Bloodline Contingency: An Urban Fantasy Academy Novel (Bloodline Academy Book 12), page 16
The stinging awareness of Kai and Leia’s bond flared in the Ley sight. Trey squeezed me close. Roland appeared on my right. He and Diana were seemingly engrossed in a conversation about the most effective weapons against demons, but they kept pausing unnaturally. Diana kept gripping the handle of the hatchet she wore like a security blanket.
The happy couple walked by hand in hand. Kai instinctively made his way towards Max before he spotted Sophie and frowned. They veered off in the other direction.
“Guess I’m in the doghouse,” Sophie muttered.
“The lion house,” Max shot back. He squeezed her shoulder, knowing that it pained her to be on the outs with Kai.
“Worth it,” she told him.
“I bet it was!” Max laughed. “Super hot too. Any time you and Lex ever have a catfight, make sure I’m around.” He winked at me.
Sophie elbowed him, and he burst out laughing. The boys smirked at his joke. I stomped on Trey’s foot. “I should have made friends with more omegas!”
His eyes turned feral. “You think omegas are any better?” he asked. “They’re not aggressive, but those bastards are cunning.”
One omega who wasn’t interested in brawn at all made a beeline for me as soon as we hit the immersion-therapy classroom. Fred gave a relieved sigh, and I swore I was at Bloodline again.
“Thank goodness you’re back,” Fred said. “Last week was a nightmare.”
“Come on,” Diana said, “it was just a bit of a graze. I hardly touched you.”
“You’re a brute,” Fred whined. “I had to go to the Nursery, and they weren’t anything like Doctor Thorne! It was a good thing Leia–”
If Diana’s growl didn’t alert him that his foot was in his mouth, then my recoil did. “Sorry, Lex,” he said, paling even further. “I didn’t make friends with her or anything. She just helped patch me up.” He scratched the back of his neck.
I was having déjà vu. Only this time it was Leia in Brigid’s place.
Luckily for Fred, my attention was diverted by the arrival of the necromancer trainers, David and Jakob. What caused me to frown was that Mayer was with them. Along with a man in a billowing black cape and a crown of antlers that just screamed Trinity mage.
Kyrie walked sedately behind them, looking less than impressed. “Oh shit,” Fred said. “I don’t like the look of this.”
Diana massaged her temples, side-eying Fred. At least she was speaking to him. Sophie barely looked at him and was using Max to keep Fred away. They still hadn’t forgiven him for what he’d done. I was pretty impressed with Sophie’s resolve. Normally she’d be the first one to cave.
Kyrie was frowning as he looked at the crowd.
“What’s his problem?” Diana asked.
“Too many people,” Sophie said. “I don’t think they counted on so many extras.”
“We’re going to have to improvise,” Kyrie called out. “The MirrorNet won’t be able to power this big a simulation, and we have limited instructors.”
Having missed the first week, I wasn’t quite sure what he was talking about. “What did you do last week?” I whispered to Trey.
He leaned down to speak in my ear. I turned my head to get closer and my eyeline went directly to where Kai and Leia were huddled together. They were always in physical contact somehow. A manifestation of the lifeline Leia represented for him.
As if sensing my attention, Kai turned in my direction. Always before, his aura would flare with irritation when one of the boys was being too familiar. Now he hardly blinked before his attention flitted away. Leia had said something to him. He leaned down towards her, his smile completely unguarded. Despite all the bodies in the room, a chill ran down my spine and crystalised around my heart.
Trey’s voice snapped me back from the spiral I was about to sink into. “Last week the necromancers simulated draining us of our powers while they attacked us with undead,” Trey said. He inhaled and frowned. Leaning closer, his arms encircled me. “Hey. I love you.”
My chest constricted. Trey’s arms did the same until he was almost bruising me. My breath came in shallow, hard bursts. I recognised the signs of an anxiety attack coming. Devraj’s big body appeared in front of me. Max placed an elbow on Dev’s shoulder, chatting away animatedly about beheading undead. Their chests created a wall between us and the rest of the room.
