Scorched

Chapter 28

The instant Mac vanished, Constance grew scared and impatient, the empty, lonely darkness around her closing in like a wall of ice. She was so cold she shuddered, as if her bones had forgotten they had ever held heat—as if she had never been a living woman, just a shadow of hunger. You’d think all this shaking would keep me warm.

It wasn’t fear for herself that choked her, but for her loved ones. She had to know what was going on. Mac had gone for a quick look around, but she knew very well he meant to leave her in the safety of the shadows. Well, bollocks to that. She crept around the pillar and up the staircase to the right, crouching below the level of the solid stone balcony rail to stay out of sight. When she reached the top, she shrank into the corner. The nearest guardsmen were only a stone’s throw away, but their attention was firmly on the scene below. She turned her back to them, counting on her dark hair and clothes to melt her into the shadows. Just in case, she held the knife hidden in the folds of her skirt, the handle firm in her chill hand.

She closed her eyes a moment, steadying her courage. Her skin hurt where she had touched Mac, but she already missed his heat. She had seen the loss in his eyes before he left. He clearly didn’t understand how she felt.

There was a story of a fairy captive who could only be freed if his lover embraced him no matter what shape he took—be it bear or wolf or pillar of fire. Just like in the tale, Connie meant to hold on to Mac until he was hers.

Nothing said she couldn’t have her prince just because she had pointy teeth. And he would have his milkmaid, even if his touch burned like the forbidden sun. I’m not letting him go. She felt tears running down her face, some for Mac, some for herself. Some because she knew she had to face whatever was going on in the courtyard.

She had to do it. She had to look.

Silently, slowly, Constance raised herself up until she could see over the railing. The sight below struck her like a blow from Bran’s ax: Atreus, the scaffold, the bucket, and her son. Oh, God.

The need to scream was a physical pain, but there were guardsmen too close. One noise, and she would be dead. Or worse—helpless to erase the horrible events she saw. Accidentally, the point of the knife pricked her knee. She rode the sensation, letting it carry her away from the images before her. What can I do? What can I do?

“There!” she heard Bran roar. “The demon!”

Then the guardsmen on the balcony were up, scrambling so fast they tipped over the stone bench. It cracked as it fell, but they kept going, down the stairs at a frantic pace. Connie looked over the balcony again, and saw why.

Sylvius was free!

Her heart soared, until she saw an arrow fly, striking Sylvius and Mac to the ground. Then she stood, not caring who saw her.

“Constance!”

She looked up. Atreus was calling to her from the cage. His eyes burned with such anger, she fell back a step. “Constance, help me!”

He’s in a cage, chained with silver. There’s nothing he can do to me.

A cry came from the scene below. She lurched to the balcony, nearly toppling over in her haste. The battle was worse. Mac was surrounded.

“Constance!”

The command in Atreus’s voice jerked her head up again. Obedience was still a habit. Habits can be broken.

Atreus grasped the bars, staring at her through the gaps. “I can help them, if you will get me out of here!”

“Why would you help us now? You gave away my child—your child!”

He pointed to the ground. “Reynard should have been able to keep him safe!”

“Against all his guardsmen?”

“The past is gone. Sylvius needs help now. Constance, please! Open this cage!”

“I don’t trust you.”

He jerked the bars in wild frustration. “Can you fight all those men? I can! Get me out! We both love Sylvius. I will protect him!”

It was the one argument she couldn’t withstand. She would do anything for Sylvius. For Mac. She looked around wildly. “How can I get up there?”

“Fly! You are a vampire!”

Of course. Fly. I have my powers.

She’d paid dearly enough for them. She remembered the taste of blood in her mouth, and felt a jagged wrench of hunger. The cost of power is always more than we expect.

Doubt seized her. She was only newly Turned. But this is why I wanted these gifts—to protect those I love. Now is the moment when-everything I’ve endured will all make sense.

She sprang onto the stone railing. It took a moment to find her balance. The top of the rail was barely a handspan wide. Concentrating, she drew in a long breath. Atreus’s cage wasn’t far—about six feet up and about twenty feet away. Not far at all for someone like Alessandro to leap.

