by L. C. Mawson
“The how and why don’t bother me. I’m more concerned with what I saw there.”
“Which was?”
“A war, by the look of things. It was... brutal. We were on one side, and I think your father was on the other.”
Damon sighed, leaning back in his chair. “And the Shadow Realm is a reflection of this realm...”
“We might not have a choice in fighting him.”
“Do you know why we were fighting him?”
Freya shrugged. “He wanted the throne.”
“And we were both fighting him?”
“I don’t think it was the Demonic throne. The Shadow Realm seems to have its own throne, which is probably just symbolic on this side.”
Damon nodded. “My father is a pretty strong supporter of starting the War back up again.”
Freya sighed. “Okay, I think I’m done with the gloom and doom talk,” she decided, looking over to see that her sound dampening spell was keeping Aurele out.
“Come on, let’s just eat.”
THEY LEFT THE RESTAURANT with their arms linked, wandering vaguely back in the direction of the shops.
“I’m going to have to head home soon,” Damon told her. “I’ve got combat training.”
“Okay.”
“You know, you could come with. I... I told my uncle that I was out with you today, though I didn’t tell him anything about you having magic. If you told him, you could join me in learning about combat magic.”
Freya nodded. She knew that Gregor would have to be told eventually.
“Not today,” she said. “Tomorrow, after school, but not today. It’s too short notice.”
“Okay. Tomorrow then. We can get pizza.”
“You and your uncle really like your pizza...”
“There’s no pizza in the Underworld.”
“That... is actually really sad.”
“Tell me about it. Anyway, I’d better go.”
She drew him close for a kiss, prompting him to wrap his hands around her hips once more.
She decided, in that moment, that they definitely needed some time alone and away from public before she went up like the Human Torch from frustration.
Chapter Eight
Freya made her way home as she would have done at the end of the school day, a little nervous as she opened the front door. Despite the improbability, part of her worried that her foster parents would know that she had skipped school.
She soon found, however, that she needn’t have worried. As soon as she entered, she heard voices from the living room.
“Hey,” she greeted as she entered.
Both of her foster parents stopped talking right at that moment, turning to stare at her as if she’d done something wrong. Or maybe they just hadn’t wanted to be interrupted. She couldn’t tell which.
“Do you need something?” Margaret asked with a sharp tone.
“I, um, no? I just... I’m home from school.”
“Okay,” Margaret said, still staring at her.
Freya got the sense that there was a social cue she wasn’t picking up on.
“I... I guess I’ll be upstairs, doing my homework,” Freya said before quickly hurrying out of the room, her mind immediately replaying the interaction over and over again to try and figure out what had gone wrong.
Her mind was still cycling through everything she could have done wrong as she put her combat gear on. It was a little early but, as much as the days were getting longer, it wasn’t too long until sunset, and Freya very much felt the need to be on the move.
She hesitated in the middle of buckling up. In reality, she wanted to talk to someone.
She wanted to talk to Amber.
But she was still furious, so calling her guardian down wasn’t an option.
She refocused on her buckles, refusing to think about either Amber or her foster parents.
FREYA WANDERED FOR a while without a single sign of Demonic activity. Some nights were like that, but it infuriated her when she needed the distraction of the fight.
Long after dark, she headed to the roof of the school and sat down. Sometimes wandering in the hopes of casually running into Demons wasn’t the best way to do things. Without focus, she could only sense so far, and even if she stayed moving, there was a chance she could miss something.
She closed her eyes, doing her best to ignore the cold concrete beneath her as she focused on her magic and the extra sense it gave her.
She focused on the Energy surrounding her, looking for any slight variance with the telltale dark shadow of a Demonic presence. More often than not, looking so methodically tended to send her to Demons who weren’t actively using their magic, but it was better than nothing.
After a while, she found something promising. Two strong Demonic signatures moving in a methodical pattern down a series of reasonably nearby streets.
Freya shifted to their location to see two Demons, with smart black military jackets over their usual combat gear.
As soon as they saw her, they shifted away.
“Huh. That was easy,” Freya said to herself, wishing that Amber was there once more, though she pushed that thought aside as she refocused.
She closed her eyes, leaning against the brick wall next to her. Knowing what to look for made it much easier to find another pair.
She shifted to them and, once again, they shifted away.
After five more instances, Freya was thoroughly stumped. These Demons probably weren’t the rogues she was used to hunting, and probably had no quarrel with her, which was why they were shifting away. But then, why were they in the city?
Freya decided that it wasn’t her problem as she shifted back home. She dealt with rogues and rogues alone. Whatever the rest of the Demons did, it didn’t involve her, so long as they stayed away from the Humans.
FREYA AWOKE WITH A start, recognising her room at the Palace.
It was her old room, but it had now been refurbished to the point that she barely recognised it. She knew that it was selfish of her to long for the days when she was just a scavenger who had stumbled upon the empty building, and yet she still did. She had liked being alone. She loved Melody, Sarah and Damon, but she was still racked with guilt over what had happened with Ku and Juni. What had happened after they had found the spirit of the Old Queen...