Trey’s voice went low, dropping into the command of an alpha. “Listen to me,” he said. “How many necromancers are in the room?”
My head pounded, and no matter how sharply I breathed, I couldn’t gulp enough air. “Trey,” I cried. He squeezed me harder. It seemed counterintuitive, but the vice grip gave me something to focus on.
He held my arm, claws pricking into my skin. In my head, an alarm went off that there was a predator all around me.
“How many necromancers, Lex?”
“Four,” I squeaked.
“Who has the most power?” Trey asked.
I buried my head in his shoulder only for him to weave his finger into the hair at the back of my neck and lift me gently away. He stared directly into my eyes. “Power, Lex. Which one has it?”
“Mayer,” I answered. The dancing golden flecks in his eyes caught me.
“Interesting. I would have thought the degenerate in the headgear.”
I shook my head. “Mayer is an acolyte for a reason. Maybe he’s not as naturally gifted, but he’s old. And smart. Experience sometimes counts more than raw power in the realm of necromancy.”
“Can you take him?” It was such a consummate shifter question that I had to smile.
“Without question.” I had both power and too much experience for my liking. Trey grinned at me. By then, my breathing had evened out. He ran his hands up and down my arms, dispelling the last of the cold inside me. My breath slowed and the dizziness lifted slightly.
I blinked slowly. “Thanks,” I said.
He gave me another shake. I poked Dev in the back. “You can move now,” I told him.
“Move where?” Dev said, pretending he hadn’t come over here to block the other guards from seeing my anxiety attack. “This is the spot I’ve chosen.”
Right then I knew they would be okay even without the shifting ability. So much of their identity was wrapped in their physical prowess, but it was this other side of them that made them strong.
That helped me to be strong when I felt like breaking.
In the middle of the classroom, Mayer was lining up a few draining circles while giving instructions to the other necromancers. They spread across the room to imitate Mayer’s circles.
Cocking my head to the side, I couldn’t help pondering Lucifer’s decision to keep the necromancers on. Somehow, the one reviled arm of the High mages had become an integral part of Stormhaven.
There were just too few of them. With Death’s arrival, they were being sidelined. Yet here they were still trying to help in some way. That was it. I needed therapy again for sure. Warm feelings towards necromancers was not on the cards.
“I want a turn this time,” Trey said loudly. “Last week the bloodsuckers hogged the trainers’ time.”
Sasha mimed crying and wiping tears from his eyes. Trey’s answering growl brought Sasha’s fangs out. Harlow groaned. “Are you an idiot or what?” she asked Sasha. “If fangs are the first thing you turn to, you’re dead.”
Sasha sniffed. “It’s not like I can help it! It’s instinctual!”
Hmm. They had too little practice.
“I have a feeling you’re going to have to learn how to fight as you are now,” I said. “It’s the only way we can be sure not to feed Astaroth.”
“Good luck with that,” Dev observed. “This isn’t even close to a realistic simulation.”
No, it wasn’t.
The necromancers could drain the supernaturals of their powers but turning them was another matter. The cautious part of me recalled this morning’s treatment in the dining hall. I was already on the outs again with supernatural society. At some point, I had to just lean into it.
Weaving past the protective barrier of shifters, I approached Kyrie. The pinched expression on his face was almost comical.
“You need another instructor,” I told him.
“More like fifty.”
I shook my head. “Can we move this to the cemetery?”
“What for?”
“I’ll bust up the room if I do this at close quarters.”
He balked. “Do what exactly?”
“I’m going to turn them for you.”
Their supernatural hearing had every one of them listening in on our conversation. “You’re going to do what?” Kyrie asked.
He well and truly had his faction-head hat on.
“I’m going to turn them.”
“Turn them how?” he sputtered. And then, “Are you telling me you can do what Death did?”
