A Wicked Power

by Bilinda Sheehan

  “Hey, sis, so nice of you to drop by.”

  Fluidly, she rolled up into a sitting position so that her back was against the padded wall behind her and her legs were crossed in front of her body. I half expected her to close her eyes again and start meditating but she didn’t.

  The sound of boots hitting the floor grew louder and I was aware of the shouts of the guards who had come to their fallen comrade’s aid as they drew closer. The world shifted again and I closed my eyes, drawing a deep breath in through my nose as Alastor’s hand brushed against the collar of my jacket.

  “What are you doing?” I asked, as he tugged the jacket open and peeled back the collar.

  “That’s going to hurt for a while,” he said softly and I glanced down to see the round, blackened mark left on my flesh from the guard’s electrical baton.

  “It’s not my fault!” Lily wailed.

  I jerked away from Alastor’s touch and discovered that Jason had pinned Lily to the back wall of her cell, his large hand wrapped around her throat. Her feet bicycled in the air as he lifted her clear of the floor.

  “If it wasn’t you, then who was it?” he said, his voice betraying his anger.

  Lily’s eyes bulged in her head as she scrabbled at the hand cutting off her air supply.

  “Jason, stop!” I said, reluctantly moving away from the safety of the wall. My legs felt like they were made of jelly as I stepped into the cell. Of course, it could have been worse. There was a time when something like that would have put me on my ass, maybe even the hospital. Apparently creating a bond with a demon had its perks after all.

  I reached Jason as he shook Lily so that her emaciated form rattled against the wall. She was so much thinner than I remembered. Her face was gaunt, her cheeks hollowed out, her eyes sunken in her head.

  “It wasn’t her,” I said, grabbing his arm.

  He released her and shrugged away from me, his actions knocking me back a few paces as he rolled his shoulders and paced the small cell.

  Lily hit the floor with barely any sound and proceeded to wrap her arms around her knees as she curled into a ball.

  “Really? You just had to be that asshole.” I turned away from Jason in disgust and crouched down next to Lily.

  “Lily, are you hurt?” She turned her face up toward me, her eyes shining with excitement.

  I tried to take a step back but she had the element of surprise as she lunged toward me. We went backwards, her body riding me to the floor as she planted one knee below my diaphragm, making it impossible for me to draw in a deep breath.

  Sharp nails scored down over my cheek and I turned my head aside so that she missed my right eye. She did so, but only by a couple of inches.

  I called my power to me and it gathered in my chest but I couldn’t feel it. Couldn’t touch it. Everything felt like it was behind a wall of glass. In my mind I could see it churning inside me but no matter how hard I reached for it, there was nothing for me to grab onto.

  “Frustrating isn’t it?” Lily spat the words at me. Her dark hair hung in lank strands around her face and her eyes were wild. “They put wards in the walls after I killed the witch to stop me from using my power again.”

  Her fist barreled toward my face but I knocked her arm aside and punched her in the face. Stunned, she reeled away from me and I locked my legs around her waist before rolling her off me.

  It took only a second to get her on the floor with my arm pinned across her throat. I kept the pressure light; she felt so fragile beneath me that I worried if I pressed her too hard she would shatter.

  Her laughter bounced off the walls of the cell and it held an edge of hysteria that made me wonder if perhaps she had completely lost her mind in here.

  “Who was controlling the guard?” I said as the first of the guards arrived into the cell.

  It was unnerving to feel the weight of their guns trained on me as I held Lily down.

  “How would I know?” she smiled up at me, blood trickling from the corner of her mouth. Her small, pink tongue darted out to lick at it.

  “Because I think I know who it was,” I said, meeting her gaze head on and letting the weight of my suspicions flood my eyes.

  Lily’s eyes widened. “You mean—”

  A siren split the air and the inside of the cell lit up with the flash of red lights that danced in the hall.

  “What is that?” I shouted to Jason over the noise.

  The spots of colour that had moments before sat high on his cheeks was now gone. In fact all the colour from his face had drained away.

  “There’s been a breach.”

  “Excuse me?” I said, unsure if I’d heard him above the noise of the sirens wailing.

  “The prison has been breached,” he said, his voice a little stronger now.

  “Someone is breaking out?”

  He shook his head. “Nothing can break out, Amber. The siren means someone has broken in.”

  Lily wriggled excitedly beneath me. “He came for me. I always knew he’d come for me!”

  Alastor’s eyes had bled to demon black as he met my gaze from across the room. Fear curled in the pit of my stomach.

  This wasn’t going to end well.

  8

  “How can there be a breach? I thought this place was impenetrable.” I released my hold on Lily and pushed up onto my feet.

  A few of the guards in the hall were already conferring with one another in hushed tones and the muffled voices and static from their radios told me they were in communication with a higher authority in charge of the prison.

  “You,” I gestured to the guard nearest to us. The gun he held was still trained on me but I could tell from the nervous glances he was darting between Lily and the door that he wanted nothing more than to get out of the room. Evidently Lily’s reputation proceeded her. “What can you tell me about the breach?”

  His lip curled up in a sneer and he shook his head. “I don’t answer to you.”

