by L. C. Mawson
Gregor shook his head. “Many think that another war is inevitable, Freya. As technology advances, there will only be so long we can stay hidden. And the longer we try, the more chance the Humans will have of being able to wipe us out when we are finally exposed. I may not agree with my brother, but he does this because he feels it’s the only way to save us.”
“It doesn’t excuse starting a war. Or child abuse.”
“I’m not saying that it does, Freya. What my brother did to Damon was inexcusable, and I’m going to do everything in my power to keep Caroline from handing him over.”
“What exactly are you going to do?”
“Caroline will be leading the forces here in the city. She won’t leave until she’s finished, so Damon will stay with her. I can have Evelyn scry for her, now that we know she’s behind it. It’ll be taking a ridiculous amount of Energy for her to shield Damon, so she won’t bother for herself as well. Not when you were the only witness to her involvement and I would assume that she thinks you dead.”
“If you’re going to get him back, I’m going with you.”
Gregor responded by carefully scrutinising her, before finally nodding.
“Alright,” he agreed. “I have some more source stones. Use them to get your Energy levels back to normal.”
“With how worried I am over Damon, I doubt I’ll need them.”
“Still. And make sure you don’t have any physical injuries to take care of. We’ll leave as soon as Evelyn finds them.”
“CAREFUL,” GREGOR SAID as he drove them to the building Evelyn had tracked Damon to. Evelyn had stayed behind, however, to make sure that someone was there to let Seph and the King know if they failed.
Freya frowned at Gregor, wondering what he meant, only to realise that little sparks of energy were dancing across her skin.
“Sorry,” she said as she worked on dampening them. The last thing she wanted was to short out the car. Especially when it was her fault that they had to take it. She still hadn’t managed long distance shifting and Gregor wasn’t used to shifting with other people in tow. “I’m just worried about Damon.”
“Me too. But we’ll get him back.”
“Yeah,” she replied, though it sounded forced even to her ears.
“We’re almost there. Just try to think about something else.”
Freya nodded, her mind desperately searching for another thing to talk about.
“How did things go in the Underworld?” she eventually asked.
Gregor sighed. “I made progress.”
“Progress?” Freya asked as she sat up a little straighter. “You found my father?”
“It’s... It’s complicated, Freya.”
“What’s so complicated about it? Damon said that he probably had to be in the Shadow Realm, which would mean that he was a Geni. And he said that you knew Geni...”
“Alright, fine. I did find your father. It wasn’t particularly difficult; I already knew him.”
“You did? He was one of the Geni you had worked with in the past?”
“Yes. In fact, when he came back from the Shadow Realm, he was even more torn up than when he left. That’s the exact opposite of how it’s supposed to work. When he came back, he said that he had fallen in love when he was there. He’d gotten married and his wife had been pregnant, but that wasn’t supposed to happen. As far as the Geni knew, no one else was in the Shadow Realm at the time, which meant that he couldn’t have done anything like father a child, since it couldn’t be a reflection of this realm.”
“You all thought he was making it up?”
Gregor shrugged. “We didn’t know what had happened. The smart money was on his wife just being after him for his position, and making up the pregnancy. That could have been a reflection of this realm, only we could never figure out who his wife had been.”
“His position, what do you mean?”
“That’s where it gets complicated, Freya. What do you know of the Demon hierarchy?”
“There’s the king, and then there’s the nobles, and then... everyone else, I guess?”
“Yeah, that’s about right. Look, the nobility are a finicky bunch when it comes to inheritance and heirs. Especially when it comes to kids with mixed blood. Seph will deal with it, but, as you can imagine, things are a little hectic right now with making sure that magic isn’t exposed.”
“Shouldn’t my father be helping? If he’s one of the Geni, I mean.”
“He is, but not all of this fight will be on the battlefield, Freya. Your father was hurt on his return from the Shadow Realm. He’s in no fit state to fight, so he’ll aid Seph in trying to talk down the other nobles who want to throw in with Uther and Caroline.
“You’ll get to meet him, Freya. I promise. But, for now, we have to focus on what lies ahead.”
“Right. Focus.”
They lapsed into silence, still a while away from their destination. Freya tried to focus on what she could see out of the window, but all that did was make her hyper-aware of how there was no one else on the streets. No one driving around.
The Humans knew something was wrong, even if they didn’t know exactly what.
“What’s he like?” Freya eventually asked as her thoughts began to stray dangerously close to Damon again. “My father, I mean.”
Gregor gave her a reassuring smile. “He’s one of the best men I’ve ever known. And a good friend. I knew you were his daughter as soon as I saw your Energy, I just wish you hadn’t been so well shielded all of these years. He’s more than a little upset to have missed your childhood.”
“Well, that makes two of us.”
“Hey, Freya? He did his best. He kept looking, even when everyone around him said that it was fruitless. It’s not his fault you’ve been impossible to track down.”
No, Freya thought to herself. She was very well aware that had been Amber’s fault.
GREGOR STOPPED BY A particularly tall building in the City Centre.
