by Ella Summers
“It is a long story.”
“Why do you care about what happens to any of us?” I asked her, suspicious. “Why do you care about what happens to Gin?”
“She is my daughter,” Indira declared.
31
Phoenix's Refrain
I would have pointed out that Indira didn’t look old enough to have a nineteen-year-old daughter, but after all, an hour ago her sister Gertrude had looked like a woman of seventy. Who knew how old the eight sisters really were. All I knew was they were immortal.
Gin had grown pale. Wide-eyed, she gaped at Indira, the woman who claimed to be her mother. Tessa had her arm around Gin, squeezing her in support.
“Explain,” I said to Indira.
“I already told you what you need to know. There’s no time. More planes are coming.” She glanced out the window, and she did look worried.
“Explain,” I said again.
Indira looked at her sisters in exasperation.
“The Angel of Chaos is very stubborn,” Gertrude told her.
“And wily,” Inali added.
“Fine,” Indira sighed. “The people in those planes were hired by the Guardians. Their mission is to kill me and Gin.”
“You’re a phoenix too? Like Gin?” I asked her.
“Yes. And while it’s almost impossible to kill us, it isn’t entirely impossible. There are methods. The Guardians are aware of these methods.”
I didn’t ask what those methods involved. There were a lot of people here in this room, and I didn’t want anyone to overhear anything that might help them kill my sister.
“So the Guardians sent the ninjas to kill Gin in Purgatory?” I asked.
“Yes,” Indira confirmed.
“Both outside our house and at the Bazaar?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I was there,” Indira said. “I intended to speak to Gin. The Guardians wanted to prevent that from happening,”
“Why?”
“Because I know the secret of how to reach the Guardians, of how to expose their Sanctuaries to this realm. And I was going to share this secret with Gin.”
“Because she is your daughter?” I asked.
“Because she and I are the only phoenixes I know of who possess enough power to help you do this,” she told me.
“Do what? How can a phoenix help us break into the Guardians’ Sanctuary?”
I heard the rumble of plane engines outside.
“More have come to finish the job that these mercenaries failed to carry out.” Indira waved her hand to indicate the dead ninjas strewn across the floor. She watched the progress of the planes now close enough to be visible through the windows. “In exchange for your protection of me and my sisters, I will tell you everything you need to know to reach the Guardians’ Sanctuary.”
“Agreed,” I said.
Stash and the other godly soldiers moved onto the outdoor deck, along with Alec and his forces. They bombarded the incoming planes with magic until they knocked all of them out of the sky.
Well, almost all of them. One of the planes crashed into the airship with a thunderous boom that didn’t sound at all good for the structural integrity of this thing.
Nyx shot me an agitated look, like it was all my fault that random people kept trying to blow up any airship I was on.
Another plane was crashing down toward the airship’s deck. Stash blasted it with magic, destroying it before it hit.
“More planes are coming, Leda,” Stash called back to me. “A lot more.”
“Man, you must have really pissed off the Guardians,” I commented to Indira, then I rushed toward the outdoor deck.
Indira ran at my side, her scythe ready. “The Guardians are afraid of what I know. And of what you can accomplish with my help.”
I joined with Stash and the others in shooting down any plane that got too close. Indira cut through any ninja who jumped out of a plane to reach us.
There were still a lot of ninja planes out there, but the fleet turned away at the sight of four angels in the sky. Nero, along with Damiel, Colonel Fireswift, and Colonel Dragonblood. The four angels shot at the fast-retreating fleet, blowing up a few of the planes at the rear. Then the angels looped around the airship and landed gracefully on the deck.
I stepped forward to greet Nero, but his gaze snapped to Indira. Gold flashed in his eyes. “Don’t make any deals with that beast.”
I looked at Indira, then at him. “What do you mean?”
“She’s the one,” he said, his words dripping with menace. “The one responsible for killing so many angels, soldiers, and countless others on countless worlds. We finally tracked her down.”
There was a flash of magic, and then suddenly another of the octuplets was standing in front of me. This was getting ridiculous.
“You’re late,” Indira said to the new arrival.
“You’re welcome, sister,” the teleporter replied.
Her voice. This was the woman in the purple cloak, the one who’d gotten the weapons of heaven and hell out of the Lost City for Grace. That’s how she’d gotten the artifacts; she’d teleported them out of the gateway. I knew it was this djinn. Though the sisters all spoke pretty much alike, there were minor differences in intonation between them. Unlike their faces, their personalities weren’t all identical.
“I was luring those planes away from you.”
“Luring them where?” Indira asked.
The teleporter laughed. “Through a portal that led to a cozy, totally uninhabited moon.”
Indira laughed too. “Nice.”
“Welcome to the circus, Number Four,” I said to the djinn.
“Actually, my name is Rosette,” she told me.
“And whose mother, surrogate mother, or grandmother are you supposed to be?” I said flippantly.
I was joking, so I was pretty surprised when Rosette answered, “Hers.” She looked at Tessa. “I’m her mother.”
Tessa’s eyes went wide. It was Gin’s turn to squeeze and comfort her. Or maybe my sisters were squeezing and comforting each other.
