Phoenix’s Refrain (Legion of Angels Book 10)

by Ella Summers

  Constellations of glowing, magically-projected dots swirled around Faris, representations of the gods’ and demons’ armies and their endless, immortal war. For a few moments, Faris watched the battles play out across time and space, but he soon tired of what he saw. Growling in annoyance, he waved his hand to dissolve the magic maps into dust.

  “Temper, temper.”

  It was the demon Grace who had spoken.

  But Faris’s next words weren’t the ones I remembered. This scene must have come out of a different memory.

  “How did you get in here, Grace?”

  He spun around. Shock flashed in his eyes when he saw Grace leaning against the wall—or maybe his shock was caused by what she was wearing. The demon was dressed in a red chiffon dress that showed more skin than chiffon. It looked like a nightie. A naughty nightie.

  “I have my ways,” Grace said with a sly smile.

  He lifted his hand. The early stages of a spell twinkled on his fingertips.

  “You’ll want to hear what I have to say, Faris.”

  “Why should I listen to you?” he demanded.

  “Because I know all about your little Orchestra of supernatural delights. And what I’m offering is far more enticing.”

  Faris looked her up and down, then declared, “There is nothing enticing about you.”

  The flash of evanescent lust in his eyes as they panned down Grace’s body said otherwise. Faris was intrigued by her. Of course, he hated her too. Just as the gods hated all demons. He probably hated himself even more for that brief, involuntary moment of desire, however short-lived that it was, when he looked upon her.

  Grace brushed her long pale hair off her shoulders, then stepped toward him. “You’re gathering power, piece by piece, step by step, supernatural by supernatural, century by century.”

  “So I may one day defeat the demons.” He threw the words in her face.

  Wow, she must have really gotten under his skin. Faris was usually so composed.

  “And dispose of the other gods,” Grace said with a smile.

  Faris said nothing.

  “Don’t be coy, Faris. And don’t be too proud to pass up a strategic alliance.”

  “With you?” He laughed. “I’d rather set myself on fire.”

  Grace licked her lips. “If that’s what it takes.” She lifted up her hand and flames burst out of her open palm.

  He laughed with sardonic disbelief. “You really want to help me defeat the demons?”

  She blew out the flames in her hand like it was a birthday candle. “And dispose of the other gods too.”

  Faris’s eyes narrowed. “Why?”

  “Because they are all so bothersome. This immortal war bores me, Faris. Just as I know it bores you. It needs to be over.”

  A sly smile twisted his lips. “Then convince the demons to surrender.”

  “And put myself at your mercy?” She laughed out loud. “I think not. But the war can be over. We can end it together, Faris. And together we can destroy the other gods and demons, those petty fools who’ve allowed their egos to run the show for far too long—and in so doing, have thrown the universe into chaos. We need order. A new order.”

  Faris stroked his chin thoughtfully. “And how do you suggest we take out all of the other gods and demons?”

  “Not by collecting supernaturals one by one, century by century, that’s for sure.”

  “I’m playing the long game,” Faris said defensively.

  “Good for you. Do you want a medal?” She gave her eyes a long, slow roll. “Honestly, Faris, who do you think you’re talking to? We are all immortal. And we all play the long game. I’m offering you a chance to finally play the smart game.”

  “Go on.” Faris was intrigued. He tried to hide it, but it was there, plain and obvious on his face.

  “You’ve been concentrating entirely on collecting the individual members of your Orchestra, but if you want to win this game, you need to get one powerful conductor. One powerful weapon. Someone with all the magic of the gods and the demons,” Grace told him.

  “The Immortals are long gone. There is no such person anymore.”

  “No, there isn’t,” she agreed. “Which is why we can’t find this conductor. We have to make it.”

  “How?”

  Grace put her hands on her hips. “You’re pretty dense, aren’t you? If you want to make someone with the powers of a god and a demon, you need to make someone with the powers of a god and a demon.”

