Phoenix Contract: Part Four (Fallen Angel Watchers)

by Melissa Thomas

  A crack appeared at the top of the statue’s head where the dragon tooth blade was buried. A dozen fissures followed, widening and deepening into fractures. With the sharp ring of breaking crystal, Acerbitas broke free from her prison. The entire statue shattered and dissolved into millions of glassy black pieces.

  Around them, a hundred gawking spectators looked on with dropped jaws and expressions of patent disbelief. Magnus had no concern for the offense he had committed against the narrowly defined reality of so many people.

  “Is he dead?” Magnus asked. He brushed black dust from his sleeve and stepped away from the pile that had formed at his feet. His boots were covered in glittering crystal shards, so he stomped his feet one after the other.

  “Completely destroyed,” Acerbitas confirmed. Her hollow voice had acquired a lost little girl quality.

  “What’s wrong?” Magnus asked. He had expected her to be overjoyed, gleeful, and triumphant.

  She hesitated in reply. “It’s just... I thought that after he was destroyed and I’d fulfilled my purpose... that I’d be done.”

  “You expected the fulfillment of your destiny to grant you peace?” Magnus clarified.

  “Yes.”

  “Things never work out like that.” Magnus hesitated and then assured her, “Don’t worry, I know who to kill to bring you that peace.”

  “Magnus,” Guillaume called from his seat at the table.

  Head cocked to the side, Magnus approached the Frenchman with a chilled smile concealed beneath the folds of his cowl.

  “Hello, Guillaume,” he drawled.

  “You killed my minion,” Guillaume chided, indicating the obsidian shards with a flourish.

  “Your minion pissed me off,” Magnus retorted, hard and unapologetic.

  The Frenchman laughed. “Magnus, you haven’t changed at all?”

  He cocked his head, and offered a cold smile. “Oh, but I have.”

  An inferno engulfed Aiden, obscuring her entirely from view behind a wall of flame. She screamed, a horrific sound that turned Matthew’s soul to ice as her wails continued from within the bonfire.

  Dear God! The priest lurched to his feet and rushed the wall of flame with the intention of yanking his daughter to safety. Heat scorched the old man’s face, blinding him as he reached for Aiden. A tongue of flame lashed out and hit the priest, throwing him clear across the study and into the far wall.

  Matthew collided with a sickening thud, like a deer hitting a car hood. He slid along the wall to the floor, leaving bright red streaks on the white paint. While he lay in a heap, he squinted through old eyes that were tired and failing. He couldn’t see clearly without his glasses, but he caught a brief, blurry glimpse of a fiery bird within the fire, a Phoenix forming in the flames.

  It was a sign! Aiden was going to be okay! A blessed sense of relief lifted the priest’s heart, and he closed his eyes as the terror lost its hold. Aiden was going to be okay. She’d survive the fire and go on to become the Phoenix. And then his daughter would live forever, just like the angel had promised him in that vision so long ago.

  He was so very tired. “Just going to rest my eyes for a moment,” he murmured before he slipped quietly and peacefully into darkness.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  She stood on a mountainside bare of life, loose bits of earth, small stones, pebbles, and dust. Only large and jagged granite protrusions of earth remained, jutting out like the broken bones of an ancient giant. The sky off to her right was brighter than the rest, an indeterminate gray that might have been either dusk or dawn.

  Teeth chattering uncontrollably, Aiden shivered in the unyielding icy wind. Then a hand reached out and took hers: warm, paternal, and protective.

  Aiden glanced at the hand and then smiled at him. She instantly felt safer in the dark, lost place.

  “Aiden, I can’t stay,” Matthew said. “I came to say goodbye, to tell you that I’m sorry, that I love you.”

  “I love you too,” Aiden said, dazed. “Where are you going?”

  “Away,” he said. “Far, far away.”

  “Why?” she asked, suddenly alarmed.

  “But Magnus is coming. He promised to keep an eye on you for me.”

  “Magnus! But he’s a killer. Why would you entrust my safety to a killer?”

  “Yes, but he’s a gifted killer,” Matthew agreed, wearing a sad smile of amusement. “And in this world those kinds of friends are good to have.”

