Chapter 36
Heat surgedthrough Mae’s veins. She and Na Ri invoked the second spell Azazel had taught them.
“Soul Unchain!”
A sound of disbelief and agony left Vedran, his hold on Balkin shattering. The blade dissolved into a black mist before it could reach Oscar.
The power of Hell washed over the bridge and Mae’s back, startling her. She turned and cursed at the sight of the demon emerging from a portal with a vengeful expression.
“VEDRAN!” Barquiel roared.
Mae scowled. “I really don’t have time for this shit!”
She was about to call Hellreaver to her when a figure loomed behind the demon archduke and snatched him in a double-armed grip, trapping his wings and body. An outraged sound left Barquiel as Rambrog grunted and squeezed him.
“You foul giant! How dare you?!”
“Good job, Rambrog,” Vlad called out.
Incubus energy rolled off him and Tarang as they closed in on Barquiel.
Cortes and Popo accompanied them, the parrot’s eyes and wings blazing with the Arcane Magic dancing on the sorcerer’s sword and whip.
Vlad looked at Mae. “We’ve got this.”
She nodded and turned.
Surprise jolted her. The wisps of Balkin’s soul had coalesced to form the specter of the black wolf. He landed lightly on the bridge, his ethereal shape fluttering at the edges.
Vedran blanched and retreated a couple of steps, his jaw sagging open at the sight of the ghostly apparition.
“Bal—Balkin?!”
Balkin scowled at the man who had chained him in death for hundreds of years.
“Do not say my name, sorcerer.”
The wolf walked past Vedran.
Mae’s chest tightened when the noble wolf stopped and bowed his head.
“Thank you for freeing me, Witch Queen,” Balkin said calmly. His eyes gleamed as he met her stare. “May we meet again, in another life.”
The familiar’s form faded, his soul finally heading to the place he had long been denied.
Vedran fell to his knees. “Ah.”
Mae startled at the tears streaming down the Sorcerer King’s face.
Fear brightened Oscar’s pupils. He shook his head at her in warning and backed away from his father, like he knew what was coming next.
The air locked in Mae’s throat. Rage was filling Vedran’s eyes with a darkness that threatened to scorch the world.
The corruption that detonated around the Sorcerer King made the bridge quake and brought with it the stench of the wicked soul he’d stolen from the Book of Shadows.
He turned his livid gaze on Oscar, his expression inhuman. “Where do you think you’re going?”
Oscar stumbled and fell on his ass with a choked sound. He backpedaled along the deck.
“I should have killed you when the thought first came to me, you ingrate!” Vedran hissed.
“Run, Oscar!” Mae shouted.
The sorcerer twisted around and scrambled to his feet.
Black magic shot out of Vedran’s hand and wrapped around his ankle. Oscar grunted as Vedran tugged on the dark cord and brought him to the ground.
Mae started running, a spell falling from her lips on a desperate shout as the Sorcerer King’s intentions became horrifyingly clear.
“NEGATE!”
Vedran did not waver an inch. He yanked Oscar to him, straddled his body, and punched his hand straight through his stomach to his core.
Oscar went rigid, his gaze locking blindly on his father’s face. His spine bowed off the asphalt as the man who had sired him tried to rip his soul from his body.
Brimstone reached the Sorcerer King first and smashed into his black magic aura. The fox snarled when he bounced off it and skidded some fifty feet.
A high-pitched ululation left Hellreaver as he attempted to slice Vedran’s corruption apart. He might as well have tried to punch through water for all the difference he made.
Mae’s heart slammed violently against her ribs.
“PURGE!CHAOS SEAL!”
The spells brushed off Vedran.
Shit!Bile burned the back of her throat as she tried to think what would work against him. We need Nikolai.
Oscar moved his head a fraction and met her frantic gaze as she closed in on Vedran. His mouth curved on a small smile even as his eyes glistened with sadness.
“Look—after Drabek!” he gasped.
His eyelids fluttered closed and his body went limp.
A crimson portal blasted into life to Mae’s right.
Azazel shot out of it, Nikolai right behind him.
Brightness flooded the bridge, the white magic sorcerer landing on it with a thud. His power dispersed Vedran’s corruption on a wave that made the air breathable again.
Nikolai snarled and spun the spear in his grip, the weapon crackling with the dazzling light of white and Moon Magic. “Not this time, asshole!”
He brought it down and sliced Vedran’s hand off at the wrist. The Sorcerer King froze, eyes rounding in incomprehension.
Nikolai made the most of his father’s shock and kicked him violently in the chest. He snatched the corrupt appendage still buried in Oscar’s stomach and destroyed it with a burst of pale magic, the foul power it contained hissing and bubbling as it vanished between his fingers.
