Page 2

CHAPTER 2

T he magic hit Amelia like a freight train that was loaded with darkness and bad intentions. She jerked upright in the soft bed. Her tank top clung to her sweat-slicked skin as power crackled through the air. The digital clock on her nightstand read 3:33 AM. It was the witching hour's sweet spot. She should have known this shit couldn't wait until a decent time. That wasn’t how evil worked.

"Well, fuck." The curse slipped out as another wave of wrongness washed over her magical senses. This wasn't your garden variety demon activity. This was something else. Something bigger.

Throwing back the covers, Amelia padded to the window of her room in the Angels of Retribution mansion. After the attack at her place, Camael had insisted she move in temporarily. Right. Like anything involving that male was temporary.

The New Orleans night spread out before her. It was a tapestry of lights and shadows that usually sang with magical energy. But tonight? The song had gone discordant. Almost as if someone had taken a baseball bat to the cosmic symphony.

The powers she’d inherited from a long line of witches who made the Salem crew look like amateurs picked up every wrong note. The usual demonic signatures that plagued the city were there, yeah. But underneath them was something other. Something that made her magical core shiver.

"You feel it, too." The deep voice traveled down her spine, making her shiver.

She managed not to jump at Camael's voice behind her. The archangel moved like a damn cat when he wanted to, all lethal grace and controlled power. She turned to find him watching her with those ice-blue eyes. They seemed to see straight through her bullshit.

"Yeah." No point lying to an angel who could probably taste deception in the air. "This is different. Bigger."

He crossed the room to join her at the window. Holy mother of magic, did the male fill up space. Six-foot-four of just divine warrior wrapped in black sleeping pants and nothing else. His chest looked like it was carved from celestial marble. It caught the moonlight in ways that should be illegal. Focus, witch.

"Tell me what you're sensing," he said. His deep voice rumbled through her bones.

Amelia closed her eyes, and she reached out with her magical awareness. "It's like... imagine the universe is sheet music. There’s all the normal stuff. Humans, animals, and even regular demons. They're playing their parts. But something's introducing new notes. Wrong ones. These shouldn't exist in this reality."

"Lucifer?" Camael asked.

"No." She was certain about that. "This is older. It’s also a different flavor of wrong. "

Camael cursed in what might have been Enochian. "Show me."

Amelia hesitated for only a second before placing her hand on his chest. Skin-to-skin contact amplified magical connections. She needed all the juice she could get for this. His skin burned hot under her palm. It was like touching a star that had decided to take human form.

"Sweet Lord in Heaven." The words slipped out as her magical senses merged with his celestial ones. The resulting awareness was like IMAX compared to a flip book.

The wrongness was everywhere. It was threading through reality like corrupt veins in marble. But it was concentrated in... "The cemetery," they said in unison.

Camael's hand covered hers where it still rested on his chest. "We need to-"

A scream split the night. It wasn't a human scream. This was the sound of reality itself protesting. Amelia doubled over as magical feedback slammed through her system. Images flashed behind her eyes. Ancient beings were stirred from eternal sleep. Cosmic forces were twisted against their nature. And there was darkness. So much darkness.

Strong arms caught her before she hit the floor. "What did you see?" Camael demanded, concern roughening his voice.

"This is not about collecting power for their use," she gasped out. "They're trying to wake something up. Something old. I’m talking pre-dating angels old."

The temperature in the room dropped ten degrees as Camael's power leaked out. "That's not possible. The Oldest Ones were bound before Creation itself."

"Tell that to whatever's trying to pick their cosmic locks." Amelia straightened. She had to force her legs to remain steady. "And here's the kicker. They need a key. A very specific kind of key. "

Understanding dawned in those ancient eyes. "A witch with both celestial and infernal bloodlines in her heritage. One who can channel both light and shadow."

Well, shit. "That's why they took me before," Amelia realized as the pieces clicked into horrible place. "They weren't trying to corrupt my power. They were testing it. Seeing if I could handle both energies."

"And now they know you can." Camael's wings manifested. They were massive things of divine power spreading across the wall behind him. "We need to move. Now."