Then she made the mistake of looking down. Sylvius was lying in a bone-white heap. Bran kicked Mac in the face. She gave an involuntary jerk at the sight.

“Bloody hell!” She started to wobble. Her curse echoed in the high cavern.

Atreus cursed. “Look at me; don’t look down!”

An arrow shot by, skimming the hem of her skirt. She felt the rush of feathers pass her ankle. She began to lose her balance, slowly, almost gracefully. She fell forward while her arms windmilled backward, her feet trying to mold themselves to the rail through the soles of her shoes.

She slipped, trying to catch herself in empty air. Atreus was kneeling on the floor of his cage, reaching his hand as far as he could through the bars. It was useless. Until he was freed from the silver bonds, he had no power.

But still, he reached out his hand. The gesture was enough to give her courage. In the split second before she plummeted, Constance stretched her arm toward his, wishing she could catch those familiar fingers with her own.

And then she felt herself drawn upward, like a fish on a line.

I’m flying!

“Aaah!” She crashed into the bottom of the cage. It swung wildly, spinning on the chain that suspended it from the ceiling. She grabbed the bars, feet dangling, just as another arrow whistled by.

“Careful, girl!” Atreus roared, trying to steady himself against the violent rocking. “Now get this door open!”

Constance felt like a spider dangling from a broken web. She pulled herself up, doing her best to find a foothold but tilting the cage with her weight. Another arrow pinged against the bars and shattered.

“Make haste!” Atreus demanded.

The lock was old, but she still had to brace herself before even vampire strength could tear open the door. Finally, Constance slid one foot between the bars, grasped the bars of the door, and hauled with all her strength. She had possessed more than human strength before fully Turning, but now she could feel added power. On the other side, Atreus drove his shoulder against the lock.

The door flew off, nearly taking her with it. She let go, sending it spinning to the courtyard below. It landed on someone aiming his sword at Mac. Good.

Atreus grabbed her arm and dragged her inside the cage. The space was just large enough for them to crouch side by side. It felt weirdly familiar to be so close to her old master, surrounded by the scent of incense that always clung to him, hearing the rustle of his robes. Constance studied his face. His eyes were clearer than they had been for months. The madness seemed to have retreated like an outgoing tide—but Atreus could be convincing if there was something he wanted. She didn’t trust this sudden return of sanity.

“Why are you up here?” Constance asked.

“Bran is in league with Miru-kai.”

Constance caught her breath at the name of her master’s old enemy.

“They put me here so that I would be forced to watch them murder my boy. And they call me insane. But the jest is on them. Look.” Atreus pointed. “Your demon draws the guardsmen away from Sylvius. He is clever.”

Mac! “What are you going to do?”

Atreus held up his hands. The silver chains bound his wrists with thick cuffs, then wound around one of the bars of the cage. “I can do nothing chained here like a parrot to his perch. Ah, they tricked me with bowing and fine speeches, and like a fool I listened to their poisoned words.”

Constance grabbed the links, meaning to tear them apart.

“You can’t do that. They’re cast from silver. We’ll need the key.”

“The key?”

He placed one long finger on her chin. “You took it. You shed your blood on my box. It always tells me who steals my treasures.”

Constance met his eyes, shame flooding her body. “I confess I did it, but Mac has the key. He used it to unlock Sylvius’s chains.”

Atreus let his hand drop. “The key is the only tool in the Castle that can circumvent silver chains. Then the guardsmen have it, I am trapped, and all is lost.”

I won’t believe that! Gritting her teeth, Constance reached over, grabbed the bar that held the chains, and yanked it from its moorings. “Then we cheat.”

Mac surrendered to his demon. He meant to turn to dust. Instead, he burst into flame.

Bran reeled back, shock blanking his expression. Mac levered himself up, grabbing the sword someone had dropped when the door to Atreus’s cage fell from the ceiling. Flames licked down the length of the blade, making it one with Mac’s hand.

Then his mind went empty. All his demon was meant for, designed for, was to fight.

He took a step forward, and it became a killing dance. Suddenly, his body was immune to pain, immune to the fatigue of carrying Reynard, to blood loss, to the knowledge that he was one against the entire force of guards.