  “But the Saga Venatione do still have jurisdiction here,” Jason interjected.

  “You were seen assaulting one of our own,” the guard said. “The orders are to take you all into custody.”

  “Not a chance,” Jason said, drawing himself up to his full height.

  “We didn’t assault the guard,” I said, casting a sideways glance into the hall at the guard who still lay on the ground. “There was something controlling him.”

  “Not possible,” the young man in front of us said. His finger trembled as it hovered over the trigger.

  Just what we needed. A terrified guard with an itchy trigger finger.

  “We’re telling you the truth,” I tried again, holding my hands placatingly out in front of me in a gesture of surrender. “It’s probably all connected to this breach you’ve got going on. Something managed to take control of your guard and now something is trying to break through your defenses.”

  The guard opened his mouth to speak.

  “Come on, it’s too much of a coincidence otherwise.” I didn’t believe in coincidences. Whatever was going on here was planned. There was no doubt about it.

  The guard studied me but before he could answer his radio crackled to life.

  “Code black, I repeat we have a code black—” The radio cut out but not before the gurgled scream of someone’s throat being ripped out crossed the airwaves.

  “Jason, what’s a code black?”

  “Someone is trying to access the release panel for the cells in the pit.” Jason was pale beneath the usual golden tan he had.

  “Do I want to know what the pit is?”

  “Probably not,” he said, his voice tight. He turned his attention back to the guards in the room. “You heard them over the radio we have a code black. We need to secure the prisoners in this wing and then—”

  “We can’t take orders from you.” The guard tried again and I couldn’t help but admire the guy’s tenacity. He was determined to stick to his orders no matter what happened.

 
“Look,” I said with a sigh. “I get it. You’re scared. But we don’t have time for this bullshit. Something is coming and it’s going to rip your heart right out of your chest if we don’t get this place locked down. Now you can work with us or get the hell out of our way.”

  He sucked a deep breath in through his nose before he lowered the gun.

  “Fine,” he said, gesturing to the others around him to do the same thing.

  Lily sat in the corner of the room with a wide grin on her face.

  “I knew he’d come for me. I knew he wouldn’t let me down.”

  “How could you possibly know?” I turned my attention back to my sister. She grinned at me and held her finger against her lips in an overblown shushing gesture. Just what had they done to her in here? The Lily who had handed my ass to me on more than one occasion certainly wasn’t the same Lily who was now perched in the corner of her bare cell grinning at me like a maniac.

  “What makes you think he’ll let you live through this?” I tried again. There had to be some way to reach her. Something I could say that would cause her to snap out of whatever this new state of being she was in.

  “Because he loves me.” The words were nothing more than a whisper but I heard them anyway. “But does he love you, Amber?”

  Jason finished barking orders at the guards in the hall and he turned his attention to Alastor and me. “We need to move out of here.”

  “Is that wise? We’re not armed and we have no way of knowing what’s going out there.”

  “The pit is below us,” Jason said. “If we stay here we’ll be overrun anyway.”

  “What is the pit?”

  “You really want to know?”

  “Not really but what choice do I have. If I’m going to stand a chance of getting out of this alive then I need to know what we’re up against.”

  Jason nodded. “Fine. The pit is where they send the most dangerous of the preternaturals.”

  “Seriously?” I glanced back in Lily’s direction. “And she didn’t warrant a cell in the pit?”

  “No.” He stared at Lily for a moment, an array of complex emotions playing across his face. When he returned his attention back to me they were gone. Buried beneath the facade he preferred to present to the world.

  “Once a shadow sorceress is neutralised they’re no longer considered such a threat.”

  Bile crept up the back of my throat at his mention of the word neutralised. Just what did that mean?

  “When you say neutralized…”

  Unable to meet my gaze, Jason shifted uneasily. “Her power still exists but the methods employed here have ensured her compliance.”

  “That doesn’t sound any better,” I said, anger causing my voice to rise. “Just spit out what you mean.”

  “We don’t have time for this, Amber,” he said. “If we don’t move we’re just sitting ducks.”

  “And Lily?” I asked. “What happens to her in all of this?”

  “It’ll be over quickly for her.”

  I took a step backwards, my chest constricting as the meaning of his words sank in.

  “You’re going to leave her here to die.”

  “Nobody has any use for a broken witch,” he hissed. “She’s as good as useless.”

  This wasn’t right. It was all wrong. Just because she was a shadow sorceress he was willing to leave to let her die?

  “She’s a human being,” I said. “Having powers doesn’t stop that from being true, no matter how much you might want it to.”

  “She’s a monster.” His jaw was set and I could tell from the way he squared his shoulders that he had no intention of backing down.

  “I’m not willing to leave her behind,” I said.

  “Do you realise what you’re saying?” Jason exploded. “She’s in here for a reason.”

  I swallowed back my unease. “I’m aware of that. I helped put her here after all. But I can’t sit back and let this happen. I won’t.” Folding my arms over my chest, I planted my feet on the floor. If he wanted to stop me then I was prepared to do whatever it took.

