Page 33

Chapter 33

Elijah

I stared down at Atropa Belladonna Lovell’s corpse. She was laid out on the workroom table, not a scratch on her. Other than being a little paler than usual, she looked like she was just sleeping. She didn’t even have the pallor of a normal corpse, at least any I’d seen. She looked… almost alive. All thanks to the preservation spell Dyre had placed on her.

Sighing, I gave in and lowered my mental shields, which I’d been hiding behind since the battle. I tilted my head and “listened” with my newly enhanced power—something none of us had discussed yet—and my soul sight opened up like a third eye.

And damn it, Andy was right. I couldn’t see ghosts the way she could. Not even Dyre could, though I suspected he could hear them or… sense them in some other way, like I was doing now. I couldn’t see Bella’s ghost hanging around chiding Andy and giving her a headache the way Andy described. But I could see the fragment of soul spark that still clung to the witch’s body. And I could see the bright orb of energy that wove through the room, as if the soul was pacing, impatiently waiting for us to remedy the situation, rather than moving on to wherever she should have gone by now.

“Holy spirit of the Divine,” I muttered, not happy about what I was seeing.

I had accused Andy of drinking too much of Ambrose’s “special” tea a few moments ago, but now I was really wishing I had a big steaming mug of it myself.

“You see something, don’t you?” Andy asked, crossing her arms in a way that made her lovely breasts strain the fabric of her t-shirt, and tapping her foot like a cartoon character. I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if smoke started pouring out of her ears, with the way she radiated impatience. She gestured at where the orb was currently floating next to Dyre.

“She’s been yammering about necromancers and angels since we left Magea,” Andy grumbled. “She won’t fucking shut up.” I swear I saw her eyelid twitch.

It had been a rather… trying day. One none of us had really taken time to process yet.

Dyre was silent. But his sharp gaze watched me like a hawk, waiting. Letting me make this decision on my own, rather than ordering me to do as he wished, the way we all knew he probably could.

I was at odds with myself. On one hand, Bella was Andy’s sister and only living relative, and her soul clearly wasn’t ready to move on. But on the other hand… none of us had fully trusted her when she was alive, her motives were still suspect, and her morals were questionable, to say the least. She had been willing to do some pretty awful things in her quest for victory.

I didn’t question whether I could do it. Somehow, I just knew. I could call Atropa Belladonna’s soul back into her earthly vessel. Something inside me had been altered by the power exchange between us all, by my link with Dyre and Sunshine… angels couldn’t restore the dead to life. We weren’t actually deities or messengers of some divine power. But… I wasn’t an angel anymore. Or, not just an angel. I was a revenant tied to a staggeringly powerful and skilled necromancer, and Andy and Sunshine had somehow formed some superbond between everyone in this house that sent my existing magic skyrocketing to a level that was terrifying.

If the other angels knew about this, knew what I suspected I could do now… they’d hunt me. They’d want me executed before anyone else caught on to what sort of abomination we had manage to create and started trying to make their own freak angels.

I wouldn’t blame the angels for killing me. Power like this shouldn’t exist.

A comforting wash of energy pulled me from my thoughts as Hasumi materialized in the room.

Dyre stopped staring at me at once, turning to the water weaver and biting out, “Where are the children? You left them?”

I arched a brow at his tone. But Hasumi just smiled faintly and sent a feeling of reassurance through the room. “They are safe. Sleeping beside their new kitty. Zhong is watching over them and tending to their every need. I thought I might be needed here.”

Dyre cleared his throat and turned away to stare at Bella’s corpse. “Of course.”

“Elijah?” Andy said with as much gentleness as she could probably muster at this point. She really wasn’t a patient woman to begin with, and it had been a long day.

I squared my shoulders. There was nothing to be gained by dawdling. “Ask her…why.”

“Why?” Andy repeated.

I nodded. “Yes. Why does she linger. Why does she want to live, when she could move on.”

Andy turned toward the orb, which was now hovering near Hasumi. “Well?” she said, putting her hands on her hips. “I know you heard him.”

She narrowed her eyes as she apparently listened to the ghostly voice of her sister. Was this what it had looked like when she spoke to me before I was reincarnated into this body? Then again, I had been able to take on a bit more corporeal form, thanks to my angelic powers and the spell placed on the bestiary, so maybe not.

“She says she has unfinished business. That she wasn’t done living. And that she wants to make up for her wrongs.”

Andy looked doubtful as she relayed the words. “That’s the best you could come up with?” she said in the direction of her sister’s soul orb. “Lame.” The orb moved over the table and into the corpse, as if trying to rejoin its body. “Knock it off,” Andy said waving the ghost away, that’s so fucking creepy.”