The door burst open as Rami charged in, battle-ready. "Boss, we got problems. Something's happening at-"

"St. Louis Cemetery," Camael finished. "Rally the troops. Full battle gear."

"Already on it." Rami's gaze flicked to where Camael's hand still gripped Amelia's arm. He wisely kept his mouth shut. "We’ll be ready to go in five minutes."

Once they were alone again, Camael fixed her with a look that could've melted steel. "You're staying here."

Oh, hell no. "Like fuck I am." Amelia channeled power into her hands. She let witch-fire dance between her fingers. "They're using my heritage for this mess. That makes it my fight."

"They're trying to wake up beings that pre-date Creation," he growled. "Beings that could unmake everything you know."

"Exactly. And I'm the only one who can sense exactly what they're doing with the magical currents." She stepped closer. She had to crane her neck to meet his gaze. "You need me on this, Archangel. Deal with it."

For a long moment, they engaged in a staring contest so intense the temperature in the room dropped twenty degrees. The chandelier crystals started tinkling like wind chimes in a hurricane. Divine power met witch attitude in a clash that would have had the demons in Hell taking cover. Finally, Camael cursed long enough to make a sailor blush. "Fine. But you stay close."

And wasn't that just perfect? Heaven's most badass archangel, getting schooled by five-foot-seven full of curves and magical attitude. "Wouldn't dream of being anywhere else," she drawled. She chose to ignore how true that statement actually was.

Five minutes later, Amelia found herself in the middle of what looked like a celestial SWAT team briefing. The Angels of Retribution had transformed the mansion's dining room into a war room. It was complete with maps and weapons that glowed.

Jo tossed Amelia a leather jacket. "Here. It's warded. It won't stop a direct hit, but it’s better than nothing."

"Thanks." Amelia shrugged it on. She appreciated the protection and the style. The Angels of Retribution looked fine as hell when heading into battle.

Cassiel stood in a corner. His seer marks glowed like neon as he stared at nothing. "The veils between worlds grow thin. Ancient eyes open in eternal darkness."

"That's not ominous at all," Malachi muttered before checking the edge on a blade that gleamed with divine light.

Rami spread a map across the table. "St. Louis Cemetery is the oldest in the city. It makes sense they'd pick it for whatever cosmic horror show they're planning."

"They'll have guards," Az pointed out. His wings twitched with battle readiness. "Lots of them." It was claustrophobic with so many wings crowding the room. Even with them folded against their backs.

Camael's smile made Amelia shudder. It wasn’t the sexy smirk he reserved for her. "Good."

Amelia barely heard the tactical discussion that followed. Her magical senses were screaming now. She was picking up disturbances that felt like nails on the cosmic chalkboard. The wrongness was spreading. It was beginning to corrupt the natural flow of power through the city. Underneath it all was a pull. A call that sang to something deep in her blood.

"They've started," she announced. Her words cut through the discussion. "Whatever ritual they're doing is already in motion."

All eyes turned to her. Camael stepped closer. His presence was both steadying and electrifying. "What are you picking up?"

"It's like..." She searched for words to describe the indescribable. "Imagine reality is fabric. They're pulling on threads that shouldn't be touched. They're creating holes where something else can peek through."

"It should stay buried," Cassiel interjected. His eyes were now glowing solid gold. "The Oldest Ones stir in their prison of stars and shadow."

A shiver ran through Amelia as his words resonated with something in her magical core. "There's more. They're doing more than just trying to wake these things up. They're trying to bind them. Control them."

"Ambitious," Rami noted dryly. "Stupid, but ambitious."

"How much time do we have?" Camael demanded.

Amelia reached out with her power and tried to gauge the ritual's progress. The feedback nearly brought her to her knees. Images flashed through her mind. Stars went dark. Reality began unraveling at the seams. And something vast and ancient turned its attention to their tiny corner of existence.

"Not long," she managed through gritted teeth. "An hour. Maybe less."

"Then we move now." Camael's voice carried the weight of divine authority. "Jo, Az. You're our eyes in the sky. Mal and Zach, you’re on perimeter control. Rami, you're with me and Amelia. The rest of you know your positions."

