by Lan Chan
Seeing that I was alert, the demon got to its feet. It wrenched the blade from the ground and approached the circle. I knew I should back away, but I just couldn’t find the motivation. Everything felt meaningless.
The demon paused in front of the rock wall I was staring at. It grabbed my hand. Using the tip of the blade, it nicked my thumb. Blood pooled into a bead on my skin and then trickled onto my palm. The demon pressed my hand against the rock and drew a small circle.
“Think of Him,” it said.
I couldn’t think of anything but despair. Apparently that was enough. The rock surface shimmered. The demon let go of me and I fell back down. I didn’t bother to get up.
My blood soaked into the rock like a sponge. It swirled into a glowing circle of its own and then became a clear reflective surface. It turned into a mirror. Inside that mirror stood a blond man. My throat locked. Instead of a demon, the man who stood there had riveting sapphire-blue eyes, a lightly stubbled, chiselled jaw and broad but elegant shoulders. A snowflake-white cloak like the one Michael and Raphael wore billowed around him. He was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen in my life. And I was terrified. Somehow, I knew who this was.
“Lucifer.” I breathed the name. The man bowed his head to me.
“Alessia, at last.”A slow smile stretched across his devastatingly handsome face. “I’ve searched for you a long time, little one.”
All I could do was stare.
Gnashing and snorting rose up around me. The cow demon grunted as it was jostled by smaller demons appearing as its side. Around the demons with physical bodies, a darkened cloud pulsed. Those were the true demons. I stared, open-mouthed, as the cavern populated with demons. They fell to their knees in front of Lucifer. His attention remained on me.
One of the demons attempted to touch me. Its clawed hand singed as it got close. The contact sparked something inside me. Fear. I curled into a ball.
My mind tried to unbind the circle but it came up against a block. I struggled against the mental wall, but it wouldn’t budge. A fist of rage surged past the apathy. It sprang forth from the well of darkness and slammed into the wall. The barrier wavered. An image bloomed in my mind. One of Kai clutching at his open side, his face twisted in agony. He had Fred pressed up against a tree, the boy’s complexion blue as Kai choked him. The rest of my team were unconscious. I pulled back and gasped.
“Don’t fight it, little one,” Lucifer said. “Your Earth magic will not prevail here. The seraphim would try to shackle you with their petty rules. But you were meant for greater things.”
“Kiss my ass.” My eyelids fluttered. Those few words of defiance sapped my soul. I wilted onto the floor. Lucifer chuckled.
He nodded his head at the cow demon. “Drain her, Behemoth.”
The demon came towards me. Dark eyes ringed in red locked with mine. The edge of the blade glowed. Uh oh.
In any language the word “drain” didn’t have the best connotations.
My mind screamed at me to run. But my body wouldn’t cooperate. I lay there like a crash dummy while Behemoth tore into the circle with its blade. The barrier that had kept the lower demons at bay sputtered. The smaller demons snapped their teeth. They reached out with six-inch-long claws. One squat demon opened its mouth only for another smaller head to protrude from its open jaw. Both of the heads had teeth that would make a shark envious.
“Do not touch her,” Lucifer drawled. His tone was conversational, but his eyes had gone granite hard. The writhing demons turned to stone. Their fear of him was telling. If I weren’t so lethargic, my heart might have stopped.
Behemoth stepped into the circle. Its blackened lips pulled into a hideous grin. It nudged me with its cloven foot so that I lay on my back. Despite what Lucifer had said, I tried to draw a protection circle around myself. It did all of nothing. Behemoth spread its legs akimbo. “Fast or slow, Father?”
“It doesn’t matter. She’ll be mine either way.”
Behemoth brought its sword up above its head with both hands. The tip glinted. It brought the sword down and buried the tip in my side. I screamed. My heart felt like it was exploding in my chest. Pain fractured the coating of apathy around my mind. It raced along my nerve endings. Agony split me in two. My mind retreated, unable to cope with the hurt. Blood poured from my broken organs. It spilled onto the circle and pooled below me. The circle hummed, sucking in the blood with a greed that was animalistic.
