Chapter 6

The demon-controlled world Cadence brought us to was decidedly tropical. Sunny, hot, and humid—it wasn't the sort of place one would expect to find demons, but then the old heaven-and-hell stereotypes never got it quite right. Gods and demons were deities on opposite ends of the magic spectrum. They were bearers of light or dark magic, not good or evil.

"Maybe I shouldn't have worn so much armor," I muttered. Each and every inch of me was completely drenched in sweat.

Nero slid me a sidelong glance. "Do we need to stop for a bit so you can undress?" His tone was conversational, his eyes amused.

I made a face at him. "Very funny."

Thank goodness I'd opted to not don the even heavier Weapons of Heaven and Hell. Though a practical defense—and offense—against deities, it wasn't an outfit one wore to negotiate peace.

"Though I suppose that given our mission, it's better to be overarmed than not at all," I said aloud.

"That's very responsible of you, Pandora."

I smirked at him. "Try not to sound so disappointed."

"But I am disappointed." His voice dipped lower as his eyes slid over me. "Very disappointed. You're still dressed."

For a moment, I almost forgot that we weren't alone.

Nero clearly hadn't. His brows lifted just a tad, then he briskened his pace to catch up with Cadence.

Bella closed in beside me, filling the space Nero had just vacated. "That angel has the hots for you."

"The feeling is mutual."

Bella laughed softly.

"How are you holding up?" I asked her.

"Better than you, it seems."

"You were clever enough to pack light."

I drummed my knuckles on my thick leather armor. In contrast, Bella was dressed in an airy green traveling dress with brown leggings and hiking boots.

"Wanna trade?" I asked her.

Her laughter was as soft as the gentle beating of butterfly wings. "No thanks. I don't think the armor would fit me."

In truth, we wore the same clothing size, but I knew that wasn't what Bella meant. She didn't have the kind of personality that fit with wearing armor. Of the six of us here, she was the only one who wasn't an angel. And she wasn't a soldier either. She was a witch. She brewed potions and tinkered with technology; she didn't strap on heavy weapons and fight monsters.

Bella wasn't just any witch, though. She was the granddaughter of the demon Valerian, the Dark Lord of Witchcraft and a member of the demons' ruling council. She was here because she'd told me she had some influence over Valerian. I wasn't sure family was reason enough to convince a deity of anything, but I would take any help I could get.

Even with all the help I could get, I wasn't sure I'd be able to convince the demons to even listen to me, let alone agree to ally with an enemy they'd been fighting for millennia.

"I'm liking the new look," I told Bella, indicating her pale ponytail. Previously, it had been strawberry-blonde. "Now we can be twins."

Bella smiled. "I missed you, Leda. I'm glad you're back."

"So am I," Harker chimed in as he, ever her watchful protector, took position on her other side.

The Legion had recently promoted him for exceptional valor, and he was demonstrating no shortage of it now. I glanced at his new rank pin, a pair of silver and gold wings. It broadcast his status as a soldier of the ninth level, and an angel of the second level. It also shone nearly as brightly in the sunlight as my necklace.

"You're glad to have me back, Harker?" A smile twisted my lips. "I had no idea you'd missed me and my antics so much."

"Nero missed you. You and your antics," he told me. "And because he missed you, he was completely insufferable while you were away. Every day, he stopped by my office for several hours of training."

"What kind of training?" I asked.

He grimaced. "The kind of training that not even an angel enjoys."

"You could have always said no."

Harker looked at me like I'd misplaced my brain. "Have you ever said no to an archangel?"

I grinned. "All the time. It's fun."

He snorted.

"Speaking of fun…" I glanced between him and Bella. "Tell me all about what happened when you two went out for cake."

"There's not much to say," Bella said shyly. "We had cake."

"And?"

"And she didn't stick a fork through my hand." Harker's eyes were as hard as granite.

"That only tells me you learned your lesson about stealing other people's cake," I replied, unperturbed. "Tell me more."

"The cake was chocolate," Bella said. "With cherries."

"Stop it." I held my hand out in front of me. "You're making me hungry."

"You asked us to tell you about the cake," Harker pointed out.

