by Sierra Cross
Ugh. I growled, but the look on their faces was set. “Okay. I’ll just watch. I promise to stay outside.” He regarded me skeptically. “Look, I’m leaving my blades behind.”
We snuck along what passed for a street until we were tucked in the bushes outside the lone house.
Golden warm light spilling from the windows gave us a crystal-clear view of what was going on inside. Looking through the glass, I saw neither ugly demons lounging without their glamours nor thug-like shifters throwing beer cans.
What I saw was little kids, from toddler to teenager. I counted eight of them.
A small, pale-skinned, towheaded boy was jumping on the couch squealing for French fries like it was a super special treat. A patient-eyed preteen girl with brown skin and dreads was doling out the food onto plates. As she stretched her arm to divvy out the hamburgers, her wrist poked out of her sleeve, revealing a mark…a tattoo? And she wasn’t the only one who had one. A tall teen boy of Asian descent, with a pink streak in his hair, scooped up the five-year-old and brought him to the table, and both their wrists bore the same black mark. It was a barcode.
Like Kavon’s tattoo. Those weren’t just tattoos, I realized with a sickening certainty. The Omnis had been branded...like cattle.
These children had been born in a lab. But they were still children. And even from this distance I could see what this was. A family dinner. They were all different ethnicities, different ages, but they had one startling trait in common. Glowing orange eyes.
“Kavon brought burgers and fries!” The five-year-old yelled. He shifted into a flop-eared beagle puppy, leapt from the teen’s arms, snatched a burger in his mouth, and ran off. Peals of the kids’ laughter seeped out through the window, into the night. The four of us huddled there, speechless. I was so stunned I barely registered that the Omni—Kavon—was wearing the chain around his neck. The pendant glowed beneath his shirt.
“There are kids in there,” Liv said.
“The amulet is in there,” Asher reminded her.
“We can’t blast our way through them—”
“May I remind you that fuck killed Marley and her acolytes. And that Omni is helping to bring back Tenebris, who, among other things, wants to own Alix?” Asher was shaking with anger. “I’m not relishing it, but if any of these kids get caught in the crossfire? It’s on his head.”
“That’s not how we do things,” Matt said.
“Not in a perfect world, guardian, but what choice do we have? By now the Fidei will have enlisted the warlocks’ help. There will be tripwire spells on every corner in Seattle. I’m sure they’ve got the witches scrying for us as we speak—I could do a spell to tamp down our signatures, but that won’t last long. If we don’t take him now, we should just go ahead and end it all. We’re as good as dead anyway.”
“Shit.” Matt kicked the dirt. “I know they’re all deviants, but look at them. They’re a bunch of kids. I can’t do it. Can’t turn ‘em in, definitely can’t kill them. ”
“I don’t think it’ll come to that.” I pointed through the window. The Omni, the vicious killer, was pouring milk and coaxing all the kids into the chairs at the table, patience and love written all over his face. I didn’t get this guy at all. “I think he would give himself up to protect those kids.”
My coven stood on the front porch, our twined magic purposefully visible. The golden light sparked, flowing in a stream, connecting us, boosting our powers.
Liv raised a hand and the door swung open with a deft fluid movement.
Kids’ high-pitched screams pierced the wooded darkness. The teen boy shifted to a panther. Kavon stood and stepped in front of the snarling beast, remaining in human form.
“Change back,” Kavon said in an even commanding tone. The boy resisted. “Do it!” The cat was a teen again, but snarling in human form. The preteen girl looked poised to shift next. “All of you. Stay as you are, that is an order.”
The little kids screeched and cried uncontrollably. Kavon had to hold back older kids who were trying to fling themselves at us. He knew how this battle would end. It was written on his face. He might get away, but he couldn’t save all of them.
“We won’t hurt them,” I said.
Kavon’s brows knitted in what looked like deep skepticism. Kids sniffled and hiccupped in the residue of panic. Tension built so thick I could feel it seep into me. Magic blasts surged on our fingertips, an ever-present warning.
“Panic room.” Kavon snapped the words like an order. The children corralled themselves into a tight circle behind him. He hurled a spellbead onto the floor and mumbled words just below my range of hearing. A shot of light burst from the multi-sided bead, casting a shimmering web of ethereal filaments into the air. It flew up and out, weaving a luminescent dome of protection around him and the children.
