Divine Hunter (The Vampire's Mage Series Book 4)

by C. N. Crawford

  Just like the old days they wanted to bring back.

  Rosalind wasn’t about to let any of that happen if she had any control over it.

  As they marched closer to the wall, Caine’s voice rang in her mind. Flames.

  Rosalind—and the hellhounds—were going to blast through the walls with their fire power. To her right, Caine lifted his sword, shouting a command for the hellhound cohort to march forward, while the rest of the army would remain behind.

  Rosalind and the hellhound vanguard marched up to the wall, halting when Caine shouted the order—about twenty feet from the marble wall. At this range, exploding marble would slam into them, but the hellhounds had shields, and with Borgerith’s protection, Rosalind would emerge unscathed.

  Summon the flames. Caine shouted the command in Angelic.

  Rosalind lifted her hands to the heavens, thinking of her imprisonment in that tower room—of Drew’s crazed eyes, Randolph’s commands that she undress. She thought of her ex-boyfriend, Josiah, coercing her to torture Malphas. As rage and fury simmered, Rosalind thought of what she’d once been, and who she’d once served.

  As these images blazed through her mind, Emerazel’s fire surged, hot and wrathful. Combined with the power of the mountain goddess, her entire body hot and powerful as molten rock.

  Fire! Caine commanded in Angelic, his voice rising in her skull.

  With a snarl, Rosalind slashed her hands at the gates, and missiles of fire shot from her hands, slamming into the walls. A blast of fire burst around her, flames blazing from the entire line of hellhounds. On impact, the marble exploded in a hail of fire and white dust.

  The explosions shook the earth, and the boom nearly deafened her. All down the marble wall, explosions erupted from the line of hellhounds, blasting the marble to pieces in a fiery storm. Hot blasts rushed over her skin, like solar winds.

  When the explosion settled, Rosalind wiped the dust from her eyes, and brushed herself off. She gazed at the sky, where storm clouds still darkened the horizon, and she called to the clouds. The skies unleashed a torrent of rain, soaking her clothes.

  The rain hammered against the explosion’s flames. It dampened the fires over the rubble, and black smoke curled into the sky. She heard Caine boom a command to the shadow demons, ordering them to break off from the rest of the legion when they entered the courtyard. He barked another order, and the legion began marching. Caine and Ambrose remained further back, with the valkyrie and fae—the flammable land-bound fighters who formed the middle ranks.

  The army pounded over the rubble, pouring into the Brotherhood’s courtyard, an enclosed city of marble buildings. Silence enshrouded the city. Where was the Emperor’s army, his demon courts?

  Even as the storm clouds thinned, lightning cracked the dark sky, glinting off the white, columned buildings. They marched past a temple of Blodrial, its doors open, and Rosalind glanced inside to see an enormous font of the god’s blood. Inside the temple, human bones lined the walls—or more likely, a mixture of human and demon remains, relics of the poor souls the Brotherhood had tortured to death. The sight chilled her to the core.

  She tore her gaze away, marching on among the hellhound front lines. Caine’s plan for what would happen next was brilliant, but it didn’t stop the fear snaking up her spine. And none of them knew which of Drew’s demon hordes would be coming for them next.

  Marching on, her heart thundering to the beat of the heavy footfalls, she gripped her sword. Why hadn’t Drew yet shown his face? They swarmed into the courtyard before the palace. A set of stairs led to an imposing building, with towering stone columns and long, narrow windows. On the top of the upper story, where Rosalind had been imprisoned, a statue of Blodrial dominated the roof. The marble god held out his wrists, which appeared to spurt real blood.

  For just a moment, Rosalind felt a pang of sympathy for him, for his pain. She knew the agony of the gods when they’d splintered into seven, fractured souls that could never feel whole.

  Blodrial, the god of repentance and guilt, believed he could reach the heavens through a complete denial of that original sin—the gift of magic to the human realm. If he expunged magic from the earth, he could feel complete again. And that was the gods’ real hell—not the torment of being trapped in the blood of beasts, or hell fires, or the void, but the agony of incompleteness.

