Marcus was instantly by my side. He sent waves of healing energy into me as he gently lifted me back into the chair. He didn’t judge me or treat me differently. He treated me just like he always had. Marcus was a good friend.
“I’ll go,” Marcus said. “Send me. I’ll bring him back.”
“No!” Adam’s voice thundered throughout the room. “This business with Stillman has gone on long enough. I’ll go. It’s time someone ended this.”
I sat back into my chair and looked up at Adam. Had he just said that he would go, and that he was going to end Stillman? Adam rushed past us and out of the door without another word. I looked at Marcus, and the stunned expression on his face echoed how I felt. This had just become much bigger than stopping Jackson from doing something stupid. Stillman was on the Council. If Adam killed him, this could lead to all-out war amongst the Gifted.
Marcus started to push me out of the office. I was stunned, and I still had to call Sarah and tell her what was going on. My cell phone felt like a lead weight in my hand. How do you call a mother and tell her that her son was trying to get into hell to save his dad? Not only that but he went to Stillman, someone she hated, for help?
The phone rang three times, and then five, and finally went to voicemail. I gave a relaxed sigh as her greeting played. It was almost a blessing to not actually have to have that conversation. I left the short version of what was going on and then hung up.
Turning in my chair, I looked up at Marcus. He looked drained. “I can push myself the rest of the way back.”
“I’m fine. I just don’t know exactly what to do with myself.”
“Why don’t you come crash on the couch? We can wait for information together.”
“Thanks, April. I need to swing by my place first. But after I change, I’ll stop by with some food.”
“Sounds good.” I hated what was about to come out of my mouth, but it just felt right. “See if Britta wants to join us.” Oh man, it felt so wrong, but I knew that she was hurting too.
Marcus looked at me as if maybe I had lost my mind, and maybe I had. “Just do it, ok?”
“Sure thing. See you soon.” He gave me a little shove to get me rolling and then turned down the hallway. This was going to be the longest night of my life.
CHAPTER 7
JACKSON
Tony signaled to me that it was time to go. I slid my swords into place and then followed him back through the mansion to Stillman’s office. He opened the door for me, and after I stepped in, he closed it. Stillman wasn’t in the room. Fucking typical. He summoned me to meet him, and he wasn’t even here.
It gave me a moment to reflect on what I was about to actually do. For this to work, someone had to die. Was rescuing my father worth that price? I’d been bandying about the idea in my head since I left Stillman’s office hours ago, and I still didn’t have a good answer. Did it matter if the person was a criminal? I wasn’t judge, jury, and executioner. Could I really kill a person just for my own personal gain? As soon as Stillman got here, I guess I would find out just how strong my resolve really was.
This was it. Today I would find myself in hell. Not because I hadn’t lived a righteous life, but because I wanted to go. How crazy did that sound? Who wanted to go to hell? I just had to look at it like anything else that had come my way since I joined the Ascendancy. There was a job that needed to be done, and I was the only one who could do it.
A noise sounded behind me, and the bookshelf slid away from the wall. Now that was something pretty freaking cool. Stillman had a secret room. I always thought it would be amazing to have a secret room built into a house. When I used to babysit, one of the kids had a secret door inside of his closet that went up to a loft in his bedroom. It was really cool, because from the ground, you couldn’t see the loft at all. It was the coolest thing I had ever seen built into a bedroom. If I ever ended up with a home of my own, I wanted the adult version of that.
Stillman stepped out of the opening wearing a robe. When our eyes met, he spoke. “Are you ready?”
“As ready as I can be.”
“Good. The sacrifice is in place. Follow me.” He turned and moved back into the passage. He looked over his shoulder once to make sure I was following him. “I tried to find someone for you who was deplorable. I hope that makes it easier.”
Did it help that the person was the worst kind of criminal? I told myself that it did. I didn’t want to feel anything about it one way or the other. I was doing what needed to be done. No matter what happened, I was going to hell today. I couldn’t bear the thought of my dad being there one more day. John deserved to be free.
We continued to walk down the hallway. As much as I didn’t want to know, I had to ask. “Tell me what he did.”
“The man we had brought in for our ritual is a serial rapist and murderer. If you could pick any man to kill with a clean conscience, it would be this one.” He turned back to me and placed what was supposed to be a caring hand on my shoulder. “We could always stop now. You don’t have to do this.”
Was he just trying to test my commitment? It made sense to do it now, because if we failed at the ritual, we could have a problem. There would be some kind of backlash, and whatever it was wouldn’t be very good for us. Looking down at the ground, I thought about what I was about to do. My resolve hardened until I was sure that I could do it. “I’m ready.”
We entered the room at the end of the hallway. The floor was covered in intricate gold runes. A small fountain was in one corner and an altar on the opposite side. There was a small fireplace against the far wall. A fire was raging in it now, heating the room beyond what was comfortable. Already I could feel sweat breaking out on my forehead. Silently I wondered if this was what hell felt like.
