“Apocalypse, when translated from Greek, its original language, literally means a revelation or… cataclysm really. I told you that when the Goddess was driven from this, her creation, she left it forsaken, vulnerable for other deities to pick over once the prophecy was complete.”
“But she didn’t forsake it,” Aerin said. “She left us. We could have the power to take over once the prophecy is complete.”
“Uh oh,” Claire fretted. “Is she evil again? Because when she gets evil, she gets power hungry.”
Aerin turned reluctantly away from the fierce, beautiful face of the man who stared at her as if she hung the moon—before it was all bloody and stuff—to face the skeptical gazes of her sister witches.
“This isn’t about power this time,” she said fervently. “This is about protection. Think about it. When the Druid Malcom de Moray wrote the Domesday prophecy, he essentially said it would be the end of life as we know it.” She gestured widely. “But what is life as we know it now?”
In the most excited tones he’d used since she’d met him, Julian picked up what she was throwing down, quoting himself from that first time they’d met. “The world is an overpopulated, unmitigated disaster. Your governments are all corrupt, incompetent machines run by money and special interests. Humans in the first world are overfed, entitled, heartless bureaucrats who prefer to be blind to the suffering of others so long as they’re entertained by screens and buttons and social diseases. They do nothing for those who are still chained by tyrants or starved and abused by those who call themselves holy men. The feminine divine is lost. Wisdom is falling prey to dogma. And fear, greed, and apathy is keeping everyone subservient while corporations threaten entire ecosystems, fish the oceans to emptiness, and turn the planet into their own rubbish heap.”
“Exactly.” Aerin jumped up in her excited exuberance, a broad smile spilling over every muscle in her face until she felt as if her entire body thrilled with life. Eureka! “Life is meaningless and terrible. Basically, it’s the fucking worst. So let’s like, end this thingy.”
“Uh-oh,” Tierra’s eyes went owlish as she backed away slowly. “She’s not gone evil. She’s gone freaking nuts.”
Aerin was too electrified with an idea to be irritated. “Listennnuh, I’m saying let’s save the fucking world by ending it. Not ending people’s lives, but the way they live it. Let’s get rid of it all. Every imbalance. Every evil. Every suffering. Patriarchy, Oligarchy, Monarchy, other…archys and pave the way for your little cretins to bring power to the light and dark side of the force, or whatever. And then, with our immortal elemental powers of badassary, we can restore the feminine divine and, hell, possibly restore the power of the Goddess to her rightful place.”
She could feel her idea take root in Tierra, catch fire within Claire, and wash over Moira.
And then a man opened his mouth.
“That’s all well and good, but you’re forgetting a few things,” Killian said dryly. “Lucifer, for one.”
“Well yeah, I mean, we’ll have to kill her and her minions, obviously.” She gestured impatiently. “And then save the world.”
“And how do you propose we do that?” Nick asked.
“Well… I don’t know,” Aerin said. “We’re supposed to be a fucking think tank, I can’t have all the answers.”
“And then there’s us,” Julian said, his voice dripping with regret. “The fact that we exist mean others suffer. That is who we are, and we are undying.”
Aerin whirled on him. “Don’t fucking pop my balloon right now, bucko, I’m on a roll. We’ll figure that part out, but first thing’s first. We go after Beelzebitch.”
“First thing’s first,” Tierra echoed. “To even hope to do that, we need to be at maximum power and you still don’t have your crown and wand yet.”
“And to get your crown and wand,” Moira said. “You’ll need to do some selfless act of sacrifice.”
At that, Nick started laughing, startling them all. “Oh man,” he guffawed. “Aerin has to be selfless? Humanity is well and truly fucked.”
42
Hours later, Aerin climbed to the de Moray Mansions widow’s walk and jumped.
I’ll show them selfless, she thought as her blood thrilled to the feeling of her broom catching an air current to lift her above the treetops. I’ll be so mutha fuckin’ selfless and sacrificing, they’ll put my picture next to the words in the dictionary. And magnanimous. And altruistic. And heroic just because I’m saving the world and shit.
