by Rhys Lawless
A skulk of big red foxes raced up the steps we’d just taken, and behind them, a pack of…no, that couldn’t be right.
We didn’t have wolves in London. Surely not. Whether or not we did, a pack of gray wolves was here, right in front of my very eyes, and they all joined up the line for the battle for London and its humans.
One of the foxes walked beside me for a few moments before turning into Lorelai.
“Yo, what’s up, mate. Ready to try not to die?” she asked as if we were going down for a shot of espresso and a spot of news.
“What is all this?” I asked, looking around me.
Lorelai put her hand through my arm and hopped next to me, her ponytail flicking left and right like it had a mind of its own.
“This, my friend—and I’ve decided we’re friends now, by the way—is the familiars of London coming to help you take down those witches. Oh, sorry. Did I say witches? I meant bitches.”
“Did you…did you rally them?”
Lorelai shrugged. “Me and a few of my connections.” She pointed at a wolf and winked at him.
I thought I saw the wolf shaking his head in exasperation, but his snarl was too distracting to say for sure.
“You better go up there, tiger,” she said and looked at the front of the line where Caleb was and spanked me on the ass.
“I think I liked you better as an acquaintance,” I said, raising my eyebrow, but she just laughed it off.
“Oh, shit. I forgot to call the tigers. Damn it. They’re going to be pissed they missed the action. Oh well. Better luck next time.”
And with a shrug, she turned back into a fox and left me to wade through a field of wolves, foxes, and ravens turned human.
The last line of raven men I passed were all darker in color with afro hair and young-looking. They must have been Hew’s brothers. I didn’t know why I was surprised they were there, but it did strike a chord that they’d joined us to save their brother.
“Where were you?” Caleb asked, not taking his eyes off the enemy line.
“I got distracted by all the shifters. Sorry,” I said and raised my blade by my side.
“There’s still time to change your minds and join us,” Ealistair shouted.
“No Nightcrawler or witch blood has to be spilled,” Rhafnet added.
No response came from our side, and the quiet tension rose between the two factions. There was so much hatred, so much loathing and fear that it brought chills to my spine.
It all came to a breaking point, and I knew things were about to turn ugly.
“Fuck you,” Ash shouted, and his voice was like putting an ax through glass, and everyone charged.
The wolves and foxes barreled through us, first growling and howling, while the witches behind Ealistair and Rhafnet attempted to use their powers on the shifters.
Fire, smoke, and blood infiltrated my nose, burning my eyes, wrecking my heart, watching innocent lives sacrifice themselves for nothing. Putting an end to their present and future to defeat or aid a power that shouldn’t have been there, and a power that shouldn’t even exist.
Yes, the witches that had sided with the demon couple had made a terrible choice, but how many had made it out of real choice, really? The high council was still inactive behind Christian and Hew’s possessed bodies. The witches fighting the animals were inexperienced, new to their powers.
Had Ealistair or Christian promised them wealth, power, or a place in society? How did you turn a common man into a pawn for evil?
Foxes, wolves, and witches went down in waves, some losing their lives on the spot, others fighting for survival before being shredded by canines or clawed to death.
A cawing echoed across the bridge as the ravens took flight and attacked those witches that had survived, diving down with their beaks. The bridge shook on their impact with the witches.
That was our cue to go. We broke into a run to get to the other side just as the high council witches also took this as their signal.
I spotted Matilda among the others, the fire bitch that had dared put the responsibility on Caleb for what was going on, and then the moment she’d found out who was behind it had turned her back on everyone else.
She conjured flames from her hand and shot them at all of us, in all directions. I cut through the flames like it was a piece of piñata that erupted on impact.
Caleb ducked away to avoid another one, but Graham caught a flurry of fire and went down. Not for long. A sparkle of dust covered him, and the fires disappeared.
I offered him my hand, and he glared at me for a moment before taking it and helping himself off the ground.
I heard it when I felt it. A sizzle of electricity struck my back, and I braced for the pain. But no pain came.
I opened my eyes, not realizing I’d shut them, and tried to get a look at my back.
“Are you okay?” Caleb asked.
“I-I think so. What happ—“ I started to say when I noticed another bolt charging through the air aimed right at Caleb.
Before I knew what I was doing, I pushed him to the side and took the shot, expecting to fall this time.
“See? She was right, Wade,” Caleb exclaimed.
I watched my stomach, but there was nothing there, even though there should have been. A charred shirt if nothing else. But no. It was unscathed.
I turned my attention to Caleb, who got off the floor and grinned.
“What do you mean? Who was right?” I asked.
Caleb blinked and shook his head. “Well, they both were actually. Mother Red Cap and Avalis.”
“Right about what?”
He placed his hand on my heart, and for a moment my vision blurred, and I felt as if my soul had jumped out of my body and inside Caleb’s because I saw myself getting hit by lightning bolts, twice, and coming out unharmed. The moment the charge came anywhere near me, it fizzled into nothingness.
You’re a witch, a voice said inside my head, but I couldn’t determine if it was Caleb who spoke.
