Chapter 25
CHAPTER 25
I wished we had the luxury of more time to practice my magic. But we stayed in Vita long enough for me to be able to recite the spell for the Garon efficiently. Before returning to my world, we made a detour to the underworld.
We stood in their garden with the morbid black flowers of his sister’s making. Dominic’s fingers ran over the leaves of bat orchids before a flame erupted over them. He did the same to a few more before he whisked me away to the apartment he shared with Helena.
“Your act of arson, was there a point or were you being petty?” I asked as he knelt on the floor, his claws gouging markings in the floor similar to the ones I saw on the rug at his mother’s. With a wave of his fingers over each sigil they disappeared.
“I wanted to get her attention,” he said. “I need to talk to her.”
“Phone call or text would’ve been nice, or a note.”
Eyeing where he’d placed the sigils, I got the impression he would be doing most of the talking. It wouldn’t be a conversation but an interrogation. Turning in the room, I looked at the framed art on the wall, the only one with a black frame.
“TV?”
He nodded and opened one of the decorative boxes on the table and handed me the remote.
I turned it on, going through the news channels, trying to figure out the state of the world. Were the supernatural out? Had there been more sightings? Were the Conventicles able to contain things?
He left the room and returned with a phone, his fingers tapping across them.
“Contacting Anand,” he said, answering my questioning look. When he was finished, I asked to borrow it. My phone had been left in his car the day of the attack.
Scrolling all the main social media, I was surprised not to see anything. Reports of fights, sighting of shifters, recent hashtags of magic being real. I deduced that at least some of the witches were still alive and managing the damage control.
“You have my attention, Dominic.”
My eyes snapped up from the phone to Helena standing at the door, keeping the several feet they had from each other.
“You betrayed me for a Tenebras Obducit?” he pushed out through gritted teeth.
“No, I was showing you the errors of your ways. And you still haven’t learned.” She looked in my direction and the sphere of magic she lobbed at me hit the protective barrier I’d erected with little effort. The attack still caused my heart to squeeze and a soft pant escaped. We had practiced it at least a hundred times, but with Dominic and not against someone who wished me harm. Admittedly, a part of me worried about the efficacy. But it held, and I was safe.
Helena’s wide-eyed shock at me having magic cost her precious seconds. In a flash of movement, Dominic’s magic forced her into the air and landed her on her butt in the middle of the cloaked sigil circle. He evoked the spells, and shimmering crystals formed around her. Confusion warped her expression as she attempted to make sense of the situation. I had magic.
“You betrayed me for a Tenebras Obducit.” It wasn’t just the betrayal but who he’d been betrayed for. Would her siding with their father have hurt less? His lips moved slowly. Helena’s body jerked and tensed. She collapsed to the floor with a shriek of pain.
Pressing her hand against the enclosure, her face strained as she attempted to use her magic to break it. Nothing. With more effort, her face folded into a grimace.
He lowered himself to the ground so they were face to face. Eye to eye. Glare to glare. If there were any fragments of sibling love, it was hidden well.
“You don’t have magic in there. If I wish it to be so, I can give you so much pain you’d beg for death to end it.”
Arrogance drained from her face, leaving a look so docile and repentant that if I hadn’t witnessed all the things she was capable of, I’d be begging for leniency for her.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. Yeah, there’s more honesty and sincerity in the emails I get from a prince offering me thousands of dollars. “If you want someone to blame for me turning on you, look in the mirror.” She turned a look in my direction with the same curiosity. Magic. I had magic. “She has magic now. You didn’t make things better, brother. You made it worse.”
Anand’s appearance lifted the look of desolation on her face. There was hope of him changing her situation. He looked around at the captured Helena, Dominic kneeling near her, and me in the protective barrier. Not an ounce of surprise showed on his face when I dropped it. He stared for a little longer before a frown settled on his face. I couldn’t figure out the target of his disapproval. My acquired magic, Dominic’s response to his sister’s betrayal, or some disaster we weren’t aware of.