I shrugged. Theoretically, yes. I couldn’t do it in the same way, but I could approximate it with my bone magic and their souls. “What can I say? I guess the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”
While the rest of them stood there stunned, Mayer opened a portal to the cemetery. “The master will be pleased,” he told me.
That was great because nobody else seemed to be.
17
Kyrie was still in denial. “What do you mean you can do what Death did?” He strode beside me. Behind us, I could feel the other guards filing into the cemetery. There was another training session happening in the far field, but there was a satisfactory distance between us.
“Which part don’t you get?”
“How long have you been able to do it?”
I scratched my head. “I guess forever? It just never occurred to me to try. Also, I didn’t know it could be done until I saw Death doing it. Plus, I don’t have sinister magic.”
Kyrie massaged his brow. “So, this isn’t something you can do willy-nilly?”
Ah. So that’s what was bugging him. “No, that’s why I need the necromancers too.” I paused. “You know at any time I can just speak an Angelical word and level one of your cities, right?”
It seemed weird to get all twisted up about this when there were worse things I could do. He considered that for a second. Finally, he exhaled. “That’s a good point. I just never…” He shook his head and indicated for me to continue.
Even if I could replicate the curse that Death had used, there were probably too many supernaturals for the necromancers’ sinister magic to sustain.
“Shifters forward, please,” I said.
The other supernaturals groaned. “Way to play favourites, Lex,” Diana jibed. Trey tugged at her ear, and she glared at his back as he stepped forward with his brethren.
Favourites was hardly the precaution I was taking. “If I don’t do this right, they’ll have the best chance of surviving a malfunction.”
“What the hell?” Dev spluttered.
Regardless of the warning, Max bundled Sophie up with him. I had to agree. “Humans come up too,” I added. There were humans in the Reserve, and most of them didn’t have any kind of magic. The Evil Three weren’t exactly helpless, but they would have to do.
“Can you draw me a draining circle and shoot me full of sinister magic?” I asked Mayer.
The old necromancer bowed at me. Stepping into the sludgy-brown circle he created, I took in an even breath. Immediately, sinister magic wicked up my legs. The dude with the antlers on his head raised his arms. Red-laced-black high magic flooded the circle.
I tasted blood and death on my tongue. I heard agonised screaming in my head and felt life snuffing out in my heart. My hands flew to my throat to stifle the apprehension curling inside me. I forced myself to breathe through it.
Courting dark magic was not something I was used to. The pools of hedge and bone magic were agitated. My bone magic might’ve been comparable to sinister magic, but I felt like it was closer to Azrael’s ideals than Lucifer’s. The bone magic was there to lay wayward souls to rest. Not to rip them from the living.
I quietened them with a slow breath and the explanation that I would be preparing the people I loved to protect themselves. Opening my eyes, I became aware of the deadlocked gaze Kai had on me. Angelfire burned in his green eyes. I wanted to believe that he was coiled that tightly out of concern for me. But I knew it was because he was readying himself to take me out if this experiment went sideways.
Those corrosive feelings amplified the effects of the sinister magic until when I opened my eyes, my vision was swimming with malevolent spots. The air around me crackled with death.
“Can you open up the cells in the Dominion?” I asked Kyrie in a voice covered with frost.
The shifters’ lips pulled back over their canines. I wagged a finger at them. “Not a good start,” I said. Look at that, I had also picked up some of Giselle’s bad training habits.
“What for?” Kyrie asked.
“I want to borrow some demons.”
“You can’t just borrow demons! They’re in there for a reason.”
“Is that reason so you can experiment on them or torture them for information? At least this way they’re being useful.”
He grumbled for a bit, but then he opened a portal and disappeared through it. Basil’s head popped out of the portal five seconds later.
“What’s this I hear…” He got a look at me. “This is madness!” Basil cried. “This cannot be a sanctioned lesson.” He turned on Kyrie. “How the hell did you let this get away from you?”
