We lay shoulder to shoulder in the silence.
“Why are you in a sports bra?” Lila finally asked. “That doesn’t seem like proper battle-wear.”
I laughed, thankful for the outlet. “I like to keep the boys guessing.”
Lila’s small hand slipped into mine, and we locked fingers.
“What now?” I asked.
The Reina sighed. “I figure out how deep Everett’s betrayal goes. Who’s safe and who’s not. Rebuild the council from the ground up.”
“I think the Insurgentia would like a say.”
“I think you’re right.”
“If you need someone who would be a great representation of the shadow touched, I know a guy. Half-shadow touched fae, half human. Super cool dude.”
“You got laid, didn’t you?”
“Am I really such a fucking open book?”
Twenty minutes later, I rolled Lila into the council’s chambers in a wheelchair and left her in the capable hands of John Nesbitt, who had happily cuffed an ornery old councilman to bring him there. Dr. Webster, awake and coherent, accompanied her against my better judgement. But I guess you can’t stand in the way of loyalty.
The lobby was trashed. I stepped over bodies and guns, and dodged medical personnel as they attended to the wounded. Josiah Bishop occupied a bench by the broken front windows as a nurse gently wrapped his bleeding arm. He lifted his good hand in greeting. I returned the gesture, oddly relieved to see him still alive.
A shell-shocked Population officer sat at the desk by the door to the jail. I waved my hand in front of his face multiple times before he finally looked at me.
“I need access to Sub-4,” I told him.
“Now?” he said, aghast.
“Now.”
He gave me the proper access codes, and I entered Population.
Georgie Lewis looked up as I opened the door to her cell. Her green eyes held no trace of the darkness that had been there before. She looked like a scared little girl.
I held out a hand. “Come on. You’re not dying on my watch.”
Warren found me an hour later in the lobby, where I was taking statements from survivors. The monotony of it helped ground me.
I thanked the officer I’d been questioning, and walked away with Warren at my side. “Where’s Shana?”
“With your mom.”
“Is she okay?”
He touched my hand. “She’s going to be fine. Your mother is a marvel.”
“Yeah, good call taking her there. You probably saved her life.”
“You ready to go home?”
I glanced around. Everything seemed well in hand. Lila had competent bodyguards and Dr. Webster to keep her safe. The councilmembers who had followed Everett’s shitty plan had confessed under a truth curse and been placed under arrest. Even the lobby was starting to pull itself back together.
Warren offered me a hand.
“I’m not into domesticity,” I told him. “I like carrying a badge and a gun. I’m not an easy person to live with. I’m definitely not easy to love. You sure about this?”
He laughed easily and gripped my arms, easing me against the length of his body. He kissed my nose. “Do you trust me?”
“Yes,” I said simply. Like Shana’s quick response earlier, I didn’t even need to give it thought.
Trust had a mind of its own.
The world shifted and swayed, a whirlwind of colors, sensations, and clove cigarette smoke. I had no idea where—or when—we were going, but I knew it would be one helluva ride.
Epilogue
I sat cross-legged in the desert, my daughter’s knee pressed against mine as we faced the sunrise.
“Brick by brick,” I told her. “Visualize.”
Ysa groaned, her nose wrinkling but her eyes remaining shut. I loved her beautiful eyes: the same rich mahogany as her father’s. “Ma. This is dumb. We don’t even have to protect against the darkness anymore.”
I touched the turquoise necklace around my neck. “I know, baby. But you never know when you’ll need to protect yourself. So just humor me, okay?”
The sun had crested the horizon completely and begun its daily descent by the time Ysa and I stood and brushed dirt from our long, bare legs.
“Can I stay with Aunt Mai tonight?” Ysa asked, tucking her small hand into mine as we walked towards our house.
“Maybe you should ask Aunt Mai first.” My sister, twenty-two and as wild as I’d been at that age, lived in the city. Ysa loved to visit her, to feel the bustle and hurry of the Hollow’s center.
I’d come accustomed to the slow, steady life we had on the Res.
“I’ll call her while I’m at work today and ask,” I promised my daughter.
The kitchen door stood open. A slight breeze followed us in, and Ysa carried it with her as she skipped down the hall to her bedroom to get ready for school.
Mama stood over the stove, her wiry legs poking from denim cut-offs. “Maurelle. I made hominy.”
“Of course you did, Mama.” I kissed her cheek and took a deep breath. “It smells wonderful. Can you get Ysa to school this morning? I have a meeting at Headquarters.”
The years had turned Mama’s vivid dark hair salt-and-pepper, but had only added to her beauty. The deep folds at her eyes held a lifetime of love and laughter. She pointed at me with her spoon, dripping hominy on the floor. “Yes. But don’t forget. We have circle tonight.”
I rolled my eyes. “Yes, Mama.”
“It would not do for our clan chieftess to miss yet another circle.”