With a sweep of the sword, Bran was dead, his reactions too slowed by the euphoria of Sylvius’s blood to even block Mac’s blow. And then the sorcerer leading the ritual. Wherever the sword touched, flames burrowed, their searing, intimate touch making sure no healing followed. Blood puddled where they fell. The others fell back.

Mac followed, and then flames followed as he scythed through his attackers. He was pure demon. He didn’t feel joy, revulsion, elation, or pity—just satisfaction, like a thirst finally quenched. It was the pure poetry of combat, violence stripped of excuses. No honor. No grudges. Just the killing act.

Perhaps this was what Reynard had meant when he said Mac’s demon would eventually get the upper hand. He was fire. Brutal. Cleansing. Mac gave the spell to restore the Avatar many deaths to feed on, fulfilling the words that he himself had spoken at the council.

Conscious only of cut and thrust, of the geometry of the sword, Mac moved around and around the pack of guardsmen. It seemed to swell only to have him mow through it again. That was fine with Mac. To the demon, one guard was much like the next.

The smart ones went looking for weapons that could be used from a distance. An arrow nicked him. The two he had already taken were slowing him down. He could feel his own blood beneath his shoes, slippery, treacherous. Though he felt no weakness or pain, his injuries were still taking their toll.

Invincibility, even in a demon, is illusion. There is always a way to die.

The whole place stank of magic from the pond. It was growing thicker by the moment, egging him on, feeding his killing trance. Only his darker side remained, burning to sear away every trace of the guardsmen and their ritual.

Even swallowed up by the demon, Mac tried to protect the one he loved and the ones she loved. Though many fell, Sylvius remained safe, untouched, and secure.

But in the end, there were too many enemies, even for a warrior made of fire. Already wounded, bleeding out, his energy consumed by bright flames, Mac couldn’t watch everywhere at once.

Death surprised Mac for the moment it took him to die.

Constance tore the bar from the cage and let it drop, as she had the door, on an advancing guardsman. The links that bound the cuffs together dangled free with a sinuous, snakelike motion.

Atreus stretched out his arms, testing the play of the chain. “Brave, Constance, but it is still not enough.”

“What do I need to do?”

“Silver drains my power and defies your strength.”

She’d heard that part already. She grabbed his wrist, twisting the cuff around so she could see how it closed. “I have a knife. Maybe I can pick the lock.”

“That would take time.”

Constance glanced down. Sylvius had crawled away and was hiding beneath the scaffold, away from trampling feet. With a sick lurch, she saw the trail of blood he had left in his wake.

Then she nearly fell out between the gap-toothed bars. Horror and wonderment hit her like strong liquor, forcing her to grab the cage for support.

Mac had become a creature of fire. A halo of pale flames covered him like a second skin, moving and swirling as he fought. She watched him dodge and thrust, his big, strong body lithe and quick as the blaze itself. Mac, what have you done?

“He has become his demon, a perfect killer,” Atreus said, answering her silent question.

No. The man I love is still in there. And if he was going to stay in one piece, the battle had to end. Now. There were too many guards for even a demon to fight.

There was no doubt he needed Atreus’s help.

Defiantly, Constance slid her thin fingers beneath the rim of the silver cuff, pulling the hinges apart. The edges of the silver cut into her skin, coating the metal with slick blood. Her grip slid.

“This is useless,” Atreus snapped. “If these shackles could be so easily bent, no one would bother making silver chains!”

“Let me try!” she snarled back. She resettled her grip, closed her eyes, and threw all the force of her vampire strength behind it. Please! Please!

She strained, ducking her head and using her shoulders. The hinge pin snapped, allowing the cuff to bend. Atreus pulled his arm out of her bloodied fingers and ripped at the metal.

“Huh,” he said, clearly annoyed she’d proved him wrong. Immediately, he brightened. “This silver can’t be pure. Of course you can get the better of it, my girl!” One hand now free, he held out the other, his black eyes bright as stars. “Break the other. Bless you for claiming your vampire blood, Constance, you’ve saved us.”

Now filled with confidence, she had the second cuff off in a moment. Atreus hurled the chains out of the cage, stretching out his arms in triumph. Constance felt the rush of his gathering power. It seemed to swirl around them, whistling through the bars as it gained speed.

