20. Ember

20

EMBER

W e all stood there in shock, staring at each other, no one moving at first. Miles’s friend Wendy flanked Adrian on his left, and Gray, who had dropped her shadow magic when the shit hit the witch, stood to his right. Her lower lip trembled, and she pressed it against her top, not daring to open her mouth and complain.

I couldn’t blame her. She had feces dripping down her face and nothing to wipe it off with. Gross.

“How did you find us?” I scanned the ground, looking for the amulet. It must have blasted past our adversaries.

Adrian stared at the doorway, narrowing his eyes like he couldn’t see where the voice was coming from.

Oh, right. Our ward.

Mayhem stepped away from the building, and Adrian’s gaze snapped to him, his expression livid. Chaos tossed a roll of paper towels at Gray’s feet, and she picked it up, unrolling several and cleaning herself before passing it to Adrian.

With her face semi-clear, she took a chance and opened her mouth. “Please tell me this isn’t…”

“Explosive diarrhea straight from the bowels of Hell?” I crossed my arms. “Yeah, you deserve it for summoning her to do your dirty work.” They were lucky the poor beastie hadn’t become an egg cannon too.

“We didn’t summon her,” Gray said, cutting her eyes to her High Priest. “Did we?”

“Hand her over.” Adrian cleaned himself up and dropped the rest of the roll onto the ground, not bothering to pass it to Wendy. Typical. She bent to pick it up.

I laughed, still scanning the ground for the amulet. I couldn’t see it, so I stepped around the beastie and stood just outside the doorway. “I don’t take orders like your minions.”

The griffin let out a relieved moan behind me, curling up to rest, and Ash joined me on the front steps. “Do you see it?” she whispered.

I gave my head a tiny shake. “Did Ignacus tell you where we were? I know you aren’t strong enough to see through our ward on your own.”

“We have our ways of finding information.” Adrian jerked the roll of towels from Wendy’s hand and wiped his face again before dragging the cloth down his neck. “Your van is parked outside, idiot. Turn over the griffin. The amulet belongs to me.”

Wendy blew her nose and gagged. “This is not what I signed up for.” She covered her mouth and dry heaved. “Where’s Miles?”

I cocked my head. Did she seriously volunteer to be Adrian’s henchwoman just so she could see a guy who’d used her…multiple times? Goddess, bless her heart.

Ash crept away from the mausoleum, giving our foul-smelling foes a wide berth as she scanned the ground. It had to be out here somewhere, but the clouds covering the moon made it nearly impossible to decipher the shapes on the ground. Shadows, clumps of earth, and dead leaves littered the cemetery, and even if we had enough moonlight to make the stone glint, it was covered in dirt-colored poo.

“You can’t have the amulet or the griffin.” I crept away from the door, trusting the ward to keep the bad guys out. “It’s four elementals against you and…” I gestured at Gray and Wendy. “You didn’t call in much of a calvary.”

Ash lit a fireball in her hand, and Chaos and Mayhem followed her lead, illuminating the cemetery. I unsheathed my trusty sword and sent flames licking up the enchanted silver blade, adding to the brightness, but honestly? I preferred the dark over what I saw.

Twenty-something witches, dressed in black from head to toe, emerged from the shadows. They stepped around gravestones and came out from the cover of trees as if appearing from nothing.

They surrounded us, some of their faces familiar, some I’d never seen before. Many had the Boston Society of Magic emblem embroidered in silver thread on their sleeves. Others had nothing showing affiliation to the dark coven, and of those, a few wore ski masks, hiding their identities.

“Did you hire mercenaries?” I adjusted my grip on the sword, scanning the ground again before meeting his gaze. “Seriously?”

“I’ll do whatever it takes to obtain the amulet.” He circled his finger, creating the beginnings of a tornado at my feet. “Did you know it was forged in Hell? Anything created in Hell belongs with a dark witch.”

He raised his hand, palm toward me, and I had no doubt he was about to give his team the signal to attack.

I cut my gaze to Ash and closed my eyes for a long blink, hoping to Hecate she would understand the message. We weren’t going to find the amulet with our eyes. Not in these conditions.

She nodded and inhaled, and we both whispered the same spell, “Confess, expose my magic sleuth. I call on you to reveal your truth.”

