Page 23

"Now you're in shock? Isn't that convenient?" a female Sentinel sneered from the back of the room; she didn't like the non-professional interaction between me and Commander Azrael.

What she didn't realize was, that Azrael was a constant around the Palace and Imperial Court where I grew up so we were no strangers to each other, in fact, he was an uncle to me and the one who taught me how to improvise when in unfamiliar hostile territory. Azrael also was the one that taught me how to properly use a grappling hook without damaging the shingles on my childhood home so my mother would stop bitching about me damaging the roof.

Azrael and I looked at the interloper as she stepped through those gathered, neither of us impressed by her lack of professionalism and both appearing slightly offended by her interruption.

"Miraculously you and your little friends managed to kill twelve Upír," she sneered, "and now suddenly, when your future Commander asks you a question, you pointedly lie to him? How disrespectful and childish. This is not a game! You need to stop this foolishness at once and answer Commander Azrael now."

I rolled my neck, causing it to crack, loudly, before looking at her. "First of all, do not be so bold as to speak to me in such a manner," I sneered.

That was terrifying; I sounded just like my mother.

"Second, it was ten Upír, two Vrykolakas, and I smelled a Stregone that had been in the stairwell before us," I informed her.

"We did not find a Stregone," Azrael said, slipping out of his jacket, and he tossed it on the table behind him.

It was never a good sign when he did that.

I smirked. "Oh, it won't be long until they rear their head, Uncle. And you," I said, speaking to the female. "You are nothing more than a Sentinel working at a Healing Center that straddles the line between the human world and that of Thaumaturgy, and have no right to question the interactions between me and Command Azrael, for he has been in my life much longer than his name has been known in yours. You have no idea what in the hell happened here tonight," I informed her.

"And you do?" she countered, trying to save face, getting closer to me.

"Yes, I do. This wasn't just a motley nest of Devilry that happened to have stumbled across a heavily guarded Healing Center of Thaumaturgy. This was a strategic operation by a strike team with a hierarchy of command that had explicit orders. These were not Fledglings, and they knew details from the guard rotation to the layout of the building and which rooms which patients were in, and they didn't attack to feed," I said, looking at Azrael as I took Viggo's necklace off then wrapped it around my hand. "The bodies you did find had their necks broken or throats sliced, not ripped out, and they weren't fed on, they were silenced."

Azrael nodded, a stake appearing in his left hand, his right hand resting on the whip hanging from his belt.

"Intelligence was provided to them, and the only survivor of the regiment of Sentinels commissioned with the protection of this facility is standing here in front of me, drawing attention to themselves like a fool," I said with a smirk, closing the distance between the vociferous female and me, sniffing as I went. "They were looking for something or someone," I said in a singsong tone. "The problem was, you didn't have high enough clearance to know which room I was in," I taunted before punching her in the face with the fist Viggo's necklace was wrapped around, using it like Holy silver knuckles.

She cried out in pain.

"I found the missing Stregone," I taunted with an evil smile.

Suddenly I was being pulled back, away from her, and was protectively sandwiched between Harper and Viggo, both had stakes in their hands, their attention on the other Sentimental in the room, looking for more threats.

The female continued to cry out in pain as the skin on her face continued to bubble and sizzle from where my hit made contact, but her cries were abruptly cut off by the black dart of shadows that pierced through one side of her neck, breaking out the other side, before it solidified into a black sickle blade that curved around the front of her throat, drawing a line of blood.

The skull at the end of the sickle that connected it to the handle hummed with power, and the black chain attached to it pulled tight, causing the shadows to solidify.

I followed the length of the chain to the source and saw Azrael wrapping the chain around his arm, pulling it tight, holding the female in place.

"Get Miss Li out of here," Azrael ordered.

I sniffed; the unmistakable smell of death and the unique and deadly blend of ingredients used in the powerful hexing components that made up a consumable curse called Mindful Insipidness was on the female's breath.

"The Sentinel is already dead," I said. "She was trying for information to see just how much we knew before the incantation ended. The Stregone, I believe, used Mindful Insipidness to control them. It's the only way it would go undetected in the middle of the Imperial Guard as it did."

"Agreed," Azrael said, and his eyes turned from molten silver to glowing emerald green just as the eyes of the skull illuminated like emeralds in the sun. The glowing green consumed the head of the female the sickle had anchored in place, and a blackened mist pulled from her open mouth and it was absorbed into the emeralds.

Once the mist was completely absorbed, the emeralds returned to obsidian and Azrael pulled the sickle free, severing the head from the body, and both fell to the floor, his eyes returning to molten silver.

Azrael snapped his hand out and the chain-sickle returned to him, coiling like a whip in his hand before he refastened it to his belt.

There was no denying he was pissed.

"I only noticed because they lost their control over her when I pushed her buttons, as Daddy would word it," I said, trying to keep him from going off on the Imperial Guard.

Azrael looked at me.

"Pride is a sin that those of Devilry fall victim to often, but when those of Thaumaturgy do when being used as fuel or as a puppet, it causes the incantations of diablerie to burn through the soul fueling them ten times faster and they lose their control," I reminded all of them, fastening the necklace around my neck. "It wasn't just her soul you pulled, was it?"

Azrael shook his head then motioned for three Imperial Guards to go do another sweep of the hospital to find the Stregone since he was without a soul; now his body would be easily found.

"Take a Vyras, they'll sniff the Stregone out quicker, Commander," Harper offered.

Azrael nodded that it was a good idea.

"What were they looking for?" someone asked, their attention on the Sentinel's body.

We all knew the answer to that already, but they wanted to hear it.

"Me," I said as if it were obvious.