Sylvius, Mac, we’re coming!

She moved to jump out from where the door had been and launch herself down below, but Atreus caught her sleeve. “Stay one moment,” he said, barely turning his head. “It’s safer here.”

Constance stiffened, something in his words sounding ominous. “What do you mean?”

His attention was fixed on the knot of guardsmen below, Mac burning bright among them. “The guards will never touch my son again.”

He rose to one knee, leaning out of the cage. The whoosh of energy grew to a cyclone, rife with a mad, restless energy so like Atreus himself.

Constance had wanted the sorcerer to help. Now she was suddenly terrified. I used my powers to free him. Did I make a terrible mistake?

“Stop!” she cried, but the word died in the sudden absence of air.

White lightning filled the cavernous hall, nowhere and everywhere at once. It flicked like the tongue of a serpent, touching pillars, the scaffold, the balcony where Constance had stood. She fell against the bars, flinging her arm over her eyes, praying Atreus could keep it from the metal cage.

Thunder cracked, shaking her through and through, rattling dust from the ceiling. She bit her tongue, the taste of blood confused with the smell of hot stone and the crisp tang of storms.

Atreus stood at the very edge of the cage door, conducting a rising wind as if it were a band of musicians. Blinded by tears from the brightness, Constance barely blinked her vision clear in time to see the lightning gather itself into a bright, throbbing glow, a single ball poised above the battle below. Her eyes sought Mac in the confusion of milling bodies.

All the guardsmen, including Mac, battled directly below the burning globe of energy.

“No!” she cried, grabbing at Atreus. “You’ll kill them all! You’ll kill Mac! You might kill Sylvius.”

But her words were lost in the funnel of wind that held the ball poised on a cushion of air. Anger rushed through her like Mac’s red-hot fire. Atreus was laughing. Constance jerked the sorcerer’s arm hard, forcing his attention to her. She had only seconds to make him stop.

Atreus wheeled, unable to resist her new strength, and missed his footing. He stepped onto thin air. His mouth opened as if to speak, his eyes holding Constance’s in a blank stare Of surprise. Another time, he could have saved himself, but all his power was in the storm.

All his power was bent on killing.

She had to stop him. But maybe she already had, deep in her heart. She didn’t reach for him, couldn’t bring herself to grab his hand.

He had reached out to her, but only so that she could free him to massacre the men below. Enough was enough.

In that instant, Atreus’s power speared downward and dragged Atreus with it. He fell like a wind-tossed scrap of paper, drifting, spinning down through the stone cavern to the cruel rock below.

Magic was hanging all around Mac, like fog. Part of him had been aware it had been there all along, growing stronger as he’d been fighting. Now it clogged his mind. Memories from the past few hours flickered, but refused to coalesce. Lightning. Blood. Fire. Pain.

He shook his head to clear it. It helped a little. Enough to notice where he was.

He was sitting in the front row of one of the balconies, looking down at the chaos below. He seemed okay. Unhurt. Even his clothes were clean and unwrinkled.

For some reason that made him afraid.

“Thank you for putting me back.”

He whipped his head around, half jumping to his feet.

A woman was sitting next to him, her legs crossed casually under long skirts made of some gauzy rainbow-colored fabric. Mac’s first thoughts were of Renaissance fairies and organic gardening. She looked the tofu type, with one of those ageless faces and long, long straight hair.

She seemed familiar.

He looked harder. There was something about her that was hard to see, as if his eyes kept trying to shift away. He had to force himself to study her face. Black eyes. Hair so pale it looked silver. And then it clicked. She had Sylvius’s features.

The Avatar.

“You’re back in the Castle,” Mac said.

“I am the Castle,” she replied. Her voice was husky and low. She folded her hands in her lap. The bangles on her wrists—gold, silver, copper, and metals he couldn’t name— jingled as she moved. “You see me as Atreus made me, but in truth I have no physical form.”

It made sense. Witches built sentient houses. The Castle was just a big house, conscious in much the same way. The Avatar was its sentience. More complex, more powerful, but the principle was the same.

