Armageddon (Angelbound)

by Christina Bauer

  The Teschio’s voice takes on a menacing edge. “We still haven’t seen a shiny coin.”

  “Can you blame me? I’ve heard a lot of pretty talk about what this one can do, but haven’t seen a thing.”

  “Tests are risky,” says the Teschio. “We don’t do them on a whim.”

  “Which is why you waited until we struck our deal,” says Connor. “I understand that. And now, you have to understand that I’m withholding payment until I see a demonstration of her powers.” He turns to Hildy and smiles. “Are you ready?”

  Hildy nods quickly. “Yes, I suppose so.”

  The Teschio bows. “We will begin by showing you how a Master Monopsyche works. Marcus will step into another room, and then Hildegard will draw him back here. Teleport, if you will.”

  “Oh, I’ve seen that before,” huffs Connor. “Plenty of monopsyches do that.”

  “Only four, Your Highness,” says the Teschio. “It’s quite a rare skill.”

  “Well, perhaps there’s a new twist you can show me.” Connor stares for a long minute at Marcus. “If he walks out into the hall, can she teleport him back to anywhere? Now, that I’d like to see.”

  “No, it doesn’t work that way,” explains the Teschio. “Hildy can only call back her mark to wherever she stands. The spell works because of their mental bond, like magnets attracting. There are other houses of magic that specialize in teleportation, but as you already know, they can’t meet your strict requirements.”

  “Quite right,” says Connor. “Well, get on with it. Show me someone getting pulled out of Hell. I’m ready to pay a pretty penny for this girl and I want to be sure she can deliver.”

  “Of course,” says the Teschio. He snaps his fingers and the chains disappear from around the Cruor’s neck and hands. Immediately, the demon wraps all four lanky white arms around Marcus.

  “To the torture pits!” screams the demon.

  “No!” cries Hildy. “That’s too fast. I have to form the links first.”

  Marcus shivers under the demon’s grip. “Do it, Hildy!”

  Hildy’s eyes turn all white while Marcus’s close tightly. The demon continues to grasp his prey with all four arms as the pair sink through the floor into Hell. Hildy pulls up her sleeve, showing the Looking Glass of Marcus. “Someone tell me when he’s in Hell.”

  Connor steps up and peers at her wrist. “Not quite yet,” his mouth curls with disgust. “Ah, he’s in the torture pits now.” Connor steps away, his hand pressing over his mouth. “Bring him back.”

  Hildy raises her arms above her head into a ‘v’ shape, her palms glowing with purple light. She raises her all white gaze toward the ceiling, her lips silently moving with incantations.

  In one swift movement, Hildy lowers her hands, claps them together at chest-level, and then positions her arms into a reverse V-shape by her hips. Nothing happens.

  “I didn’t have time to make the bond properly,” cries Hildy. “I can’t pull him back.”

  Hildy tries again and again to retrieve Marcus. Nothing works. Finally, after an hour of fruitless attempts, a ghostly version of Marcus appears before her, his body made of shifting purple mist. Bit by bit, his form becomes more solid until he’s standing before us in the flesh.

  He’s barely alive.

  Marcus’s white coat is covered in blood, he wobbles as he tries to stand upright. Hildy grasps him in her arms as he collapses onto the floor.

  “Where are your healers?” Connor’s face is frantic. “Help this boy!”

  “He is of no consequence,” says the Teschio. “That one is only a Novice, after all. He should have accepted Hildy’s offer. At least, he wouldn’t have suffered.”

  Hildy rounds on the Teschio, her eyes bright with rage and tears. “I hate you. How would you do this? You knew I didn’t have time to properly prepare the bond.”

  The Teschio shrugs. “You shouldn’t have chatted without permission, then.”

  Her mouth twists into a snarl. “You’re the one who deserves the torture pits!”

  “And you’re a proven Grand Master Monopsyche. I’ll ready the spells to mark your forearm, then your new owner can take you away.” The Teschio steps out of the room, leaving Hildy and Connor behind.

  Hildy cups Marcus’s face in her hands. “Stay with me, my love. We can heal you.”

