“Blah, blah, womanly bits, blah, blah, mansplaining, blah, blah, secret jealousy because my magic is stronger than your magic.”
“By the Phoenix, your brother is our prince and he’ll Lazarus lead us to wipe out the Fallen, the Children of the Fallen, and every Addict. Confess before we drown you like witches.” Kunel soared into the air in golden glory.
Unworthy, unworthy, unworthy.
I flinched at the mages’ chant, as they rose behind their leader. Except, I wasn’t Drake being chastised after my forced confession. There’d been a time that Kunel’s smile or frown could’ve made or broken me.
But not now.
Unworthy? I was the Bitch of Utopia. What the hell did I care about worthy?
“I’m an angel, vampire, monster and mage, but I’m not a witch. Even lost in your Crusader Land, gank a bitch for the right reason.”
Kunel swooped closer.
Don’t go poking the fanatics, they’re not messing around. If you swim, you’re a witch, and if you drown…you’re still a witch. You’ve been tried, sentenced, and this is your execution.
Then help me battle Kunel’s terror shadows.
The Malfoy jackass can shape living nightmares. No one but the Mage can control his ass; it’s why he’s First Reformer.
Then where’s Rahab?
Isn’t that an interesting question…?
Both vampiric and angelic sides seethed within me, contained by Kunel’s terrors and his faction. Mischief settled closer against me.
“Your deaths shall honour the memory of Mage Drake’s original abandonment.” Kunel’s eyes flashed with fervour. “Instead of the water taking his life, it shall take yours.”
Unworthy, unworthy, unworthy.
I slapped the surface of the pool, catching my palm on a spiked starfish. I hissed at the sharp gash.
Mischief tutted, raising an eyebrow. “Now is the time you choose to throw a tantrum…?”
“Your deaths…? As in multiple?” I snarled up at Kunel.
Kunel’s smile broadened. “The day will never be born that your Underserving rises. His magic is too…feminine.”
Mischief stiffened next to me, becoming dangerously still. I winced, glaring at Kunel. The bastard understood nothing about the ancient power of the silver, but he’d already judged it…and Mischief.
How had Mischief lived with this prejudice all his life?
“Mischief’s in charge of the other Underserving like a butler or steward: you need him,” I argued.
“A charming view of my importance,” Mischief muttered.
Kunel jutted out his chin. “He dares to declare his love for a Lazarus Mage. Such an unfit wretch has no right to love.”
Jeers and hoots.
Still Mischief held himself motionless in the water like a crocodile, only moving enough to stop himself sinking.
Kunel’s nostrils flared, as he rested his feet on our heads, ready to push us under. “On the light itself, this Undeserving won’t even kneel before you. Do you think it’s gone unnoticed? His disobedience and disrespect?”
I winced, as Kunel’s toes dug into my scalp. “He’s a moody, scheming rebel, with a streak of dry wit and sass. He’s also my fam, equal, and never has to bastard kneel for me. And if these are my last words: I love him too.”
Mischief drew in his breath; he reached out to touch my cheek, like he was memorising every detail.
Kunel huffed. “He’s no better than a Glory with his womanly weak magic. Only when you’re both dead, shall our Legion be able to rise.”
Mischief flinched, before his eyes gleamed and his expression darkened. Finally, he wrapped his wings tighter around me, as he raised one hand out of the water: silver danced in fairy twinkles on the tips of his fingers. “Perhaps I missed the part where Glories are weak, since they’ve dominated Angel World?” He tilted his head. “But then, my own magic is little more than pretty lights and tricks.”
Chuckles and catcalls.
The silver inside me roared in winding ribbons, pulled out to Mischief’s. His sparkles became spinning discs — one, two, three — that howled.
“What is the meaning of this outrage?” Kunel bellowed, shoving our heads under the water.
I spluttered, gagging on brackish mouthfuls. My pulse pounded, whilst living nightmares darkened the green to black, darting through the murk towards us.
Silver burst around me, dragging me to the surface, even as the black shrieked and burnt, shrivelling away. Blinded by the sizzling light, I flailed, until cool arms looped around me, hauling me to the edge of the pool.
