“You pretend as though you’re not afraid, but I can smell the fear on you. And yet… it is perhaps not fear of death. But rather…” he sniffs the air, exhaling deeply like one of those creepy serial killers in a thriller flick. “The fear that no one will come for you. The fear that you have pushed people away so far, that now, no hero will come to your aid,” he guesses, and I snort.
“Not likely. I mean, who needs someone to come to my aid when I have me? I’m pretty capable you know. It’s actually kind of sexist that you assume I need a man to save me.” I cross my arms and push my nose up at him, trying to keep my cool and not let him get to me.
“You use humour to hide your fear, but I am the master to which it answers. You cannot hide your fear from me, Persephone,” he declares, taking a single step forward and glowering at me, his eyes ghostly in the dark.
“I dunno, you’re not that scary. In fact, you seem deaf to me. I told you before, I’m Sephy. Not Persephone. So, are you deaf? Or just stupid?” I ask him, cocking my head again and wondering exactly how much I can get away with before one of them just goes ahead and kills me for good measure.
Then I realise that they’re probably not under orders to kill me until they’ve tried to blackmail Haedes. I guess I have at least an hour or even more to kill, causing me even more stress than I’m already under. I relax into my cage, staring with a dead gaze at Barbas and waiting for him to answer me. He looks exasperated, frowning and turning, seeming to leave the room after a few moments as his footsteps fade into nothingness.
Ha.
Sephy one.
Demon Lords a big fat zilch.
XION
The Exilia approaches, but not fast enough despite the blur of the streets around us. Anubis is beside me, Osiris watching my expression like a hawk. We stand in the chariot, moving through the city as the heads of sinners turn to stop and stare.
“Can’t this thing go any faster?” I grumble, voice deep as I continue to allow my short fingernails to dig into the palms of my hands. The blood rushes to my biceps, causing them to bust against the leather of my jacket.
“We’re pushing the Jackals as hard as they’ll run, Xion. Patience please.” Anubis is snarky in her response, and I momentarily consider strangling her, but then I realise I have no way of controlling the chariot without her, and so smack down the violent urges threatening to take over me. I haven’t felt this out of control, this volatile, since long before I took to slaughtering demons out on the Ashen Waste for anger management under Luce’s advisement, and it’s in this second that I realise perhaps Sephy means more to me than I’ll ever admit.
Sighing, we finally make our way underneath the hollow archways that surround the open lobby of the Exilia. The chariot screeches to a halt beside the river, and I leap over the side of the golden contraption, my feet heating the ground not moments before I begin running up the steps.
“We’ll be back!” I hear Anubis call over to me, but I disregard her entirely as I continue to move only forward.
They have the authority here, after all; they’re Titans made flesh, but I don’t have time to waste sorting through this diplomatically. I only have the unending action that comes from desperation. The necessity that has become protecting this girl at all costs, whether she needs me to or not.
I make a left at the top of the staircase, the steps of which I take four at a time, before dashing past the startled eyes of envy sinners, dressed in thick armour, my steps clattering heavy against the smoky quartz floor. I reach the bottom of the staircase leading to Luce and Thane’s suite, the scent of something Alchemic drifting down the stairs and filling my nostrils with a pungent tang.
I make quick, effortless work of the spiral staircase, speeding to the top and wasting no time in bursting through the door and into Luce’s apartment. She’s not here as I should have guessed from the aroma floating downstairs, but Thane is, lounging out on the couch with Cerb and Beelz on the floor in front of her.
“Xion, what’s wrong?” She notes my startled expression and gets to her feet, causing both animals to shift, becoming alert and stiff in posture at her sides.
“Sephy, they took her,” I stutter, and her eyes widen.
“Well shit,” she cusses.
“Where’s Luce?” I demand, and she looks anxious.
“In her lab; I haven’t seen her since I got home about ten minutes ago,” Thane informs me, wasting no time as she moves into action. She storms past me, knocking on the door of Luce’s alchemy chamber without pause as the her knock echoes out, acute and unapologetic, around me like a warning bell, only exaggerating the urgency of the situation.
