by A. K. Koonce
Twenty
Izara
I force myself not to look back as I run. Brush scrapes against my arms and wings, but I never pause once. Not until the thick branches turn to long, weeping vines that hang down from spindly trees.
And I just know that this is it.
Stepping back into the forest is as chilling as it is calming. A heavy fog drifts around my body, and it seems to shield the world around me. No longer are there screams of agony and cries of vengeance burning through the air. The academy is left behind, and then there’s just… cold, haunting remorse hanging in the chilled air.
Orbs of white glide through the Forest of Woe, and I must have blocked out how incredibly depressing this part of hell is. Chill after chill slithers down my spine, and I can't help but wonder if other unseen spirits are walking by me. Through me.
For several seconds that stinging chill of the spirits pulses through me again and again like they’re lost or they’re looking for the exit their other demonic friends have already found. My eyes close to the feel of it, and I grit my teeth as it chills me to the bone. It hurts. It’s a deep-down pain that drills into me more and more with each passing second.
It steals my breath away.
It hurts my heart.
A scream tears from my throat.
Then it all stops.
“You have his eyes,” a voice says, like a warped megaphone streaming out to a flinching crowd.
My lashes open.
The ends of her transparent dress blow in the cold breeze. Her long white-blonde hair does the same, with thin strands flicking across her eternally youthful, translucent face.
There’s so much sadness in her eyes.
I hated her when I saw her last. She’s stuck here in this fucking prison my father owns and… I only made it worse when we met.
“Hello, Etheria,” I say slowly to the only mother I’ll ever have.
The one who wishes I didn’t exist.
Neither of us steps closer. I don’t know why the thought of hugging her is crossing my mind right now.
She tilts her head slowly at me.
“The blood and fire. Has—has it come already?” Her voice quakes just lightly at the end.
I nod.
“He’s charming. He charmed you very fast. He makes everyone who meets him trust and accept him so easily.”
She shakes her head at me like a disappointed mother.
It almost makes me wonder if maybe, just maybe, she too was enchanted by him more than she’ll ever admit. I’m the product of whatever it was the two of them once had together.
I’m just starting to think it wasn’t all violence they shared.
“I think I need your help,” I say with my shoulders squared and my head held high.
I shoved her away the first time. I ignored her cautions.
And now I’m asking without shame for her help.
“I know you do.” She isn’t arrogant when she says it. Her eyes are soft as she looks at me with some form of emotion there.
“Can you come fight? Can you use your power against him?” My mind is reeling with possibilities of how she may be able to help in the chaos waiting for me.
Long blonde hair shifts around her delicate features as she shakes her head slowly at me.
“Angels help in little unseen ways. We prevent futures more than we change presents,” she says in the strangest choice of words. “And ghosts of angels…” She pauses, and the sadness in her features haunts every angle of her face. “We do nothing at all.”
I swallow that thought down. Nothing. She can do nothing.
Why did Azazel tell me I needed her? I don’t understand it. She’s the other half of me. Half of her blood runs through my own. It’s the angelic and the holy warring against the demonic and the hellish. And if she can’t help me…
No one can.
“You don’t need me, Izara. You need you.” She extends her hand to me, her long, ghostly fingers reaching toward me.
My heart trembles in my chest, and my eyes feel wet when I glance up at her and all the remorse that surrounds her.
“Before you go, I want you to know, it wasn’t you I didn’t want. I would have loved you.” My throat hurts when I swallow, and it just makes more tension press into my chest. “It was Lucian’s future I didn’t want. It was his shadow over our lives that I wanted to destroy completely. I couldn’t do it, though. But you can.”
“How?” The question tears out of my throat with a desperate, gasping sound. All my life I was unwanted, and then I was wanted again by a father who manipulated and used me for his own gain. And my mother was always but a phantom in my mind and faraway memories that never even wanted me. Now she says she always did, and I don’t know what to believe anymore.
I don’t know what to do anymore.
I started this and I mean to finish it. Even if it means destroying the man that gave me life.
I just don’t know how.
“I’m not strong enough.” The dampness burns my eyes.
Etheria’s expression is so sad as she takes me in. She’s as haunting as that marble statue built in her honor at the academy.
“You will be.” It’s said like a promise or a premonition. “You just have to accept both sides of who you are first.”
I don’t even know if I can do that. Accepting the hellish side had been so easy because I am destruction. I’ve killed and done irreversible things.
I thought my angel of a mother was the destructive one, the evil one. But maybe, like Azazel says, no one is ever innately good or innately evil. We just have to aim to do the right thing as best as we can. Even if the right thing comes with fuck-up after fuck-up.
And maybe… maybe the angel side of me has been inside me all this time. Maybe as destructive as the hellish side of me has always been.
The dampness in my eyes clings to my lashes, and I step toward her without thought. My hand reaches for ephemeral ones. I expect to only feel cold nothingness.
But I swear she takes my hand in hers. I swear I feel her skin against mine for a single fraction of a second.
