34. Chapter 34
Chapter 34
Andy
I drew my magic from deep inside my well, preparing to use every defensive spell Dyre and Sunny had taught me, as a group of vengeful angels stepped through the portal and into our sanctuary. It was inevitable that they'd find us, I knew that, but I had foolishly hoped that we'd have more time.
“How did you find us?” I demanded, keeping my voice even, stalling to allow the rest of my housemates to arrive before the shit really hit the fan. Ambrose and the elementals materialized within seconds, able to sense the disturbance and teleport to us. The boogeyman took up a place behind me, a looming darkness that I could feel at my back, alongside Zhong's towering bulk. Aahil and Hasumi bracketed me in on either side, their wild elemental magics swelling.
The big blond angel who seemed to be in charge of this little extermination mission let out a scoffing laugh. “You've attached your ugly little magical creation to the angelic realm,” he said, looking down his aquiline nose at me. “Did you honestly think a world of divine beings wouldn't sense your dark magic?”
Niamh, River, Elijah, and Dyre came rushing through the door into the courtyard, all of them on-guard, ready to meet whatever fresh hell had found us now. Dyre's already cold expression darkened even more when he laid eyes on the angels. I knew Sunny would probably love nothing more than to snack on some angelic energy. Elijah hung back, his head held high, but his eyes darting from angel to angel. Goddess, what he had to be thinking right now, since he was now technically a revenant wearing a remodeled angel corpse. He hadn't been on the best terms with his people as a ghost. I had a feeling that wouldn't improve now that he was inhabiting one of their dead like a rental property.
The angelic portal snapped closed with a wash of foreign magic, and I was surprised to see that there wasn't more of an army after us. Six towering, muscular angels, all packed with powerful soul magic, were capable enough of causing carnage, but… I had kind of expected more.
Aahil waved a graceful hand, and the winged asshats were encircled by towering flames, jinn fire that could burn through anything in seconds. I tensed, readying myself for their attack. They could simply fly out. Dyre and Sunny would probably drain them, but they could get some serious shots in while our necromancer and wraith feasted on their life essence. I felt the magic swelling around me, every one of my found family poised to fight.
The futility of it all grated against my nerves. We would fight. We would probably win. But some of us might be injured, maybe even killed, in the process. And for what? If these angels died, the angelic realm would just send more people after us. The only solution would be to move the pocket world. Something I wasn't sure I could do without killing us all. That, or we could escape to the Magea or Planus realm… where even more people were waiting to kill us.
My wild train of thought trailed off when I realized that we still weren't being attacked. I stared at the guy who seemed to be in charge—though I didn't recognize any of these particular angels from our previous encounters. He was just standing there, arms crossed over his muscular chest, blue eyes staring right back at me.
“Uh,” I said intelligently, glancing around me to see if I had missed something here. “Why aren't you trying to murder us right now? Stage fright?”
He drew in a deep breath and let it out, as if he was trying his best not to show impatience with a very slow child. “If we wanted you dead, you would already be dead.”
I huffed. “It's funny that you think so.”
He arched one golden brow. “Instruct your slave to remove his fire and lead us to a comfortable place to parlay.”
I just stared at him. Slave. Parlay. Angels were such douche canoes.
He uncrossed his arms and leapt into the air, the glowing branches of his wings flaring out wide as he soared over Aahil's flames. The jinn tensed, probably getting ready to send the fire up higher to singe the angel's ass, but I put out an arm, gesturing for him to hold back on the murdering. Something wasn't right here.
The angel landed in front of me, and I really wondered if he knew how close he was to getting his ass torn apart by the people around him. Was he stupid? Had to be a bit dim not to sense all of the hostile power surrounding him.
“Witch,” he said in a clipped tone. “I do not have time for your idiotic games. We will speak, or you will die.”
Dyre stepped forward, his eyes gone completely black and his aura swelling with dark rage. Aahil's fire circle disappeared, but a ball of flames formed in his hand as his golden eyes watched the angels. Tendrils of terror snaked out between us, Ambrose's dark magic ready to take over their minds and fill them with horror at a moment's notice.