Screams and wails.
Spinning discs, grown to giant size, blazed through the cavern, smiting the mages’ heads from their shoulders, and for once, I hadn’t been the one to go nuclear. Mischief stood on the fringe of the pool, dripping with seaweed and salt water: a pissed off Poseidon. Amidst the charred carnage, he vibrated with the unleashing of his true magic.
Hell, he truly was my equal.
He stalked to Kunel — who’d tormented Drake and me in the Initiation, breaking apprentices like Mischief’s brother, Nathanael, to become mages and brainwash them into the Brotherhood — but now cowered against the cavern’s wall. “Tell me again, pray, how weak is my womanly magic?”
Mischief casually spun another disc on the palm of his hand.
Kunel glowered up at him, before clawing at the wall, as he recoiled from the disc.
Then Mischief’s expression hardened. “On second thoughts, don’t.”
He blasted his magic at Kunel, slicing his head from his shoulders.
I started, even as my magic sang rejoicing. Kunel had wanted a sacrifice to honour Rahab in this place of his abandonment. I gazed around at the blackened walls and feathered corpses.
Be careful what you wish for.
I reached for Mischief, but he backed away from me; his gaze was downcast. I frowned, trying again, but he dodged back.
“I apologise,” he whispered.
“What for? Saving our arses?”
“I preach to you about controlling the beast, then I…” He waved at Kunel’s headless body. “My magic is as terrible as your own.”
“The Seraphim fruity extra?”
Mischief arched his brow. “You have no idea what that means or how terrible it can be.”
“Then stop with the mysterious and tell me.”
Mischief blew out his breath, fighting for control. How bad was it to be fathered by one of those things? “Our world believes it has a thousand reasons to subjugate descendants of the Seraphim, even though most inherit little of their magic, because the Seraphim are disgraced. The highest ranking and most powerful of angels, the Seraphim rejected their role to elevate themselves to gods.”
I blinked. “It sounded like you just said you’re a child of a god…? And I’ve been channelling—”
Mischief waved his hand testily. “Quite. I inherited the weak magic so mocked by our now so dead First Reformer from my true father.”
“You better not bastard say Darth Vader.”
“Close.” Mischief hesitated, before finally answering, “His name is Jahael. I’ve spent a lifetime caught between wishing I was with him so he could teach me to control my magic — free me — and wishing just as vehemently that I’m never captured by him.”
I grasped Mischief’s hands, and this time he didn’t pull away. “Are we talking the Odin of gods?”
That’s dangerous talk.
Seraphim are burning, glorious, terrifying angels with asses that are quite literally for the gods.
Not one-eyed Norse fashion victims.
What’s got your panties in a twist?
More to the point, why didn’t you tell me about these psycho…?
Their godly asses are in an entirely different realm. The only way that they could drag you to them, would be if your blood mixed with that of the Emperor’s son: The Archduke.
There’s a bastard Archduke…?
When Mischief laughe
d, high and bright, I started.
“How very much I wish Jahael was listening. He’s renowned for his vanity, as well as his ruthlessness. When I was tiny, my mother would call me nothing but Sly Imp.” I squeezed Mischief’s hand because hell if I didn’t know how that felt: growing up with people who couldn’t understand the powers inside you. “The horror when she realised she should’ve been calling me Sly God all along.”
“Then why doesn’t this Sly God and Silver Queen rebel together and show the Brotherhood’s father how high we can rise?”
Mischief squeezed my hand back, as his grin met mine.
Tonight, I’d duel Rahab to save Fynchan’s wings, stop the genocide of the vampires, and free every angel under the control of the Legion of the Phoenix. I’d suffered through the Initiation and Mage’s Challenge, so that I’d have the chance to shatter Rahab’s false world, just as he’d melted Anael’s. Yet once it started, there’d be no way out: this battle would be to the death.
28
The moon’s ghost light gleamed off the gold wings of the Phoenixes who knelt before the mages, the bronze silk trousers of the anxiously shuffling apprentices, and the bronze cannon in the centre of the Bailey.
