Chapter 39 She Demands a Sacrifice #2
It was only when I came here—Beneath Lutesse—that I met anyone who saw me: Seraphina.
Not the chorus dancer, not a blandly pretty face, not a friend who could be pushed around, or a woman who could be molded into anything a man wanted.
Ciaran and Elena, even Fionn and Rory, saw me.
They saw everything that I was, that I could be, and instead of running scared, or telling me it was too much, that I should dim myself, that I should make myself smaller, they embraced me.
I was home here. And I was not about to let this vile man, or anyone else, take that away from me.
I was not small. I was not quiet. I would not be burned or broken.
The wind swirling around me was so deeply cold that I could see my breath.
The viscount stared in horror for a moment.
He drew a pistol from within his jacket.
I laughed—an unearthly sound escaping my lips.
It was somehow both deeper and higher than usual.
Soprano and baritone. Lilting and singsong, with a primordial edge.
I sent a blast of power that took the form of those black flames toward the pathetic pistol in Erik de Barras’s hand.
The flames knocked it away with supernatural ease.
“You are a small, pathetic excuse for a man.” The primordial voice was unrecognizable. “And I have had enough of you.” I sent a blast of wind at the viscount, knocking him off his feet and sending him to his knees.
“Please.” The viscount looked terrified. I didn’t stop. I had no mercy. I sent another blast of black flames at him.
But the viscount’s magic was not as drained as I had assumed, and the fall to his knees had been a feint to distract me—to lull me into thinking he would be easily defeated. This time when I sent those flames, he was ready, and he blasted his own power to meet them as he rose to his feet.
Black flame collided with red, sending sparks flying. My fury answered, rumbling through the walls of the cavern.
Ciaran, who had been taking down gendarmes, stepped in; his shadows leapt between our flames, dousing them and attempting to smother the viscount where he stood.
“You cannot defeat me,” the viscount hissed and spat. “I am more powerful than you can even imagine. I don’t know how you got out of my thrall, but regardless, you will not defeat me. I have been training my magic since before you were born, girl.”
“I will send you to the Demon Queen of Hell myself,” I hissed back, as he sent a plume of red flames toward me—it was a closer call than I cared to admit, and I smelled my clothes burning where the flames licked at them.
Ciaran moved to stand beside me, but I pushed him away. “I told you: he is mine.” My magic was driving, and much like when my panic took over, I could not wrest control.
“Are you ready to do it again, Ciaran? To let the woman in your life die for you?” The viscount sneered at him as I sent a wall of black flames at him. He parried easily. “Seems like that’s what you’re good at.”
Ciaran snarled, throwing himself into the fray.
“You haven’t even said thank you.” The viscount tutted, sounding casual as ever, though his brow sheened with sweat and effort.
“Thank you?” Ciaran spat.
“For exterminating your whore of a mother. For eradicating that vermin from your life. I’d expect some gratitude at least.”
I screamed as Ciaran’s shadows shot out at the viscount. Together, we advanced on Erik de Barras. Black flames and shadows entwined as they launched at him. Our magics were already so intimately familiar with each other that they knew they could fight together.
The viscount was powerful, though. I had never seen anything like it. His flames were relentless, coming at us so fast we barely had time to block them.
On and on we fought, the walls of the Bowl rumbling around us as magic slammed into them. Until the black flames within me sputtered and died out. My reserve of magic had all but run dry, my hands no longer spidering with those black veins, and the wind around me quieted.
The viscount smirked: he had broken a sweat, but he still seemed barely fazed by our fight. “Silly girl. You blew your entire load. Tsk tsk. Shame you’ll never learn how to control your own magic.”
I was ready for this battle to be finished.
My well of flames and wind might have run dry, but I still had tricks up my sleeve.
An idea, maybe, for how to end it once and for all.
Before the viscount or Ciaran or anyone else could make one more move, I unleashed what remained of my power in an unholy explosion.
I opened my mouth, my throat, my airways and sang in the highest note I could manage.
It was beyond what I had ever thought possible, the sound as primal as the creation of the world, with all the power and energy of a burning star.
It was Ishtar’s power—queen of the celestial realms, whose song had created this entire universe.
And I aimed every bit of that power at the viscount, holding my hands out in front of me and sending the ensuing blast straight for him.
The Bowl did its job—at least, I assumed that’s what happened.
I shouldn’t have been able to summon the magic I had.
I was wiped out. Empty. But the sacred space carried my voice—amplified it.
My fury was unstoppable. I wasn’t even Seraphina anymore.
I was rage incarnate. I was a vessel for the tumultuous anger of witches who had burned before me.
Every bit of that rage aimed straight for the viscount’s chest, punching a hole six inches wide through the centre of him.
The viscount blinked at me twice; there was only shock on his broad face.
He gasped, a dribble of blood trickling out of the corner of his mouth as he looked down to see a portion of his torso gone.
He crumpled, falling to his knees once more, mouth opening and closing wordlessly like a fish out of water. Blood bubbled from that mouth now.
I thought of everything this man had done—all the people he had murdered.
The people whose lives he had changed irrevocably.
All the deaths he planned to be responsible for in the future.
What he had done to me— I was livid. And I was not finished; I hadn’t even begun to tap into my rage.
I bent down and retrieved the dagger that the viscount had held to my throat, what now felt like a lifetime ago.
The dagger he had used to control and violate me.
To control the people I cared about. I walked toward him, as if in a dream.
The hole in his chest was an eerie void in his body.
But it wasn’t enough. I needed to feel his life force as it left his body.
So I grabbed the viscount by the top of his white-blonde hair and slid the dagger across his throat.
A human body holds more blood than I would have ever imagined.
As the viscount’s life-force spilled out onto the floor of the sacred space of the Bowl, my magic fled my veins and my vision returned to normal.
Blood flowed and flowed, pooling on the earthen floor.
I settled back into my body, watching as it ran over that spot where the Pentacle still sat in the earth.