Chapter Six #5
Taking a deep breath, I swept the room and all the people of all species goggling at me like I had the biggest flipping death wish of anyone they’d ever seen.
It was true, I had Lucifer contracted to protect me, but Ronin killed a guy with a simple snap of the fingers.
Would Lucifer be quick enough to stop him before his middle finger hit his palm?
I didn’t come all this way to give this Ronin guy another shot at killing me.
I needed to focus on finding Dora, which was why—
“I can’t be your servant,” I told him in a measured tone.
“I came here for a reason, and I can’t let anything distract me—especially not...
the d-dubious honor of... being your....
p-p-pillow,” I gasped out, wheezing as Sabrina squeezed tighter and tighter.
She really wanted me to shut up. “I hope you can... accept my... decision.”
Ronin’s brow rose higher and higher as every strangled word popped out of my bug-eyed, purpling head. He hummed. “Well, I’ve heard your reasoning, and it makes a lot of sense.”
My hope soared. Inside my shirt, Sabrina eased up.
“Great,” I huffed. “So you understand? We’re all good?”
“I do understand,” he sang, beaming away. “But may I make a counteroffer?”
“A counteroff—?”
Ronin snapped his fingers, and vicious, excruciating pain exploded in my face.
“Ahhhhh!” I grabbed my left cheek, eyes popping and throat shredding with my scream. Awful black demon blood coated my palm. Even though the blood wasn’t real, and neither was the disgusting hairy mole caught between Ronin’s fingers... the pain of his ripping it off very much was.
“Here’s my offer,” he hissed, red eyes lighting with gleeful, malicious sadism.
“Every time you piss me off, I’ll rip something else off you.
Your fingers, your ears, your arms. That disrespectful tongue.
” He laughed—a horrible, wicked sound so much like Lucifer’s, I knew I was in the presence of Satan himself.
“So what say you, worm? Are you my servant now?”
I clutched my face, glaring at him fit to explode his worthless, empty head!
“Whooo, defiance?” he crowed. “I like it.” Leaning forward, his beautiful, terrible face filled my vision as he pressed his lips to my bloody hand, and kissed it. “That’ll make this even more fun.”
I never thought hate was an emotion I could feel. That was until demons took my sister... and Ronin Belphe took me.
“ALL RIGHT, LISTEN UP. I’m Professor Santino Radu.” The vampire hopped onto the podium with one leg resting on the platform, and the other hanging down. He couldn’t look less like a professional if he tried.
I just sat there, opening my notebook and resuming my sketch map—expanding on the new halls and passageways I discovered that day. Beside me, Ronin Bastard Belphe was fast asleep. It had literally been twenty minutes since he mutilated and threatened me, and already he was in la-la land.
“Stupid, ignorant human,” Sabrina raged from within the folds of my fabric.
“What is the purpose of my presence if you refuse to heed me? Ronin Belphe told you to do something, and in front of everyone, you told him you would not do it because you had better things to do. What else was he to do but make an example of you?” she hissed.
“Not to mention the untold disaster it would’ve been if Lord Lucifer had to step in and save you from him?
The war with the lord of sloth would rage and never stop raging for a thousand years! ”
“I get it,” I said simply. “You’ve made your point.
Picking a fight here is as easy as sneezing too loudly.
I shouldn’t think that politeness or straightforwardness counts for anything down here.
I know you think I’m stupid, Sabrina, but I can promise you this...
” I slid a shadowed look at Ronin through my lashes. “I only need to learn a lesson once.”
“—named the Great Invasion,” Professor Radu said.
“I’m sure you’ve all heard the history, but the headmaster likes to make sure the propaganda is spread far and wide.
” Riffling in his cardigan, the man took out a cigarette and lit up right in the middle of class.
“Too bad for that old shit, I skipped class assignment day and they stuck me with you fools, so now you get to listen to the truth.”
Radu draped his arm over his knee, the cigarette sending up dancing tendrils of smoke into the air. “First lesson, there was no invasion—”
“Boo,” the class sounded off, making me jump.
“Fuck off!”
“Liar!”
“You would say that!”
“—we and the Others, as you call them,” Radu breezed on like he wasn’t interrupted, “never invaded hell. We don’t want to be here any more than demons want us here.”