I shouldn’t have been able to tap into her magic from this distance. Normally, we had to hold hands to cast spells together, but golden sparkles appeared in my peripheral vision anyway. I slowly turned my head to the place they gathered on the ground, two yards from Wendy’s feet.

Adrian clenched his raised hand into a fist. The witches attacked.

Mayhem turned his arm into a blow torch and blasted hellfire at our adversaries. I dove toward Wendy, extinguishing my blade and swinging the flat side into her stomach like a baseball bat. She doubled over. Then she fell to her knees. Her hands hit the ground, and she gasped.

“Adrian? Is this it?” She lifted the amulet caked in butt dumplings and turned on her knees toward him.

“Nope.” I kicked her hand, and the stone flew across the cemetery before whacking into an ancient gravestone with such force, the monument cracked. Good thing the amulet didn’t.

“Ash!” I shouted, and she scrambled toward it.

A blade pierced my shoulder, and I spun, lighting my sword. Instinct nearly made me cut the culpable witch in two. I was used to fighting beasties, not people. Lucky for the guy who’d stabbed me, I remembered what he was and only nicked his arm, setting his embroidered sleeve ablaze.

His shirt must’ve been one hundred percent cotton, because the fire spread like…well, like wildfire…engulfing his entire abdomen. He screamed, frantically turning this way and that, fanning the flames.

“Did no one teach you to stop, drop, and roll when you were a kid?” I called my fire back, leaving him shirtless and burned, as I yanked his knife from my shoulder. That would require stitches. Where was Patrice when we needed her?

Oh, right. I’d sent her home.

The man gritted his teeth and pulled two more blades from their sheathes. He lunged for me.

I stepped out of his way. “Do you want me to make you pantsless too? I’d rather not singe your naughty bits.”

His eye twitched, but he backed away. Smart move.

All around me, shouted spells, clashing weapons, and crackling fire created a cacophony of we don’t have time for this shit.

Ash reached for the amulet, but someone hit her with an asphyxiation spell. She clutched her throat and fell to her knees, unable to drag in a breath.

I scanned the crowd, searching for the witch responsible. “Chaos, red ponytail.”

The witch stood still, her hands raised toward my suffocating sister. This one, I would have gladly sliced in half, but Chaos beat me to it. He snapped her neck as if her bones were made of toothpicks. Her body smacked the earth, and Ash gasped.

Another of Adrian’s minions grabbed the amulet. Based on the person’s size and curves, she had to be a woman, but the ski mask hid all but her eyes and mouth. She smiled and wiped the poo off the pendant before moving to drop it into her pocket.

“That’s mine. You will give it to me,” Chaos said, holding Ash’s hand and channeling their mind-control magic. If only they could control everyone here and send them on their way.

The woman froze, her hand fisting around the chain. “I think this is yours.”

“No!” Adrian sent his tornado toward her, whisking it from her hand and sending it spiraling upward.

“A rift is forming,” Mayhem said as he lit a ring of hellfire around us, blocking at least fifteen witches. “Ignacus.”

I threw a hand in the air. “For goddess’s sake, Adrian. Do you ever fight your own fights?”

“I didn’t call him.” He reached upward, and his tornado obeyed, spiraling above us. When he fisted his hand, it dissipated, the amulet dropping from the sky. He caught it and cradled it in his hands, closing his eyes and absorbing its power.

When he opened them, a blast of wind shot out around him, knocking me off my feet and extinguishing our ring of fire. The rift opened fully, and five fae soldiers darted through.

The biggest bug man lunged straight for a mercenary, ripping out his liver with one hand, his heart with the other. He kneeled in front of the rift, lowering his head and holding the organs up in offering.

Ignacus stepped through, one spindly leg at a time, and the other fae bowed at his entrance. His mandibles made a clicking sound, his dinner squelching with each bite as he consumed first the liver, and then the heart.

His soldiers joined the fray, no doubt ready to eat every liver and heart still beating in the cemetery. The good thing about his arrival? Adrian’s witches were now busy fighting for their lives instead of trying to take ours.

The bad? Ash and I were the strongest, most potent witches they could consume. It was best they didn’t find that out.

