Chapter 16
CHAPTER 16
O phelia gave the Underworld a once-over, a rueful smile tugging at her lips as she went from cell to cell until she came to the only one occupied. Celeste.
Trying to anticipate her intentions, I thought there were two possibilities: She’d release Celeste and form an alliance with her, or kill her and end the bloodline of the most powerful witches in the world. I was pretty sure it was the latter. Seconds from snatching the pepper spray hooked on my pants, I was able to conceal it from notice when Peter’s and Ophelia’s attention was drawn to thunderous footsteps descending the stairs. Rushing into the Perils, eight guards entered, swords in hand. Peter smiled at them as if they weren’t a threat, making several fierce rote movements. I ducked as black clouds of ether coalesced.
With a simple whisper of a spell, he materialized a mass of arrows. There were too many to count. At another sharp command, the arrows propelled through the air with the lethality of bullets. Agonized sounds reverberated off the walls and bodies thudded. Taking a shuddering breath, I looked back and confirmed the deaths of eight guards in a matter of moments.
“You’re a monster,” I whispered.
Peter’s satisfied smirk wavered, but the insult didn’t land or have the effect I wanted. His hands made more sharp movements while he recited another spell. I lunged to the side, bracing for the impact, but nothing happened to me. Out of my periphery, I saw a flare of light cover the stairway.
Where are you all? I feared they were still trying to get past the wards on the house or engaged in the fighting used as a delay tactic. My empathy was running thin for all who sided with Dark Casters.
Peter nodded. No remorse or self-reflection. There had been days when he’d battled with the cognitive dissonance, but he’d given in to power lust.
“I’d rather be the monster than the prey.”
That’s why Ophelia had returned his magic.
He eased closer to me. I shuffled back.
“What about you, Luna?”
“What?” I was splitting my attention between him and Ophelia, who appeared to be disabling the series of spells that kept Celeste behind bars. Illumination and sparks bled from the cloaked wards. From her intense focus, it wasn’t an easy task. Good.
“You realize Dominic and the others will die. You will not have any form of protection. The Conventicle and the Awakeners blame you for starting all this. That”—my eyes followed his to the Diax, which Ophelia had placed on the floor as if it was inconsequential—“means nothing.”
Did he know something I didn’t? My heart was thrashing with panic when he opened his hand and the Diax soared into his palm. He eyed it, his smirk darkening as he whispered a spell over it. Sparks flickered from the object, and a light field formed around it, protecting itself from Peter’s attack. His smirk drained into anger.
While destruction of the Diax had his focus, I said, “Peter.”
His eyes flicked up to me and he was assaulted with stinging mist. Pepper spray.
“Fuck,” he hissed when the irritant forced him to drop the Diax, which skidded a few inches away. Then I kneed him in his man berries. One hand went for the assaulted area while the other flicked at me, a protective burst of magic that pushed me back several feet. While he recovered, I scooped up the Diax and headed for the stairs, getting another look at the fallen guards. Peter’s strained mocking chortle hung in the air as I attempted to escape but smashed into the barrier he’d created. The opaque wall made it difficult to see if more guards were behind it, trying to get in. There had to be another entrance to the Perils.
Peter’s laugh cut short into a terrible gurgling. I turned to find Peter held against Dominic, whose claws were pressed into Peter’s neck, down which flowed rivulets of blood. A gold band formed around them. Opening my hand, I revealed the Diax to Dominic.
A look of pride and relief broke through his sneer. Ophelia was struggling to keep Ileana and Areleus at bay while still directing her attention to releasing Celeste. I couldn’t figure out why releasing Celeste was so important. Did she believe that releasing her would serve as a big enough distraction?
I wasn’t sure who was responsible for breaking the ward that kept Ileana and Areleus from Ophelia. Her suffocating rage consumed the room as she turned to face them.
Dominic instructed me to release the Diax. It fell to the floor, setting things in motion.
Ophelia directed her anger at me, whipping around. The golden ringlet that she’d threatened me with exploded from her hand. It was met with an impressive flare of magic that swelled around it and devoured it. Flushed and angry, Peter took the opportunity to try and escape Dominic’s hold. Dominic released him as Ileana recited the spell. The confidence that Ophelia and Peter wielded disappeared in a panicked reaction, their lips moving fervently, reciting spell after spell, trying to break the object and stop the spell. Fury washed over their faces as their magic weakened. Ophelia was the first to give up, backing away and returning to Celeste’s cell. A last-ditch effort to cause harm. Pepper spray in hand, I looked for an opening to get to her.
Areleus got to her first. With weakened magic, the gold ringlets were no longer at her disposal. A finger flicked and released a pitiful puff of magic that seemed almost comical. Blistering rage roiled off her and she misdirected it to me, as if I’d discovered the Diax. I’d only made sure it was in their presence to do its job. She lunged at me, and I spritzed her face with the irritant. Relieved of his magic, Peter was faced with the same problem. The inability to fight the royals without magic. He tried. Turning to Dominic, he punched him. Dominic caught his hand mid-strike, grabbed him by his throat, and pinned him to the wall. I didn’t miss the way he extended his fingers; with his diminished magic, calling for his claws was no longer an option. But his strength remained.
“Let me go,” Peter squeaked, scratching at Dominic’s hand. He fought until he lost consciousness. Through the chaos, Ileana let go of the concern she had for her son and returned her attention to the Diax that held the magic.
With the Book of Umbra in hand, she appeared frozen, seemingly unable to destroy the magic that held Dominic’s and the Casters’. She’d lost her ruthlessness and cold-hearted objectivity.
