Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
Sage
“Time to die!”
A purple djinn wielding a really fucking shiny sword charges me, barely giving me a second to process the whole prophecy thing, and once again, all Hell breaks loose. Well, knowing what I do now…it should be more like all Kohrye breaks loose.
Harpies and djinn appear as if from nowhere, making the huge crowd larger still, and they’re all aiming for Hack and Pierce. They can’t get to me, I have somehow managed to form a protective barrier of sorts around myself, but they are circling me like I’m prey.
Vines are thrashing at the same time as bodies that now look like husks are falling. Both Pierce and Hack are using their abilities to help me and all it seems to be doing is causing more bodies to maneuver around. I swear, the living ones are multiplying.
“Sage, run!” Hack’s voice is loud and clear. “Get back to The Shade! Find the others.” The last few words are slightly muffled, but I hear him. I’m not going to do it, but I hear him.
These assholes…I told them that all I want is peace, like some fucking Miss World wannabe, and they’re insistent upon fighting. For what?
“There you are.”
I recognize that voice…and I thought I’d never hear it again. Hoped I never would.
“Professor Dickwad.” I turn, coming face to face with the man I’m deeming responsible for taking my best friend. He’s just inside the circle of djinn, but he isn’t able to breach the supernatural white glow shaped like a dome surrounding me.
“Your protector looks busy. So it’s just you and me.” His sneer makes the fire in my veins burn brighter, every word grating against my skull.
“Where is Danika.” It’s not exactly a question, more like an order. A demand that he tells me right now. Because this all began with him taking her.
Or, at least it feels that way.
The sharp dagger in his hand catches the light of the pink sky and it glitters with his movements as he approaches my dome. He holds the weapon up high and rests the point against my protective barrier.
It’s keeping the kyn away from me, but I have no idea how to control it. So when a split appears as he slices the dagger downward, I panic a little.
“You’ll be with her soon.” With those words, he lunges for me, the djinn and harpies with him following suit, and I scream.
“Sage!” Hack’s roar of anger sounds desperate and I see his vines decapitating the kyn all around him as he tries to reach me.
The Fae’s Lanterns all around us lose their color and crumble to the now-blackened ground, more kyn dropping into ashes around them. Pierce is clutching at his stomach as he fights, his head devoid of all flesh and now just a skull with black depths of nothingness in place of his eyes.
Sharp claws tear at my arms as I flail, the kyn inside my dome now, and pain shoots through me, making my skin burn hotter than ever before. My vision blurs and I have no time to think, no time to wrack my brain for a calm solution, then I smell blood that makes my own boil with rage.
Hack has been cut, I don’t know where or how…I just know.
I can feel every hit against his flesh, every retaliatory blow he lands, the satisfaction that rolls through him with each head rolling to the ground.
Another slice of pain up my back is the last thing I remember…
“Sage…wake up. Come on.”
My eyelids are heavy, a little painful as I open them, but once I do, I blink a few times before focusing on the face above me.
“Pierce?” My throat feels scratchy and I sit up with his help. “Wha—” The rest of my sentence is lost as I look around.
The tavern has collapsed, now a pile of rubble and small, burning fires. Bodies litter every surface for as far as I can see, all of them blackened, half of them crumbling with each gust of wind.
The thing I can’t see, however, is Hack.
Panic begins to rise, my breathing stops, and my eyes fill with tears that drop immediately.
“Where is he, Pierce?” I know he’s alive. I feel it. I know it, soul-deep, that he isn’t dead…but I also know that he isn’t here.
“I don’t know.” Instead of looking up at him, I concentrate on the mass grave surrounding us.
There are vines wrapped around several of the headless bodies, reminding me how hard Hack fought to get to me. His roars of pain and anger, the grief-stricken yells to get to me…all for nothing. Because he is gone.
A glint among the bodies makes me stand and I walk toward it, my steps sure and determined. Bending down, I pull out the crystal dagger, hoping the charred mess it comes from belongs to the professor.
This was supposed to be a nice little trip to meet the Dei of the spirit kyn, the djinn who should hold some answers for us, but no. It has turned into the shittiest shitfest of all shitshows.
“Where did you find that?” Pierce slowly approaches from behind, the crunch of bodies beneath every step.
Is it wrong that I don’t hate the sound? It actually pleases something inside of me.
All emotion has fled, though, because if I allow myself to actually feel right now, I’m going to crumble alongside all of these bodies. It’s like a switch has been flipped, and the only thing on my mind is finding Hack. I don’t care who has to die in the process.
I suppress a shiver, because that was a bit dark…
Okay, so maybe not all emotion has fled, but I am pushing it way down. So deep down that it fuels me, rather than hinders me.
“Apparently, the professor who kidnapped Danika found me. Decided he wants me too. Cut through my protective dome thing like a slice of fucking cake with this.” I hold it out to him.
“He was right in front of me when I passed out, though. I don’t know if he is that black pile of ash, or if he got away. ”
“This is an angel blade.” He holds it up close to his face, squinting, really inspecting it. “No markings that say who it came from, but they were supposed to have been taken out of existence during the last big war.”