I patted the cannon’s muzzle, before grinning at Och.
Time to summon the jinn to the end of the story.
Och gave me a soldierly nod, which might as well have been a salute. “Attention, Brothers of the Legion! Your Champion and Phoenix Queen…” he hesitated, before adding, “…as well as my brother, were attacked tonight by traitors within our ranks.”
Shocked gasps and whispers.
I noted the mages who straightened, resting their hands on their Phoenixes’ shoulders in attack mode. The apprentices, no longer under the watchful eye of the First Reformer, nudged each other and glanced around.
“Yet they’re here to free us! Our true saviours.” Och’s haunted gaze met mine, as he dropped to one knee, bowing his head.
I swallowed at the sudden silence.
Then the apprentices whooped, bounced on their toes, or swept each other around like kids at a Bieber concert.
Lazarus rises! Rises! Rises! And we will rise!
I shook, when they chanted in ecstatic unison; they’d been whipped up by our counter propaganda, and now I had to whip Rahab’s arse to create the real hope.
“Time to go BOOM!” I muttered to Och.
Och sprang up, aiming the cannon into the night sky and pulling out the rope on the cannon’s friction primer.
Bang.
I jumped; my ears rang, as I choked on the smoke. The cannon’s blast echoed around the walls of the castle, shocking the apprentices to silence. The mages were caught between crouching in battle stance and staring at their leader — Och — and wondering if they should be kneeling before me too.
You’re taking on the Big Daddy of the wizarding world, Feathery-fairy.
I’ve already schooled my own dad, so I’m up for schooling my false dad. This whole island’s a fantasy, and I’m pulling it down.
I glanced over my shoulder at my ragtag army, rebel fighters, and fam: two Halflings, a Phoenix, a Marked Wing, an Addict, a vampire, a Child of the Seraphim, and my monstrous brother.
Hell, I loved them.
I sauntered across the Bailey because whilst I still had life on this island of death and resurrection, I’d have swag.
Rebel caught me around the waist. He feathered kisses across my cheeks. “Kick the muppet’s arse,” he murmured. “Then by all the blessed saints, come back into the light with me.”
I shuddered, gripping hard onto his arms. “Always.”
I yelped as I was swung around: feathers, tails, and kisses. Candy sweetness, citrus orange, and rich frankincense…
I sank into my fam’s embraces, until I yipped at a sudden nip.
Ash sucked at my lower lip, as his eyes sparked charcoal. “We have your back, Violet. Don’t go all Saruman vs Gandalf on us. Danger, no retreat, need help…? You call.”
“I just scream out Violetbusters in the place of ghosts?”
Ash nibbled harder on my lip, before releasing it again. “How about hollering fam? You taught it to my sisters and maybe you weren’t wrong.” I flushed, gaping at him because I was the reason his sisters had been turned to ash by Lucifer’s Light. Yet his gaze was serious, before he turned me firmly back to the Bailey. “We’re not perfect but we are family. Mage Drake thinks he has the same with his boys. Let’s show him that he’s wrong.”
When Ash shoved me forward, Anael and Drake caught me on either side, clasping my hands.
Then the Bailey lurched, before rain drove down in a blustery storm. The stinging raindrops scoured my face; I battled to keep my eyes open against the torrent. The Brotherhood hollered and howled, cowering back against the walls.
Summoned by the cannon, daddy was home and he was pissed…
Rahab soared down in a crackling bubble of golden fire, which hissed along his vast wings and veiled him from the downpour; his shirt swung open revealing his chest that glowed as emerald as the shirt itself.
I’d thought he looked like a god before: I’d been wrong.
Hovering above the cobbles, which streamed now with rivulets, he scanned across the storm-swept Bailey, then over his two sons, before settling his glare on me. “I set you a hard lesson in the Reformation Room: to face yourself.” Even Rahab’s telepathic voice seethed. “Yet here you are, as rebellious as—”
“Kunel and his merry band? Don’t even pull the innocent face. You let them drown rat us….” I shielded my head with my arms against the pounding rain.
Rahab hovered closer, answering out loud this time. “I allowed them to try. A father was never so proud of a child’s victory.”
