Chapter 33
TIPPY
I sit beside Aunt Felicia in the Vault, watching the three books of runes throw sparks of light between them, like a secret game of ping pong. I wish I could understand what they’re saying, but my magic is not strong enough yet.
There are so many things I still have to learn. But I know I am ready for the challenge.
I am the mate of the High Priest of the Dawnwrought Coven.
I will be the first wixen to welcome monsters and humans to Earth’s bounty.
But first, we have to get through today. It would be untrue if I said I’m not anxious, but deep in my heart, I trust the white magic. I trust Aurora’s judgment.
I trust Jax.
I’m trying to devise an energizing potion for Jax to take when he returns, and it’s complicated And okay, yes, it does have aphrodisiac components, which is new for me…
but obviously, that aspect is vital. He may be exhausted on his return…
I, on the other hand, am still charged from him edging me before he left.
I need relief, but I promised Jax I wouldn’t pleasure myself.
And I always keep my promises.
I glance at Aunt Felicia’s face. Her expression is calm. From time to time she looks at the books on the plinth, then resumes her knitting, a mix of silver and gold yarn she’s turning into some kind of loose flowing garment.
“That’s pretty,” I remark, trying for something mundane to keep my nerves steady. “Is it for a special occasion?”
“The Spring Moon Festival.”
“Ah.” My mouth dries a little.
“This year, it will be held on Earth. I’m helping Traggar organize it.” Her lips get that coy slant to them I often see when she’s around the handsome wolfman. “And you will be there with Jax, of course.”
“Goddess willing,” I mutter.
My aunt puts down her knitting. “It’s going to be fine, Tippy-Anna. Trust the runes.”
I nod, then, plucking up my courage, I decide to ask about her relationship with Traggar.
“Auntie, you and Traggar, were you ever…”
“Lovers, you mean?” She cocks a brow at me.
I nod.
“We came close to being. But no. The time was not ours. Back then, the runes were not aligned. We had to accept that there was something bigger than our wants and needs, something much more important that we had to devote ourselves to.”
My jaw drops. “You sacrificed your relationship—”
“For the greater good, yes Tippy-Anna.”
“But it’s never too late, is it?” I bluster. “I mean, neither of you are that old.”
Aunt Felicia laughs, showing her pretty teeth. She is still a very attractive wixen, and it strikes me that wisdom and maturity have given her beauty an edge over youth.
“I guess we shall have to leave that in the lap of fate,” she says. “The one good thing about growing older, Tippy Anna, is that you get to learn patience.”
“Well, if I was Traggar, and I saw you dressed in that little gold and silver number, Auntie, I would… I would…”
She raises her brows again.
“Yep. well, never mind.” I dig my nose back into my notebook, blushing.
I know the way of wolves intimately now, but I don’t need to elaborate to my aunt.
After all, she was the one who gave me the book with the graphic illustrations in it, the one that finally brought me and Jax together.
That brought on my heat—which is yet to peak, I sense, by the slick warmth that refuses to let up in my sacred places.
My aunt glances at the big gilt-framed clock on the Vault wall. “It is nearly midday. I think you should go and ask Aurora to join us.”
Aurora has been meditating in the room where the portal cape is usually housed. She said she needed “quiet time.” I wonder whether she has been telepathically communicating with the cape in some way.
I put my book down and head for the door, but before I reach it, Aurora bursts into the room. Her eyes are blazing emerald, and her energy is strong. “The time is nigh,” she says with urgency.
As if in answer to her words, there’s a huge burst of bright light.
It’s coming from the three books.
The plinth on which they sit starts to judder. Within seconds, the books start vibrating violently, bright white light cascading between them, glowing almost incandescent until the whole glass case and the plinth is almost impossible to look at.
Suddenly the glass shatters with an unholy bang, shards exploding like fireworks around us.
And all we can do, Aurora, my aunt and I, is drop to the ground and cover our faces with our hands.
JAX
I draw myself up to my full stature.
And stare down Marsha’s demonic eyes, until they sink back into their sockets.
“You have no hold over me, Marsha. Nor the monsters you imprisoned, nor the humans you duped and lied to. Your dark reign is over,” I roar.
Thick lines and gunnels appear in her face, dragging her skin into the hollows of her skull. Her mouth shapes words that do not fall from her lips. She drags her hands over her neck, gasping, like she’s unable to breathe. A tooth drops out, clunks to the ground. Then another.
She stares at them, horrified.
I recite the words I learned with Mom last night. “Marsha Winters, I am commanded by the Angel Ariel and the planetary system that governs Earth, to offer you compassion if you fully renounce your demonic powers.”
“What’s on offer?” she croaks.
“A small apartment in a gated golf community shared with Ronald DeVine. And the loss of all memories of your previous existence.”
Marsha spits some horrible gray substance. “I’d rather die.”
“Unfortunately, that’s not an option.”
“FUCK YOU. And FUCK Aurora. And FUCK ARIEL,” she screeches.
And then she literally starts to shrink.
She hops up and down, her clawed fists trying to thump me, but she can’t reach me now, she’s too small.
Her wizened feet flip-flop around in her stiletto heels.
She rips them off and tries to throw them at me, but she clearly doesn’t have the strength.
I watch, horrified yet fascinated, as she scuttles into a corner of the room, her garments flapping around her putrid limbs, her voice a mere hoarse whisper as she hisses out a string of guttural expletives.
From all of this, I have to surmise Marsha is choosing the hell realms. And since she sprang from the loins of a demon king, I guess she knows what she’s getting into.
I shout the incantation that will send her to hell.
“DAG AR MEDOTHA!”
Immediately the cape springs from my shoulders and, to my utter surprise, throws itself on the ground in the center of the Opal Office.
A second later, a great yawning chasm forms and the cape rises above it. Cautiously, I move closer to see a huge abyss that sinks down through the fifty floors of Devine Tower, through to the basement, the foundations. and further still, until it reaches the bowels of Earth.
From a corner of the room, there’s an outraged high-pitched squeal. Looking up, I see the cape is rounding up Marsha, like a sheepdog would a stray sheep.
She tries to scuttle in one direction, then the next. She tries to hang onto the leg of a chair, but the cape just keeps sweeping her inexorably toward that hole. All the while she screeches and rants like a miniscule banshee.
But all to no avail. She is getting closer to the abyss.
Finally, she teeters, clinging to the jagged edge with blackened claw-tips.
“May you rot in hell,” she screams at me, her red eye bugging out of her sunken skull.
“I’ll leave that pleasure to you,” I murmur. “Goodbye, Marsha.”
The cape gives her one last nudge, and her grip loosens…
And then down, down she goes, carried away in a swirling gray mist. Strange belching noises erupt from the abyss, and a sudden red flame throws out the image of Marsha’s demon face, distorted into a silent scream for the briefest of seconds before it, too, is swallowed up.
With one last puff of noxious smoke, and the distant echo of a bell tolling, the hole closes.
A wisp of vapor is all that remains.
I almost burst out laughing.
Vapor. It holds no power over me now.
But I know what it signifies.
Marsha Winters has been returned to the hell realms.
And there’s no way she’s ever coming back.