This Wicked Magic

Chapter 25

Vika woke in the cool morning light of her living room. The scent of spice welcomed her with a gentle slap to her senses. A rose-embellished porcelain teacup sat on the coffee table, steam wafting from the amber surface.

“You’re awake,” her lover’s voice spoke from somewhere nearby. He sat in the winged chair across the room where shadows yet reigned. “I thought clove and cinnamon would appeal.”

“Thank you.” She sat up and, almost dropping the jade beads, slipped the strand about her wrist, coiling it a few times. Having the prayer beads close gave her solace. She rubbed her palms up and down her arms, feeling inordinately chilled for the middle of summer. She sipped the sweet brew. That hit the spot. Her core felt frozen, stained by darkness. The tea warmed her a little— “The light!”

What sat across from her in the shadows, acting as if her lover?

CJ stood and approached her, his steps easy and demeanor calm. He didn’t feel demonic, but Vika pressed her back to the couch and absently reached for her grandmother’s nail.

“They’re gone,” he said quietly. “War and Pain. Grim took them out of me.”

“As a favor?” she asked, not believing the warlock would do anything so kind.

“No, I had in mind to put them into Grim when I had opportunity. The demon initially resisted, but then, it was gone. Poof. Like that. I think Grim stole them for himself. All I know is I’m clean of demons for the first time in half a year, and it feels beyond amazing. So light. And now, sitting in the darkness? It’s a comfort.”

“But Grim. What will he do with them? It’ll be nothing good.”

“I’m sure not, if he can control them. Which he may have the ability to do. He’s powerful, Vika. But I feel as though he’s out of our lives for now.” He clasped her hand and kissed it. “How are you?”

How was she? She felt the same as usual after one had been tossed about and through a tussle. And yet, not warm, or even whole. Empty.

“Soulless,” she said, her heart stilling at the implications. “It had to be done. So let’s not get into an argument about what I should or should not have done. It’s over. The soul bringer got his due. The Nacht März was not issued. The world is as right as it can be. At least until you decide to steal another dangerous instrument from the place of all demons.”

“Never,” he rushed out. “I promise you that.”

“What if Grim wants something?”

“I’ll let him go at it. I swore to you I would not return to Daemonia, and I stand by that promise.”

Did his eyes seem greener? Not so dark. Alive with warmth, they compelled her as had the beads about her wrist. Solace.

“I believe you,” she said, and then tilted up her chin to kiss him at the corner of his mouth. “Thank you, dark one.”

“You have nothing to thank me for. You are without a soul. I could have prevent—”

She put up her palm, and he understood to drop the subject. “Vika, I uh...I put your sister upstairs in her room. I found her in the kitchen.”

“Libby? Ohmygoddess, I didn’t think about her. She was...?”

CJ nodded. “The bastard took her soul, too. You should go to her.”

“Yes.” She handed him the teacup and rushed up the stairs to find her sister just waking on the bed. “Libby?”

Sitting on the middle of the bed, her sister took one look at her and started to cry. “Oh, Vika! I love him. How could he do that to me?” She pounded her breast with a fist. “It’s gone. He took it without a care. After we’d...after... Oh!”

CJ crept into the room, put a hand to Vika’s hip and whispered in her ear, “I’m going to leave you two. You should be with your sister right now.”

She clutched his shirt. “I don’t want you to leave.” She knew she sounded frantic, but hell, she was. After all they had been through, could he so easily walk away from her now?

“I have to. I have something to do at work.”

“You’re not going after Ian Grim. Tell me you’re not.”

“The warlock has nothing I want or need. But I won’t stop until I get your souls back,” he said. “I can’t.”

She gripped his shirt, stopping his retreat and wishing she had some kind of containment magic. “It’s over, CJ. Leave it as it is. Because I know you’ll offer your soul for ours, and what is that going to change? Nothing.”

