“You’re arrested on suspicion of conspiring against Lucifer,” one of them said, locking me with the binding spell, so I couldn’t even tap into my source. My jaw dropped. Zach was trying to get to me, but two other Watchers were blocking him. He was shouting, threatening that they had no right touching me. I admired him, but this deal was done.
I didn’t even have a chance to find out what the charges were, because they began dragging me across the station. Members of the public were staring, Zach was shouting at me that he would take care of it, but I knew that they were taking me somewhere where no one would be able to find me. My demonic magic was blocked and my hands were handcuffed shortly after we left the platform. I glanced around and spotted a familiar face looking at me from a distance. I could recognise that nasty smile anywhere.
“You bastard,” I whispered, looking back at Rodriguez, who was staring back at me with complete composure. I should have suspected that he might make such a move. After his humiliation in the pub, he needed to re-assert himself. Coward.
“Where the hell are you taking me? I have a right to know,” I shouted, trying to stop, but the taller Watcher kept pushing me forward towards the exit. His energy was weakening my already damaged wards.
“Somewhere to carry out the judgement. Don’t make this difficult for yourself,” the Watcher snarled and twisted my arm so painfully that I thought he broke my bones.
I had no clue what the hell happened to Zachary and how Rodriguez had convinced Watchers from the higher department to pin me down for something that wasn’t under the jurisdiction of the palace. Mentally I urged Morpheus to show his face and get me out of here. He was supposed to be everywhere.
A second later, a van pulled up on the street, next to group of Asian students. I was shoved inside, a pair of large hands pulled a seat belt over me, and off we went to the place where no one could ever find me. I sat between two Watchers, feeling numb. All the windows were shaded, so I had no idea where they were taking me. My ankle was still a bit swollen from yesterday. I was ready to scream with frustration, but that wouldn’t change a thing. Those fuckers had me and they weren’t going to let me go now.
“You have no right, you morons. I have done nothing wrong!” I started, but then a black bag was shoved over my face and someone hit me. Everything faded away in an instant, my mind turned into a sponge, and I rolled over to the side, passing out.
This was the third time in the past twenty-four hours that I woke up in an unknown place, almost frozen to death, with achy muscles and completely alone. I sat up on something that was meant to imitate a bed, cursing the entire faction off, filled with bitter anger. In the past several days I had been pulled into a world of deceit, a world where the rules meant nothing anymore.
Rubbing my eyes and trying to figure out where I was, I discovered a large lump on the back of my head. Once my eyesight began working, a cold shiver moved down my spine. All around me were metal bars, and I was in a cage. I suspected that Rodriguez wanted to keep me away, probably somewhere on the outskirts of London, but I could have been anywhere. The Watchers were guarding the way out, and I sensed one or two outside. My abilities were still blocked by the binding spell, and I had a feeling that I had been stuck here for hours.
Rodriguez wanted to nail me the moment I stepped into the palace causing trouble with Arthur. He wanted to reassert his position of power, letting me know that I wasn’t going to get away with anything. No one apart from Emma and Morpheus knew that I was heading to Langston, but his pit bulls were waiting on the platform. I had no idea who had betrayed me.
I got up and paced around the cage for a bit, waiting for someone to show up. After half an hour I started screaming, knowing that they had to get their lazy arses in here and tell me what they intended to do with me.
I attempted to tamper with the binding spell, calling up my source. Morpheus assured me that my energy could break even the toughest of spells, but not this time. I suspected that the cage had been charmed too. Rodriguez needed me; he was hoping to use me as a bargaining tool for his election campaign. My arrest was political, but with everything that was currently going on I couldn’t be sure. My connection to the prince had always made him uneasy and he knew that in some ways I was valuable.
Finally after about an hour of banging my bed against the metal bars, screaming my head off and swearing, two Watchers showed up.
“Hey, aresholes, call your boss or read me the list of charges. You have no right locking me in here,” I shouted, knowing that if I provoked them enough, maybe they’d get their boss over here.
