Authors: Brea Essex
I gave in. “Fine. Give me the weapon.”
“It doesn’t work like that. I can’t choose the blade for you. That’s a personal choice.”
“I don’t know anything about weapons! How can I choose?”
“I didn’t say it was your choice. The blade chooses you.”
I was pretty sure he’d lost his mind. Weapons didn’t have a mind of their own. “How exactly does that work?” I asked skeptically.
“Close your eyes.”
Of course that was my first order. I complied. “Now hold out your hand,” Andrei continued.
I did as he said. Nothing happened. I cracked one eye open and stared at him. “I think something’s wrong.”
“You weren’t concentrating hard enough. You have to visualize the weapon.”
“I thought you said the blade chose me.”
“Just close your eyes again.” I closed them. “Now concentrate on a sword. Any sword will do this one time. After this, you can picture your specific weapon.”
I thought about the first sword, or rather, swords, that came to mind: Logan’s katanas. I thought about how he had looked when he was fighting with them… when he was himself.
“Concentrate harder,” Andrei instructed softly.
I doubled my efforts, thinking about the way Logan moved with his swords. Finally I focused on the weapons themselves. I felt a weight in my outstretched hand. “You can open your eyes now,” Andrei said.
I did so and looked down at the blade that appeared, glowing in my hand. The hilt was wrapped in black leather. It was golden, and the blade silver with symbols etched on it. To my untrained eye, it was virtually indistinguishable from one of Logan’s blades. I smiled softly in satisfaction.
I looked back at Andrei. “I did it!”
He stared at the weapon in my hand. He looked upset. “I thought…”
“What?”
“Never mind.” He looked up at me. “So, a sword like my brother’s. That’s new. Usually everyone has their own unique weapon.”Sarcasm colored his tone.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, I just — I just thought… when you started shooting lightning, that it meant you were leaning toward choosing me. That even though you threw me across the room, our kiss meant something to you and helped you connect to your powers. Now I see you standing here with a sword practically identical to Logan’s… maybe I was wrong.”
I felt bad, but I hadn’t given him any indication I was going to get back with him… had I? “Look, you said yourself that we don’t choose our weapons ourselves, right? The lightning was just coincidental. I didn’t control that any more than I controlled what sword I ended up with.” I didn’t want to tell him I had been thinking of Logan with his swords. “I also can’t control the golden light that seems to appear whenever I try to heal.”
“Wait… what?”
“I’ve tried to heal Logan before. I think I even succeeded briefly. Whenever I try, this golden light appears around my hands.”
“Just like my brother’s.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
He turned and began to pace. “How is this happening? You should be gaining your
own
powers, manifesting your
own
sword, not just the same as Logan’s and mine. I bet you could conjure up a broadsword or slip into someone’s dreams right now!”
“Do you want me to try?” I asked hesitantly.
“No, I don’t want you to try. Don’t be ridiculous. I just don’t understand how you have the same powers as us, but no others.”
“Could it be transferred by kissing?” Stupid question, I knew, but it was the only explanation I could think of. I had kissed both Andrei and Logan.
He stopped pacing and laughed at me. “Of course not!”
I shrugged. “Just a suggestion.” At least I distracted him from his pacing. “So, how do I get ready to face your mother?”
He grabbed my chin and tilted it up so I was looking directly at him. “Do not underestimate my mother. She
will
kill you, given the chance.”
“Why does she want to kill me?”
“You really want to know?”
“Yes. Does my blood open the gate to Heaven, or something like that?”
“Well, that’s part of it. It probably could. But it’s more than that.”
“What is it then?”
“She believes that in killing you, Logan will lose the will to be good. She thinks your death will cause his devil nature to completely take over.”
“Isn’t that what’s happening now, while he’s under the spell?”
“Not entirely. There’s still a good part of Logan in there. That’s why you were able to pull him out of it the one time. My mother believes that if you die, it will send him so completely over the edge there will be no way for him to return.”
“My death wouldn’t do that to him,” I insisted.
