“Clearly not if I’m standing before you,” I said, reveling in the way her pale cheeks darkened to a pink. “You see, for all the great time you’ve spent plotting my death and your eventual rise—you never took the time to properly realize what I am.” I gazed at the apathetic faces of Pestilence, Death, and Famine. On the outside, they appeared so empty, but inside they were drowning in such darkness. Such pain.
“What…you…are?” She let out a cackle that would give Moira a run for her money. “You’re nothing. No one. You think because you survived me once that you will again?” she smirked, but I sensed her growing unease just as she could feel my calm.
The blackened soul in her chest roused a second time, aiming for me. I thought it so very telling that while she might look like a saint, inside she was a monster of the worst kind. An animal bound to its instincts. A madman with no control.
Lilith moved to strike, and this time I didn’t block her. I met her head on.
Our phantom forms met in a collision of great power, but try as both might, there was no harming one another. She could not hurt me, just as I could not hurt her. It was an impasse.
“You see, Lilith—the thing is—you stole my magic without understanding what it could really do. I don’t blame you. I myself didn’t truly understand until now.” I shrugged with a faked nonchalance. Our souls continued to twist and twine, but there was not a thing she could do. “In stealing it, though, you put us on a level playing field. You can’t hurt me, because all you have to throw at me—is me. You understand?” She gnashed her teeth as her soul continually attacked but made no ground. “We are so evenly matched that I knew I couldn’t defeat you like this. It would never work, and given enough time, you’d probably outsmart me because you’re far older and more experienced. I never had a hope if that’s how I planned to beat you.”
She switched tactics, using her nails to slit her own wrists. Fresh blood slicked her fingers as she began to chant.
Still I smiled. Desperation was eating at her.
“That worked on me once,” I nodded, gesturing to the magic gathering around us. Without an outlet, it would inevitably fizzle out. “The only problem is that you’ve already used that trick. You stole the beast and ripped my soul in half. It was the most painful experience in all of my life. It will probably be the worst thing I endure until the end of times.” As I predicted, the magic flared and like a firework on display, it burned out.
“How are you doing that?” she snapped. The angelic mask she so loved to wear fell away as the cold-hearted murderer beneath finally looked out and realized that something was very wrong.
Or very right, depending on your perspective.
“I’ve already told you”—I paused to wag my finger—“I’m not a demon. Just as you are still only a blood Fae.”
“That’s preposterous—”
“Is it?” I purred. She was seeing red, but her bag of tricks was running empty. “I think you’re only just realizing that I’m telling you the truth. I am the same as I’ve always been. A primordial of magic.” I waited, letting that sink in, continuing only when she opened her mouth to speak. “And by using your blood magic to kill me, I also hold that power now too. Which would make us truly equal, if not for one little thing.” Her features had gone stark white. Her pulse was through the roof and anxiety was clawing its way up her throat. She was well and truly scared.
She was right to be.
“You killed my mate, and to bring him back I accidentally called on a favor from the Seelie. Do you know what happened then? Do you know what she did?” Her lips moved, but no sound came out. Her mind was working a million miles an hour to keep up. “She tied my body to his using rune magic. Directly on my skin.” I turned a fraction for her to see the runes and she began shaking. “Yes, you’re a clever girl, aren’t you?” I mocked coldly. “Figured out that I now have the one and only thing that can beat you?”
“You won’t do it,” she said, barely attempting to taunt me, though it fell short on her breathless lips.
“Oh?” I asked. “And why is that?”
“Because I tied the Horsemen’s lives to mine. If anything kills me, they’ll die too.” She was so smug that it infuriated me.
“You think that only just occurred to me?” I asked her. She blinked, not saying a word. “I’m not the fool you take me for. You’re selfish. Rotten. As much as you think yourself above all others, you build in safety precautions, just in case,” I said. “But this time they won’t save you.”
The Sins took in a collective gasp. No one had seen it coming. That was the beauty of it. The unpredictability.