I doubted very much that Morpheus could interfere. Lucifer sent him over to me with a deal. Our agreement was strictly confidential, but Rodriguez kept pushing his authority. I had no idea what to expect this time.
One of the Watchers was blond, with crazy blue eyes and sharp features, the other dark skinned.
None of them said anything to me. The blond one took out the bunch of keys and opened the cage.
“Right, finally. I was getting—”
He gagged me before I could finish the sentence, then violently pushed me over to the other side of the cage. I went down, my back slammed hard, hitting the bars. He started pushing his large body over me, squashing me slowly. Suddenly the air wasn’t getting into my lungs. The Watcher quickly wrapped his fat fingers around my neck and began suffocating me.
“Stupid mongrel girl, do you think you will be alive in the morning? You’re here to die, so do us a favour and stop disturbing our peace!” he snarled, spraying me with spit. My vision had gone slightly blurry, and I tried to grab him, but couldn’t reach far enough with my fingers.
I tapped into my power, releasing some useless sparks. That bastard couldn’t kill me yet. I wanted to believe that I was too valuable. His grip was getting tighter and tighter and my pulse began to slow down. The world around me was slowly disappearing. I tried to hold on to my hope that this wasn’t my end yet, but I was already drifting away. Life beyond death. I always wondered what happened to people after they die. Would hell claim them or heaven?
“Now listen to us very carefully—stay quiet or I’ll end your miserable life here in the cage,” the Watcher snarled again, finally releasing his grip. I hit the floor, straining for air, and didn’t get up again. The Watcher kicked me a few times in my stomach and I cried out with agonising pain. I didn’t know what happened later. They must have left me there, injured and barely conscious, locking the cage behind them.
I couldn’t move for some time, but I kept hearing their laughs and snippets of conversation. I must have passed out again, this time for some time, because when I flickered my eyes it was already dark outside.
My breathing sped up when I attempted to lift myself. My muscles refused to obey me, and I was dehydrated and hungry. I hadn’t eaten anything since this morning. There wasn’t any other way to say this, but I was fucked, mentally and physically. It took me another half hour to get back on the bed. Maybe the Watchers wanted to starve me to death. Either way they would come back to finish me off at some point.
“Hey, Max, how are you holding up?” asked someone. I lifted my head, suddenly startled by the familiar voice.
A second later I saw Paul and Cyril. They were both standing by the cage, staring back at me. I told myself that I was hallucinating. The Watchers had battered me pretty hard. No one was supposed to know where I was.
“Are you for real?” I asked.
Paul exchanged a concerned look with Cyril.
“I can assure you, Maxine, we are very real,” Cyril answered, walking around the cage, looking up and down with a determined expression on his face.
“All right, so tell me—how did you get in here?” I asked, partly relieved and partly on the verge of breaking down. I thought that I would die in here. Paul’s energy was back, and I was suddenly sensing it everywhere. I had no idea which question I was supposed to ask first. Cyril was wearing the usual kimono, still assessing the binding spell that
kept me disabled since I arrived here.
“Don’t trouble yourself with questions right now. We need to know if you’re okay to walk, Maxine, because you look like hell,” Paul said, and then I was suddenly blinded by the gold sword that he carried with him. He couldn’t have gotten his Watcher sword back. I was imagining stuff now.
“I have a couple of broken ribs, some cuts, broken ankle and probably arm too, but I guess I could try walking,” I said, knowing that they would have to carry me from here to the car.
“Well, that complicates matters, because we’ve come to get you out of here,” Paul said, giving me a smile. “Move aside, I haven’t tried this spell in years.”
Chapter 24
“Our paths had brought us, turning to the right, to reach the final twist of punishment, and we were now intent on new concerns.” ―Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy
I was baffled but also grateful that they were risking their lives to get me out of here. The problem was that Watchers were guarding the exit and I wasn’t going to be much use to Paul and Cyril.
