Witch queen, p.18
Witch Queen, page 18
Cortes muffled the parrot under Vlad and Nikolai’s glares.
Azazel sighed and hugged Mae to his chest. “Look after yourself, my kind, wonderful daughters.”
Loud banging reached them. Barquiel raged as he slammed his demonic sword repeatedly on the barrier, trying to smash it apart.
Azazel narrowed his eyes at his nemesis before giving Mae a final, solemn look. “Remember what I taught you.”
He pressed a kiss to her brow.
Mae clenched her jaw and nodded. Her gaze lingered on Nikolai while Cortes prepared the spell that would take them to New York.
“See you soon,” she whispered.
The sense of loss Nikolai experienced when Distort magicked her away made his throat thicken. Alastair crooned comfortingly and nudged his cheek with a wing. He touched the crow.
“I know. We’ll see them again.”
A sound drew his gaze to the barrier. Barquiel was almost through.
Determination knotted Nikolai’s shoulders. Heat flowed through his belly and filled his veins as he invoked a spell that would augment Azazel’s shield, Alastair strengthening his magic with an angry squawk.
“Shield!”
The wall that blossomed into view crackled with a light that blinded the ghouls and devils crowded at the base of the bluff and caused them to fall back to a safe distance.
Azazel’s eyes widened. He shot a dazed glance at Nikolai.
“You managed to fuse white magic with Moon Magic?!”
“Yes.”
“That won’t hold Barquiel off for long,” Alicia said bitterly. “He knows how to overcome white magic. That’s how he’s succeeded in keeping Ran Soyun down here for thousands of years.”
Nikolai’s voice hardened. “That’s not the only trick I’ve got up my sleeve.”
Dampness soaked into Mae’s skin and hair when they emerged under an ominous sky outside the temporary headquarters of the New York coven.
Vlad swore. “What the hell?!”
Mae’s scalp prickled. She stared at the black clouds roiling above them. A light rain was falling across the city. It did nothing to mask the stench of magic and ozone imbuing the air, nor the suffocating pall of terror hanging over the deathly silent metropolis.
“What on Earth happened while we were away?” Cortes said numbly. “We were only gone for a couple of days!”
Na Ri’s anger flooded Mae’s insides. I can feel Davor’s soul. He’s close!
Mae dug her nails into her palms. “Vedran brought death to our doorstep.”
Her gaze found the shimmering dome rising above Central Park. She detected Bryony and Abraham’s cores and those of their allies inside the barrier.
They were fighting hordes of monsters.
Surprise jolted Mae when she clocked Gloria Espenoza’s core and the Illusion Sorcery she was wielding against the enemy.
More monsters approached across the sky from the east and south.
She narrowed her eyes. “Let’s go!”
The magic vibrating off Brimstone’s tails warmed her cold body as they headed across the road, just as Hellreaver’s newly awakened core filled her with a power that made her blood sing.
She just hoped it would be enough to fight Vedran.
“Hell.”
“On it, my witch.”
Her bond with the weapon grew so hot Mae was surprised it didn’t scald her insides. A thick, crimson aura laced with black magic whooshed into life around Hellreaver. He moved, his jagged blades slicing a doorway into the shield with an effortlessness that made Vlad and Cortes pause.
Mae closed the opening behind them and extended her magic to form a secondary shield outside the original barrier. A savage smile stretched her mouth when she felt dozens of monsters bounce off it, their attempt to enter the western boundary of the park thwarted.
They moved swiftly toward the sounds of a battle.
Vlad and Cortes cursed at the sight that met them when they emerged from under the trees. Mae clenched her jaw.
There were thousands of people inside the park. Non magic users clueless about the supernatural war that had been fought in their city for hundreds of years. Even now, their expressions were glazed and they appeared oblivious to the bloodied conflict taking place around them as the New York coven and the allies who had come to aid the city maintained a thin line of defense against the hellish creatures trying to claim their lives.
Mae frowned. She tasted a familiar magic around the subdued citizens.