There are a few minutes of silence as Thane continues to tap her bare foot on the stone. Her hair is dishevelled, and she’s wearing pinstriped black slacks, braces and a white vest. She sighs impatiently before giving another few knocks on the door.
Before her knuckles strike the wood for the final tap, which concludes her usual rhythm, the door swings inward, revealing Luce in a deep green gown. Plumes of smoke billow out from behind her, filling the space between her lab and the suite with the scent of something that’s been singed beyond what’s natural.
From behind her, The Fates emerge.
“I know why you’re here. The Fates arrived half an hour ago.” Luce’s tone is urgent, and her eyes are worried as she looks up into my face.
“I need… I don’t know… I need something to help her.” I make barely a sentence. Luce looks serious.
“First of all, how was she taken?” Luce demands, and I breathe out.
“I don’t know. We were having dinner with Anubis and Osiris inside The Icon. We had the appetiser, and the next thing I know, we’re unconscious. When we all woke up, she was gone,” I explain, and Luce frowns, troubled.
“That’s strange. As for something to help, I have it right here. This draft, it’s the most complex thing I’ve ever attempted, but The Fates have assisted in the brewing. It will bind Sephy’s powers to her fully. No waiting. It’ll be a rough transition, but she needs to be alive more than she needs not to have a wicked migraine so…” She’s rambling, trying to stay calm, keep things casual.
She holds out a vial to me, her dark fingernails clinking against the glass as her pale eyes glisten with pride.
“Thanks.” I grab it hastily, moving to turn and begin my descent back down the stairs.
“Xion, wait!” Luce calls after me, scowling at my impatience.
“What? Why?” I exclaim, feeling my heartrate heighten and my blood begin to boil at the interruption.
“You are going into this all wrong. You can’t just walk across the Ashen Waste. She’ll be dead before you even get half way,” she protests, so I take a large stride, edging on inhuman speed, getting right up in her face without a care for the consequences.
“What do you suggest then, Luce? That I give up? Let her die?” I growl, and she smirks, rolling her eyes.
“No.” She reaches down into her cleavage, which is only accentuated by the pinch of her deep green corset. “I suggest you take the car.” She pulls out a key that hangs on a silver ring attached to a small pair of fuzzy blue dice.
“Wait… is that… does Haedes know about this then?” I ask her, and she shakes her head.
“Nope. I had the key copied for emergencies. This constitutes an emergency. Now go before anyone else hears about this and decides to stop you,” she warns me and I shoot her a grateful glance.
“Thank you. I…” I begin, but she pushes me back.
“Go! Her time is running out,” She ushers me urgently, placing a hand on my broad chest and pushing me away.
Spinning on my heel, I grip the vial in one hand and the outdated keychain in the other before dashing back down the spiral staircase and into the lobby. I don’t still for even a second, counting each moment now as precious, as if it could be her last.
As I look around the lobby, I realise I have no idea where Haedes keeps his car, let alone the kind of
security measures he has around it. I mean, he probably loves his car more than most people. In fact, I’m absolutely sure that’s true.
I see Annie coming towards me, her eyes down on the floor and her posture slumped as I store the car key and vial in my pocket. She’s holding a bottle of polish and a cloth. I can only hope she’s moving to polish the car as is Haedes’ daily request. Perhaps this is fate, me bumping into her at this exact moment, or maybe there is some greater orchestrating force that knows I need to get gone and quick.
“Annie!” I call, taking fast and purposeful steps toward her. She takes one look at me and then moves to switch direction, her eyes widening and fear sheening wet across their surface. “Hey wait!” I exclaim, using my inhuman speed to catch up with her, placing a hand on the simple black cotton of her nun’s uniform. I don’t know why Haedes makes her wear it, but to each their own I suppose.
“W…wh…what?” she whimpers, looking up at me like I might hit her.