Maybe Paul was hoping that I would forget about his lies. These two were the last people that I expected to come to my rescue. Besides, Cyril was part of faction security, so he was compromising his own position.
“I wasn’t supposed to be alive in the morning,” I told them, lifting myself on my feet. The sharp pain made me instantly dizzy, but I tried to act like my disability didn’t faze me. Elixirs or potions could take care of my injuries later on. Now all I wanted was to get the hell out of here.
“Rodriguez paid Watchers to snap you up from Victoria. He brainwashed Emma. He must have realised that she was aware of your plans,” Cyril explained, sounding concerned that someone like Rodriguez was still in power.
“Is she all right? Please tell me that the bastard didn’t damage her in any way?” I asked, panicking that my friend would never be the same again. I was suddenly done with playing by the rules, and Lucifer could kiss my arse. As far as I was concerned the deal that I had made with Morpheus was off.
“She doesn’t remember much of what happened, but she should be all right,” Paul explained, giving me a warm smile. I hoped he wasn’t lying to me. I could never forgive myself if something happened to Emma. She had gone through enough in her life as it was.
I exhaled sharply, telling myself that I could destroy Rodriguez. I had to report him, that was all. Lucifer hated demons that went over his head. The old demon was doing everything that he could to eliminate me. Maybe he believed that I knew too much. It was a valid reason, but there were other possibilities too. I remember meeting him for the first time; even then he was using his abilities to break through my wards. Morpheus could back me up, but getting tangled up with politics wasn’t something that I intended to do. Ricky was dying and Alexis had my daughter. These were my priorities for now. It looked like everyone around me had been playing by their own rules. The faction system was shaky, but I had only just begun seeing it.
“The Watchers, they are guarding the exit. How are we going to pass them?” I asked, thinking that the blond one was a nasty piece of work.
“Don’t worry about them. We’ve already taken care of them,” Paul said unexpectedly. “Move away.”
I opened my mouth to ask him what he was planning to do, but a bright green light blinded me. Several seconds later the warmth licked my wounds and the pain in my foot eased off.
“Good job, messenger,” Cyril muttered, sounding amused.
I stopped rubbing my eyes and noticed that some of the bars vanished completely. Paul was standing in the cell now, looking pleased with himself. The light freaked me out a little. He was supposed to be my friend, not the ex-angel that was sent from heaven.
“How the hell did you do this?” I asked him, tapping into my own source. The binding spell had been broken and I felt sudden relief. Paul put my arm around his and gave me a cheeky smile.
“There’s a lot that you don’t know about me,” he muttered, helping me to get out.
“Hold on a minute, you guys said that the Watchers were eliminated, but how? You can’t kill a Watcher, that’s punishable by death,” I said, remembering the protocol in detail.
“No one is going to die, trust me. Those two were corrupted, and I’m glad that they were eliminated,” Cyril assured me and I could have sworn that he winked at me at the same time. Last time I remembered he wanted me to back away from working on certain cases. He even warned me that the faction was keeping a close eye on me. I wondered what or who changed his mind.
“Rodriguez is behind all this,” I said through gritted teeth, thinking that I really needed to get some potions into my system. Even though Paul’s spell helped my foot, my ribs were shattered and every move was agony, although I was masking it as well as I could.
“That old demon is corrupt. He was told to take care of any scandals or skeletons that might involve royals. Apparently the dark lord wasn’t too happy with the way he was running things in the palace,” Cyril explained. We were moving through the old warehouse. The Watchers were either silent or they were truly dead. I had a feeling that Paul had something to do with it.
I needed to get in touch with Zach. He was most likely going crazy over the fact that I was arrested in a public place by people that impersonated police officers. I could only hope that the Watchers didn’t dare to mess around with his head. Apart from me, no one knew that he didn’t have a relief licence. That could have got him in a lot of more trouble. Michaelstone only granted one relief licence two months ago, and Zach wasn’t even in the system.