Overwhelming power surges through the brief feel of her fingers against mine. It slams into me with unrelenting force. It lights up like a blaze of heavenly fire.
And then the force of it throws me back so hard that I fly through the long vines. I soar past them. I fall back into dry leaves and a chaos of noise.
I land in the familiar academy forest, covered in melting snow.
With more hellacious heavenly power than the world has ever known.
Twenty-One
Malek
My paws feel like they have broken and healed over and over again, though the pain is something that’s far from my mind. Even with the arrival of the vampires from the citadel, the power of the demons is too much.
We’re pushed back until we’re nothing more than a crowd surrounding the headmistress’s statue. The holy water is gone, our magic is slacking, and even I lose my ability to shift.
My body turns back into the form of a man, and I’m too withered with exhaustion to even attempt the change anymore. A part of me wants to just lie down on the earth and fall into a deep sleep. The other part, the snarling wolf that still pants inside my soul, demands I get up. Get the fuck up and protect what’s mine.
Soon, even that voice quiets down, until there’s nothing but the snarls of beasts and the zapping, burning stench of magic and sulfur, with the taste of utter failure in the air.
Strong hands grip my shoulders and yank me up. I don’t turn, but Saint’s voice is breathless in my ear. “Get up, buddy.” He pats along my back and for once, the gesture isn’t meant for discomfort or meaningless flirtation. He slings one of my arms around his shoulders and holds me upright. “I got you, Blues Clues.”
“Fuck… you…” My voice is hoarse from all the growls and snarls, and my mouth tastes bitter with the leftover traces of demon blood. It makes me want to gag.
“That’s the s
pirit.” He winks. “But we can do that after we win this war.”
Even he sounds uncertain, and I know he’s saying it to convince himself as much as me that we have a chance of winning when I know we don’t. We’re backed into a corner, protecting the statue from falling with everything we have. There are so many, and I just…
I don’t know if I can hold on anymore.
Syko appears on my other side and throws my other arm around his shoulder so they’re both holding me upright. This feels like a connection, one we’ve forged over the years in the hallways of the academy that kept us as prisoners. Our bond tightened thanks to Izara, and I know somehow the memory of it will live on.
Even if we don’t.
My nails sink into their shoulders, and my legs are shaking. They are my pack. They are my greatest strength and my greatest weakness. And even if we aren’t complete, there’s nowhere I’d rather be than here.
The demons suddenly part down the middle like the red sea, making room for one figure to walk down between the line of them.
He’s as put together as I’ve ever seen him, in an all-dark suit hugging his body and smoke emanating from the crown perched on top of his head. Black wings that are so like Izara’s, but with red veins instead of gold, span from his back.
He tugs at the sleeves of his suit like he’s a businessman come to fuck over his enemies. I don’t doubt that he can with a single piercing look.
Even looking at the devil that is Professor Shade, I do not fear him. Instead, I’m filled with my own burning sense of hatred for all he did and all he’s still doing. I trusted him, believed in him, and he manipulated us as much as he did Izara. He pretended he cared, and at the first opportunity he ripped hell into our world to end us all.
“God, I hate Slim Shady,” Saint curses.
I want to echo my agreement, but the devil himself flicks his gaze around to us. It’s commanding on its own and causes a hush to fall over everything and everyone.
“You’ve protected the statues valiantly.” His voice booms across the space, amplified by burning hell magic. “I admire you for it, but the time has come for this to end. Move aside and let me destroy the statue of the ruler you all so misguidedly follow and let the world be born anew.”
A roaring sound fills my ears that’s built entirely of rage. Those around me shift uncomfortably, and I want to turn and snap at them not to give in to his seductive allure. I can’t find the energy to do it though.
Out of the corners of my vision, I see a few Prods move aside and out of Lucian Morningstar’s way. He smiles, and I feel my heart drop. Our numbers are dwindling by the second, Izara and Phoenix are nowhere to be seen, and I know there is no way we can win this.
“And the rest of you?” Lucian asks. “Will you move?”
No.
We don’t. We can’t.
We will not.
The lines hold firm, and no one moves a muscle.
It brings a frown to the devil’s face. His bicolored eyes, eyes that are so like my mate’s, sweep across all of us. “Fine,” he decides, lifting a hand, palm out. Darkness swirls around his fingers, and crackling energy fills every inch of the air we breathe. “I’ll move you myself.”
And he sends a blast of power straight at our ranks.
The blast is so close to us that we fall back in a heap of heavy limbs. Debris and blood rain around us. With a single lift of his hand, he decimated a third of us. Nuns, Prods, and vampires alike.
I’m pulled back to my feet by urgent hands. An enormous, gaping space is left where our warriors once stood. They fill it again. There is fear coating the air around us. I taste it heavily on my tongue. I feel it down in the depths of my soul.
Still, we don’t move.
He lifts his hand again, and power surges around him. He aims that hand right in our direction. I close my eyes, awaiting the end that never comes.
“Stop!”
The devil drops his hand at his side and looks up. We all do in time to see the shadow of swooping wings pass over us just before an angel drops from the skies and lands perched with perfect grace on top of the statue of Etheria.
