Wicked Magic

by Cheyenne McCray

  Rhiannon blinked. Those strange, shifting eyes … they weren’t Sara’s at all.

  “The chief says we’ve got to cuff her.” Jake came up beside Rhiannon and she looked up at him. “This magic stuff—I don’t think anyone’s getting it.”

  Panic rose up in Rhiannon. “Cuffing her won’t be enough!”

  Jake jerked his head to one of the black PSF trucks now on the field, backing up to them. “We’ll get her in the truck and out of this zoo.” He glanced around them. “You all need to leave and fast.”

  “Have your officers cover us.” Rhiannon looked at Copper and Silver, who were watching her intently. “We’ll get Ceithlenn in the truck and keep her contained.”

  In the back of her mind, Rhiannon realized she’d truly kicked the goddess from her mind, and saying or hearing Ceithlenn’s name no longer hurt.

  Jake nodded and within moments his officers surrounded them in an arc around the rear door of the truck. All officers but Jake and three others had their backs to Ceithlenn and the witches, a human barricade.

  The witches’ magical ropes and the Shadows held as Ceithlenn was carried by one of the PSF officers into the truck. Jake and the two officers by his sides kept their rifles pinned on Ceithlenn as they ushered the witches and their familiars into the truck, including Janis.

  Rhiannon shuddered. The truck’s walls wanted to close in on her. But she could do this. She could do this.

  Copper and Silver looked pale from the battle.

  “What about the rest of my Coven?” Janis asked as they all crowded inside the vehicle.

  Silver paused and looked back. “And ours?”

  “They’re being taken out in another truck,” Jake said before backing up and hopping out of the vehicle. “I have to stay. My officers are taking you to PSF HQ and putting Ceithlenn into a holding cell.”

  “A holding cell?” Rhiannon said with incredulity. “No damn holding cell is going to keep her contained.”

  Jake was already shutting the back doors of the truck and spoke into his microphone. “Pull out.”

  Rhiannon had forgotten all about the earpiece, and she startled. She was so wound up that she felt like she could rip off her skin. Everything had been so intense, so loud, so frightening on the battlefield, that she couldn’t remember if anything had been spoken through the transmitter or not.

  The tank-like truck began to rumble and bounce along the field. Still keeping her focus on her Shadows, Rhiannon stared at Ceithlenn-Sara, a young woman in a revealing catsuit with punk-red hair and eyes that shifted like reflections rippling on the surface a pond.

  Ceithlenn-Sara now sat between two armed PSF guards, magical bindings still around her upper body. One additional guard trained a gun on Ceithlenn.

  The Shadows covered the goddess, still, along with Copper’s and Silver’s ropes.

  Utter and complete exhaustion overcome Rhiannon. The Shadows fell away from Ceithlenn and shot back into Rhiannon with an electrical charge.

  “No!” Rhiannon shouted, trying to get them to go back to the goddess. But she felt their energy depletion down to her bones.

  Rhiannon had seated herself directly across from Ceithlenn-Sara, and held Spirit in her lap. She pushed her hand against her chest where she still felt the entry of the Shadows. No matter how much they needed to be recharged, she still tried to get them to come back out.

  The being’s gaze met Rhiannon’s. Her eyes flashed red and her lip curled into a wicked grin.

  “I will get you,” Ceithlenn’s voice came loud in Rhiannon’s thoughts. “You are mine.”

  Rhiannon jerked back, her face stinging and the claw marks on her cheek burning as if she’d just been slapped. She opened her mouth to say something to Janis when both guards to either side of Ceithlenn gasped.

  Spirit hissed.

  The guards slumped. Their rifles clattered to the floor.

  The officers’ bodies began jerk. To shrivel. Their hands went to their faces. Their mouths opened wide in obvious terror before their features lost all recognition and their eyes became sightless.

  Two wispy white puffs slipped from the guards to Ceithlenn.

  Horror ripped through Rhiannon. “No!” she screamed and tried to force the Shadows out again. At the same time Copper and Silver threw spellfire balls.

  A blinding flare caused everyone to shout as the spellfire exploded where the goddess was sitting.