“I think you underestimate my brother’s love for you. If you died, it might very well kill him. I know it would kill me.”
“Is this why you keep trying to get me to forget about him?”
“In part. I won’t deny I want you to be with me. But yes, this does have something to do with it.”
“So how do we break the spell?”
My phone rang, interrupting whatever Andrei was about to say. He grabbed my phone from my nightstand and glanced at the caller ID. “I think you’re about to get your answer. It’s the psychic.” He tossed it at me.
“Don’t throw my phone. It’s expensive.” I grabbed it in midair and answered it. “Hello?”
“Come to the shop,” Ismene’s voice came over the line.
I didn’t question her. “I’ll be right there.” I hung up and looked at Andrei. “We have to go.”
****
Andrei
I paid no attention to Rae’s phone call. I felt a little stunned at what just happened. Swearing myself to Rae’s service… I had certainly never expected to do that. My head spun with the implications. If the Queen found out, I would certainly be killed. I didn’t fear her, but I feared for Rae. If I died with Logan still under Serafina’s spell, Rae would be left vulnerable to whomever or whatever my mother sent after her. She would certainly send someone if she learned of my betrayal. Luckily, she hadn’t believed Serafina when the witch tried to accuse me of not following through with orders before. I had to step carefully. Some said that a bond of service changed those who undertook it. The Queen may sense it if I got too near to her. How could I possibly avoid her and still seem as though I were on her side?
My lips tingled with the residual sensation of Rae’s kiss. It didn’t matter what she said. She might be in love with my brother, but she still had feelings for me. I hadn’t compelled her too much. If she didn’t hold onto feelings for me still, she wouldn’t have responded nearly as well as she had. I wished the kiss lasted longer before her thoughts of Logan had broken through. Maybe there was still time to win her over.
Now, how to save my brother? I didn’t have the heart to tell Rae that the easiest way to break the spell was to kill him. She wouldn’t like that much, and it certainly wouldn’t help any of us. We likely needed him to defeat our mother. I hadn’t been lying when I told her I believed Logan had some of the power of the archangels. While my mother never told anyone who Logan’s father was, I certainly had my suspicions.
It was definitely better to tell Rae about the killing Logan idea as a last resort. I wanted to see her happy, even if it wasn’t with me. Besides, if he died, my mother might win. I wouldn’t entertain the idea of killing my brother until I had a sure-fire way to bring him back to life.
What other options did we have? I could ask Serafina to break the spell. The witch was in love with me, after all. That was why I had chosen her to ensorcell Logan to begin with. For many thousands of years, she would do anything I asked her. She had even helped take care of Rae when I held her in the Shadow Imperium, even though she knew I was in love with Rae. But now that she believed me to be a traitor, which I was in her eyes, she might not be as willing to help me. She was convinced Rae had stolen me away from her, and she would likely stop at nothing to try to get me back… even though I had never been hers in the first place.
I wondered briefly what would happen if Rae found out that Serafina had been the “nameless girl” who had brought her food while in the Shadow Imperium. I had forbidden the witch to give Rae any information, even her name. I didn’t even know if Serafina was her true name, just as she didn’t know my name was truly Abaddon. Names held power in the realm of the devils. Only my mother knew everyone’s true name. I had run a risk in telling Rae my real name. It had been a gesture, perhaps a silly one, to show how much I trusted her, how much I valued her. The gesture had been lost on her, as I had known it would be. I would have to explain to her eventually, about my true name, and about Serafina, but not now. Not when she was just beginning to trust me.
I didn’t have any other ideas as to how to help my brother and the girl that I loved. I wanted to kick myself for being such an idiot. The old me would have just left my brother under Serafina’s spell and taken the time to woo Rae. I would have had plenty of time to do it. With her Nephilim blood, she was bound to live for at least several hundred years, if not thousands.