The angels moved with practiced efficiency. Weapons appeared, and battle armor materialized. But before they could head out, Cassiel grabbed Amelia's arm. "The stars remember," he said in a voice echoing with power. "When the First Light split the darkness, your line was there. Bearer of both shadow and flame. Walker between worlds. You are more than you know." Well, that was new.

"Cass?" Rami stepped forward. "You okay there, brother?"

But the seer's grip on Amelia's arm tightened. "The blood of stars runs in your veins, witch. The Oldest Ones know this. They fear it. That's why they send their servants for you. You are a key forged before..."

Power surged between them. Suddenly, Amelia wasn't in the mansion anymore. She was floating in a void of stars and darkness. She watched as beings of pure light and pure shadow waged war. And there, in the midst of it all, was a figure wielding both energies. She was weaving them together to create... The vision shattered as Camael yanked her back. He broke Cassiel's grip. "Enough."

His interference came a little too late. The knowledge was already burning in Amelia's mind. It was reshaping everything she thought she knew about herself. Her family line was there at the beginning. They'd helped forge the barriers between light and shadow. They put up the veils between the Earth and what lay beyond it.

"Well, shit," she breathed as she steadied herself against Camael's solid frame. "That explains a few things."

"You okay?" His voice rumbled through her where they touched.

"Define okay," she muttered while she straightened and let her power settle. "We can unpack my cosmic family drama later. Right now, we've got bigger problems. "

As if to emphasize her point, another wave of evil rolled through the city. "Move out," Camael ordered. The Angels of Retribution vanished in a flutter of wings and divine light.

The cemetery materialized around them. Old stones and older magic created a maze of shadows and power. But something was wrong with the familiar necropolis’ energy. The usual whispers of the dead had gone silent. They’d been replaced by something that made Amelia's magical senses recoil.

"There." She pointed to where dark energy writhed around one of the oldest mausoleums. "They're using the tomb as a focal point. It’s smart. All that death energy amplifies their ritual."

Demons lurked in the shadows. Their red eyes gleamed as they spotted the celestial invasion. But these weren't your standard-issue Hellspawn. These were older and darker. They carried traces of the power she sensed in Cassiel’s vision.

"Anyone else missing regular demons right about now?" Malachi muttered as the creatures emerged.

The battle erupted like someone had popped the cork on Hell's finest vintage of ass-kicking. Jo and Az took to the sky. Their wings cast moonlit shadows as they rained celestial steel on anything ugly. One particularly nasty piece of work, seriously, it was all tentacles and teeth, caught Az's blade right through what might have been a face. It exploded into goo that would've given Lovecraft nightmares.

Mal and Rami worked the ground game. They moved like twin dealers of divine destruction. When three ancient horrors sporting more eyes than a spider convention rushed them, the warriors didn't even break stride. They fought seamlessly. Before she knew it, there were a lot fewer eyes in the cemetery.

Zach was a one-angel demolition crew. His flaming sword cut through monstrosities like they were made of cosmic tissue paper. "These are some ugly-ass motherfuckers!" he shouted, decapitating something with too many heads.

Amelia threw out spells, taking out monsters in the process. She turned so she was back-to-back with Camael. Her witch-fire painted the night in shades of arcane purple while his divine blade wreaked havoc with celestial light. They moved together like they'd been doing it for centuries. Her magic covered his blind spots while his blade kept the nastiest pieces of work off her six.

While they battled, something was yanking at her magical core. It pulled her toward that mausoleum like a cosmic magnet. The same something that had been singing in her blood since this shitstorm started. She was so focused on the pull that she missed ugly demon number forty-seven coming in hot on her left.

The bastard was fast. Faster than anything that looked like rejected concept art from Silent Hill had any right to be. Its claws raked across her arm before she could throw up a shield. The leather jacket Jo had given her took most of the damage. Unfortunately, enough got through to draw blood. Nothing said ‘party time’ like bleeding in the middle of a supernatural throwdown. Power surged through the cemetery as her blood hit the ground. The chanting from the mausoleum reached a fever pitch.