  When the sparkles faded, Ceithlenn was gone.

  The magic ropes that had bound her vanished.

  For a moment the entire group in the back of the truck was stunned into silence. All that could be heard was the roar of the truck that now smelled of death and that constant smell of burnt sugar.

  “Oh, my God.” One of the other PSF officers, a Lieutenant Landers, put her hand over her mouth. “Graves and Monson. Oh, my God.”

  “How did she take their souls?” Rhiannon said, beyond horrified and feeling the urge to puke.

  “The potion should have saved them!” Silver said.

  “What potion?” Landers managed to get out.

  “Dear Anu.” Rhiannon looked at the PSF officer. “There was so little time that it must not have had time for it to get to you.”

  Janis’s face had gone beyond marble white. She was pale with a tinge of green to her features.

  Rhiannon glared at Janis. “These men are dead because of you. If you had let Keir finish her off, they would still be alive.” Rhiannon clenched her fists at her sides. “Now Ceithlenn’s free to kill more people! And who knows what she and Balor will do together.”

  “But Sara …” Janis continued to stare at the bodies.

  “Don’t you get it?” Copper said. “Sara is as good as dead. She has to be destroyed.”

  “Sara would never—” Janis shook her head. “No. She was a good girl. She would never.”

  “She went with Darkwolf willingly.” Rhiannon’s voice was calm, controlled. “You know she did. Of her own free will.”

  Janis looked dazed, and she wavered from side to side. “To save herself from the Fomorii. She did it to save herself from the demons.”

  “And she became worse than the demons.” Rhiannon clenched her teeth. “Sara is gone. This being is a monster. A goddess bent on nothing but destruction and death.”

  Janis shook her head, still in denial. “No. I will not believe she cannot be saved.”

  Rhiannon braced her elbows on her thighs and buried her face in her hands. After all they’d been through. After all those deaths. After seeing two men killed right before her eyes, Janis couldn’t see the horror in front of her.

  The backs of Rhiannon’s eyes stung. Her face burned and she felt filthy and sticky from sweat and blood. She could barely breathe from the stench in the truck.

  They’d had Ceithlenn. They’d had her. And the goddess had been weak enough for them to destroy.

  Maybe it’s my fault, Rhiannon thought. I should have had the strength to keep the Shadows on her. The battle shouldn’t have made a difference. The Shadows were what controlled Ceithlenn, not the magic ropes. I should have practiced with the Shadows—something! But time—dear Anu, everything has happened so fast.

  After one of the officers transmitted what had occurred, they were ordered to continue course. Everyone in the truck was silent the rest of the ride to the PSF HQ. An ambulance would meet them there—not that there was anything that could be done for these poor officers. Silver, Copper, and Rhiannon were exhausted and covered with stinking Fomorii blood, but had no scratches from the demons’ ironclad claws, thank Anu.

  When they arrived at the PSF headquarters, everyone spilled out of the truck and into the abnormally warm day. Rhiannon barely felt the tingle of the sun on her skin.

  It was all so surreal, as if this had happened in a movie instead of real life. Once the other truckload of witches arrived and the bodies of the two officers were taken away in an ambulance, all of the witches were asked for statements.

  Rhiannon look
ed at the officers in amazement as they were asked to come in through the back of the nondescript building that housed what had been the highly secretive PSF Department.

  “How can you ask us for statements?” Rhiannon asked. “What can we possibly say? That we duked it out with a bunch of demons and a soul-sucking goddess with the help of some winged Fae warriors?”

  She looked at Lieutenant Landers. “And not only is there a massive amount of demons hidden beneath Alcatraz, prepared to go to war on San Francisco, and a goddess-bitch on the loose again, but now we have a one-eyed god here, too? Although—if Darkwolf is keeping the eye from Balor, maybe he can’t find it just yet?”

  “I know it doesn’t make sense, but we have to do it.” Landers sighed as she ushered them into the building. “Millions of people saw it all happen on national television. Thousands were killed in that stadium and thousands more will be affected by the deaths of their loved ones.” Landers shook her head. “Most won’t be able to accept what happened, even though they saw it happen. But we have to come up with something.”