  A chill rippled over Rosalind’s body. Here, in the gleaming city of Blodrial, the air hung thick and still as a grave. And as she looked closer at the palace, she realized why. A thick shield of shimmering magic, in green, blue, copper, silver, and gold, shone over the white marble. Drew had protected the palace with his magic. No wonder he hadn’t bothered to step outside to fight them with his magic. He felt perfectly safe in there.

  Caine and Ambrose were marching behind the hellhounds—so they wouldn’t get burned when Caine gave the order to release their flames.

  She pushed her way through the ranks, her eyes on Caine’s gleaming silver aura, curling from his body. She’d know it anywhere. When she shoved through the lines of hellhounds, Caine’s darkened eyes landed on her. Apparently, his demonic form took over while in battle.

  “Caine! Ambrose! Drew’s got a shield up.” She pointed at the writhing matrix of colored magic. Drew had been able to break down the shields they’d created. She just needed to figure out how he’d done it.

  Caine’s dark eyes were cold, otherworldly. “Do you know how to break through it?”

  She shook her head. “I have no idea. But Drew did it to our shields, so there must be a way.”

  His brow furrowed, dirt smeared on his cheek. She lifted her hand to wipe the muddy smudge off his face before stopping herself.

  A battle-hardened general wouldn’t allow his lover to clean off his face before battle. As she looked up into his silvery eyes, she was struck by the sudden realization that she would give her life for him. Without thinking twice she would step in front of a sword to save him.

  “I’m going to see if I can break through the shields.”

  Caine opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again. For once, she sensed some hesitation from him, as if he wanted to keep her close.

  Ambrose’s emerald eyes locked on her. “Go. Work on the shield.”

  Without waiting for a response from Caine, she pushed through the ranks of warriors again, heading for the palace. As she walked, she heard Caine shouting orders to the hellhounds, getting ready for the next demon onslaught.

  Rosalind broke through the lines of warriors and crossed to the palace steps, glancing at the third story, where her room had been. Her stomach clenching, she climbed the steps, slowly moving closer to the undulating waves of magic. Tentatively, she reached out, touching the shield. The power of it sent shockwaves through her body, and nausea climbed up her throat. When she’d first met Drew, he’d had only a few tendrils of copper magic curling off his body. Practically an ordinary human. And now, he created like a god, with a power no human was meant to possess.

  When she touched his magic, it felt toxic, as if it were poisoning her blood. She shuddered, trying to push the disgust to the back of her mind. If she could force herself to interact with the shield, to bond with it, she’d have the best chance of destroying it.

  She touched it again, reeling at the shock of his magic slamming into her body. Dread and revulsion climbed up her throat, but she kept her hand on the shield. As she stood there, visions from his mind whirled in her skull.

  She saw herself through his eyes, chained to the wall in his room. She felt his possessiveness of her, as if he were staring at his favorite doll. He ran his finger down her throat, then grabbed her breast, squeezing it. Rosalind fought the sickness clouding her mind, and the image swirled.

  Drew strode onto one of the palace’s balconies, where a roaring crowd greeted him.

  When he looked down, Rosalind kneeled before him, gazing up at him with worshipful eyes.

  She opened her eyes, tugging her hand away from the magic.
She turned, retching.

  After touching the shield, her body felt corrupted, sickened. She just barely managed to keep down the coffee she’d drank earlier. Rosalind wiped the back of her hand across her mouth, glancing back at the lines of soldiers.

  The sun had brightened over the courtyard, and Rosalind squinted in the bright rays. Only moments ago, her storm had been dousing the entire city in torrents of rain. Now, the sun burned like a hot coal, sucking the moisture from the air.

  As the sun burned hotter, Rosalind squinted into the sky. The weather was changing eerily fast, and if she looked close enough, she could see the shimmer of Drew’s magic snaking through the sky. Drew was bringing out the sun, and it blazed hot off the soldiers’ silver armor. What creatures required sunlight?

  Before she could finish her thought, a stream of demons began pouring from the palace rooftop, a river of winged creatures swooping overhead, bodies the color of desert sand, their eyes a dull gray. The scent of death whispered through the air, and Rosalind’s heart thrummed in her chest. The edimmu.