“You wouldn’t do anything that would kill your mates.”
“Who said anything about killing them?” Both my eyebrows rose as she tried to control her expression and manage the emotions riding her. She was as much a slave to herself as Josh had been, and in the end, what goes around comes around.
“You look confused, so I’m going to spell it out for you,” I told her. “Rune magic is so very special. It’s both the one magic that can stop you and the one magic you don’t possess. I can deflect you. I can cage you. I can do a great number of things around you—even to you—but you won’t pick up the magic that way.” I lifted my hand and began to draw. A blue luminescence followed my finger. It was the essence of my soul, and I painted the symbol of an upside-down lotus with it. “When they grant a rune of protection for a favor owed, it is the receiver’s magic that is used when it is time to call upon it. I learned this in New Orleans after the tangle I had with La Dan Bia. I saved a Seelie woman’s life and she granted me a favor. When I called upon it, it was my magic that pulled her into Hell. Hers wasn’t strong enough to get in or out.” Next, I drew a skull shrouded in shadow. She still hadn’t figured it out yet. “I made a deal with that same woman. She gave me Seth’s Wisdom. Do you know what that is?” The last symbol was a modified biohazard sign. She recognized them, but she still hadn’t figured out what I was doing with them. No one did.
“It allows me to relive every Seelie ancestor’s life that has ever cast it. In the span of four days I lived through thousands of years, and for what you have done to the Seelie alone you deserve to pay, but I don’t have the patience to extend this out much longer,” I said. Then I began drawing one last symbol. This one was important because it wasn’t Seth’s Wisdom that gave me this idea.
It was Sinumpa.
At a certain point I had to wonder if she knew what this would bring about—if she knew that is was this rune that changed everything.
I poured everything I had into that rune. Every hope. Every fear. Every bit of me that I could. I gave it my all, and when my fingers lifted, the three Horsemen dropped.
It all happened so quickly after that.
“What have you done?” Lilith screeched. It pained me to do it to them, but that pain would be temporary. I appeased myself with that knowledge as a slow realization dawned on her.
“The very first life I lived was Eve’s, your sister.” I paused. The power to silence three of the Horsemen was immense and keeping it up this long wasn’t easy, but I needed to get this out. Not just for me. But for Eve too. “I saw what you told her. I lived the horror through her eyes when you said you were going to take the beast from Lucifer, and I lived every gory detail thereafter. I know exactly how you planned to use the Sins, but they were too strong, and you were too weak. You improvised with Lucifer originally, and because of it you learned you couldn’t hold the power of the primordial yourself. You needed someone to hold it for you. To bear the brunt of the darkness.” The rune of silence became downright crushing, but I was reaching the end of this sorry tale. “Eve was a kind girl, a bit of a pushover with you, but even she wasn’t willing to let Lucifer die for your delusions. She threatened to tell him, and you had her framed for opening the portal you used to talk to God. She was cast out of Hell and went mad, but not before she gave her memories to Seth—and his children gave them to me.”
<
br /> This was it. The end. The moment that I didn’t just kill her.
Oh, no. I did something worse.
“I’ve silenced the Horsemen, which I’m sure by now you’ve realized also cuts off your connection to the beast. Which means you can no longer protect yourself with my magic. I’d ask if you had any last words, but I don’t care even if you did.”
I let go. She screamed. Oh, she screamed.
I listened to every single note as I tore her soul straight from her chest and consumed it whole.
And after thousands of years, Lilith’s reign in Hell finally ended.
Chapter 27
She spent so long terrorizing the world that when it ended there was only silence. It dripped from the ceiling and spanned the length between her body and me.
Lilith was not dead. She was gone.
Her soul didn’t go beyond the veil because there was not a soul to be had. She was destroyed indefinitely, but her body remained, because her body is what kept them alive.
Without a soul, the body itself would wither and die rapidly.
It would, if not for one thing.
The beast.