  “He’s no friend of mine,” Aiden avowed.

  “I have to leave.” Matthew squeezed her hands between his own. “I’m so sorry. More than anything, I’d like to stay and see what happens... but I can’t.”

  “Leave? What are you talking about? Where are you going?” Aiden asked, becoming fearful and distressed again.

  “Away. I’m going away,” Matthew replied. He smiled at her, but the expression in his face was far, far away. “I can’t explain, but you’ll understand soon enough.”

  “No! You can’t leave me!” Aiden cried, tightening her hold on her adopted father’s hand even as he faded, growing insubstantial before her eyes.

  “I love you. Don’t ever forget that,” he said. Then Matthew winked out, leaving her alone in the dark.

  Alone. So very alone.

  “Aiden.”

  Distant, faint. Her name, spoken from a great distance. She shivered hard, teeth clattering. A bone-deep chill pervaded her entire body, causing her to hold herself tight and whimper pitifully.

  “Aiden, you need to wake up,” Magnus said again.

  Hoping he’d go away, she pretended not to hear, but the damage to her comatose state had already been done. Her mind stirred, lethargic and sluggish, but gradually roused to a state of self-awareness.

  “Aiden, you need—”

  “I can’t wake up, okay?” Aiden shouted, cutting off his persistent nagging. “I don’t know where I am. I don’t know how to wake up!”

  The icy wind cut through her bones with the precision of a surgical blade. The gossamer scarlet gown she wore whipped vigorously around her slender form, providing no protection. Arms crossed over her chest, Aiden turned sideways, facing neither the wind nor the sun. She was completely alone in this desolate place. Lost.

  But was she really? A quick glance around revealed Magnus behind her. He stood at her back which made her wonder what meaning he attached to the position. Was he sneaking up behind her or guarding her back? Did he even know? Or did their ‘friendship’ confuse him as much as it did her?

  She swiveled around and faced him. His posture was one of repose, and he held Acerbitas between his hands, blade tip touching the stony ground. The cowl of his heavy leather cloak lay on his back, leaving his head exposed.

  Aiden curiously inspected his face since she’d only seen him one other time without the blasted hood obscuring his features. Even so, shadows clung to him. Still, his face was ruggedly handsome, and her fingers longed to explore it.

  “Your face is healed,” she murmured, reaching for his cheek. The white marble flesh was powder smooth and clean-shaven which surprised her because she’d been expecting bristle.

  Magnus tilted his head toward her hand and nuzzled her palm, encouraging her hesitant intimacy.

  Emboldened, Aiden threaded her hands through his sable hair. The entire unruly mass fell in waves about his shoulders and possessed the sheen and thickness of mink. She tamed one of the stubborn curls by wrapping it around her finger.

  He accepted her touch with an innate sensuality that left her flushed. Pulse racing, she opened her eyes and found him watching her with those disturbing gold-coin eyes and black-slit pupils.

  “My face is ruined. This is a dream. My appearance reflects my self-image, not how I actually am,” he said, jarring Aiden out of her self-imposed reverie.

  “Oh.” Her eyes dropped to the ground, and she returned to earth with a thud. Reluctantly, she removed her hands. The dream-state freed her from her inhibitions, but this was more than jus
t a dream, and they both knew it. They would both remember what had transpired when they woke up.

  Magnus would never let her get this close in real life. The Celt never lost sight of the big picture. Those handsome features of his had been destroyed, burned away. He hid his scarred face from the world.

  She wondered if his standoffishness came out of vanity and ego or if he was simply lonely.

  In her heart, Aiden didn’t care how he looked, because in spite of how much she mistrusted his motives, the attraction between them was undeniable. Their connection had been forged from something deeper than superficial appearances, and it wasn’t his usually hidden face that drew her to him. But it didn’t matter anyway, because this thing between them could never work.

  Rolling back on his heels, Magnus shifted his stance and transferred Acerbitas to a hidden shoulder sheath. Only the hilt of the spatha remained visible, poking up over his broad right shoulder.