Kyrie shrugged. At his core, he was just as boneheaded as the rest of the elite guards. Speaking of whom, Dorian was sprinting across the cemetery with Noah in tow. They skidded to a halt in the line with the shifters. “Good,” Dorian puffed. “We didn’t miss it.”
Basil made a throat-clearing voice. “Just a couple of demons,” I pleaded.
“They are not toys,” he said.
I pointed at the guards. “No, but they will be if we don’t find a way to defend ourselves.”
He couldn’t argue with that. Still, he only wanted to hand over a dozen demons. “Basil,” I said. “Be reasonable.”
His eyes bugged out of his head. “Reasonable? I… You…” Basil’s eyes narrowed. “We are going to have a conversation, young lady.”
“I haven’t even done anything yet! How am I in trouble?”
Oh well, if I was going to cop a lecture, I might as well deserve it. Sinking into the pool of bone magic that was now also swarming with sinister magic, I threw my arms out wide. Magic burst from me, and in the Ley sight, I crawled along the ground, through the portal and started grabbing demons.
One by one, I took hold of them. “Possideo!” Possess.
Hundreds of demons stood to attention. The Dominion guards shouted in alarm. Basil screamed at me, “Lex!”
He raced back inside the portal, and I could hear him ordering the other guards around. With a single snap of my fingers, I made the demons incorporeal and marched them through the portal and into the cemetery.
I could hear Basil cursing and sputtering, but my concentration was absolute. An army of demons fanned out around me. So, this was what it felt like to be on the other side. Despite my chastising, every shifter was golden-eyed. Sigh.
They would have to learn.
Without warning, I set the demons loose on them. Kyrie had the wherewithal to draw an arcane circle around us so that the fighting would be contained to the shifters. The other guards reluctantly moved out of the way. Max led the charge of the shifters. His claws whipped out. The demon he was trying to attack went incorporeal.
Max had anticipated it. His aura turned midnight green as the vestiges of my magic burst inside him. Max’s high-magic half went into overdrive. When he reached out to grab the demon, it felt solid in his hands.
That was when I tunnelled my bone magic into him and wrenched hard on the sliver of darkness that I saw in his soul. Max convulsed. Despite knowing it was a simulation, Sophie screamed and came running towards him.
Max clutched at his head, but when Sophie got near, he pushed her clear away. So hard that she flew backwards and out of the circle. She would have gone ass over head if Kai hadn’t teleported and caught her. Sigh. This was going to be a hard lesson for the shifters.
Kai’s muscles corded as he set Sophie down. Her attention was all on Max, but Kai blinked, and I could see in his aura that he regretted their falling out.
It hurt him to know that Sophie wouldn’t accept Leia. My best friend didn’t give a rat’s ass about how he felt. She stomped back into the circle, only to be halted by a lamia demon. Lamia weren’t too physically imposing. They got their kicks by hunting and eating children. The demon lashed out at Sophie.
She instinctively settled into a fighting stance, but before she could strike, Trey barrelled into the demon. His skin was furry and striped.
“For goodness’ sakes,” Mayer said. He stood inside the circle with me, feeding me more sinister magic. “They are barbaric.”
I had to agree. All over the field, the shifters were now in all-out, aggressive war with the demons. Basil was going to have my ass on a plate if I allowed the demons to be murdered.
“Do it,” the Trinity mage urged me. “They are growing complacent.”
The stench of brimstone in the air was wreaking havoc on the shifters’ senses. Added to that my bone magic, and they were all going feral. Magic had its own signature. Normally, they would sense foreign magic and would respond in kind. My bone magic was familiar to them. In their minds, I should have been a friend.
Being attacked by me ruffled their fur in the wrong way, and they acted out. Dorian and Noah were trying their hardest not to give in to their primal halves. Both of them weren’t shifted. It meant they had to fight together using only their amplified strength and the grey matter in between their ears.
“Did you think it was going to be that easy?” I found myself saying.