"No, I asked you to tell me about the date."

"It was…nice." Bella smiled at Harker.

And he gazed upon her with a look of total devotion.

"Was there kissing?" I asked.

Bella blushed. "Leda…"

"Ok, no kissing then."

So they weren't there just yet. And yet they were completely there. Harker had come along on this mission solely to protect her. And the way he looked at her, not straying very far from her side… it was like he'd magic-marked her without actually marking her. His feelings had bonded him to her. I wondered if Bella realized the depth of his love for her.

"Oh, look, Angel found some bizarre-looking hell turkey," I laughed and ran ahead to leave them alone. They needed some space if their relationship was going to grow.

I watched my cat stalk her prey. The bird looked like a wild turkey, but decidedly more hellish than the Earth variety. Its body was covered in bright red feathers; an eye peeked out of each one. Its mouth held a small arsenal of pointy teeth. The creature drilled that beak into the dirt, digging for worms. The teeth functioned as a sieve to gather its food. Dirt went through the gaps, but the worms did not.

Angel slunk through the tall grass, flattening her body to the ground. Her stealthy approach usually served her well, but the hell turkey had the benefit of a hundred or so eyes positioned all over its feathery body. The weird yellow eyes must have seen right through grass too because they flashed with fear. The bird spun around and opened its mouth to eject a wad of bright green goo into the grass Angel was hiding in.

The grass caught on fire, Angel jumped out of it, and the hell turkey used the opportunity to flee. My cat ran after it, but the bird was faster. When she realized she couldn't catch up with it, she stopped and hissed loudly in its direction.

Then she trotted back and looked up at me in frustration.

"I think you need to rethink your strategy," I told her.

She looked at me for a moment, as though she were considering my words, then she ran over to the spot where the many-eyed bird had been digging in the ground.

"What is the cat doing?" Cadence asked.

"I believe she's hunting for worms," said Damiel. "They're easier to catch than birds."

"If you annoy Leda's cat, I won't protect you," Nero warned him.

"I can handle a cat," Damiel laughed.

I smirked at him. "I wouldn't be so sure. She's a real firecracker."

"Then she takes after her mother." Damiel's gaze slid from my necklace, just visible at the collar of my leather armor, to Angel. "You two certainly accessorize alike."

Angel lifted her head proudly, showing off her new gemstone collar, then she went back to poking the worm she'd found.

"Nice jewelry." Damiel glanced at his son. "That cat must be more important to you than I realized, Nero."

"She is important to Leda. That's all that matters," Nero said with a stony gaze. "And mind your own business, Damiel."

"This is my business. I'm right here. The demons will spot those necklaces from a mile away." Damiel canted his head slightly to the side. "Then again, those necklaces will probably blind them from a mile away too." He unzipped his vest and pulled out a pair of sunglasses, which he promptly slipped on. "But that will only work to our advantage."

Nero favored him with a scathing glare. "You aren't half as funny as you think you are, old man.

The glare bounced right off Damiel's smile. "And you aren't half as funny as I am, junior."

Cadence stepped between them. "Would you two kindly stop bickering? I will not allow our first trip together as a family in two centuries to end in bloodshed."

"There's little chance of avoiding that, love," Damiel said, taking her hand. "We're looking for demons. It's unlikely they will greet the arrival of five angels and a witch with balloons and flowers."

"Coming here was your idea, Damiel," she countered. "So try not to be so pessimistic."

"I'm not being pessimistic. I'm being realistic. There's a big difference."

Damiel glanced back at the spot where Angel had been standing a few moments ago, but she wasn't there. Though she'd disappeared, the worm she'd found was still on the ground.

"Apparently, it wasn't as tasty as she'd hoped," Cadence commented.

Damiel peered over the tops of his sunglasses. His blue eyes scanned the terrain. "Where is that cat?"

"Being stealthy," I told him.

"I can't see her."

I rolled my eyes. "That's kind of the whole point of stealthy, Damiel."

He stood a bit taller. "I pride myself on uncovering secrets and secret hiding places alike."

I arched my brows. "Well, it appears that the great Damiel Dragonsire has finally met his match. And so has that turkey."