  Chapter 29

  Caine shouted an order that boomed over the courtyard, and the hellhounds fanned out, allowing the middle ranks to shift through. From what Caine had told her, fire wouldn’t hurt the edimmu. But beyond the traditional swords and axes, no one knew what killed the edimmu. Shuddering, she crossed the marble steps, clutching her sword. She only knew that the edimmu were capable of inhabiting other people’s bodies.

  Hell. She already had two souls. What was another?

  Rosalind gripped her sword, staring at the vortex of demons above them. The sun seemed to blaze hotter, and her palms began to sweat on the hilt of her sword. Why would Drew need to raise the sun like this?

  Her gaze sliced to the eerie horde darkening the skies, and her knees began to tremble with the familiar rush of battle fury. There were so many of them… Caine’s spies had told him of the edimmu, but they had no idea how many of them Erish had made. And Erish had been unwilling to part with all her secrets lest she run out of bargaining chips.

  She summoned the power of the valkyrie, hastening over the pavement to the rest of Lilinor’s army. Caine and Ambrose stood at the front, swords drawn. Caine’s dark wings spread out, and Ambrose’s charcoal wings rose behind him. The two leaders took flight, and Caine boomed out an order that rang across the city, echoed in the soldiers’ minds. Winged cohorts, rise.

  Just as the edimmu began to dive for the earth, she took flight into the skies with the winged cohorts. In the blazing sun, a sense of surety surged through her limbs.

  The edimmu shrieked as they dove, and the sound curdled Rosalind’s stomach. As Lilinor’s winged cohorts rose higher, the horde of edimmu plunged to the earth, mouths open to expose pointed teeth, naked bodies pale as sand. Their milky, white eyes were locked right on Lilinor’s army.

  Their shrieks rent the air, and Rosalind gripped her hilt hard, her palms sweating. As an edimmu swooped for her, Rosalind swung her sword, slicing through its neck. The creature’s head tumbled to the ground. Instead of blood, a cloud of dust puffed into the air, its body crumbling, desiccated.

  The edimmu were pouring into the legion, attacking without mercy.

  In the air, the winged cohort’s swords met the edimmu’s dusty flesh, slicing through limbs and necks. But there were just so many of them, surging onward…

  Aurora was at the front of the winged horde, carried on her gray valkyrie wings. Her sword flashed through the air as she swung, her skill breathtaking. Caine and Malphas fought side by side, their movements stunningly graceful in the air. Carried on gray wings, Ambrose’s golden skin shone in the sunlight. While Caine and Malphas fought with grace, Ambrose was brutal, vicious. With each swing of his sword, he unleashed a chilling war cry. If it hadn’t been for the endless sea of edimmu approaching, this would be an easy fight.

  Rosalind’s body surged with adrenaline, and she soared higher, hacking through another edimmu’s neck. Battle rage spurred her on, and she moved like the wind, slicing through the enemy lines.

  There, in the center of the aerial melee, Tammi was holding her own, her pale silver hair flying wildly in the wind. She sliced her sword through an edimmu’s neck in one clean arc.

  Then, an edimmu soared into Tammi’s body from behind, disappearing within Tammi’s flesh. Tammi’s body went rigid. Oh, hell no.

  Rosalind flew closer to her friend, fighting her way through the oncoming demons. High winds carried dust through the air as she hacked through their bodies, her body shaking with battle fury. Edimmu dust sprayed into her eyes, and tears streamed down her cheeks as she fought her way to Tammi. When she flew close to her friend, Tammi turned to her, and a tendril of fear coiled through Rosalind’s chest. Tammi’s jaw hung open at an odd angle, and her skin looked oddly dry. She curled her lip, snarling, her silver wings beating the air.

  Gripping her sword, Rosalind scanned the winged cohort. Around her, soldiers of Lilinor were beginning to turn on each other, their skin suddenly dry and chalky. It had all happened faster than she’d expected. Time to retreat before the edimmu infected everyone. She’d just have to take Tammi with her until they could sort out this demonic possession situation…

  As if reading her mind, Caine’s voice echoed through the skies, reverberating in her skull. Retreat.

  Just as Rosalind was grabbing for Tammi’s arm, she felt something slam into her from behind and seep into her body. A hot, dry power crawled around the inside of her body, claiming territory in her ribs, her skull, desiccating her gut.