“Very good,” she said, even though he hadn’t spoken a word.

“If you’re here, is Sylvius all right?”

“He will be fine.”

Mac didn’t want to look away from the Avatar, but he looked down over the balcony railing, anyway. He wanted to check on Connie, but couldn’t find her in the milling crowd below.

“She is unhurt,” the Avatar said.

Mac looked up, mildly irritated. He felt a beat behind the conversation.

“You want to know why you were involved in this battle,” the Avatar said, making it a statement.

“That would be nice.”

“It is a very mortal need. Why is so important to the short-lived. The simple answer is that I needed your strength.”

“And the longer and more satisfying answer?”

The Avatar shifted, her bracelets making a clinking sound. “The Castle—I—was failing. Sylvius had just come into his powers and was old enough to release me without suffering harm himself. You were there, and your demon was in a mutable state.”

“So it was you who changed me?”

“I took your dormant infection and made it active again. I switched you from a soul eater to a fire demon. Fire demons are much more useful for raising power, and I needed power to complete the spell.”

Mac’s mood went black. “So the time was right and I was convenient. That’s it.”

The Avatar gave a half smile. “I knew you were the one the moment you spared Bran’s life, right before you met Constance. There is a line you will not cross, one that keeps you from surrendering to darkness. You are someone who has a will to help others. You held on to that despite how the demon changed you. No other demon would risk death to save a teenage incubus from a roomful of guardsmen and sorcerers. Everything you are or ever have been destined you to save me and those who dwell here.”

That sounded a lot like the hellhounds’ prophecy. Lore had been right. “You mean I was just a pawn of destiny?” he said dryly.

“There is always free will. You could have not saved us. You could have let us all perish.”

“But instead I did my bit.”

“And I appreciate it,” she added.

“Good to know. So you got your spell. Can I go home now?”

She looked perplexed. “Home? You’re a wandering spirit.”

Mac began to feel sick. “Spirit?”

“You gave your life so that I could be free.”

A wave of desperation surged through him. He was dead. He couldn’t be dead. He slapped a hand to his chest, but he felt real enough. The bench felt hard and uncomfortable beneath him.

“You feel what you expect to feel,” said the Avatar. “Just as you see me because your mind needs an image to talk to.”

Mac licked his lips. Or thought he did. Whatever. “You said Sylvius is all right. How come he got to live and I didn’t?”

“Sylvius was two beings in one. Me, and his father’s son. There’s only one of you.”

Mac looked over the railing again, trying to catch a glimpse of the kid. He caught sight of Connie instead. She was leaning on Caravelli, starting to sob. She’s found out. She knows I’m gone. That should be me holding her.

“But you can’t.” The Avatar sounded vaguely perplexed, as if he were being slow. She didn’t look so relaxed now.

Mac swiveled to face her. “Look, you turned me into a monster. A killing machine. I did terrible things to fulfill your spell. Soul-destroying things.”

“That’s true.” She didn’t sound very worried about it.

“You owe me for that. You turned me into a murderous monster.”

She leaned forward, not exactly angry but definitely intense. “Yes, as part of the spell to restore me, you killed a great many guardsmen. You paid for those deaths with your own life. Isn’t that atonement enough? And wasn’t it in a good cause?”

Mac didn’t say anything more. How do I argue with a pile of stone?

The Avatar put a hand on his knee. It felt cold, heavier than a woman’s hand should have been. “Very well. You died in my service. I acknowledge my debt to you. What would you have me do? Do you wish to return to your human life?”

Mac lifted his head.

“Can you do that?” Mac heard the hope in his voice. Hope for everything he’d lost—his job, his family, his friends. He could see himself back at his desk, dirty coffee cup and files and more work than was humanly possible to accomplish stacked before him. It looked like heaven.

And there was more. He could keep October mornings. The smell of coffee. Dogs. Going for a run in the rain. He wouldn’t have to die, a wisp of nothing fading into the dark.

The Avatar gave an apologetic smile. “It is difficult to remove a demon symbiont from its host. It is harder still to keep that infection from returning. I would have to set safeguards in place to limit your contact with the supernatural world. If you were human again, my doors would be closed to you. You would find the supernatural community outside your reach.”