“Are you heading to polish Haedes’ car?” I ask her, and she looks left then right before nodding as her left eye gives a nervous twitch.
“Yes. Why… Why would you ask that?” She straightens her shoulders, trying to appear brave, but the way in which her hands tremble, making the polish slosh about in it’s can, makes me aware that she’s anything but.
“He was telling me I should check out the engine… you know, for explosives or anything like that. Can’t be too safe with the Demon Lords attacking Nexus members. I mean, they got in here once. They could be using anyone… I mean…” I lean in, getting close to her. “Even you might be a suspect…” I know I’m playing on her anxiety, but I don’t have time to mess around and twist her arm slowly.
“M...m… me?” she stutters, showing that her mental resolve is weakening, I smile.
“Well, you are close to Haedes. You’d be the perfect suspect,” I elaborate, and she shudders.
“But… but… it’s not me. I’m innocent, sir.” She bows her head, subservient as always. It makes me feel a little nauseous actually, but I fight it back, continuing the conversation.
“I’m sure you are, but words are easily misleading, actions… well, not so much. I’m sure it would restore faith from the entire council and staff if you were to assist me in checking the car over. After all, you probably spend the most time down in the garage, other than Haedes of course.” She looks as if she’d chop off her left arm to help me as she nods, moving around me in a scurry. I follow her across the lobby, walking back in the direction I’ve just come from.
We make pace past envy sinners, their jade pendants gleam cruelly in the dim light of the Exilia, and move past the spiral staircase leading back to Luce and Thane. She takes me down a dark corridor lit by a multitude of sconces with flickering blue flame. As we reach the halfway point of the long corridor, she makes a sharp right, slipping down a staircase I’d never even noticed before in all the time I’ve spent here. It twists back on itself, creating a slither of rock that maintains the façade of a continuous wall, and I look on as we descend together, pleasantly impressed with the design.
At the bottom of the staircase, Annie proceeds through a silver sliding door, which she heaves aside with much effort. I follow her, moving into the space where Haedes’ beloved 1932 Ford Hotrod Coupe sits upon a revolving platform, cast in deep blue hue. It’s sleek black with electric blue neon flames bursting from the hood, faltering where the bare engine is exposed, and then continuing down the body of the car in a fluid design that hugs the vehicle’s front and back wheels.
“Here we are,” Annie whispers, moving to the left of the space so I’m towering over her right shoulder. She pivots fast as my shadow falls on her, taking a few steps before opening a cupboard to fetch something, though I don’t know what.
I take my chance. Moving in from behind, I give her a small shove.
“Sorry,” I mutter, slamming the cupboard door shut and barricading it closed with a nearby mop handle that has been left so the floor can be kept in its unmistakably pristine condition. In fact, when I look around this place, it barely looks like a garage at all, more like a showroom.
I hear Annie struggling to get out of the cupboard, wondering how long the mop will hold such a petite and seemingly fragile woman inside.
Not wanting to stop momentum for a second, I move to the exit, finding the garage door can be opened by the spinning of a wheel, reminding me of the way in which the gates open at the obsidian wall.
I turn it as fast as it’ll go, raising the garage door, biceps burning.
Not wanting to take the risk that she’ll escape, I move across the silver floor, which has better grip than I expect, plunging my hand deep inside my leather jacket pocket and pulling out the fluffy dice keyring. I launch myself up the small incline and onto the revolving platform, plunging the silver key into the lock of the door before slipping inside the car. The black leather interior is lined with more silver, and the driver’s seat cups my back as I push the seat away from the wheel so my feet reach the pedals adequately, slightly smug I’m taller than Haedes. I shut the door, causing the sound of a cupboard refusing to open to fall silent.
Feeling comfortable as I take the key and start up the engine. I jump slightly at the immense roar it expels. The exposed engine shudders visibly in front of the windscreen, and I feel the vibrations through the bottom of my seat.