Question was… What did the cosmic wand/crown decision makers want from her?
A list of things she’d already tried:
1.Donated maybe a bazillion dollars’ worth of designer clothes and shoes to charity. Even some of the shoes the hillbilly herd hadn’t ruined.
2.Stopped drawing her salary from Windmark Tech, her cloud company, and disseminated it as bonuses to the lowest paid, along with offering everyone shares in the company. Decreased work hours and increased paid days off.
3.Donated her entire savings to feeding the hungry. Literal millions.
4.Gave Julian his first blow job. Okay, granted, not exactly altruistic because she’d enjoyed the hell out of his awestruck extasy. Also, if they were counting—which they were not—she was still behind him in the oral sex-o-meter because after she’d taken his virginity, he’d become some sort of tongue-twisty vagina junkie. Dined. Out. Er’ry. Night. Still, she was keeping it on the list because her jaw was tired.
5.She even babysat for Tierra and Killian so they could enjoy some private time. It lasted all of fifteen minutes, but she’d been donzo in fifteen seconds of drooling and random screaming, so math told her she was fourteen minutes and forty-five seconds ahead.
And still nothing. No crown. No wand. No dice.
So, she’d decided to take to the skies and see if she could Wonder Woman her way into her powers. Basically, the plan was to fly around until she spotted someone in distress and use her magic to save said person.
Problem was, Port Townsend was a hamlet of maybe ten thousand souls, give or take the summer tourists and the occasional infestation of poltergeists and/or zombies. On top of that, the entire place went to sleep around 9pm. Especially since aforementioned zombies became a thing.
The fifth seal had called the souls of innocent dead to cry vengeance against the blood of their enemies, or whatever that prophecy was, so really you only had to be worried about a zombie situation if you ever did someone a bad turn and then they died before you made it right.
The first wave had been astonishing, and Lucifer had learned how to, through admittedly impressive necromancer powers, direct the undead rage toward the de Moray witches. But that seemed to calm down once they blew her up and melted her corporeal form, so she had to body snatch.
Felt like a victory until she started body snatching powerful witches.
Hindsight? They could have planned that better.
Man, how awesome would it be to have necromancer powers? Like, to rule the dead? Raise armies? Own the darkness and—
Nope! Aerin slapped herself so hard she almost fell off her broom. Don’t go there. Evil. Bad. Darkness. Destruction.
She was an air witch and air powers were cool enough.
Plus, there was always the lightning. Who needed dominion over the undead when you could zap people?
Where was she? Oh, Zombies. Zombies had gone back to trying to kill their still-living enemies, and all in all people seemed to know what—and who—to expect and how to kill them. Sometimes for the second time.
Zombie killing was pretty basic for anyone with cable TV. Shooting them in the head. Cutting off their head. Squishing, crushing, or shattering their head.
Burning also worked in a pinch.
In the daylight, zombies were generally easy to spot and outrun. Hell, most of Port Townsend’s population—which 30% was over fifty-five and still astonishingly granola fit— could powerwalk away from their worst enemy while melting them down
with a lighter and some aerosol hairspray.
But at night it was a little trickier to see in a place with so few streetlights, that a body might not notice the vengeful undead until one’s enemy was gnawing on one’s leg like store bought rotisserie chicken.
That’s it! Aerin realized. She could take out the zombies! That would be really fucking nice of her.
She veered toward the downtown square where a bronze fountain drizzled water over a naked lady with eternally marble-hard tits. One would think zombies would haunt the cemeteries, back yards, and out-of-the-way wooded graves from which they sprouted, but no, for some reason downtown by the theater and Alchemy Bistro and Wine Bar was where the undead liked to meet before they broke away to—you know—meat.
What Aerin could do was clean up the entire town once and for all, securing the streets and saving ten thousandish people from facing their own problems.
And hope she didn’t run into Gwen/Satan alone, as her sisters and their significant others were holed up at the mansion trying to come up with end of world battle plans that were contingent on her success in the selfless endeavor.
No pressure.
