Chapter 23
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
I was in a full-blown panic as I consulted my pocket watch. Twenty-five minutes until the witching hour. Twenty-five minutes before Auggie was sacrificed, unless I was able to track him down and rescue him.
Freya, sensing my anxiety, aimed an explosive force of wind through the group of witches, sending them flying back, many of them striking one another or blowing past the encircling trees to be caught by thorny shrubs.
“We don’t have time to lose,” Freya stated the obvious, stalking toward the portal.
I hurried to catch up.
“Will Auggie be okay?” Therese asked, worry thick in her voice.
“I’ll make sure of it,” I said through clenched teeth.
Anger flooded through me: anger at the situation Auggie was in, anger at how Erik had taken advantage of us, anger at Lucifer for supporting a sadist like Erik in the first place.
All of them could go to Hell. Well, Lucifer wouldn’t be fazed by that, but the intention remained.
“We should be prepared for anything,” Freya said, stopping short of the portal and drawing her blades, arming all three hands. Narcissa nodded her agreement, nails out. Even Therese’s chin was set with determination.
“Let’s get Auggie to safety and see to it that Kingsbury doesn’t suffer any more,” I said, nodding. “And if someone wants to tear Erik’s bloody head from his body, I won’t complain.”
Narcissa’s eyes sparkled. “So, I can incinerate him?”
“Into Gods’ damned ash.”
I would see Auggie to safety this night, even if it meant that I forfeited my own soul.
I closed my eyes. I had been so close to earning the freedom I’d longed for. So. Close. But Auggie was more important. I would deal with whatever punishment Lucifer dealt. I would complete his other tasks, no matter how long it took. But Auggie would live.
“Let’s go,” Freya said. I nodded and watched her step into the portal, disappearing.
I followed, that familiar tug whisking me away, before I reappeared in the midst of absolute bedlam.
It was hazy, and shouting echoed all around.
A huge gaping hole stood like a wound in Kingsbury’s city wall, offering a glimpse of clashing bodies within, although through the haze, it was hard to make out exactly what I was seeing.
However, I could tell that the salt surrounding both the portal and Kingsbury itself had been compromised, allowing access for anything that wanted inside.
Likely the work of Erik and his witches.
I stepped off the teleportation platform as Freya put a steadying hand on my shoulder. Behind us, the forest was dark and silent, as if bearing witness to the battle of Kingsbury, waiting to see if it would fall under siege.
I gasped as a green-bodied demon with a pointed tail leapt from the hole into Kingsbury, hissing and bounding for Therese, who gulped with wide eyes, unmoving.
Thankfully, Narcissa was quick to defend the girl, spitting a ball of fire at the creature that screamed briefly as half its body was charred, before it fell limp.
“What is going on here?” Freya breathed.
“Demons,” I said, frowning. “Perhaps Lucifer sent Erik additional aid to take Kingsbury.”
“Then we’d better hurry.”
I followed her through the hole in the wall, careful not to trip over the rubble.
We came out to two young men with spears attempting to stave off a red, slim-bodied demon with powerful arms walking on all fours.
Freya stepped in to help the humans as a crash and rush of heat from my right made me spin in that direction.
The building in front of me was on fire, flames licking up the wood greedily, belching black smoke.
I paused to orient myself when something large and white tackled me.
I gaped up at a huge wolf, its muzzle stained with dark red blood.
As it attempted to lower its teeth to my throat, I held it back with straining arms. I grunted as it continued to press down on me, teeth snapping, fetid breath huffing into my face.
A sword pushed between us, and the wolf’s growls turned into a whine as the blade slit up and across its throat.
Hot blood poured from the animal’s neck, soaking its blanket of white fur and spilling onto my own cloak.
Most of it beaded off, but I could feel the blood drenching my shirt underneath and leaking across my neck, spatters of it splashing onto my cheek.
“Apologies. That was messier than I’d intended,” a man’s voice said as the wolf was shoved aside and a bloody hand appeared before me. I gripped it, despite how slick it was with blood, and was helped up to find myself staring into a familiar face. Or rather, what was beneath a normal face.
As per usual, without skin, Samuel appeared to be grinning at me. The effect was as ghoulish as ever.