I gritted my teeth, even as I couldn’t help the instinctive thrill at his pride. When Drake stiffened, I rubbed my thumb soothingly across the back of his hand. When had Rahab ever told Drake that he was proud of his victories? “You’re not my dad. Are you still confused on this? Do I need to post it on my social media status? Write an angsty rap? Hang it on a banner around the castle?”
When the rain drummed down even harder from the star sharp sky, I flinched.
Rahab raised one hand, gesturing to his sons to walk to him. “Hush, my Queen. You merely have to believe it yourself.”
My shoulders slumped. Why was this suddenly so difficult? I understood why Rahab had created this refuge: the craving to be in control and safe. Had I any right to destroy his world? To take this shelter away from the rest of the boys of the Legion…?
Splash — crack. Splash — crack.
I winced, as Drake and Anael’s kneecaps hit the puddled floor.
In a flurry of splashes, followed by the gasps of the Legion, my fam knelt behind me. I peeked around: only Mischief stood proudly to the side with his hands clasped behind his back.
Rahab’s hand still hung in the air like the awkward guest at the party. I glanced around at our audience: The Brotherhood were hooked.
Rahab’s arm shook, as he slowly lowered it. “You would choose her?” The golden bubble spat in furious waves; his emerald skin vibrated even brighter. “You belong to me. You will obey. I am your father.”
“And I am nothing but a disappointment, am I not?” Drake shrugged his slender shoulders. “Yet extraordinary as it may seem to you, the queen loves me.” His neck pinked, blushing down to his chest. “Yet even if she viewed me as no more than a sacrifice or a pawn, I’d still kneel for her and the prince.”
Anael smiled, leaning forward to push a wet curl behind Drake’s ear. “And I am your beautiful leashed monster, father. Would you ever have freed me? But now I have a sister to play with me instead.”
Rahab roared, shooting out a golden whip, which lassoed Mischief around his neck. I dived forward, but Mischief held out his hand, holding me back, whilst Rahab reeled him closer.
“I should burn off Zophia’s scheming head.” I grimaced at the fizzing burn, as Mischief’s neck bli
stered. “My sons kneel for you, but this Undeserving traitor imagines himself too important? Shall he stay on his feet because he readies himself to fetch us drinks or scrub the floor?”
Mischief glanced at Ceri and Tiger, who were ushering in the tiny bundles of Broken kids like we’d planned; Fynchan gripped Ceri’s hand. I swallowed hard: Fynchan still had his small — beautiful — wings. Ceri’s courage had brought me to the Broken Nursery, and everything I’d suffered and risked afterwards would be worth it if those kids kept their wings.
The Undeserving clasped the youngest Broken in their arms, as they trembled to see Rahab disciplining one of their own.
I grinned: it’d blow their minds when they saw what happened next.
Mischief panted, but his smile was shark-like. “I rather thought I’d fight.”
Silver struck in spinning discs from Mischief’s palms, slicing through the gold, before he twirled free from Rahab, firing at him.
I’d never even seen Rahab approach gaping before, but his eyes widened, as too shocked to even do more than raise his forearms against the blast, the silver exploded him backwards into a charred pile.
Silence, apart from the drumming of the rain.
Drake and Anael nodded at each other, before prowling across the Bailey.
Drake in maximum Commander mode, strode in front of the young apprentices, taking control of them in their confusion.
Anael sauntered to the mages, slipping between them, whispering threats and promises that had them paling and falling in behind him.
Yeah, plausible deniability had its place with my brother.
Then I screamed, juddering with the pain of an invisible shock, which held me paralysed. My pulse thundered, as Rahab dragged himself up: soaking, blackened, and furious.
Rahab shook with rage and humiliation. “Enough! Zophia, you are truly a sly traitor.” Mischief vibrated with a fury as great as Rahab’s at the insult. “Do you imagine hiding your talents all these years somehow makes you less unworthy? Fight it all you like, but we both know what you’ve done.” He stared around wildly, suddenly childlike in his devastation. “I saved you.”
Vampire Mage Page 23