Page 5

Chapter 5

Self-Defence

‘Spirits of decency!’ Galass cried, rushing over. She wasn’t concerned with me, of course, only the dead angelic. She was the only one to bother; unlike Corrigan, Shame, Aradeus, Alice and even Temper, she hadn’t worked out that the butchery wasn’t quite done yet. But Galass was young and still determined to make the world a place worth saving, even if she had to bend it into shape with her bare hands.

‘Cade, what just happened here?’

‘I don’t know.’ I might as well have plastered a villainous leer on my lips and declared, ‘ Why, it’s all part of my evil plan, of course! ’

‘ You! ’ screamed the leader of the Valiants predictably, still staring aghast at the golden blood of his comrade staining his blade. ‘This was some Infernal trick of yours!’

‘Hey, arsehole,’ Corrigan said, keeping one fist behind his back to hide the indigo sparks erupting across his knuckles. He too had had plenty of experience with supernatural beings convinced of their own holiness. ‘Have you already forgotten that we just took out an entire troop of actual Infernals to save your increasingly worthless existence?’

‘All part of your ruse, thunderer,’ accused the Valiant. His remaining comrade indicated his agreement with that preposterous conjecture by drawing his own sword.

‘Whoa,’ I said evenly. For Galass’ sake, I was determined to give diplomacy one final attempt. ‘Whoever possessed your fellow angelic clearly wants us to fight. Did you not hear what she said about letting the war unfold? The Lords Celestine are being set up, so maybe the Lords Devilish are too. We need to figure out who’s behind. . .’

I let that futile entreaty die unfinished. The identical looks on the faces of the two Valiants made it painfully obvious that some calamities really are inevitable.

‘Seven deaths, each bloodier than the last, will you and your foul coven die at our hands!’ declared the leader as he raised his now-flaming sword.

‘As it is spoken, so shall it be!’ cheered his fellow paragon of Auroral forbearance.

‘Oh, come on, man,’ I said. I really shouldn’t have been so astounded at how genuinely convinced these two morons were, not only of their righteousness, but that the great Auroral Sovereign– who doesn’t exist, by the way– was going to grant them victory. ‘Can’t you guys see this is all part of some — ? Ah, forget it. You know what? This is why I became a mercenary war mage instead of a diplomat.’

With that, I stepped back, giving Corrigan free rein to blast the living shit out of the remaining Angelic Valiants. Normally, their Auroral blessings would remake their physical forms faster than any Tempestoral bolts could tear them apart, but Galass was using her sanguinalist abilities to prevent their angelic blood from spreading the healing blessing, while Shame was disrupting the transmutation of their angelic flesh. It was weird as shit, watching the battle as the bodies of the two Valiants fluctuated back and forth between destruction and resurrection.

The stalemate ended only when Alice decapitated both Valiants with a single slash of her whip-sword.

How the hells are we going to stop a war between two unimaginably powerful armies led by hierarchies of zealots, neither of whom can be dissuaded from believing that their own victory is inevitable?

The two golden heads tumbled to the wooden platform and went rolling along the planks to stop at my feet. One of the many creepy things about angelics is that even beheaded, their mouths can always whisper final maledictions against you. We weren’t worried, though; we were already on the Celestines’ shit list.

I decided a moment of silence was in order at the passing of the angelic warriors, mostly because I needed a minute to stop my hands shaking.

Of course, not everyone shared my delicate disposition.

‘Temper, stop that!’

The kangaroo completely ignored me. He’d snatched up one of the severed heads and was eagerly slurping the golden blood from the neck.

This is why smart people don’t accidentally summon vampiric beasts from savage realms and then recruit them into their covens just because a certain Tempestoral idiot insists, ‘We’re called the Malevolent Seven , Cade. Seven. Not six.’

‘You look frightened, child,’ Shame told me.

‘I am.’

‘No, you do not understand. I can always sense your fear, your anxieties, your worry that you have set us on the wrong path.’ She reached up with a finger and pushed at one corner of my mouth as if to try and force a smile. ‘Usually, you hide it from the others.’

What do you expect? The whole world’s going mad– madder, I should say, and now there’s a new player on the board with powers I can’t explain who is apparently convinced we have a shared history that I can’t remember.

‘Hey, you want to see something funny?’ Corrigan asked, giggling like a schoolboy and pointing to the sands below the gallows.

Temper was hopping clumsily in a circle, a massive grin on his blood-soaked muzzle, playing toss with the head.

‘What ails our prancing comrade?’ Aradeus asked.

Shame peered over the edge of the gallows. ‘The beast appears. . . is he drunk? ’

‘Auroral blood,’ Alice explained, failing to hide the fact that she was licking her own lips. ‘Some find the taste. . . inebriating.’

As if our misbegotten coven wasn’t creepy enough , I thought.

‘Aw, I think it’s cute,’ Corrigan said.

One day, we were going to wake up in the middle of the night to find Temper draining all our blood, at which point I was definitely going to tell Corrigan, ‘ I told you so .’

Until then, I had more pressing concerns, starting with figuring out who had the power to possess an angelic Valiant, to scorch the aethereal hand of a Lord Celestine and then to enact one of the most unpleasant murder-suicides I’d ever witnessed. Oh, and let’s not forget she’d threatened to do likewise to all of us unless we allowed the Great Crusade between the Aurorals and Infernals to sweep unhindered across the entire Mortal realm.

First, we had to round up the kangaroo before he passed out from his whirling, drunken dance.

Oh, and deal with the townsfolk, who’d finally started moving. A woman who looked to be in her forties stepped forward. She was modestly dressed, but her air of effortless authority told me she was probably the town mayor.

‘Why’d you go kill them angels?’ she asked.

‘Self-defence.’

The mayor grabbed my arm. ‘Our town chose to side with the Lords Celestine.’ She turned me around and pointed to the gleaming alabaster spires that were already crumbling as the Auroral will faded from the settlement. ‘They promised us a shining city– every home a palace– no more need for us to toil in the fields or drudge for money.’

The indignant outrage might have been more convincing if I’d believed the mayor was as big a rube as she pretended to be. ‘And in exchange?’ I asked her. ‘All you had to promise was your souls and those of your children, right? A thousand generations of your descendants, condemned to serve as foot soldiers in their endless Crusade?’

She did a passable job of hiding her embarrassment. ‘We. . . We thought. . . When you showed up here, fighting those demons so fierce and all, we figured you for heroes.’

Since no one else was bothering to help Corrigan carry Temper, I went over and grabbed one of the unconscious kangaroo’s arms and slung it over my shoulder. ‘We’re trying to be heroes,’ I admitted, following the others back into the desert, where our horses were likely praying to whatever horsey gods exist that the seven of us weren’t returning so they wouldn’t have to deal with Temper looking at them funny all the time. ‘We’re just not very good at it yet.’