by Zandria West
‘It is beginning,’ he whispers. ‘The magic requires all of us. Grayson, Reuben, come closer.’
I look up and see Grayson edging across the bed to me. He’s naked still from the shower, and his eyes are shuttered, his expression unreadable.
‘Alex, you too,’ Gabriel says.
‘Oh, so now you want me back,’ Alex says, lifting one of my feet and resting it in his lap, then beginning to rhythmically stroke and rub the inner arch, the heel, the ankle. I close my eyes and descend into a surreal kind of bliss. As I do, I feel a start as Gabriel enters me again and begins to move, but slower this time, deliberately, with control. As he moves inside me, he murmurs some words, and I remember the first time I saw him, sitting there in the bar at Hell on Earth, looking so gorgeous and unearthly, how he grabbed my arm and muttered something I couldn’t make any sense of.
A lifetime ago.
I had no idea what was before me. And if I’d known that it would end up here, would I have turned and fled?
I close my eyes and drift in pure pleasure, as Gabriel fucks me and Alexander rubs my foot and Reuben strokes my thigh and Grayson suckles on one of my nipples. I feel overwhelmed and outnumbered and perfectly at home.
‘Whatever happens now,’ I hear Gabriel’s voice, though it sounds like it’s coming from far away, ‘do not be afraid. There is nothing to fear. This cannot hurt you or us. The binding must be completed.’
It begins like a gentle breeze blowing over me and then, a moment later, all the lights go out. The room falls into utter darkness. I gasp, but I’m not scared. My men surround me, Gabriel is still moving inside me. I’m safe. I tell myself I’m safe. And then, a shimmer of energy runs over my skin like goosebumps on steroids. I see a vague glow begin. My Bondmarks are actually glowing. The crow shines with a faint blue light, the snake is an emerald green, I can’t see the wolf but the angel that covers my chest is a brilliant piercing white. The lights begin to grow and swirl around me, and a sound like the wind rises from a murmur to a howl.
‘Do not be afraid,’ Gabriel cries again, his voice only just able to be heard above the noise. I wonder for a moment what it sounds like from outside, and whether we’re disturbing our neighbours.
‘I’m pretty sure the room is magically sound-proofed, as well as warded for safety,’ Alex says. ‘Nobody can hear. Nobody can enter. Nobody will know…’
The light dances over my skin, tangling in the air, the different colours twining and knotting together: a deep gold that must be the wolf’s, with the blue and green and white, to form an intricate, brilliant shape that hangs in the air above us. I hear myself sob in wonder. I recognise somehow that what I see contains the essence of each of us, woven together into something unique, something that cannot be broken, something powerful.
Gabriel cries out again, and as he does, I feel a surge of power kick in my chest and I whimper in response. In an instant, I see them all. Their minds are as wide open to me as though I were looking through a clear window onto a perfectly sunlit garden. I see their doubts, their fears, their determination and despair. The layers they keep hidden even from themselves. And I see their love. For me and for each other. It's overwhelming, so intense that I don’t think I can bear it. Any single one of them would have almost broken me, but all four simultaneously – I’m being shattered into a million pieces and I don’t think anyone will have any idea how to put me back together again. A surge of heat moves through me, making me cry out, and then it shifts again, and the feeling of omniscience is gone. Four, tired bodies lie beside me – or in Gabriel’s case, pant on top of me. The light fades, gradually, leaving an after-image of the strange symbol that it formed flickering in the darkness for a while.
‘Is that… it?’ I say, feeling a little stupid for not even quite knowing what it is I’m trying to ask.
‘The binding is complete,’ Gabriel says.
‘But can you really be sure?’ Alex says. ’I vote we go back to the bit when I was fucking Lana and try it all again from there, just to be on the safe side.’
I laugh, but already I feel the leaden weight of sleep pulling me under.
‘Rest now,’ Grayson’s voice is gentle, almost like a lullaby in my ear. ‘You’ve done enough.’
20
GABRIEL
That symbol. I’ve seen it before somewhere, but I can’t remember where.