Dominating the room was the man strapped to the altar. He struggled against his bonds. His wrists and ankles were bleeding. His eyes widened at the sight of me, and he began to struggle harder. He knew what was coming next, and he fought with everything he had to get free. I’d be killing this man soon, and I hoped he was truly guilty of the crimes Stillman told me he committed. It might not be right, but I would sleep easier knowing that he was a disgusting piece of shit.
It took a lot of effort, but I turned away from the man and looked at Stillman. He searched my eyes before speaking. “Let me tell you how this will work. You will stand by the altar, and at my signal, you need to decapitate the man. His blood will activate the runes on the floor, and the portal will open. A demon will come through and take you into hell. What happens once you are gone from this realm I have no control over.” He paused and took a breath, letting the weight of his words settle over me. “Do you understand?”
“I do.”
“Then let us begin.”
Stillman moved to the other side of the room and stripped out of his robe. He strode confidently to the center of the room and lowered himself into a sitting position in the center of a circle. He seemed to be centering himself, and then he turned to face me.
“Wait for my signal. When I give you the signal, you need to act swiftly and without mercy.”
All I could do was nod. The words that had been forming in my mind didn’t make it out of my throat. I was really going to do this. I was going to kill a man to get into hell. Once I crossed this line, there would be no going back. Moving toward the altar, I pulled one of my father’s swords from behind my back. I’m coming for you.
Stillman started to chant. The words were indecipherable to me, but I listened as they fell into a rhythm, and then the rhythm started to pick up speed. The only thing in my world right now was the man in front of me. Our eyes locked, and he began to plead through his gag. Instead of turning away, I forced myself to keep eye contact. I wanted to know that I wasn’t taking this lightly. If I could kill him to get what I wanted, the least I could do was look him in the eyes while I did it.
Stillman’s voice rose and fell as he chanted the words. The air pressure in the room seemed to grow heavy. H
e looked over at me and motioned with his hand. Slowly, I moved the sword above my head. I wanted to make this clean and quick if I could. The man looked into my eyes, and I could almost hear him begging for mercy.
The chanting continued, but I heard Stillman in my mind. “It has to be now, or everything is lost.”
The sword came down in a perfect arc. The swing cut cleanly through his neck, and his head bounced away with a wet thunk when it landed. His body jerked as the blood spewed into the basin and then spread across the floor. The room grew hotter, and then the pressure that had been slowly building vanished. A portal tore open in front of me, and I waited for what was coming next.
She stepped out of the portal, naked as the day she was born. Her long sensuous legs carried my eyes up to her full firm breasts and finally to her face. She walked forward, dripping seduction with every step. Her eyes widened just a bit as she took me in, and then a smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. She was beautiful, but I had no illusions about what she was and that that beauty was only a disguise.
I slipped my sword back into its sheath and took her outstretched hand. A faint burst of pain flared where she brushed her fingers against my palm. Her touch burned, but the sensation seemed to become almost pleasurable as it lingered. Coming to my senses, I tried to pull my hand away only to have her grip tighten. The pain burned for a moment and then turned slowly back into pleasure. She waited for that moment and then started walking me back toward the portal. She spared Stillman a single glance, and then we were gone.
For better or worse, I had done it. We were on our way to hell. I had no idea what would happen to me there, but I had one goal. I needed to find John and get him out of there. That singular focus would be all that I had with me. Everything else that I loved or cared about I had left behind. Those memories would be what I cherished while I searched for my dad. I only hoped that when all of this was over that I would see April again and I could tell her how much I loved her.
CHAPTER 8
ADAM
Fury seethed through me knowing what had just happened. There was plenty of blame to go around, but only one person would be feeling the full force of my wrath today. I had let Stillman wriggle on the end of the hook for far too long. A century of threats and cajoling had finally stopped having its intended effect. Today I was going to fix that. After today, he would never be able to hurt anyone again.
Stillman had always been a slippery fish. I had needed him to accomplish my goals and to stay one step in front of the Council, but now his usefulness had reached an end. He had acted rashly to bring Jackson to me. When we needed his support with the Jar of Souls, we didn’t receive it. When we called on him to help close the portal to hell, he ignored us.
Now that he had joined the Council, he thought that he was untouchable, but all of that was going to change momentarily. I marched through the halls, and people moved out of my way. No one had seen a fury like this consume me. Right now it was hard to tell friend from foe. I needed to get to Stillman and unleash my rage.
Looking back over the years, there had been signs that he had frequently interacted with the demons. I should have ended it then. Knowing that John was alive and in hell had me thinking back to that night I showed up at the rubble of his cabin to find Stillman kneeling on the ground. The thought that my friend and longtime protégé had died blinded me to what had really happened. I had even comforted the bastard. Today I wouldn’t be looking for answers, only vengeance.
What Joshua didn’t know was that I had breached the wards on his house almost as soon as he bought it. In the back of my mind, I always knew this day would come and I would need to be able to get to his house quickly. When I touched the doorframe, the portal shimmered to life. My actions today would have long-reaching consequences, but it had to be done. My only hope was that I would be in time to stop Jackson from making a grave mistake.
