by Lan Chan
The old woman groaned as her mouth opened. An iridescent glow poured from her in a crashing wave that had me sobbing. I tried to latch onto her soul and keep her intact but couldn’t find purchase. Screams peppered the air behind me. The demon shaped the old woman’s soul into an orb. It flexed its clawed fingers around it like it was holding a ball, dropping her body unceremoniously onto the ground with the others.
Taking an ambling step forward, the demon’s mouth stretched into a smug smile.
Somebody grabbed my shoulder. I jerked backward and came face to face with Jessica’s fervent gaze. “What’s happening?” she said. “You should have been able to hold her!”
Panic made my voice tremble. “Does anybody have a permanent marker?”
A Sharpie was pressed into my hand. Casting aside every reprimand I’d ever gotten from Nanna, I started writing on the walls. The Angelical word for protection spilled from the tip of the marker. The earth shook once more, making my second scrawled word take a squiggly turn. The intent was there. I just hoped it would hold out.
When the demon tested the strength of the wards with the added Angelical protection, it raised its head to the dark sky and let out a soul-crushing bellow. The force of its fist slammed into the window. I staggered to the side like I’d been struck by a sledgehammer. Thankfully, the wards held. Twice more it beat at the building. Each time the collective shriek grew louder.
If I had Morning Star, I would have phased through and taken it on. Without a weapon, the circles were all I had. Unfortunately, the circles didn’t like me at the moment. They hadn’t been cooperative since after Christmas when I’d had my first magical seizure. We were sitting ducks in here. The demon knew it too. Jessica passed one of her poison guns to another nurse.
The group of patients huddled closer when the demon’s head turned as though it was scanning the room for something...
“Girrrl,” its gravelly voice pushed out. Jessica grunted in my direction, believing I’d brought this down on them. Not again. I was about to repeat that I wasn’t forsaken when the demon’s interest passed over me and landed on Angel Girl. Yay! Not it for once!
In typical human fashion, the huddled group retracted around Angel Girl, leaving her hanging out in front on her own. She shrank into herself, shaking all over and crying silently. What was it about her the demon wanted? Soul reaping seemed to be the answer.
My knee hit the floor the next time the demon attacked. Though the wards held, the impact reverberated throughout my body. Blood trickled down my nostrils. If this kept up, I was going to pass out. This time, the demon tore its attention away from Angel Girl and fixed it on me.
Its coal black eyes held no light. But the way the leathery skin around its darkened lips stretched made me think it knew who I was. Was that a good or bad thing?
The demon held the old woman’s glowing soul in front of it and reshaped the orb into a hammer. Bad thing. Very bad thing!
I swiped the blood from my nose. It was quick but I was motivated. The soul hammer smashed into the glass at the same time I completed the blood circle. My command for protection echoed in the recesses of my mind. A thunderous roar chased behind it. Light flashed from the point where the soul hammer hit the glass. My body rocked forward. I held the demon’s gaze for a fraction of a second.
The cracking sound began as a slow crawl across the inside of my mind. With each second, it gained momentum until the hairline breaks in the glass were mirrored in the painful stabbing in my head. I couldn’t hold it. The blood circle effervesced, taking with it my protection circle.
Glass spat into the room. Its velocity turned each shard into a knife that cut into my side. Pain made me slow. I barrelled into Angel Girl, trying to drag her out of the way. My touch reanimated her. She screamed and lashed out at me. I copped a slap on my left cheek. There was hardly any strength behind it, but it highlighted that I didn’t enjoy friendly fire. I shoved her in the direction of the crowd.
She staggered a few steps and then stopped abruptly as though she’d hit a forcefield. A moment later, the same invisible force cinched around me. It was useless trying to erect another circle. I was haemorrhaging blood from both nostrils and my mouth. Pain thumped in my head. When I tried to reach out for my bone magic, it snapped and snarled at me without cooperating. We both flew backwards through the air at odds with the earthly laws of physics.