“Yes, Mama.”
In our cool, dim bedroom, my husband was nothing but a motionless lump under the covers. I gently lifted the covers and slipped in beside him. As if he’d been awake and waiting for me, he hooked me with a single arm and pulled me into his warmth.
He kissed me softly. “Morning. Brick by brick?”
“She’s so stubborn.”
He didn’t open his eyes, but his smile lit up the space we shared. “I wonder where she gets it.” His hand skimmed over my hip and up to my breast. He opened those gorgeous eyes and leered at me. “Got a minute?”
“Is that all you need?”
“So cheeky,” Warren growled.
I was late to work, but when you’re the agent in charge, and the Reina is your best friend, nobody really cares if you roll in ten minutes late with a smile on your face.
The night sky hung heavy with stars and magick as I took my place beside my mother at the fire that evening.
“You’re late,” Mama scolded.
“By whose clock?”
“Don’t sass me, girl. I brought you into this world, and I can take you out of it.”
Sadly, I’d used that same line on Ysa. One of these days, I’d get around to apologizing to my mother. One day.
“Chieftess Nez,” Elder Conn called. “Are you ready to begin?”
I smiled at the old man and lifted my arms. “Yes. Let’s begin.”
Senka greeted me with a smile and a cup of her delicious spicy tea. “Sister.”
I accepted the mug, breathing deep of the familiar scent. My handprint on Senka’s heart hadn’t faded over the years. The rust-colored print peeked out over her dress as she took her place next to me.
Neither had her handprint faded from my skin. Like a tattoo, it decorated my body with the tale of our past, present, and future.
We exchanged necklaces—my vivid turquoise replacing her pale white stones. The ritual had become habit; a normal part of our life together. Carrying the Hollow into a future where the darkness couldn’t hurt us.
I sipped my tea and crossed my legs. The sky on this side of the veil held so many stars. More stars than people. More stars than words.
We had several minutes before the Elders would call me back. I leaned forward and stoked the fire with a log from the pile. “Tell me a story, princess.”
So she did.
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DEMON’S ENVY
Demon’s Envy
In Kremlin Circle, where demon queen Belias sits on a throne built of human blood, beauty can get you killed.
Gadreel was an angel who fell long before the envy curse came to Kremlin Circle. Belias and her demons brought hell to earth, destroying his happiness in the process. Now living in isolation, Gad broods on his wife and daughter’s premature deaths and waits for the world to end.
Then Raphael, right-hand to God, shows up on Gad’s doorstep with a declaration from the Big Man himself: Gad is the only man capable of ending Belias’ reign of terror. Armed with an arcane spell and little else, he must search out the strongest witch in the circle to help him defeat the demon queen.
His problem? The strongest witch in the circle is his wife’s uncle, Yulian, who isn’t happy about the way Gad abandoned him after his niece’s death. Even worse, in the fifty years since the two men last spoke, Yulian adopted a daughter.
And she may be the biggest danger to Gad yet.
Fans of Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files and Hugh Howey’s Wool will travel breathlessly through this dystopian society where the demons in charge don’t have the best interests of the people in mind and only magic can save them.
One-click today and don’t miss out on this sarcastic attempt to save the world by an aging witch, a badass in heels, and an ex-angel with an attitude problem.
DEMON’S ENVY
Copyright © 2018 by Heather Marie Adkins
Published by CyberWitch Press, LLC
Paoli, IN
cyberwitchpress.com
[email protected]
Published March 2019
All rights reserved.
This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the author. Any reproduction or other unauthorized use of the material or artwork herein is prohibited.
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Disclaimer: The persons, places, things, and otherwise animate or inanimate objects mentioned in this novel are figments of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to anything or anyone living (or dead) is unintentional. The author humbly begs your pardon. This is fiction, people.
Author Photograph © 2011 Meagan White | White Photography
Cover art by Bewitching Book Covers by Rebecca Frank
Interior Book Design by CyberWitch Press
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For my writing tribe.
You know who you are. I wouldn’t be half the person I am if I didn’t have you on my side
1
Hellfire and demons made for strange bed-persons, but when the lights were out, they were the only companions I had anymore.
I opened my eyes to the cusp of dawn, leaving behind nightmares of the apocalypse and the phantom screams of my wife and child. I couldn’t save them—or the world—then, and I damn sure couldn’t now, either. My subconscious reminded me of that nightly.
I extricated my legs from Lacy’s warm body. Her purr filled the room, banishing some of the cold and loneliness. She turned around, resettled, and closed her eyes; in another life, I would have done the same thing, when my wife’s soft body lay beside mine, before demons ripped out her heart.
I stoked the dying fire, so the cabin would be warm when I returned, and dressed quickly in thick layers. I strapped on my boots and my bow, then got the hell out before memories consumed me.
