by Ashley Meira
And I paid for it.
There was an infuriatingly pitying look on his face as he asked about my mother.
I set my book down with a huff. “Why the interest? You writing a book or something?”
Alex pursed his lips. “We fucked but that doesn’t mean you owe me anything, right?”
Nice, throw my words back at me. “It’s true.”
“Is it so wrong to want to know more about you?”
I couldn’t think of an answer that didn’t make me sound like an asshole, so I did what I do best. Procrastinated. “This is really not a good time.”
He opened his mouth to protest, then shut it. “You’re right. I’m sorry. You just look so.…”
“Shitty? Kind of hard not to when the people you care about are missing or dead.”
“I was going to say ‘disheartened.’ I thought a distraction might help.”
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, trying to stop my libido from making me do something stupid. “You’ve already provided two very helpful distractions, but now I really need to focus. The notes mentioned three sacrifices, so there’s a chance that Trish and Lily are still alive, and if that’s the case, we need to find out what Vaughn’s game is and pull the plug on it as soon as possible.” Unable to fully fight my urges, I leaned forward and cupped the back of Alex’s head, pulling him into a kiss. His lips were soft as they moved against mine, and I felt a familiar heat well up in my chest and spread down between my legs. We pulled apart, our breaths lightly fanning our faces. “I’d be more than happy to accept any other ‘distractions’ after all of this is settled, however.”
He licked his lips, our proximity causing his tongue to glance across my own lips. “Gladly.”
With that, I sat back and picked the tome up, resigning myself to a long night of research. There was only one more day. Those words played over and over again in my head, merging with the text on the page until everything was one big, inky blur. I clenched the sides of the book, my fingers trembling as it got harder to breathe. My breaths were audible now and my heart was jackhammering against my ribcage.
What if we couldn’t find them in time? What if this ritual is completed and it ruins everything? How many more people were going to die over this? Who was the third victim? I mean, the girls had to be alive, right? Vaughn needed three sacrifices, so Lily and Trish had to be alive. They had to be. They had to.
Warm hands gripped my shoulders. I snapped my head up and was greeted with Alex’s soothing blue eyes.
“You were speaking out loud.”
“Oh.” I nodded, taking deep breaths as my eyes began to sting. Holy crap, I was so not going to cry right now. “Sorry.”
“Maybe you should take a break–”
“No,” I said immediately. “I’ll be okay. Really. The sooner we finish this, the sooner I’ll rest.”
Bless his soul for not pressing the issue.
With a deep, determined breath, I threw myself back into the research with renewed gusto. The work seemed to go by much faster, but I couldn’t stop doubting myself and going to re-check things every few minutes, just in case I missed something.
Ipos and Rowan joined us after they were done discussing…whatever. They didn’t mention it, but it felt like it was about me, because Ipos looked at me strangely a few times throughout the night, as if he were seeing me in a whole new light. What the hell had Rowan told him? And why was she avoiding my gaze? Why did I still have no answers about anything?
The four of us must have made quite the sight: a talking cat, two hunters, and a Duke of Hell sitting on a bed in a reading circle. It wasn’t until Jin came by to ask if we needed anything before he turned in for the night that I realized how late it was. Not that it mattered to me – everyone else could go to sleep if they wanted, I planned on staying up until I found the ritual.
10
The sunlight was creeping past my curtains, slithering over the bedroom and conflicting with the sterile halogen lights that were still on. As if I needed another reason to feel like the weak link, my eyelids began to droop down like there were tiny solid steel weights hooked into them. Demons didn’t need to sleep and hunters were trained to stay awake for days without much impairment to their skills, but with how easy I’d been taking things, it was hard to go more than twenty hours without at least a nap. A nap that almost always ended up turning into a ten-hour sleepfest. I blamed it on living with a cat.
“I swear to God, there weren’t this many books last night,” I groaned, dropping my head against Alex’s shoulder.
“You need to work on your math skills, then.” Ipos was resting on his stomach as he flipped through the pages of his fourth book.
I was too drowsy to give him more than a disgruntled stream of mumblings that may or may not have been coherent thoughts in my mind. Spoiler alert: they weren’t, it was all just noise.
With my face pressed against his neck, I could feel the vibrations as Alex spoke, but as much as the sensation left me feeling like a kitten getting her ears scratched, the words he spoke were what had my heart fluttering in my chest.
“I found it.”
I rose to my knees and cupped his face in my hands, pressing my forehead against his. “Are you sure? Are you one hundred percent sure? Alex–”
A strong hand gripped my arm, pulling me back. I rolled onto my butt and glared at Ipos. “Let him show us, Mori.”
Alex passed the book to me, and I dove into the text. What he was saying faded out as I read. It was all here. The ingredients to the potion matched, there was a full moon requirement, the need for three sacrifices – it was all there. And it led to.…
I covered my mouth, shaking my head as I reread the text over and over again.
“–will open the first lock on the gate to the Frozen Spire,” finished Alex.
The temperature in the room dropped to absolute zero. I wrapped my arms around myself, not even registering how cold my fingertips felt against my bare skin. Everyone was silent, taking in the weight of the situation. The Frozen Spire was bad. It was very, very bad.