  Blood dribbles from the side of Marcus’s mouth. “Don’t call a healer, please. I saw the torture pits.” He shivers. “I’d rather die than remember that.”

  I stare at the haunted look on Marcus’s face, my mouth filling with bile. One hour of seeing the torture pits and this grown man would prefer death. What would happen if Armageddon ever dragged my three-year old son there? Everyone says Armageddon’s cruelty makes the torture pits look tame.

  Connor fumbles in his pockets. “I’ve spent years on demon patrol, my girl. Let me take a look at his wounds. Perhaps I can help.”

  Hildy holds Marcus’s head against her chest. “He’s already gone.” Her voice breaks with grief. “There’s nothing to be done.”

  Connor gently rests his hand on Hildy’s shoulder. “You need to leave this place. I can take you away.”

  “I don’t want to be a monopsyche anymore. I want to die, too.”

  “Now, don’t say that, my girl. Come with me to Antrum and meet my grandson. He’s the one I want you to guard, you know.”

  “I don’t want to guard him. I don’t want to be protect anyone.”

  “Now, how do know you that if you won’t meet the little chap?” Connor scratches his cheek, his eyes lost in thought. “And I’ll tell you what. If you just meet the boy, I’ll give you your freedom. Your choice. Meet him, then stay or walk away.”

  Minutes pass as Hildy scans Marcus’s lifeless face. At length, she inhales a long breath. “He’d want me to leave.” She dries her eyes with her fingertips, leaving streaks of blood across her cheeks. “You have yourself a deal.”

  Bit by bit, the image of the stone room disappears. With it goes much of my innocence about what’s really been taking place inside my own family.

  Chapter Four

  Lincoln and I return to our audience chamber at the precise places where we started our journey into Hildy’s memories. Although my body hasn’t moved an inch, my mind is upside down. The true definition of a Grand Master monopsyche has short-circuited my brain.

  Hildy sits on a leather chair in our audience chamber, her elbows resting on her knees. “Sorry to leave you alone in that scene.”

  I take a seat on the couch across from her, careful to keep my voice gentle. “Don’t worry about it. If I were you, I wouldn’t want to relive that experience, either.”

  “It was the only way I could think of to show you the truth,” says Hildy. “Now, you know what I do. Like you saw in my memory, I need to cast a few days worth of spells, but once that magical link is in place, I can move my mark from anywhere, including Hell.”

  “Right, got it.” My chest tightens with fresh bands of worry. Some small part of me had hoped the threat against Maxon wouldn’t be real. But after seeing Hildy’s memories? There’s no question that my boy is at risk.

  Hildy kicks at the Persian carpet with her boot. “Look, you don’t know me, but I’ve gotten to hang out with Maxon. Octavia snuck me in to meet him and he’s a good kid. I don’t have family of my own, so I care about what happens to him.” She straightens her shoulders. “All I’m saying is that if you want me to cast the spells and forge the bond with your boy, then I’m in.”

  Lincoln and I answer at the same time. “Do it.”

  “Glad to hear that.” Hildy smiles with relief. “Do I still work for Connor and Octavia, though?” The look on her face says that Hildy has no desire to work for the liar faction of our family.

  “No, you’ll be on our payroll going forward,” explains Lincoln. “Myla and I are meeting shortly with the King and Queen Emeritus, and we’ll straighten everything out. My apologies that you’ve gotten in the middle of our—” He
exhales, trying to find the words. “Strange family dynamic.”

  A sad smile rounds Hildy’s mouth. “Hey, at least you have a family dynamic. And like I said, Maxon’s a good kid.”

  “Thank you for caring about our boy.” Lincoln sets his hand on her shoulder. “That means a lot to the Queen and me.”

  “You’re welcome.” Hildy blushes and steps away. “I better get started on those spells for Maxon. I’ll see you at the Anointing tonight?”

  “You’ll see us before that,” I say. “We’ll stop by Maxon’s play date with my father in the afternoon.”

  “Okay, until then.” Without any further chit-chat, Hildy marches out the door and down the outer maze of hallways, her boots thudding like a drumroll in her wake.

  A long pause follows after Hildy’s gone. Lincoln and I melt into a wordless embrace. While the feeling of his long arms around me is comforting, the threat against Maxon still presses in around us, heavy as concrete. The realizations of today whirl through my mind, leading to one inescapable conclusion.