I can’t sleep, though the others seem to have fallen into a slumber so deep as to be almost a coma. I’m too aware of what is coming next. We will be vulnerable while we’re travelling. Our documentation should be the best that money can buy, but that doesn’t change the fact that it has been bought, and as such it carries a risk. Although they have not been publicised, the spate of demon attacks in the human realm have led to heightened security measures, particularly in locations close to known crossing places in the Barrier.
I run through the plan in my mind. We collect our passports and then split into three separate parties. Alex and Lana will travel together as a young married couple. Grayson and I are on business, and Reuben is a recently returned serviceman – believable enough at any quick glance. He carries himself like a soldier who’s received one too many wounds. We will all board the same flight – I could not bear to go so far as to split us onto different planes. And then, after five hours flying, we will land and travel by hired car to a local airstrip to board a much smaller plane that has been chartered for our purposes only. The pilot is an old friend of mine who has an interest in ancient ruins and a love of seeing the world from high above. It was he, in fact, who first led me to the temple at which I met Lana’s parents, having seen the shape of it from the air and sketched it for me on a napkin in a crowded bar one distant summer night after too many whiskeys, rousing my curiosity.
He will fly us to the convent and Alex’s dreaded nuns.
From there – we shall see. I cannot look too far ahead. There is still so much that can go wrong over the next twenty-four hours.
I rise from the bed, unable to shake the restlessness I feel. It is not just nerves, but more than that. A new energy fills me, a strange agglomeration of power that I am not yet accustomed to. I draw from all of them now, I realise, as I close my eyes. The power moves through my veins, inhabits my sinew. I am not sure how easy it will be to control though, as none of them are trained in the arts of magic, and the energy I gain from them has a wild, untamed edge to it, even more so than when I first joined with Ruark.
I remember my familiar, so dearly loved and now so utterly lost. As I think of the one who killed him, who tried again to kill Lana in the Tower, a kind of shudder moves through me. Hatred. A dark and bitter hatred that sinks into my bones.
An inheritance, perhaps, from my mother. Hatred drove her, I realise. It was the prime force that motivated her for countless years. Hatred of Garenda in particular. But more than that, my mother hated losing, weakness, compromise. I’ve never met anyone who was less willing to compromise than she was.
And yet she broke her vows, made a promise that should never have been made to access a power that was forbidden to her. For all her formidable knowledge, she was foolish, and for her foolishness many might pay dearly.
I cannot make the same mistakes.
I look down at Lana where she lies, so peaceful, almost childlike, her arms and legs tangled with Grayson’s and Alex’s where they sleep either side of her, all sign of the animosity between them gone. Her brilliant blue hair flares like a flame around her head on the pillow.
Why did my mother’s magic choose her? Lana has asked me the question herself, and I have not been able to answer it. Part of me wishes it had been anyone but her, because I love her, and the enchantment woven in her blood puts her in grave danger. But if it had not been for the magic, we might never have met. That, now, is unimaginable. I can barely remember my life before her.
I stand and cross the room and lift a blind to peer out of the window. Everything is still and quiet. The only movement I see is a plane rising above the nearby bu
ildings on a sharp upwards trajectory from the airport runway, which is a few blocks away. Even the plane is strangely silent, though I sense the tremendous power that allows that flight. I am as fascinated by human technologies as some humans are by magic. In the many long years I have lived, I have watched technology become exponentially more powerful and complex. Demons borrow here and there, attracted to the simplest and most obviously utilitarian inventions, but by and large they live without the constant intrusion of gadgets and devices and the continual flow of information that characterise this human world.
It has been a long time since I last took a plane. I always feel a rush of excitement as the engine roars and the huge thing lifts off the ground, defying its bulk. It amazes me that people trust it – that they trust one another enough to travel in such a way. Demons, in general, are lacking in trust.
A sudden, harsh mechanical blaring fills the room as the alarm clock by the bed sounds our wake-up. Lana groans and covers her eyes and Alex throws a pillow at it. I walk over and turn it off.