I sighed. “For fuck's sake. I'm not in the mood for this bullshit today.” Shaking my head, I turned around, pushed past Zhong and Ambrose and headed toward the door. “Angels are such arrogant dickbags,” I muttered under my breath.
I felt a strong, but shadowed, angelic presence at my side and glanced at Elijah as he spoke. “They absolutely are.”
I huffed a laugh. But the holy host behind me didn't seem amused.
Once we were all awkwardly seated in the front sitting room where I usually tended to assholes I hated but had to play nice with, I waved a hand at the stupid angel. “Well? Now that you have a nice place to rest your ass, what do you want?”
He arched a brow at me. “You attached an unstable pocket world to our realm, attacked our High Choir, slaughtered several angels, and stole a powerful magical artifact from us, and you wonder what I want?”
I waved that away. “I did ask nicely to borrow the nullifier first. But you pompous asshats wouldn't listen to reason. I had to do something to stop the shit that's been going down in our home realm. And it was the stupid cult that caused all the carnage. We didn't kill anyone.”
His blue eyes landed on Elijah momentarily, one chiseled lip curling in disgust. Then he returned that stony gaze to me. “I have the feeling our dead would tell a different story, were they given the opportunity to avenge the wrongs done to them. But that is beside the point.” He waved a dismissive hand. “The High Choir has been cleansed due to their incompetence. They should have been more than capable of taking care of a few lowly misfits from Magea.” His wings flared and settled as he crossed one leg over the other and leaned back into his chair, like he was unconcerned with the vendetta the angels should have against us.
“As the new High Ophanim, I have been tasked by our Most High Seraph with handling our parasite problem. I am not as unreasonable as my predecessor.” He smiled, and I really wished he hadn't. It wasn't a nice smile. “You will give me the nullifier and I will refrain from executing you and your slaves in exchange for your pledge of loyalty to the angelic throne.”
I laughed. Like, actually fucking broke out in hysterical barks of disbelieving laughter.
Everyone stared at me as if I had lost my mind. Which, to be fair, was probably true. I had been worried all this time, afraid that the angels would sense us lurking here, our pocket world sanctuary attached to their realm like a supernatural boil. I had feared they would one day find us, find a way into our only safe place, and murder us all for our various offenses. Or for just existing, because angels were assholes that way.
But they didn't come here to kill us. No. Of course not. That would be far too simple and straightforward. They came here with hopes of using us. Just like every other fucking person or institution we encountered. And if they couldn't harness the power of my strong Lovell magic and the abilities of the creatures who had tied themselves to me, well, then they'd murder us.
If they didn't find some way to force us into slavery when we declined to do their bidding willingly.
My laughter died out and I was suddenly, bone-achingly, tired.
I was tired of everything. Tired of fighting. Tired of hiding. Tired of being who I was. I just wanted a fucking break. But I could never seem to catch one, no matter how hard I tried. And now, as if it wasn't enough that the Supernatural Alliance and a cult of crazy zealots were out for our blood, now we had an entire race of beings from another dimension gunning for us.
But much as I wanted to, I couldn't just lie down and give up. Because there was more at stake than just my own witchy skin. Everyone who had foolishly tied themselves to me since I destroyed the bestiary was now in danger.
“We won't be doing that,” I told the golden-haired angel dickhead. “Swearing loyalty to you. Or anyone else, for that matter.” I gripped the arms of my chair as I stared him down, trying my best to channel the Lovell haughtiness that came with knowing just how powerful you were. He could try to force us. Attack us now with his handful of minions. Some of us might be hurt, or worse. But ultimately, I would ensure this jackass died a horrible death in the process, and probably a few of his stupid lackeys with him. Hell, if Dyre let Sunshine off his leash, we might all end up dead. And I was pretty sure this jackwad knew it.