  Desert winds seemed to race through her mind, whispering of death, of ancient ruins half buried in desert sands. Death. She needed to kill, needed to dominate and claim her territory for the gods of wind and fire. Ancient enemies of the darkness. Fury rippled through her body, hot as the desert sun.

  Hot winds rushed around her skull. Slaughter the sons of Nyxobas. Next to her, the demigods were the most powerful creatures here. Rosalind turned, searching for the incubus. She recognized him by the beautiful silver blazing from his body, curling into the air like smoke.

  And she knew how to kill him, now. She knew the Angelic words that would make him mortal. For a mortal man, just one cut of the sword…

  Her chest clenched. Something was wrong. Her mind felt dry as bone.

  In the skies, as Caine led the retreat, a crowd of edimmu surrounded him. His magic burst from his body, trying to fend them off, but they kept coming for him, until one of them leapt into his body from the back. His arms shot out to the sides, back arching as if he were in pain. His sword glinted in the sun as it tumbled to the ground. Defenseless. Now is the time to attack.

  She flew closer to him, the wind whipping at her hair. As she approached, sword in hand, he turned to look at her, a dark smile on his lips, black wings beating the air.

  Slaughter the sons of Nyxobas. Darkness is the enemy.

  Caine soared closer, racing for her in a blur of silver. Their bodies met in the air, slamming against each other. Before she could attack, he was at her throat, hand tightening around her neck. She unleashed a burst of electricity from her body, knocking Caine away. Dark smoke coiled around his perfect body like a caress.

  He curled his lip in a snarl, circling her. “Rosalind.”

  When she’d first met him, she’d been completely defenseless against him. Not anymore.

  But why did her mind feel so dry, as if all the life had been sucked from it? Her mouth was like sawdust, and a strange torment ripped her mind apart, the agony of a fractured soul.

  It didn’t matter. What mattered was that she knew how to take Caine’s immortality from him, and she needed to slaughter him, to rid the world of his darkness. All will be arid sands and light… She lifted her fingers, launching into the spell. Caine’s eyes, black as the void, opened wide as he recognized the words. Slaughter the sons of Nyxobas. Darkness is the enemy.

  Dread curled around her, and a hollow bloomed in her chest as she chanted the spell that would
kill him.

  Something isn’t right.

  Druloch’s magic craved life, water, and fresh soil. Cleo’s presence coiled around her ribs like thirsty vines, unfurling from her body, green and calming. Slowly, her second soul bloomed—seeking life, seeking water. Slowly Cleo forced the edimmu from Rosalind’s body, and she gasped with relief, her thoughts clearing once more. Had she nearly been about to kill Caine? The horror of it ripped her mind apart. Caine—her blackthorn. Her love.

  Still, he stared at her with a chilling rage, his fists clenching. His black wings slowly beat the air, and around them the winged cohort turned on each other, minds claimed by desert winds.

  As Caine stared at her, his silvery aura sliced through the air, sharp as thorns.

  First, Rosalind had to find a way to get Lilinor’s general back. If she took her eyes off Caine for even a moment, he’d attack. Then, she’d work on the edimmu.

  Slowly, talons appeared from his fingertips, and Rosalind’s stomach dropped as she watched him shed his humanity. He wanted to rip her to pieces.

  At any moment, if she made a wrong move, he’d be thrusting a powerful hand into her chest to rip her heart out.

  “Caine.” She held out her hand to him, beckoning him closer. An invitation, not a threat.

  Light flickered in his dark eyes, but he let out a low growl, glaring at her like a wild animal about to attack.

  Slowly, gently, she reached for him, touching his arm just above where the hairpin tattoo marked his skin. The soft contact seemed to confuse him, and she moved in closer—close enough that she could feel the heat from his body.

  She reached up, stroking the sides of his face. She tilted his head down to look at her, her body brushing against his. She stared into those fathomless, black eyes, searching for his second soul.

  “Richard. I need your second soul to help. Get the edimmu out of Caine’s body. Cleo and I need your help.”

  Caine snarled, gripping her hard by the waist, his fingers digging into her flesh.