It was a prison. In Hell.
The Spire was home to Hell’s vilest, most fiendish, disgustingly horrific– Well, I think I made my point. It housed the masters of the infernalists, the beings that deserved a fate worse than Hell, the ones that were too dangerous to even be given a chance to exist among everyone else. It was practically a world in and of itself – a torturous prison that flayed its denizens down to their very souls until there was nothing left but pure hatred. There was more, but all I really needed to know was that if everyone, including Satan himself, thought these creatures were too dangerous to exist even in Hell, then opening even one lock on their prison was unacceptable.
“This is bad,” I said, mentally slapping myself for uttering the biggest understatement of the year. “Ipos, Rowan, you two have the most experience, is this–”
“Bad,” Rowan said.
Ipos nodded. “Very bad. I need to contact the boss.”
“And we need to contact the Council,” said Alex.
“Yeah.” I crawled off the bed. “Do you think we should get the Heavenly Host involved?”
Rowan made a thoughtful noise. “Well, this falls under the Court’s jurisdiction more than the Hosts’. Besides, if we can find the ritual location, we may be able to stop Vaughn and his cohorts. Lucifer will probably want to send people. If we tell Heaven, there might be two armies marching on Haven.”
“What the fuck is this even doing in some random book?” I glared at the weathered pages as if they had personally offended me. I suppose they had, in a way.
Ipos picked the book up and checked the cover. The expression on his face went from furious to grave in two seconds flat. “This book isn’t supposed to be on Earth. It’s supposed to be locked up in Lucifer’s personal library.”
I plopped back onto the bed. “Then, how…?”
“That’s a good question,” Ipos growled in a voice so dangerous i
t gave me goosebumps. His eyes flashed gold and he bared his teeth, the pristine white points growing sharper. “One I plan on asking your friend and his little potion master when I get my hands on them.” Blood dribbled from his temples as the beginnings of curled horns began to peek through his bronze skin. I was actually beginning to feel sorry for Vaughn and his posse.
“The Council–” Rowan sighed at the look on Ipos’ face. “I’m sure Lucifer will be pushing for custody of the perpetrators.”
I took the book back and reread the passage. “The ritual can only be performed once every six hundred years and needs to be completed during the apex of the full moon in a place of great magical power that once housed the deaths of many innocents.”
“Great magical power would be the ley lines,” said Rowan. “Graveyard? Never mind. People are already dead by the time they arrive there, it’s too passive for a spell like this.”
“Fortune Square?” I asked. “Maybe that’s why that caravan was killed, to set the stage.”
Ipos shook his head. His demonic form had receded, leaving him in his normal “human” appearance, but his voice was still gravelly and otherworldly. “There weren’t nearly enough of them. The death count would have to be in the thousands. The prison? People get executed there.”
“Prisoners generally aren’t innocent,” said Rowan.
Silence fell over us like a curtain as we pondered our options. The city gates were closed and the guard captain was sure no one got through. He’s been the captain for decades, and Lady Cassandra trusted him, which meant I trusted him. Working from that, it meant Vaughn was still in town. Hopefully, that meant his partner was still here with Lily and Trish. No, not “hopefully.” They were here, there’s no other ley line around that’s powerful enough. But where the hell were they?
“Damn it,” I growled. “Haven is peaceful. We didn’t build it over a burial ground or anything. It’d corrupt the ley lines if we had. The only things that ever get killed here are criminals and animals.”
Alex snapped his fingers in an “Aha!” moment. “Does it say anything about the innocents having to be human?”
I checked the passage again. “No. Just innocent and dead.”
“Okay, I know it’s going to sound crazy, but just hear me out. Haven has farmland, right?”
I nodded.
“I see where you’re going with this,” Rowan said. I was a little jealous; it took me almost a year to get her to say anything with that impressed lilt to her voice. “Ranchers used to slaughter their animals and sell the meat themselves. When the population started to really grow, more animals needed to be raised and killed, even more than the ranchers could manage on their own. So, they built a slaughterhouse and bought the animals from their owners. They brought tons of animals there to be killed.”
“You guys really think it’s a slaughterhouse?” said Ipos.
“It’s a little tacky,” I admitted. “But you make do with what you have. Like when you need a ritual cloth, but the only thing you can get your hands on is a Spongebob placemat.” Everyone turned to me. “…I saw it on TV. It still applies, though.”
“There are abandoned factories in the countryside,” said Rowan. “Lady Maxwell had new ones built ten years ago.”
“Do you think they’re already there?” asked Alex.
“It’s–” Ipos checked his watch. “–barely seven in the morning. We’ve got a while until the full moon.”
“We shouldn’t risk exposure by going too early,” said Alex. “I think an hour or two ahead of time to prepare would be best.”
“We have until nightfall, then,” said Rowan.
“What are the chances we can sneak around the factory and set up traps without being discovered?” I asked.
“Probably bad,” said Ipos. “If they catch a hint of foul play, they might run.”
“You really think they’d blow this chance?”