  “They’ll think it was some kind of horror movie.” Copper threw her thick braid over her shoulder and spoke with her hands as they walked down a narrow hallway. “This has to be the single most devastating thing to happen to the United States since 9/11. And it was because of demons and a goddess? I can hardly believe it myself.”

  “I sure as hell am having a hard time with it.” An other officer named Marsten spoke briskly as he guided them into what looked like a large classroom. “But the PSF has been fighting these demons since Halloween, and we’ve all seen a lot of serious shit.”

  Rhiannon shoved her hair away from her face. She could barely hold back tears.

  Sydney came up beside Rhiannon as they came to a stop in the room. Sydney put her arm around her as she said, “It wasn’t your fault she escaped.”

  “I should have been able to force the Shadows to keep her down,” Rhiannon whispered. Her head felt so heavy she rested it on Sydney’s shoulder. “I should have told Keir to take her out before Janis even got close. Instead we let her hold us back a fraction too long.”

  Her gaze met Janis’s stone cold one as the High Priestess said, “Is it so easy for you to kill now, Rhiannon Castle? Have you turned to black magic?”

  Rhiannon pushed away from Sydney and marched up to Janis. “It’s not black magic to get rid of something so foul, so evil, so deadly. It would have been the most humane thing we could have done. Now thousands more will probably die.

  “You could be next.” Rhiannon swept out her arm as if to encompass the room. “We all could be next and we’re the only ones who can fight her. Can’t you see that? Can’t you open your mind long enough to understand what we’re up against?”

  “Save it.” Copper took Rhiannon by the hand and led her to one of the seats. “You’ll never get her to see past her own prejudices.”

  Rhiannon gave a weary sigh and slid into a seat as Landers handed her a form and a pen and Spirit rubbed himself against her ankles. More exhaustion was setting in and she barely had the strength to hold the pen, much less write.

  Where did one start when the world as they all knew it could be coming to an end?

  Chapter 35

  The rush of transference faded as Darkwolf arrived in the now closed hotel where he had first met Elizabeth. His grip on her arm failed and his legs gave out. He dropped to the marble floor of the lobby and landed on his hands and knees.

  Elizabeth collapsed near him, striking her head on the marble. He managed to move to a sitting position and scooted over beside the demon-woman. Her eyes were closed and her breathing shallow. He held his hand to her heart. It beat strong and sure.

  Darkwolf sighed with relief. He didn’t know why it mattered that Elizabeth survived, but it did. He didn’t even know why he had taken her with him when he escaped Balor and Ceithlenn.

  The eye burned at his chest, hotter than ever, now that Balor was here. And it felt heavy. So, so heavy. The shields Darkwolf had thrown up in his mind were all that kept Balor from finding them.

  Something had changed in Darkwolf, making him strong enough to escape both Ceithlenn and Balor. Could it have been the magic the goddess had used to turn him into that monster? Or had his magic grown strong enough from wearing the eye for so long?

  He had no idea.

  But now he knew he could never return the eye to the god. Darkwolf had been used to bring forth the Fomorii, Ceithlenn, and now Balor. He had never truly wielded the power he’d thought he had.

  In a frustrated motion he clenched his hand into a fist so hard his nails dug into his palm. Gods. If only he had never picked up this eye off the shores of Ireland.

  He closed his own eyes and fought back the pain, the hell his life had been since then. He had been taken over so easily and he had reveled in the power. He’d killed, he’d sacrificed, he’d summoned evil, all in the name of Balor.

  Darkwolf took a deep breath and sat back on his ass. He pushed his hand through his hair and caught his reflection in a mirror. He looked like hell. His face burned and was red where that damned honeybee had stung him. He felt a little sore from all the bullets that had pelted him when he was in his monster form, but none of those at least had pierced his flesh.

  Thank the gods he and Elizabeth had returned to their natural states and were no longer within Ceithlenn’s magical hold. It had been a living hell being under her control.