She still had the scars down her back from the lightning, like an upside down tree.
The door opened to reveal Damon, who quickly rushed to her side as she tried to get up.
“Hey, the Spring knocked you out,” he told her. “You need to rest. Taking on all of that knowledge is going to tax you.”
She shook her head. “There was nothing there,” she answered hollowly.
He raised an eyebrow. “Nothing?”
“Just whatever poison knocked me out. I didn’t dream of the lost knowledge that was promised. Only Earth.” She let out a frustrated yell along with a blast of fire. “It’s only ever Earth!”
“Maybe that’s just not how it works,” Damon tried. “It might have been a mistranslation. The texts were ancient...”
Freya stood up, wobbling a little on her feet after so long out cold.
“Maybe,” she eventually allowed. “But, for now, we pushed too far. After so many years... My parents didn’t leave me anything but a target on my back and just enough resources to fool me into believing that I’m not a dead woman.”
Damon pulled her into his arms as he often did when she spoke of her parents. It made her voice take on a bitter tone that was instantly recognisable.
She didn’t unfold her arms in response to his embrace, but neither did she pull away.
“They know,” Damon reminded her softly. “The version of you on Earth will figure it out. We won’t lose this fight.”
“If I decided to abandon all of this tomorrow and chase after Juni and Ku, would you follow?”
“Without hesitation.”
“I love you.”
“I love you too. Neve
r doubt that. The rest of this can fall around us, but I will always love you.”
Chapter Nine
Freya spent most of the next day worrying. She had classes all the way up until the afternoon, and had to use the library for her physics course work at lunch, so she didn’t have any opportunity to see Damon.
It was odd, she thought to herself as she rushed out her last lesson, that no matter how strange the rest of her life became, school was the one horrific staple. Like a nightmare she could never quite avoid. She supposed that it probably kept her grounded, but it also probably kept her feeling like crap in a way that potential apocalypses could never quite manage.
“Freya, a moment,” Dr Harris said, just as she was almost out of the door.
“Yes?” Freya asked, moving back into the room.
“I just wanted to know if you had thought any more on doing a resit.”
I had thought about sacking off university altogether, Freya thought, but kept it to herself.
“I’m sorry, things have been kind of hectic at home this week. I haven’t had time to talk it over with my foster parents yet.”
Dr Harris frowned, folding her arms. “Is everything alright?”
Freya nodded quickly, not wanting to get Margaret and Ryan in trouble. “Yeah, yeah. It’s fine. Just some temporary stress. But... Even if I do resit, I don’t think it will help. I know the stuff, I just get anxious...”
“Have you thought about going to see a doctor for your anxiety?”
Freya shook her head. “I can’t. Not without my foster parents knowing and... I would rather not.”
Dr Harris sighed. “Freya, I can’t help you if you don’t help yourself.”
“Then I guess we’re both out of luck.”
“YOU READY TO GO?” FREYA asked as she approached where Damon was sitting on the sofa in the common room, watching a film on his tablet.
“Yeah,” he replied as he pulled his earphones out, putting his tablet into his bag. “What took you so long?”
“Dr Harris wanted to talk to me about potentially doing resits.” She sighed. “Do you think there’s a magic cure for anxiety?”
“Nope. Just herbal remedies that you can get at hippie shops. We have to get over anxiety attacks the Human way.”
“Which is?”
Damon shrugged. “It’s different for different people.”
“Yeah, I figured as much. Whatever. I’m still in two minds about giving up a Human life anyway. That was always Amber’s dream, not mine.”
“What was your dream?”
Freya shrugged. “I never knew enough about the magical world, or myself, to figure it out. I guess it’s time that changed.
“Anyway, I should probably focus on this afternoon.”
“You sure you’re okay about this?” he asked as they headed out of the building.
Freya nodded. “I am,” she assured him. “I mean, your uncle will find out soon enough anyway. I’d rather not hide it.”
“And you’re still not bothered by the fact that he’s a Demon?”
“If it came to a fight between the two of us, who do you think would win?”
Damon frowned for a few moments. “I don’t know. I mean, my uncle is one of the top warriors in the entire Demon kingdom, but I’ve never seen you at full power. Even if people just thought you were an Angel, to be approaching that kind of power level...”
Freya snorted in dismissal before realising that he was serious. “Angels can’t seriously be that powerful, right? I mean, even when Amber was at full strength...”
“An Angel at full power could take on an army,” Damon told her. “There’s a reason the Angel Twilight was so revered.”
“And she did everything in her power to stop anyone like her from being born ever again...”
“Yeah,” Damon said with a shrug. “She had more than a few screws loose, though. Had to have. She literally tore herself up to do it.”
Freya nodded, mulling over the idea that Angels weren’t just a little bit more powerful than anyone else.
And then, of course, there was the propensity for mental health problems to be genetic. And, if they were counting using your life to fuel a spell as suicide, then her mother counted too. Not exactly a good track record.
