Kingdom of War (Kingdom Journals Book 4)

by Tricia Copeland

  I swiveled, keeping myself positioned between him and Alena. “I’m powerful and fast.”

  “I can see that.” Theron jumped to the sword and launched himself over the side of the building.

  Alena struggled against my grasp. “Where did he go? We’ve got to go after him. We were so close to getting the sword. Getting him to join us.”

  “No, we have to get you inside and home.” I wrapped my arms around her, and keeping low, shot for the door.

  I pressed the elevator button but decided the stairs would be faster. Inside the stairwell, I grabbed my phone and called Will to get the car and then Jude to be ready.

  “But you said I’m healing, right?” Alena stopped on a landing.

  The wound had closed, but a stark-white line, like a new scar, persisted. I pulled the handkerchief from my breast pocket. “Yeah, it’ll be fine. Here.”

  “I want to say goodbye to my friends.”

  I wanted to yell at her, make her understand how scared I was for her, how idiotic I felt for exposing her like that in the first place. I should have played it safe. We shouldn’t have been on that roof. I stopped and gripped her arms. “Alena, I’m so sorry. We should’ve never been up there. We need to get home, now. We have no clue whether Theron contacted Sonia and my father, if he’s playing both sides, or if they sent him here.”

  “He was being honest. I know he was. He wants away from them. Is there something you’re not telling me? Is my cheek okay?” She held up her phone above her head.

  I grabbed her hand and pulled her to the stairs. “It’ll be fine. Let’s just get home.”

  As we jumped down the flights, she talked to her friend Sophie, and I directed Jude to meet us at the bottom of the stairs. Aaron, Dimitri, Jacob, and Jude surrounded us as we exited to the lobby.

  Sophie froze as we approached. “Alena, what happened? There’s blood everywhere!”

  Alena pressed the handkerchief to her cheek. “The wind is crazy up there. A piece of glass hit my face. But it’s okay. I just need to get a bandage on it.”

  “Your dress is ruined.”

  “It’s just a dress, at least it didn’t get my eye.”

  “I guess so. I’m so bummed you have to go. What about the after party?”

  “I’ll text you,” Alena called back to her as our vampire bodyguards herded us to the exit.

  Outside, Jude strode ahead and opened the door. As Alena stepped into the vehicle, Camille flung her arms around Alena. “Are you okay?”

  Alena wriggled out of her embrace. “Tell me the truth. How bad is my face?” She exposed the line on her cheek.

  “It’s fine. It’s healing.”

  “Healing or healed?”

  “There’s still a mark, like a new scar.”

  Alena’s breaths became jagged. “It should be healed completely. I don’t have a single scar on my body.”

  Holding up her phone, she examined the wound. “What if I’m marked or the sword was laced with poison?”

  Heart racing, I braced myself as the vehicle sped through traffic. Would Theron poison Alena? Was she somehow linked to the sword? Could they find her? Shove another soul into her body?

  “No.” I wrapped my hand around hers. “Theron said he wouldn’t hurt you.”

  Alena made bug eyes at me. “Right before he hurled the sword directly at my heart.”

  “It’s my fault. I provoked him. He wants to get to me by hurting you, force me to help him.”

  “Help him what?” Jude looked between Alena and me. “What happened up there?”

  Wrapping my arm around Alena, I pulled her to me. “We’ll tell you everything once we’re safe at home.”

  Turning into the parking structure, we descended two levels to our private garage. Will stopped beside the door to the elevator. Anne, Chalondra, Orm, and several vampire guards surrounded us.

  “Everyone is making too big a deal of this.” Alena shoved me away and exited the vehicle.

  Her mom held up a blanket, and Alena whisked past Anne into the stairwell. Jumping from the SUV, I ran after her.

  “What’s wrong? Everyone’s just concerned about you.”

  “I know, and I hate it.” She jumped to the next flight. “I need a shower and some time alone.”

  I watched as she bolted up the stairs, slamming the door on the top floor behind her. Returning to the group, we rode the elevator in silence. It wasn’t until we were in her foyer that Anne’s hard gaze landed on me.

