“Why not,” my mother pipes in, finally over her shock of penis talk. “She would be one of the few who could track it.”
Striker steps back, really looking at my mother. I see the debate warring behind his eyes. No one would know this but me, no one who hadn’t known Striker as long as I had. He was questioning whether or not he could trust her. Whether or not she was worth his time or trust. “Because I just left Samael, and he was headed right for Bernadette. We can’t trust her.”
Aidan and I exchange a glance. In it is a single solitary thought. Fuck. Knowing what we know about Samael’s plan, Striker has it wrong.
Bernadette isn’t with Samael, I saw her face when she told me her son was dead. No one can fake that kind of grief. And if I know my father, he knows exactly where his brother is. With that Fates forsaken blade in his possession.
No. Bernadette isn’t in league with Samael at all.
What she is, however, is a sitting duck.
Chapter Twenty-One
MAX
“Where are Andras’ weapons?” I ask my mother while searching the ground for mine. Aidan helps me move what’s left of the couch where the athame seems to have escaped.
I remember dropping it when Micah nearly killed me, and I can only assume Aidan was the one to snag it for me. The sheath at my hip feels empty and I realize I am the biggest idiot on the planet for handing the blade over to my father.
“I—I don’t know.”
“You mean to tell me you’ve been here for twenty-four hours, and you haven’t searched the place yet?”
And then my eyes go wide as I catch her blush. Teresa had been too busy diddling Dad to look too hard at her surroundings.
“You were hate fucking your way through four hundred years of drama while my baby sister was bleeding to death in a damn closet hiding from a Corax Demon? What the fuck, mother? Do you not give a shit about either one of your kids?” I didn’t start that tirade yelling, but I damn well finish it that way.
My mother wrings her hands, staring at her feet instead of meeting my eyes. Shame. This is what shame looks like on my mother. I thought I’d never see the day.
“The Demon attacked and Andras picked me up and got me out of there. I couldn’t get to her in time and then when we were safe I tracked her. I knew she was with you. I knew she was safe, and it wasn’t like Andras was going to let me go anywhere.”
“You didn’t try to leave, did you? Your baby daddy broke through all my wards, leaving me defenseless while he delivered the message that he was holding you hostage. You weren’t a hostage. You were a willing participant to his fuckery.”
I swear to the Fates if she tells me she wasn’t I will punch her right in the mouth.
“I don’t have time for this. You are staying behind. Inform the Council what we’ve learned. Make sure they know Samael is alive and is coming for them,” I snarl, banging out the front door like my ass is on fire, Striker and Aidan at my heels. Dawn is fast approaching and for some reason the light on the horizon doesn’t make me feel any better.
“Oh, and Mother? Say hi to Barrett for me,” I toss over my shoulder. Let her make of that what she will.
I don’t quite make it down the little sidewalk to the gate where the ward ends before I slam into an invisible wall of magic that halts me before I can go anywhere. I know exactly what this is. This is Teresa Alcado not getting her way and throwing a temper tantrum.
I don’t even turn around before the door I just fled through opens, and my mother’s voice whips the air behind me even though her voice is little over a whisper.
“I love you, Maxima, even if you think I don’t.” She huffs a breath before she begins speaking again, this time the words taking my breath away. “I bless you with all that I am, and all that I will be. May you have safety on your travels. May your aim always be true. May you see what others cannot. May your victories far outweigh your losses. May your losses teach you, and may your love guide you.”
In her blessing, Teresa walks barefoot, circling us seven times. At the end, she slices her thumb with an athame, pressing the bloody digit into the skin of my chest just below my collar bone. I don’t look but I sense she does the same to Striker and Aidan, blessing them just as she has me.
She stops right in front of me again, and it’s then I notice my mother is far shorter than I am. She always seemed larger than life, but now I see her, really see her. She makes mistakes, she’s stubborn, she does what she thinks is right even if it seems wrong. Ugh. We are more alike than I’d care to admit.