“We’ll have to shift up to the roof of this building,” Gregor told her as he turned off the engine.
Freya nodded, following him as he shifted. Once they had arrived, Gregor looked over the street to the roof of another building.
“That where they’re keeping Damon?”
Gregor nodded. “The building will most likely be shielded. We can’t shift in because the barrier repels magic, but we could jump across. I can mask my magic in order to pass through and you already have protections doing that.”
“So we jump?” Freya asked, looking at the considerable distance between the two buildings.
“Think you can make it?”
Freya concentrated her thoughts on Damon, the aching in her heart causing Energy to bounce around just beneath her skin, ready to be let loose.
“I’ll be fine.”
Gregor nodded before launching himself across the gap, using a blast of Energy to propel himself the last little way as he started to fall.
Freya concentrated all of her Energy to her legs, propelling herself upwards as far as she could.
She started to fall, just as Gregor did, and created a blast to propel herself back up, but she had misjudged the distance.
She threw her arms in front of her face to cushion her crash into the concrete wall, but no crash came. She opened her eyes to see that she had stopped, her wings flapping gently behind her.
She focused on flapping them just a little harder, hoping that it took her back up. Thankfully, it did, and she managed to manoeuvre herself onto the roof, though it was a little clumsy and involved a lot of her twisting her torso from side to side in an attempt to fly forward.
“Handy,” Gregor said as she tried to figure out how to land.
She dropped unceremoniously to the floor, barely staying on her feet. “They would be if I knew how to use them.”
“At least it’s better than becoming an Angel pancake on the side of the building.”
“Fair point.”
“We’re past the barrier now. Our magi
c won’t be detected unless someone’s looking for it.”
Freya nodded as they approached the locked door.
“Let me handle this,” she said as she uncapped the vial of water she kept on her belt.
She directed the water to the lock, pushing it around until the tumblers fell into place and the door clicked open.
“Well, there’s definitely something to be said for unconventional training,” Gregor commented with a smile.
Freya shrugged as she moved the water back to the vial. “You learn to be resourceful when you banish your mentor.”
“You what?”
“My mother bound an ancestor of hers to me,” Freya explained as they made their way down the stairs, using a soundproofing spell to keep Caroline’s men from hearing them. “If I don’t want her around, I can banish her. I kind of did by accident when I first asked her about my father and she refused to answer. I barely managed to get her back.”
“You haven’t mentioned her before.”
“I... I got mad at her again. She was keeping too many secrets and I’m afraid that, if she appears again, I’ll banish her. So she’s staying out of my way.”
“I’m sorry,” Gregor told her.
Freya shrugged. “I imagine, once I meet my father, I will no longer have use for her. I’ll say goodbye before letting her move on.”
Freya frowned as she realised she had stopped and made her way to the door of the current floor, instead of making her way further down.
“Wait, how do we know where Damon is in the building?” she asked. “Evelyn’s scrying wasn’t that specific.”
“I was just following you.”
Freya frowned at him. “What do you mean ‘following me’? How would I know?”
“Just trust me. This will be the right floor,” he said. “Can you cloak yourself? So that they can’t see you, I mean?”
Freya shrugged. “I’ve never tried a glamour that heavy before. Not even on Humans, never mind magical beings.”
“Well, do your best to stay out of sight.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Talk to Caroline.”
“If you were just going to hand yourself over, what was the point of sneaking in?”
“Because we were sneaking you in. You need to get Damon in case Caroline isn’t co-operative.”
“And you think that she might be? She tried to kill me. She thinks that she has. And she’s going to hand Damon over to his father.”
“What Uther did to Damon is not common knowledge, and she has no idea who you are. Most people assume you’re allied with the Council of Light. There hasn’t been a Dark Angel for a long time.
“So, I’ll hand myself over, and you tail me. I’m guessing she’ll keep Damon close.”
Freya nodded, pulling glamours and illusions around herself, hoping that there wouldn’t be too many guards. In order to fool magical creatures, the glamour had to be aimed at them, and they would start to see through it once they knew it was there.
Gregor strolled quite casually through the door and into a corridor filled with numbered doors, that told Freya that they were in a block of flats.
She followed behind him, sticking close to the wall and making small movements in an effort to take as much strain from her glamours as she could.
“Hello?” Gregor called. “Anyone there?”
Two guards immediately stormed out of one of the flats, both aiming their swords squarely at Gregor. Freya focused her glamour on them as soon as they were within her eye line, and they made no indication that they had seen her.
Gregor raised his hands in surrender. “I’m just looking for Caroline.”
“Lady Caroline is not expecting you,” the guard on the right said.
“Okay, well, I’m pretty sure that she has my nephew, and the King left him in my care, so her not expecting me is entirely her oversight.”
The two guards exchanged a worried glance before nodding.
“Alright,” the right guard said. “We’ll take you to her. But no activating your Energy, or we will remove you.”
“It’s okay. We’re all friends here.”
The guard gave him a look that suggested that he didn’t believe him, but he nonetheless took Gregor through to the flat, with Freya creeping in behind them.