  Faris blinked. “You wish to have sex with me.”

  “No, I don’t. Not really. But, unfortunately for both of us, that’s how babies are made, Faris.”

  Suspicion crinkled his brow. “Why come to me? Why not another god?”

  “Because you have the right combination of magic and motivation to make this strategic partnership work.”

  “It is an intriguing idea. So now that you’ve given it to me, why do I need you?” Faris was thinking strategically all right.

  Chains shot out of the walls, grabbing Grace by her wrists and ankles.

  “Because I have the right combination of magic and motivation too,” she said calmly, even as the chains pulled her toward the wall.

  A slow, wicked smile twisted Faris’s lips.

  The chains clamped down hard on Grace’s wrists and ankles. It must have hurt like hell, but she didn’t even flinch. “I have magic no other demon has. Or any god, for that matter.”

  He watched the chains twist around her, amused. “And what magic is that?”

  “Magic that has eluded gods and demons since the beginning,” she said. “Power the Immortals kept from us.”

  “The power to see into the future,” he said quietly.

  “Yes.”

  “I’ve been collecting telepaths for centuries, hoping to find one with that rare gift.” Faris paced before her. “But even the ones I’ve found with the gift, had only a very weak form of it.”

  “I know.” Grace’s eyes twinkled. “The weapon we create will have that power in its true form and more. The weapon will be a perfect balance of light and dark magic.”

  Faris waved his hand, and the chains binding Grace dissolved into smoke. She must have found the winning argument.

  “Mixing of light and dark, a power beyond anything either gods or demons can wield.” Faris met her eyes. “They will call it blasphemy.”

  Grace shook out her wrists as she stepped toward him. “Then we’d better make sure they don’t find out.”

  “Yes.” He was almost drooling at the idea of such a powerful weapon.

  Grace kicked off her sandals. “Look, if we’re going to do this, we’ll share the weapon. Fifty-fifty.”

  “Deal,” he said instantly.

  She smiled at him. He smiled back. It was downright eerie. They were probably already both thinking up ways to steal this future weapon—me—all for themselves.

  “So, enough small talk,” Grace said pleasantly. “Shall we begin?”

  Her hand darted to the string closure of her dress and she gave it a soft tug. The layers of chiffon peeled off of her, leaving her completely naked.

  “We shall,” Faris agreed, hardly looking at her. He must have still been thinking about the weapon they were going to create.

  Thankfully, Arina chose that moment to pan away to the next memory. I really didn’t need to witness my parents getting down and dirty.

  We were inside a dark room, lit only by the flickering wax candles on the wooden floor. They were positioned all around Grace, filling the air with a mixed perfume of cherry blossoms, orange blooms, and rose petals.

  The demon sat on the ground, barefoot and crosslegged. She wore a sports bra and a pair of lightweight, baggy shorts. Her hands rested on her tummy, which was still flat—but not as flat as it had been when we’d seen her proposition Faris. So she hadn’t been pregnant for very long.

  Her eyes closed, Grace chanted in an old, forgotten tongue.

  “This is one of the ritu
als that your mother performed on you while you were still in her womb,” Arina told me.

  “She was trying to get stronger telepathic magic into me,” I said.

  The goddess Saphira’s bodyguard Calix had told me these rituals were designed to boost my future-gazing powers, a power that had eluded the gods and demons, except Grace.

  “Do I possess the power of future-gazing?” I asked Arina.

  “Don’t you know?”

  “Well, I’ve seen flashes of the future. Of my daughter. But that’s the Vault projecting into me, right?”

  “Perhaps you’re seeing the visions of the future through the artifacts,” Arina said. “Or perhaps the artifacts are using your magic to allow you to see.”

  “Can’t you read my magic and tell me what it is?” I asked her.

  Arina looked at me for a long while. Finally, she said, “I don’t know. Your magic is very powerful right now. It’s like staring straight into a bright light; it’s blinding. I can’t separate your magic from your unborn child’s magic.”