Did she know that she would live that long? The thought had to have crossed her mind, right? I wondered if she fully understood the implications of being immortal, or nearly so. Did she realize that whomever she chose, either myself or my brother, if he lived that long, would likely be her mate for all eternity? I wished with all my heart that it would end up being me. I would no longer try to force her. The girl had a mind of her own. She definitely didn’t like to be told what to do or how to act. No, she needed to make her own choice. I just had to believe she would eventually turn to me. This wasn’t some high school game. I couldn’t play “I saw her first” with my brother. For all that, my swearing into her service was a binding contract, so would be her choice in mate. When all of this with my mother was over, I would have to sit Rae down and explain all of this for her. If she was going to make a choice, it would have to be an informed one. Surely, she would choose me. I had the wisdom, the experience, of living thousands of years. Logan didn’t remember anything beyond the seventeen human years he had walked the earth. When our mother caused him to be reborn, it wiped his entire memory of ever living in the Shadow Imperium. Also, unlike me, Logan had never experienced Heaven. He had been born after the Fall, although our mother carried him when she stood with Lucifer against the Creator.
Had Logan’s immortality been wiped out as well when he was reborn? I didn’t know how our mother had gone about the process. I knew the Morningstar and a powerful witch had helped her. If that was the case, I might win Rae after all, even if she chose my brother. If he lived a mortal life, she would be free once he was gone. She would live on, as would I.
I needed to stop entertaining these thoughts of eternity with Rae. I had to let her make her own decision, although I likely needed to explain much to her. In the meantime, I needed to concentrate on keeping her safe. There would be no eternity together if my mother won. If Rae died, if I died, it was all over. My mother couldn’t win. I needed to protect Rae, and I needed to find a way to pretend that I was still on my mother’s side without her sensing the bond. There had to be a way around it. I just wasn’t seeing it yet. One thing was for sure though. If Serafina found out about the bond, then we were all as good as dead. It would likely take all my skills of manipulation. It was lucky that my mother had taught me well. Little did she know that one day I would use those skills against her.
Raena
“I’ve been doing a lot of research, and you’re not going to like it,” Ismene was saying. I had gone to the shop alone. Andrei decided to head home. It seemed as though she was trying to talk me out of her idea.
“I don’t care if I’m going to like it or not! I just want it to work. It’ll definitely work, right?”
She hesitated for a moment. “All my research says it will absolutely work.”
“Then what is it?”
“You need to kill him,” she informed me dispassionately.
My mind was reeling. “What do you mean,
kill him?
”
“It’s the only way to break the witch’s spell,” she insisted.
“Ismene! The whole point is to get him
away
from her, not
kill
him!” I protested loudly.
“I don’t mean kill him permanently,” she said, rolling her eyes. “You just have to… temporarily… kill him.”
“Temporarily kill him? How the heck do I do that?” I wanted to know.
“I’m not entirely sure. I’ve never had to do it myself,” she admitted.
“So how do you know that we have to kill him? Isn’t there any other way? Something else we haven’t thought of yet?”
“Trust me. I’ve been through every book I could find on the matter, not to mention all over the Internet. Killing him is the only way. Death is the only surefire way to break the spell. It will be brief. We just need to stop his heart for a short time. Then when we bring him back, he will return to his normal self.”
“You didn’t say anything about stopping his heart!”
“Well, what did you think ‘killing him’ meant? Seriously, Raena, you’re smarter than that!”
“Sorry. I don’t know where my mind is,” I said. “So exactly how brief of a time are we talking about here?”
“Just a couple of beats. We will have an antidote on hand and administer it to him immediately,” she explained.
“An antidote? What, are we poisoning him?”
“Yes,” she said simply.
I balked at the idea. It was bad enough that we had to kill him — for however short of a time — but with
poison
? It seemed like such a cruel way to go.
Ismene sensed my hesitation. “Rae, I wish there was another way, but if you want Logan back to his old self, we have to do this.”
“I don’t like it,” I told her.
“I know.”
“What if the antidote doesn’t work?” I wanted to know.
“The antidote will work. I will mix it myself,” she promised.
“Why can’t I just — you know?” I waved my hand in a vague gesture.