“I can sense Anya’s Illusion Sorcery,” she told Vlad and Cortes. “She must have used her powers to calm them so they would not panic.”
And I suspect to help evacuation efforts.
Her gaze swiveled to where the Empire State Building once stood. Gold glinted high up in the sky.
Tension tightened Cortes’s jaw. “Is that where Anya is?!”
Mae nodded. “She’s safe. Violet, Miles, and Jared are with her.” She cracked her neck and knuckles and scanned the battleground with a calculated stare. “How about we wrap things up here?”
Arcane Magic bloomed around Cortes and Popo. “I’d thought you’d never ask.”
“Let’s go kill some monsters, Tarang,” Vlad said in a hard voice.
The tiger growled. The incubus energy that flowed from them had Mae and Cortes staring.
“What?”
“I think you’re gonna charm the pants off those ghouls,” Cortes told the incubus bluntly.
“Yeah,” Mae muttered.
Vlad curled a lip. “Like I want to see that shit.”
Tarang huffed.
The ground shook up ahead.
Spheres of power blossomed around their fists at the sight of the horde of hellish creatures charging toward them.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
A blaze ignited Mae’s stomach, startling her.
Her gaze jerked to Brimstone.
The demon fox’s chest swelled a second before he opened his jaws and released Wrath. The orb flashed through the air with a high-pitched whine, blasted most of the incoming enemy to smithereens, and took a chunk out of an iconic bridge in the distance.
Mae, Vlad, and Cortes gave Brimstone a pointed look as debris rained down into the lake below.
“That was an acceptable loss under the circumstances,” the fox said, unabashed.
Hellreaver zoomed after the remaining creatures with an evil cackle.
Mae’s hair fluttered around her shoulders as magic unfurled from her cores and roared through her bloodstream. She levitated to some hundred feet above the ground.
From that height, she had a better impression of where her allies, and the foes they were dealing with, were located. She unleashed her first spells.
“Soul Guard! Augment!”
Startled cries rose from the sorcerers and witches clashing with Vedran’s monstrous army as her magic reinforced the Soul Shield she had placed inside them. A few spotted her and pointed, excitement lighting up their faces.
Mae was about to focus her magic into her next spells when movement below drew her gaze and made her pause.
Hellreaver tore seamlessly through entire packs of beasts, his blades carving his targets in half before they even sensed his presence.
Brimstone invoked Wrath again and again as he decimated the fast-moving devils trying to attack him, the power of the spell undiminished even though he unleashed it repeatedly.
Arcane Magic burned dozens of ghouls as Cortes wielded his blade and whip with deadly efficiency, his eyes and those of his familiar blazing with incandescent brightness.
But it was the indomitable power Vlad demonstrated that made Mae’s pulse quicken. The incubus brought entire troops of hideous monsters to their knees with his sheer demonic will before finishing them off with his blades and the energy bombs Ilmon had taught him to use, Tarang delivering the death blow to many with his claws and fangs.
Mae swallowed. Damn. We would never have gotten this strong had we not gone to Hell.
I don’t know about that, my witch. Brimstone stopped and gazed at her, his crimson eyes bright with affection even across the distance. You could even give Azazel a run for his money right now.
Mae blinked. Really?!
Really, Brimstone huffed. Now, how about you show these fools the power of the Witch Queen?
Mae smiled faintly. She took a shallow breath and guided the magic bubbling inside her veins into her next spells. The power she unleashed detonated across the park with a force that made her allies cry out in surprise and the monsters attacking them scream.
“Negate! Purge! Decimate!”
The first two spells robbed the ghouls and devils of the demonic energy powering their bodies and the black magic controlling their minds. Decimate crackled violently above her head as it sent out deadly currents next, the black and crimson arcs snaking through the air to reduce the enemy to ash. It took a moment for her to make out those still standing in the aftermath of her devastating attack.
Mae lowered her brows.
The only creatures who’d resisted her spells were the abominations Vedran had put together from the dead bodies of the humans, fiends, and hellbeasts he had killed.