“Your magic will not penetrate this force field.” Kavon’s face was unyielding. “And it will incinerate any threat on contact. Step aside.”
“We can’t do that,” Matt said. “And you know it.”
“So be it.” Kavon moved forward. As if he were a mother duckling, all his chicks followed behind him, the filaments of magic stretching and bending to accommodate.
From the other side of the room, a bark sounded. The small tri-tone puppy was tucked up against the couch trembling, shifting from whining dog to crying child, finally settling on human form. “K-k-k-k,” the five-year-old was crying so hard he couldn’t form words. “K-kavon?” He was hunched down, half hiding, reaching chubby pink fingers out to the Omni. He wanted to be with his family but the force field had closed without him.
Kavon swore under his breath. The kid shifted into puppy and made a dash toward the rest of his family. “No!” Kavon shouted. I was paralyzed in horror, knowing the child would be incinerated if he hit the force field. It was happening too fast. I stumbled forward, but Matt flung himself over me, rolling to absorb the impact as he scooped up the puppy. The animal bared its puppy teeth in a snarling and biting frenzy. Then the little Omni shifted to an orange tabby kitten and sunk its claws into Matt’s exposed flesh. Ribbons of blood ran on Matt’s forearm as he tried to hold the shifter without hurting him.
“If my friend lets him go,” Asher said, “he’ll fling himself at that dome. And you’d have to drop the spell to let him in.”
Kavon let out a keening agonized growl. “Another three days. That’s all I needed to get them out of here,” he said to himself as he watched the hysteria of the child build. What kind of mass murderer was this? He looked like he was on the verge of sacrificing it all for one child. “What will you do with my kids?” he asked. The kids’ crying and pleading erupted behind him, but he spoke over them. “Give me your word you’ll you let the kids go.”
“Are they okay on their own?” Liv asked.
“Yes, they are strong and capable.” Sadness mixed with pride in his broken voice. His shoulders slumped, all power gone from his demeanor. Another set of ancient words left him, barely audible, and the dome flashed into nothingness. Matt set down the kitten and mid-run he shifted to a boy and flung himself at Kavon’s legs. The big man picked up the crying child, whispering something in his ear, and then he handed the child to the teen boy.
Kavon stepped away from the children, the kids let out another round of shrieks. The Omni looked up at me, anguish burning in his eyes. “Promise me, you’ll let them go. Your word,” he pleaded.
“I swear. We won’t tell anyone about the kids,” I said, my heart breaking for this…murderer?
“You have our word. We won’t turn them in,” Matt said. “But you need to come with us.”
“Tate, you’re the head of this clan now,” Kavon said to the teen who was red-faced, fighting his own emotions. “You know what to do. You leave when the papers come through, you understand?”
The boy’s lip quivered, but he mustered his courage and nodded.
“All right, take me,” Kavon growled, seething.
We got him. Got the murderer who tried to fra
me us. Retrieved the amulet. So why did I feel like such an asshole?
Asher made Kavon climb into the car’s—thankfully enormous—trunk and used a knock-out spell to lull him to sleep. We’d barely driven four blocks when I started to feel a weird energy emanating from the trunk. Like the buzzing of a nearby transformer. “You guys feel that too, right?”
“Feel what?” Liv frowned.
“I think…I can feel the amulet’s power from the trunk.”
Matt cocked an eyebrow at me.
“Not like it’s calling to me or anything,” I said quickly. “I just sense it’s there. Is that weird?”
“I don’t feel it either,” Asher said. “You may just have a heightened ability to sense this kind of magic. It happens. As long as it’s not…sending you messages?”
“No, but I definitely sense it.” And that creeped me out. After my sleep-seducing scene, I was more than a bit twitchy.
“Let’s monitor this,” Matt said.
“Yeah, well, just don’t leave me alone with the damn thing.”
“Alix,” Liv said, turning all the way around from the front seat to look at me. “Thanks for telling us.”
I nodded, taking a moment to relish the warmth that passed between us.
“We’re about out of petrol,” Asher announced, not long after we turned onto Highway 522. “We’ll stop at the next station we see. We should be able to make our phone calls to the authorities from there too.” There weren’t enough bars in this rural area to use our cellphones.