Her soul was never taken into Lilith. She couldn’t have held the beast if she tried. Now she was an empty vessel still tied to the Horsemen. I didn’t have to lift a finger to prompt it—I simply had to lift the silence.
And as the runes I’d drawn began fading into the distance, the heavy smothering of that power dwindled too. I eased my grips on the last of it, sucking in a heavy breath as my knees shook and collapsed. The shuddering crack that ran through me echoed in the empty hall.
Then she spoke.
“Ruby?” a neutral voice said. It no longer sounded anything like the voice of the monster it belonged to before.
“Hello, Beast,” I replied softly with a true smile. Free of the rage and pain and destruction. “This must be very strange for you.”
“She took me,” the beast said. There was confusion in her voice. “I lost my light. I lost you.”
My throat closed up and I began to crawl. No one moved an inch as I pushed against the straining exhaustion in me and dragged myself to her.
Curled inward, she tilted her chin to look up at me. It was Lilith’s face—undeniably—but it was not her eyes that stared out. It was not her soul that now dwelled there.
It was not her body anymore.
It was the beast’s.
“I’m so sorry I wasn’t strong enough the first time,” I told her. Those pale lips pinched together. Displeasure. I knew her emotions as well as my own.
“Do not apologize for wrongs that you did not commit,” she told me. That brought a faint grin to my lips. “You have freed us of her black magic. You did what no other before you could. Do not apologize, for you are a true Queen worthy of me.”
I nodded slowly, a single piece of me healing with her words. I wrapped my arms tight around the shoulders of my other half, and the tears began to flow. She did not cry. She was not capable of such emotion, and I understood that. Slim pale arms wrapped around me in return, though, clutching me to her just as I held her to me.
There were other arms then. Other hands. Other bodies.
I smelled seduction and sin as whiskery lips placed a short kiss to my lips, promising of so much more. Allistair tasted of scotch and honey and my own salty tears. I cried even harder as a fair head leaned down over my shoulder, Rysten’s sunshine hair tickling my face as it stuck to my wet skin. Laran’s warm hands grasped my waist, holding me as close as he could while huddled on the floor with me at an awkward angle—and then there was Julian. My white knight. He kneeled behind the beast and reached past her to grab my chin, tilting my head. We worked in perfect sync as I parted my lips, kissing him with abandon. A wild war cry sounded as Bandit ran at full speed, leaping to land right in the thick of things with a clash of fur and nails. The beast let out a huff but didn’t make a move to stop him from clawing his way between us and settling on our chests with a purr of contentment.
A mighty groan from far above us had me pausing. I looked from each of the Horsemen, to the beast, to the ceiling—where a series of booms blasted from the rafters like thunder.
“What is going on?” I asked, my weak legs protesting as I attempted to stand. Julian reached down and plucked me from the ground, clasping one arm around my back and one under my knees.
“It’s the Brimstone City,” Moira said. The ceiling cracked and pieces began dropping. “It’s falling.”
“Devil-damned bitch,” I cursed. I couldn’t have one fucking moment of peace, could I? “She put in a fail-safe, didn’t she?”
It was the beast that nodded once and said, “If you killed her body, you would have killed the Horsemen. She didn’t think she would die, but she planned for it. The Brimstone City is indeed falling.”
“Can you stop it?” I asked her.
“Can you?” she replied.
Shit. No. No, I couldn’t. My powers had been completely exhausted. I was unable to stand on my own two feet. There was no way I’d be able to hold a falling city.
“What options do we have?” I asked, looking between the Sins. Their faces were grave.
“There is no time to evacuate all of Inferna,” Lamia said. “It is simply too large.” Abandoning the hundreds of thousands of people that lived here wasn’t an option to me. There had to be another way.
“Could you blast the city apart?” I asked Moira. Her eyes widened.
“Are you crazy?” she demanded.
“Sometimes,” I answered. “Can you?”