“You don’t have your claws,” she said to Dominic. He would adapt, but razor-sharp weapons at easy disposal was something he’d not quickly adapt to. How could he?
“Do it,” Dominic commanded.
That moment of hesitation cost them because Areleus snatched up the Diax and gathered up tidal waves of magic.
Securing the Diax in the palm of his hand, he demanded that Ileana give him the book.
“He doesn’t have his claws. I do. I will not hesitate to take your heart,” he said at her refusal. The cool indifference in his words was echoed in his eyes. Immortals were difficult to kill. Dominic hadn’t been too enthusiastic about telling me the ways in which they could be killed.
Drawing back her lips in a challenging sneer, her fingers made distinct movements and the air thickened with an energy that reminded me of how it felt when she removed the magic in the warehouse. But she didn’t have time to create the sigils to create the magic.
Magic gathered into a black cloud. Orange coiled around the cloud, making it bob erratically for release. Areleus was not impressed. Releasing force like a cannon, Areleus’s hand countered and sent her magic back at her. A quick rotation and sidestep took her out of its pathway. Instead, it hit the wall, making an explosive cloud of drywall and wood.
Ileana’s eyes narrowed on him. She shook her head and a look of disappointment swept over her face. “You’re not going to honor your word?” she said in a tepid voice.
“We agreed he’s not the same and that his human may be his fall.”
“Or his redemption. One I thought I saw in you last night. I gave you the Book of Umbra in good faith. My hope was that you wouldn’t use it against us—against your son to obtain greater power.” Well that was a damn lie. She delivered it with such sincerity and authenticity, I doubted I’d ever trust anything she said again. She shook her head. “I thought we also agreed about the dangers. In the wrong hands, it’s a danger to us all. Dominic sacrificed his magic. I thought we’d agreed we’d sacrifice the book. Allow it to be destroyed with the Diax.”
Although she seemed to be taking his tight-lipped quiet as contemplation, I saw it as indomitable defiance. Her voice softened to an entreat. “You are well positioned, and even in his weakened state, do you doubt Dominic’s ability to be a force and a needed ally? If you do this, your future will be at risk. Don’t do this,” she warned.
Making the choice for him, she continued with the spell without waiting for an answer.
A simple swipe of his hand across the air, and the Book of Umbra was in his hands. “We agreed,” he asserted again.
With a sharp look that warned against stopping him, his mouth moved fervently. Ileana’s lips drew back in a sneer of challenge, and her fingers made sharp rote movements. The Diax and Book of Umbra were ripped from his grip. He tossed a spell and moved in equal measure to snatch the objects back. The battle of magic left the objects hovering in the air.
“Father, don’t,” Dominic said. The room quieted. Areleus’s eyes widened for just a second at the reverence in Dominic’s voice. “Nothing good will come from this. I’m warning you.”
But Areleus’s cold, avaricious eyes couldn’t be reached. In an act of desperation of a person who no longer had magic, Ophelia made an unsuccessful lunge at the Book of Umbra and the Diax. She was stopped by Anand, who dragged her and Peter back and placed them in a cell. Even if she’d managed to get the objects, without her magic, it would’ve been in vain.
“Warn.” Areleus scoffed. “You’ve put yourself in a position that your warnings mean nothing. Soon you won’t have any power or influence. Are you stronger than a witch now? Can you defend yourself against a shifter?”
He sneered, the shock from the display of familial feeling gone. “Will you be a match against vampires?”
Dominic moved with preternatural speed, slamming his father against the wall, his forearm pressed against Areleus’s throat. Dominic suffered the pain of Areleus using one claw while he held on to the Diax.
Icy blue waves tugged between them, their eyes locked. I tried to determine who was producing the magic or if it was a combination of them both. When it vanished, Areleus’s hand trembled as he attempted to release the Diax without success. His eyes dropped to the symbols that crawled up his arms, similar to those that had marked Helena when her magic was restricted.
When the Diax fell from his hands, anger washed over his face. Realization soon followed when both the Diax and the Book of Umbra began to crumble into dust.
Lowering Areleus to the ground, Dominic glanced down at the wound he’d acquired that was undoubtedly healed. He grabbed his father’s fisted hand before it could connect with his face. The ease with which he did it left Areleus dejected. He no longer had the speed and strength that came with magic.
“I warned you. When has Mother ever fallen for your charms? You didn’t persuade her to allow you to see the Book of Umbra. She gave you the opportunity to be your own undoing. You were the sacrifice of magic.” He stood and stepped back, extending his fingers to reveal his claws again with a smirk.
“You asshole,” Areleus spat out, his fingers lashing out to summon magic that he no longer possessed. It would take him time to get used to that.
“Exactly. When I need to be, I’m worse than you are. I didn’t concede out of weakness or veneration for you. It was only a matter of time before the opportunity arose where your thirst for power and hubris would blind you to the flaws in your actions that would destroy you.”
With a whirl of his finger, one of the cell doors opened. Dominic grabbed Areleus’s arm and twisted it behind his back, depositing him in the cell.
Turning from his father’s yells, curses, and promises of violence, he nodded at his mother before taking my hand. His eyes traveled over every exposed inch of me, looking for injuries.
“I’m fine.” More than fine because it was over. Really over. Breathing a sigh of relief, I averted my eyes from the bodies that remained.
Following my gaze, he held me tighter. “I’m sorry you had to see that.”
Seeing it wasn’t as bad as being there when it happened. I wanted to go into the cell and knee Peter in the crotch again. Positioning himself to obscure the sight of the fallen guards, Dominic guided me to another exit and led me back to his room where he told me he’d return soon. I doubted it would be soon; he had a great number of things to take care of.
Including his father.