Up ahead, the lights of a tiny mom and pop gas station sliced through the isolated darkness. Asher pulled into the lot. We all milled around the outside of the car, stretching our legs, when Liv had an epiphany.
“Road trip food! That’s what we’re missing.” She smiled and tugged Asher with her. “Hostess doughnuts. Chocolate snack cakes. Apple pie...”
“Hard pass,” Matt said. “But I could use a water,” he added, following them.
“Come on, I’ll buy you a coffee,” Liv called to me.
“I knew there was a reason I loved you. You get me.” I started walking behind them...then realized I could use my daggers for whatever was going to happen next. I always felt better with my knives close to hand. Asher said they were in the trunk. I popped it, figuring nothing but the reverse spell would wake the Omni now.
“Alexandra, what are you doing?” I heard Matt call from the door of the store.
Kavon’s dormant body was a snug fit in the trunk, like an egg in a carton. His hefty arms were tucked up against his torso, legs bent. The glowing amulet around his thick neck gave me the willies.
“Relax, dude,” I said to Matt. “Just rescuing my daggers.” I’d missed their heft on my shoulders, my lethal security blanket. Reaching under the dead weight of Kavon’s body, my fingers found the edge of the harness strap. Careful not to touch the evil amulet, I twisted my fingers around the leather and tried to pull the harness toward me. But the strap was trapped under all that heavy muscle. I gave a good yank and as the harness pulled free my hand jerked up toward his neck. The back of my hand hit the amulet.
A pulse of energy surged into me like a lightning strike. The heat of its power sizzled in my blood. At the edge of my consciousness I heard Matt cursing. Pain permeated my muscles. My body thrashed and pain fried my vision momentarily. A dark magic older than time, both foreign and all too familiar, oozed inside of me like a creature rising from a primordial swamp. The magic scanned my body, an intelligent force, searching…for what? It zeroed in on that peach pit lump in my solar plexus. Where the green magic lived. The residue of the magic I’d sucked from Tenebris’s soul the night we chased him back into the Demon Realm.
I was vaguely aware of Matt sprinting across the parking lot.
Pouncing on its target, the amulet’s magic seared a path through my body. The sensation was like cables connected wrong to a car battery. My body convulsed in pain and disgust at the violation.
My queen, I’ve been waiting for you.
Tenebris. Blood was screaming in my ears and my heart beat against the cage of my chest. The amulet had forged a connection to Tenebris. This couldn’t be happening. The Caedis I hated the most, the demon who killed my parents, was speaking directly to me from inside my head. Bombarding my brain with orders. Every fiber in my body pushed against this invasion…and every fiber failed.
Let me in, Alix. Let me into your realm.
Never. Ugh. Fury overtook me and I tried to scream, but the sound died in my throat. My jaw was clenched in resolve. Not my resolve. Tenebris’s. He was moving my body as if by remote-control.
That’s it. I feel you softening to my call.
By now Liv and Asher had joined Matt, all yelling to me. Tenebris forced my arm up and green light flowed from my fingertips. He was pushing the amulet’s power through my body.
Filaments of twisting chartreuse magic formed a forcefield around me. Matt approached the barrier and white-hot sparks burned him, forcing him back.
Get away from them. Now. You only need me.
I hate you, I thought. But thinking was all I could do now. I was a passenger in my own body.
Matt’s gaze met mine, and I could see his guardian instincts kicking in as he took in my steely mask of a face. Did he think I was betraying him? My anguish was a silent plea buried in my throat. Against my will, my feet marched me to the driver’s side door. My body moved into the seat and the barrier around me dissipated to nothingness.
Hurry, my love.
My fingers turned the ignition and I floored it. The smell of burned rubber and my coven’s shouts chased me as “I” tore out onto the highway without bothering to stay in my lane and narrowly missed an oncoming car.
I watched in helpless horror as the car weaved in and out of traffic, passing every vehicle in front of it on the two-lane highway. The trunk hood was bobbing up and down. Kavon’s huge body slammed against the metal.
As the miles stretched out, I could only pray that Tenebris would get my body killed in a wreck before we reached his destination.