‘Time to move. Our flight is in two hours,’ I say.
Reuben rises immediately from where he sleeps at the end of the bed, quickly pulling on pants and a top. He’s always had this skill of waking alert and ready for anything.
‘I’ll meet you downstairs,’ he says. ‘I want to go and see about my weapons.’
‘You know they won’t let you take them on the plane?’ I raise an eyebrow and he frowns darkly at me. ‘You could leave them in a luggage locker at the airport, but they’d be safer here. I’m sure Benedict will look after them until we return.’
‘For a price,’ Alex mutters.
‘Leave them?’ Reuben’s frown deepens, if that’s even possible. ‘Here? Are you serious?’
‘Sorry, Reuben, he’s right,’ Lana says sleepily, pushing herself up to sitting against a pillow, and pulling a sheet up to barely cover herself. ‘They’ll have metal detectors at the airport. No way will you get those on board. I don’t think you could even put them in your luggage, they’d just be confiscated.’
Reuben runs a hand over his forehead. ‘But what if something happens, what if we need to fight?’
‘Then we fight,’ Grayson says, his voice like ice.
‘I’ll talk to Benedict,’ I add, hoping to mollify what I can see is rapidly becoming a very jumpy werewolf, something I am always keen to avoid. ‘I can promise you, I’ve known him for years and he’s never let me down.’
‘Alright,’ Reuben growls, though he doesn’t look any happier.
I pass Lana the bundle of clothes that is waiting for her – sensible navy pants, a fitted white shirt and beige jacket, and flat shoes that she could probably run in if she had to. There’s even some underwear in its own paper bag which she pulls out and eyes suspiciously. Plain white cotton. Which on her will undoubtably be the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen. As she climbs out of bed, stretching and yawning, I know that there are three other pairs of eyes as well as mine watching her. Naked, Lana is one of the most beautiful sights I have laid eyes on. Her slender form, the perfect curve of her hips and butt, those luscious pink-tipped breasts that I can’t see without wanting to suck… I look away, clearing my throat and attempting to do the same to my head, though the sudden pressure at my crotch is nothing if not distracting. The memories of last night pound through my consciousness – how it felt to be inside her, to be joined with her completely…
When I look back, she’s wearing the underwear, with just the effect I imagined. She’s dazzling, even in the plainest cotton. She pulls on the pants and begins to button up her shirt.
Alex lets out a groan. ‘Well I think I speak for all of us when I say my day has just gone dramatically downhill. How long do I have to wait to get you naked again, angel? Oh, that’s right, we’re on our way to a fucking convent. So the answer is probably a damned eternity.’
While Alex talks, Grayson has opened the fridge and begun rifling through it. He pours a glass of juice and passes it to Lana, and then manages to find a toaster under the cupboard, plug it in and proceed to make some raisin toast, which he spreads thickly with butter and jam. The room fills with the smell of cinnamon and sugar.
Lana sits on the edge of the bed and rapidly consumes everything he passes to her. ‘Thank you,’ she sighs finally, licking butter from her fingers. ‘I haven’t had anything since… well, since that fucking awful dinner at the prison when Garenda showed up. I don’t even know how long ago that was.’
‘Around twenty-four hours,’ Grayson says. ‘You need sustenance, after everything you’ve been through.’
Lana nods and accepts the bar of chocolate that he hands across, unwraps it and finishes it in about three bites.
‘Anything in there for a hungry wolf?’ Alex says, gesturing at Reuben. ‘I know that look. A werewolf with low blood sugar is serious trouble.’
‘There’s some jerky,’ Grayson says, picking a packet up from beside the fridge and chucking it to Reuben, who growls low but doesn’t complain. Tearing the packet open with his teeth, he sniffs it carefully before he draws a piece out and commences chewing.
Within ten minutes, we’re all dressed, packed, some of us are partially fed, and we’re just about ready to walk out the door.
Lana has gone quiet. She’s sitting on the bed waiting, her hands folded in her lap. She keeps glancing at the door and at the floor.