Her frown deepened when she detected the dark cores inside them. The soul orbs throbbed with malevolence, powering the creatures with a continuous supply of black magic faster than Purge could consume it.
Looks like he put those things inside them to counter my magic.
“Shame you didn’t know about this spell, asshole,” she muttered darkly.
Magic whipped her clothes and hair into a frenzy as she voiced the first incantation Azazel had taught her and Na Ri.
“DECAY!”
The air thickened, the sharp rise in pressure driving many to clutch their heads and drop to their knees.
Mae’s heart thudded wildly against her ribs at the crimson light that bloomed into life around her and rolled across the landscape. Laced with black and white magic, the tide uprooted bushes, bowed trees, and made water surge violently across the lakes and ponds in the park.
The chimeras screeched, the spell destroying their cores and the vile stitches keeping their bodies together. Decay consumed their dead flesh until all that was left were wispy, black clouds that faded into nothingness.
The end came so suddenly that even Mae blinked. A deafening silence fell across Central Park in the wake of the enemy’s downfall. Her chest shuddered, not so much because she was out of breath as because the magic she had just wielded defied the laws of this world.
Mae’s pulse was still racing when she floated to the ground. Vlad and Cortes joined her.
The incubus’s eyes glittered.
“That was pretty incredible,” he said quietly.
“Yeah, remind me never to piss you off,” Cortes grunted.
Mae smiled faintly. “You guys weren’t so bad yourselves.”
“Mae!” someone shouted.
They turned.
Abraham was running across the park, Bryony following in Rambrog’s arms. Mae’s eyes widened at the sight of the sorcerer behind them.
“Oscar!” Vlad hissed.
His knuckles blanched on his demonic blades.
Mae couldn’t take her eyes off the black magic sorcerer. He looked…different. She startled when she realized what it was about him that had changed.
Oh, Na Ri murmured. His core.
Mae stared dazedly at the source of Oscar’s power before exchanging a shocked look with Brimstone.
The fox nodded. “It seems he no longer carries the Sorcerer King’s corruption inside his body, just like Drabek.”
Vlad furrowed his brow.
“What do you mean?” Cortes asked uneasily.
Abraham arrived before Mae could reply. “Where have you been?!”
“Hmm, in Hell?” Mae grimaced and scratched her cheek. “You were there when we left.”
The aide scowled.
Her stomach knotted queasily. “My family?”
“They’re safe. Noah took them to a haven in Brooklyn. Nadia and Sergio are guarding it with their covens.”
Relief had Mae blowing out a heavy breath.
Cortes’s gaze swung between Bryony and Rambrog. “He your new ride?”
The giant lumbered to a stop next to them. The High Priestess sniffed while Rambrog carefully put her down.
“He insisted on carrying me. Apparently, some fox told him to be my bodyguard.” She squinted at Brimstone. “Wait. Are you bigger?”
“He definitely is,” Abraham said leadenly, head tilting to take in the demon fox’s new form.
Mae chewed her lip. It was only now she was realizing her familiar had kept the size he’d manifested in Hell, this despite the fact that they’d returned to Earth.
“It’s because my witch is stronger now,” Brimstone huffed. He cocked his head toward the open park. “That one’s second awakening had something to do with it too.”
Hellreaver reappeared on cue, serrated blades coated with blood.
“Man, that was fun!” he enthused.
Abraham and Bryony’s eyes bulged. Even Rambrog looked uneasy at the sight of the sentient weapon.
“He can talk now?” the New York coven High Priestess said warily.
“You’ll get used to it.” Mae’s gaze locked on the man watching them silently from a distance. “Why are you here, Oscar?” She scanned his wounds with a neutral expression. “And why does it look like you’ve been fighting on our side?”
Oscar’s face tightened with resolve as he met her stare. “The spell Nikolai cast on me back at that castle broke the hold my father had on me.”
Mae swallowed. So, we were right!