  “Are you keeping that thing?” Aiden regarded the weapon with distaste.

  Magnus shrugged. “For the time being.”

  “Is it dead?” she asked, abruptly recalling the demon he’d been sent to kill.

  “Yes, your spell helped,” he said.

  “It did?” Aiden tried not to sound as surprised as she felt but failed miserably.

  Magnus snickered. “Yes, it did,” he said firmly. “You held it still long enough for me to kill. Thank you.”

  He smiled, and she wanted to kiss him.

  “I screwed up big time.”

  “Not so big,” he disagreed. “The spell worked, and the demon is dead. It wasn’t a bad first attempt, especially for a beginner.”

  “Do you know magic?” Aiden asked Magnus to satisfy her curiosity. Aside from flight, he’d never openly demonstrated any magical ability, only a mastery of weapons and cryptic replies, and a propensity for being sneaky.

  “I am magic.”

  She snickered. “Can you be any more arrogant?”

  He grinned, golden eyes shining even in the absence of light. “If I try.”

  “Am I... dead?” Aiden asked finally

  “No, I don’t think so.” His uncertainty left her panicked. He wasn’t exactly a font of reassurance. “I doubt I’d be able to reach you like this if you were dead,” he added with more confidence.

  “Is that supposed to make me feel better?” Aiden's frustration and fear welled to the surface. “I don’t know how to get out of here!”

  Suddenly, the mountaintop disappeared, and they stood at the bottom of a deep canyon in the earth. The rocky walls rose up all around them, insurmountable barriers with no sign of the sky above.

  “I preferred the mountaintop,” Magnus muttered with an irony that made no sense, because nothing in their situation struck her as humorous.

  “I’ve had my fill of being underground,” Magnus said as if it somehow explained his weird sense of humor. He stared at her blank, frightened expression and then made a dismissive gesture. “Never mind. I’ll stay here with you until you wake up,” he said. “But it’ll delay my return to the study. It’s taking all of my concentration to keep this connection open.”

  “You’ll stay? Promise?” Her tension eased when he mouthed the word ‘promise’, but the vastness of her relief embarrassed her.

  An awkward silence settled.

  “Bet you wish that you’d just called,” she quipped.

  Magnus managed a faint but contrived smile. The Celt looked preoccupied and worried by his expression. Maybe he thought neither of them would ever make it out of her nightmare. She knew he wouldn’t leave her, no matter what, even if he spent the rest of eternity with her in the bowels of the earth.

  Magnus kept his word. Aiden trusted him in that one area, because he’d demonstrated the extraordinary lengths he’d travel to keep his promises. Stupid, stubborn, illogical man...

  If only she could figure out his character: quirks, motivations, morality, beliefs... Then and only then did she stand a chance of understanding who he was. Maybe then she’d be able to trust him the way that Matthew obviously did.

  “Who are you?” she asked, surprising both him and herself with the pent-up frustration in her tone.

  He regarded her through shuttered eyes before answering. “Celt, warrior , hunter. Take your pick.”

  “I already knew all that,” she muttered, then paused, grinning faintly.

  Aiden sighed. “Who are you really?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean this. I know you were born over two thousand years ago to the Averni tribe of Gaul and have been alive ever since. You’re not undead, right?”

  “Right.”

  “I also know that you’re supposedly of House Shemyaza,” Aiden said. “I’m of House Shemyaza. Coincidence?”

  She paused, but he remained silent. Magnus only gazed at her through those warm yellow eyes and grinned. His smile hinted at further secrets, more than the ones already revealed, and no matter how many layers she stripped away, he had yet another one waiting to be discovered.

  She sighed. “I didn’t think so. So what gives? Who are you?”

  Aiden’s mind processed information, puzzled facts, and put two-and-two together at lightning speed. “And what gives with the vulnerability to sunlight?” she demanded. “Nothing about you adds up or makes sense.”

  “Metamorphic magic always exacts a price,” Magnus said. “Especially over long periods of time. I simply chose my flaw rather than having it chosen for me.”