His blue eyes narrowed at my challenge, but he took a good look around the room and seemed to understand that either way, he wasn't walking away with what he wanted today. No easy prey. No power play as the new high whatever-the-fuck-he-was. We weren’t buying into his authority or helping him look good for his superior. And if he tried to force us, absolutely nothing good would come of it.
At least, I hoped that was the message he was getting. Because honestly, I was getting really sick of pretending to be a bad ass. One of these days I was just going to forget the pretending part and go full Lovell on the next person who pissed me off.
“As I told you,” the head asshat said slowly, “I'm not as foolish as my predecessor. I don't believe in wasting assets, power, or opportunity.” He arched a brow at me. “Tell me, Lovell. If you refuse to swear fealty to the angelic empire, why should we allow you to shelter at our border, to hide in the shadow of our realm?”
I snorted. “Because I'm pretty sure you can't stop us. I mean, if you brought an entire army in here to murder us, then you'd get rid of the pocket world, sure. But that would cost you a lot of resources. And if you're so against wasting resources, then there's not a fucking thing you can do about our hitchhiking. I don't even know how I created this place. And you're all angels without the ability to tap into the magic that is uniquely witch-created. So, good luck figuring that out.”
His nostrils flared, but he kept his expression calm and unreadable. I'd give him this—he didn't seem easily riled up by my attitude, my audacity, or my general lack of humility, the way his predecessor had been. “And,” he said, as if I hadn't even spoken, not acknowledging the fact that I had served up an annoying checkmate. “Should we be so divinely beneficent and forgiving as to simply take back our stolen property and ignore your existence, what would prevent you from causing us further… irritation?”
Aahil snorted from somewhere behind me. It was a distinctly jinn noise, one of haughty disgust. I agreed wholeheartedly.
“Well,” I said with a bland smile. “Given that you won't be taking back the nullifier when you leave, but will instead be letting us borrow it indefinitely, I suppose I will have reason enough to behave. Just to repay the favor. But then again, I can't absolutely promise that the universe won't once again force me to one day be in a position where irritating you is the least of my worries.”
He narrowed his eyes again. “You will give us the nullifier.”
I rolled my eyes. “Nope. I still need it. The rebels who are currently fighting to prevent genocide and corruption that would span two entire realms still need it.” I narrowed my eyes right back at him. “If you insist on fucking with us, on taking back your little toy, you might be condemning the Magea and Planus realms. You know, where you divine angel-types draw most of your power by pretending to be deities?”
He sighed, then waved a hand in a magnanimous gesture, like a god giving the mortal permission to speak. “And what would you have us do, then, witch? Interfere with your realm? Insert our authority where we have no business doing so? You make backward slights toward my kind for how we benefit from the perceptions of lesser beings. Would you not take affront if we were to interfere with their governance?”
That word—governance—made my skin crawl. Angels weren't deities. They weren't the silly religious messengers that many thought them to be. They were simply another race of beings from a different realm who somehow got a big ol' power boost from the misguided belief and devotion of their followers in other realms. But they were extremely powerful and wielded some kind of magic that could manipulate life spark, a person's essence—souls, despite how much I hated to feed into the religious nonsense.
Until now, the angels had maintained a stance of aloof distance. They'd make the occasional appearance in the Planus realm or parts of the Magea realm, just often enough to inspire awe in their believers and perpetuate the whole game they had going on. But they mostly minded their own business and were serious about maintaining their distance. Would inviting them into our problems only replace the witch supremacists with an even stronger, more dangerous group of overlords?
I could see it in this angel's eyes. He wanted me to understand that his people could easily take over either realm, should they choose to. He wanted me to realize this. And to see that the only thing that made sense was to hand over the artifact and start bowing now, so they'd leave us alone.
A big hand squeezed my shoulder, Zhong's firm grip and solid aura grounding me as the fear took hold, and the world spun out from under my feet. This wasn't my place. This wasn't a decision I should be making. I wasn't responsible for the future of the two realms. How had I ended up here?
Deep, withering blackness swelled into being behind me, and I took in a shallow breath, my mind racing as the darkness bloomed.