The bird was back. When its many eyes didn't see Angel, it rushed forward to reclaim its lunch. It didn't look concerned by us. Maybe it knew angels didn't like eating hundred-eyed hell turkeys. It was picking up the worm with its beak…

…when Angel dropped out of a tree and landed on the bird. Her paws slammed down, pinning it to the ground. It thrashed, but her hold was too tight.

"Sneaky cat," Damiel chuckled in appreciation. "She baited that bird."

I smiled fondly at Angel. "That's my clever kitty."

Angel lifted up her paws, and the turkey scampered off. She'd let it go. She'd never intended to eat it. She'd just wanted to prove that she could catch it.

Nero watched her run back to us, her feet light, her head held high. "She fights more and more like you with every passing day, Pandora."

Angel rubbed herself against his legs and purred in appreciation of the comment.

"We are both going to take that as a compliment," I told him, grinning.

"Nero," Cadence said as we all continued moving. "I thought you'd like to know that your father and I found the person who was hunting down and killing the original Immortals and their descendants."

Hard, cold anger smoldered in Nero's eyes; he and his parents were Immortal descendants. "Where is this person?"

"Dead." Damiel's word dropped like a heavy stone into a quiet lake.

Nero looked at Cadence. "We agreed we'd hunt them down together."

"The person who'd hired the hunters might be dead, but the hunters themselves are still out there." Damiel set his hand on his son's shoulder. "They've scattered in fear. They might not be hunting us anymore, but that doesn't mean we can't hunt them. After all the people they've killed, it's the least we can do to return the favor."

Nero nodded, meeting his father's eyes. The two of them disagreed on many things, but in this case, they were clearly united by a shared purpose.

"Why did someone do all this?" I asked. "Why would anyone want to kill the Immortals?"

"Revenge," replied Cadence. "The person responsible, a fallen Immortal, was the one who told the Guardians how to get rid of the Immortals: by putting their souls and magic into artifacts."

"The immortal artifacts," I said.

She nodded. "Then, once most of the Immortals were gone, the fallen Immortal found hunters to track down and kill those who'd survived—and all their descendants since."

"This person sounds like a psychopath."

"Indeed," said Cadence. "The fallen Immortal killed so many, and yet allowed me and Damiel to live. He had a plan for us."

"Which we thwarted. Our destiny is no one's but our own," Damiel said, his words ringing with defiance.

Cadence sighed. "There's so much more going on here than you know, Leda."

"Then tell me. I'm part of all this, whether I want to be or not. The more I know, the better I can fight."

"Ok. You know how there's light magic and dark magic?"

"Yes. The gods possess light magic and the demons possess dark magic. Each side bestows their own kind of magic on their soldiers, and each side created supernaturals with a particular kind of ability."

"Vampires, witches, sirens, elementals, shifters, telekinetics, fairies, and telepaths: those are the eight categories we all know," Cadence said. "The eight kinds of light magic. And the eight kinds of dark magic. Light and dark, two sides of the same magical coin."

"That coin is considerably more complicated," Damiel added. "In fact, it's not really a coin. It's more of a cross. There aren't only two kinds of magic. There are four."

I blinked. "Four kinds of magic?" My mind worked to sort this out; it was scooping up all the events it had previously discarded because they couldn't be explained. "That's where all that special magic comes from. The unique abilities of angels. Like how Stash can read someone's soul. And how Harker can track magic."

"Yes," said Cadence. "Those eight abilities you know—Vampire's Kiss, Witch's Cauldron, Siren's Song, Dragon's Storm, Shifter's Shadow, Psychic's Spell, Fairy's Touch, and Ghost's Whisper—are all kinds of active magic. But there are eight additional abilities out there. Passive magic abilities, where the power to cast the spell comes not from within the spell caster, but from somewhere else."

"The power of the djinn, or teleportation. The power of the mermaid, the spell breaker or magic eater. The power of the genie, the wish granter. The power of the phantom, to negate magic. The power of the unicorn, a magic tracker or hunter. The power of the phoenix, to be reborn. The power of the elf, the magic artist and crafter. And the power of the changeling, the copycat, who can absorb the magic of others to mimic their power," Damiel rattled off.

