A Wicked Power

by Bilinda Sheehan

  Lily’s eyes met mine across the room. The hurt and betrayal I saw there tore into me.

  “No!” She screamed and writhed violently against her shackles. “No, you can’t do this! You can’t burn me!” Panic and terror caused her voice to climb and her screams echoed in the corridor as the Saga Knights carried her out.

  And then we were alone. Jason approached me and crouched in front of me.

  “I would have given it all up for you,” he said, reaching out to smooth my hair back behind my ear.

  I spat in his face and he closed his eyes. My bloody spittle dotted his face before he wiped it away with one hand and met my gaze once more.

  “You’ve done this to yourself, Amber. You chose them over me.”

  “And Nic? What about him?”

  “He is the Vatican’s problem now.”

  “He’s your brother,” I said, my voice a hoarse whisper.

  “He’s a traitor.”

  “What will they do to him?” Tears burned the back of my throat but I managed to get the words out.

  “They will take his last confession from him, whether he is willing to give it or not. And then he will be hung drawn and quartered as is befitting his crime.”

  “You know I will kill you,” I said, rage making my voice calm. The emotion settled over me like a well worn mantle and I embraced it willingly. It made my mind clearer, sharper.

  “There is no way out, Amber. I hold all the cards now.” He reached down and with one rough tug jerked me to my feet.

  “I promise you this, Jason. I will see you dead before the sun sets.” Power coiling my chest and despite the collar around my throat that burned my flesh there was a hollow ring of finality to my words.

  He pressed the iron bar he’d called the Star of Torment against my neck and my body went rigid. Pain like a white-hot blaze ripped my cells apart before knitting them back together once more.

  When I came to, I was slumped in Jason’s arms. He cradled me tenderly and stroked his hands up and down my back as he murmured against my hair.

  “Don’t make me use it on you again, Amber. I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “No, you just want to hand me over to the fae so they can rape and torture me,” I spat the words at him and writhed in his grip.

  With a sigh he released me and gripped my shackled hands, giving them a firm and painful jerk before he pushed me toward the doors.

  “Our audience awaits.”

  “What do you get out of all of this?” I asked, before we reached the doors. “What’s worth the life of your brother and friends?”

  “I’m a knight now. Accepted and welcomed despite my prior failings. It’s all I ever wanted… before I met you.”

  “There’s still time to stop this,” I said, digging my heels into the floor in an attempt to slow down our progress.

  “It’s done, Amber,” he said wearily. “Accept defeat when it’s staring you in the face.”

  We made it to the door and he paused, turning me back to face him.

  “I wish things could have been different.”

  “Don’t do this, Jason. You’re a good man, I know there’s good in you.”

  He shook his head. “I know I’m good,” he said with a sad smile. “It’s you who’s wrong.”

  With one violent shove, he pushed me backward, out through the doors.

  21

  Jason ignored everything I said to him as we headed to the hall. Apart from roughly pushing me every time I slowed my pace—anything to postpone our arrival.

  The clamor of voices grew louder as we approached the main hall and the panicked knot in the centre of my chest grew in intensity. Was this really it?

  Jason pushed the doors inwards with a dramatic flourish and pulled me along next to him as we swept into the room.

  Unfamiliar faces stared back at me--some human, some definitely not human--and the panic in my chest threatened to crawl out through my ribcage, taking my heart with it.

  From the corner of my eye, I spotted Victoria who was also shackled in the corner of the room. Next to her stood the young man we’d saved from the mall.

  A scream ripped the jovial atmosphere apart and I craned my neck in the direction the sound had come from.

  At the opposite side of the room, Lily leaned against a metal spike. Her arms were stretched high above her head and the shackles she wore had been connected to a ring on the spike. She struggled against the shackles and screamed again, a long terrified howl of anguish that rattled the metal grate below her feet.

  Next to her, Alastor was chained in a similar manner. He was awake and his one good eye met mine through the crowd. Resignation lurked in his azure gaze and I felt my heart sink.

  If we were going to get out of this, any help wouldn’t come from him.

  Jason jerked my arm and I stumbled as I struggled to keep up with his pace. The crowd parted around us as he led me up to a long table set upon a dais at the top of the room.

  “I thought you said this was a peace talk. It looks more like a party to me,” I said through gritted teeth.

  “Some view it as a time to celebrate. Cutting the shadow sorcerers off before they have the chance to gain a foothold in our world once more.”

  A small group of men and women were gathered on the dais and as Jason started up the steps they turned to face us.

  My breath caught in the back of my throat as my eyes fell on the tall, thin man at the end of the table. He was older, his hair grey beneath the harsh lights of the room but his eyes were the same. The same eyes I’d watched fill with pain and terror as the demon I’d summoned dragged him to Hell all those years ago.

  “It can’t be—” My voice was choked as he locked onto me and smiled.

  My knees buckled and I went to the floor, forcing Jason to miss a step and stumble. He growled his frustration as he dragged me upright.

  “I thought you were better than this, Amber. At least face your fate with a little dignity.”