“So Gin and Tessa are cousins?” Zane asked.
“Cousins. Or sisters,” Gertrude said. “Depends on how you see it. We are all identical, you know. Except for our powers.”
“And who would want to create eight identical people, each with one of the eight passive magic powers?” Bella asked.
Inali nodded. “That is a very good question.”
“But not one we’re at liberty to discuss,” Indira said. “The deal we made was, specifically, that I’d tell you how to break in to the Guardians’ Sanctuary.”
“Leda, don’t listen to them.” Nero indicated the phoenix and the teleporting djinn. “The two of them killed all those people. They killed Legion soldiers. And Legion angels.”
“It was a necessary evil committed for the greater good,” Indira said.
“I don’t believe that any evil is necessary,” I declared.
“Yes, that’s very noble of you, dear. And very naive.” Inali folded her arms over her chest like a shield. “You wouldn’t even be here today if not for the necessary evil that Grace and Faris committed.”
“That doesn’t mean I need to follow in their footsteps.” I turned to Indira, demanding answers. “Why did you kill all of those people?”
“Because, as my sisters have explained to you, there is great power in death,” Indira said. “And in life. But there’s also a pretty tight magical balance between life and death. So I had to trade all of those deaths for life.”
“What life?”
“The life of your child.” Indira looked at Nyx. “And yours.” Her gaze panned across Cadence, Leila, Basanti, Andromeda, and Alice. “And yours. And yours. And yours. And yours. And yours.”
“Wait, so you killed all those people to create this life? So we’d all have children?” I said.
“Making children of angels is a tricky thing. You’re so…” Indira fr
owned. “…infertile. Usually, anyway. It’s even worse with the gods and demons. I’ve never met such a barren bunch. That’s what comes from drinking all of that poison all of the time. It gives you power, sure, but it also doesn’t make it easy for you to pass on that power, to have children. In order to counteract all that infertility, to create powerful new life, it required a lot of deaths. Specifically, a lot of powerful deaths. Because we’re not just talking about one baby angel. We’re talking about several, all at once. Since the laws of magic and nature just don’t work that way, I had to bend them.”
“That’s why you killed two angels,” I realized. “And all of those Legion soldiers and supernaturals too.”
“Many people on many worlds.” Indira said it like what she’d done didn’t bother her at all.
“Why Silvertongue and Spellsmiter? Why those two angels?” Nyx asked her.
“Because I could lure them out to the Sienna Sea, far away from anything,” Indira said.
“By removing the ruins of Darkstorm’s fortress,” Nyx said. “How did you do that?”
The First Angel was clearly assessing her enemy, determining what they could do and how they did it.
“I did that,” Rosette said.
“You can teleport away whole buildings?” I asked her.
“Of course. You didn’t think teleporting was just for people, did you? There are so many larger uses. In fact, I once teleported an entire spaceship to—”
“They don’t want to hear about that,” Indira cut her off.
Actually, I wanted to hear all about it. Anyone who could teleport whole spaceships was not someone to be taken lightly. I wondered what else Rosette could do. Or what the rest of her fellow octuplets could do, for that matter.
“Why did you later return the ruins of Darkstorm’s fortress to the Sienna Sea?” Nyx asked Rosette.
“Because we’d already gotten what we needed from them,” Rosette replied. “And they were taking up a lot of space in my storage unit.”
I wondered how big of a storage unit a djinn like Rosette had.
“Ok, there you go. Now you know. Don’t give me that look, Nero Windstriker,” Indira snapped at him. “You owe us your daughter’s life. If we hadn’t killed all those people, I couldn’t have traded the power of their deaths for your daughter’s life.” Indira looked at all the other expecting parents here. “And the same goes for all of you. I’ve given you all a great gift. But if you’d rather I took those gifts away…” She lifted her hand in the air.
“No,” Damiel said quickly.
Nero had moved in front of me, shielding my body with his. Colonel Fireswift’s sword was drawn. A fiery halo had completely engulfed Colonel Dragonblood. Even steadfast Nyx had set her hands over her flat belly. Everyone else looked like they were two seconds away from kicking Indira’s ass.
“Angels understand sacrifice,” Damiel said.
Gods, his voice was so cold that my lungs were practically freezing in my chest. A layer of frost had actually formed on the floor.
“You will not harm my child,” Nero told Indira.
“Any of our children,” Nyx said with an even mix of fury and fear.
Indira smiled pleasantly. “Then we’re all in agreement.”
The wheels in my head had been turning the whole time she’d been explaining how she’d created all this life using all that death.
“This has happened before,” I said quietly. “Twenty-five years ago. All the deaths. Like at the Battle of Calamity, where so many gods and demons died. That’s where you got the powerful magic you needed to channel in order to make life. To make me. And Bella. And Jace and all of those Legion brats in my initiation class.”
“The death of an immortal creates a very powerful magical release, particularly the deaths of deities,” Indira said. “That’s how you, Leda, could be born to a god and a demon, two beings whose magic is in complete conflict. It took a lot of skill to shuffle all of that magic around, to turn death into life, but I must say I did a marvelous job of it.”
She sounded proud. I was horrified.