“Some members of the New Conventicle have defected. Be aware that not all who were once allies are still?—”
The room vibrated and the door exploded into flying splinters of wood.
A cadre of vampires moving at an imperceptible speed entered. Helena stood, watching the scene with interest as they were met with a force of magic that blasted them back against the wall. Before one could recover, Anand had a stake inches from his heart and was about to plunge it in when Dominic called out to stop him.
Dominic had plucked another vampire from the group and had him secured against him by the neck with his claws at the vampire’s throat. The others he kept secured against the floor with his magic. Anger plastered his face as he took in the vampires and looked for the magical threat that caused the disruption. The assailant remained in the shadows.
“Enemy or ally?” Dominic asked the vampire he held.
He responded with silence and a piercing look. At a slight nod of Dominic’s head, Anand finished the job with the other vampire.
“If you are my enemy, no mercy will be given.”
I bit my tongue and gave myself the same internal speech that this violence was necessary for there to be peace. I needed to believe it.
“Answer my question,” Dominic demanded. Although their silence seemed like an indicator of their position, Dominic wanted more. Claws pressed into the vampire’s throat that he was holding, the vampire’s blood turning Dominic’s shirt crimson as it spilled over it.
“Speak.”
He didn’t, meeting his fate with defiance along with the others. Dominic stood in silence, taking in the remnants of dust from the dead vampires. Tension filled the room as he waited in anticipation of more attacks.
“You don’t have any allies, brother,” Helena said. “We never really did. There were those who saw our ways as a benefit to them and abided by the rules, and those who were biding their time until things got fucked up. That’s where we are now. Kill Luna, weaken Peter, and reclaim your rule.”
“You sided with Peter!”
“I sided with the victor.” She said it as if that would temper the betrayal. “One who wouldn’t let a human derail everything.” There was a hint of questioning in her voice over the word ‘human.’ I had magic and was different. Human was a misnomer. Formerly human? Not quite human? Posing as human?
Dominic moved toward the confinement, a hard set in his jaw, fixing his sister with a glare. Flashes of hurt shadowed his face. It was so difficult understanding how her betrayal was unexpected to him. Perhaps because it was to Peter, a Dark Caster. Magic that rivaled his.
“You chose wrong. Things will return to the way they were. Helena, you’ll answer to all that I sheltered you from. Areleus will not be in a position to request leniency on your behalf.”
She winced. Before, there had been the question of whether he’d commit patricide. There wasn’t any question about it now. Whatever weakness she’d seen in Dominic had no hints of having ever existed. Color drained from her face.
They held each other’s gaze, breaking only when magic flooded into the room and three unfamiliar witches walked in. One made her way toward me, the other sending pellets of magic in rapid fire toward Dominic. With a swipe of his hand he returned them to her as he attempted to weave around them. At the witch’s approach, I created my barrier, protecting myself my primary goal, while the other witch attempted to release Helena, whose alliance with Peter gave her alliance with the Awakeners who were now fully committed to Peter.
Her hands against the magical prison did nothing. The battle between the witch and Dominic ended badly for the witch. He watched the witch with a satisfied smile as she examined the revealed markings in the floor, then he whispered a spell, the shimmer of it fell, and with a nudge of magic, he pushed the witch in with Helena. Then he invoked the spell to keep them enclosed and another that made them writhe in pain. They folded over into ragged pants when the onslaught stopped. Dominic pulled his attention from them to the witch who was attempting to break down my barrier, dividing her attention between Dominic and her surroundings as if she was looking for the source of my magical barrier.