Hellfire, demons, and memories. The song of my life. These are a few of my favorite things.
Heavy snow had fallen on Kremlin Circle overnight, and residual flakes drifted from the solid gray sky overhead. We hadn’t seen the sun in years. Such a fucking icy hell-hole, this place. Overrun by demons and under the command of the most insane of them all. There was nothing good here. Good died with the world as we knew it before.
Now, an ex-angel couldn’t leave his piece-of-shit cabin without being armed. Not with Belias’s beasts always roaming, looking for blood to take back to their insatiable demon queen.
Halfway between my back door and the greenhouse, a prickle spread between my shoulder blades. I faltered on the snowy path, fingertips playing over my bow. I’d lost my wings when I fell in love with a human, but I hadn’t lost everything that once made me an angel: I sensed power.
The kind of power forged from light and God. Power that didn’t exist in Kremlin Circle, not even in memory.
Except mine.
I whirled in a practiced movement so perfect a human wouldn’t have seen the setup, and loosed an arrow. A demon perpetrator would have died with a shard of metal between its eyes.
But Raphael easily deflected the arrow with an irritated flick of his fingers.
He smirked, his smooth, ageless face glowing gold in the pre-dawn twilight. “You missed, Gadreel.”
“If I’d wanted to hit you, I would have.” I hung the bow around my torso and turned my back on the Seraph.
I hated him for those wings, for the aura of power and majesty, for that glow that proved he stood strong in God’s grace. I hated him because I once had those things, too. Now I had silence, solitude, and snow.
Always snow. Like an inverted version of hell.
“I never did understand how an angel so large and muscular could move so quickly. You dance with your weapon.” Raphael fell into step behind me.
A compliment. I ignored it and unlocked the greenhouse door. “What are you doing here among the chattel?”
“We need to talk.”
“You breaking up with me?”
“Funny, Gad.” Except he didn’t laugh.
Warmth flowed out the door as I entered the greenhouse—warmth as warm as this icy wasteland could give us, however artificial. The door latched behind Raphael, blocking out the piercing howl of the wind. We existed in a deafened bubble of artificial heat and light.
“I’m impressed.” The Seraph’s preternatural voice boomed in the enclosed space. He strolled down the main aisle, trailing his fingertips over leaves and vegetables. Everything he touched seemed to sigh and stretch beneath his hands, basking in his glow. “You coax all this to life in a hostile environment.”
I cupped a ripe red tomato in one hand. “It’s the only magic I have left to me. Wielding power over a harsh nature. Giving life while Belias takes it.”
Raphael pulled a stool out from beneath the workbench and perched atop it. His massive golden wings folded in behind him. All the majesty of being Seraphim, but wearing blue jeans and sandals. “When did you become a poet?”
“They call it ‘gardening’ here,” I replied, being purposefully obtuse. “Do I need to ask again why you’re here? Other than reminding me of everything I’ve lost.”
“I’m sure you don’t need a reminder.”
I inclined my head, picked up my pruning shears, and set to work.
“Do you have a minute?” the Seraph asked.
“I have a thousand lifetimes. I’m sure I can spare a minute.”
“Cheeky git.”
I grinned and snipped a dying branch from a bean bush. “We all need our armor. Especially when we have no wings to protect us.”
A beat of silence. Nothing to hear but the metallic snip of my shears.
Raphael cleared
his throat. “Do you regret it?”
I paused, shears poised over a yellowing branch. The place where my wings had once grown from my back ached, like the phantom pain of an amputee. “Regret is a harsh word. I regret their deaths during the rift curse. I do not regret loving my wife, or giving life to my daughter.”
“You would do it again?”
I didn’t think I was ready to answer that question. “How’s Tobiah?”
“You’re changing the subject.”
“Legitimate question.”
Raphael sighed. When a Seraph sighed, the walls shuddered. “He’s fine. Living his afterlife to the fullest.”
I considered asking if my wife and daughter were “living their afterlives” to the fullest. But I wasn’t ready for that question, either. Or rather, I wasn’t ready for the answer.
I went back to pruning. “Can we skip the small talk and move on to the main event? I have things to do today.”
“Liar.”
I shrugged.
I snipped two more branches before Raphael spoke again.
“He is on a campaign to take back the Circles. All of them, not just Kremlin.”
I dropped the scissors to the pale wood and turned, leaning against the edge of the ancient table to stare at the Seraph. He could be no other than the Big Guy Himself.
I grunted, amused. “God has finally decided to save us, huh?”
Raphael’s impassive face gave nothing away.
“It’s been fifty years,” I added. “Why now?”
Raphael tapped his fingers on the edge of the stool, as if considering his words. “The campaign actually began when the Rift occurred. Fifty years ago, as you said. However, the angel sent to liberate Kremlin Circle failed in his task. The demon Belias bested him.”
The Shadows and Sorcery Collection Page 18
