Chapter 45
when you scream enough
Inside the sanctuary, a different kind of chaos had taken hold. Two witches huddled in the shadows of the transept, wailing—but not with the chant Max had demanded they use for Virelich’s summoning.
“Louder,” he barked, wiping blood on his robe as he paced the altar platform. “So the gods of the future will hear you.”
A third witch, breaking from the chanting choir to help her sisters, grabbed a robe and shredded it into bandages. One eye on Max, she kept repeating the spellwords as loudly as she could, already bordering on hysteria. Silence would mean death, and while the two witches howled in pain, others had suffered the same fate, and the incentive was horrifying.
Spellwords tangled with fear, and the effect was a circling curtain of dread quietly lowering itself from the ceiling of the church. Virelich’s membrane pulsed brighter, his face drawing closer to the airlock.
“There,” Max bellowed. “That’s better. Terror is fuel, my lovely little beasts. You are finally learning.”
The shimmering curtain pulsed again, and Virelich was lifted. Max’s plan seemed to be coming to fruition until another witch broke ranks and was instantly cut down by one of Max’s enforcers.
“Again,” Max cried out, his eyes wild. “Louder.”
He slapped his hand on the corner of the specially constructed soul vessel. The hollow cage rang like a corrupted church bell. “Damn you, Virelich. You’re not even trying.”
The translucent box had been placed where the altar once stood in the monastery cathedral, positioned directly above where Max and Virelich would converse. Max was determined to raise Virelich’s mutated form through a fleeting slit in the Veil’s membrane and draw the demonic leader into the vessel above. It was not an escape per se; it was more like a secure perch where Max could keep a more focused eye on the mercurial Harbinger.
From the frustration boiling between them, it was clear that any trust between the Harbinger and the one who could make his flesh real had still not been established.
The demi-demon chuckled. “It is not so much that I am not trying. I am truly motivated to regain my place in the world after being so unceremoniously removed from it. Perhaps,” he added, his voice dripping with irony, “had you paid more attention to your studies, rather than rutting your way through your lessons.”
There was sudden commotion in the transept, and Max turned to see one of his guards being carried by two others. They stood him in front of Max, holding him for support.
“My Lord,” the forest sentry gasped, then almost collapsed before righting himself, “forgive me. There has been…an incident in the forest.”
Annoyed, Max shrugged, then stepped from the raised altar platform. He could see that the man’s camouflage clothing was torn and soiled.
“What’s happened?” Max asked softly—then realized the sentry had left his post. His voice sharpened. “Give me a reason not to kill you for abandoning your comrades.”
“They’re…dead,” the guard choked out. “All four of them. They stopped communicating. A third broke radio silence…he just gurgled something, and the radio went dead.”
Max turned to his second-in-command; only a look was needed, and the lieutenant turned and rushed from the sanctuary.
“I…ran,” the man whined. “You had to be told. I saw the fourth man fall—a knife in her hand—and I turned and ran.”
Max’s eyes snapped to the guard.
“Her…”
“Lord,” the sentry whispered, frantic now, “cloaked. Dark as death itself. There was no sound—only him falling to the ground. She evaded our ward markers so quickly that he had no time to react. They are coming, Lord. We must prepare.”
“Did you try to defend yourself?” Max asked, his lip curling at this apparent breach of loyalty.
“I couldn’t…” he sobbed. “She was on me in seconds. Blade at my throat.”
In truth, he had been the lucky one, and Jess was quick to point that out. “Four fell before you said a word,” she’d murmured into his ear. “You’re not brave. You’re lucky.”
In the forest, he’d felt something drag over his beard; a straight razor could have easily made the scraping sound, and he convulsed in fear. Instead, Jess drew her hand back to let him see.
In her fingers, a raven’s feather, its glossy black shaft reflecting in the soft light.
“Take this to Max,” she said. “Not because I said so—because you want to. If you don’t, you’ll wonder every time a shadow stirs if I’ve returned for you.”
He whimpered, then nodded.
His face was dirt-smeared and pale in the sanctuary light, and the guard looked up at Max.
“She said to tell you she’s not here to haunt you,” he rasped. “She’s here to finish what you started.”
Opening his hand, he showed Max the feather. One of the men supporting him stepped back, aware of its meaning. The forest guard stumbled to the floor, but, for the moment, Max ignored him.
“Jess,” he said softly, reminiscing, then knelt before the guard. “She spared you,” he said quietly. “Why do you think that is?”
The other enforcer suddenly stepped away from supporting his comrade. “I don’t know,” the man’s voice trembled. “To…to rattle you, maybe. Or…”
“No,” Max answered with a chuckle, twirling the long feather in his fingers. “She always had a flair for drama.”
He drove the tip of the feather—sharp, tipped with hidden bone—deep into the guard’s throat.
There was a gasp, a strangling flail. And then nothing, as Max let the man drop at his feet.