Lucifer brought his arm up and pressed against the image in the rock. It sprang back but seemed to flicker. His smile broadened.
In my thoughts, I was no longer inside the cavern. Wind whipped at my face as I stood on a grassy hill. The demons at my back fought against invisible bindings. They wanted to tear into their enemy, and I was holding them back.
In the distance, a figure with pristine white wings spiralled down from the sky. He circled the forces on the opposite encampment and then landed gracefully on his feet. Gone was his uniform of sweats and T-shirts. Kai wore the same breastplate with the seraphim insignia as the ones I’d seen inside Seraphina. His broadsword was strapped to his back. His head turned in my direction. Our eyes locked.
Behind him, a tan lion approached with a pack of wolves and a Tasmanian tiger. Two dwarves rode beside them on stout geldings. Overhead, a storm cloud rumbled, marring the sky of a perfectly sunny day. Beneath the shelter of the cloud, a mass of pale-faced vampires stood wary.
My lower lip quivered. Somehow, I knew it to be a glimpse into our future. One day, I would be riding into battle against my friends.
The realisation shocked me back into the present. My lips and the tips of my fingers were cold despite the fire in my side and the one glowing all around me.
“You saw it,” Lucifer said. “The inevitable. Don’t fight it, little one.”
The nickname jarred. When Raphael called me that, it made me feel sheltered and protected. Like nothing in the universe could touch me. When Lucifer said it, I saw it for what it was. A sign of his dominance over me.
My eyes closed. The pain in my side had travelled over my chest and down to my hip. It was like a siphon. The circle behind me sucked every bit of joy from me. I felt like I would never be happy again.
Above me, Behemoth grinned. Its hairy nostrils were wet. Like an excited dog. Lucifer pressed his hand against the barrier in the stone once more. It almost gave.
“Soon,” he said.
Soon what? Soon I’d be dead was the thought that popped into my mind. I would die on the floor of a Hell dimension rock cavern. Nanna would wake up one day and I would be dead. I’d never get to go to Zambia with Sophie on our mid-semester break to meet her parents. Or try out any of the food she had promised me. I’d never know if I passed the exams. I’d never figure out what this confusing thing was between Kai and me.
I would give up.
Everything inside me revolted at that thought. I was so tired, though. I ached all the way down to my marrow. Behemoth turned its meaty hand around the hilt of its sword. It twisted. I had thought I was at the limit of my ability to feel pain. I was wrong. In a futile effort to go with the flow so that the blade would stop burning my insides, I twisted to my left. A heavy object in my pocket knocked against the ground. It made lying there uncomfortable. That’s when I remembered the gift the wood nymphs had given me. My eyes watered.
Reaching into my pocket with zero stealth, I pulled the Arcana fruit out. Neither Behemoth nor Lucifer paid me any heed. They were more interested in the glow of the circle which had become a beacon. More and more demons streamed into the cavern.
I took a bite of the Arcana fruit. I was so weak that my teeth barely grazed the skin. My tongue pushed against the bruised flesh. The moment the juice touched my taste buds, the apathy in my mind lifted. I chomped down in earnest. It did nothing to dull the excruciating pain in my side. What it did was make me angry about it.
That stupid, smug bastard had stabbed me. I was sick of getting stabbed. I took another bite of
the fruit. It didn’t have the power to heal me. If anything, the pain became more acute. It brought back the sharpness in my mind, though. I was bleeding out on the floor, it kept telling me. The rage built.
I looked around at all of those eager, terrible faces. The demons were licking their lips. Some of them were naked. Their excitement wasn’t just burning in their eyes. It hit me that we were just below the Fae forest. They were within the confines of the Academy. Fred had let them inside. The rage turned into a blinding fury.
A wave crashed in my ears. My head turned to find the sound. It took me seconds to realise it wasn’t anything external. I glanced inside and found a whirlpool had appeared in the well of my power. The layers of pristine blue and navy had parted. The core of black rose up.
Outside my body, the barrier sputtered. Not because it was weaker, but because the source of power had shifted.