She felt happy for Nikolai then. Even though he’d never said anything out loud, she knew he’d been thinking about Oscar ever since they’d seen what Subjugate had done to Drabek.
Vlad took a threatening step forward.
“So what?! Are you saying we should forgive you for all the horrible crimes you’ve committed over the years? That we should feel sympathy for you?!” The incubus’s pupils burned with a crimson radiance that sought to scorch the man he glared at. “Don’t make me laugh!”
Cortes similarly glowered at Oscar. The Dark Council had assisted Raya in killing his first familiar and removing him from his destined role as the next High Priest of the Medellin coven.
Oscar sighed. “No. That’s not what I’m saying at all. I will never be able to make amends for all the evil acts I’ve perpetrated and the people whose lives I’ve taken. I will never—” His voice broke, his shoulders slumping. He took a shuddering breath before meeting their gazes unflinchingly. “I will never receive my brother’s forgiveness for what I did to him and our kin. But I do regret everything I have ever done to you and yours. That’s why I left my father’s side at the earliest opportunity. So I could bring you this.”
He removed something from his pocket, walked over, and placed it in Mae’s hands. Her breath caught at the sight of the Book of Light.
A shudder shook Hellreaver. He coughed and spat out the skeleton key she’d given him for safekeeping.
Mae snatched the artifact out of the air. Her pulse spiked.
It was vibrating.
The Book of Light trembled in her other hand, matching the key’s resonance. It could only mean one thing.
We need to find it, Mae! Na Ri urged.
Blood thrummed in Mae’s veins.
She met Oscar’s steady gaze. “Where’s the Book of Shadows?”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Alicia’s scythe sliced a group of ghouls neatly in two. Nikolai blasted the devils dropping down on him with Hell Flare. The spell obliterated the monsters and scorched the air inside the tunnel, painting its walls with a bright glow.
The light sparked off Azazel’s spear where he clashed with Barquiel farther down the passage, his expression focused and his movements confident as he delayed his archenemy’s advance.
With Barquiel’s army nowhere near as large as they’d expected it to be, they were more than halfway to the location where the demon had hidden Ran Soyun’s soul and her mortal remains.
Nikolai could see Barquiel’s desperation growing with every step they made toward their final destination.
We need to hurry!
Alastair crouched on his shoulder, the crow’s power amplifying his own as he cast spell after blinding spell, obliterating the enemy even faster than the Reaper queen’s blade. White magic was the one weapon few in Hell could overcome and the reason why Ran Soyun had been so powerful down here.
Soon, the last ghouls and devils fell, clearing the path ahead.
Alicia flew back to where Azazel fought Barquiel. “Go, Zaz!”
Crimson brightened the Reaper queen’s orbits. She moved in front of the demon and slammed her scythe on the ground. Her blade expanded in a flash of light, forming a glinting, metal lattice that blocked the passage with a thin wall sharp enough to cut the air. Darkness swarmed Alicia as her form grew, her cloak billowing and casting long shadows all around them.
“I will keep this bastard here,” she growled. “Take Nikolai and free Ran Soyun!”
An unholy sound left Barquiel. He slammed his broadsword into Alicia’s barrier.
It held.
Azazel whirled around, shot toward Nikolai, and grabbed his wrist. Nikolai’s stomach lurched as his feet left the ground.
The demon flew rapidly, his wings skimming the walls of the tunnel whenever he swerved inside one of its many branches, his face brightening with every bifurcation and chasm they crossed.
They could both feel Ran Soyun’s magic growing ahead of them.
A faint light finally glimmered in the distance.
Azazel’s breath caught. “Ran!”
The demon accelerated, his speed bringing tears to Nikolai’s eyes and causing Alastair to crouch even lower where he sank his claws in his shoulder.
They rounded the corner of the widening passage and came upon the cave holding the first Witch Queen’s prison.
Azazel landed lightly on the ground and folded his wings. He let go of Nikolai, his eyes glinting with unshed tears as he marched toward the dome of demonic energy trapping the brilliance of his wife’s incredible magic.