  “You’re as crazy as she is,” Jason said softly. He glanced back over his shoulder in the direction of the guards who remained in the hall. “They’re not going to just let you walk out of her. You have to know that.”

  I nodded. “I know.”

  “And I can’t let you take her with you.”

  There it was, the truth. Despite the fact that I’d been expecting it, there was some part of me that was still surprised by it all. He’d accepted Alastor. It had taken a little persuading but it had happened.

  But this was clearly a bridge too far for him.

  “I know that too.”

  Jason sighed. “I didn’t want to do this.”

  I sucked in a deep breath, waiting for him to make his move. I had no weapons but I could still--

  Jason took one step backwards, taking him out of the cell. I darted forward as the cell door began to close and reached it as it slammed shut.

  I pressed the palms of my hands into the door. “Don’t do this. Don’t be a coward.”

  Despite the thick steel that lay between us I could still feel Jason on the other side of the door. A grate dropped open in the doorway and I was face to face with him once more.

  “I’m not a coward,” he said through gritted teeth.

  “You are if you just walk away and leave us here to die. At least have the decency to fight.”

  He smiled and his gaze slid to Alastor. “I know my limitations, Amber. There is nothing cowardly in that.”

  The grate slid shut and I could hear Jason barking orders out to his men in the hall.

  Turning to face Lily and Alastor, I shook my head. We were definitely screwed.

  9

  The padding that covered the walls of the cell muffled the noise from the alarms blaring throughout the prison.

  The ground beneath our feet shuddered violently. Dust from the roof dislodged and floated down, coating my face as another wave of seismic activity rumbled around us.

  “Can you use your power at all?” Alastor asked, pushing away from where he’d been leaning against the wall.

  “I can feel it but it’s like it’s locked behind a glass wall. I just can’t reach it.”

  He nodded, running his hand over the wall next to him. “The wards are strong but I don’t think they’re strong enough to withstand the two of us together.”

  “What have you got in mind?”

  He held his hand out to me. “How much do you trust me?”

  “Not at all.” I reached for him.

  Alastor’s lips curled into a wicked smile. “Good.”

  He lashed out lightning fast. Something sharp bit into my wrist and blood splattered across the brilliantly white floor and walls.

  “Shit,” I said. “That hurt.” I cradled my hand in against my chest as blood welled in the three deep gouge marks he’d made.

  “It was supposed to,” he said, biting into his own wrist.

  His obsidian blood was thick as it sluggishly trickled from the wound. He held his hand out to me once more and I stared at him distrustfully.

  “We need to make a circle,” he said. “You walk counter-clockwise to me, spilling your blood on the ground.”

  Alastor began to move, letting the thick gobbets of blood hit the floor as he began to walk the circle’s perimeter.

  I did as he asked, squeezing my arm so the blood trickled out a little faster. We worked quickly, the splatter of blood on the floor the only sound in the room.

  Before we closed the circle, Alastor stepped inside and gestured for me to do the same.

  “What about Lily?” She was still crouched in the corner, her knees drawn into her chest, but her eyes darted back and forth as she watched every move we made.

  “She’ll get over it,” Alastor said.

  Stepping into the circle, Alastor roughly grabbed my arm and pressed his bloodied wrist to mine.

  His blood seared i
nto my skin like acid and I bit my lip to keep from crying out.

  When he turned to face me, his eyes were opaque with the darkness that dwelled within him.

  “This part we have to do together,” he said. “Like a mirror image of each other.”

  He dipped his fingers into the wound on his arm and raised two fingers before my face. I followed suit and pressed my bloody fingers to his face as he did the same, copying him through the feel of the patterns he made on my skin.

  Finally, he pressed the palm of his hand against my chest and gestured for me to do the same.

  “Reach for your power now,” he growled.

  Images flickered at the corners of my vision but when I tried to look at them, they disappeared.

  I did as he asked and found my power within, coiled and waiting. It slid up through the inside of my body, pressing against the inside of my skin like the silken coat of a great beast intent on escape.

  Heat collected on the surface of my skin and the flickering images at the corners of my vision grew a little clearer.

  “I can see the wards,” I said softly, reaching out with my power to tentatively brush against it. The second I touched it the ward snapped against my skin reminding me of the feel of the electric baton from earlier.

  My power recoiled and I met Alastor’s gaze.

  “How do I break them?”

  He smiled down at me. “You don’t break them, Amber. You eat them.”

  “I don’t understand. How do I do that?”

  “Stop thinking so much. You need to just let it happen. You are the mistress of your power. Don’t let it rule you.”

  He may as well have been speaking double-dutch for all the meaning I could glean from his words.

  The floor beneath us rolled again, this time more violently than before and I fell against Alastor as a large crack appeared in the tiles beneath our feet.

  “We don’t have time, Amber,” he said, wrapping his arm around my waist and drawing me close. “Close your eyes.”

  I did as he suggested and the wards on the walls became crystal clear. Sucking a breath in through my teeth I reached out to the nearest one and felt the same snap of electricity as my power brushed over it. This time I didn’t shy away from it. Gritting my teeth I forced my power to wash over the ward.