“I am not a witch,” I said as soon as Caleb removed his hand from my chest, breaking an empathic connection we’d never experienced before.
“Oh yeah?” he asked, and before I knew it, he’d pushed me into the line of fire. Of literal fire. By Matilda.
The flames shot through the air, but the minute they came within an inch of me, they sizzled out into smoke.
What on earth was going on? Why couldn’t I get hurt? Was someone playing tricks on me? This wasn’t possible. I would know if someone was playing tricks on me.
“You are a witch. You have been all along. The surge of the ley lines ignited your power. That’s why you’ve been having those outbursts. It wasn’t because the spells you’d used were malfunctioning or going haywire. It was because the witch within you was trying to break free. And it did. When we gave ourselves to each other.”
I knew I should have doubted every word and told him he was lying, that he was wrong, that I was not a witch, but the moment he’d said it, it was like a light clicked at the back of my mind, and it made sense.
I was a witch.
I’d always been a witch. I’d been a witch-hunter witch. Not that it mattered anymore. At the moment, it didn’t matter if I’d spent my life killing my own tribe. It was all in the past, and all I could look into was the future. A future that was at stake. That’s what we were fighting for on this bridge. To save lives. Human, witch, Nightcrawler. To give everyone a future.
“Hey!” I heard in front of us and saw Ash shouting from the ground. A witch was on him, his hands completely hidden by black clouds.
I didn’t know what his natural power was, and I wasn’t going to wait to find out. I now knew what mine was, and I was going to put it to good use.
“Why don’t you pick on someone your own size?” I shouted to the witch as I ran to Ash’s aid.
The witch looked up at me and grinned.
“With pleasure,” he said, and the clouds in his hands shot right at me. Instead of
ducking or running away from it, I charged right at it, breaking it away with a wave of my arms.
When I came up to the witch who was looking at me incredulously, my sword went through him like a toothpick, and when I removed the blade, the clouds in his hands vanished.
I looked down at Ash and he got to his feet with a grunt, which stopped as soon as he stood up straight.
“Thanks,” he said. “What the hell did you just do?”
I didn’t get to answer him. I heard a scream and turned to look at Caleb going past everyone and charging for Ealistair and Hew.
“No!” I shouted.
Seventeen
Caleb
I saw an opportunity, and I took it. There had to be a way to end this bloodbath once and for all.
Let me handle them, Avalis said.
“I don’t want you taking control of me. What if you never give it back?”
I’m not like them. I won’t hold you a prisoner inside your own body. But you have to let me take care of them.
Whatever assurances she made, I wasn’t buying them. No one was good. No one was that pure that they didn’t want something in return for their services.
It was the way the world worked. You wanted to use something, you had to pay the price.
If that’s what you think, why did you call me? If you were not willing to pay the price, why go through all this?
Because I was desperate. Because I didn’t think this through. But it wasn’t too late yet.
I still had a buttload of spells to use against them, and Avalis’s power, if she let me channel it.
Those spells won’t make a dent, and you know it. And I can’t let you use my powers. They will destroy you.
Convenient how that was the case, yet she could still conjure teleportation portals to get us here.
That was nothing compared to what I can do.
I came face-to-face with the two demons that had possessed a friend and an enemy.
“What do you think you can do to us?” Ealistair laughed in my face.
I grabbed for a spell and threw it at him, but before it even turned to dust, it disappeared in a vortex of fire.
“Cute. But not good enough,” Rhafnet said.
“Why are you doing this? Why are you willing to destroy so many people? For what? You’re already powerful enough. What else do you want?”
The story they’d sold at the high council office was good, but barely the truth. If all they wanted was for witches to take control, they could do it by igniting all the dormant witches, if there were any left since the ley line surge, and then taking over the government and any human unit or service. They didn’t have to kill humans to do that.
They want to feed, Avalis told me.
“What kind of stupid question is that? We want our rightful place as this world’s gods,” Ealistair hissed with Christian’s voice, only a little deeper. Scarier.
“This is not your world. And you’re not welcome here,” I yelled.
“Honey.” Ealistair turned to Hew. “Will you please get rid of this pest.”
Rhafnet smiled and sauntered towards me. She raised her hand, and just before she reached me, her nails turned to claws.
I stepped back to avoid her, but she jumped at me as if she was weightless and slashed my chest.
The pain shot through my body, and the burn of the cut felt like a heavy weight in my head.
As quick as the pain had erupted, it disappeared. And both Rhafnet and I looked at my chest with bewilderment.
I can’t do much more if you don’t let me take control, Avalis insisted.
That’s good enough. I pushed Rhafnet off me.
She came swinging back, clawing at me again, the caw from her lips making the hairs at the back of my neck rise.
I reached for another spell on my gauntlet.
“Shield,” I said just as she was about to make impact, and a blue light buzzed in front of me, but it didn’t last.
Rhafnet’s claws broke through it and shattered it like glass. Her eyes beaded when she took hold of me, and I felt my fear grow tenfold looking into them.
Let me out. I can stop her. Let me out, Avalis pounded in my chest, throwing a tantrum.