What she didn’t expect, was to show up late to a battle. Below her in the square, a lone man with a sabre sword and a shirt puffy enough to impress Lord Byron, was propelling and reposting lumbering zombie attacks with enough skill to put Inigo Montoya to shame.
Aerin recognized him immediately as the only other man on earth who was not Julian Roarke that could pull off that kind of fashion on the daily.
With a whoosh and dismount onto the cobbled stone, Aerin took in a deep breath, swung her arms back, and thrust them toward the only two zombies left standing who were currently flanking the swordsman. The gale-force gusts she summoned knocked the zombies into the wrought iron fence on the far side of the square, impaling them on the spikes, and also blew Norman Barriston’s silvery waxed mustache only slightly askew.
The ostensibly anachronistic keeper of Ye Olde Constabulary Inn was a mere mortal, but no one had the heart to tell him so. A local IT professional, pacifist, and fencing enthusiast, he’d been thriving in the apocalypse with his signature flare and endless good humor.
“Well, hello there!” he greeted, smoothing down the curly hair she’d rumpled after sheathing his sword with his characteristic flair. “Congratulations! I do believe you killed the last two zombies in Port Townsend proper.”
“Goddammit!” she swore, making a frustrated gesture. “Fucking figures!”
He looked at her askance. “If you’ll pardon my saying so, I thought that might be good news. My fencing class and I have been hunting them, as it seemed you lovely de Morays had so much on your shoulders, what with the apocalypse and everything. Didn’t want to be a nuisance.”
Aerin sobered immediately. “No, yeah, no. Thank you…for doing that. So great.” She gave him a thumbs up that she hoped seemed like she meant it.
His smile brightened. “Don’t mention it.”
They spent an awkward moment admiring the strewn chaos of several bodies he’d re-killed.
Well, Aerin puffed out a deep breath. So much for the zombie plan. Maybe she’d have to go find a town without a resident Zorro.
“So,” Aerin opened her hand and called her broom to her palm. “Not to freak you out, but the actual devil is maybe who-knows-where close by and more than a little pissed off. Do you want me to give you a lift home?”
He grimaced. “I’m no great lover of heights, and I only live a quarter mile up that hill so, there’s no need.”
“Let me at least walk you,” she offered. “Safety in numbers and all that.”
His grimace deepened to a scowl that didn’t sit well on his cheerful round cheeks. “As a gentleman, allow me offer you an alternative,” he said with ebullience, holding his finger up as if he’d a Eureka moment. “I can accompany you home, for your safety.”
“I mean, I’m a super powerful elemental witch, soooooooo.” She let that trail off leaving the bloody fucking obvious unsaid.
She needed protection like a zombie needed a library.
“Still,” he insisted. “As you can see, I’m no slouch myself, and you are still a lady.”
Aerin bit her tongue until it hurt before forcing herself to say. “Okay. Yeah.” Maybe if she indulged the male ego that would totally count as sacrifice.
Because beyond that she was out of ideas.
They fell into step next to each other in a congenial march up the concrete steps that would lead them to the uptown where de Moray mansion hunkered against the bluffs.
Ever the raconteur, Barriston didn’t let the awkward silence settle in. “If I may ask, what brings you out here on a night such as this?”
Because Aerin was too frustrated to lie, she told him what she’d been doing. Then she just kept talking. And the talking became ranting, until she’d spilled the beans to him about everything. The Coven, the baby shower, her missing wand, Gwen/Lucifer, the children, the broken seals, the Goddess.
All in all, other than a stress rash creeping from beneath his collar, he took it all in stride. Finally winding down, she let him take a moment to digest, wondering what he’d say.
It was the last thing she expected. “You know, I’ve garnered a little wisdom in my years, and forgive me if I overreach, but I’m not certain when else I’ll have the pleasure of your company. Sacrifice, I’ve noticed, isn’t simply giving something shiny away. Or even putting yourself out for the sake of someone else. That is called service. Or kindness. Virtues that shouldn’t be extraordinary, but mundane, do you see what I mean?”