I frowned at him, wiping my bloody hand off on my trousers for lack of a better option. “Not that it’s not a pleasure seeing you, Samuel, but what are you doing here? It’s a veritable war zone.”
Samuel nodded. “Yes, it’s absolutely magnificent, isn’t it? All those humans screaming is music to my ears.”
“If you had ears.”
“No, I have ears.”
“You have ear holes. There’s a difference.”
Samuel rolled his eyes. “As tedious as ever, I see. Nevertheless, I can hear just fine.”
I nodded my acquiescence.
“As for me being here with Abaddon’s legion,” Samuel explained, “they needed a demon with my abilities to open a portal topside. Very few of us have that talent, you know. Most have to wait for some foolish human to invoke them, for power or some other foolhardy scheme.”
“So, you opened a portal for Abaddon’s legion of demons,” I said, attempting to bring him back to the topic at hand. I didn’t have time to waste on asides.
“Yes, well, some rival appears to be gunning for that boy you delivered to Erik. Can you believe it? Someone having the gall to challenge Lucifer himself?” He scoffed. “I look forward to seeing the fool flayed alive.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Much like you were?”
“Yes, it’s positively excruciating.”
“I can only imagine.” I searched the melee to take inventory of my friends.
Therese was leaping from roof to roof to avoid a furry white demon with a blue, fleshy face, as Narcissa flew in to cook its backside.
Freya was standing guard before another building that had caught fire, fighting back a swashbuckling skeleton so a group of men could enter the structure to help inhabitants escape. “So, all of this …”
Samuel nodded. “Erik indicated to Lucifer that he would need aid. I’m not sure that leaves him with any more leverage, I’m afraid.
He will be completely under Lucifer’s thumb when he becomes all-powerful.
” He considered for a moment. “Of course, if the rival beats him to it, they will become all-powerful. Whoever that might be.”
“You have no idea?” I asked.
Samuel shook his head. “Only that they have some strong allies. When we arrived, we had to help Erik secure the part of town he’d established for sacrifices, fending off not only the villagers, but that blasted witch’s legions. Horrible things.”
I lifted an eyebrow. “Oh, how horrible?”
“Oh, they’re fleshy and talk a lot, and sometimes they cry when you corner them. And their brood should be terrified and screaming, but are sometimes laughing.”
“I meant the witch’s legions, not the human villagers.”
Samuel stared at me in one of those moments I imagined he would be blinking. “Oh, them? Nuisances mostly.”
“And the sacrifices? Where would those be taking place then?”
“The town square. A terrible place to try and secure. Erik isn’t much of a strategist, if you ask me. Lucifer would have been much better off finding a more competent blood witch. Although they are few and far between, I suppose.”
Samuel was right that it was a bad place to protect from attacking forces, as it was open in all directions to attack. Hopefully I would be able to fool any demons guarding it as easily as I had Samuel. “Thank you, Samuel. You’ve been a great help.” To the detriment of Lucifer.
“Of course. It’s always a …” A chill ran up my spine. At first, I imagined it was something akin to fear at the situation I found myself in. But then I noted the hard-packed earth at our feet stiffen and frost over.
My eyes widened, mouth going dry as I looked beyond Samuel to see a figure approaching, decked out in white finery, skin so pale it was nearly blue, like her painted lips.
The Ice Queen was here. Of course. The shaggy white demon Therese had been fending off was likely a yeti. The white wolf that had jumped me. They were her creatures.
“Ah, so that’s where you went, you naughty little thing,” the Ice Queen said.
Samuel jolted, trying to turn and face his enemy, but his feet were literally frozen in place, ice running up them in a thick layer.
The Ice Queen spotted me and smiled, a brilliant smile that made her look quite beautiful in an unearthly way. “And you. I’ll have to punish you for making away with my little witch. All of this could have been avoided, you know.”
I braced myself as she approached, resisting the urge to run. I likely wouldn’t get far. But, I reminded myself, we could very likely be on the same side.
“I didn’t realize Erik’s intentions,” I said, offering her a bow. “If I’d known, I would have gladly let you have him.”
The Ice Queen lifted an eyebrow. “Oh? How interesting.”
“Very interesting,” Samuel agreed, frowning at me. “You would go behind Lucifer’s back, would you? And here I thought you were a loyal subject.”
