughter. I did everything I could to avoid Kai’s gaze.
“We didn’t send for you, Alessia,” Victoria said.
“I sent for myself.”
“You act in many unsanctioned ways,” Orin pressed. “For example, aiding in the escape of a criminal.” He leaned forward inclining his head towards Rachel. His indigo wings flapped behind his back. I wanted to jump over there and rip them off his back.
“She didn’t do anything,” Rachel said. Her khaki cargo pants and tan shirt were soaked through with blood. It stained her forearms and the left side of her face. Half the visible parts of her skin were scratched. She looked like she’d gone a couple of rounds with a chainsaw. But when the Council glared down at her, she tilted her chin and glared back. I could see now why she hadn’t managed to stay with supernatural society. We were far too alike.
“That’s not for you to decide,” Victoria said. “You’ve already admitted to the murder of one of ours.”
My left cheek spasmed. That was when my eyes involuntarily tracked to Kai. He sat with his elbows on the table, his expression drawn tight. Desi had been his friend. She’d been my sort-of friend. I bit my tongue to fight back the tears.
“You murdered one of ours,” Rachel snapped back.
“We did nothing of the sort,” Victoria said. Durin growled at the accusation. It wasn’t in the nature of the shifters to murder innocent people in their beds. They challenged each other to brutal, often fatal combat, but they did it in plain view.
“We have the body,” Rachel said. “We have eye witnesses.” At this point I failed to mention I was one of them.
“You can have whatever you like,” Orin said. “That doesn’t change anything.”
“Perhaps we should table this for a later when we’ve all had sufficient time to digest the news,” Jacqueline said.
“Perhaps you should keep your opinions to yourself, headmistress,” Scott Goodall said. He was the Nephilim who had taken over the Council role from Artemis. “Too many of these incidences have occurred under your watch. The board and the parents are beginning to think a change in leadership might be in order.”
To her credit, Jacqueline didn’t react. I bristled enough for the both of us. But it was Kai’s voice that sliced through the room. “If the board or the parents have something to say then it’s news to me,” he said. “In the meantime, if you threaten my grandmother again, your line will need another new Councillor.”
Rachel coughed beside me. I leaned under her arm. For a second, she tensed before she allowed me to become a crutch. “I’m going to kill you when this is over,” I said through gritted teeth.
“Doubt I’ll be alive for that,” she shot back.
“Both of you have committed capital crimes,” Megan Clarke said. Unlike the others, she didn’t seem to relish the words.
“I didn’t do anything!” I whined.
“You attacked fellow students on Academy grounds, Alessia.”
I opened my mouth and then shut it again. Technically it was true. But surely they had to give me a pass for this. Rachel began to laugh. It caused my whole body to vibrate.
“So Alessia tries to get in the middle of a fight and you’ll punish her. But my mother was ripped apart by vampires and it was an ‘accident.’” She made air quotes around the word accident.
“That was an actual accident,” Victoria said.
“I don’t care,” Rachel screamed. Frustrated tears leaked out of her eyes. “How many accidents are you going to allow? How many humans have to be woken in the middle of the night to find their loved ones murdered?”
I wrapped my arms around her, but she was too tall for me to provide much comfort. I heard Peter shuffle in his seat but he didn’t approach. Thank goodness. She was in a very precarious emotional state.
“This is ridiculous,” Orin said. “We’re being held to ransom by two low-magic witches. We’re on the brink of a war. They need to be detained.”
“You don’t have jurisdiction to detain me,” Rachel snarled. “I’m not part of your messed-up society.”
“It’s not usually the practice,” Jonah Rhee said. The mage was technically in charge of the Dominion Prison. “We don’t have any contingencies inside the prison for humans.”
“That’s because they never should have been here,” Orin said.
“But we are now,” Nora said. “If what Rachel says is true, we could have an assassin on our hands.”
“We already have assassins in our midst!” Orin shouted. Why was he looking at me? I didn’t even do anything. And there it was again. That laugh that I could live a lifetime without ever hearing again. Lucifer chuckled.
They’re so tiny, aren’t they? he thought to me. Constantly bickering over a little scrap of power. Ask them where they have me contained. Ask them where my artefacts are.
My mouth opened. I bit the inside of my lips. Alessia, ask them.
I made an
incoherent whinging sound as though I were a rabbit stuck in a barbed-wire fence. The command was compelling. I would have complied if a spark of orange light didn’t ignite in the wall beside us. A portal opened up in mere seconds. The same amount of time it took for Kai to teleport from his seat in the gallery to right in front of me.
Basil appeared through the portal. “My apologies,” he said. “I have a prior appointment with Alessia.” He shot a beam of pure orange into Kai’s chest that rocked Kai across the room. Grabbing Rachel, I leaped through the portal. The last thing I heard was Durin’s roar as the portal closed behind us.
37
We came through onto a beach that looked dangerously familiar. Dawn was only just edging across the horizon. Soon there would be human bystanders all along the beach. “Ummm…are we still on the Bellarine Peninsula?”
“I’m afraid so,” Basil said.
If I squinted, I could see the highest wing of Terran Academy’s roof. “What gives?”
“I’ll explain in a second.”
To my dismay, he opened up yet another portal and disappeared through it. Rachel tried to make tracks back to Terran. I halted her.
“What the hell happened?” I snapped. “You killed my friend!”
She shoved me off. “I don’t care who they were,” she said. “They murdered Sam and Ben! Slit his throat in the middle of the night like the cowardly scum they are. What did you want us to do?”
“I…” Nope. I still wasn’t going to be able to explain. Instead, I pivoted. “So what now? You’re going to engage in a war you have zero chance of winning? And when you’re all dead, what happens to the rest of humanity then?”
She looked away. Gotcha. I wished Sophie were here to give her delayed gratification speech. But there was no time. Basil’s portal reopened, and I would never in a million years have guessed it would be Isla who came through the other side. Phoenix was hot on her heels. When he saw me, he raced over and licked my hand.