  “Metamorphic magic is transformation. Shape changing…” Aiden stared at him and he at her as her mind leapt and lickety-split did the math. “I’ve been asking the wrong question,” she concluded. “It’s not who are you, it’s what are you?”

  “I’ve been waiting a long time for someone to finally start asking the right questions,” Magnus said with a sort of solemn smugness.

  “You’re not going to answer, are you?” Her brief warmth toward him had turned to coolness.

  “You’ll find out soon enough,” he promised.

  “Why do people keep lying to me?” Aiden cried, and the air and earth trembled. First Matthew and now Magnus!

  Indeed, Magnus’ entire existence was a lie, rooted in falsehoods, nourished with deception. The Celt was only one of Father Matthew’s dirty little secrets—one of many lies the priest had told to those supposedly close to him. As a result, both Niall Talcott and Daniel Adams had been exiled, and Daniel had suffered monstrous deformity.

  Why? Why would he lie? Aiden couldn’t wrap her mind around a plausible reason. Certainly Magnus didn’t require anyone’s protection. Until recently Aiden had truly believed that her mentor stood for unvarnished honesty, so it was hard to imagine motives for the opposite. She didn’t have enough information to extrapolate what had happened all those decades ago, but she needed to know. She needed to understand.

  Her new truth didn’t sit well. Matthew the Liar. The ugly legacy was not how she wanted to remember him, but he’d lied about so many things that she could no longer put any faith in his honor. Matthew’s actions and his words had proven him a liar, and she no longer knew what to believe. How could she trust anything he’d told her?

  And how could she believe that she would rise as the next Phoenix?

  Aiden blinked at the smug, smirking man standing across from her. Magnus represented other possibilities, other alternatives… According to legend, the Phoenix had to be of House Shemyaza. There were other candidates!

  “Magnus!” Aiden burst out. “Are there other members of your House like you?”

  “Not exactly like me,” he said.

  “Just answer the question,” she replied with an exasperated sigh.

  He studied her before giving a grudging, “Yes. I taught others of Shemyaza the trick of cheating death, and they in turn taught many more.”

  “How many?”

  He hesitated, fueling her excitement to new heights.

  “Dozens?” Aiden guessed.

&nb
sp; Magnus shook his head slowly. “Hundreds.”

  “Still? Surviving? Today?” Her jaw dropped. Her emotions hung in an uncertain balance between massive relief and vexation. Hundreds of Shemyaza’s scions—every last one a legitimate candidate to become the Phoenix. She’d only just started to get used to the idea that she was somehow special.

  “Yes.”

  “W-what? How?” The question exploded from her lips in rush.

  “It’s a form of vampirism, but it’s not rooted in blood drinking,” Magnus said. “You don’t need to know the specifics.”

  “Yes. Yes, I do,” she said, her face suddenly heated with fury. “What exactly do they eat? Subsist on?”

  “Power, energy, the essence of life.” He spoke about the topic as casually as the weather. “Most prefer to feed on people. A host needn’t be immediately killed, but sooner or later the drain of being fed upon leads to the inevitable conclusion.”

  “You’re making a mistake thinking that one of them can take your place,” he continued brusquely. “All of them have inherited my vulnerability to sunlight. Not a one is capable of bearing children or is free of the taint of corruption. House Shemyaza lies in ruins. Not a single one is suitable to become the Phoenix.”

  She balled her fists at the Celt’s unnerving and uncanny ability to pick up on her thoughts. “What about you?”

  “Me?” Magnus lifted his brow in a gesture that could have signaled surprise or amusement. He guarded his expression well. “You think I would make a suitable Phoenix?”

  “No, of course not,” Aiden snapped. “A fool could see that you’re unfit!”

  “Gee, thanks.” The man had the nerve to chuckle.

  “What I was asking is what do you eat?” Aiden fumed at his audacity. “Matthew told me you don’t feed on people. Was that another lie?”

  “Oh, that.” He once again sounded surprised as if he hadn’t expected her to signal out his obvious difference.

  “Yeah, that,” Aiden said.

  “No, that’s true. I take what I need from undead, weres, demons. Whatever monster crosses my path that looks appetizing.” He grinned, a deadly slash of white teeth.