She presses her lips together so hard they turn white around the edges before she lets them go. “Be safe. Be smart. Survive. Understand?”
I blink through tears and nod. She presses the athame in my hand – the same one she used to cut her thumb – snaps her fingers, and then she’s gone in a flash of red light. I look down, noticing the athame looks a lot like the one in the sheath at my spine. Pulling mine free with trembling fingers, I compare them side by side.
They’re identical.
The athame I’ve carried for years – through everything – has been my mother’s all along.
“Am I hallucinating or did your mother just do a nice thing?” Aidan asks behind me, lightly dropping a hand to my shoulder in comfort.
“I’d like to think it was a dream, but I’m not that lucky. Does this mean I have to start liking her now?” I’m joking, but only a little.
“Nah,” Striker says letting me off the hook.
I notice his Tesla parked at the curb. “You got anything decent in the trunk?” I ask pointing to the ostentatious vehicle. “I don’t think a pair of athames are going to cut it.”
“Oh, sweetheart.” His grin turns positively evil. “Do I ever.”
This time I don’t make Aidan walk the two point three miles into the ass end of nowhere before the three of us travel into the valley, me on my own and Striker with Aidan, picking a spot further in the trees instead of out in the open near the stream. Unlike my usual reaction to Wraith travel, Striker is no worse for wear. The fucker doesn’t look even a little green, and I don’t know if I should be irritated or proud.
Dawn is still a few hours off in central Colorado, and my eyesight isn’t as acute as Aidan’s, but I still catch the crouched, malformed Demons lurking in a perfect circle around Bernadette’s cabin just outside her ward.
My breath catches, as I grip Aidan’s wrist.
“Can you see them?” I murmur, trying not to move, not to breathe. Corax Demons are invisible to most Ethereals, and I don’t know if my mother’s blessing helped the boys see what they normally wouldn’t.
“Yes. This was the thing you sent us away to fight on your own? I ought to tan your ass for letting us leave you like that.”
I peel my eyes from the dozen Corax Demons just chilling, waiting for us to arrive to ring the dinner bell, to check if Aidan’s serious.
He is. He so is. His green eyes flash with indignation and something else. Something I can’t place. Not fear, not anger. I don’t know what it is.
“You should have left with us,” he growls, his eyes flashing Wraith black.
Honestly, he’s probably right, but I can’t change the past.
“At least I’m not heading into this fray by myself?” I whisper wincing, trying not to shrug it off. Aidan looks like he might wrap me in bubble wrap and mail me home if I do that.
Striker sidles up beside me. “What do you think? Knock-out spell? Slowing spell? Any fucking spell that makes us not those monsters’ dinner, I’m all for it.”
“It’s not like I can just pull a spell out of my ass,” I whisper hiss, trying not to alert the gigantic scary monsters that torture people in Hell for a living that we’re there. “I need their blood, tissue, something.”
Hang on. I stabbed one through the skull with my athame. I don’t know if I killed it true dead, but that isn’t the point. I might still have some blood on the blade. I yank the athame free, pressing the rune to expand
the blade.
There.
In a groove that runs the length of the top of the blade is a long black streak. Corax blood.
“Never mind. I have some,” I mutter examining the blade. Reaching into the pack of Witchy supplies Striker had in his car – bless him – I pull a vial of salt. Maria can have all the ingredients in her spells if she wants to, but nothing beats raw power, fire, and salt.
“I don’t have enough blood to knock them all out, but I can slow them down.”
I murmur words I’d used on another Demon not too long ago, slowing his magic to a crawl, and this time, I’m not wounded. Drawling a circle of salt, I snap my fingers, letting the flame of my magic rise in my hand. Muttering the words, I let the flame of my magic heat the blade.
Subsisto, tardo, confuto, concesso, subflamino, insisto, conquiesco, finis.
I pour salt over the tang of the blade, letting the granules stick to the thick, tar-like blood.
Subsisto, tardo, confuto, concesso, subflamino, insisto, conquiesco, finis.