I choked on the smell of brimstone. Then I was just choking where the demon caught me around the throat with its left hand. “Lucifer’s sacrifice,” the demon cooed. Its head swivelled over to Angel Girl. Her eyes bugged out as though the demon was squeezing her innards like a tube of yoghurt. She beat pathetically at the demon’s wrist, mouth opening in a silent scream. Idiot! Keep your mouth shut!
I had my lips pressed so tightly they were going to cramp. As predicted, the demon muttered foreign words. This time it felt like something was scraping a knife through my chest. The scream lodged in my throat as lights gathered in the corner of my eyes. I bit my lips together and kicked out involuntarily.
Pain washed over me. It set my insides on fire. My body became limp with the effort of trying to hold my soul intact. Angel Girl’s mouth became a gaping void lit up by soulfire. The pressure inside me threatened to tear my body in two. Something inside me broke apart. I gave an involuntary scream as my bone and hedge magics drained. Darkness appeared in my periphery. I was on the verge of passing out when a green spark ignited in my chest. It latched onto my tearing soul and tugged back. The demon’s attention returned to me. It shook me and tightened its grip on my throat.
With the added strength of the bond, I managed to draw a circle around my throat before the demon decided to crush my windpipe. It dragged me close until there were bare inches between our faces. The scent of brimstone was unbearable. So was the hideous expression on the demon’s face. Up close, its skin was covered in a fine layer of spiny hairs. Almost as though whoever made it couldn’t decide whether it should be a mammal or a reptile. The demon opened its mouth wide and gave a soul-chilling roar. As it lifted its head, I noticed a circular rune on the side of its neck. A possession rune. Who did it belong to?
Thwarted in its attempt to snap my neck, the demon went for easier prey. We lashed out at the same time. It rattled Angel Girl in an attempt to divest her of her life. My magic circle snapped shut around her and the half of her soul that was feathering in the air outside her body. While the souls I’d seen over the years were a blistering white, hers had a mesmerising pearl glow to it. Like it was lit up from inside with tiny specks of glitter. Her eyes had rolled back in her head.
The effort to contain her soul made my entire body shake. Fear choked me in its grasp. I had grown used to the certainty of my power. Without it, I felt vulnerable. I felt helpless. Never again.
Rage sparked inside me. The aqua blue of my hedge magic turned into the cold blue of a flame. Splotches of black blossomed in front of my eyes but I ignored it. Throwing out a net of hedge magic, I forced the birch trees in the courtyard to grow. The demon shook me like a chicken whose neck it was going to wring for dinner.
The earth rumbled in tandem with my rage. Concrete and pavers cracked as the roots of the trees boiled and rolled. They grew thicker and longer until they burst from the earth and coiled around the demon’s waist and torso. They climbed over its back and tightened around its neck.
When the demon squeezed me again, I gave back as good as I got. See how you like it! Panicked, the demon attempted to release me so it could use its arm. But by now the roots of the trees had fused us together. The darkness had almost blanketed my eyes in black when I gave the command for the roots to burrow into its body. The demon roared. It squeezed tighter in an effort to weaken me. Angel Girl screamed once more. The circle around her had cracked as I funnelled my hedge magic into killing the demon.
It was a slight miscalculation. I preferred revenge to protection. So sue me. Angel Girl gave a distressed whimper. I had made the decision to draw some of
my magic back when a flash of green cut through the air between us. There was a second when everything stood still. The demon’s unearthly roar preceded the arm holding Angel Girl falling clean off.
Black smoke coiled around Kai as he caught hold of Angel Girl. Without its other prey, the demon took its rage out on me and crushed. The fury that had sustained me shattered. Instead, I grabbed the paring knife out of my back pocket and stabbed it in the eye. I sank the knife in as deeply as I could.
The demon bellowed again but its hold wouldn’t slacken. Without thinking, I yanked the knife out again and began carving the Angelical word for death into the demon’s chest. “Blue!” I heard Kai shout, but I was too intent on my mission.