She looked up at us and seemed to only then realize none of us could see what she was seeing. Rolling her eyes, she gestured at the body. “She’s laying there giving the whole thing this weird outline, it makes my eyes hurt.” Then to her sister. “No, don’t roll over! You look like you’re humping yourself right now.”

I pressed my lips together. Dyre snorted. But the weight of the situation kept us from laughing at the ridiculousness of it all. I turned toward Hasumi. “Can you sense her? Feel the truth of her intentions?”

The water weaver considered for a moment, then nodded. “Her emotions are… faint and difficult to read, but I can sense some hint of them. There is love. Desperation. Regret. Remorse. But I can’t say what the source is. I cannot tell you what it is she loves or regrets. Only that those emotions are present.”

Andy heaved a heavy sigh. “Look. We all know she was probably a power-hungry asshole, just like the rest of my family. But I think she was at least trying to be a better person. Until Junaid died and it made her forget about little things like morals.” She sighed. “I think… I hope… that the evil in her just got the upper hand for a second because she was hurting. I think she deserves a chance to do better, since she obviously wants it so badly.”

I reluctantly nodded. Her words made sense. And I was a sucker for mercy and second chances. But still… “Will her blood tie to you give her a way to access the… thing… we’ve created?”

The bond between us all. Andy’s newly colossal power. If the bond between sisters allowed her any chance of tampering with that…

“Not directly,” Dyre said evenly. “But she’s a Lovell. She could figure it out if she wanted to, and use the magic in her blood to tap into it. Maybe try to control us or siphon power. Maybe try to recreate what happened with a group of powerful people of her own. There are probably many ways an enterprising witch with Lovell blood could use us all.”

He spoke so coldly. Matter of fact. Because he was a blood witch. But also… he was so well versed in what lengths people would go to for power and prestige… even if it meant harming their own family in the process.

I expected Andy to argue. To say Dyre was being too cynical. But she didn’t. Instead, she trapped her lower lip between her teeth and frowned as she began to pace. Thinking. Plotting. And a plotting Lovell was a dangerous thing, even if she was our Lovell.

Finally, she stopped pacing and glanced between me and Dyre. “The Snow White curse,” she said slowly. “It bled off my magic, made it so I couldn’t access it, but kept me alive and trapped in my body. I can do it. I can strip her of her magic.” She shrugged. “I don’t know how. But I just know. It’s… the magic says it can be done.”

Her facial expression said she didn’t understand it at all, but that she just accepted it. “That’s how things are now, I guess.”

She was taking every strange occurrence in stride, just like always. A small smile played at my lips at this so very Andy way of thinking. Even as ice formed in my veins at what she was suggesting.

To strip a person of their magic. It was inhumane.

But Dyre was nodding as his clever mind reorganized everything into magic theory and spell components. “Me and Elijah can fuse the soul with the body. There is still a strong link between them—maybe the legacy of Lovell power. Sunshine can help you strip her magic.”

The glowing orb seemed to dim as it rose from Bella’s body to once again hover by the table. Apparently, Bella didn’t like this idea.

“Well, tough tits!” Andy snapped. “I know what you did to the mansion before River intervened. Do you? You tried to kill us all. So. You fucked up. I know it sucks, but you should be dead right now. And I’m not going to let you just run around hatching some new evil scheme that we have to deal with. I’m done being a fucking hero or a pawn! Take it or leave it.”

The room was so silent you could have heard a pin drop while we all waited for Bella to answer.

“She’ll do it,” Andy finally said. “She has the stupid idea that if she proves herself to us, we’ll restore her power.” She glared. “Just so we’re clear, that’s not going to happen. You could be a fucking saint for the next hundred years, and I still wouldn’t let you access a single drop of Lovell magic.”

All eyes were on me again now. Was I really going to agree to this? The Most High would renounce me, perhaps behead me on the spot, if he were here. But he wasn’t. I answered to no one but myself.

Dyre and Andy had given me a second chance at life. I supposed every living being deserved that chance, if it were mine to give. “Fine,” I murmured. “But I haven’t the slightest clue how to do this.”

That was a lie, though. Once I made my decision, the magic inside me knew what had to be done. I needed to lean on Dyre’s magic, as he’d said. And Andy and Sunshine had their own part to play. But I saw it all so easily, how our magics would work together to compliment each other. To play god and return the dead to life. To command the stripping of her magic. To create yet another abomination.

But to maybe also give Andy another shot at having a sister, without war and politics getting in the way. And perhaps to give Belladonna Lovell a chance at redemption.

Stretching out my arms, I placed one hand in the center of Bella’s chest. I held the other hand palm out toward the glowing orb that was her soul. Golden light emanated from within me, from the core of my being.

Then everything went white, the world blotted out completely as I called on the magic of creation.