Passing the flame of the blade again, the blood bubbles, boiling until there is nothing left.
Smiling, I look around Aidan’s bulk, spying on the big malformed barriers between us and the cabin. One of them staggers.
Yep, it’s working.
“I don’t know how long we have, so be quick. Beheadings are hard to come back from, trust me, so go with that. Also, Striker, you may want to phase,” I suggest remembering the thick hide of scales that covered his arms the last time he sprouted wings. “Those talons are sharp.”
At my statement, Aidan lets out a slow, building growl as he yanks a thick sword from the scabbard at his back. Okay… Someone is cranky.
Edging closer to the end of the tree line, I keep a close eye on the Corax, making sure the spell actually took. The Demons stumble on nothing, each one finding their knees in the dirt.
Then everything goes straight to Hell.
As soon as we reach the stream, a falcon screams, taking flight from a low branch, circling the Demons, the piercing shriek waking them from their induced stupor. Their plucked raven heads turn one by one right to us.
I’ve never wanted to murder an animal out of spite before, but today is that day. But then I recognize that fucking bird. It was on my street when Ian was kidnapped. I saw it the last time I came to Bernadette’s. Hell, I even heard a bird’s shriek when I was bloody and broken after the last time I tangled with a Corax.
That isn’t a bird. It’s a spy.
“Go! Take the Demons out. I’ve got the bird.”
Breaking off into a run, I reach for the bag of spelled rocks Maria gave me. I’d scoffed at the time, but beaning one of these motherfuckers against that damn bird’s skull is going to be fucking glorious.
My feet are sure on the uneven ground despite my choice of shoe, and my mind falls to my mother’s blessing. I really hope Mom laid a good whammy on me, I think as I pull a red agate from my pouch and gear up for a toss. The falcon is perched in an Aspen, the fluttery green leaves, half concealing it, but still I let the rock fly.
The red ones are powered with a disabling spell. Meant for small things like guard dogs. Don’t try it on powerful Ethereals. It’ll just piss them off.
That’s when I stopped listening to Maria, but dammit if she didn’t come through in a clench because the rock hits the bird right in the chest, knocking it from the tree. It falls, landing in the dirt in a great puff of dust, unmoving.
Thanks, little sister.
“Ipsum revelare,” I mutter, snapping my fingers at the unconscious animal praying I’m wrong. Reveal yourself.
If it’s a Shifter of some kind, I want to know. I want to know if a sentient being that knows right and wrong just sold us – sold me – out. I want to know if it’s who I think it is.
The transformation is slow, but that’s expected. I’m forcing a Shifter to change at dawn, my magic going against their very nature, but feathers soon fall away, and flesh grows in their stead – the phase back to human-shaped crumbling my sister’s spell to dust.
But the bird is exactly who I thought it would be.
When the blonde stands before me it is all I can do not to drive my athame right into her skull.
“Hiya, Ruby. Having a rough day?”
Chapter Twenty-Two
MAX
I don’t know at what point I wanted to be wrong about Ruby, but the betrayal coursing through my veins takes me by surprise. I still remember the woman who pulled me aside and told me where to go for help when she saw my brands. I remember the woman who found out how I was named Rogue and commiserated with me.
Then I realize, I’m looking at a completely different woman than the one who faked her way through our meeting at Caim’s. The woman before me now is a rage-filled shell of the woman I met those few weeks ago. Micah’s words fill my brain.
You think I’m the only one who wants you to burn? That blonde bitch who sent me after you? She’s watching you. Always watching you.
I’d thought he was lying, but he wasn’t at all.
Micah was a murdering psychopath, but he wasn’t lying. Not about this.
Ruby’s blonde hair falls down into two disheveled plaits, dressed in now dirt-covered jeans and boots, she seems almost normal outside of Caim’s club. Wholesome. And the disparity between what she looks like and what she is almost kills me. Ruby has always used her looks like a weapon, and as bitchy as she was, I never expected this from her.