The window exploded into shards of glass, some hitting Anand in the arm he used to protect himself. Three shades who spilled in expanded their wings, obscuring most of the room. One soared toward Anand, grabbing him with his clawed hand and tossing him to the other side of the room like a doll. He crashed into the wall and hit the floor with a thud. Dominic was in a battle with the other two shades. As the witch continued to barrel her magic into my barrier, her face ruddy with frustration, I concentrated. Timing my action for the best chance of success, I dropped my barrier, placing us just a few inches from each other. Pushing magic into her chest, I sent her clamoring back a few feet and into a fall. My mistake was not wanting the same thing that happened to the vase to happen to her, despite Dominic’s claims that it wouldn’t. But it was enough. Her shock that I had magic delayed her response. I didn’t hold back with my next assault. The magic smashing into her sent her slamming into the shade. His body, as resilient as a wall, left him standing and her on the ground wincing in pain.
Erecting my barrier again, I looked for more openings as the chaos erupted and more people spilled into the room. Some were familiar and some I believed were part of both Conventicles with the sole purpose of containing and disabling the Awakeners and their allies. I couldn’t be sure because of Anand’s warning. It was the periodic attempts they made to get to me that made me assume they were enemies.
My heart pounded when a shade advanced toward me. Choosing physical violence over magic, he clawed at the barrier with no success. Drawing back his lips, his mouth moved without the smooth mechanics of someone used to speaking frequently.
The barrier rippled, undulated, pushed in, but held. He put more effort into it, and I could see Dominic out of my periphery trying to get to me. I didn’t have a weapon. I should always have a weapon. Briefly, I considered dropping my barrier, making a grab for the discarded blade to my right, and erecting the barrier again, but my attempt to walk with the barrier up failed. Shades moved fast and had built-in weapons of claws. The fact that Peter wanted me alive didn’t seem like an advantage, because nothing about the shades gave me the impression they cared about rules. Chaos maybe. Violence definitely. My demise would give them what they wanted.
Too much fighting and magic in the room made thinking clearly difficult. Just surviving wasn’t enough. I looked for vulnerabilities. Eyes. I could get to his eyes, claw, poke, or whatever I could do. Nose was another. Heel of my hand needed to smash into it. I crouched a little to give myself the leverage to put all my weight into it.
I started to lunge, when out of the side of my eye, Areleus came into view. Before I could execute my plan, the prison around his daughter fell. The two turned their energies to Dominic, my barrier fell without me releasing it, and I was pulled against a sinewy body.
I smashed my head back, trying to hit a nose or anything hard of whoever had wrapped me in a bear hug.
“There, there, it’s just you and me,” Peter cooed. Then the world of chaos disappeared as Dominic growling my name was clipped into silence.
Head spinning, I closed my eyes to get my bearings and gave no care as to who was on the receiving end of my indiscriminate magic. I blasted and heard a hard thump of a body hitting the wall. Glass crashing and items falling. When I focused, Peter was coming to stand, a dark smirk of satisfaction on his face as he quickly moved toward me. The room had many objects, and I sent them all careening at him. Coffee grinder lobbed at him, he swiped away with a wave of his hand. Books, dishes, home décor, and cups were hurled in his direction while he used his protective barrier as a shield. I continued to pummel whatever items I could get to into the shield, hoping for an opening or a waver in it.
I assumed he lost his patience or no longer wanted to flaunt his magical acumen. He returned offensive magic. It felt like he slammed a weighted ball into my chest. I smashed into the wall hard and then crumpled into a heap on the floor. We were face to face as I panted for breath. A gleam of satisfaction moved over his face, brightening the cast of darkness that fell over his features and chased away any hint of the studious man who spent his time giving unsolicited history.
“Luna,” he drawled. “I will give it to the prince, he’s managed to succeed in what I spent years trying to discover. He made you one of us. Where there was just one, now there are two.”
He seemed excited, as if my presence was the implied alliance.
“No, there aren’t two. I have no intention of helping you.”
A slow deviant smile curled his lips. “Then this will be a battle of will.” His eyes eclipsed to coal. Magic wrapped around me, stealing my breath. I could feel the full presence of his power. An indicator of why he was feared. And the chaos, violence, and destruction he could cause. He inched closer to me.
“The question is, dear Luna, what will it take to break you?”
I allowed my hand to slide over my pocket where the Garon was hidden.
I had no intention of being broken.