Whiskey and Angelfire

by A. A. Chamberlynn

  Alexander’s chanting resumed, and a buzz of magic rolled through the air around us like static electricity, or the charged air preceding a lightning storm. A glow pulsed out from something beyond the wall of demons, and a cloud of colored powder began to rise into the air.

  “It’s worth a shot,” Quinn said, grabbing my hand.

  “Eli, run defense, will ya?” I asked.

  He nodded sharply and stepped between us and the demons.

  Magic coursed through me as Quinn started weaving her spell. My first instinct was to tense against it, like when Pan had taken over my body and my magic in the faerie gladiatorial arena. But I forced myself to let go, to surrender to Quinn. I trusted her completely, more completely than anyone else in the world.

  The sweet song of her unique power signature resonated within me. Unlike my own magic, rough and wild and untamed, Quinn’s was steady and clear. Bells ringing on a cloudless sunny day, or a perfectly coordinated orchestra rising to its crescendo. Practiced, sure, measured. The strength of it startled me, not that I hadn’t known Quinn was powerful, but she so rarely showed it. Unlike me, constantly struggling for dominance within myself.

  Our magic combined, fire and water, earth and storm, surging out into the night sky. I gasped at the draw of energy being sucked out of me. My knees buckled, but Quinn squeezed my hand and I stood my ground. Our wash of power quickly overtook Alexander’s and it fizzled his into nothingness. But that wasn’t enough. It wasn’t nearly enough. There were twelve other demons casting spells around Dublin. The work had just begun.

  As if through a haze of fog I saw the demons begin to advance on Eli, but the spell was too all-consuming for me to see and hear it clearly. It was as if we stood at the bottom of a lake and they fought on the surface. Muffled, garbled. Flashes of light bounced around us, and the smell of sulfur invaded my senses for a moment, but it was all very distant.

  The stretch of our magic continued, expanding out over the city searching for the other demons. The shock from the initial pull of power passed, and a surge of fire replaced it. I felt strong, stronger than I’d ever felt, even back in the days with Olga. For a moment a wild glee bubbled up in my chest and I felt my magic buck against Quinn’s hold on it. She clenched my hand tightly and I squeezed my eyes shut, concentrating on calming my breath, allowing her to steer.

  Like fingers reaching into darkness, we touched up against the first group of demons. Their spell snuffed out a moment later. Then another at the edges of our expanding circle, squelched a moment after that. We continued on, and my body started to shake at the strain of it, stretching our magic further and further away. Another found and put out, and then another. Almost halfway done. Sweat beaded on my forehead and along my collarbone, and my demon mark glowed brighter. Quinn’s grip on my hand grew shaky, and strands of her golden hair flew out behind her in the magical vortex swirling around us.

  Another drop point reached, and another. Just a few more left. My eyes were still closed and I felt like I might not have the energy to open them. Every fiber of my being sang with exhaustion. But we couldn’t give up. We were almost there. Another spell dissolved beneath our wave of power. Only five more left.

  Through the watery walls of our vortex, I heard someone yelling, a shrill, desperate keen. My eyes opened and sought Eli, and just that slight change in my concentration made our spell waver. “Don’t let go!” Quinn murmured, her voice a gasp of fatigue. I focused on the spell again, putting my last bit of strength into it, everything I had. My eyes fell on Eli, struggling against three demons about twenty feet away. His mouth was opening and closing, his face contorted in horror, but I could no longer hear anything except the hum of magic within the bubble of our spell. I turned my head toward Quinn, her golden eyes fierce with determination, right as they widened in shock.

  Sound and pain crashed in around me as the spell broke. Eli’s screams. The smell of ash and flame. Roars from the demons. An agonizing fire throughout all my limbs, as if my blood had been replaced with poison. The moon glinted on something in the periphery of my vision, below Quinn’s face. My eyes flickered down.

  A jagged blade protruded from the front of Quinn’s chest.

