Chapter 10
“You want me to do what?”Cortes said dully.
Anya sat with her jaw open beside the sorcerer.
They were at the makeshift headquarters of the New York coven. Dawn was just breaking across the city, along with news about the dead bodies that had been discovered in several locations across the state.
Abraham recovered from his shock first. “Are you nuts?!”
Told you they’d react like this, Brimstone said smugly, chomping down his breakfast.
Mae cut her eyes to the fox. “How about you focus on that bacon sandwich?” She turned to the others. “Look, hear me out?—”
“There’s nothing to discuss, Mae,” Bryony interrupted grimly. “It’s one thing agreeing to let Alicia escort you to Hell. It’s a whole other ballgame asking a human to take her place.”
Anya and Roman nodded vigorously. Vlad and Nikolai remained silent. Judging from their expressions, they still harbored misgivings on the subject.
“The fact that we haven’t heard from Alicia could mean there’s a reason she can’t return to Earth right now,” Abraham said stiffly.
Mae curled her hands into fists. “Then, that’s even more grounds to go find out what’s keeping her. Whatever it is might have to do with Barquiel’s disappearance.”
Cortes ran a hand through his hair in the fraught silence that followed. “It’s not like I don’t know what you’re getting at, Mae.” His voice churned with frustration. “But I only just found out I can use that teleportation spell. There’s no way I can master it in a couple of days.” The Colombian’s tone hardened. “Besides, you’re forgetting something crucial. I’ve never been to Hell. How am I supposed to get us there in the first place?”
Mae chewed her lip. That was the part of her plan she didn’t quite have an answer for yet.
“Brimstone is from there,” Miles said.
Everyone stared at the sorcerer.
He shrugged as he tickled his boa constrictor under the chin. “If Mae uses her power to channel his memories to Enrique’s core, they should be able to teleport there.”
Millie’s eyes shrank to happy slits.
Mae’s heart lurched. Oh.I didn’t think of that.
It could work, Na Ri mused. And I have my own memories too.
“You’re not helping, Miles,” Bryony groaned.
“He’s right.” Violet furrowed her brow. “Mae needs Hellreaver if she’s going to face Vedran and Barquiel head on. And meeting Azazel sounds like the right thing to do.”
Bryony’s face tightened. “Did she tell you that?”
Mae knew the High Priestess was referring to the Seer in Chicago.
“No,” Violet replied in clipped tones. “But she didn’t ask me to stop her either.”
Bryony’s shoulders slumped. She pinched the bridge of her nose. “I can’t believe I’m actually thinking of agreeing to this harebrained plan.”
Hope fluttered through Mae.
The New York coven High Priestess sighed and met her expectant gaze. “Do you remember the prophecy I told you about? All of it will be pointless if you die in Hell.”
Mae hesitated. “The dark magic part of it came true, so I think the rest is still valid.”
Tension thickened the air when an inky sphere covered with sizzling, black static bloomed above her palm.
Her scalp prickled. It scared her how quickly she’d grasped how to manipulate this new part of her powers. It’s almost like we were born to wield it.
We were, Na Ri reminded her quietly.
Mae retracted her new magic.
Bryony stared at the fading wisps, her face pale. “How exactly did you manage to harness black magic?”
It was Vlad who replied.
“I believe the trigger was the barrier she absorbed when we went to Budapest,” the incubus explained moodily. “The one that was shielding the Dark Council’s original headquarters. Vedran erected it.”
Roman swallowed. “So, she—ate his magic and can now use it?!”
Everyone gave Mae a worried look.
She grimaced. “Eating it sounds gross.”
Bryony indicated Cortes. “You still have to convince him.”
The sorcerer was frowning heavily at Mae.
“We should go, my Enrique.”
Mae blinked.
Popo fluttered onto Cortes’s lap and studied his sorcerer solemnly, his eyes bright. “We are the only ones who can help our queen right now. And our fates very much depend on her success in overcoming our foes.”
Mae’s pulse raced. She had never heard Popo sound so serious.
A muscle jumped in Cortes’s cheek as he watched his familiar.
Anya shuddered and closed her eyes briefly before fixing her boyfriend with a steady look. “As much as it pains me to say this, Popo is right. If it helps Mae defeat our enemy, then I won’t stop you.” The witch’s gaze shifted to Mae. Her voice turned steely. “You better make sure he comes back alive and with all his body parts intact.”
Mae swallowed and dipped her head, her mouth dry.
Vlad grimaced. “So, we’re really doing this, huh?” The incubus rubbed the back of his neck. “I guess I’ll go say farewell to my uncle.”
“You should visit with your family,” Nikolai told Mae.
“I will. I have something to take care of first.”
A low rumble reached them. They turned and stared at the back of the ballroom.
The giant flinched where he was kneeling quietly in a corner. He’d managed to squeeze his body inside the building through the terrace doors. He lifted a hesitant hand and mumbled something shyly.
Mae glanced at Brimstone.
He says he needs to pee, the fox translated.
“What’s the matter?” Bryony asked suspiciously at her awkward expression.
Mae looked hopefully outside the window. “He needs the rest room.”
Bryony followed her gaze to a flowerbed in the garden.
“He’s not relieving himself in my petunias!” the witch snapped.
* * *
It waslate by the time they entered the residential area where the Jins lived. Nikolai maneuvered the SUV down the road, parked in the driveway, and turned to Mae.
“Was that really the right thing to do?”
She met his troubled gaze steadily. “I believe so.”