"No!" Amelia realized what was happening a second too late. "They didn't need me there. They just needed my blood! This whole attack was a setup!"

The ground began to shake as something vast and ancient stirred beneath them. Cracks appeared in the air. They leaked darkness older than time. "How do we stop it?" Camael demanded. His wings flared with his anger.

Amelia's mind raced. "My bloodline helped forge the barriers. Maybe..." She didn't finish the thought. Instead, she reached deep into her magical core. She worked past the carefully constructed walls that had kept parts of her power safely contained. Light and shadow responded to her call. They twined around her like loving pets. “Cover me,” she told Camael.

She didn't wait for his response. She charged straight for the mausoleum. Her magic was already gathering around her hands like eager attack dogs straining at their leashes. A demon with three heads lunged for her left flank. Above her, Jo dropped out of the night sky like an avenging Valkyrie. Her flaming sword took out all three heads in one graceful arc. Black ichor sprayed the tombstones as the demon's body dissolved into goo.

"Keep going!" Jo shouted. She’d already pivoted to slam her steel-toed boot into another demon's face. The crack of breaking bone was deeply satisfying.

Twenty feet from the mausoleum steps, something massive reared up. It had tentacles and too many eyes. Before Amelia could even raise her hands, Mal's blade burst through its center mass from behind. Blue flames ate through corrupted flesh. The warrior grinned at her through the dissolving demon parts. "Ladies first!"

But it was Camael who really cleared her path. The archangel moved like a force of nature. His Sword of Light left trails of divine fire that burned Amelia's retinas. She caught glimpses as she ran. His blade took a demon's head clean off. His wings blocked a spray of acid from another. His fist punched through one particularly ugly bastard's chest.

Three priests saw her coming and started some kind of dark chant. Amelia didn't let them finish. She unleashed both sides of her power at once. Witch-fire and shadow magic combined into something that violated every fire safety law. The priests' human disguises burned away. She saw the horrors beneath just before her magic turned them into ash.

The head priest remained and was towering over his ritual circle. His hands were raised to the bleeding sky. His true form leaked through around the edges. Seven sets of eyes blinked at her. Their color was a shade she couldn't identify. They were blue, but also purple, green, brown, and black. His flesh rippled and shifted. When he opened his mouth to chant, she caught glimpses of a throat that spiraled down into darkness forever. It was lined with razor-sharp teeth that chimed against each other. They were wind chimes made of razor blades.

His hands - there were more than two now - reached toward the hemorrhaging heavens. They kept splitting and reforming. Each finger ended in points of steel that would cut holes through cement. Power rolled off him in waves.

"You want old power?" The snarl ripped from Amelia’s throat as her magic rose around her like a storm. "Let me show you what that really means."

Cassiel's vision blazed through her mind. The ancient knowledge she got from the glimpse burned away any hesitation. Her hands slammed onto the ritual circle as she let her power flow free. Raw light and primordial shadow poured from her hands into symbols carved before time learned to crawl. The two powers should've shredded each other on contact. Like matter meeting antimatter. Her magic chose to dance instead of detonate. The opposing forces braided together under her will and turned those runes into something else. Everything froze for one endless second. Then everything went boom.

"Holy shit," she heard Rami breathe from somewhere behind her.

The cracks in reality began to seal themselves as her hybrid magic reinforced the ancient barriers. The darkness retreated. And the vast presence that had been stirring retreated. Unfortunately, the dark priests weren't done. Their leader launched itself at her with inhuman speed.

"The Key must die!" It shrieked in a voice that hurt reality itself. "The bloodline must end!"

A blade of pure darkness materialized in its hand. It was aimed straight for her heart. Amelia knew she wouldn't be able to dodge in time. Fortunately, she didn't have to. Camael appeared between them. His Sword of Light met the dark blade with a clash that sent out shockwaves. "Wrong move."

What happened next would've made Michael Bay retire from action movies. Camael hit that ancient horror like a freight train made of pure badass. His first strike sent the thing flying back ten feet. But the horror was fast. It came back swinging with limbs that kept changing shape. What remained the same was the fact that each one ended in claws that could cut holes in Camael.