  Maxon’s at risk and Connor’s known for years. The creep has been sneaking around Striga, hiring a monopsyche against a threat he never shared with Lincoln and me. And Cissy said that Connor’s somehow involved, too. What in blazes does that mean? How deep does this betrayal go?

  After what I’ve learned today, my guess is that it goes pretty fucking deep.

  My inner wrath monster returns with a vengeance, heating my blood with rage. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Lincoln, but I’m going to kill your father.”

  Leaning back, Lincoln stares at me so hard, I’m surprised that laser beams don’t shoot out of his eyes. “Not if I get to him first.”

  Oh, crud. Lincoln and Connor have been at each other’s throats for ages, but I’ve never felt that anything too terrible would happen between them. Although Connor works himself up into some insane rages, Lincoln’s always able to keep his cool. But seeing that look in my husband’s eyes?

  Terrible may be just around the corner.

  Chapter Five

  I glare down at Connor, my hands balling into angry fists. I so want hurt this man, it isn’t funny. Once Hildy left, Lincoln and I had the guards drag the King and Queen Emeritus in here for an interrogation. It hasn’t exactly been a love fest.

  “I’ll ask you once again, Father.” Lincoln’s voice drips with menace. “What the hell is going on?”

  “Going on?” Connor asks with a chuckle. “Who says something’s going on?” He wraps his arm around Octavia’s shoulder, pulling her in for a closer snuggle on the couch. You’d think the two of them were lovebirds about to watch their favorite TV show, not ex-rulers ready to get their asses handed to them.

  “Drop the act, Father.”

  “We already know Hildy is a Grand Master monopsyche,” I say. “She can move souls from Hell.”

  Octavia rounds on her husband. “See? I told you they’d figure it out.”

  Connor laughs again, his barrel-chest heaving with the movement. “You’re a pair of smart kids, I’ll give you that.”

  Over the years, Connor’s ‘jolly old king’ act has gotten really annoying, but never more so than now. We need the truth and fast. At this point, I’d rather he plunge into one of his classic rages rather than smile.

  Octavia straightens the neckline of her black Rixa gown. “I told him you’d figure it out. Please don’t hold it against Hildy.”

  “We’re not here to discuss Hildy, Mother.” Lincoln takes a half-step closer to his father and glowers down at him. “What do you know about Maxon? Why are you finding him a bodyguard that can pulls their mark out of Hell?”

  “I can’t tell you, son.” Connor raises his gaze to meet ours. Bit by bit, his smile fades. “All I can say is this. I’ve been waiting for years to find someone like Hildy. She’s exceptional. A prodigy. She’s exactly what we need. We’ll all be safe now.”

  “Safe from what, Father?”

  Connor shakes his head. In just the last few seconds, the lines on his face seem to multiply and deepen. I’ve never seen him look so old or tired. “Please, let me be. I’ve done all I can.”

  A small voice in my mind says to pity this man. Connor never recovered from giving up the crown. Now, he’s a shell of his former self and clearly upset. But that little voice doesn’t stand a chance. This is about Maxon’s safety.

  Lincoln’s mismatched eyes narrow. “You can’t say…”

  I finish his thought. “Or you won’t say?”

  Connor slowly rises to his feet. “I’m leaving now. This is disrespectful.” He takes two steps toward the door before Lincoln pins him to the wall, his forearm pressing against Connor’s throat. My own breath catches. Lincoln is almost out of control.

  “Out with it.” Lincoln pushes harder onto Connor’s neck. “What do you know?”

  Octavia rises to stand beside me, her place pale. I know how she feels. I’ve never seen Lincoln so angry.

  Connor gasps for breath. “I ca… I won’t….”

  Octavia’s hands flutter by her chin. “My son, what are you doing?”

  “You know damn well what I’m doing.” Lincoln re-slams Connor against the wall, only with more force this time around. “You find the strength and tell me, Father. Now.”

  “Lin… Lincoln…” Connor’s face turns purple.