  I patted my belly. “She has the power. She got it from absorbing Faith’s magic. Grace made sure of that.”

  “Your mother sounds like a real treat,” Arina told me.

  “Just wait until you meet her.”

  Arina cringed. “I hope that I never do.”

  “Leda, look at Grace,” Nero said.

  So I looked—and blinked in surprise when I saw what Grace was doing. She now had the weapons of heaven and hell set out on the floor before her. The gun Shooting Star. The silver-and-red Shield of Protection. The long Vortex Blade, whose bright blue flames could kill a deity. And Fortitude, the set of silver armor.

  “What is Grace doing?” I wondered.

  “I believe she is performing a spell to bind them to you,” Nero told me.

  “Yes.” Arina nodded. “That’s exactly what she’s doing.”

  “But why?” I wondered. “And how does she even have the artifacts? At this point in time, they were stashed away in the Lost City, locked away behind many magical protections.”

  “Grace must have found a way to recover them. And now she’s binding them to you.” Nero frowned. “So that when you find them in the Lost City approximately twenty-three years later, they will remember you, and you’ll be able to wield them immediately and effectively. She’s performing this ritual to make sure you have a higher compatibility with the artifacts.”

  “But she can’t possibly know that I will be there and find them.”

  “Grace can see the future, or at least fragments of it,” said Nero. “She could see enough to know what she must do to set you on the path she intends for you to follow.”

  I scowled at the Grace from the past. “Wow, planning out my whole life before I’m even born. Nice.”

  “Actually, as we just saw, she planned out your whole life before you were even conceived,” Arina pointed out.

  Even better. I knew there was a reason that Grace gave me the creeps.

  “Let’s fast-forward a bit.” Then Arina brought us to the next stop along the Road of Time.

  Arina was definitely getting better at directing this memory bus. She switched scenes so smoothly that I didn’t even fall into Nero this time.

  Grace was talking to a woman whose face was covered in a dark purple veil. “I need you to return these to the Lost City on Earth.” She waved her hand toward the weapons of heaven and hell, which lay spread across the desk beside her.

  “So soon?” said the woman in the purple veil.

  “I need nothing more from them,” Grace said. “At least not for the time being.”

  The purple-veiled woman took the sword, turning the blade around slowly. “These weapons can kill a deity.”

  “I am aware,” said Grace. “But that doesn’t help me just yet.”

  “I wish I could have a look under that woman’s veil,” I said to Nero. “Her voice sounds kind of familiar.”

  I reached for the veil, but of course my hand went right through the woman’s head. Too bad. I had a nagging suspicion that this was important.

  The woman gathered the artifacts into her bag, then she turned and left the room.

  The door to the meditation room opened, and Grace looked up into the face of her sister Sonja, the Demon of the Dark Force.

  Arina had brought us to the next stop on the Road of Time so smoothly that I’d hardly noticed the change of scene.

  Sonja’s eyes dropped to Grace’s belly, which was considerably rounder than it had been in the last memory. Grace cast a spell that had her fully dressed at the snap of her fingers.

  “You conceived a child with that self-righteous peacock Faris,” Sonja snarled at Grace.

  “Stay out of my business, Sonja.”

  “Your business is my business, sister.”

  “How did you find out?”

  “The how is not important,” replied Sonja. “What’s important is why. Why did you do this? Are you smitten with the god?”

  Grace rolled her eyes. “Of course not.”

  “Good. Because then I really would have had to kill you. The gods are so…” Sonja’s beautiful, immortal face scrunched up “…vile.”

  “What do you want?” Grace demanded.

  “Don’t take that tone with me, Grace. I’m here to help you. If the other demons on the council found out about your indiscretion…” Sonja clicked her tongue. “They would not be pleased. They’d strip you of your positions and titles. They’d likely kill you too,” she added breezily.

  “The only way the others on the council will find out is if you tell them.” Grace shot her sister a hard, accusatory glare.

