Page 30

Chapter 30

Andy

I took Dyre’s hand and let him pull me to my feet as power coursed through me.

Old magic. Incredibly powerful magic. Born into my bloodline, amplified and nurtured by generations of Lovells—and the Blaisdell’s before them—through means both dark and light. I understood it better now. The magic was a living, breathing thing inside me. Not an innate force to be tapped and used, but a creature, an entity both natural and created, full of both goodness and wickedness, brought to life by my ancestors. It was love and sly humor, hope and cynical nihilism, a soft sheath of curious creativity wrapped around the sharp blade of dark cleverness.

The magic flowed through me, warm and strong, but more than a little wild. It wanted to be used. To be released out into the world.

But I had grown into someone who was capable of holding the reins. It was up to me whether this all-encompassing, impatient power was unleased upon the world or not. And the magic and I—we both knew it.

I closed my eyes, drawing in a deep breath, centering myself. Grounding myself in the new (or in Dyre and Sunshine’s case, simply stronger ) lifebonds that bolstered my already brimming aura. My anchors. They would keep me from letting the magic run away with me.

This was why so many of my ancestors had gone evil or full-on insane. They hadn’t been strong enough or grounded enough to keep from being completely consumed by the brilliant madness of the magic that flowed through our veins.

I opened my eyes, feeling my lips stretch into a slow smile as my gaze landed on the pathetic little cult leader, cowering behind her wards and shields. A sort of euphoric anticipation tingled through my body, so strong it was almost sexual.

“You cursed me,” I said to her, my voice richer and fuller than before. “You tried to extinguish the Lovell magic—or maybe funnel it elsewhere, into some other relic or artifact so you could use it as your own.” I shook my head, my smile growing. “As if someone like you could ever wield the power. As if it would ever let you be its master.”

She shook her head. Her unwarranted haughtiness and overconfidence fell away as she stared at me. “What…how did this happen? What… are you?”

I clucked my tongue at her and stepped forward, my lovers—my coven, though most of them weren’t witches—falling in beside me. “Oh, you really are an idiot, aren’t you?” I said easily.

“This,” I threw my arms wide to encompass the entire block, the entire city, the entire fucking war that the supremacist assholes had started. “This happened because you and your stupid witch friends couldn’t just know your place, fuck off to the shadows and continue scurrying around there like good little roaches. No, you had to hunt the weak. You had to hoard power through any means necessary.” I took a step closer to her, standing with my toes nearly touching the protective bubble of black magic she had erected around herself. “ This happened because you all thought you were the predators in this sick little game of yours,” I whispered to her, leaning in and arching my brows. “But guess what, bitch? You just woke up the sleeping monster. Turns out, you are nothing but prey. ”

She huffed, drawing on her reserves, probably pulling on magic from her slaves, or from some other nasty artifact she had stolen from another powerful witch family. But it wouldn’t help her now.

I flicked my fingers at her in a lazy gesture and the protective bubble surrounding her shattered like spun sugar. It was nothing. I didn’t need a spell or an incantation. I didn’t even have to know how the magic worked. All I had to do was will the protections around her to disappear, and they were gone.

Imagine all the things I could do with this new power. If all I had to do was will a strong black magic spell out of existence, what else could I do? I shuddered as the power surged inside me, begging to be freed. Yes. We could do anything together.

I pushed the eager flood of magic down, for the time being. Then I nodded toward the others around me. “Do what you will. This ends now.”

After all, it was hardly fair to hog all the fun for myself.

Dyre and Sunshine were the first to move. I knew they had been waiting for this opportunity for a long time now, waiting for me to get over my silly morals and hesitations. A wave of necromantic magic pulsed outward from Dyre’s tall form, his long red hair whipping in the wind caused by its passing. He looked a bit like an ancient avenging spirit himself, even without Sunshine’s help. Corpses rose. Dozens of them. Hundreds, maybe, as the magic stretched beyond the carnage before us to encompass the entire capitol city and the surrounding areas. And along with it, the wraith’s hunger—devouring souls and adding to the undead army, eliminating every dark magic practitioner it came across, and adding to the loop of power that kept on creating ever more death and raising even more corpses... they could keep it up infinitely, if they chose, until the entire world was nothing but a sea of animated corpses.