  “That’s my—”

  The man I knew as my father shook his head almost imperceptibly and brushed his finger against his lips in a hushing motion.

  How was it possible that he was here? How did they not know who he was?

  “Ladies and gentlemen this is Amber Morgan. Not just a mere witch but a Shadow Sorcerer.” He pushed me toward them and the three women in the group took a concerned step backward as though he’d just thrown a poisonous snake at them.

  “She doesn’t look like much.” The owner of the voice stepped forward. He wasn’t much taller than I was, his willowy frame clad in an expensive Armani suit that hugged his body. But it was his violet eyes that instantly gave him away. Fae.

  “Untie her,” he said gesturing impatiently to the bonds around my wrists.

  Jason did as he asked and I rubbed my raw wrists in an attempt to get the blood flowing in them again.

  The fae brushed a long slender finger down my cheek and I cringed away from his touch, waves of revulsion coursing through my body causing me to break out in goose-bumps. His sudden delighted laugh sounded like the tinkling of tiny bells inside my head. “She’s very responsive though. Look at this.” He beckoned a blue haired woman forward who stepped up next to him.

  The fae yanked my arm and twisted it up into the light so that she could see the pebbling on my skin.

  “Won’t that make her particularly fragile?” she quirked a blue eyebrow at him.

  “Shadow Sorcerers are strong. Their healing abilities are capable of rivaling our own.”

  “But she is hurt now, why hasn’t she healed?” The female fae leaned in to peer into my face. Her thin fingers caught my chin and twisted my head up so that she could inspect me a little closer, her razor sharp fingernails digging painfully into my flesh.

  “You see the collar around her throat,” Jason said, moving closer. “It’s there to keep her magic in check. Suppress the more dangerous aspects of it.”

  The blue haired fae clucked her tongue in disap
proval. “We don’t need her to wear a collar to keep her in check. We are more than capable of doing it ourselves.”

  “Ah but the last fae who thought like that is dead,” Jason said.

  The fae shrank back from me and a collective hush fell of the room.

  “This is why we must rid the world of these creatures.” Another voice piped up and a rotund man with a shiny red face broke out of the group. “These things will be the downfall of our great nation if we allow them to walk among us.”

  There was a tittered agreement as the man—and he was just a man—moved around me slowly.

  “You see how they disguise themselves? Pretty packages to lure us into a false sense of security. Allowing us to think that we are safe around them and yet you heard the Knight, they kill human and fae alike. No one is safe from their fickle whimsy.”

  “I killed him because he tried to hurt me, to kill me.”

  “You hear its lies?” The man turned to the fae gathered on the stage. “We the humans bear your kind no ill will. For centuries we have worked alongside one another until this abomination disrupted the hard won peace by killing your creatures in Fortune.”

  One of the other fae—her green hair resembled leaves and it took me a second to realise her hair was actually made of leaves—moved up next to the two nearest me. “Why would you kill our night wings?

  “I had no choice. They were going to wipe out an entire town. I was only doing my job.”

  “But you knew you had no right to touch them.”

  “I didn’t want to hurt them but I had no choice.”

  “There is always a choice, child,” she said, her voice gentle. “The creatures you murdered were the last of their kind.”

  “And I’m sorry about that but should I have stood by and let them slaughter so many innocents? Children.”

  She shrugged. “Death is an integral part of the human life. It would not have been so terrible. Children can be replaced.”

  There was a collective gasp among the humans gathered in the room.

  “Night wings, however, are rare and beautiful creatures.”

  “I’m not going to argue with you there,” I said, carefully. “I did not want to hurt them but I was charged with protecting the people of Fortune. I know an oath is very important to your people, is it not?”

  She cocked her head to one side and inclined her head in subtle acknowledgment.

  “I had an oath to uphold and I did so by protecting those weaker than me. You must understand that.”

  She pursed her lips reminding me of the whistler and I cast a sideways glance in my father’s direction. What was his plan here? What was he hoping to achieve?

  “I can understand that,” she said. “If it were true. Those who are here said you acted without their consent and therefore all your talk of an oath is nothing but a fabrication.”

  Shaking my head, I sucked in a deep breath. “I have no reason to lie to you about this. I—”

  “You have every reason to lie,” the ruddy cheeked man said. “You’re just trying to save your own skin. We did not bind you to an oath. You were sent to Fortune on good faith and you repaid that faith by murdering those creatures in cold blood.”

  I opened my mouth to answer but he raised his hand and shook his head. “I’ve heard enough. I don’t need to know anymore. Do you?” He directed his question to the fae who in turn shook their heads. “Do you accept this as our peace offering? You are free to do with her as you please but if she sets foot in the human realm after today she will face the full wrath of our law.”

  “We accept your terms,” the male fae said a small smile curling his lips.

  “Wonderful.” The man next to me clapped his hands gleefully. “Now we can begin the real festivities with our—”

  “They’re trying to trick you,” I blurted out.

  The fae halted their movements. It was unnerving to see them standing so still and I wasn’t even sure if they were breathing as their eyes locked onto me.

  “What do you mean?”