Still clutching the amulet, Adrian sent a blast of wind toward Ignacus, his newly multiplied magic allowing him to scoop up the fae prince and toss him against the mausoleum wall as if he were a ragdoll.

Our ward on the building sent a shockwave through his exoskeleton, his body convulsing as he landed face-first in the dirt. He jerked his head up and flapped his wings, sending dirt flying everywhere as he shook himself off.

Ignacus made a high-pitched chittering sound, and his soldiers dropped the witches they were tearing apart to descend upon us.

Ash shot a stream of flames at one. Chaos hurled a ball of hellfire at another. It bounced off the soldier’s chest and set an already-scorched tree ablaze.

“Let the record state I am not responsible for the cemetery fire this time.” Ash called her flames back and shot out an even hotter stream.

Adrian’s idiotic team followed the fae, breaking blades against their armor and wasting their vim on spells that could be fanned away with a flap of their wings.

I grabbed Mayhem’s hand. “Make the violence stop.”

“You no longer bear my mark. The connection is…”

“It’s still there.” I squeezed his hand tighter. “Tell me you don’t feel it.”

“I do, but the magic is not as strong.” He threw a fireball at Adrian, who retaliated with a gust of wind, averting the hellfire’s path.

“Then make it stronger.” I focused, not on the tattoo once occupying my forearm, but on the real connection I had with my demon. Magical ink hadn’t forged our bond. Fate had, and I didn’t need a sigil to link to my soulmate.

I opened and sent my magic into him, picturing my light filling the darkness inside him. He inhaled deeply and opened to me, allowing our vim to pass freely back and forth, to mix and meld and become one force. Two parts of a whole coming together, complete at last.

My pulse raced as he sent it outward. Pinpricks danced across my skin, my blood seeming to fizz as he calmed the entire calamity, making everyone freeze and scratch their heads, wondering what they were fighting for.

“Go home,” Chaos said to Gray. He held Ash’s hand, their intention apparently to make each witch leave, one by one, as long as we held them in peace.

“Leave this place,” he said to Wendy.

She held up her hands in surrender and backed away. “I just wanted to see Miles. Is he still alive? He hasn’t sounded like himself in his texts.”

“He’s fine,” Ash said.

“Please hand over the amulet.” Ignacus held a gangly hand toward Adrian. “I do not wish to fight.”

Sweat beaded on my forehead even though it was only fifty degrees out. I could admit the tattoo had made it a helluva lot easier to pull this off, but here we were, pulling it off anyway.

Adrian scoffed. Then he laughed. “Did you think your mind magic would work on me? I’m unstoppable now.” He created a wind funnel around a soldier, lifting the beastie from the ground and cracking the exoskeleton as he drew the air from the fae’s lungs.

I slipped a dagger from my thigh holster. As much as I would have loved to watch him implode every fae here, we needed that amulet. Now.

I lifted my arm, ready to throw the blade, when the griffin’s pained bellow registered in my psyche. “She’s about to lay her eggs. You have to open a rift and send her home.”

“I am a bit busy, as are you.”

I strained, goosebumps rising on my skin as I flushed first hot and then cold. “I can’t do this much longer anyway. Go help her.”

“If I release them, you will have to fight.”

“Fighting is what I do best.”

He looked at me, his eyes searching mine before he nodded once and tugged from my grasp. I sucked in a breath as he turned and strode into the mausoleum. I hurled my dagger at Adrian. The blade sank into his shoulder.

He yanked it out, losing his grip on the semi-crushed fae. The fly man thudded on the ground, and a witch in a ski mask jabbed a knife beneath an armored plate, piercing his heart. She shot to her feet, brushing her hands on her pants before scurrying behind the mausoleum. If she was smart, she’d keep going and not come back.

“It’s done.” Chaos dropped Ash’s hand and stepped away from her. “He has opened the rift.”

Good. At least the poor griffin, who’d wanted no part in any of this, could go home and raise her babies in peace.

“I feel another forming,” Chaos said. “We must end this before more creatures descend upon us. They’re attracted to our power.”

“Let them come.” Adrian draped the amulet around his neck. “No one can stop me.”

The four remaining soldiers encircled Adrian, but he created a wind tunnel around himself, blocking them. What was left of his witch posse charged us, but Ash and I created another fire circle, encompassing us and the fae.