  “What were you thinking? Why were you on the roof?”

  “Alena wanted to go.”

  “And you obliged her, of course.” Jude shook his head.

  “Give him a break. He couldn’t have known Theron would show up with the sword. I’m going to make sure Alena’s okay.” Camille started towards Alena’s room.

  My stomach churned as I thought how close Theron came to harming Alena. “Can we sit, maybe get some water or something?”

  “Will, ask someone to get water. Let’s sit in the study.” Anne crossed into the next room.

  Chin to my chest, I followed her and took a seat. After downing a bottle of water, I relayed what happened, finishing with the fact that the gash on Alena’s face didn’t seem to be completely healing.

  Anne slammed her hand on the table. “How could you have been so foolish?”

  “Believe me. I know how stupid it was.”

  “It wasn’t his fault.” Alena appeared behind me. “Hunter wanted to go to the courtyard. The roof was my idea. Plus, I’m the one who thought Theron may be trying to make things right, join our side.”

  “Sit.” Anne offered Alena her seat. She studied her daughter’s face. “Do you feel okay?”

  “Yeah, I feel fine. But I’ve never had a scar before. Something is different about this cut.”

  Anne approached Orm. “What do you think?”

  “I think we have to take all precautions.” Orm swallowed.

  I stood. “Alena should be made a full witch as soon as possible. How quickly can it be accomplished?”

  “She just has to pass the four tasks.” Camille jumped up. “Each one need only take an hour or so. She can be made a full witch by morning.”

  “If she’s up for it. You should be in top form for the trials.” Orm stood.

  “She’s a vampire hybrid. The trials were only mentally taxing for me. But I guess it’s Hunter’s decision as coven leader?” Jude leaned against the wall.

  Camille shook her head. “You’re forgetting you would have failed the healing one were it not for my help.”

  “She’s smarter than all of us. Healing isn’t a problem, and neither is communication. The leadership piece may be the only challenge. What do you think? Are you ready, Alena?” I hoped and prayed she felt ready.

  “Are you kidding? I’ve been waiting for this all my life. Bring it!”

  We made our way down the hall to the gym. I let Orm take the lead, testing her knowledge of spells and herbs and then her communication powers. Then it was time for the healing challenge. Orm brought in a stray dog from the back alley. Alena laid her hands on his torso, and he ran around yapping and licking everyone within minutes.

  “Okay, Alena, your final trial.” Orm spread his shoulders. “Command the dog.”

  “What do you mean?” Alena curled her fingers and released them.

  “Make the dog do something.”

  Alena crouched over and called the dog to her. It wagged its tail and licked her face. “Sit.”

  “Not with verbal cues,” Orm insisted. “He could have been trained. Command him to do something it would not naturally do. Make it go to Will.”

  Alena’s eyes cut to me and back to Orm. “But that’s just cruel. He’s terrified of them.”

  “He hasn’t even brushed the surface of cruel.” Camille shook her head.

  “Compassion for other beings is your strongest trait. You’re smart, and that serves you well, but your empathy can be a weakness. You must know when to overcome it. R
ight now, if you don’t command the dog, you fail the trial and will never be a witch.”

  He’d gone too far. I balled my hands into fists. “That’s not your call, Orm. It’s mine.”

  “She has to pass the trial.”

  “And she will.” I nodded to Alena.

  “Fine.” Her hands went to her hips.

  The dog’s ears drooped, and it tucked its tail between his legs. He turned to Will and back to Alena. Trembling, it circled to face the huge vampire and inched to him. Large bloody tears formed in Alena’s eyes.

  “Enough. She proved she could do it. That’s all that’s necessary. Do we need a vote, or do I just decide? I believe Alena has passed all the trials.” I surveyed Chalondra’s and then Orm’s moods.

  Even though I was the leader, they were elders, and I thought I owed them the respect of asking their opinions. Not that I would have considered them if they said no. Chalondra and Orm nodded their approval, and I looked to Grady and then Camille, Jude, and Tyler. They each consented in turn.