“Anyway,” Damon said, wisely choosing to change the subject. “Did you use the sleeping potion again last night? What happened?”
“I... I went to the Shadow Realm again.”
“And?”
She shrugged. “I didn’t really learn much more than yesterday. Just that... things are bad there. Which I guess must mean that things are bad here. Or are about to get bad...”
Damon gave a hum of agreement, though he didn’t seem to have anything helpful to say on the matter.
“I have plenty of the sleeping potion back home. If you want to take it again, just say the word.”
She nodded, though it was a little reluctant. She wanted to know, but she also didn’t. Part of her just wanted to stop dreaming of the Shadow Realm. She was an anxious enough person as it was without wars in a mirror realm.
FREYA FOLLOWED DAMON up the familiar path to his uncle’s apartment. As soon as the door was closed behind them, Damon called out for his uncle.
“Looks like no one’s home yet,” he said as silence answered him, dropping down on the sofa.
Freya sat next to him, putting her own bag down next to her.
“Oh, hey, we could watch-” He reached over her to get the remote, but paused as he ended up with his nose almost touching hers.
“Sorry,” he managed after a moment, but didn’t move.
Freya found herself equally rooted to the spot. He was so close and warm. Despite their already close proximity, she was gripped by the urge to be closer to him.
She closed the gap between them, kissing him as he shifted so that he was positioned above her, with no risk of falling off the sofa.
His hands moved down to grip her hips, though he quickly moved them away with a, “Sorry, I never thought to ask... I know you’re not always good with touch...”
“It’s okay,” she assured him, her wings gently flexing behind her. “Just... not soft.” She didn’t know if that made any sense, but when Damon replaced his hands, he used them to grip her tightly. Just shy of being painful. She felt any trepidation at his touch immediately relax, melting into his embrace as she brought her lips back up to his, keeping a tight grip of his shoulders to keep her steady.
His grip of her hips caused the fabric of her button-down sleeveless top to strain. The buttons were just the ones that clicked into place, and they popped open in a sudden cascade up her torso, revealing the Batman bra beneath.
He moved one hand slightly further up her stomach, but thankfully didn’t so much as brush up against the bra. Freya understood that her breasts were technically sensitive in a good way, but all it usually meant to her was wearing thickly padded bras to stop them from bothering her. She was so used to thinking about them as problems when it came to any kind of touch associated with them, that she wasn’t sure that she could relax enough to enjoy anything he might have in mind for them. She would have actually been less bothered at the prospect of his hand going down her pants than beneath her bra.
“Are you okay?” Damon asked after a moment between kisses, and Freya realised that his skin was covered in rippling Dark Energy. Her own was covered in alternating swirls of black and white static, clashing up against the Energy he was letting out to produce small bursts of magic. His t-shirt was even singed in a couple of places.
“Will it always be like this?”
He nodded. “Our powers are fuelled by our emotions, remember? When we get ourselves worked up... There has to be some kind of magical release. It’s more obvious the more powerful you are.”
Freya raised an eyebrow. “How did you manage being with Humans?”
“With great difficulty,” he admitted before leaning in to kiss her once more. “Being with you is so... freeing
.”
They jumped away from each other, as if electrified, as the door opened.
“Hey, Damon, you in?” his uncle asked, though he stopped still as Freya tugged her shirt closed, her face bright red.
He smirked, though that faded as he spotted Freya’s wings, along with the aftershocks of magic running across both of their arms.
Evelyn, his partner at work, followed him in.
“Pup,” she greeted, using her old nickname for Freya. “I see you finally told the kid about your magic. Good for you.”
Gregor raised an eyebrow at her. “You knew she had magic?!”
Evelyn nodded. “I told you that she had been picking up bounties from the office for weeks.”
“No, you were saying about... Wait...” He turned to Freya, who had used the time allowed by the distraction to re-button up her top. “You’re the Angel everyone has been going on about?”
“I... Yeah, I guess I am...” She still found it strange to refer to herself as an Angel.
Evelyn took the boxes of Papa John’s from Gregor’s arms, moving through to the kitchen. “Perhaps this would be a better conversation to have over pizza.”
As Freya got up, Damon moved protectively to her side, making it clear that he was ready to fight any criticisms his uncle might have of their relationship.
Damon and Freya sat down on the stools at one side of the counter island as his uncle leaned against the fridge on the other side.
Evelyn nudged Gregor out of the way as she got a bottle of pop out from the fridge, making everyone a drink.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Gregor asked Evelyn.
The Witch shrugged. “Freya asked me not to.”
Freya rolled her eyes. “Because I thought they were Human.”
Evelyn sighed. “Look, if you guys wanted to know the truth about each other, the pieces were all there,” she said as she opened up the pizza boxes before taking a slice.
She turned to Gregor. “I mean, honestly. How did you think she survived against the Demon Uther sent after her? Your brother is not one to be stopped by a Human.”