The soldiers took to the air, divebombing Adrian, but he pushed them away with gusts of wind, his power growing stronger by the minute, his laugh more maniacal, his eyes more crazed. His funnel tightened, lifting him from the ground before spreading outward, the spiral creating a suction that pulled in leaves, dirt, and broken branches, creating a bramble around him.

We had to stop him before he sucked the entire cemetery—and everyone in it—into his storm.

“How is he so strong so fast?” I shielded my eyes and inched toward him while Chaos kept the fire circle blazing.

“It’s the biggest piece of the amulet.” Ash’s hair whipped back as she leaned into the wind, pushing toward Adrian. His funnel shifted, the wind changing direction in an instant. Ash’s hair flew into her face, her already forward momentum adding to the drag and making her stumble to her hands and knees.

“He’s also an elemental,” Chaos said. “The more powerful the being, the more efficiently the amulet amplifies their power.”

“And the crazier it makes them.” I leaned back, digging my boots into the dirt as Adrian’s funnel tried to pull me into it.

My chest squeezed, the griffin’s goodbye echoing in my soul. I tried to send her a peaceful sentiment in return, but my foot snagged on an exposed root. I careened forward, landing on my stomach a yard from the bottom of the tornado.

Chaos hauled Ash up by the arm. A fae soldier dive-bombed them. I army-crawled toward the wind funnel, scrambling to my feet beneath it and latching onto Adrian’s ankle.

Holy Hecate on a unicycle.

Even through his clothes, the power from the amulet surged through my body, setting my nerves ablaze. He kicked, smacking the side of my head before I grabbed his other leg and hauled myself up. I clutched one hip, then the other, and tried not to think about the fact that my face pressed into his crotch.

And that his clothes were still coated in beastie biscuits and gravy.

My stomach lurched. Thankfully, my innards ignored the command to spew chicken salad all over the place, and I reached higher, clutching his shoulder with one hand, the amulet with the other.

Talk about your power surges. Damn.

My muscles seized, my hands tightening into unbreakable fists, my inborn fire rising to the surface, setting my skin ablaze. I pried my hand from Adrian’s shoulder and let myself fall, the chain snapping off his neck with a jerk of my arm.

We weren’t that high. A straight fall to the ground might’ve bruised me a little, but of course, I hadn’t thought my escape through.

I did not fall straight to the ground. In fact, I got caught in the spiraling tornado, and it slung me around like a rotating catapult, flinging me against the trunk of a massive birch. Every ounce of air left my lungs in a whoosh, and my vision tunneled and wavered.

The impact nearly bent me in two. My vertebrae cracked like a glowstick, and if I had hit it at an angle a few degrees different, I had no doubt I’d have been paralyzed.

Instead, I pushed to sitting, my head still swimming, and tried to make my eyes focus. My sister dragged Adrian to the ground. Chaos ripped a pincher from a soldier’s mandible. Mayhem stood on the mausoleum steps, his taloned fingers wrapped around another soldier’s neck. Witch fire mixed with hellfire blazed all around us.

Something made impact with the side of my head.

My face smacked the earth, filling my mouth with charred dirt. I spit and sat upright, the amulet giving me strength to endure what should have rendered me unconscious.

Ignacus loomed over me, poisonous saliva dripping from his pinchers as he slammed a barbed insect foot into my wrist, pinning me to the ground. He pressed one wiry hand against my stomach and snatched the amulet from my grasp with another.

I tried to pull my wrist free, but the barbs protruding from his foot dug into my flesh. I’d have to take off my entire hand to free myself… if he didn’t rip out my liver first.

I slid my free hand down my thigh in search of a blade. I could live with only one hand.

Ignacus raised the amulet triumphantly. I could feel the power surging through him, burning my wrist where he’d penetrated it.

He snapped his gaze to me, his expression livid. “Where is the rest of it?”

“I have no idea what you mean.” My fingers brushed the pommel of my dagger.

He grunted. Then he growled. He opened his mouth, and the most freakish chittering sound I’d ever heard emanated from his throat. Barbs extended from the tips of his fingers, cutting through my shirt and into my skin.

With the amulet amplifying everything, I felt his energy coil in his shoulder half a nanosecond before he plunged his claws into my stomach.