Azazel alighted next to Mae. “Daughter, are you okay?!”
“Yes!” Mae shuddered as the demon took her in his arms and squeezed her to his chest. She pulled back and searched her father’s face. “Ran Soyun?!”
Azazel smiled. “She’ll be here soon.”
Mae’s jaw tightened, her relief short-lived. “This isn’t over yet.”
Nikolai’s voice had her head jerking around.
“Oscar!”
The sorcerer had dropped to his knees and was pressing his fingers to the wound in his brother’s belly, his hands shaking. He lowered an ear to Oscar’s lips. Relief had his shoulders sagging. He met Mae’s eyes as he straightened, his lips stretching in a trembling smile.
Vlad cursed as Barquiel broke free of the hold he, Cortes, and Rambrog had on him. The demon flashed toward Mae.
Azazel blocked his nemesis’s sword with his spear before he could reach her.
“Not today!” he snapped. “You’re not touching a single hair on my daughter’s head!”
Mae’s scalp prickled. The sky darkened, eldritch clouds forming above the bridge, their spinning motion reminding her of Eclipse.
Her pulse accelerated when she looked over at Vedran.
The Sorcerer King had risen to his feet and was moving toward his sons in a black cloud of corruption. The asphalt melted under his steps. Metal corroded when he brushed against a truss.
“Brim! Hell!” Mae barked.
The demon fox and the weapon regrouped around Nikolai.
Brightness filled the sorcerer and his crow’s eyes.
He widened his stance and shot a warning look at Mae. “Brace!”
Confusion fluttered through her. The bridge shuddered violently. She gasped.
Vlad swore. Cortes cursed. Rambrog almost stumbled off the deck.
The Sorcerer King seemed oblivious to what was happening, his attention focused on Nikolai.
“Give me your core, you wretch!” Vedran spat. “You do not deserve that magic!”
Nikolai lowered his brows. “Fuck you, asshole.”
The waters below Brooklyn Bridge turned a dazzling white as he drew on the nexus beneath New York, static crackling around him in an ever-growing cloud.
Mae almost swallowed her tongue when a stream of dazzling magic rose from the East River and slammed into the deck straight beneath Nikolai’s feet. Alastair opened his wings wide and screeched, his feathers running pale with magic.
“HELL STORM!” the sorcerer roared.
The flames that erupted across Brooklyn Bridge swarmed its stonework and trusses, and brightened its cables with white fire.
Vedran choked and fell to his knees, hands rising to clutch his throat.
“Now, Mae!” Nikolai yelled.
Her heart pounded in her throat as she removed the skeleton key from her jeans. It had already assumed the star-shaped form Azazel had warned her about. Mae removed the Book of Light from her jacket and swallowed.
There was movement in the magic streaming from the New York nexus.
Her breath froze. An ethereal figure emerged from the bright beam rising from the river. Na Ri shuddered inside her.
The woman who floated down in front of Mae had long, black hair and a face that was nearly identical to her own. A beautiful, white Korean dragon danced sinuously in the air above her, his wise eyes observing Mae kindly.
“Hello,” Ran Soyun murmured. “It’s nice to finally meet you in the flesh, Mae.”
Her face blurred as tears swarmed Mae’s vision.
“Mother!”
She rushed into Ran Soyun’s arms, only for her to stumble through her ghostly shape. A wretched sound left her throat.
“We cannot touch right now, my daughters,” the first Witch Queen said in a voice tinged with sadness. “But we will, one day.”
Mae squeezed her eyes shut when Ran Soyun caressed her face, her magic warming her skin. Na Ri sobbed inside her.
“Now, do what must be done, daughters.” Ran Soyun’s voice hardened. “Destroy the Book of Shadows.”
Agony scorched Mae and Na Ri’s souls. They knew it was the right thing to do. Yet, they could not bear the thought of shattering their mother’s soul too.
“I died a long time ago, Mae, Na Ri.” Ran Soyun hugged Mae then, her spectral arms hovering close to her body, her warmth soothing the iciness gripping Mae’s flesh. “My soul must return to the cycle of life and death so I can come back.”
Her words jolted Mae.
Ran Soyun pulled back and smiled. “This is not a final farewell. This is simply a ‘goodbye and see you next time.’” Her gaze shifted to where Azazel and Barquiel were locked in battle. “Besides, someone needs to keep your father on the straight and narrow.”
A hysterical chuckle left Mae at that.
“Mae!” Nikolai yelled.
Alarm squeezed her chest. Vedran was climbing to his feet, black magic blanketing his body once more.
There was no more time left.