The world turned into a funnel of rage. I was halfway through my bloody artwork when I realised the demon was no longer trying to squeeze the life from me. Red and black magic swirled around us. I landed badly on my left knee as the demon died. Despite that, my hand continued to carve. The maelstrom of magic whipped around me, shattering in places and then reforming. I gave up all pretence of control. Shouts and screams rose up. I had the distant impression that everything the magic touched was being destroyed, but I was trying too hard not to pass out to notice.
“Blue!” His voice sounded strained. When he appeared in front of me, there were deep cuts all over his skin. I saw it through the darkness that still overlayed my vision.
“Let go of the magic,” Kai said. He reached out and tried to pry the knife from my grip. Over his shoulder, Angel Girl stood clutching at her throat. Fresh out of patience, Kai’s palm landed on my forehead. The world flipped upside down.
I turned towards Angel Girl. Her mouth opened but nothing came out. Something felt like it was burrowing into my brain.
Your time is running out, Alessia, a Caribbean-accented voice spoke in my mind. You can’t dodge this prophecy forever. One day soon you will have to make the ultimate sacrifice. My eyes rolled back in my head. The last thing I heard was the sound of Angel Girl screaming.
3
A weighted sigh woke me. I blinked and my eyelids peeled open. The marble walls closed in on me. “No,” I croaked. I could not be inside Seraphina again.
Raphael sat at the base of the bed. He reached out and tapped my ankle gently. His downcast expression said it all. Over by the window, Michael stood like an overgrown sentry.
I swallowed past the thorn in my throat. When I dissolved into a fit of coughing, I tried to reach for the glass of water on the small table by the bed. My hand shook so much, I retracted it. Staring at the offending limb, I tried to make sense of what I was seeing. Besides the involuntary shaking, an uneven tattoo of blue and black lines was etched on my skin.
“What the hell is this?” I whispered, more to myself than anything.
Michael took it literally. “What the hell indeed.”
At another time, I would have made a big deal of him kind of cursing. But the meaning of what he’d said had started to sink in. Hell. For a second, I recalled the voice telling me I couldn’t run from the prophecy forever.
“Do you know anyone with a Caribbean accent?” I asked them.
Both shook their heads. Great. I had more unwanted guests in my head. Throw in an open bar and it would be a party. I supposed I should be grateful that it wasn’t Lucifer in there. Small comfort.
It didn’t escape my notice that neither of them had said a chastising word to me since I’d regained consciousness. Right about now they were usually laying on the guilt trip because of whatever stupid thing I’d done to get myself into this situation. I gave myself a moment to brace for their answers.
“What’s wrong with me?” I asked. “For a second there, it was like I didn’t have any control over my powers at all.”
Raphael sighed long.
“You’re really freaking me out right now,” I told them.
Michael turned away from the window and stepped up beside Raphael. Even the tall ceilings in this place couldn’t dwarf his majestic frame.
“Raphael has searched for the root cause of your breakdown,” Michael said. “He has not been able to find it.”
I cocked my head to the side. Raphael was a world-class diagnostician. The original, in fact. If he couldn’t find anything wrong with me, wasn’t that a good sign? He shook his head when I posed the question.
“No, little one. The reason I can’t pinpoint the problem is that it’s not localised. It appears to be an issue with...all of you.”
I couldn’t quite wrap my head around it. Everything was still fuzzy. But when it finally sank in, I deflated like the pillow I was choking in my arms.
“The Angelical?” I asked.
Michael nodded. “At least that’s where we think the issue might stem from.”
It made sense. It was about time things caught up with me. Somehow, I just convinced myself there would be no consequences to speaking words no human should hear. Hmm. I was an optimist. Who knew?
“I suppose it’s a little too late to stop using them.”
Raphael straightened. “It couldn’t hurt.”
I lay back heavily. “He’s still under lock and key?”
“Lucifer is very much secured.”
