by Ella Summers
“Does the potion leave any traces?” I whispered to her.
“By the time it’s discovered that your Fever cycle was unsuccessful, there will be no trace of the potion left in your body. But if anyone tests you in the next few days…” She looked ill.
“I swear I won’t tell anyone, and I won’t give them any reason to suspect me. But if you still don’t want to do it, I understand. It is dangerous.”
Nerissa met my eyes for a few long moments. “Screw it.” She pulled a bowl off one of her shelves and began mixing things into it. “You saved my ass more times than I can count.” She poured the potion into a cup and handed me the steaming concoction. “I have to warn you, Leda, this won’t taste very good. In fact, it’s supposed to taste like old socks.”
I plugged my nose, trying to block out the stench rising up from the cup. “It certainly smells like old socks.”
“Medicine rarely tastes good. Its palatability is not a top priority.”
“Well, if I made medicine, taste would be my top priority. I’d create a collection of sensational delights. Strawberry cheesecake. Banana split. Blueberry muffin. That’s medicine people would gladly take.”
She chuckled.
“Mint chocolate chip. Mint chocolate chip,” I repeated to myself over and over again, trying to summon the memory of that particular taste. Then I chugged down the terrible potion, hoping it wouldn’t come back up again.
“All good?” Nerissa asked.
I responded with a thumbs up—and a grimace. “Thanks, Nerissa.” I frowned at the empty cup that had contained the foul potion. “I think.”
“In your place, I’d do the same thing,” she said solemnly.
My phone buzzed in my pocket. I pulled it out and read the screen. I froze.
“What is it?” Nerissa asked me.
“Monsters are gathering on the Black Plains outside the wall, close to Purgatory.” I looked up from my screen, meeting her eyes. “Beasts wearing control collars.”
“Like the ones in New York?”
“Except there are a hell of a lot more of them this time.”
“How many more?”
“Thousands,” I said darkly.
Light flashed, and an explosion boomed outside, shaking the ground. My phone buzzed again.
I read the text—and immediately drew my sword.
“What happened?” Nerissa asked.
“The Magitech barrier is down. The monsters are swarming into Purgatory.”
29
Cutting Ties
Nero and I ran through the dark streets of Purgatory, rushing toward the wall to intercept the invading monsters. With the Magitech barrier down, the wall was no stronger than the bricks that formed it. And bricks were no match for the monsters of the Black Plains. They’d already made a hole in the stone wall, and an unceasing river of beasts was streaming through it. The fallen barrier also meant no magical protection from the air. Winged monsters were circling over Purgatory like vultures over a rotting carcass.
There weren’t yet many Legion soldiers here in Purgatory—certainly not enough to protect the town from the monsters streaming through the opening in the wall, or from the avian beasts’ aerial bombardment. So I’d called for every paranormal soldier stationed here to help us protect the town. I didn’t even have to call for my family; as soon as trouble broke out, they went out to meet it.
Hollering in terror, the townspeople fled from the monsters. The monsters took chase. Paws and hooves pounded the roads. Savage snarls sent the people into a state of complete, unbridled panic.
“Gin is working on getting the Magitech barrier back up,” I told Nero, watching as my sister made a run for the power building.
Tessa and Damiel were keeping close by her side. Tessa’s presence didn’t surprise me. She and Gin had always been close, but ever since we’d escaped the demon Sonja, the two of them had been completely inseparable. They went absolutely everywhere together.
But I did wonder why Damiel had chosen to serve as Gin’s bodyguard rather than jump at the stream of monsters gushing through the hole in the wall. Then again, Damiel was a thinker as much as he was a fighter. He probably realized that Gin getting the Magitech barrier back up was our best shot at saving the town. There were too many monsters for us to defeat by sheer brute force alone. We needed the power of the wall, the Magitech spell on it, to kill the flood of beasts…
I watched the flow of monsters for a moment. They definitely weren’t coming in wildly or at random. Their movements were controlled and calculated.
