by Laken Cane
Then Rhys Graver raced into the graveyard, Shane at his side, and my relief was tempered by my worry. Clayton held guns in both hands. He shot silver into the demons’ brains, and his aim was dead-on, his hands steady, but the threat of Blacklight—of Miriam—was in his eyes.
Seamus glanced at Angus, and I saw the exact second he understood the situation. He would go after Angus, because Angus was my weak spot.
He’d leaped out of the way of Leo’s terrifying power, but three other demons weren’t so quick. Leo’s power cracked the ground and streaked toward them, and when it reached them, it spiraled up their huge bodies, carving them into symmetrical slices, killing them before they’d even realized they were about to die.
The other demons roared, scattering when they saw what Leo could do, and then they regrouped and turned their collective concentration on the giant. He was the biggest threat to them at that moment, and he would be the first one they needed to kill.
Amias attacked the big demon, attacked him with fangs, claws, and speed unlike any I’d ever seen. Seamus yelled and twisted his body and flailed his arms and released wild, uncontrolled fire and power, trying to find the tormenting vampire who was too fast, very nearly, to be seen.
Silverlight sent Blacklight limping back to Seamus, and then she streaked through the air and into my hand. Rhys was there beside me, his stunned stare on Angus.
“He’s dead?” he yelled. “Is he dead?”
Angus lay unmoving, unable even to twitch. His moans may have stopped—I wouldn’t have heard them over the cacophony of the battle—and I screamed his name and dropped to my knees.
He wasn’t dead. I’d have felt that.
But he was close. So very close.
Rhys dropped down beside me as Leo, Shane, and Clayton kept the demons occupied. Amias handled Seamus, and Blacklight attempted to recover from Silverlight’s attack.
I needed to drag Angus from the graveyard. I needed to get him home and call in a supernat doctor. He had come back from bad shit before. He’d come back from this.
But there was no time.
Seamus stomped toward us, and I knew if he reached Angus, he would finish him off. Amias launched himself at Seamus’s back, but he seemed slower. He’d been injured.
The big demon held up his hand, filled it with fire, and prepared to throw it at me.
At Angus.
Rhys pointed at the still-as-death werebull. “Fix him. Fix him now. I’ll buy you a few minutes but you won’t get another chance.”
“I don’t know how!”
“He’s yours. Figure it the fuck out.”
And then he leaped into the air, changing from Rhys into a…a wall. A wall of ice. I felt the cold power from that shield—it slammed into me and I began to shake with cold, cold that made it hard for me to speak, let alone move.
But move I must.
Rhys would weaken fast. He might never regain his power.
He was sacrificing himself for Angus. For us all.
And I’d be damned if I let his sacrifice be in vain.
So while he blocked Angus and me from fire, from power, from wrath, I blanked my mind, led with my heart, and let my gut take over.
I would save Angus, or I would die there with him.
We all would.
Chapter Twenty-Three
An Unlikely Savior
I called upon the ancient secrets of the graveyard, and I called upon Himself. I called Silverlight, and blood, and magic. I called upon the power inside me.
Maybe I got everything I called for, maybe I didn’t. But I felt the power. I felt it. It roared through my body, almost too much for me, and I let it gather in my hands.
Silverlight was in my right hand—not in, really, she became my right hand. My left hand glowed and throbbed and vibrated, and I felt the skin split as the power it contained ripped free.
I wrapped my hand around Angus’s pulsating, damaged horn, and I touched my other hand—Silverlight—to the base. I felt myself inside him. I felt his agony, his ruin, his despair. I felt it all.
The sounds of battle dimmed and then disappeared. There was only the noise of what lived inside my werebull.
Oh my God, the guilt. The absolute sorrow. The aloneness.
It blackened the inside of him, a rotting, nasty slime of unfixable truth. It crept over his soul, surrounded his heart, spread across his brain.
And I understood, in a millisecond, what Angus had done.
He’d murdered innocents. He’d killed supernaturals.
His handlers had given him a choice; kill or be killed. And he’d slaughtered his own. He’d murdered begging, crying, screaming imprisoned supernatural after supernatural.
He waded through rivers of blood, had bathed in it, had become numb to it.
Until he’d been released.
Now, he was drowning in the horror of those deaths. He’d killed his people for the entertainment of humans. Many of them. And he could not come back from that.
A millisecond, that’s all it took.
I saw it. I saw his hatred—not of his handlers, but of himself. He wanted to atone. He needed to atone.
Except there was no atonement.
But there was something he needed to understand. To believe. It was not his fault.
It was not his fault.
“It wasn’t your fault,” I whispered, deep inside him where he couldn’t hide from my voice, my truth.
They’d forced all the prisoners to fight.
Angus just happened to be one of the strongest.
They took those prisoners and beat, terrified, tortured, and starved them until the supernats were little more than mindless, obedient animals.
And there was Angus.
They’d thrown him into cages and forced him to fight. I’d seen him tearing apart another supernatural in there—but he hadn’t attacked a man for the sake of hurting him. They’d been forced to fight.