I stepped through a door on the second floor of his mansion, and three men in dark suits were charging toward me. There would be no quarter given today. Anyone poisoned by Stillman’s actions would suffer his same fate. His house would be turned into a smoking crater, but only after I had bathed its halls with blood.
The men continued to charge. Obviously they didn’t know who I was, or they would have been running in the other direction. Batting aside their feeble spells, I sent out a wave of power. It sent two of them crashing through the walls, their broken bodies tucked nicely out of sight. The third man wasn’t so lucky. He must have hit the stone wall for the chimney or the foundation. There was nothing left but a stain.
Four more men rushed up each side of the grand staircase to meet me. None of these men concerned me. A backstabbing snake like Stillman would never surround himself with anyone powerful enough to challenge him directly. Half of my students probably could have beaten the men charging toward me now.
The magic was coursing through my veins, begging for me to use it. I couldn’t deny its call any longer. Reaching above my head, I brought my hands together and shouted a word of power. The resulting thunderclap blew the men and the entire front of the house outward. I could hear their confused cries as they struggled to figure out what had happened. When the dust finally settled, I leaped over the destroyed staircase to the ground floor.
Some of the staff were fleeing out of the back of the house. I would let them go to spread the tale of what happened here. I couldn’t find any sign of the eight men who had been rushing toward me, but if they had lived through the initial blast, then they were outside somewhere. My steps felt purposeful as I walked through the wreckage of the house. Eight more men waited for me on the front lawn. All of them were covered in dust. Some of them were bleeding from the debris that had already flown from the house.
How much was Stillman paying these men for them to stay loyal in the face of certain death? Knowing Joshua, it wasn’t about the money. He would have some kind of dirt on them to assure their allegiance. The men formed a rough semi-circle. As if they stood a chance against me. Why were they stalling? Was Jackson here? Could I still save him?
All of the men charged, casting out with different spells. I hadn’t stayed alive this long because of my good looks. Their magic broke over my shields in waves, and then I started to push them back. Did they really think such simple elemental magic had any chance of bringing me down?
Shards of ice and fire belted me from different directions. The earth rumbled, and I moved to avoid a pit that opened where my feet used to be. Waves of hardened air slammed into my shields from above and to the side, trying to throw me off balance. They were working well together, trying to keep me off balance, but it wouldn’t be enough. I had spent a millennia fighting against the best warriors the Gifted had to offer. These men didn’t even come close.
The next two strikes that came at me I simply reversed on their casters. A real warrior would have been ready for such a spell, but these men were clearly lacking. One of them fell to the ground, impaled with shards of ice, and the other ran screaming as he was consumed by never-ending fire.
When the pit opened beneath my feet, this time I let it swallow me. I used my own earth magic to move through the ground and come back to the surface twenty feet away. Three more men fell to the lance of power I sent out, their bodies ripped cleanly in half as the power washed over them.
The three remaining men must have been the cream of Stillman’s crop. They hadn’t been fooled by my appearance and had managed to deflect the wave of power I had sent out. Now the real fight would begin. I had to end this quickly if Jackson was here. I needed to stop him from doing whatever Stillman had planned. If Jackson was already gone, I needed to find Stillman before he could flee to another one of his strongholds.
Again I was assaulted by blast after blast of elemental magic. It came at me from every direction. It was easy enough to deflect, but I was simply wasting too much time. The idea hit me as another fireball bounced off of my shield. It was pure madness or genius. Instead of shielding myself, I
circled the men in front of me with a large shield.
All of their magic started to rebound back at them, forcing them to stop casting. Eventually they moved toward each other and focused on trying to break my shield. I placed a second behind the first, and a third shield behind that. They hadn’t been able to break through the first one yet, but I needed to be ready in case they managed to do it. Slowly I drew the shields inward.
Panic grew on the men’s faces as they realized what was happening for the first time. The shield continued to close around them, and I started to walk back toward the house. As I passed them, they managed to bring the first shield crashing down, but the second shield held against their assault. Slowly they were forced back against each other. I could hear them screaming for me to stop as I passed them, but they didn’t deserve my compassion.
The shields continued to close as I made it back to what used to be the front of the house. I didn’t turn to see what was happening behind me. The screams let me know the spell was still functioning. Their screams cut off and were replaced with a sickening squelching sound. The sound tickled at my ears as the men were crushed against each other. I kept the shields moving inward until there was only six inches of space. Turning, I waved a hand, and the shield disappeared. A wet mass of bloody goop fell to the ground. That was the end of Stillman’s resistance.
Now where in the hell could that bastard be? If he was here, surely he had fled by now unless he was in the middle of one of his godforsaken rituals. That meant I had to find his ritual room. Where would the son of a bitch keep something like that? It would have to be somewhere precious to him. Somewhere he felt in power. The only room I could think of was his study with that gaudy golden door. I mean, what kind of asshole has a door made out of gold?
The Rising Darkness (Ascendancy Legacy 5) Page 6