I crossed my arms. “That was before he neglected to inform me that Auggie was being sacrificed.” I gestured to the Ice Queen, who slowed as she reached us.
“She was only trying to stop Erik. She froze that fishing village to prevent him from sacrificing the humans and growing his power. I didn’t sign up for a massacre, Samuel.
I won’t stand for it. And I won’t stand for Auggie being a part of his plans. ”
“You’re going to try to prevent the sacrifice?” Samuel asked. “But why? You’re the one who delivered Augustus to Erik’s doorstep.”
“Without knowing I was delivering a lamb to the slaughter!” I shoved Samuel lightly in the chest, regretting it immediately as my fingers sunk into his meaty muscle. “Auggie doesn’t deserve to die for some power-hungry monster. Why does it have to be Auggie anyway? What has he ever done to anyone?”
“The Fates pointed Lucifer to the remaining saints on Earth. Of course, only the one in New York knows she’s a saint, but there are three others. I believe the alchemists consider them immaculate conceptions. Either way, saint blood is very powerful. Very powerful, indeed,” Samuel answered.
“Saints?” I stared at Samuel, wanting very much to shake him. “Auggie is a saint?”
“Unawakened, but yes. In the hierarchy of things, I suppose that makes him equal to a demon in power, but on God’s side. I would hardly consider a saint an equal though. All this prayer magic seems tedious to me.”
I stood very still as I imagined Auggie wielding the powers of a saint, bringing good to the world, helping them in ways he never knew he was capable of before.
He would be … well, much like a saint, I supposed.
Everything I’d seen in him, what drove him …
it all kind of made sense that he’d been a saint all along. He already acted the part.
I recalled that Auggie had never known his father. I’d assumed he’d just left Auggie’s mother when she’d become pregnant. But there’d never been a father at all. Because an angel had sired Auggie.
I shook my head. “Think of a future without saints. The ramifications. It would shift the balance inexplicably.”
“Yes, it would,” Samuel agreed. “All the better.”
This spat in the face of everything I’d been taught as a witch.
Balance. Hot and cold. Night and day. Good and evil.
They all had their places. One couldn’t exist without the other.
The entire world would shift. I couldn’t allow that to happen, not when there were already so many horrors in the world.
I closed my eyes, imagining Auggie, chin jutting out, defiant, finding a way for his people to survive without needing to rely on witches.
The fire in his eyes as he reproached me for not immediately trying to save Kingsbury from certain death.
And me. He’d changed me, made me see the world in a new light, where I could have a place in it, helping people with my gifts, rather than isolating myself and ignoring what was going on around me.
No. Auggie deserved to live in this world more than anyone.
The Ice Queen regarded me warily, as if she’d been able to read my thoughts. “What is your name, witch?”
I lifted my chin. “Callum.”
“Ah, yes. Callum. I’ve heard tell of you.
But you only have it half-right.” She laid a hand on Samuel’s shoulder and frost immediately ran up his neck and across his chest, down his arm.
He opened his mouth to scream but was stopped by ice freezing his jaw in place.
The ice grew thicker around his muscle and sinew until his whole body was encased, then she withdrew her hand and considered me.
“You are correct that I needed to stop Erik from succeeding. But it wasn’t for any selfless reason. ”
My blood chilled. And not only from my proximity to the ice witch.
I’d seen her brutality in her dungeon, the frostbitten limbs of the man she’d interrogated.
The fact that she had a dungeon at all should have been enough to color in her character.
I suspected I wasn’t going to like what she was going to say next.
“You see, darling,” the witch said, “I only wanted to stop Erik so I could claim Augustus for myself. All that power…. I could be my mistress’s perfect vehicle for overthrowing Lucifer.
Can you imagine? Me entering that inferno and using my enhanced powers to encase all that torment and soul-sucking in ice?
Hell frozen over!” She laughed, her voice like tinkling icicles, and I watched as she reached out and gave Samuel’s frozen body a shove.
He tipped over slowly, then slammed down into the ground all at once.
His head, along with a good chunk of his upper right torso, smashed into little pieces, glistening in the fires of the nearby buildings.
“I would never have to fear fire again,” the Ice Queen said, crossing her arms and watching me. “But first, I will need that darling boy’s blood.”