I stand beside her. ‘Are you ready?’ I ask, feeling the hum of her nerves in my blood.
‘I don’t know. I don’t know what I need to be ready for. Seeing my Mum? Doing whatever is involved in being the Key? Gabriel, do you think I’ll have to die?’
I freeze. ‘Why would you say that?’
‘I just… it was something they talked about in the prison. That was why they didn’t just kill me, you know, because they thought that might be how the spell was triggered.’
‘No,’ I say firmly, sitting beside her and wrapping my arms around her. ‘I will never let anything happen to you, do you understand that Lana?’
‘But you know what your mother said. And if it’s what it takes…’
‘Don’t even say it,’ I squeeze her tighter, but not tight enough to counter the icy cold that spreads through my chest at her words.
Never. I don’t care what my mother told me. I will never let it come to that.
‘Alright, Mrs Murphy. If you’d like to step this way…’ Alex is predictably thrilled by the news that, according to the forged documents we’re about to collect, he and Lana will be travelling as a married couple. He offers her his hand and pulls her up from where she’s sitting. Lana gives me a quick, uncertain glance, as if for permission. I nod and let her go. Alex grins and leads her through the doorway and out into the hall, wrapping an arm around her waist, and giving her butt a quick squeeze.
Grayson and Reuben look at me, their expressions dark.
‘If anything happens in transit, get her out safely. Nothing else matters,’ I say, and they both nod.
I know I can count on them, but it does nothing to subdue the unease that is churning my gut.
Once we step out the front door, so much could go wrong.
But as much as I’d love to, I know we can’t hide here forever.
21
LANA
Alex could probably make the apocalypse seem like a really fun time.
Within a minute or two I’ve almost forgotten the paralysing fear I felt in the hotel room. He’s milking the situation for all it’s worth. Touching me at every opportunity. Insisting that I sit next to him in the front seat, because man and wife should be together. And the weirdest thing is how completely natural it feels, for us to operate as a couple. Well, other than the fact that I keep looking over my shoulder to check how the others are going too, because actually we can’t operate as a couple, without Gabriel, and Reuben and Grayson, though I don’t know what to call what we all are together. Connected, is the best word for it. For the five of us.
It’s only a
few blocks to the airport but between waiting for the guys to load our luggage into the trunk and Alex checking his hair one last time in the rear vision mirror, I have a few moments to sit and catch my breath. What happened last night was incredible – mind-blowing in more ways than one. Now I’m curious to discover what has changed. My sense of each of my men is heightened. I can feel their emotions, their energy, pouring down the binding to me so if I open myself to it, it quickly becomes overwhelming. Thankfully I find that I can control how much I sense – a little or a lot, like turning a tap up or down.
I shut it off because Gabriel is as nervous as I am, though for different reasons. The last thing I want is to amplify my anxiety. That’s a quick route to a major panic attack, which is not something I want right now.
I haven’t mentioned it to the guys, but I’m not a fan of flying. Not that I can’t do it – I have, lots. Dad used to drag us halfway around the world at regular intervals when we were little, and it was only when I was old enough to refuse that he gave up and made sure I had adequate supervision at home when he was travelling for work. Truth is, I’m fucking terrified of planes. I hate how out of control I feel as they take off. Every little bump and rattle convinces me we’re going to crash. Usually I can manage my fear with a lot of deep breathing and some heavy-duty distraction in the form of trash-TV, but as I’ve gotten older, if anything it’s become worse. The last few times I’ve had to fly, I’ve been prescribed sleeping tablets to dull the stress.
It’s funny, but I’ve been so caught up in the bigger, existential terror of my situation, I’d forgotten about the normal-level terror I feel approaching an airport.
Well it’s all coming back to me now.
Alex drops Reuben off first, then does a big loop before stopping at a different location to drop Grayson and Gabriel off too. As each of them climbs out of the car, saying goodbye with guarded expressions, my anxiety rises.
‘So, I have you all to myself now, Mrs Murphy,’ Alex murmurs, catching one of my hands with his as he turns into the long-stay car park.