Something else glitters from beneath the ash at my feet and I crouch down to pick it up. It’s round, and as soon as it’s in my palm, a voice filters through my mind.
“Found you. Now I have your chosen. Come and find me.”
The ball falls from my grasp and smashes into a thousand pieces, a light mist coming from it and disappearing into the air.
“Why did I just hear a voice when I picked that up? And what the hell happened to all these bodies? How long was I out for?” Again with all the questions, I know. My priority is to find Hack, but I need the simple answers first. I think.
I don’t fucking know, to be honest.
I push down the despair trying to creep its way in, replacing it with steely determination that is fake as fuck. Fake it ‘til ya make it, though, right?
“That was a djinn communication ball. But for it to be untouched by your power, it must have been dropped after you blew. Every djinn has a master, even the Dei…” He’s talking to himself more than me and I’m no less confused and angry than before.
“Sorry to make this all about me, but also not sorry. What the fuck, Pierce?” I know him the least of all the Horsemen, but what I do remember is that he can go in on himself when he is trying to solve a puzzle.
It’s his strength and his weakness. His desire to figure something out has been known to override his basic needs.
“You were out for a few seconds. After you lost control and let loose a small atomic bomb, of sorts, blowing everyone and everything around us to smithereens. I checked you over. You aren’t injured, and neither was I.
What did the voice from the ball say?” Pierce swiftly turns the conversation away from my murder spree, brushing over it as though it’s nothing.
Whereas I have a giant ball of guilt growing in my stomach.
“This was me…?” I spin on the spot, the stench of rotting flesh now permeating my nostrils and making this all too real.
“Sage, you shouldn’t feel guilty for this. You saved us. There were too many of them. They were prepared.”
“I didn’t save fucking Hack, though, did I? Because he’s not here. He’s been taken by some fuckwit who wants to play hide and go fucking seek.” I haven’t cursed this much since my hatred for Hack was the only thing on my mind.
“Sage…”
My fingertips are buzzing, the ground shaking, and my heartbeat is pounding more rapidly than I thought possible.
“Ah man. You killed everyone without me.” Slash’s voice makes me blink a few times, the vibrations at my feet calming.
Was that me too?
“What the fuck happened?” Slay’s shadows thicken before he appears from within them.
“Where’s Hack?”
“Well, that’s the question of the day, Slash, because I’d like to know the same thing.
He was taken after these djinn and harpies decided to attack us.
Twice. The professor who kidnapped Danika showed up branding this angel blade thing, managed to cut through my protective shield.
Then, apparently, I blew everyone up with some magical blast right before I woke up to find this.
” Waving my arms out to the sides, I spin on the spot, as if what I’m saying is perfectly logical and obvious.
“Oh, and some djinn with a master somewhere—because of course they have masters—left a glowing communication ball that told me, and I quote, ‘Found you. Now I have your chosen. Come and find me’. Like, what the actual fuck is that all about?” Finally taking a breath, it stutters, but I push the fear of the unknown down. Far away. It is not wanted here.
With a roar to rival Hack’s, Slash begins hammering down his sword into the bodies strewn across the ground, slicing and dicing what’s left into pieces. Pierce is tapping on his phone, and Slay sighs before coming closer to me.
“You did good. None of this is your fault.”
“I didn’t say it was. This is all fucked is what it is. Fucked.” The last word is clipped as I shake my head and replicate Slay’s heavy sigh.
“Dei Samhain said we need to get the fuck out of here, leave no witnesses so it can’t come back on us.” Pierce comes to stand with us while Slash continues to…well, slash the bodies.
“I have already searched the area. There are no kyn for miles. None that are alive, anyway.” Slay begins to disappear, his mist appearing as he does, and I’m sure he sniggered a little.
It’s easy to forget they are demons. Death and destruction isn’t a big deal to them.
It is to me, though.
I’m officially a murderer.
What if there were kids here? Parents? Families?
Oh, goddess…what have I done?
The tingling in my fingers comes back as tears spring to my eyes. I try to blink them away but I can’t even do that. I’m useless.
I killed people. I lost Hack. I lost Danika. I got Saffron killed.
It’s all too much.
Murmuring voices make my pounding head thud harder. I can’t pinpoint any of them at first, but one finally breaks through.
A cold touch against my neck accompanies a female voice. “Sage…come back to us, child.”
My eyelids are going to fall off with the amount of blinking I’m doing, but eventually I realize the bronze glow in front of me isn’t going away.
It’s surrounding my original mother. The Goddess of Magic, the moon, the night, and crossroads.
Ha…I just put the link together there. The crossroads and choices to be a good witch or a shitty one.
“Hekate.” The single word feels like a breath I had held in, finally breaking me free of the magical hold I had on myself.
“Daughter, mine.” She grins, the most regal and sophisticated grin to ever exist. “We need to give you a crash course in controlling your abilities.” Pausing, she holds my hands in hers, grounding me to this moment instead of letting me get washed away in my panic.
“And I think it’s time I told you who your father is. ”