She doesn’t even look sorry, the delicate jut of her chin turning mulish in her silence.
“I could make you tell me why, but I’d rather you offer it freely. How could you do this?” My voice breaks on my whisper.
But Ruby doesn’t heed my warning, she begins her phase, bones cracking, her spine bowing with the strain. I don’t wait for her to strike.
“Constringitur in locum,” I mutter, freezing her where she stands, the spell halting her mid-transformation. The Angel wings I expected to see budding from her back like flowers about to open.
“I can’t hurt you because of what you are even though you hurt me. But I’ll make sure Caim knows about this. I’ll make sure Barrett and Marcus and Gorgon and Cinder know about it too,” I threaten, and then turn my back on her, not sparing her another glance. I’ve got bigger problems at the moment than a bitchy half-breed Angel.
Corax Demons swarm the entry point to my grandmother’s cabin, clashing with Aidan and Striker. Striker is phased into his other form, a mix of Angel and whatever the hell he’s mixed with. Given the scales – and the knowledge that they actually fucking exist – I’d go with Dragon. He has come into his other form, wielding the half feathered, half scaled wings like extensions of himself, using them to strike Corax before he takes their head.
Aidan’s fighting style is less flashy, and more about stealth. Using his abilities, he slides in and out of sight, popping behind Demons only to take their heads and popping back out again.
About a half dozen lay in the dirt missing their heads, but the rest are staying just outside the warding lines as if they can see them, fending off Aidan and Striker less like they want to kill them, and more like they are just fodder for keeping them out of Bernadette’s home. I can’t imagine what would happen to the Corax if they touched the pale luminescent hex lines of Bernadette’s ward, and at that thought an idea forms at the same time a smile stretches my lips wide.
Instead of wasting my time by running, I snap my fingers, traveling from the rocky shore of the stream to the Demon unfortunate enough to be closest to the hex lines. Catching him by surprise, his talons flail, bird eyes going wide as I drive my athame-turned-sword into its chest. The Demon falls, lighting up like a Christmas tree against the ward before he explodes in a spray of Demon guts and sludge I only manage to avoid by an inch.
The smell – Fates, I forgot about the smell – is enough to make me gag. The stench of rot nearly bowls me over, which is why the Demon’s buddy catches me by surprise. So mu
ch for Aidan’s lessons on situational awareness. Talons catch me at the shoulder, ripping an agony-inducing swath down my back.
Blood pours from the wounds I’m probably glad I can’t see, driving me to my knees. Then a bird head falls to the ground independent from the humanish body it was previously attached to. A hand appears in front of my face, and I lever myself up off the ground with it, the bulk of the heavy lifting done by the man attached to it.
“Remind me to re-teach you how to not be snuck up on in our next lesson,” Aidan quips, not quite able to mask the concern leaking into his tone.
“I’ll get right on that,” I mutter, trying not to hurl at the agony filling me.
Then I move, or should I say, Aidan moves me. Curling me around his back, he parries with another Demon’s talons, fighting off strike after strike. But this Demon isn’t alone. No, this motherfucker brought friends. Two more Corax head for us, the pair of them galloping on their hooves faster than any horse.
Pulling deep, I flex my magics. Breathing on my fingers, I let the spell weave through me, letting the power build. I can almost see the striations of gold in their black beady eyes before I let my fingers loose, the magic snapping like a rubber band through me and outward. The spell circles them in a shower of green magic, whipping the pair of Demons up and away, into the hex lines of the ward.
The pair of them look like mosquitos on a bug zapper before they go boom, sending black, tar-like blood and sludge raining over us.
“For Fates sake, Maxima, was that really necessary?” Striker yells while taking the last Demon’s head. I can’t blame him. He and Aidan caught the brunt of the spray, being so tall. Striker most of all since his wings span is a greater surface area.
“Three were attacking at once. I was helping!” I yell back, only slightly sorry for dousing us all in Demon guts.
Daughter of Souls & Silence Page 14