I could sense the seeking fingers of the necromantic magic like an extension of myself. My connection to both the necromancer and the wraith let me feel the full extent and reach of their power for the first time. It was unsettling. And fascinating.

I licked my lips and drew in a slow breath as I struggled to equalize my own magic, to keep it from rising up to join with the dark allure the necromancer had just made manifest in the air around us.

My attention was drawn back to the stupid O’Leary witch before me as she started to mutter the inane words that would let her focus some inconsequential spell. Once, she would have been a danger to me. But now she was nothing more than a minor annoyance. Like a mosquito buzzing around, just begging to be smacked.

“Silence!” I commanded, cutting off her airflow with a thought. She choked on her words and fell to her knees, clutching at her throat.

I stared down at her, knowing there was probably something I should feel. Some soft emotion that was beyond me at present. All I felt was a faint tinge of annoyance and a desire to get this all over with so I could go back to my life without anyone bothering me. Her eyes bulged as they met mine, desperate and pleading, the blood vessels bright red at the corners.

I wondered how many of the slaves who she had forced into battle had looked at her with the same beseeching gaze. How many of the people she had murdered for daring to stand up to her and her stupid cult had begged for their lives. Or for the lives of their children or loved ones.

She was so much weaker than me now. Perhaps I should feel bad about that power imbalance. But I didn’t. How many creatures had she killed or enslaved simply because they had less magic than she did? Because she deemed them weak, and therefore expendable.

“How does it feel?” I asked, crouching down in front of the woman as she suffocated, unable to draw breath.

She opened and closed her mouth, but nothing came out. A sort of bland curiosity came over me and I relented, allowing her to draw just enough breath to speak again.

She immediately cast a killing spell at me, but I brushed it away like swatting a fly and repeated my question. “How does it feel to know you are so weak you can’t possibly defend yourself against the heartless monster who is about to kill you? Is this sparking anything in you right now? Regret? Shame? Maybe a strong desire to apologize in the hopes I’ll be soft enough to show mercy?”

She snarled at me. “There is something wrong with you, you sadistic whore,” she bit out. “I knew there must be. Your entire family is fucked up!”

I arched my brows at her as the smell of smoke drifted to me and people started screaming. “Mmm… sadistic? I didn’t think so, until just recently. But now… I can definitely see why some people get their rocks off at the thought of someone’s pain and suffering...”

I shrugged. “But you didn’t answer my question.” I shot a little bolt of raw magic at her, patiently watching and waiting until she was done writhing and screaming before I asked again, “Do you still have nothing to say for yourself? For all you’ve done? All the suffering you’ve caused?”

She sat up and lifted her chin a notch, ignoring the drool there, her eyes full of fear but her words full of venom. “I regret nothing. My power was granted to me by the gods . Witches are the supreme , and all others should serve us.” Then she lowered her gaze for a second before looking up at me, sly and calculating. “But you see that now, don’t you? You feel it. I can sense the power you’ve gained thanks to my spell. Let us join you. Me and my people. With the true power inside you, we could cleanse the world and make it ours. A paradise for the strongest among us. You could be the one to lead all of witchkind to greatness.”

I laughed at her, dry and humorless. “You really thought that might work, didn’t you? Thought I might be stupid enough to see your cursing me as some sort of gift? Even now, you are still trying to claw your way to the top. Pathetic.”

I was bored with this nonsense. Shaking my head, I sliced my palm through the air horizontally, like a blade. The magic severed her head from her body, and I stood and turned away as she crumpled to the ground. It was a quick death. The kind of mercy she wouldn’t have bothered to show those she drained of magic and forced into slavery. But I had more important things to do.