  Alexander stood behind her, a grim smile on his face as he yanked his knife backwards, leaving a gaping hole where Quinn’s heart had been. Blood cascaded down her chest and out her mouth. Life fled her eyes and her body sank, a puppet suddenly cut from its strings. I lunged forward, grabbing at her. She couldn’t be dead. She couldn’t. This wasn’t how our story ended.

  But her body was already cooling in my arms, the lack of life force apparent. As connected as I had been to her magic, her essence, just moments before, I could feel its utter and complete absence like my own missing organ. There was no fixing this, like Eli had done at the riot. Her heart had been all but removed by Alexander’s blade, the damage irreparable. Blood pooled around us onto the pavement, so much blood. The first sob escaped my throat, ragged and wild.

  Behind Alexander I could see Anna grab his hand, urging him to back away. Her eyes fell on mine for a moment, and the rage that rocketed through me was more intense than any feeling I had ever felt in my entire existence. Anna blanched, her expression panicked, and she disappeared in a blur of speed off the top of the building.

  I was on my feet without any conscious thought. Alexander turned to run, but my demon mark flared and I lashed out at him with my power. He fell to his knees, frozen in place. The building trembled as I stalked toward him, the air around us spiraling like a tornado, sucking everything toward it. I stopped before him, his eyes met mine, and he looked truly terrified.

  A gesture with my hand and his arm shot out, straight as if held in a vice. I grabbed my katana about midway down the blade, paying no mind to it cutting into my palm, and carved a symbol on the back of his hand, cutting through flesh and bone. Just a few quick slashes and I was done. Alexander screamed and I kicked him under the chin, sending him flying backwards several feet. He came to a skidding halt on his back.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw two things. One, Eli cutting down the last demon and running toward Quinn’s body. And two, a shadow materializing out of the night about a dozen feet behind Alexander. I half expected it to be Lucifer. But as it solidified, I realized that was wishful thinking. Lucifer didn’t care if I killed Alexander. Only one being would be drawn to my agony like a shark to blood.

  Olga.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  I knew as my eyes met hers that this would be the battle to decide my fate. She would reclaim me, or she would relinquish her hold on me forever. There was no middle ground, no gray area. And that very likely involved one of us dying.

  But she didn’t come for me. She stopped over Alexander, her red hair and white dress whipping in the breeze of power that encircled her. I saw his eyes widen in recognition—somehow he knew who she was, what she was. Perhaps the signature of our magic felt similar, or it was simply the look on her face, which matched mine. She reached a hand toward him and his body convulsed.

  “No!” I screamed.

  Olga’s head snapped up to meet my gaze and her storm-gray eyes narrowed.

  “He is mine.” My words hissed out, low and cold and deadly. “I am the only one who will take his life. It’s my face he’ll see as he takes his last breath, and no other.”

  She lowered her hand and took a step away from him. “Very well, Kaitlyn. I will allow you that.”

  Energy crackled around me. I’d thought I had nothing left, but my rage propelled me. “You’ll allow nothing. I am claiming it, pure and simple, whether you wish it or not. I am not yours any longer.”

  Olga smiled. “We’ll see about that.”

  “Any other night, bitch, and you might be right,” I said. “But tonight we finish this. And I can tell you right now, you picked the wrong motherfucking night.”

  Her power flared out without warning, knocking into me and sending me flying backwards. My own magic rose up to meet it, slowing
my trajectory so I landed in a controlled crouch at the edge of the roof. As I rose to my feet and stalked toward Olga, Eli watched me from where he squatted on the roof, Quinn’s limp body in his arms.

  As I walked, I raised my arms over my head, gathering a storm of magic between my fingers. All my wild magic, the magic I usually couldn’t control, focused with laser clarity on Olga. I was the eye of the storm, the most centered I’d ever been in my whole life, the most centered I probably ever would be. The night my best friend was murdered in front of me. Nothing could stand against me now. Not Alexander. Not Olga. Not even Lucifer and all the hordes of Hell.

  I released my sphere of magic and it enveloped Olga. For a moment she braced against it, but then it shattered her defenses like kindling and she began to scream, a high, terrible wailing. She fell to her knees as it assaulted her, her hair and skin burning away, wilting in on herself as she crumpled beneath it. When it finally dissipated, she crouched on the roof, burned and smoldering, head in her hands.