Placing my hands on the steering wheel, urgency still a heady drug in my veins, I plunge my foot down on the clutch, find the biting point, and then move to accelerate out of the parking space. The car has more of a kick than I thought, and so I pull my foot back as I move too fast off the revolving platform, and the entire car stalls.
Crap.
Sighing, I try to focus, try not the think about the fact that she’s in pain, or dead, or worse. I need to get to her, to save her, and to do that, I need to not be hideously maimed in a fiery car wreck.
“Okay. Easy does it,” I coax, placing my foot back on the accelerator as I restart the car, finding the biting point much easier this time.
After a few careful metres, I see envy sinners becoming suspicious of my exit and so decide to throw caution to the wind. I plunge my foot down, hearing a squeal of tyres on crystal and the shudder of the engine as I push up to a higher gear.
In a cloud of tyre smoke, I burst through the lobby of the Exilia, finding that the garage lets out on the far side, and lurch forward out of the place, not so much as looking back. The speed is comforting; it means I am moving closer to her, to saving her.
With every mile that passes, my hold on the wheel tightens, my changing of gears becomes more aggressive, and the demon within me stirs, impatient.
As I reach the Hotrod’s top speed, a thought occurs to me, niggling away like a parasite in the back of my mind.
I creep closer and closer to The Fallen Kingdom, to putting an end to my suffering, but the thing I cannot seem to quiet is a single question.
Is the Demon in me rooting for her survival or theirs?
Chapter Twenty Five
Isn’t She Lovely
LUCE
The last thundering echo of Xion’s footsteps upon smoky quartz fades into nothing and I exhale heavily, relieved he’s gone.
“Layla, Moira, Anya, follow Thane into the suite, she’ll make you a cup of tea. I’ll only be a moment,” I instruct them, trying to be polite but knowing that the situation is time sensitive. I spin on my heel, feeling the weight of my deep hued skirt shifting around my waist. The hem becomes damp around my ankles, absorbing the glaze of alchemic precipitation which is falling on the floor, making it slick. The Fates bumble around me, looking to me with wizened and concerned stares as I make my way back into the alchemy chamber, slamming the door shut behind me.
Most people are surprised, especially the sinners that clean the place, to find that my cauldron is not a giant vat, the kind you could boil a child in, but rather a small pewter pot, decorated with amethyst around the base for protectio
n. I don’t know why everyone assumes I would have an enormous cauldron for brewing, I mean, how is anyone supposed to produce anything with any potency in such a large vessel? With potions, you tend to find that the smaller the amount produced, the more powerful the effects.
Taking several strides across the cobble stones which are set into the floor, I stare down into the depths of the petite pewter cauldron.
Just enough, I breathe, picking up a copper ladle which lies beside the vat on my left, and a vial from my right, scooping up the glowing bloody orange liquid and carefully delivering it into the hold of the glass. I inhale the sweet scent of the brew, the tang of cinnamon, a hint of crushed firefly wing and a splash of luciferin, brought to the boil before stirring in dragon scale and a pinch of ground unicorn horn. It’s not an easy potion to make, and many of the ingredients I’ve used today will be difficult if not impossible to replace. Still, one cannot be frugal when it comes to saving lives, especially when that life belongs to Haedes’ daughter.
I stopper the vial, content if not weary from the task of creating the potion in the first place, not used to calling on such dark powerful magic and ingredients. I’m barely above making sleeping drafts and natural remedies to calm the nerves, so this is far from what I usually make. The thing about alchemy, of course, which makes it so dark and dangerous, is the way in which it produces forces or effects which go against the natural order of things.
Striding back out of the chamber, I close the door purposefully behind me and make my way across the hall to the suite. Inside, the three Fates are sat on the sofa, admiring Beelzebub and Cerberus as they sleep beside the fire atop the dark rug, and Thane looks like she might stab somebody as they continually ask her the questions they manage to squeeze in every single time they’re around us.
The Opal Blade (The Ashen Touch Trilogy Book 1) Page 36