Not an angel.
Izara Castillo.
Light pours from her body in a blinding glow. She’s made of light and shadows, an ethereal beauty in the form of magic. Her hair runs like liquid night down her shoulders, tugging against an invisible breeze. Her whole aura is different. Black, leathery wings have changed to become a blinding golden black that appears to be burning. Her bicolored eyes look into her father’s face, as if she can see the cruel, cold heart underneath.
She looks like a fucking angel.
Phoenix sidles discreetly next to us, the incubus staring with pure black eyes at all the enemies he means to kill.
“Daughter, how kind of you to finally show yourself. I missed you.”
Izara doesn’t react to her father’s statement, and that seems to enrage him.
He lifts his hand up and points that swirling power in her direction. “Now I’ll kill you myself.”
And he sends his power hurtling straight at her.
Twenty-Two
Izara
It’s an all-consuming energy that I catch in my hands as easily as if I was capturing a ball. Its darkness in the smallest form of death, and I observe it in the expanse of my open palm before snuffing it out with light.
Surprised gasps ripple through the crowd, but none more priceless than the expression my father wears right now.
“I didn’t understand it at first,” I tell him as if we don’t have an audience. As if it’s just the two of us alone. I’m open and vulnerable, but that vulnerability gives me a strength I never thought possible. “I didn’t understand what it meant to embrace both sides of me.”
My wings stretch and slowly begin to flap, lifting me from the statue of my mother. I hover just above her, and I wonder what the others see. I wonder if there’s anything besides my blood and power that belongs to her.
I don’t think it really matters much anymore.
She is my mother.
“From the first moment I arrived, you awakened the powers of hell inside. You gave me my wings.” My wings flutter in response to my words. They’re changed now, I know it without having to really look at them. Golden now, instead of black. Like they’re consumed with both fire and ash, but mostly fire. “You awakened the power of hell within me and used the angel in my blood to open your precious portal.” My hands open at my sides. “But you never awakened the angel in me.”
I want to say that that part of me had been in there all along, but the fact of the matter? It wasn’t. The darker side of me was too loud within my heart for anything quieter to be heard.
But that’s okay.
I smile. “It’s awake now.”
For the first time since I’ve known him, fear slices down the expression on my father’s face.
I think he knows exactly what that means.
“And the blood of an angel is just as destructive as the blood of the devil.” My smile broadens. “If not more so.”
And then I unleash that power from inside myself and send it to his own ranks.
It decimates half of them, and within a single second, the demons go up in heavenly flames.
I close my fist, and the flames subside. Wielding my magic is as easy as breathing now. The two strains flow through my blood, no longer warring one against the other but embracing each other. Because they belong to me now. This magic is mine.
And I mean to wield it in my own way.
“So you will stand against your father,” he says.
Like the burning demons at his sides aren’t enough of a clue.
“I will.”
His gaze darkens. “Then so be it.”
His wings push him toward me, and we meet in the middle. A thunderous clash of magic shakes the whole academy grounds. We’re shoved back from one another but meet again, fist for fist, magic for magic. Heaven and hell’s fire clash agai
nst the darkness my father creates.
It’s an unyielding force that pushes us apart, and the desire for vengeance pushes us together again.
Blackened clouds consume us as we take to the skies and slam against one another. His darkness pushes me, and we parry, fire meeting fire.
Smack! I land a blow straight to his chest.
The burning consumes him until he’s swallowed whole by the fire. Angel’s fire. He screams, his wings giving in, causing him to fall from the sky in a rapid flash of streaking fire.
I push after him, and when he hits the ground with a resonating thud that makes the whole earth beneath our feet tremble, the fire burns out. He’s nothing but charred scraps of burnt flesh. He was an angel once, but since he isn’t any longer, the fire can still burn him.
I wonder what it’s like to burn a second time.
The battle around us has resumed. I can hear the clashing and snarls, but it’s like right now, my father and I are in our own little world as I approach his burnt body.
His face is melted away, and the muscle bubbles, sizzling. His eyes glare at me. I know it won’t be long before he starts to heal, but I have to know.
“Did you ever love me?” I ask as I bend down.
Hatred burns in the depths of all that he is, and I don’t even need him to tell me.
I already know the answer.
And it still fucking hurts.
“I am sorry, Father.” I hold my hand over his heart, readying myself for the final blow.
He grabs my wrist and grips me with trembling fingers. “Izara… wait.”
Despite myself, I listen to the command. “Yes?”
His lips are gone, but his jaw moves, displaying the glint of bleeding teeth as he speaks. “You chose the wrong side.”
I seize as magic rips through my insides. I fall back with a scream. His power tears through me from the inside out, and I scream and scream and scream. It’s pain. It’s what comes after pain, and this is worse than dying.
I feel like I’m choking, drowning, and burning all at once in a torrent of storms. Ice and fire, snow and rain, shadows and darkness. It rips through me in a shockwave of sensations. My wings scrape and split open as I seize against the ground.