“Then go back where you fucking came from,” someone two seats behind me jeered. He looked as human as they came, if it wasn’t for the red eyes and the horns poking through his chestnut locks. Had to love that he shouted his insults without bothering to look up from his phone.
Radu turned to him, cocking his head. His eerily white eyes glowed in the candlelight. “Are you sure you want me to leave, Grigori? Even though you know your mom would leave with me that same hour? She never could get enough of my dick.”
My jaw straight dropped. What kind of professor is this guy?!
“You son of a bitch!” Grigori bellowed, flinging his textbook at Professor Radu’s head.
I blinked, and Radu was gone. Vanishing from the podium, he was kicking back on his desk like nothing happened as the textbook sailed through the spot he’d just been sitting in.
“As I was saying,” Radu went on. “What’s become known as the Great Invasion all began over three hundred years ago in the human mortal world.
Humans have always been a hot commodity to supernaturals.
Demons wanted them for their souls. Vampires wanted them for their blood.
Fae liked to use them as playthings. They would kidnap their children, replace them with changelings, and then force those children to live as their servants,” he said to my growing horror.
“As for werewolves, they mate easier with human females than females of their own kind, and succubae and incubi are the carnivorous relatives of the demon family who have a particular taste for mortal flesh.
“Back then, mortals were weak,” he said. “The gates of hell were open, and we all were very unrestrained in our feasting on the human buffet.” His smile was terrible. “Needless to say, we were driving them to extinction. More the fool we were,” Radu hissed.
“Humans were then, and are now, the favored of the gods. Why would they not be when they worship them so sweetly?”
I wasn’t exaggerating, I’d never been in a room full of demons that were this quiet.
Radu took a long drag and blew, catching my gaze and trapping it as he tipped his head back. “So great was human suffering. So fervent were their prayers that the gods responded—gifting them power... and thus witches were born.”
Growls and curses lit the air, standing my neck hairs on end.
“Fuck witches!” half the class shouted. “Screw those damn hags.”
I grimaced when the spit hit the floor.
Even Ronin’s eyelids cracked. He was now very much awake.
“Quite,” Radu agreed. Even his lips were curled at the thought of witches.
“Mortals worship many gods, and those gods blessed them in a myriad of ways—giving rise to different types of witch powers.
Some witches got their power by drawing energy from the forces of nature, some had innate magic powered by their souls, others were channelers—using an artifact or other conduit to tap into unlimited power.
“There were those with spirit magic who drew upon the power of their dead witch sisters, and similarly, witches with ancestral magic channeled the power of their ancestors,” he said, “and beyond that, there were those who mastered alchemy, sacrificial magic, and sorcerers whose power came from spell casting and mastering words of power.
“I tell you this,” Radu murmured in that low, mesmerizing bass, “so that you understand exactly what we came to be up against. Yes, demons wield compulsion and sacrificial magic, and fae are masters of illusion magic and glamours. But what did any of that matter, when witches could now do all of the above and more?”
He turned his unnatural eyes on us, lip quirked up as if he was really asking for an answer to that question, but he was met with only silence.
Flipping the page from my map, I found myself taking notes on his every word.
“Slow, we were,” he continued, sighing deeply, “to fully understand that our prey was prey no more. As we continued to ignore the mortal witch threat, they built their covens full of witches of all types and powers, so they were prepared to face and kill any supernatural threat that came their way.
“Supernatural speed? What use was that when the right phrase from a sorcerer could immobilize you? Locking your jaw and freezing your muscles so that you can’t even scream and beg as they take you apart.
The power to use dark magic to compel those to your will?
A cute demon trick except it doesn’t work on spirits of the dead, so what use is a demon against a witch protected by the spirit of her ancestors.
What if you’re a creature of the night? Who stalks and preys while the world sleeps?
” Radu gestured to his thin and perfect form.
“How short-lived is your victory when your prey summons the light of a thousand suns, and burns you to dust where you stand.”
His finished cigarette was flicked over his shoulder and quickly replaced with another one. “One by one, covens were hunting us down, killing us, destroying us, and teaching us what it means to be afraid. It wasn’t too long until we supernaturals were the ones facing extinction.