There was a van waiting outside for us and I was grateful how smoothly things went. Rodriguez had chosen some obscure location near the shipping yard, and the building that I was kept in was abandoned. Paul and Cyril had to almost carry me when I nearly passed out by the van. I felt embarrassed that Watchers had battered me so badly. I was going to destroy Rodriguez, but first I had to cross Alexis off that list.
I never asked any people close to me for help, and Paul’s rescue mission was very touching. Cyril was driving. I had a feeling that he and Paul knew each other from the past. Yet again, it seemed that I hardly knew anything about the retired Watcher.
I arched my head backwards and kept on breathing for several minutes until the pain was tolerable. An awkward silence settled between me and Paul. I always considered him a friend. I accepted that he had a complicated past and never pushed him. After that night in the pub, I didn’t know what to believe anymore.
“How are you doing back there?” he finally asked, when Cyril turned and found the main road. I was free, in a lot of pain, but free.
“I’ll be all right once I get some potions into me,” I answered. “I hope he’s driving back to London?”
“We are going back to the Broken Shoe; the business is running as normal. I have set up wards in case someone wanted to come in and sniff around,” Paul said. “Max, I owe you an apology, about the wings and everything else.”
Okay, there it was, the overdue awkward conversation that we had to have. I sighed, thinking that there was a lot that we needed to talk about, but I didn’t think that I was ready. A lot of things happened in the past twenty-four hours and listening to Paul’s story might have been a bit too much for me then.
“Save it. I have my own set of problems,” I said, knowing that I was probably hurting Paul’s feelings, but all I could think about was Summer.
I couldn’t go after Alexis in the state that I was in. It was killing me not knowing if Summer was all right, but I needed to regenerate my strength. That bitch had all the advantage, but she was falling apart. The next seventy-two hours were crucial. I didn’t believe that she would wait any longer, but I wasn’t sure if she was ready to go through the ritual. “But how did you guys know where to find me?”
“Cyril had an anonymous message from someone. He showed up in the pub, after demons in the city told him that you like drinking in Broken Shoe.”
Anonymous m
essage—what the hell was that supposed to mean?
“I’m glad that you did rescue me. I would have been dead by morning, that’s what the blond one said,” I muttered.
I drifted off for a bit and didn’t wake up until Paul carried me upstairs to his flat that was above the pub. Cyril must have left when I was still asleep. Maybe tomorrow when I was a hundred percent I could thank him.
“Why are you doing this, Paul? For years I believed that you were retired, that your magic was gone. Why did you have to lie to me?”
“I swore to a demon that visited me after my sentence to keep an eye on you. It was a deal that I couldn’t turn down. My past doesn’t matter, my angel wings are only a sentiment,” he explained in a serious tone of voice.
He kicked his door open and we got inside. Once I was sitting on the sofa covered with blankets my mind started working again. Shortly after that I was holding a red potion in my hands, slowly sipping it. The magic would take care of my injuries and tomorrow I’d wake up feeling all right. It hit me then—Paul was an angel, a fucking real biblical creature sent from heaven. Many demons had claimed that they met an angel once in their lifetime, and now I was sitting face-to-face with one.
“A demon? Who was he and why did he ask you to keep an eye on me?” I asked, thinking about my father. There were too many pieces of the puzzle missing in my story. First some old demon told me to look into the death of my mother and then Morpheus barges into my life, claiming that Lucifer himself was interested in my soul.
“I never learnt his name. He helped me when I was down on the bottom and in exchange he asked me to keep an eye on you.”
I shook my head, not knowing what to think anymore. Paul was reluctant to talk about the liquid magic. I was the one that showed up in the pub and asked for it. A few months went by and I became an addict and he turned into my supplier. Was he giving me the magic in order to keep an eye on me? Overall this whole thing was messed up.
Doomed Cases Series (1-3) Demonic Triangle Diabolical Quest Infernal Initiation Page 63