Page 54 of A Touch of Brimstone

I continued to ease back, taking myself out of the crossfire, hoping to melt into the background. My mind was rampant with thoughts. They’d killed the Awakeners. Were they there to also kill Anand, Dominic, and Helena?

Convinced they wanted to kill me, too, I scanned the room for an escape route. There was an emergency exit to the left of the store and another exit leading to the alleyway in the employee lounge. From my position, they were an equal distance apart, obstructed by toppled bookshelves, bodies, and debris. I chose the employee lounge.

Before I could run, I felt the intensity of eyes on me. Two pairs turned in my direction. Helena saw it a moment before I did. One of them, a man in his mid-fifties, moved toward me. The cold gleam in his eyes and the cruel curl of his lips belied his gentle, paternal appearance. How often was his lethality underestimated by his appearance? With a slight flick of the man’s hand, I slammed back into the wall. His magic held me firmly against it. I strained, trying to tear away. His hands were rigid in front of him.

Was Helena afraid to challenge him? Why was she just standing there doing nothing? Out of my periphery, I saw Dominic speeding toward the man, whose chest caved in from the impact of Dominic’s punch. Dominic was just a blur as he twisted, avoiding the knife hurled from the center of the room. Without losing his speed, he sent what looked like a fiery arrow in the attacker’s direction. Dominic was the embodiment of puissance and violence. It worked to my advantage at the moment, but I was witnessing his unrestrained power, what he could do. This was why the Conventicle feared and hated him.

The affable-looking man gurgled out a strangled gasp for breath that wouldn’t come. His struggle to hang on to life seemed to take too long, the shock of his demise slowly registering on his face. Helena taking a knife to his throat seemed like a mercy killing. She chose that over dealing with the man standing near her, who shot a sphere of magic straight at me. I dropped to the floor and flattened my body against it and watched as it hit the illuminated wall that surrounded me.

The shock of his failure registered briefly before Dominic was behind him. He wrenched the man’s head to the side, and the man dropped.

My breath came at short shallow clips. The violence was horrific. Dominic was violence. Period. A powerful reminder of my goal: do whatever was necessary to untangle myself from him and this world.

Dominic stepped forward, examining the cocoon of magic that surrounded me. He pressed his hand against it then quickly jerked away. Amber seized his eyes, and his face strained as he tried unsuccessfully to dismantle it. After several attempts he was joined by Helena, who circled it, examining it, and jerking back at the pain from touching it.

“This isn’t witch magic.”

Dominic grimaced. He was searching the destroyed room, moving quickly throughout the space, opening doors, moving anything large, when the cocoon of magic fell.

Left in the room was just Anand, who was on the phone, Helena, who stayed close to me, examining the space where I’d been enclosed in magic, and Dominic, who kept searching through the store for something or someone he hadn’t revealed.

I was preoccupied with picking up broken ceramic pieces. Engaging in the useless act of trying to clean up. I had to do something, no matter how futile.

“Your arrogance will be your failure,” Madeline said as she entered the room with several other people. Her gentle tone was diametrically opposed to the harshness of her scowl.

Startled by her presence, I was again unnerved by the ease in which they navigated the world undetected.

My eyes followed hers as she took in the state of the store: the bodies, the blood, the evidence of extreme violence. Then her eyes rested on the trash bag I was holding and the pieces of broken ceramic in my hands.

“Leave it. We will handle that,” she instructed me. She directed the rest to Dominic. “Zana will take care of the cameras,” Madeline told him, shooting me a harsh look before nodding to a woman with a purple pixie cut, shorts, an oversized shirt with strategically placed rips, and an ankle-length cardigan. A crescent moon and stars tattooed her neck, and the boredom with which she walked through the store was in stark contrast to Madeline’s intensity.

Moving her hand in rhythmic circular motions, Zana whispered an incantation as she moved through the space. The same iridescent glow flitted over the room where I knew there were cameras. She was precise and methodical. Techno-witch. Once she’d gone through the store, she went through the coffee shop and all the surrounding stores.

“Is she erasing them?” I asked Dominic.

“No, she’s changing what will be shown.”

“If Cameron already saw it, she’ll know it was changed.”

He shook his head. “She won’t. Zara’s the best techno-witch because she leaves no evidence,” he admitted quietly.

“Or rather, there’s an illusion or compulsion spell with her magic. We’re just pawns whose minds you manipulate on a whim,” I spat out.

He stood taller, his hand shoved in his pocket, ignoring my barb.

“What about this?” I waved my hand around. “You can’t just make this go away, magic it away with illusions and manipulations. These are real things that were destroyed. Real consequences because of this. How much more do the people I care about have to suffer because of the supernaturals?”

“That’s enough, Luna,” he snapped.

“Enough. Yes, I’ve had enough.”

Anger had clouded all rational thought. I marched off, needing to get away from reminders of my predicament and another attempt on my life. I was furious at the supernaturals treating our lives and minds like game pieces to be manipulated at will to win whatever game they were playing.

The thrum of magic that brushed against my skin as I stared out the window seemed foreboding, now that I knew what it was. Before, I’d ignored the breeziness of air, viewed a slight fluctuation in the energy as innocuous—just my mind playing tricks on me, a stuffiness in a room that needed to be ventilated. There was something quite ominous about an area that was usually bustling around this time of day, now that no one was around. I didn’t believe in coincidences. Magic. It was all magic, and I hated it. I just needed to fix the situation. How?

Fixing the situation consumed me as people entered the store and left, and I took in more magic-drenched air. Watching the orchestrated removal of all evidence of supernatural existence left me awestruck. The cleanup crew. The people behind the machine who had done this so often, it was a methodical and efficient system.

Dominic’s placid face of indifference confirmed this was just another day for them. Murder a bunch of people, destroy a store, set books on fire—no problem, I got you covered.

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