  My footsteps took me to within inches of her, and I looked down at her ruined form. “I’ll allow you to keep your life,” I said. “Now go.”

  Her faced turned up to me, those gray eyes the only recognizable thing in them, and she vanished in a swirl of red sparks.

  My gaze swept the rooftop. Alexander was gone. Of course that pathetic sack of shit had fled. It didn’t matter, though. I had marked him, and I could find him again. What I had marked on him exactly, I didn’t know. Pure instinct and impulse had driven me to do it. And it was quite possible it was my connection to Lucifer that had coursed through me like that, but I didn’t have time to worry about it now.

  Eli rose, carrying Quinn’s body. Her golden curls spilled over the side of his arm, the tips black with blood. The snow that’d been threatening for days finally began to fall, coating them in crystalline sparks. He stopped before me, his face wet with tears.

  “We need to put her somewhere,” I said, my voice dead and emotionless. “Anywhere but here. Until we can come back.”

  Eli nodded, and I placed my hand on his arm as he stepped us through the pathways. We reappeared in a dim, candlelit place that I quickly realized was a church, a familiar church.

  “St. Patrick’s Cathedral,” Eli whispered. “She’ll be safe here until we can return.”

  My eyes wandered from the ornate floor patterned in a myriad of colors, up the slender fluted stone columns, to the arched ceiling far, far above us. Stained glass windows hung high in the walls, depicting biblical scenes, many with angels. One of them almost looked like Eli. The smell of incense hung heavy in the air. Yes, I had been to this place. At the beginning of my existence, when I was still human, two centuries prior. With my family. With my sister. My sister who had betrayed me. She was the one truly responsible for Quinn’s death, through her lies and deceit. Rage rose within me, but quietly this time. I shivered as it coursed through my veins.

  Carefully, almost reverently, Eli walked down the aisle and set Quinn’s body beneath the alter. I couldn’t stop staring at her, at the shell that had been her, soaked in red.

  “Zy,” Eli said quietly. He was standing by me again and I hadn’t even noticed him approach. He stepped forward to pull me into his arms.

  I looked up at him and stepped away. There was no time for emotion right now. “The battle. We have to warn them.”

  His eyes told me he wanted to say something more, but he just nodded and we stepped through the pathways again, emerging into total chaos. The battle of the angelic forces and the other supernaturals carried on, oblivious to everything else that had transpired, especially the fact that a massive number of demons was about to descend upon them. I felt a wave of nausea. Quinn had died, and we still hadn’t succeeded in our mission. We’d shut down two-thirds of Lucifer’s drop points, but how many of Dublin’s residents had been turned into demons through the other four?

  The main knot of the fight took place in Angel Square, a plaza that had been constructed after Evo to honor the angelic forces, similar to Angel Tower back in Seattle. It was a fairly small space, probably a third of a city block in size, surrounded on all sides by buildings. Four entrances led into the square, one entrance on each side. A white marble statue of two angels marked the center of the square, rising three dozen feet into the air. Snow came down from the sky, dotting the red bricks beneath our feet.

  As Eli and I stood there, trying to decide the next course of action, a hologram appeared on the north side of the square. Ambriel’s video. Riley and Scorch had done it, and they’d taken control of the square’s own hologram advertising machine.

  A hush fell over the square as the message played, and the fighting subsided for a moment. I pushed my way toward the center of the square, Eli on my heels. I climbed onto the stone base of the angel statue as Ambriel’s message finished, and my words rang out into the silence.

  “As you can see, Ambriel is perfectly safe and sound! There is no need for this fight.”

  I heard the rush of wings a moment before Michael landed in front of me, cracking the pavement beneath him. His face was a picture of perfect fury. “What is this trickery?” he boomed.

  “It’s over, Michael.” I looked down at him. “This message has been broadcast around the world over all the major news media outlets. Your nephew is in love with a shapeshifter. You won’t be able to use the story of his kidnapping to manipulate the public and enact martial law over the supernaturals any longer.”