Sure enough, each and every one of them wore a shining control collar, lit up with magic. I knew those collars well. I’d seen them on the necks of the beasts in the dark New York alley—and in broken pieces on the ground at the monster owners’ villas. I’d seen Arina reassemble one from little more than shattered debris.
The control collars. Except now there weren’t only just two or even two dozen of them; there were thousands of them, directing the monsters’ every move.
“Controlled by those collars, the beasts are completely focused on their targets,” Nero said. “We can’t distract them, easily trick them into traps, or ignite their emotions. A rational mind is behind this, which is a far more formidable foe than savage, mindless beasts running purely on instinct.”
Nearby, Nyx and Ronan stood back-to-back, fighting off a flock of giant green birds. They slashed and sliced with their swords as they unleashed barrage after barrage of spells. They worked as one being, one body. Every movement was perfectly synchronized, perfectly balanced with each other.
Past them, Ronan’s two godly soldiers battled a pack of winged tigers. From their excited expressions, they considered facing monster armies much more fun than babysitting the Angel of Chaos. They didn’t even seem to mind that they were severely outnumbered.
As Nero and I moved to help them, the Magitech barrier sizzled to life on the stone wall that separated Purgatory from the Black Plains. The monsters flying overhead dropped dead to the ground. Magic zapped the life out of any monsters within a few feet of the wall. The spell didn’t reach the beasts who’d already made it deeper into the town, however. The battle was far from over.
“Gin did it,” I told Nero, my nose tingling with the stench of burnt monsters. “Now it’s up to us to clear away the strays.”
There was a loud pop. There went the Magitech generator again. The golden barrier sizzled out.
“That didn’t last long,” I sighed.
Monsters streamed into the town once more.
A big blue giant pounded his fists against the wall like it was a punching bag. Splintered shards shot in every direction as the beast chiseled away at the stones.
Another giant, this one red and orange, hurled rocks and other heavy objects at the wall. Without the magic barrier to protect it, it wasn’t faring well. Monsters burst through the growing holes.
I lit up my sword with fire, cutting through the beasts, even as I tried to gain control over their minds. The control collars was making that task near impossible. At this point, I didn’t even care if I triggered the collars’ self-destruct mechanisms; it was preferable to the beasts destroying the town. I wasn’t making any headway with overpowering the collars’ influence, though. There were just too many monsters.
The battle was burning hotter with every passing moment. Alec stood beside Calli, his face lit up. The two of them seemed to be competing to see who could shoot down the most monsters.
Nerissa and Lucy were fighting out here on the battlefield—or on the rooftop, to be precise. The cauldron they had between them bubbled over, spilling out a waterfall onto the beasts on the street below. Lucy tossed exploding sleeping powders. Nerissa shot sticky goo out of a cannon at winged monsters, gluing their wings to their bodies.
Harker was there too, fighting with us. So were Drake and Ivy, Basanti and Soren. Even my cat Angel was helping out. The fierce, clever little warrior was currently helping Ivy tackle a hairy trio of w
olf-sized spiders.
We had an army of elite fighters, of angels and gods. But would it be enough? There were just so many monsters, and every second the Magitech barrier remained down, the monstrous force grew larger.
The gold barrier slid over the wall, but it sizzled out before it made it even halfway. Despite Gin’s best efforts, she couldn’t seem to keep the magic barrier up.
“The Guardians are targeting the Magitech generators,” Nero said.
“But why now?” I wondered. “Why are they attacking us after so many millennia of doing nothing? And why attack the Earth rather than another of the gods’ worlds?”
“I don’t know.” Nero swung his sword, killing a monster that had jumped at me. “But let’s live long enough to find out.”
“Agreed.”
The Guardians thought they could come here—to my world, my territory, my town—and destroy everything. They thought they could kill everyone under my protection. Oh, no. No way. I was not letting that happen on my watch.