  “What do you know?” Lincoln’s voice raises to a roar. “Stop being a weak, self-centered worm for once in your life. Find the strength to tell me what’s happening to my son!” Connor’s face turns a deeper shade of purple. His eyes roll back into his head.

  “Lincoln, stop it,” I say. “You’re choking him.”

  “I’m not choking him.”

  Lincoln steps back and Connor crumples to the floor, gasping for breath. The purple hue stays on his face a few seconds too long to be natural.

  Unholy Hell. I know what that means.

  All the breath leaves my body. Lincoln was testing Connor for a certain kind of magic. And based on the results, there’s only one explanation for the odd purple hue on the face of the King Emeritus.

  This is so bad.

  “Connor’s under a magical compulsion,” I say quietly. “Whatever he knows, he can’t speak of it.”

  Octavia sadly shakes her head. “Yes, that’s right. I’ve taken him to the best witches and warlocks in Striga. It’s unbreakable.” She grips her hands at her waist so hard, her knuckles turn white. “I wanted to tell you, but what could any of us do? And now, we have Hildy. Connor says that everything will be fine.”

  Octavia’s mouth keeps moving, and I know she’s blathering on about something, but my attention’s consumed by her mismatched eyes. Something dark lurks in them that I’ve never seen there before. Fear. She knows her husband well enough to realize that whatever he’s hiding, it’s something life-changing. Maybe even relationship-stopping. Chilly tendrils of dread creep through my torso.

  What could be so bad that it scares Octavia?

  Lincoln pins his mother with a look of disgust. “You manipulated Father into giving up the crown. You were able to do that, but when you knew he was hiding something about Maxon, you did nothing?”

  “There wasn’t anything I could do,” says Octavia, but her words sound more like a question. “The compulsion in unbreakable.”

  My mind fixates on that one word.

  “Unbreakable?” I repeat, my body turning numb with shock. “You know what that means, don’t you? Damn, I know hardly anything about Striga magic and I know what that means.”

  Connor and Octavia stare at the floor, speechless. Silence, really? Fine, if they’re going to make me say, it, I’ll say it.

  “It means that Connor agreed to the compulsion. Otherwise, almost anyone in Striga could break it.” I turn to Connor, my eyes blazing red with wrath. “Let me get this straight. You’ve known about some threat to Maxon from Hell for years, and you agreed to a compulsion so you couldn’t speak about it to anyone?”

  Octavia steps in
front of me, grabbing me by the upper arms. “You don’t know Connor like I do. There has to be an explanation for all of this.”

  I break free from Octavia’s grip. “You’re talking crazy. Where is the Queen I used to know?”

  Octavia’s shoulders slump. “You have to trust me on this. I know Connor.”

  “Not happening,” I say, my voice deadly low.

  “Look,” adds Lincoln. “Myla and I are not trusting your faith in Father when Maxon’s safety could be at stake.”

  Connor leans against the wall, tears lining his eyes. “I’ve done all I could. There’s nothing left to say.”

  “There’s everything left to say, Father.”

  Connor straightens his tunic, an effort that only makes it more cockeyed. “We’ve covered as much on this topic as we can. Hildy’s good. More than enough to protect Maxon. There’s no better monopsyche in a thousand years. You’ve no idea how hard it was to hire her. Maxon’s safe now.”

  “You see?” says Octavia. “You can trust your Father. He may not be able to tell us everything, but he knows the full story. If he says Maxon is more than protected, then he is.”

  “Not good enough, Mother. Not by a long shot.”

  Octavia leads Connor toward the door in slow, shuffling steps. “Children, I realize you’re worried about Maxon. Connor and I feel the same way. However, there’s no point causing family strife over something we can do nothing about. The compulsion is unbreakable, and that’s an end to it.”

  She’s not getting away that easily. Even I know what we can try next. “This isn’t over,” I say firmly. “Connor’s going to the Striga Elders.”

  “Agreed,” says Lincoln.

  The Striga Elders are the most powerful witches and warlocks in Striga. Totally badass, especially their leader, Elder Faustina. If anyone can break the spell on Connor, they can.

  “The Striga Elders?” Connor looks at me like I just grew two heads. “Criminals go there. I’ve done nothing wrong. I won’t set foot in that chamber.”