“My soul may be more valuable to the soul bringer than yours and Libby’s together. I’m filled with knowledge of multitude magics—”

“No! I won’t hear of it. This is not some one-upmanship between you and the warlock. This is me. And you. And I don’t want a lover without a soul. Hell, you just got it clean of demons. Don’t you want that?”

“I don’t want a lover without a soul, either,” he whispered. Brushing a kiss over her hair, he stepped back and shuffled down the stairs.

Vika clung to the door frame, following his retreat. Her heart shuddered against her rib cage, and her skin grew cold, so cold.

Of course. She was damaged now. Cold and soulless. How could any man want that? By tossing the bone whistle before the train, she had sacrificed not only her soul but also her relationship with CJ.

She looked to Libby and saw tears spilling silently from her sister’s eyes. And Vika began to cry, too.

CJ sorted through the recent acquisitions the archives had received after the raid on Antonio del Gado’s private lair. The vampire leader of the tribe Anakim had been determined to call the Fallen to this earth, with hope the angels would then find and impregnate their muses with a Nephilim. Anakim was a vampire tribe whose members could not withstand sunlight, yet with an infusion of Nephilim blood, their lineage would be strengthened. The leader, del Gado, had failed with his plot. And the spoils had been collected by Council member Ivan Drake and ordered stored in the archives.

The code for Final Days had been locked securely. Various angel ephemera still awaited filing. A notebook with angel sigils and another book handwritten by a muse listed a majority of the Fallen ones’ names. Match the sigil to the name, and a person in the know could summon a Fallen to this realm. That was helpful, to a degree.

The soul bringer had fallen, but not purposefully, and CJ could not find his name on any list. Of course, he didn’t know his angelic name. Reichardt had originally been an angel, expelled from Above to serve as ferryman of souls. He wasn’t the same as a Fallen angel because he had either accepted the challenge to fall and become soul bringer, or he’d been shoved. No book detailed that stipulation. And though his origins were angelic, CJ wasn’t sure if the man was still considered such, or if he was an entirely different beast.

He set the books of names and sigils aside and wandered into the grimoire storage room, knowing it boasted a whole section dealing with Above and all its native inhabitants. The dusty room made him sneeze, and once again he vowed to get an assistant.

Or a dedicated cleaner.

He’d hated to leave Vika, but he had known she and her sister needed to be alone. He regretted saying the thing about not wanting a lover without a soul. He hadn’t meant she repulsed him, only that he felt responsible for her missing soul.

Hell, he wasn’t as proficient in this relationship thing as he liked to believe.

And he had come from a tremendous battle against Grim so he was off-kilter, not completely in grasp of the finer talents of empathy.

No excuse. He’d avoided one disaster, only to create another. He should have called the demons to the march and let the chips fall where they may. Only problem with that was the chips were mortals. And he could not live with such a result on his conscience.

“I need a full name,” he muttered, and headed toward the Angel section of the room. “On second thought.” He pulled out his cell phone and dialed up Cinder.

Vika answered the phone only because Libby shoved her toward it. Feeling lethargic and wanting to sleep all day, she’d stared at the phone for three rings. As depressed as her sister was, Libby was still oddly chipper and had thought about making a batch of cookies. Until the sight of the chocolate chips had made her cry.

It was Vincent Lepore from the Council, requesting she clean up out by the ring road.

“I’m not sure,” she said.

“Are you busy? Vika, you’re the only cleaner available in the area, and this is on a mammoth scale.”

“What’s going on?”

“It’s Ian Grim. Seems he’s unleashed a war demon on the streets of Paris. There are five mortal casualties thus far, and dozens of vampires.”

She gasped. “Mortals. Oh, no. Has Grim been contained?”

“We’re working on that, but his magic is insurmountable.”

“Certainly Jones,” she blurted before thinking it through. “He can stand against Grim. I know he can.”

“I didn’t think of that. I believe he’s in the archives right now. Thanks. You’ll get on the job?”

She agreed then hung up. “Libby, we’ve a mess to clean up.”

A mess she had somehow started.