And Angus had won.
Time after time.
“It wasn’t your fault,” I yelled, and I wrapped my fingers around his poor, injured horn, the center of all that he was. His horns were his heart, his soul, his psyche, his blood. His horns were everything he was.
“When he asked Leo to cut off the discolored halves of his horns, he couldn’t have known what it would do to him. Could he?”
I squeezed his pulsing horn, and it was squishy and swollen and awful to touch, like a bundle of raw nerves that screamed and screamed and screamed, and I sent silver light and cool power into that bundle, and I began to repair it. To rebuild it.
To rebuild him.
I would not let him wallow in his guilt. He’d done what he’d been forced to do. As terrible as that was.
It had changed him, of course it had. And he would stay changed. But I would not allow him to believe he deserved to suffer for it. We would not allow it.
The group…we loved him.
And he did not have to suffer alone.
I didn’t cry as I helped repair what the Byrdcage had shattered. I wanted to, and I would, but not then. Not there.
He stirred, and by the time he opened his eyes, his horn was whole and the stains were gone. It was not the off-white, stained color of his other horn—it was pure silver.
He didn’t move, just stared up at me, expressionless.
“You will never do that again,” I told him. I needed to say so much more, but there was no time.
Then the wall that was Rhys cracked, and he shifted as he fell to the ground, gasping for breath and holding his ribs.
Rhys was weak, Angus was not himself, Amias was injured, and Clayton and Shane had only guns with which to fight the remaining demons.
But there was nothing wrong with Leo or me, and after what had just happened with Angus I was so full of energy I was ready to burst. Luckily for me, there was a perfect way to use up all that energy.
I threw myself into killing demons, and it was glorious.
Leo was right there with me, and t
he others stood out of the way of Leo’s power while we took care of business.
Seamus was already injured, and not only from Amias’s attack. My two hunters had emptied their guns into the demon’s brain. And together, Leo and I weakened him further as we sliced him up like deli meat.
The lesser demons who’d remained simply disappeared, leaving Seamus to fight alone.
The demons had secrets. They knew how to slide through invisible doorways to rush back to their world or paralyze a human while they fed through sex, rape, violence. They were created from fire and magic.
But they weren’t invincible, and I was beginning to think that a demon’s reputation was more powerful than the actual demon.
Oh, they were powerful. They were lethal, and they were scary. But so were we.
Apparently, their biggest strength was their ability to turn tail and disappear when the fight got too rough for them.
I was flying high, full of energy, relief that Angus would live, and contempt for the demons. I had confidence, Silverlight, and Leo’s insanely powerful fists.
So I made a mistake.
I underestimated the demons.
I underestimated Seamus.
He inhaled, his chest swelling, and he sucked the air out of my lungs. Out of Willow-Wisp. And he came straight for me.
I was waiting with Silverlight when he reached me, but he held Blacklight in front of him and for one brief second, Silverlight’s powerful arc was bent and deflected as it hit the demon’s sword.
And a second was absolutely all he needed.
He took advantage of the opening, shot his hand through, and grabbed me around the throat. And it was not all hot and sexy the way it was when Shane did it.
Not even a little bit.
I opened my mouth to scream with the shocking agony of my throat catching fire and he dragged me to him, slammed his mouth over mine, and began to suck the life from me.
A brief second was all it took for everything to change.
And the burning of my throat was the least of my agony.
The demon had me, and Leo couldn’t attack the demon without hurting me. I felt myself dim and waver as Seamus began to drag me from my world and into his.
I would die there, in hell. If he managed to take me with him, I would not escape.
So I struggled. I fought the blackness of his power and the hugeness of my despair. I gave everything I had left to escaping, defeating, destroying the demon.
But I didn’t save my own life.
I didn’t kill Seamus Flynn.
Blacklight did.
Miriam did.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Together Again
The first time a demon sealed his mouth over mine and sucked my life force from me, Silverlight had dropped to the ground, dark and silent. It had been her only defense.
She didn’t do that this time.
She had grown stronger each time she’d fought, and as Seamus attempted to kill me, to take me, I flung her toward him. Into him.
She didn’t go for his heart—she went for his brain.
But a demon’s brain was apparently very well protected, and she glanced off the impenetrable bone of his skull.
I felt it. It was as though by feeding, by attaching himself to me, Seamus was me. Or I was him. It was vague and fuzzy, but it was there. I felt a buzz like electric shocks when the lethal tip of Silverlight’s blade glanced off his skull. I felt her recoil from that shock.
And then, I felt, as Seamus did, the very second Miriam turned on him.
She slid across my cheek, tasted my blood, and then, she slammed herself through the demon’s eye. His face broke apart. I felt that, too.
For a few seconds, before the seal of Seamus’s mouth was broken, I felt her cold, sick blade slide into his brain.
We both screamed, the demon and I.
I felt his death, because for a brief second, it was my death.
And then, I slammed to the ground, struggling to breathe again. My men knelt around me, Silverlight slid inside me, and my fingers were wrapped around Blacklight’s hilt in a death grip.