  “He would never…” Michael broke off, spittle coming off of his lips.

  I looked out at the crowd now. “Believe what you want. What’s more important now is that a horde of demons is headed this way as we speak. While you were fighting, Lucifer took advantage of the distraction. They are coming here to annihilate us. We can either continue to fight amongst ourselves, or we can fight as one against our common enemy!”

  Michael’s look of rage turned to one of confusion and disbelief. He opened his mouth to say something, but at that moment a ball of blue fire hit the statue. I dove off the side of it as it slowly toppled to the ground. A cacophony of demon roars split the night.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Answering cries from the angels and other supernaturals rose to the sky. A new enemy had arisen, one everyone could agree on. I went to stand by Eli, and he reached out and squeezed my hand, his lavender eyes on mine.

  “Zy!”

  Riley, Donovan and Scorch ran toward us. Sweat and blood covered Donovan, and he sported a number of cuts and gashes. His eyes lingered on mine for a long moment.

  “I’m sorry we fought,” he said. Seeing the emotionless look on my face, his gaze turned to panic. “What happened?”

  “Where’s Quinn?” Riley asked, his heading whipping around, scanning the supes around us. His eyes finally rested on mine, and he knew. “No,” he whispered, his face twisting in pain. His eyes filmed over with tears, and he pulled me against him, crushing me into his chest as sobs wracked his body. I lay limp in his arms. I couldn’t afford to break right now. I had to stay strong.

  Next to us, Scorch had slumped down to the ground, his eyes glimmering with tears.

  “Get the kid out of here,” I murmured into Riley’s shoulder. “Before things get worse.”

  “I’m not leaving!” Scorch snapped. “Quinn died for this cause, and if it’s needed, I will, too.”

  I opened my mouth to protest, but he rose from his feet, transforming as he went. One moment he was a normal teen boy, the next a towering inferno of flame. Two wings unfurled from his body, made of ash and flame, and he sprung into the air and took off in a circle above the square.

  Another volley of roars washed over us, and Riley released me, wiping his face on the sleeve of his shirt.

  “Let’s finish this,” I said, looking at Riley first, and then Donovan and Eli.

  They all nodded grimly, and Riley and Donovan’s eyes went animal. The first sounds of battle began on the fringes of the square. Eli crouched and spread
his wings, and I saw Michael doing the same a few feet away. Almost in unison, the angels in the square took to the sky, shooting upwards like fireworks of silver and white.

  “I’ve never wished for wings until now,” Donovan growled.

  “We’re all blocked in,” Riley said. “We need to get behind them.”

  “I can help with that,” I responded. I called out to those around us, “Anyone who doesn’t want to wait for the fight to come to them, get in line here!”

  I took Riley’s arm and we jumped through the pathways. A moment later we reappeared a couple blocks away, on the outside of the square behind one of the four entrances. “I’ll bring more,” I said, vanishing again.

  Donovan went next, and when I returned, a swarm of supes waited for me. A familiar face stood at the front of the line.

  “Gus!” I clapped him on the back. “I’d been hoping you didn’t get locked up at NHTF headquarters.”

  Gus snorted, and a bit of smoke came out of his nostrils. “I’d like to see a prison that can hold a dragon.”

  I took Gus to the third side of the square, and for the next few minutes I popped back and forth, until a guerilla force of supes was placed outside the square, about a dozen on each of the four sides. We were behind the swarm of demons pressing in on the center, so we could attack from the back. Donovan, Riley, Gus and I each commanded one side of the square.

  When I returned to my group of supes, I said, “We’ll only have one chance to surprise them. Stealth is on our side for about thirty seconds. Cut down as many as you can, and then our advantage is gone.”

  They nodded, vampire, shifter, witch and faerie alike. We jogged forward on light feet until we saw the demons ahead, then slowed to a walk and crept forward. The sounds of battle at the mouth of the square carried back to us, masking our advance. When we were about five feet away from our targets, one of them turned and tried to cry out, but my katana was already slicing its throat. We mowed through one row of demons without much fight, but then our presence was announced and the true fight began.