When we were halfway to Seattle, Tenebris’s voice boomed in my head again. I had been driving west along the freeway for over an hour, in the most reckless way possible.
It’s time. Wake my loyal vessel and call him to your side.
Uh, loyal? Tenebris thought the Omni was a true believer? I sure hadn’t gotten that impression.
I felt my hands give the steering wheel a sharp turn as I pulled the car to the next turnout. I didn’t know why Tenebris bothered to give me orders when he was the one pulling my strings. Maybe it got him off.
My feet walked me heavily to the trunk.
“Wake my minion with your magic. His muscle may be needed, should we encounter resistance.”
Please God let there be resistance. Even a Fidei bullet was looking good to me now. Being stuck inside my body as Tenebris’s remote control action-figure was worse than death.
But I had no way to stop it.
Looking at Kavon’s dormant features, I felt my magic sputtering to my fingertips. It balked and jerked against his pull, rebelling.
Don’t fight me, Alix. Even this part of you belongs to me. The voice in my head cooed in a syrupy sweet voice.
I could feel him reaching for my magic again, flinging my hands down toward the ground, forcing my magic into them. It didn’t sing in my veins, it moaned against this deepest of violations. The light showed all over my hands, sloppy gold tinged with chartreuse green.
Yes, my love. Yes. Give me more.
I flung my hands again, grunting with the pain of his force. Light bloomed, enveloping my hands, encircling my wrists and all the way up my forearms.
Tenebris whispered in my brain again, foreign words in a strange mellifluous accent. Syllables with sharp edges. Phrases with a musical cadence. My lips parted without my willing them to, and his words came tumbling from my mouth. An incantation in the demon tongue. I repeated the words over and over as I bathed Kavon
in the glowing magic that emanated from my body.
The Omni woke with a start, hurling a punch before he could even open his eyes. Tenebris’s reflexes took over me. He arched my shoulders back, dodging the blow. Throwing my arm up, he/I caught the trunk hood and slammed it down on Kavon’s skull.
“Fool,” I heard my voice say in an imperial tone I’d never used before. “I’m taking you to the Demongate for your ascension.”
“And why would you do that, witch?” Kavon rubbed his head where the metal had made contact with his skull, his orange eyes narrowed at me in suspicion.
“I have seen the error of my past choices, and pledged eternal loyalty to our lord.” My skin crawled at the words that slithered out of me. I was repelled from the inside out.
“Oh-kay…didn’t see that coming,” Kavon muttered. He gave me a long look. I wished I could somehow communicate with him that it wasn’t me in charge. The best I could do was a moment of eye contact.
“Circumstances have changed.” I heard my voice say stiffly. My caged will rattled against my captor’s grip, but the hold didn’t loosen. “Get in the car.”
Kavon surprised me by climbing out and sitting in the passenger seat, his large body leaning against the door. The moment we started rolling again he spoke softly to me. “You can fight it, you know.”
“What are you talking about?” Tenebris scoffed with my voice.
“I know you’re in there, Alix.” Kavon spoke with more conviction than I would have had in his place. “The amulet’s power isn’t absolute. I’ve been where you are. I forced the demon out of my head. It’s not too late for you to do the same.”
Tears came to my eyes, but Tenebris moved my wrist roughly across my face to wipe them. Then he jerked my right arm up toward Kavon and forced my magic to my fingertips again. A thick glowing chain of magic—more green than golden—surrounded Kavon. Tying his limbs down, tethering him to his seat.
“You disappoint me, traitor,” my voice intoned, sounding bored now. “Yet your body will serve me just as well…once your disloyal soul’s been kicked out.”
“Fight harder, goddamn it,” Kavon commanded me, tugging at the magical chain that held him down. The orange in his eyes glowed brighter and the skin around them shimmered and changed to a cat-like shape before settling back in human form. The chain prevented him from shifting, but not from speaking. “Me, I fought it off by thinking about my kids. How I had to hang on for them. I pictured them all growing up safe in the Seychelles, where there’s no magicborn extradition. You know how rare it is for one Omni to survive to adulthood, let alone eight of them?” The look on his face was sad, but proud. “Think of your family, if you have one,” he said. “Whatever you have to fight for, call it to your mind as strong as you can.”