  I stepped towards Alena and took her hands, not exactly knowing how to proceed. “Alena, you have passed the trials and are accepted into this coven as a whole member of our community. Blessed be.”

  The words formed in my mind as I spoke to them as if from somewhere deep inside me. Alena’s hands warmed and tingled in mine, and a huge smile spread across her face. She flung her arms around me, and I’d never been so happy in my life. This would protect her from whatever hold the sword had on her. It had to.

  “You never told me it felt like this. My whole body is tingling, pulsing with power. I feel like I can do anything,” she whispered in my ear.

  “It’s a lot of power. We have to use it wisely.” On my back, I felt heat emitting from the lance.

  Alena reached out to me. “Is that the lance?”

  I nodded, and she spun to the others. “It’s time to break the curse.”

  “Perhaps you should rest. You’ve been awake for twenty-four hours.” Anne spoke for the first time in hours.

  “Alena, Camille, Jude, Tyler, we should talk.” My mind pinged with the knowledge that DJ should be there.

  This curse started with the witches. The Creator sought to punish . . . Was that what I believed? No, The Creator sought to limit witches’ numbers by forcing them to move and suppress their power in the afterlife by holding their souls in Sheol. The four originators of our people—the archangels—Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, and Alena’s father Uriel—were bound to their angelic form save for one year in a hundred. We, Alena, Camille, and I, the Children of Light, could end the restrictions on our people, allowing us to know peace in this life and the next. What of the vampires? Would breaking the curse allow them to possess souls? Give them the opportunity for their souls to live on?

  I prayed DJ’s absence wouldn’t impede ending the curse. We needed Alena to be safe from being possessed by another soul. Besides destroying the sword of St. Maurice, breaking the curse and releasing all the fallen souls from Sheol represented our only other option. Without souls in Sheol, Sonia and Thanatos—or Theron, I corrected myself—wouldn’t be able to take over any more bodies with their witch minions.

  Alena, Camille, Jude, Tyler, and I met in the center of the room.

  “We should find a quiet room, perhaps in my apartment, and figure out what to do next.”

  “I agree.” Alena took my hand and then Camille’s. “We have to do this right for all of our people.”

  The five of us took the back staircase into my apartment and wound through to the study. The windows faced east, overlooking the city and desert beyond. A faint-pink light grew on the horizon as dawn grew near.

  “I can’t shake the feeling that we should be outside, somewhere holy.” Camille sat in one of the over-stuffed chairs.

  We each took seats and pulled them into a circle around a coffee table.

  “Where are we in the poem?” I slid the paper with the poem from my pocket and smoothed it on the tabletop.

  In a land ringed by gods, an ancient city sleeps.

  The Alonso crest adorns a door, holding the Earth’s ancient lore.

  Their beauty surpassing all, a soulless people roam the earth.

  They know not love of God or man, but a forbidden creature holds fate.

  Younger still, an angelic breed, hold the balance of the creed.

  In their midst, children with three shining souls prepare a lance.

  Once laid out then nevermore, only he may open the door.

  Within the Book that lays the tale, the blade’s true master shall be restored.

  “Here. We prepared the lance.” Alena put her finger on the third to last sentence and read the next line out loud. “Once laid out then nevermore, only he may open the door.”

  “What door?” Camille paced to the window. “Is it a metaphorical door? Is a person being laid out?”

  “Or the lance?” I slid the lance from my pocket and laid it on the table between us.

  The lance started to spin.

  Tyler jumped up. “Who’s doing that?”

  Each of us shook our heads.

  “So, it has magic of its own?” Jude asked.

  “I guess.”

  As I focused on the lance, it slowed and stopped rotating, the tip pointing at me.

  “It chose you.” Alena laid her hand on my thigh. “You’re the one who may open the door.”

  “What door?”

  “Within the Book that lays the tale, the blade’s true master shall be restored,” Camille recited the last line of the poem. “What book?”

  “The Book.” I crossed to the shelves. “The Bible, the Christian or Hebrew?”