“Protecting the universe isn’t always pretty,” Indira told me.
You know, the more I saw of the universe, the more I realized it was just the same old story over and over again. That same callous attitude was why the people of Earth had lost faith in the Legion.
“You said you will tell us how to reach the Guardians’ Sanctuary,” Nyx reminded Indira.
The First Angel was nothing if not practical. Still, I knew there was some humanity in her. I’d seen it. I wondered if, deep down, beneath that angelic shimmer, learning what Indira had done had made her as sick to her stomach as it had made me.
“And so I shall. What you need to do is actually quite simple.” Indira looked at me. “And you already figured out the first part. You need to channel a lot of magic to break through the Guardians’ barriers, using your cat as a vessel.”
I was almost afraid to ask, but I did. “What is the second part?”
“You and all the other mothers-to-be here need to give birth at once,” Indira said.
I frowned. “How does that help us break through the Guardians’ barriers?”
“To break through that barrier, you need magic, Leda. Because nothing more than an insane amount of magic will overpower the Sanctuary’s magic-nullifying defenses,” Indira said. “Remember what I said, that there’s power in life and death? Remember how I used death to make life? Well, it works in reverse. You can use life to make death. The power of many angel babies being born at once is the source of the insane amount of life magic you need. That magic can be channeled through your Companion cat and directed at the Sanctuary. That should be enough magic to ‘kill’ the Guardians’ defenses and allow you entry. That is your way in.”
“So let me get this straight. We all…” I pointed at myself, then to all the other pregnant women in turn. “…we all need to give birth at the exact same time.”
“That’s right,” Indira confirmed.
“Isn’t that a bit improbable?”
“Nah, it’s all about timing.” Indira waved her hand.
I felt an odd stretching sensation, then I looked down to find I was suddenly very pregnant. I glanced at Cadence, Nyx, and the others. Their bellies were just as round now too.
“All right then.” Indira dusted off her hands. “That should give us a few hours to get our ducks in a row before the babies arrive.” Her merry eyes panned across our line of pregnant soldiers. “So, who’s ready to storm the castle?”
32
Countdown to the End
I looked down at my round belly. I rubbed it slowly. “What have you done to me?”
“Nothing crazy,” replied Indira. “Just channeled some extra life magic into speeding up your pregnancy. You’re welcome.”
I opened my mouth to say something, then realized I didn’t even know what to say to that.
“It’s an easy phoenix spell,” Indira said to Gin with a smile. “I can teach it to you.”
Gin was speechless. She could only gape at her mother. This clearly wasn’t how she’d envisioned meeting her real parents.
“You shouldn’t mess with nature,” I told Indira.
The phoenix looked at me, perplexed. “The gods and demons ask for the quick-fix treatment all the time.”
“Quick-fix,” I repeated, shaking my head in disbelief.
“Why are you complaining?” Indira looked honestly confused. “I spared you the long, grueling months of pregnancy. I hear the final stretch is especially bad.”
Tessa found her voice. “You’ve heard? You’re a mother. Shouldn’t you know?”
Indira looked at her, then at her sister Rosette. “No. Rosette and I…well, we were never actually pregnant.”
“Like Thea?” Bella asked.
“Oh, no,” Rosette said. “Not quite like Thea. There were no immortal artifacts involved in your creation, girls. We—”
“Careful,” Indira said.
“We can’t say too much.”
“Why the hell not?” Gin demanded. My sister seemed to have found her voice too, and she was fuming mad. “You just pop up here and declare that you’re our mothers. And that’s that, no explanation of why you abandoned us, no apology for doing it. Nothing.”
“We didn’t abandon you,” Indira told her.
“Then what happened?” Gin planted her hands on her hips. “Explain.”
Indira shook her head. “We can’t.”
“How convenient,” Gin said drily.
Indira looked like she didn’t know what to say. Her happy, comfortable manner had evaporated. She’d talked us through all the people she’d killed without even batting an eye, but Gin’s reaction had frozen her.
“We don’t have time for this.” Gretchen looked at me. “You don’t have time for this, Leda. In a few hours, your babies will be here. Now you have a choice. You can either use that powerful moment of birth to channel the life magic into destroying the barrier that keeps the Guardians hidden inside their Sanctuary. Or you can stew over how very horrible we are and do nothing. In the latter case, you will have doomed all the people in the Sanctuary to death, including Arina’s children.”
Arina’s hands tightened into fists.
“And if you allow those people to die, the Guardians will gain magic that rivals the Immortals,” Gretchen said. “That will put everyone in danger, including your babies.”
I scowled at her. Nero looked like he wanted to rip her head off with his bare hands.
“You still have a chance to make the deaths of your angels and soldiers mean something,” Gretchen told us. “They can mean the end of the Guardians. Or you can sit here and argue morality while the Guardians move ever closer to their ultimate goal. The choice is yours.”
We didn’t have a choice. Not really. Gretchen and her sisters had manipulated us into a corner, and they knew it.
Another pegasus shot through the air at the airship, full speed. When it got close, it did a long somersault to slow down, then landed on the deck. An armored woman slid off the saddle. She took off her helmet to unveil herself as yet another octuplet.