  “They plan to burn another shadow sorcerer and a demon,” I said, my words tumbling out of my mouth so fast they tripped over themselves. “The demon is mine. I have claimed him.”

  “What does it matter if we burn a demon?” The man who had struck the deal said.

  “It matters because our fates our bound to one another,” I said, watching as my father’s eyes widened almost imperceptibly. “Burn him and I die too.”

  My declaration had the desired effect on the proceedings and everyone started to talk at once.

  A commotion broke out at the back of the room and I raised my head in time to see the young man we’d taken from the mall grab a man and hurl him across the space. His eyes rolled in his head as he clawed at his face. White froth coated his lips as he grabbed a woman in a sequin dress and dragged her in close as though he was about to tell her a secret.

  She lurched away from him, looking utterly disorientated before she collapsed to the ground unconscious.

  The whistler had infected him. But when?

  “Shit,” Jason muttered as he started to usher the guests from the stage.

  “You all really should stay around for the main event,” my father said as he blocked the exit from the stage.

  “Sir, please if you would just—” Jason cut off as a low whistle whispered through the crowd.

  I clapped my hands over my ears a second too late, the ear worm sliding into my head just as it had that first time.

  What was the tune?

  The collar around my throat grew uncomfortable as the heating metal burned into my skin and I came to with a jerk.

  Jason was halfway across the room, grappling with the whistler. Small pockets of guests were tearing each other apart in the middle of the room. And in one corner I could see Victoria had shifted to her changeling form and was holding one of the Saga Knights up against the wall.

  When had everyone moved?

  “It takes a little getting used to,” my father said from next to me.

  I spun around and found myself face to face with the man I’d killed.

  “You were dead,” I said, my voice barely able to form the words.

  “I was but now I’m not.”

  “How is that possible?”

  “You opened the gates of Hell, Amber, and I took my chance.” He reached out to me and tucked a stray strand of my hair back behind my ear just as he used to when I was little. “I’d thought you were a failure. I’d thought you were like your mother.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “She was always so concerned with right and wrong. Protecting the balance at all costs, she couldn’t see what I could.”

  “Don’t you talk about her like that,” I said. “Don’t you dare talk about her. You destroyed our family and she was the one who was there to pick up the pieces.”

  He laughed then and the sound broke my heart. For so long I had longed to hear him laugh just like he used to. And now here he was—as though I had plucked him straight from my memory.

  “Come with me, Amber. There’s a new world order coming and you can help me usher it in.”

  I swallowed past the lump in my throat. There was a time when I would have done anything he asked of me. When I would have willingly put my trust in his… But not now. Too much had changed.

  “So you can use me like you used Lily?”

  He recoiled as though I had slapped him. “She was weak. She couldn’t keep up and she is going to pay the price for her stupidity.” He smiled then. “They both will.” He nodded his head in the direction of the pyres and I turned in time to see the first flames lick up around Lily and Alastor’s feet.

  “It’s too late for them. Come with me.”

  Turning away from him, I hopped from the stage and raced through the crowd as Lily’s terrified screams pierced the air.

  Alastor squirmed away from the flames as they sought to get a grip on him but the flames were slowly winning.

/>   The leg of Lily’s trousers had already caught fire when I reached her and I grabbed the fire extinguisher from the wall.

  She lifted her petrified gaze to my face and then looked past me to something over my shoulder.

  The hairs lifted on the back of my neck as someone’s hot breath tickled my ear. The whistler’s tune swept through me electrifying every nerve ending until I felt like I was the one who was on fire.

  He turned me slowly and whistled again until my head felt like it would explode.

  Something warm and wet trickled from my ears and down my face.

  The rage I had felt earlier was ignited and my power rose unbidden. It spilled up my throat and pressed against my skin, the collar around my throat keeping it inside where it could do no harm and still the whistler’s tune taunted me.

  The fire extinguisher hit the ground as I dropped to my knees. I grabbed my head and screamed as the whistler’s voice whispered to me of all the things we could do, should do.

  Reaching for the fire extinguisher once more I imagined how it would feel to cave Alastor’s skull in.

  “I’m dying, Amber. Release me or we will both perish here.” Alastor’s voice echoed in my head, a deafening shout that drowned out the whistler’s whispers for a moment.

  And then the whistler was back again. Urging me to end my sister.

  “I know you hear me. We don’t need to both die here. The fire is killing me anyway. I release you from your bond, Amber Morgan.”

  There was a wrenching pain in the shoulder that held the demon mark, as though the symbol was trying to untangle itself from me.

  Climbing to my feet, I turned to face him, fire extinguisher in hand.

  I stepped up onto the dais next to him, the flames curled up around my legs as it struggled to consume us both. And still in my head the whistler’s tune had become a deafening scream.

  Gritting my teeth as the fire bit into me I stared up into Alastor’s eyes. “You won’t be rid of me that easily.”

  Leaning up on tip toe I kissed him.

  I kissed him as I had done that day in Fortune only this time I held nothing back.

  “I bind myself to you, demon. From this day forth you are mine and I am yours…” Acrid smoke burned my eyes. “Body and soul.”