The something Mae had wanted to take care of before leaving the coven headquarters had been Drabek.
The heaviness that had weighed on Nikolai’s heart since he’d first witnessed the distressing state Subjugate had left his brother’s familiar in had almost choked his breath when they’d descended into the basement with Abraham and made their way to the cell where the lynx was being kept prisoner.
Drabek had lifted her head weakly off the bed of straw she’d been lying on when Mae had opened the cell door and wandered inside. She’d greeted the witch with a feeble swing of her tail, her eyes dull with pain.
Mae had sat on the ground and lifted the familiar’s head onto her lap so she could stroke her. Brimstone had lain down beside them and licked the lynx’s gaunt face, his crimson gaze full of sorrow.
Nikolai had fisted his hands where he’d stood in the doorway of the prison.
“Are you really going to do this? Are you—” he’d stopped and swallowed, “are you going to kill her?”
He hadn’t been able to stop his voice from shaking.
“It will feel like death,” Mae said quietly. “But she will still be alive.”
Nikolai had frozen at her words.
Abraham had inhaled sharply. “What do you mean? What are you?—?!”
Mae’s magic had filled the cell with a warm, crimson light as she’d invoked the last spells Nikolai had imagined she would use. Just as she had with Sable, she had summoned Soul Conjure to isolate the lynx’s soul and invoked Purge to rid her damaged core of the source of her agony.
The lynx had stiffened for a timeless moment before going limp in her hold, her breathing slow and steady as she fell into a deep slumber that skirted the fine line between life and death, her soul orb floating silently above her body inside Mae’s Contain.
“Why?!” Abraham had mumbled numbly.
The look on Mae’s face when she’d finally lifted her head and met their strained gazes had made Nikolai’s heart ache.
“What kind of Witch Queen would I be if I killed an innocent creature like her?” she’d said tremulously, her cheeks streaked with tears. “She only became a monster because of Vedran’s black magic.”
Nikolai had gone to her then and silently taken her in his arms while she’d cried, Abraham watching on with a remorseful expression.
Mae’s voice jolted him back to the present. “I know it’s stupid of me to think this, but I want her to see Oscar again, even if it is for the final time.”
Nikolai’s stomach clenched. He knew she was thinking of Hellreaver and how abrupt their parting had been.
The tiny spark of hope he’d harbored deep inside ever since they’d witnessed the dramatic change in Drabek’s nature grew a little more.
Could the same thing have happened to Oscar?
He knew Vlad would call him a fool for wanting to reconcile with the man who had killed his mother and his half-brothers and sisters. But still, he would regret it forever more if he didn’t try one last time. Because the Oscar he thought he knew might never have been the real Oscar at all.
“It’s a foolish wish indeed.” He took Mae in his arms and kissed her hair. “And it makes me love you even more.”
They stayed like that for a while before going inside the house to spend their last evening on Earth with Mae’s family and her mother’s new beau, Mr. Fusanaga. Vlad, Cortes, and Anya came over a while later, their expressions just about managing to conceal their growing dread.
Dinner was as high-spirited an affair as it always was in the Jin household, with Ye-Seul shocking everyone by announcing she was considering getting engaged to her ballroom dancing partner. Mr. Fusanaga had to pat Mae’s choking mother on the back before Yoo-Mi sharply pointed out to Ye-Seul that she and Mr. Choi were getting on in age and the excitement of a wedding might be the final straw that put them six feet under.
“Oh, we’re not planning on having a honeymoon if that’s what you’re worried about,” Ye-Seul said with a wave of a wrinkled hand. “My woman bits are not what they used to be. And Mr. Choi’s look like a mummified corn dog and a couple of raisins that are well past their sell-by-date.”
Mr. Fusanaga’s eyes glazed over a little. Cortes spluttered on the wine he’d just sipped.
Vlad leaned sideways.
“I thought things had calmed down a bit since she started going out with that Choi guy?” he hissed out the corner of his mouth to Noah Tegner, the Jins’ bodyguard and Ryu’s boyfriend.
“They talked about sex toys last night,” the sorcerer revealed glumly. He shuddered. “There were pictures.”
It wasn’t until Nikolai was returning from using the rest room a while later that he was ambushed by Yoo-Mi.
“So, you’re really going to Hell?”
Nikolai did his best to mask his surprise. “I?—”
“There’s no use lying.” Mae’s mother narrowed her eyes. “Mrs. Son-Ha told me.”
It was Nikolai’s turn to frown. “Bryony should make that woman sign an NDA.”
“She was only thinking of my best interests.” Yoo-Mi sniffed. “It’s not that I mind Mae not telling me. After all, she has a lot on her plate.”
The fight drained out of Nikolai. “Most mothers would be upset if their kid suggested a trip to the Underworld.”
“Yes, well, I’m not most mothers.” Yoo-Mi’s expression became pinched. “If it hadn’t been for Mae, Ye-Seul and Ryu would have died at the hands of the demon who possessed Rose.” Resolve hardened her face. “I can’t say I’m completely thrilled by what my daughter is about to do, but I won’t stop her either. So, do me a favor, will you?”
Nikolai met her stare steadily. “Whatever you need.”
Yoo-Mi smiled. “I knew she made the right choice when she picked you.” To Nikolai’s surprise, she patted his cheek lightly. “Make sure you help my daughter kick those bad guys’ asses. Especially that Bark person.”
“You mean Barquiel?”
“Yeah, that guy.”