Ambrose materialized beside me as I turned toward the… well, battle would be an overstatement. Complete domination of anyone stupid enough to opposed us would be a more accurate description.

“Andy,” the boogeyman murmured, his deep, black velvet voice like music to my ears. “Darling, I am so incredibly happy that you survived the curse and came back to us and all.”

I glanced away from the circle of jinn flames that had just incinerated a group of cultists and met Ambrose’s eerie, but beautiful, red and black eyes. “But?” I definitely heard a “but” in there.

He chuckled and took my hand. “But I feel like you may be just a bit out of sorts at the moment, love. Tell me you remember who is friend and who is foe, at least?”

I shook my head at him. “I’m pissed off, not stupid.”

He nodded, but there was a wry quirk to the corner of his lips. “Of course.”

I waved a hand at him dismissively. “Don’t you have better things to do than babysit? You should feed while you have the chance. Fill up the tank.”

“As you wish, my lady witch.” He gave me a wicked, shark-toothed grin and swept a graceful bow. Then he dissolved into smoky tendrils of shadow and raced away, off to soak in the terror around us.

“Niamh, Zhong,” I called, waiting until they had finished killing off a couple of SA-agents-turned-zombies and turned to me before I finished my request. “Please go find my sister’s body and bring it over so we can take it home with us when we leave.”

Zhong’s big hand was warm and heavy on my back, pressing me close to him, even as Niamh’s quick, hard kiss landed on my cheek. “As you wish, master,” the gargoyle rumbled out in a low voice like grinding stones. His wings snapped wide as he stepped away to allow Niamh closer. I could feel the fierce relief and violent love that flowed down the connection between me and each of them. Their joy that we were finally going to be rid of the cult and the threats of the outside world. Their joy that I was alive.

Niamh took my face in her strong, graceful hands and peered into my eyes, her own leaf-green gaze demanding. “You are changed,” she said firmly. “Who are you now, witch?”

I stared back at her, unflinching. “For now? Whoever I need to be. I’ll figure out the rest once all of our enemies are dead.”

She nodded once in understanding. The fierce, pragmatic fae hunter in her knew what I meant. Her lips met mine in a hard, claiming kiss. Then she dashed away, jogging along with a knife in each hand, while Zhong flew overhead, the two of them off to retrieve my sister’s corpse, as ordered.

And that was what it felt like— orders. I was no longer going along with whatever life threw my way. I was in charge of my fate.

I began walking again, but Aahil materialized in front of me in a burst of flames. His usually golden-brown eyes glowed with pure gold flame, and his body was wreathed in a delicate outline of rippling red, orange, and violet fire. He reached for me, and I gloried in the heat that radiated between us, his graceful hands gripping my upper arms and dragging me in for a kiss that nearly melted the skin off my bones.

“My witch,” he said as he pulled back to let me breathe, “I will burn all who wronged you.”

I arched a brow at his fierce, formal little speech. But I could feel what he wasn’t saying, through the new lifebond between us. There was a lingering desperation, because he thought he’d lost me. And an all-encompassing need to have me by his side, alive and well. “I love you too,” I told him, bending to press a kiss to his forehead, a little drunk on the fire I could feel in my veins, the heat and sensuality of his jinn magic flooding the new lifebond between us. I could drown in it. Be consumed by it and watch the world burn without a care.

His perfect lips curled up in a devilish smile as he reached up to caress my cheek. “This is what you have been hiding and denying all this time, Lovell? This power and confidence? You are glorious . Finally, a match for a perfect, powerful, beautiful being like myself.”

I snorted at his assessment of the situation. Very Aahil. The humor helped me ground myself once more, when the magic inside me would have loved for us to join him in setting the world on fire. “Careful what you wish for, jinn,” I told him seriously. “You may have met your match.”

He just laughed and dematerialized in a shower of sparks. An eruption of flames on the other side of the block from where he had just stood told me he was off to continue his reign of terror.

I felt no need to stop him this time. These assholes were getting what they deserved. They had asked for it. And then some.