The claws dug through my chest again. I swallowed hard as blood gurgled in my throat. I spat it right in Hew’s face, but Rhafnet took pleasure in it. She licked her lips, and it felt like her gaze intensified, as though my blood charged her energy and made her stronger. The burn in my chest became unbearable.
Of course she’s becoming stronger. She’s the mistress of death. Brother, let me handle her, Avalis insisted.
“Get off him, you bitch,” I heard someone say, and Rhafnet flew across the space back to Ealistair, and I sat upon the ground.
Mother Red Cap was standing in front of me with a staff in her hand that spread out like fingers in the top, holding a crystal the size of both my hands.
“Mother Red,” I called out to her. “What are you doing here? I thought you didn’t want to get involved in witch politics.” She gave me her hand to help me stand back on my feet.
Her lips pursed.
“Well…I changed my mind. Besides, this isn’t witch politics. This is war. And in war, you always take a side.” Before I could thank her or say anything to her, she spun on her heel and struck down Rhafnet’s effort at attacking her.
“Did you invoke Avalis?” she asked.
I nodded.
“Then where is she?”
Exactly my point, Avalis said.
I pointed at my head in response.
“Why won’t you let her out, my dear boy? She’s here to help, isn’t she?” Mother Red Cap said.
“I-I don’t want to lose control of myself. What if she never gives it back, Mother Red Cap?”
“Caleb, don’t forget she’s the one who destroyed her parents and trapped them under the ley lines in the first place. She’s here to help. Not to destroy.”
Damn right, I am here to help.
“Also, you can call me Kathleen,” she said.
I smiled at her. She had finally trusted us with her real name. And not only that, but she’d chosen to come out of hiding, risking her survival, to help us. Help me.
“Thank you, Kathleen.”
She blasted Rhafnet one more time and then turned around and I saw blood in her eyes.
“I can’t do this for much longer,” she said. “I’m not strong enough to fight a demon. We need Avalis.”
Let me help, Caleb. Please.
Ealistair, who had taken an interest in Mother Red Cap, approached us, and he shot fire at her. Kathleen managed to put out the fires, but at the cost of her crystal cracking.
One more flame at her and the crystal turned to dust. Rhafnet pushed Kathleen down and her claws dug into her chest. Hew’s body let out an inhumane cry as Rhafnet fed off Mother Red Cap.
She’s killing her. Do you want your friend to die? Let me help.
No, I didn’t want Mother Red Cap to die. I didn’t want anyone else to die. We’d lost enough people already.
Fine, I said, and I felt my consciousness falling over clouds, only there was no gravity. Only suspension in mid-air. And Avalis’s power coursed through my body, making me tense with more magic than I’d ever felt in my life.
“Finally,” she said.
Rhafnet looked up, and so did Ealistair. If I didn’t know any better, I’d have said they were scared, but I knew better, and so did Avalis.
“Who are you?” Ealistair asked, the flames scorching in a circle around him and Rhafnet.
“Father? You don’t recognize your own daughter? I am disappointed.”
“Avalis?” Rhafnet muttered, her voice breaking before she could fully pronounce her child’s name.
“In the flesh,” Avalis replied and did a little curtsy for her demon parents as if this was a normal family reunion. “I heard you’re causing humans trouble. I thought I taught you better.”
Ealistair’s eyes narrowed and the fl
ames protecting him and his wife extinguished, leaving him bare in front of the daughter that had once destroyed him.
“This world no longer concerns you, Avalis. You have no business here,” he said.
Avalis laughed, and she walked closer to her parents.
“I could say the same about you. I thought sending you to hell would keep you from harming anyone else, but I guess I’ll need to do a better job next time.”
“Do not defy your father, or this time I won’t hesitate ending you,” Ealistair shouted, and spit sprayed out of his mouth, his face turning a bright, fiery red.
“I’ll give you one chance to end this nonsense and go back to hell. If you don’t, I’ll have to do it myself. Again.” A chill ran through me.
Was Avalis so strong she had the power to do this?
Yes. Yes, she did. I didn’t even need to question that. I could feel her unimaginable power coursing through me like a glass jar trying to contain a storm.
Ealistair smirked and took his wife’s hand.
“This time we’re not afraid to do what’s right, Avalis. You can try your best,” he said.
Avalis didn’t show weakness at his words, but I felt a flash of worry in her that she immediately brushed off. She knew her parents uniting against her could be a task, a task she’d handled once before. But last time they’d held back. And so had she. She had chosen not to destroy them, and they had chosen not to destroy her. It hadn’t been a win for either of them, like in the book we’d read. It had been a draw. It had only been a win for humanity.
“Fine,” she said and walked closer to her parents.
Ealistair didn’t hesitate. He sent a hail of fire in her direction. Avalis raised my hands to stop them, but the energy zapped out of us and we were sent tumbling back, me taking the physical toll and both of us the emotional.
“What the…” she muttered, but once she got us back to our feet she hummed.
What are you doing? she asked me.
I’m not doing anything.
I could feel her confusion and anger building up to something ugly.