That voice in my mind again. Not of a demon but of something ageless and familiar. Don’t be afraid, it said. I wasn’t. I was pissed.
Maybe I was demonic. I couldn’t think of a better way to fight a demon than if I was a demon too. For once I was glad of it. Behemoth’s thick brows creased. Its stance shifted. Pudgy fingers tightened on the hilt. It was now or never.
Gripping onto the dark power, I drew a series of circles around its throat. Unlike my Earth magic, this was something that came from an unknown source. The power surged up inside me, more than willing to comply. Behemoth twisted the sword. I cried out as it gutted me. At the same time, the dark power choked it. The power entered its mouth and nose, its eyes and its ears.
“Behemoth!” Lucifer screamed. I yanked. The darkness swarmed the demon. It flushed into its blood stream and ate it up inside. Behemoth staggered backward, no longer clutching the sword. Its hands beat at its chest, clawing at it as though it were trying to rip the darkness out of its body. The circles were a visible shackle around it.
“Release him!” Lucifer commanded. I gave him a one-finger salute. He bellowed his rage. I realised then that his power was simply in manipulation. Wherever he was, Lucifer was trapped. Just like he’d said in my dreams. He needed my blood to release him. Well, he sure as hell wasn’t going to get any more of that.
As Behemoth struggled to breathe, I took hold of the blade’s edge. The other demons tried to break through the new circle I had drawn around me, but it held. The moment my fingers clasped the cold metal, it quivered. The thing hummed in my hands as though it were alive. Before my very eyes, the blade reshaped itself into a smooth weapon, smaller and slimmer. It was the perfect size for me.
I grabbed hold of the newly formed hilt and ripped the blade out. Using it as a crutch, I pushed myself off the floor. Once I was no longer in contact with the red circle, its pulsing slowed. Lucifer snarled. The demons in the cavern joined in the unearthly chorus.
I looked at the fallen seraphim then at the demons that had trespassed on my school. A bubbling of rage spilled over inside me. I opened my mouth and roared. At the same time, the darkness became a rippling pool of circles. They crested over the demons, and smashed against the walls. The earth rumbled.
Behemoth stomped towards me. It had gotten hold of another weapon. A mace. It swung the mace in heavy circles. If I didn’t duck, it was going to take my head off. I backed up, raising my new sword in the defensive stance Kai had taught me. The weapon was so light, so well-fitted to me that it felt like an extension of my arm. Behemoth charged. It was just outside the circle when a burst of green shot through its chest. I saw the flames licking the tip of the sword that speared through its chest from behind.
“You didn’t think I would repay the favour?” Kai asked.
Black blood oozed from Behemoth’s mouth. Its eyes rolled back in its head. Lucifer screamed with rage as his image dissolved. I brought my sword down on the red circle. The darkness poured out of me and into the sword. The red circle shattered. So did everything else.
42
The first stone hit me right on the shoulder. It wasn’t a big one, but it had enough momentum to pack a punch. The stone became the straw that broke my back. I keeled over. The world around me shook. The cavern was coming down around us. Portals opened up everywhere as demons rushed through them. Kai took out any that came near him.
He cut his way through the demons to get to me. I was slumped over on the ground when he reached me. “Blue! Don’t close your eyes!”
My eyes snapped open. The dizziness abated momentarily as I saw a boulder the size of my head careening towards me. Kai moved the second he noticed my eyes going wide.
“No!”
His wings erupted from his back. His shoulder jerked when the boulder hit him, but he wouldn’t bend. It wasn’t the only one though.
“Go!” I sobbed. He placed his hands on my face. I felt the first tingle of that pleasure and pain sensation. But before he could teleport us, the ceiling collapsed. With the last reserves of my energy I asked the tree roots of the Fae forest for help. They were shallow and weak. So was my Earth magic. Down here it was tainted. I could barely feel it. The months of contact with the Hell dimension had the roots shrinking away. All they could do was slow the avalanche. The roots twined with the structure of the cavern, holding back some of the bulk of the boulders. The smaller ones rained down on us, scratching and bruising my face. I could no longer remember what it was like to be without pain.
