Page 17

I ron stood among the ruins of an abandoned strip mall two towns over and wondered how mortals capable of creating the word irony couldn’t fucking understand it when they saw it. He narrowed his eyes at the sign before him, reading it over for the third time and failing to connect it to the landscape before him.

Notice: This property is scheduled to be demolished. Trespassers will be prosecuted. Entry is strictly prohibited. Keep property free of litter and debris. If you see anyone violating this ordinance, contact the Mayerville Housing Division.

Iron craned his neck around the sign and shook his head at the landfill’s worth of shit that had accumulated in every nook and cranny of the landscape. The area wasn’t known to harbor too extensive of a homeless population, but it sure as shit served as the mecca for every college-resume-primping junior varsity and varsity athlete. Rivers of sports drinks and liquor bottles made up the formerly painted parking lot lines, while anything that could be once identified as a sidewalk or building wall was now home to a glitter bomb’s worth of glass and what had to be the least inspired graffiti he’d ever seen. Someone had painted a winky face poop emoji right next to a stick figure peeing on a cluster of questionably drawn block letters declaring Skool Sux, and So Does Your Mom!

The rest of the site wasn’t any better, with half-crumbling building facades doing jack shit to block the frigid wind. The entire thing was one CBD vape away from moonlighting as an Escher painting, with a mutilated chain-link fence decorating the perimeter for good, though ultimately useless, measure.

If the devil was in the details, this place had paid for the sins of every sex trafficker, war criminal, and crime lord with fucking pastel spray paint and atomized concrete. And that was with the decreased visibility nightfall afforded. He shuddered to think what sort of things slithered to the surface once the noonday sun baked the concrete landscape to an inhabitable temperature.

The metal structures the strip mall left behind, though, were still useful, and that was why he was there.

Iron toed something that looked like it had begun its life as a Powerade bottle out of his way and let the bright glow of his phone spotlight his presence so his brothers knew where to touch down when they arrived, which would be any minute.

He did not kill time—and his sanity—by hovering his thumb over the only name he hadn’t been able to get out of his head since he’d left her cabin three days ago.

If he thought he’d known hell, he hadn’t expected the dick punch that came with seeing Anna curl up into the smallest form of herself while he dressed her down like she was a child who hadn’t thought of the repercussions that came with having ice cream for dinner every night. But the truth was, she’d been three steps ahead of him before he’d even gotten through the door. Not only did she want ice cream every night but she’d already mapped out healthy and feasible options for every other fucking meal, thus bringing balance to the force and making damn sure she wasn’t only relevant but needed—that she wasn’t inconvenient.

He hadn’t expected to be called on his bullshit so eloquently, and the efficiency with which she wielded the knife terrified him, sending him into a tailspin that had him questioning every step previously laid out before him.

So, like any male well-versed in not seeing the forest for the trees, he decided that once power had been restored to her cabin and major transit lines had opened back up, he needed to focus on a new damn forest for a bit.

The steady whump whump of large angel wings beating back the night air recentered his purpose.

He quickly pocketed his phone and ducked through a patch of broken fence to join his brothers. “Thanks for coming.”

Tungsten, their prime sentinel, was the first of the angels to land and step forward. “You’ve made some headway, I take it?”

“Not sure about headway. Let’s call it a working theory.”

Bronze jumped off a pile of concrete rubble and slapped Iron on the back. “Working theories don’t abandon everyone for three days. They tend to come up for air once in a while. Have you even seen a set of four walls that wasn’t the library or the armory recently?”

Iron shrugged him off but didn’t put much effort into the rebuke. “I’ve seen enough to test a theory about the relic’s shard, but I need all of us together to do it.”

Bronze rubbed his hands together. “Are we going to blow shit up? Please tell me we’re going to blow shit up.”

Titan shared a look with Tung, then folded his arms across his chest. “I’m intrigued. What are you thinking?”

Oh boy. Here’s where things get interesting.

Iron exhaled and pulled out the shard, which was still resting in its little test tube sanctuary. “What’s something that everyone wants?”

“Power,” Bronze offered.

“No. Everyone ultimately wants what they can’t have.” Iron raised the relic higher. “ This is what Cyro can’t access. The power of the Empyrean. He’s hardwired to be repelled by the stuff. That’s why he’s been working overtime trying to find a way to circumvent its power. He’s trying to mutate it with dark magic so its innate properties won’t be so toxic to him that he’ll risk his own destruction. But at its core, this puppy is pure Empyrean light and life. Blessed by the celestial mages and imbued with our Sealing powers that we impressed upon the gates when we were cast out. It’s the literal antithesis to Cyro’s being, but we’ve been looking at things all wrong.”

Chrome pulled out a square of peppermint gum from his back pocket and popped the thing in his mouth. “How do you figure?”

“Because this thing is a toddler’s dose, when we need fire hose quantities.” Iron uncorked the test tube, grabbed the shard, and walked it over to a clear patch of concrete that was the only area concealed by the meager bits of building still standing. Then he retreated several steps back. “I want us to hit it with our angel fire.”

Seven heads with identical question marks floating above them all whipped around at the same time.

“No, hear me out. It’s been gnawing at me for days, why Cyro’s been spending all this time trying to manipulate Empyrean magic. The asshole’s risked exposure, capture, and finite resources trying to corrupt it and bend it to his will. Why? Because he’s fucking terrified of it and of what would happen if we suped that little thing up to not only full strength but nuclear levels.”

All through Iron’s explanation, Chrome was nodding with what Iron hoped was understanding, though with Chrome, it was hard to tell. “So, we fire at that thing and then what?”

“Then we wait, see what happens, and go from there.”

“What if we destroy it?” Brass replied.

It was Tung who fielded that one. “Impossible. It’s of the Empyrean, as are we. Our power is symbiotic. It flows between all beings and things born of the prime mages. If it truly is a piece of the gates, it would recognize our fire and respond accordingly.”

“The thing’s already been following me around,” Iron added, “firing up like a damn compass whenever it wanted to make the soul bond known to me.”

Titan lifted a brow at that. “ The soul bond? Not your soul bond? Does she not have a name?”

“I’m not talking about that right now,” Iron gritted out.

“ That or Anna ?”

Bronze swept his hand out, palm up. “Dude, you brought her up. Titan has a point.”

The needling wasn’t just an act of love from well-intentioned brothers who wanted the best for him while teasing him about his worst. It was the kind of perpetual prodding that had followed Iron around with a weight that held as much significance for him as it did for his family.

“Just get in position. Spread out in a circle around the shard. I don’t need this to take all night. I’d rather my theories fail earlier than later.”

With his giant hold your tongue or I’ll cut it out message being received loud and clear on every stony jaw within kicking distance, Iron went to take a stance on the far side opposite from where he’d been facing the shard.

He would not think about Anna or the betraying thoughts that would creep into his mind about what would happen if his plan didn’t work.

If he didn’t find a way to unleash the relic’s power, make it back home, and stop Cyro.

If he could imagine a few more Scrabble games and soft kisses while he made sure she and her baby were fed and cared for.

Iron didn’t wait for a three-count. Didn’t give a shit about making sure everyone was in line or in sync. His fire punched out of his fists in a blaze of blue so pummeling, he didn’t care if the damn shard atomized on contact.

He wanted an out, and he wanted answers. And as more streams of electric flames joined his, lighting up the sad demolition site like fiery wheel spokes, he finally got what he asked for.