On first hearing, it sounded like a small price to pay. Mac looked out over the cavernous gloom, the small figures below lit by the fire from the lake. It was a macabre scene, like something from a medieval painting of hell.

Then he felt the Castle’s words like lights going out in his heart, one by one. No supernatural community meant no Holly. No Caravelli, or Lore, or Sylvius. He could have his old life, but it would be without those friends who had been there for him, demon or not. Worst and most terrible: No Connie. He would be doomed to live without her love.

Mac felt his limbs growing cold. Was that death, or just sadness?

“Does a human life not please you?” asked the Avatar. “Is there a door number two? One where I get to be a white hat?”

She sat back, turning the bracelets around and around her wrists. The long, pale hair fell over her face, and she was silent for so long Mac thought she had lost interest in him.

Mac slouched against the balcony rail, looking out over the cavern. When the Avatar spoke, he jumped. His thoughts had wandered away—down to Connie, and Holly, and all those who had fought beside him that day.

“Then would you serve me?” she asked. “You were a guardsman in your old life.”

“I dunno. Doesn’t sound like your guards are all that happy.”

“They fell into despair because I was gone. In truth, it was my absence that killed them. Not your sword or Atreus’s mad spell of fire.”

Mac turned to face her. She sat, looking up at him. Her expression was earnest.

“I want to make amends.” She lifted a hand, and let it fall with a jingle. “The few guards that remain are good men, but they’re lost. They need someone to lead them. Someone stronger than they are, like a demon.”

Mac’s heart sank. “Demons destroy. We’ve been down that road already.”

“I’ll make you the demon with the badge that helps people.”

“That makes no sense.” He could feel despair seeping into him, cold and gray.

“Yes, it does. It was as a demon that you looked after Constance, and loved her, and gave her the strength to grow into her own power. She’s her own woman now, servant to no one. You rescued her son, twice. You carried Reynard to safety. You put the events in motion that saved Lore’s people. You have high ideals, and the demon gave you the physical strength to live up to your own standards. The creatures of the Castle need human compassion, but in a form that matches their own.”

“I surrendered to the fire demon. I slaughtered your men because I couldn’t control it. Why would those guardsmen who are left follow me?”

“They will know you by how you lead them. You know how such men work far better than I do. You’re one of them.”

“I think they’ll complain if I burn them to crispy critters.”

“I will give you mastery over your demon nature. It is something you would have developed in time, anyway. It takes practice to harness your powers. Isn’t that what you told Constance?”

“Then I get some control on the heat thing?”

“Of course.”

Mac rallied, his spirits rising despite himself. “And none of this no-eating crap. I keep my appetites, thank you very much. In fact, you should have more repression-free zones like the Summer Room. It’s healthier that way for everybody. Maybe if people get to let off steam now and again, they’ll stop hunting the incubi like truffles.”

The Avatar blinked, looking taken aback. “That would be up to you.”

Mac froze. “Up to me?”

She waved a hand, taking in the entire cavern. “I must regenerate rivers and forests, a sky and stars. That’s a lot to look after.” She shrugged. “I’ll have to leave a lot of the smaller details up to you.”

“You actually need me,” said Mac, surprise bubbling through him.

The Avatar nodded. “Yes, Conall Macmillan. And this time I’m asking your permission. Will you help me become the beautiful place I once was? Will you look after my people?”

Mac thought about Reynard and the guards, the warlords and the smugglers, and all the downtrodden of the Castle. It was more than an army of social service agencies could ever hope to clean up, and he was proposing to do it on his own.

“Hell, yes.” And then he laughed.

Cleaning up the street was exactly the kind of work that got Mac up in the morning. Besides, he wouldn’t be on his own. He had friends, and there were folks in Fairview who cared about what happened behind the Castle door. They’d proved that today.

Most of all, there was Connie. If ever there was a girl worth being resurrected for, she was the one.

“I’ll do it.”

The Avatar smiled, and it was like the sunrise. “Good.”

“Just a few more things before we shake hands...”

The Castle laughed, sounding very much like a lovely woman. “Of course there are. But just remember that the only thing that matters is the joy that gives you life.”