The Fever surged in me, powering my magic, boosting it. My angel instincts were burning hot. I had to protect what was mine from the invading forces who would destroy it. They were trying to take this town from me. I would not stand for it.
I reached for the monsters’ willpower, cutting the collars’ ties, stealing control away from the force that bound the beasts. I felt them suspended inside my head, held there by my siren’s song. All of them. All the monsters in town.
I hadn’t thought it possible, but it was. Not only had I finally truly tapped into my angel magic, I could feel a different kind of magic deep inside of me, a well of potential waiting to be unleashed. I’d only just dipped my toe in that power, and look what I’d done. I’d seized control over all the monsters, control collars be damned.
I quickly sent the beasts rushing back onto the Black Plains as fast as they could move, far away from the town. Before…
The monsters suddenly all exploded. Apparently, my control hadn’t been absolute. The collars self-destruct mechanism had kicked in. But at least the beasts had blown up outside of town, not in it.
As the Magitech barrier flared to life, Ivy walked up beside me. Her gaze panned over the town, over the dead monsters strewn across the ground. Her eyes settled on the wall, once again glowing and humming with magic.
“I can’t believe it,” she said. “We won.”
“Of course we won.” I grinned at her. “I am here.”
Ivy snorted. “I hope your arrogance wears off with the Fever.”
Harker joined us. “Leda is an angel now. I think the arrogance is a permanent accessory.”
“Good.” Nero’s eyes slid over me. “I like it.”
“Because it’s a quality becoming of an angel?” I tried to keep a straight face.
“Very.”
His hand stroked my cheek, tracing over my neck, down my ribcage, and dipping over my hip.
“We’re going to get into trouble,” I whispered.
“Yes,” he said against my lips. “Very big trouble.”
The ground shook so violently that for a moment I thought the giants had returned. But there were no giants in sight, and it wasn’t just the ground that was shaking; the sky was booming too. Deep, incomprehensible shouts echoed off the storm clouds. It sounded like someone was hollering up there in the stratosphere.
I took a big step away from Nero. “Ok, Nyx. I get it. I’m moving away from him now.”
“It’s not Nyx,” Nero told me.
“Then who?”
I didn’t see anyone in the clouds. Granted, gods had their fair share of tricks. I wouldn’t be surprised if making themselves invisible were one of them. As far as I knew, only gods and Nyx could do that cool, freakish voice-projecting trick. Unless…
“I really hope a demon doesn’t pop up in town,” I sighed.
That would just be the exploding cherry on this catastrophe cake.
“Demons can’t come to Earth,” Nero reminded me. “Long ago, the gods wove a spell around this world that keeps them out.”
The gods had also woven spells to keep the monsters on the wild side of the wall, but as we’d just seen, spells could fail. Who was it hollering out of the sky? A god? A demon? A Guardian?
I shook my head. It couldn’t be a Guardian. Somehow, it didn’t seem like their style.
There was a blinding flash of magic, then the goddess Meda appeared on top of the tallest building in town: the new Legion of Angels office building.
The Goddess of Witchcraft and Technology was dressed in a suit of red armor. It seemed to be made of dragon scales. And over her armor, the goddess wore a black cloak that flapped and snapped fiercely in the wind. She held a majestic gigantic shield in one hand, a large glowing spear in the other.
Meda opened her mouth, and the echoing, frightening words of an all-powerful god thundered against my eardrums. “People of Earth, you have failed the gods.” Her dark hair whipped in the wind, sparkling like lightning. “You speak of fealty and faith, all the while conspiring with demons and traitors, plotting treason. Our judgment is final and our punishment swift. Prepare to die.”
30
Web of Magic
I looked up at Meda, standing high above us all, proclaiming our imminent doom. “It looks like we celebrated too soon.”
Nero’s eyes hardened; his jaw clenched.
“Why have the gods turned against us?” I asked.