I smashed my fist against the mattress. I was tough like that. “I’m so sick of being at his mercy!” I snapped. “There has to be a way to destroy him!”
“If it could be done, we would have already done so,” Michael said. “But the ramifications of unmaking a seraph would destroy your world and possibly the other dimensions around it.”
“Surely you can do something!”
Their silence was answer enough. Not for the first time, I wanted to beat my fists against the wall. I would settle for kicking the snot out of Lucifer’s comatose body, but I doubted they would look too kindly on that. “I don’t know how much more of this I can take,” I told them.
“I know it’s hard,” Raphael said. “But you can’t allow yourself to lose hope.”
“How can I lose something I never had?”
I wished Azrael was here. Of all the archangels, Azrael would be less inclined to have an issue with me going postal on his brother. But he’d been unusually quiet lately. The last time I’d tried to check in, he’d sighed heavily and told me that the souls were restless and numerous. I hadn’t liked the sound of that, but I had problems of my own to contend with. Like how I was going to do the impossible and ice Lucifer.
The problem was that I was severely under resourced. The only real books I had access to were the ones at Bloodline or the ones Basil and Andrei were able to procure. I had to be doubly sketchy with Basil because if he caught wind of me trying to do something dangerous, that would be the end of it.
“I need access to the archives,” I told the archangels. “I’m done stealing books from the Academies.” Plural. What books I couldn’t find at Bloodline, I got Andrei to lift from Nightblood. It was an inefficient system. These supernaturals really needed to get on board the eBook train. Lugging around their tomes was backbreaking.
I could tell by the way Michael’s face clouded over that he didn’t approve of me sneaking around either. Well, tough. If they weren’t going to do something about the black sheep in their family, I would have to do it.
“What would you hope to find?” Michael asked.
“Anything other than nothing,” I told him.
Raphael tugged at my foot. “I’m afraid you search for something that doesn’t exist.”
I threw my arms in the air. “Then what would you have me do? Run away and hide until I’m old and wrinkled?”
His solemn expression told me that was exactly what he thought I should do. “You are Lucifer’s best chance of freedom,” Michael continued. “If you would remain cloistered, he would have no avenue of escape.”
I was about to contradict him when a figure winked into existence beside Michael and did it for me. “And what would happen after Alessia is gone?” Azrael asked. Hallelujah! “We would be back to the beginning. Yo
u know he will not rest until he has broken free.”
Azrael surveyed me with an odd tug on his lips. Like he was trying not to smile in case it encouraged me. “We run the risk of his next scion being more susceptible.”
I swallowed hard. As much as it rubbed me like sandpaper that I had Lucifer’s blood, I hated the idea that if I died, he would repeat the process until he found someone to release him. If that happened, my ancestors would have died for nothing. From what I had gathered, the Soul Sisterhood had assassinated any of the past scions who showed signs of being susceptible to Lucifer’s will. None of them had had a prophecy hanging over their heads.
“This is a dangerous road,” Raphael said.
“All roads are dangerous,” Azrael reminded him. “You are on precarious ground yourself, brother.”
My head bowed at his reminder. It was bad enough that I had the prophecy to contend with. Kai’s constant battering at me from the bond was the last straw. I felt the world around me waver as I tried to blink back hot tears. “Alessia,” Raphael said.
I balled the blanket in my left hand. “I’m trying to break the bond.” My voice was wet. “He won’t leave me alone!”
I felt the caress of Azrael’s power along my cheek before the air popped twice. He and Michael left me alone with Raphael. The bed dipped where the seraph shifted his weight. I heard the scrape of wood on stone. How the frame didn’t break was beyond me. Raphael reached out to clasp his enormous hands around mine.
“Perhaps it’s for the best,” he said.
I wanted to box his ears. When I glanced up, I could tell he’d heard my thoughts because he was smiling. A single tear beaded down my cheek. “I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that.”
“Malachi has been through more than anyone should for one so young,” Raphael said. “He...neither of you, should have to give up any more.”