  Alena appeared behind me. I swear I’d never get used to how fast or quiet she moved. “Longinus was Roman and converted to Christianity. The carbon-dating data indicated the lance is made of human bone dating back to the earliest humans though. Maybe Longinus just found it. How are we supposed to figure who the true master is?”

  “The bone is old, like Eve or Adam old?” Camille asked. “They were like God? Made of God’s image, so an angel? We’re to restore an angel? But which angel?” Camille joined us at the book case.

  “Not Eve. Lilith. She came before Eve.” I lifted the Hebrew bible from the shelf. “Michael was the leader of the archangels. Who was the first to sire a child with a human? That would have been the first sin, if you will, by the angels, right? Did Michael take a human wife first or one of the others?”

  “Is there any way for us to know that?” Alena plopped into her chair.

  See you know without me even telling you the story, you knew Lilith was the first woman because Lilith—

  “Stop.” I closed my eyes and shut Lucifer out of my head.

  “What? Who are you talking to?” Alena jumped in front of me.

  “No one. Sorry. It was Michael, Michael and Lilith are my great-grandparents.”

  “How do you know that?” Alena shifted to the front of her seat.

  “It makes sense. Lucifer said Sonia was Lilith’s daughter, and she is of Michael’s line, so it’s not a stretch.”

  Now you’re getting close to the mark. Who do you think created the curse? He had to serve penance for his sins. Michael created the curse and killing him will break it. Use the lance to kill Michael. He started this. That’s what the poem says . . . the blade’s true master. You know it’s—

  I slapped my head, forcing Lucifer out of my thoughts.

  Alena grabbed my wrist. “Where did you just go?”

  “Lucifer is trying to convince me to kill Michael.”

  Camille rose from her seat. “Lucifer is talking to you? How often does that happen?”

  “Not often. It doesn’t matter. It’s all lies.”

  “What did he say?” Camille approached, followed by Jude and Tyler.

  “That Michael created the curse to pay penance to God for lying with Lilith, that we had to kill Michael with the lance.”

  “But what happens
if we kill Michael?” Alena asked.

  “And even if we could find him, how do you kill an archangel?” Tyler flung his hands up.

  “We’re not killing Michael. I walked away from them. If Lucifer wants us to kill Michael, we definitely aren’t doing it, even if we could find him. My guess is killing Michael makes all of Michael’s line, including Sonia, die. That’s what Lucifer wants.”

  You want it too. Ignoring Lucifer’s voice, I paced back to them.

  “Maybe we’re making this too hard. Where was that place that Theron and Thanatos took the sword of St. Maurice when Theron became the owner or keeper of the sword, or whatever happened when Theron received the sword?” Tyler posed. “Was that place significant?”

  “I think it was just remote, but maybe.” Alena tapped on her phone and pulled up a map of the park beside the coast.

  “The first humans lived in Ethiopia. It doesn’t fit. Besides, we’re not leaving this building until the curse is broken and Alena is safe.” I wrapped my hand around Alena’s.

  “What about Orm’s library? There must be spells to unlink a spell from a talisman.” Alena started to the door. “Let’s try there.”

  I caught Alena’s arm before she got too far. “Every other answer we needed came from the three of us linking together. It might be that easy. It’s worth a shot. Don’t you think if Orm knew how to break the curse he would have said something?”

  “Hunter’s right? Let’s try it.” Camille held out her hand.

  We sat down around the round coffee table and moved the lance to the center. Holding hands, Alena recited the poem. The lance rotated, again stopping with the point aimed at me.

  “Okay, that’s not freaky.” I shivered as a ping of magic flowed from my head to my toes.

  “What if it requires a blood bond?” Alena released my hand and sped out of the room.

  Returning, she set a knife and bowl on the table. “If we mix our blood and drink it, we’ll be bonded as one.”

  “Worth a shot.” I sliced my hand and let the blood drip into the bowl.

  Alena and Camille did the same. Holding my breath, I took a sip of the red liquid and passed it to Alena. She smiled and downed a big gulp.

  “Show off.” Camille grimaced, took a deep breath, and sipped the blood.