“Alert our followers,” he said to the other guard. “I want eyes on the perimeter. Set up a welcoming party at the front of the sanctuary, snipers along the upper windows.”
He sighed heavily, but his eyes were lighting up. “Doubt she came alone.”
Max looked down at the guard, then surveyed his remaining witches and enforcers surrounding the altar. He closed his eyes, remembering.
A satisfied smile crossed his lips, and he started to chuckle.
The young idealist from the coffee shop. He’d first run across her by accident, brushing against her in a crowded university hallway. He’d felt the surge of her mana—strong, unbridled, bright enough to make him greedy. It was as vibrant as his own.
A short time later, he’d had her in his bed, convinced he’d discovered a new kind of fate. He remembered the heat of her, the way she gave him what he wanted while keeping her face turned away.
Jess, who once told him she liked it better from behind. Deeper…harder, she’d cried out—but in truth, she hadn’t wanted to look at him.
And Max—fool that he had been—took it as submission instead of strategy.
He didn’t care. Not then.
She was willing, even enthusiastic, and he believed that if he could harness her power, it might be enough to take his mind off the perilous situation his moronic father had placed the family in.
The memory surged—her laugh once, sharp and private, like she was somewhere else—and Max felt the old humiliation rise with it. Early on, he’d guessed correctly that there would be no romance with her, then remembered how easily his mother had replaced him.
Jess barely broke her rhythm, and Max watched her abilities eclipse his almost overnight.
His breath caught low in his throat, eyes closed, his body betraying him with the ghost of old hunger.
Amused, Virelich watched from the pulsing membrane. “Ah, there it is.” The demon chuckled. “The royal bulge makes another proclamation. Should I kneel, or just laugh like the others?”
Max turned to glare at the altar. No one in the sanctuary dared say a word, but Virelich was just warming up.
“You think she moaned for you?” Virelich purred. “I’ve been in your head, remember. She was picturing someone else…at least it ended quickly.”
Max tumbled forward, seizing the guard’s lifeless body as if it were a doll. He dragged it closer to the altar. He pulled a knife from his belt and severed the guard’s throat.
Blood poured from the wound, anointing the platform that held the transfer box.
Max’s eyes burned with fury. How dare she? How dare she survive to mock him twenty years later? How dare she be alive?
In a frenzied motion, he scooped the blood with both hands, the fading warmth seeping through his fingers. With another animalistic grunt, he slammed his hands down on top of the vessel, the gore splattering across the top of the glass case.
The blood began to pulse and boil as it spread. This was new and necessary.
The sanctuary air pulsed, and Max felt it. A sudden, sharp crack resounded in the stone walls. Glass from the windows above shuddered from the pressure wave.
Something was happening.
Like Virelich was listening.
“You’ve finally learned something,” came the deep mocking voice of Virelich. “Took you long enough, fool.”
Max’s eyes snapped open, and he let out a growl. “Shut up, you wretched—”
Before he could finish, Virelich continued, a cold laugh laced through his words. “You’ve never been more pathetic, Max. But I must admit—for all your little tantrums…this is the most you’ve done in ages.”
Max’s lips curled in a sneer. “You’ll regret—”
“I will regret—” the Harbinger laughed. “The boy who begged for my power. You think you’ll be the one in control, you child?” Virelich’s voice dipped lower. “At least you’ve learned one thing…when you scream enough, the world bends.”
Max began chanting the words for the summoning ritual. His voice was a seething rasp, but he looked over his shoulder, compelling his witches to chant along with him.
With that, Max’s eyes bulged with rage. His fingers dug into the top of the containment vessel, nails scraping at the slick glass as the magic finally took hold.
The sanctuary began to tremble, then rumble, age-old dust falling from the clerestory rafters. Max’s chest heaved, his muscles bulging.
He was this close.
His moment was here.
Somewhere in the back of Max’s mind, Virelich’s mercurial voice found an opening. “Tighten your jaw when you thrust, darling. It makes you look powerful.”
Max continued chanting as his blood boiled in anger. There would be no discussion, no reunion with the woman he thought he had killed years ago. She had grown too powerful, threatening his stature. Max wasn’t going to let all this slip away.
Screaming the last words of the ritual, Max felt the sanctuary pulse again as the magic clicked—solid and sure.
A deep, reverberating hiss filled the chamber as the Veil opened.
First, Virelich’s arm was pulled up, pushed through the glass-bottomed cage, and then the rest of him followed. The vessel pulsed with an eerie light as the soul cage filled with the demon’s body.
Max collapsed to the floor, panting, blood dripping from his hands, his vision spinning as the price of his desperation caught up with him.
He had done it. Finally.
But as Max lay there, gasping for breath, Virelich’s voice filled the chamber—clearer now, slick with contempt.
“Now let’s see if you can keep control, fool.”