Chapter 16 Discord
DISCORD
“Stop.” Chaos clutched Ash’s hand. “You will not harm these people.”
Mayhem slipped his hand into Ember’s. “Let’s discuss this. Violence is never the answer.”
My eyes widened in shock. Those were words I never dreamed my brother would utter, yet they carried the weight of command.
Adrian faltered, the blades of air around us softening as his brow crumpled. He lowered to the ground, confusion contorting his features. “It’s not?”
“No,” Ember said. “You don’t want to hurt anyone.”
“You want to let the humans go,” Ash said, and I realized what was happening.
The witches’ magic countered my brothers’ power, much like Cinder’s countered mine. Where Chaos would normally cause disruption, Ash helped him create control, and Ember subdued Mayhem’s aggression, flipping it into a sincere desire for peace.
I turned toward the family, using the distraction to my advantage. “Run. Return to town and don’t look back.”
The mother nodded and helped the father to his feet before clutching her children’s hands and darting toward the town square.
“We don’t want to kill you, Adrian.” Cinder wrapped her fingers around the handle of a dagger.
“Speak for yourself,” Mayhem said.
She cleared her throat. “We don’t want to, but we will if you don’t stop.”
The air witch’s face contorted in an agonized rage, the amulet’s broken residual magic giving him the strength to break through my brothers’ hold. An animalistic yelp ripped from his throat, and he whirled toward Cinder, circling his finger and sweeping her into a funnel of wind.
“Give me the amulet,” he said through clenched teeth.
“We don’t have it.” Cinder struggled against the tornado, but he pinned her arms to her sides. “Goddess, I hate air witches.”
“As do I.” Not bothering with human weapons or subtle magic, I launched myself at the funnel, shifting into my partial demon form mid-air. My weight increased tenfold, my skin hardening into obsidian-like armor as I crashed through the wind barrier.
I grabbed Cinder by the waist and used my momentum to tackle her out of the cyclone, shielding her body with mine as we hit the grass.
“Are you okay?” I asked, searching her face as my arms returned to their human form.
“I’m pissed but fine.” She scrambled to her feet and lit a fireball in each hand. “It’s nine against one. Let’s roast this turkey.”
“You think I came alone?” Adrian hovered above us, his laughter grating against my eardrums. He raised a hand, and fog rolled around us, turning the scene gray. “My coven always does my bidding.”
A dozen figures stepped from the tree line. They looked ragged, their eyes hollow, likely drained by Adrian’s parasitic hold on the amulet’s magic, but they raised their hands, ready to fight.
A brunette witch rattled off a string of hexes and tossed a powder into the air. Adrian swiped his hand toward it, and a gust of wind carried the spell toward us.
“Oh, hell no.” Ember gripped her sword with both hands, fire erupting on the blade as she swung it into the cloud.
The hex dissipated, but not before a few grains of powder reached Miles. He choked, unable to suck in a breath, his eyes bulging and turning red. Black veins spider-webbed around the sockets, and he dropped to his knees, clawing at his throat.
“Patrice, help him,” Cinder commanded.
“On it.” The healer lowered next to him and poured a small bottle of bright green liquid into his mouth. The black veins disappeared instantly, and he raked in a ragged breath.
Perhaps the disgraced witch could redeem herself after all.
A male witch raced toward Ember, blades drawn. Ash swung her fireplace poker at his kneecaps, and he pitched forward. Ember hit his head with the flat side of her extinguished blade, and he dropped to the ground with a thud.
“We can’t do this here.” Cinder dodged another powdered hex, lighting the granules ablaze to deactivate it. “Too many civilians nearby.”
“To the woods,” I said. “Lead them to the clearing.”
“Run,” she shouted.
We bolted toward the tree line, feigning a retreat. It worked. Adrian’s ego wouldn’t allow him to let us escape, and his followers were too terrified of him to disobey.
“Get them!” Adrian screamed, riding a gust of wind above us like a vengeful god.
We crashed through the underbrush, the sounds of the city’s revelry fading behind us, the crackle of magic and the snapping of branches replacing the festive symphony.
A bolt of lightning struck a tree inches from my head, showering me in sparks. I spun, shooting a stream of hellfire at the caster. The witch dove behind a boulder, shrieking as the rock turned molten red.
“Mayhem, cover us,” I said.
“With pleasure.” He grabbed a fallen log the size of a telephone pole and swung it like a sword, knocking three pursuing witches into a ravine.
Ember stood back-to-back with him, shooting streams of flames that set the attackers’ clothes on fire.
They stopped to extinguish the blaze, and we pushed deeper into the forest, the air growing heavier with every step. The sulfurous odor of the Underworld grew strong enough to taste, a sign we were nearing the rift.
“This is far enough,” I said, skidding to a halt in a small grove of pines just short of the main clearing.
The Boston coven caught up, forming a semi-circle around us, led by their manic High Priest.