  But the eye. What was he going to do with the eye? His gut told him he couldn’t take it off, couldn’t take the chance that Balor would get his hands on it. But Darkwolf would be on the run forever until Balor was sent back to Underworld.

  If he was sent back.

  How in the fuck would that be done?

  A shrouding spell would help him in blocking the eye’s essence. Now that he had made the decision to fight Balor, his mind was clearer.

  He avoided touching the eye with his palm. That had always drawn Balor to him. Instead, he held his hand away from the eye and let his power radiate from within him. The purple glow of his magic surrounded the eye.

  White-hot pain stabbed his head as he felt Balor’s essence fighting the shrouding. But Darkwolf increased his magic, wrapping the eye over and over again until the purple magic was so thick the eye could barely be seen through the glow.

  He collapsed onto his back, the eye heavy against his chest as his breathing grew harsh and ragged. He could still feel Balor shouting in his mind, but the pain was receding as Darkwolf shoved at it and tightened his mental barriers.

  He held his hand to his forehead and grimaced as he rose back up to a sitting position.

  “That godsdamn bitch.” Elizabeth pushed herself up so that she was standing. Her jaw worked and her eyes literally flashed as she clenched her fists at her sides. “I am now no longer Queen of the Fomorii. I have lost everything I have worked for. Everything.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Darkwolf stood and faced her. “You’re not the only one who’s lost. I worked my ass off to be the most powerful warlock in the country. To bring Balor here—only to have that bitch ruin it all.”

  “We must get our revenge on her.” Her gaze met his.

  Darkwolf took another deep breath, his scowl so fierce his face ached. “No fucking kidding.”

  Chapter 36

  Ceithlenn materialized on the ledge above the army of Fomorii and other creatures. Once she had fed on the souls of the two PSF officers, she’d had enough strength to return to her full goddess form and command her army.

  She sniffed the air and reached with her senses to see if Balor had found his way to their lair.

  Nothing. No sign of her husband.

  With a scream of fury, frustration, and the pain of missing her lover, Ceithlenn swooped from the ledge and over the demons and beasts filling the cave. They looked up at her and she could see the wariness in their gazes.

  Good. They should fear her. She was their goddess and all should pay homage to her.

>   Her fury mounted as she thought of Darkwolf’s betrayal. The bastard had kept the eye! And somehow he was shrouding it, keeping it out of her mental sight. Where had he gained such power?

  Balor could have killed all of their enemies if Darkwolf had turned it over. They had prepared him for that moment from the time they used the essence in the eye to compel Darkwolf to pick it up.

  Ceithlenn landed on the bumpy floor of the cavern beneath Alcatraz. She braced her hands on her hips and her hair flamed higher with her anger. Darkwolf had taken the Fomorii Queen, Junga, too. Now she would have to make one of the legion leaders the commander over all of the troops.

  “Silence!” she shouted in her magically enhanced voice. The room went completely quiet at once. “Bow to me.”

  All of the demons and other beings prostrated themselves until she could see all of the cavern and the backs of her demons. The cavern reeked of fish, dog breath from the three-headed hounds, and feces.

  “Tryok!” her voice echoed throughout the silent cavern. “To me.”

  A hulking, six-armed, one-eyed orange demon rose and made his way from the middle of the cavern. He bowed at her feet when he reached her.

  “In what way can I serve you, my goddess?” Tryok asked in the guttural language of the Fomorii.

  “Stand,” she commanded.

  “Yes, goddess.” The six-armed demon scrambled to his feet and looked at her with his single eye.

  “You will now be the commander over all the legions,” she shouted in a voice loud enough to be heard in every corner of the cavern. “Junga will no longer be your queen.”

  Sounds of surprise rumbled through the cavern. Tryok’s lone eye blinked and he appeared confused.

  “Silence.” The enormous cave immediately went quiet at her command.

  She scowled at Tryok and felt fire burn in her own eyes. “Are you up to this position?”

  “Yes, my goddess.” His voice and his expression were clear, definite.

  “You will select a demon from your legion to carry out your duties as legion leader.” Ceithlenn braced her hands on her hips. “All legion leaders will report to you.”