The archangel moved like violence given form. He ducked under a swipe that would've taken his head off. He came up with an uppercut that stunned the leader. When the horror tried to wrap those ever-shifting limbs around him, Camael grabbed what might have been an arm and used it as leverage to throw the thing into a mausoleum wall. Stone cracked. The horror screamed.

Meanwhile, Amelia worked on dismantling that ritual circle. She tried to ignore how the energy was trying to call back the ancient entity. It wasn’t a surprise that the power they'd called up was fighting back like a demon at an exorcism.

"Incoming!" Jo's warning came with a blast of power that lit up the night. Above them, cracks spider-webbed across the sky like black lightning. It spread faster than kudzu on steroids.

"Shit." The curse slipped out as understanding hit Amelia like a supernatural sledgehammer. "They tied the ritual to their own life forces! If we kill them-"

"Reality goes boom," Rami finished for her as he matrix-dodged a demon's claws. "Fantastic."

The head priest's laugh sounded like a symphony played on broken glass and lost souls. "You cannot stop what has begun. The Oldest Ones will rise. Your pitiful barriers will shatter!"

Time did that weird slow-motion thing it does when you're about to either have a brilliant idea or fuck up spectacularly. They couldn't kill the priests without everything falling apart. But they couldn't exactly let them wake up things that pre-dated existence either.

The answer hit her. A detail from the vision burned through her brain like magical neon. The first barriers hadn't been created by force. They'd been woven. They were the universe's most complicated friendship bracelet. "Camael!" Power gathered around her hands as she shouted. "I need your blade!"

The archangel didn't even hesitate. His Sword of Light went spinning through the air toward her. Without a hiccup, he switched to hand-to-hand combat with that horror. He caught one of its maybe-arms and used it to beat the hell out of what might have been its face. The sword landed in Amelia's grip like it belonged there. The power thrumming through it made her magical core sit up and howl. Time to show these ancient asshats what happened when you pissed off a witch with a divine blade and something to prove.

She drove that sword straight into the heart of their ritual circle. The impact sent shockwaves through the cemetery strong enough to knock over tombs, but that was just the opening act. Her two favorite flavors of power spiraled out from where the blade pierced those ancient symbols. Instead of destroying them, she wove that power through the priests' life forces like she was rewriting their DNA. Their energy was redirected to reinforce the very barriers they'd tried to break.

The head priest figured it out a second too late. "No-!"

But that train had already left the station, baby. Those seven sets of eyes went wide as his connection to the Oldest Ones snapped. His true form began to stretch and warp as it was pulled toward the barrier like water down a cosmic drain. The air rippled as his ancient essence got sucked into the walls between worlds. His stolen meat suit crumpling empty to the ground. One by one, the other priests followed suit. Their screams echoed across dimensions as they became part of the very thing they'd tried to destroy.

The cemetery went dead silent. "Well," Amelia managed. She felt like she'd run a couple dozen marathons. "That was fun." Her knees decided that staying vertical was overrated. But before she could face-plant into the ritual circle, Camael was there.

"You have an interesting definition of fun," he rumbled. Damn if his voice didn't do things to her even when she was about to pass out.

The Angels of Retribution gathered around, looking like they'd just survived a supernatural blender. Their clothes were torn. They had various cuts and bruises. And enough demon goo between them to fill a swimming pool. But they’d won this round.

Cassiel's eyes were doing that glowy thing again as he studied her. "The stars sing of change. The bloodline awakens fully at last."

"Does he ever just say 'good job'?" The words slipped out before she could filter them.

The scattered laughter that followed helped break the apocalyptic tension. Camael's expression stayed serious as those ice-blue eyes locked onto hers. "We need to talk about what just happened. About what you are."

"Yeah." She let herself lean into him because staying upright was becoming a serious challenge. "But can we do it after coffee? Saving reality works up a hell of a thirst."

His lips twitched in what might have been a smile. "Coffee first. Then we figure out why beings older than time itself are interested in your family tree."

"And why they want me dead," she added helpfully. If they answered that, they might stand a chance of stopping whatever had been set into motion.