“Nowhere left to run,” Adrian said, descending to the ground. The grass withered beneath his boots, unable to withstand the necrotic energy leaking from him.
“We aren’t running,” Chaos said. He stood next to Ash, his hand on her shoulder.
Ash’s eyes sparked with a terrifying clarity. No longer the crazed victim of a centuries-old curse, she raised a hand, and the energy around three of the Boston witches thickened.
“Sit,” she commanded, and they dropped to their knees, paralyzed by the sheer weight of her will, amplified by my brother’s control.
“Kill them!” Adrian shrieked at his remaining followers.
The grove erupted into utter chaos.
Shade and Miles fought back-to-back, using the salt and iron supplies to ward off hexes while Patrice threw vials of sleeping potion at anyone who got too close.
I focused on Adrian, the head of the snake. Remove him, and the body would die.
He lashed out with a whip of compressed air, aiming for Cinder’s neck. I caught the solidified element in my bare hand, the wind slicing my palm, but I didn’t let go.
“You stole power you do not understand,” I growled, yanking him toward me.
He stumbled, shock registering on his face, but he recovered quickly, blasting me with a wave of force that sent me skidding backward, my boots carving deep trenches into the earth.
“I understand it perfectly.” He laughed, his skin glowing brighter, cracks appearing on his cheeks like a porcelain doll about to shatter. “It demands to be used!”
He drew magic from the very air, sucking the oxygen from the grove. My lungs burned. Beside me, Cinder gasped, clutching her throat.
“Not this trick again,” she choked out.
Everyone froze, his own coven included. Eyes bulged. Chests attempted to heave in breaths, but Adrian had thinned the atmosphere until it nearly became a vacuum.
“He is a parasite,” I snarled.
I focused on the bond I shared with my witch—the love, the truth, the fire, the absolute certainty of our union. “Cinder, with me.”
She wheezed, grabbing my hand, and our magic merged. Her elemental fire mixed with my demonic resonance, creating a flame that wasn’t orange or red, but a blinding, pure white.
“Now!” I shouted.
We thrust our joined hands forward, and a stream of fire, the combined forces of Hell and Earth, slammed into Adrian’s chest.
He screamed, trying to deflect it with a shield of wind, but the fire ate through the air itself, consuming the remaining oxygen and intensifying in strength.
“Mayhem, Chaos,” I said.
My brothers understood and abandoned their skirmishes, adding their power to ours. Mayhem threw a ball of violet destruction that hit Adrian from the left. Chaos sent a pulse of crushing flames that hit him from the right.
Pinned by the triad of demonic power, Adrian froze. The golden light beneath his skin pulsed violently, faster and faster.
“I am the High Priest!” he wailed, his voice distorting, becoming a cacophony of every spark of magic he had stolen to get here. “I am—”
“You are finished,” I said.
Cinder squeezed my hand. “Burn.”
We pushed harder, Ember and Ash adding their element to the inferno until the white fire engulfed him. An agonizing wail ripped from his chest, but he didn’t crumble into ash.
He exploded.
A shockwave of golden light rippled outward, knocking everyone—friend and foe—to the ground. The trees bent double, stripped of their needles in an instant. When the light faded and the dust settled, Adrian was gone, a scorch mark on the earth the only indication he ever existed.
Silence fell over the grove.
The remaining Boston witches looked at the smoldering spot where their leader had stood, then at the three demon princes standing tall amidst the wreckage.
“Run,” Mayhem said, his voice low and dangerous. “Before I change my mind about letting you live.”
They didn’t need to be told twice. The witches scrambled over each other, fleeing into the darkness of the woods, back toward the safety of the highway and far away from Salem.
“Is everyone okay?” Cinder asked, her voice raspy as she leaned against me for support.
“We’re alive,” Ember said, helping Shade to his feet. “Which is more than I can say for the asshat.”
“Good riddance,” Ash muttered, dusting pine needles from her jacket. “I could use a drink.”
“We are not done yet.” I turned toward the clearing, where a sickly red light pulsed through the trees.
The vibration of the Underworld hummed in my bones, calling to me. It was a song of home, but looking at Cinder, I knew my home was standing right beside me.
“The veil needs us,” I said, though I was loath to do what must be done.
We walked the remaining fifty yards to the edge of the clearing, our hesitation growing palpable. If my brothers felt a fraction of what I did for Cinder, they’d be averse to saving the realms as well.
What good was a universe…was life…without our soulmates by our sides?
We stepped through the tree line, and I stopped short, my breath hitching in my chest.
The rift stretched from the ground to the sky, a jagged, gaping wound in the fabric of reality.
Through it, the obsidian landscape of the Underworld was clearly visible.
In the distance, a horde of demons waited with bated breath for Lucifer to release his hold on them, but closer…
just on the other side of the tear…stood Marshall Holland, looking small and terrified against the backdrop of Hell.
“Dad!” Cinder said.
The rift pulsed, widening with a groan that shook the earth beneath our feet.
It was time to pay the price for our misdeeds.