“They will if they’re smart. Then again, they are trying to unlock the Spire, so…” He shrugged, his arms crossed over his chiseled pecs. “I still wouldn’t want to risk them running. Maniacs like that always manage to find a way to achieve their goals.”
“True,” said Alex. “So, we’ll go at, say, eight or nine?”
“Eight,” I said, for once choosing to err on the side of caution.
A dark gloom settled itself over the house as we waited. No matter how much I tried, the nervous energy coursing through my body prevented me from getting any sleep.
Rowan sent along all relevant information to the Council, who told her they would give us a chance to handle it. Telling Lucifer and Michael caused them to order a damned purge. Getting them to stay on the back burner was a political nightmare, but both Heaven and Hell agreed to let the Order take point on this. Apparently, miracles could happen.
I’d only seen Lucifer in person once, from very far away, but from what I remember – and from the stories I’d heard – I couldn’t imagine him being okay with hunters sorting this out. I’m sure Ipos helped put in a good word, or ten, about the situation. That, or there was an army of demons currently on their way here that we knew nothing about. Satan wouldn’t let a pesky little thing like a peace treaty stop him from getting his way. Ipos promised it’d be just us, though, and who wouldn’t believe a demon? I figured we were pretty much screwed either way, and there was enough shit to be worried about already without factoring in Satan.
Alex had taken over my backyard for sword training, and no, that was unfortunately not an innuendo. It also wasn’t a sword so much as a machete. Whatever – those sharp things that could cut a person’s head off, which was something I needed training in actually. They taught us all of this at the academy, and it’s not like I had no idea how to use weapons – they did teach us to use guns, after all. But when it came to melee weapons, I was just more accustomed to throwing magic around. It hadn’t failed me yet.
I stared at the small flame that flickered in the palm of my hand, and when I looked away, little black ants swarmed my vision. Despite all my training, I still hadn’t managed to grasp the basics of not looking directly into a fire. How big was this fight going to be? Vaughn, his accomplice… Would they have any other backup? I imagined that a chance to break a lock on the prison that held their demonic master would draw quite a crowd of infernalists. Of course, someone probably would’ve noticed a convent’s worth of mages wandering around. Still, this could be anything from a two-man plan to a doomsday cult, probably the latter. Vaughn did seem too self-serving to be working towards the “bigger picture,” though. Then again, he did join the Order.
All those born into Order families were given a choice: hunter or civilian. Sure, most civilians were required to stay in Order cities until they could be trusted to keep the existence of the paranormal a secret, but it was a wonderful alternative to risking their lives fighting monsters. Some of them wanted safety, while others just couldn’t hack it as a hunter.
Like Lily.
The flame vanished as I thought of her. She was so young. Well, she was twenty, but that was still young. Most hunters were already out on duty by that age. The furthest Lily had ever traveled was to Louisiana to visit the Gallaghers. Lady Cassandra always worried about keeping her safe and now she–
Jin appeared by the doorway. “Some more coffee, Miss?”
I was thankful for the distraction. “No, thank you, Jin. Actually, it may be better if you returned home. Preparations need to be made for Lady Maxwell’s–” I pursed my lips “–body. The rest of the staff need to be alerted and kept calm, too.”
Jin bowed. “I understand. Rest assured, Miss Morgan, I will take care of everything.”
I lounged against my headboard, watching him walk away. As much as I hated to even think of it, everything needed to move on. Big changes were going to come soon, even more so if we failed to stop this ritual. I may not have had control over everything, but I could at least make sure I put an end to that. Then, I would take some time to mourn, and po
ssibly smash everything around me, before picking up the pieces and moving on. It was so easy to plan it all out, but I couldn’t dislodge the vice around my heart that echoed the quote about best laid plans.
I tried to bring my focus back to the magic. Another flame flickered in my hand, bigger this time, and increasing in size until it was slightly larger than my head. I took a deep breath, satisfied with my progress. The flame went from a warm orange glow to a cold blue as it stopped flickering and turned solid. The chunk of ice glistened, the light twisting around the sharp spikes as it floated above my hand. The solidity vanished and the spikes turned into writhing tendrils of pure energy. The electricity crackled loudly at first, then quieted down into a barely perceptible hum. Bright lights danced around my hand, frizzing the ends of my hair and numbing the tips of my fingers. Then, the light froze for a millisecond before soft grains of sand fell through my fingers, dissolving away before they hit the floor.
My flow was good, but the electricity numbing my extremities was something I needed to work on. Still, I was satisfied with this little exercise. It was important to focus on the few positives floating around me right now.
I did a few stretches before sitting to meditate. When I settled down, I rested my palms face up on my knees and channeled my magic through me. A loud crack jarred my concentration, but the noise dropped back to a low hum as I found my center. My eyelids fluttered as a tingling sensation flowed over my hands and up through my arms. Electricity surged through me as my fingertips went numb again.
The longer I sat there, the more the feeling, or lack thereof, spread. It went from my fingertips to a thousand pinpricks against my palm, up to my forearms before circling around my biceps. My scar felt like it was on fire as I kept the electricity flowing, but I didn’t stop. I had to work through it to improve.