“No!” She looked at the ceiling as if judging the possibilities. “If I managed to somehow break it apart, we all would be crushed beneath the rubble, as would the rest of Inferna.”
My head landed against Julian’s chest as I scrambled and searched my brain for something—anything inside all of Seth’s Wisdom. But the problem was that this was blood magic; a blood spell. Something I didn’t know how to use yet.
“There’s got to be something we can—”
A crackle of light. A flair of color. An ember guided by a phantom hand.
An ancient rune to open a portal between worlds appeared in violet.
Sinumpa.
She hadn’t abandoned us after all. My heart pounded and my palms grew slick. The incandescent rune exploded in a bang, tearing a hole between the realms. I put a hand over my eyes to shield them against the blinding light.
A pair of boots clicked. I parted my fingers, glimpsing between them.
Backlit by the shimmering glow, Sinumpa came striding in. She took one look and flashed a Cheshire grin. “It seems I’ve arrived just in time.”
“You came back…” Moira murmured. Stunned. “Can you stop the Brimstone City from falling?”
“No,” Sinumpa said. She hooked her thumb over her shoulder, pointing to the portal behind her. “But they can.”
Behind her, people started pouring out of the portal one by one.
Morvaen came first, followed by Donnach and many more. I didn’t know what to say as the Seelie came into Hell, leaving the safety of Earth to come to a land that was going to be crushed in a matter of minutes. Dozens. Hundreds. They came, and when the portal finally closed…they kneeled as one. Every single man, woman, and child that crossed through dropped on all fours in front of me.
I squeezed Julian’s bicep, our silent communication for him to let me down. I approached Morvaen on shaking feet. I got on my knees and touched her shoulder, concern leaking through my voice. “What have you done?”
“You and I made a deal…Ruby,” she said, testing my name on her tongue. “I gave you Seth’s Wisdom and you promised to let us come home.”
“But the Brimstone City is falling,” I told her. “You’ve doomed your people.”
“We have not.” It was not her who answered, but Donnach. He got to his feet and the hundreds of Seelie followed in his stead. “You and my sister were not the only ones with an agreement.” He glanced at Si
numpa who stood to the side watching the ceiling crumble away.
“You made a deal with Morvaen to gain the ancient knowledge of the Seelie,” the white-haired Fae said. “I struck a deal with Donnach. In return for my ceding the province of Lust, he would stop the falling city. We have to live here, after all.”
“You…I…how…what the fuck, Sin?” I stammered, looking for words. “You didn’t have any guarantees I would beat Lilith, but you bet on it all the same?”
I wasn’t sure if I should be flattered. She’d already proven to be a gambler of fate. Who’s to say she wasn’t on her way to being as crazy as Lilith had gone.
I’d never seen her look so young or carefree; a lightness dancing in her eyes for the first time. Looking at her, you’d never guess a city was falling above us. “I knew you had it in you, but I couldn’t tell you anything. So long as Lilith was alive, I was bound by so many blood oaths that would have not only taken my life, but the lives of all my siblings. I couldn’t do that to them anymore than you could kill your Horsemen. We all made sacrifices, girl, and once we fix this you are going to do what you’ve said you would all along.”
My lips parted as I breathed, “And what is that?”
Sinumpa stared. Measuring. Weighing my worth. Judging the girl I once was and the woman I had become.
“Make the world a better place, and if you have to, burn out the rot with your own hands.”
I stared back and then I nodded. For all she had done, I didn’t know if I could forgive her—it was still fresh and raw and much too soon. But that didn’t mean that I didn’t understand her. Why she had done it. Why she was willing to sacrifice so much for me to become the woman she knew I could be. I was a child born to not just flame, but magic. Shaped and molded by the Six Sins, honed to be a queen; in creating me, they lost the girl I was. She had kept much hidden from me, I sensed her regret in that—if only for a second.
Sinumpa was a proud woman that would not apologize.
Brimstone Nightmares (Queen of the Damned Book 4) Page 22