  “Don’t be so naive. You’re really starting to show.” Sonja pulled up the bottom of Grace’s tunic, revealing the bump her clothes had done a decent job of concealing.

  Grace knocked Sonja’s hand away and pulled the bottom of her tunic back down over her belly. “I’m not seeing any visitors right now. I’m engaged in meditation.”

  “That story won’t keep the others away for long.”

  “I don’t have to keep them away for long,” said Grace. “Only for another three months.”

  “I don’t know why you’re even bothering with a full pregnancy when you could just have it sped up. Especially, when you want to keep this a secret.”

  “I told you to stay out of it, Sonja. I have my reasons.”

  “You do realize that I will find out what you’re up to, right? You can’t keep secrets from me, Grace. You’ve never been able to. I always find out. And the others will find out too.”

  “Unlike you, the other members of the council have better things to do than barge into my meditation room,” Grace said flippantly.

  Sonja ignored her. “And when they do come, they will demand answers. I demand answers.”

  “You can demand all you want.” Grace pointed to the door. “From out there. Go away. I’m busy meditating.”

  Sonja’s eyes panned across the candles. “This isn’t some spiritual reflection you’ve undertaken. This is ancient magic.”

  “Congratulations, you’ve stated the obvious.” Grace planted her hands on her hips. “Now go away.”

  Sonja’s eyes narrowed. “What are you really trying to do?”

  “Cure heartburn,” Grace quipped.

  Sonja frowned. “This is no time for your jokes, Grace.”

  “I’m not joking. Pregnancy causes heartburn.”

  Sonja scoffed at the idea. “You are a deity.”

  “We both know that doesn’t mean we’re all-powerful. If I were, I’d kill you with a single thought.”

  Sonja’s voice dropped to a low, blistering hiss. “You wouldn’t dare.”

  “Oh, I would dare a lot of things. Pregnancy has made me cranky. And hungry.” Grace flashed Sonja her fangs. “Now leave me alone before I bite you.”

  But Sonja was unfazed by her sister’s show of fang. “You seduced Faris.”

  “You say that like it’s a hard thi
ng. That god had clearly not been laid in centuries.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he’s an insufferable ass, and no one wants to sleep with him.”

  “No,” Sonja growled. “I don’t care why no one wants to sleep with Faris. I care why you chose to sleep with him.”

  Grace favored her with a sunny smile. “Sometimes even I get an itch that needs scratching.”

  “You would have chosen someone less wretched. No, you chose Faris for a reason.” Gold light flashed in Sonja’s eyes. “You wanted to conceive a child with Faris. You wanted to create a child with the powers of dark and light. But why?”

  Grace opened her mouth to speak.

  Sonja cut her off first. “I don’t need any more of your flippant remarks, little sister. You’re trying to distract me from the truth, that you have created a living weapon,” she hissed. “You acted in error, but what’s done is done. We can use this.”

  “We?”

  “Of course you’re going to share your new weapon with your big sister. There has never before been a child with demon and god magic. We must train it properly if it’s going to serve its purpose.” Sonja’s smile widened. “But first, I have to kill the priests just outside the door. They’ve been peeking through a crack in the door and listening to every word that we’ve said. And, after all, what good is a secret weapon if it’s not a secret?”

  After we left Grace and Sonja in the meditation chamber, Arina brought us further down the road of memories, to Faris. The god stood in a room of martial decor, flipping through his cosmic maps. Outside his window, winter had covered the lands in a thick blanket of snow.

  “Sonja knows.”

  Faris looked up to find Grace in his castle, right in front of him. She wore a fur-trimmed red velvet cloak that did a good job of hiding her baby bump.

  He brushed the battle maps away. “What does Sonja know?”

  Grace flicked her hand to cast a gust of magic wind that flung her cloak away.

  Faris’s gaze dropped to her baby bump, clearly visible under her tight red gown. “When did this happen?”

  “Don’t play coy, Faris. You were there.”