"Eight active powers, eight passive. Each one manifested as either light or dark magic. Thirty-two different possibilities." Cadence's enthusiasm sang in every syllable that she spoke. "And the original Immortals possessed them all."

"So do you." I looked from her, to Damiel, to Nero.

"With a lot of practice, we're starting to figure out how to use that magic." Cadence reached out to Nero. "We can help you."

Nero didn't take her hand. He didn't say anything either. He did not forgive easily. I knew he still hadn't forgiven his parents for faking their deaths when he was only ten. He'd grown up believing he had no parents anymore, and a part of him probably wished it had stayed that way.

"How does any of this help us fight the Guardians?" I asked, changing the subject for him.

Cadence sighed, but her gaze shifted from Nero back to me. "I'm not sure yet, but one thing is for sure: you need to understand your enemy in order to fight it. We've always believed the Guardians had no magic because they nullify the magic in potions and artifacts. But there is a kind of magic that nullifies magic."

"The power of the phantom, to negate magic," I recalled from Damiel's descriptions of passive magic abilities. "The Guardians are phantoms. Their seeming lack of magic is their magic."

"And their weapon," said Cadence. "They can nullify any spell before it's even cast, any potion before its thrown, any artifact before it's used. No magic can stand against their power of oblivion."

"And yet they want nothing more than to gain other magic." I frowned. "Why?"

She shrugged. "The grass is always greener on the other side. And people always envy what others have."

"Everything the Guardians have done is to gain new magic. They've manipulated gods and demons, all without either side ever realizing it." I chewed on my lower lip. "And Nero…" I looked at Cadence and Nero. "You said the fallen Immortal had a plan for you. But Arina told us it was the Guardians with the plan, that they'd manipulated Nero's heritage so he would be born. So which is true?"

"Neither." Damiel braided his fingers together. "Or perhaps both."

"Cryptic as always, Damiel."

"Of course."

"Tell me about this Arina," Cadence said to me.

"Well, she can read someone's magic, seeing into the events of the past that made them what they are today."

Cadence glanced at Damiel. "The power to read into someone's soul. She sounds like a unicorn."

"Indeed."

Cadence looked at me now. "You need to ask Arina for another reading. And we're coming along this time."

"I'll add it to my todo list."

"Leda, this is important."

"I know," I said seriously. "But so is forming an alliance between gods and demons against the Guardians. That alliance might be the only thing powerful enough to stop them. I'll contact Arina when I have the chance. I promise."

Cadence dipped her chin in acknowledgement.

"In any case, it sounds like you two had one hell of a journey," I said.

Cadence looked upon her husband, and a smile melted her serious face. "From the day I met Damiel, it's been one hell of a journey."

"As it will be from now on." He reached out to her.

She set her hand in his. "It hasn't always been easy, but I feel like it was all meant to play out like this. After all, it was through our journey that we learned about this passageway to the demons' council chamber."

"Wait a minute, if you gained all these Immortal powers, why can't you just teleport us to the demons?"

"It's not so easy." Cadence looked frustrated. "I can't bring us to a place if I don't know where that place is, unless there's some kind of magic beacon to track. The location of the demons' council chamber is a closely-guarded secret. All we know is there's a portal here somewhere that will bring us there."

"How did you learn about this passage to the demons anyway?" I asked.

"A demon told us," Damiel replied casually.

I blinked. "And you trust this demon?"

"Not at all," he laughed. "But she owes us a favor. And favors between immortal beings hold weight. Debts have an intangible kind of magic attached to them. They must be reconciled."

"And how did you come to have a demon owing you a favor?" I asked.

Damiel opened his mouth, but I never heard his answer, for a wall of flames shot up all around us. And the next moment, the massive tree before us shifted into an even more massive creature. Made of stone, the monster mountain had a woman's head stuck to a beastly body. Its long tail swooshed, whistling through the air. In case we'd had any ideas of fleeing, stone tentacles shot out of the ground behind us, cutting us off. They swayed as if possessed, ready to smash us the moment we tried to get through.

In other words, we were pretty thoroughly screwed.