“The demon is dead,” I whispered. “She killed him.”
Miriam had saved my life.
Maybe she’d saved herself from the torments of hell or had chosen the lesser of two evils or had wanted to be back among us.
Or maybe I was just being fanciful.
But I was alive.
She did not shrink, as Silverlight had done in the days before she’d become part of me, and I didn’t release her. I was afraid of what she might do if she wasn’t controlled.
“Your despair?” Amias asked, staring down at me, his eyes full of worry. “Did he leave you with despair?”
“No,” I murmured. “It went with him. My mind is my own.”
It took me ten minutes to recover enough to sit up. I still felt a little fuzzy, as though a tiny slice of me had leaked away and wasn’t coming back. Like part of me remained in hell.
But even if it had, the biggest part of me was right there with my men, my protectors, the loves of my life. They were injured, but they were alive—just as I was.
Finally, I stood, with a little help, and took stock of the situation. I hurt all over. My legs were shaky and weak, and I didn’t try to walk. I would only have fallen.
Rhys sat with his back against a crumbling tombstone, listing slightly to the right. I didn’t need him to tell me what his last shift had taken from him, or that he was in trouble.
“Rhys,” I murmured.
“It’ll take time,” he answered.
Clayton took my hand. “Are you okay?”
I nodded. “I’m more worried about all of you.” I looked at Angus. I didn’t say anything, and neither did he.
“Let’s get her home,” Shane said, finally.
Without a word, Angus lifted me, holding me against his chest as tightly as he could without hurting me. I shivered at his restrained strength.
Leo held out a hand to Rhys and pulled him to his feet. “I can toss you over my shoulder,” he offered.
Rhys declined. “I’ll walk.”
Amias melted into the shadows of the graveyard, where he’d likely get a little sleep before night sneaked up on us.
I kept my gaze on Angus as he carried me from Willow-Wisp. His face was carved and shadowed in the late evening light, and I reached up to trace his lips with my fingertips. “You didn’t let them break you in the Byrdcage. Don’t let them break you now.”
He let me down on the way station porch and I laced my fingers with his, needing to touch him. The others stood quietly, listening, waiting.
Angus stared down at me, his eyes glittering, dark, almost unfamiliar. But I saw something else, as well. I saw his acceptance. “I needed to fuck myself up.”
“You did that.”
He rubbed his face, tired. “If there’d been a better way, I’d have taken it.”
I squeezed his fingers. “Yeah. You would have.”
Jin came through the doorway. “We must finish the potion before the items begin to rot.” He pointed at the object Leo clutched, and it was only then that I realized the half-giant had brought the remnant of Angus’s horn out of Willow-Wisp.
“Are you well enough to lose some blood?” Clayton asked me.
“Do we really need to do that now?” I asked. “Seamus is gone.”
Jin stared down his nose at all of us. “There will always be demons to battle, and you will always need weapons with which to fight them.”
I nodded. If not for Blacklight, I probably wouldn’t have survived the encounter. Or worse, I would have survived it in hell. Perhaps he’d have forged a new sword from me, would have named me…Whitelight, or some such, and would have brought me back to kill my own.
I shuddered. “You’re right. We’ll finish the potion as soon as it’s dark and Amias arrives.” But before we went inside, there was something I needed to do.
“Clayton,” I murmured.
He said nothing, just waited, barely breathing, not daring to hope.
I gave him Blacklight.
His fingers trembled the tiniest bit when he took her.
“She’s yours now,” I told him. “No more fear. You’re no one’s slave. No one’s victim.”
He swallowed hard as he stared down at the blade in his hand. He nodded. “It’s over.”
And it was.
At least that part.
“How will you control that sword?” Shane asked him. “She’ll kill you, too, as soon as she gets the opportunity.”
He was right. I knew it, and I’d hesitated before giving her to Clayton. But there was nothing he needed more than that sword.
“I won’t give her the opportunity.” Clayton’s voice was low, sure. “I will master her. In the end, she’ll be mine, and she’ll know it.”
Jin held open the door. “Come inside,” he said, ever impatient.
Holding on to Angus’s big arm, I walked through the doorway of the way station. “Night is coming,” I said. “And the rifters may come with it.”
The demons were gone, and Clayton was free.
But the biggest fight was yet to come.
My heart began to beat hard and fast with excitement and fear and dread. It was as though everything we’d faced before had been practice for the real test.
Something huge had been coming for a long time, and now that it had nearly arrived, I wasn’t sure I was ready for it.
I wasn’t sure any of us were.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Mystery Solved
Jin insisted we add what ingredients we had while we waited for Amias to appear. He’d bring the chunk of heart. He’d also pull the last ingredient from me—the pure blood.
The pitiful remnant of Angus’s horn was the first item to go into the vessel. He watched silently as Jin placed it into the pot, then walked away to gather himself before we began again.
“How are you feeling?” I asked Rhys.
He smiled. “Better, love.”
He didn’t look better, though. His movements were slow and weak, his eyes bloodshot, and he looked like every breath he drew was an effort.