Ronan set down on the ground in front of us. “We haven’t.”
Nyx landed beside him. Their wings—hers white dusted with gold, his sparkling like diamonds—stretched out wide, then folded neatly against their backs.
“If the gods haven’t turned against us, then what the hell is Meda up to?” I demanded.
“It would seem that Meda’s connection to the Guardians runs deeper than just using their Life potion.”
“But why? Why would she ally with them?”
“Why does any god ally with anyone else? To unite against a common enemy,” said Nyx.
“The other gods? She is turning against the other gods to ally with the Guardians?” I shook my head. “It doesn’t make sense.”
“No, it does not,” Nyx agreed. “None of this makes any sense. And yet here Meda is, trying to purge the Earth.”
I frowned. “To pave the way for her Guardian allies.”
“Or for herself,” Ronan said.
“If Meda wants to rule the Earth, killing everyone on it isn’t the best strategy,” I replied. “What does she want with a dead world with no people on it?”
“Leda has a point,” Nyx told Ronan. “The Earth’s power, the reason the gods fight over it, is for its people.”
I hadn’t known that. I’d thought the Earth was just another battleground to the gods, just another world. Then again, there was only one Legion of Angels, and it was on Earth. The gods must really want this world if they’d created an army to protect it.
“Explain,” I said.
Nyx exchanged loaded looks with Ronan, then she turned her eyes on me. “The Earth is a special place. For centuries, supernatural refugees from other worlds have fled here. People with magic have always been drawn here. Telepaths hid here from the gods and demons who tried to enslave them. Phoenixes and djinn like your sisters hid here as well. And they’re not alone. Many others have come here over the ages.”
“But why? What is special about the Earth?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” said Nyx. “The gods and demons eventually traced the fleeing supernaturals to this place. The deities followed them here, and here they clashed. That conflict tore the Earth apart. The monsters that the gods and demons had maintained perfect control over for so long began acting oddly. Some went rogue. Light bred with dark, and both gods and demons lost control over the monsters.”
“We think something about this place sparked the strange behavior in the beasts,” Ronan said. “And that same ‘something’ was what attracted so many supernatural refugees here
from so many worlds. There is something special about the Earth. We just cannot pinpoint what it—”
Magic burst out from Meda like a spider web, cutting through Ronan’s words. Tentacles of twinkling white magic slammed against the wall around Purgatory. The gold Magitech barrier stuttered.
Gin, Tessa, and Damiel ran up to us.
“It’s going to go down,” Gin said, her voice shaking. “Meda’s magic is overloading the barrier.”
“She’s not just overloading this barrier,” Nyx said. “She’s overloading every barrier on every wilderness wall on Earth.” She showed us her phone screen, which was littered with alerts from Legion offices all over the world.
“How is this possible?” I gasped.
“Meda used the Purgatory wall to inject her spell into the entire Magitech network.” Gin read some information from the tablet in her hands. “The whole thing is going down, and not just the walls keeping out the monsters. All Magitech power everywhere.” She chewed nervously on her lower lip. “I don’t even know how she did it.”
“Meda designed the Earth’s Magitech network,” said Ronan. “She would know better than anyone how to take it down.”
My body twitched with the urge to do something. “We have to stop her.”
Damiel glanced up at the web spiraling out from Meda. “That web isn’t just destroying the Magitech network; her spell is like a shield. It’s sucking up all the magic from the world’s Magitech generators and channeling it into a ward to keep us out. There is so much power surging in there, it will instantly kill anyone it touches.”
Which meant that at the rate the web was expanding, we’d all be dead in minutes. The town wasn’t that big.
Damiel scrutinized Meda’s magic field, his eyes narrowing. “It will absorb any unfriendly spells as well.”
“What about weapons?” Calli asked as she, Harker, and Alec joined us.
“It will also disintegrate bullets and other weapons,” said Damiel.
“That might be true of mundane weapons, but what about immortal weapons?” I asked.