Kai curled his body around me, his wings acting like a shield. He probably could have teleported easily without me. When the shaking finally stopped, the world was absolute darkness. The air was stale. I could barely breathe. And yet, I could feel the demon blade still in my grip. Thankfully, I could wriggle my toes so nothing seemed broken. There was a reason for that.
Above me, Kai pulled in a ragged breath.
“Are you okay?” he rasped.
“I think so.” My breath caught. “Are you holding back the ceiling?”
He was silent.
“Kai?”
Nothing. I could still feel him breathing, but he refused to answer me. Not even to snark at me for getting myself into this situation. That’s how I knew it was bad.
I tried to move my legs but his thighs were pressed up against them. From the waist down, I was locked in.
My body shivered when I felt his fingertips touch me where Behemoth had stabbed me. Green light glowed from his palm. It created enough light for me to see the situation we were in. Shit. “Stop!”
It was like telling the wind not to blow. “You can teleport out of here.”
His eyes flicked over my face. We both knew if he teleported the ceiling would come down on me. His wings boxed me in on either side. It hurt my heart to see the majestic beauty of them bent and broken. White feathers decorated the floor beside me.
My side tingled as he fed the last of his strength into me. I squirmed. “Stop healing me, you jackass!”
He only smiled. His head dipped. Kai ran the tip of his nose over my left cheek. “I failed,” he said. A sob blew past my heaving chest. I bit my tongue to keep from crying.
“Don’t,” I pleaded. A tear trickled down the side of my face. “We’ll get out of this. Things will be okay. I didn’t just beat out a demon so that I can die.”
His face became a series of grim lines. “You’re not going to die.” His right shoulder jerked. The rubble kept sliding.
“Do you want to know why nobody wanted you on their team?” he said. “It’s because I told them that if anything happened to you, I’d rip them apart limb from limb. I didn’t want you in my exam. I knew it was going to be dangerous. But I couldn’t protect you from this. I’m sorry.”
I wanted to punch him. “Stop whining and help me figure out a way to get us out of here,” I said, as my head thumped. Neither of us could move. We were coasting against the thinnest margins. One breath out of place and the whole thing could come crashing down.
Kai’s green light flared. His eyes shone with determination even as his lips went pale. “Kai.” It was a wh
imper. “Please don’t.”
He brushed my jaw with his lips. I froze. “I’m sorry, Alessia.”
I would have gasped if his mouth hadn’t captured mine. His lips were still warm. I didn’t dare breathe as he parted my mouth with his tongue and drank me in as though savouring me. Every nerve that had been in pain a moment ago sighed with pleasure. He bit my bottom lip and sucked it into his mouth. The sensation had my back arching. His tongue drew roughly across the seam of my mouth where he’d bitten me. Everything inside me tingled. It was the reason why I was unprepared for the sudden burst of pain.
No!
My eyes snapped open in time to see his sad, green gaze dematerialising. No, he wasn’t teleporting. He was teleporting me. His name locked in my throat as I was thrown through a chasm.
I landed with a thud on a patch of grass. A sword clattered to the ground beside me. No, not one. Two. Kai’s broadsword and my demon blade.
“Argh!” I heard Sophie scream. And then I was screaming too.
“Kai!”
I beat at the ground. In my thoughts, I felt the cavern give way, burying him. Somebody tried to touch me, I threw them off.
My head swivelled. Gathered around the spot were Jacqueline and a number of the teachers. Hovering in the air were Curtis, Bran and a few other Nephilim guards I didn’t know. Professor Mortimer stood on the periphery, his eyes closed, his palms lifted up towards the air. A deep magenta light swirled around him.
“I can’t get a lock,” he said to Professor Magnus. “There’s just too much demonic energy down there. It’s interfering.” I saw the line of third-year students. And then, in the distance, a gigantic figure cloaked in shadows.
“Do something!” I screamed at Raphael.
The face he turned down to me held the weight of my sorrow. Instead of making me hurt, it just pissed me off. “Fine,” I said. “I’ll do it myself.”