“Lady Caroline,” the guard announced as they entered the living room. “Lord Gregor is here to see you.”
Gregor flinched, but Freya wasn’t paying attention. Her eyes scanned the room and quickly settled on Damon lying on the sofa, unconscious beneath a series of binding charms.
Freya crept over to him and focused on the charms, attempting to unravel them. She hoped that Gregor had the sense to buy her enough time to do so if Caroline wasn’t in the mood for cooperation.
“I do so hate titles,” Gregor said as Caroline looked him over, her hands firmly clasped behind her back as she stood impeccably strait.
“Indeed. You never had much love for politics, just the sword.”
Gregor shrugged. “I just know what I’m good at.”
Caroline smiled but it faded quickly. “I assume you’re here for the boy. Don’t worry, he’s quite safe. I just thought it best to bind him after we dealt with his girlfriend. We didn’t want things getting nasty.”
“Yes, when you killed a girl in broad daylight.”
“Not a girl, Gregor. An Angel. Has your brother told you nothing?”
“We don’t talk much.”
Caroline sighed and looked almost sympathetic. “I’m sorry, Gregor. I had assumed that, with you taking care of his son, you two had smoothed things over.”
“I take care of his son because Seph asked me to.”
“Ah yes, Lady Persephone. Ever the thorn in my side. I suppose she sent you here then?”
“Caroline... What the hell is going on? Why did you kill the Angel? And where Humans could see you, too.”
“Because Demons are dying, Gregor. There are too few of us, and the King’s rebuilding efforts will only work as long as he’s alive. There is no heir with Royal Blood, Gregor. We will surely fall to infighting without that steel hand guiding us; it’s in our nature. Another war is inevitable, so we might as well ensure that we are on the winning side. Taking advantage of the excess will ensure that. Killing the Angel made sure that she wouldn’t interfere, and told her Council of Light to stay clear as well.”
Gregor folded his arms as Freya made her way through the second last binding charm.
“My brother played you for a fool,” Gregor told Caroline softly. “The Angel never had any allegiance to the Council of Light.”
“All Angels align with them eventually. They’re always of Light or Human blood.”
“Not this one,” Gregor told her, stepping closer to her, as if everyone else in the room didn’t have superhuman hearing. “Caroline, she was Edric’s daughter.”
“What- But- He doesn’t-”
“It’s a long story. Let’s just say that she was kept on Earth for her safety and Uther found out. That’s why he asked you to kill her.”
“And I did... Creator, what have I done?”
“Well, you knocked her out for a few hours, but nothing permanent.”
“I... What?”
“Caroline, she’s an Angel and you threatened to take away her Soulbound. She had just enough Energy to protect herself from what you did to her.”
Damon gasped, bolting upright as Freya broke the last binding charm. She gave up on her glamours, given how well things seemed to be going with Caroline, and let Damon pull her close, in what she assumed was an attempt to check that she was real.
“It’s okay, I’m here,” Freya assured him.
“I saw you die,” he muttered into her hair.
“You can’t get rid of me that easily,” she joked, weakly.
“No, I guess not,” he managed, his grip tightening slightly before he pulled away. “You don’t even have a scratch on you.”
“Benefit of being
attacked by pure Energy. Though, I think I might sleep for a week.”
Caroline spoke once more as Damon laughed, though her words were soft, clearly meant for Gregor and not to interrupt them. “Persephone is certainly gifted, to have planned this all out so fortuitously.”
“Yes, it does look that way, doesn’t it?”
“I suppose that the King won’t accept ‘no harm, no foul’, will he?”
“No. But then, I don’t have to tell him everything.”
“Gregor-”
“It’s not your fault, Caroline. You didn’t have all of the information, and my brother is very good at playing people.”
“Still, I should have looked closer before blindly following him.”
“You had no reason to be suspicious. Seph goes to great lengths to cover for him because he’s valuable to her. I don’t think anyone outside of our family knows how much of a dick he is.”
“I knew what he had said to you.”
“Yes, but you assumed we’d made up. I guess everyone must think that, with me looking after Damon.”
“Well, no one really knows about Damon, either. Uther only told me to make sure I didn’t hurt him when getting the girl. When he told me that you were looking after him, nothing indicated that he was unhappy with the situation.”
“And you didn’t think it suspicious that he kept his son a secret?”
“Just as Edric has done with his daughter?”
“Fair point. Though that’s, like I said, a long story. She only just found out herself.”
“Really? But who raised her?”
“No one. Edric only just found out too.”
“Poor thing. How is she adjusting?”
“I don’t think we’ve even begun with the adjusting yet...”
Caroline moved away at that point to talk to her men.
“Well, I suppose I had better talk to Finus.”
“Finus shifted out,” one of the other men told her. “Just after Gregor told you that the Angel wasn’t dead.”
Caroline cursed under her breath, shaking her head.
“He was one of Uther’s men?”
She nodded. “He lent him to me to help, though I knew it was to keep an eye on me. I just thought it was because Uther was a controlling bastard, not that he was setting me up.”