Aerin nodded. “Yeah, I’m following.”
“Excellent,” He continued. “Real sacrifice, I’ve learned, is painful. Often not physically, but on a deeply individual level. It is usually a mechanism for personal growth and change. It often galls you or humiliates you or, at the very least, humbles you. Humility, I gather, is neither of our strong suits.” He threw her a cheeky smile, evoking her to answer with one.
“That it is not, sir.”
Barriston took in a breath of the fragrant night and peered up at the moon for an appreciative moment, finding beauty, it seemed, even in the blood. “It seems to me, if the devil is building an army, so must you all. And… it strikes me as odd, that Port Townsend is full of witches who can’t seem to work together. Does that seem right to you?”
Gall rose in Aerin’s esophagus as she narrowed her eyes and shook her head at him. “I hate you right now.”
He grinned. “Because I’m right?”
“Because you’re… not wrong.”
He leveled her a cheeky wink paring it with a what-can-you-do shrug. “Sometimes the answer isn’t bending the world to your will, but bending your will for the sake of the world.”
Drawing up to the mansion, she put her hand on the gate. “I’m going to go get drunk,” she announced, “Would you like to join me?”
“I’d be delighted!” His merry eyes twinkled and he gestured expansively for her to go before him. “Maybe I inquire as to the occasion?”
“I need to fortify myself if I have to go make peace with a bunch of bitches tomorrow.”
“Don’t you mean witches?” he clarified.
“No, Sir Barriston. No, I do not.”
43
From her hidden vantage, Lucifer watched the de Moray witches approach the Raven Rook Inn where the coven gathered. They waked in a triangle formation around Moira, as if to shield her gigantic belly from the world.
Human gestation was so disgusting.
They’d come for a reckoning.
She pondered the monstrous book ill-concealed beneath Moira’s jacket.
About just how many holy books were full of lies about her.
Except for one thing.
The Devil used to be an angel.
Well, kind of. Not like a wings and seraphim angel, but celestial in the way of the Horsemen and beings of their ilk. An extra creation of the Goddess. Favored. Bl
essed.
Necessary.
Once upon a time, Lucifer had been a title rather than a name. She was the Morning fucking Star.
Until her star had fallen.
She’d only wanted to help, at first. Had looked forward into eternity, locked in a struggle for balance against the original Tugadh Solas. The Bringer of Light. She hated their destiny, to be eternally balanced.
Even though he’d loved her.
Adam.
She’d begged him to change, and he wouldn’t listen to her. No one listened. No one cared in those days to change or question anything. Humans had been happy frolicking about in their Eden, naked and ignorant. They’d reveled in the light of her lover, basked in it, letting it warm their skin and nourish their souls.
And they feared her darkness. Feared the power she wielded and the way she hid the truth from the light. They hunkered down and covered their heads, turning away from the night and all her beautiful creatures. All her terrible secrets. For the dark is where sins were committed and things were concealed.
And as a woman, as the Ceann Dorcha, The Dark One, Lillith had witnessed them all. All their sins. All the things they wished to hide from the goodness of the Goddess, and the mortals twisted her from the light.
Turned her away from Adam.
And so, he’d turned to another. Eve.
That had been the beginning of the end. The balance they’d struck in their love had been disrupted, and she’d known no good would come of it. She’d lowered herself to beg him for his favor.
But Adam had been a man, and he’d insisted that he’d known better. He’d wanted something other than a scheming woman. He wanted sweetness and softness and amenable self-sacrifice in a mate. He’d wanted a woman on her knees to accept him. To accept the role she’d been given. To not reach above or beyond her station or her question her destiny.
Because the light could be corrupted, too. The light was often just as damaging as darkness.
If only he’d listened… if only he’d joined her. Chosen her. The balance never would have been distorted. The hurt within her wouldn’t have turned to anger, would never have spread the darkness. That darkness wouldn’t have obsessed her every moment, overwhelmed her until she gathered enough of it to smother the light.
Which Witch is Willing? (The Witches of Port Townsend Book 4) Page 22