Page 5 of A Lost Light

Visiting the angelic realm was giving me a serious sense of déjà vu. Same pompous glowing, god-like guards walking around with sticks up their asses, same too-perfect city with too-pale walls and no sense of fun, same boring council chambers with the Head Asshole and his brethren sitting up there on their dais while we stood down on a lowered floor meant to make us feel like insects.

And the argument was the same too.

We needed the nullifying artifact to fuck shit up back in Magea, and they refused to share their shiny toys.

“Do we really need to go through this allagain?” I ground out when I was asked to repeat myself. I crossed my arms and glared up at the head honcho on his elevated stage, not the least bit impressed with his flowing locks, his frat-boy toga, or his glowing, branch-like wings.

He stared back, his sculpted face expressionless. But I could tell he was enjoying this. He was getting a rise out of making life difficult for the puny mortal witch and her posse of weirdos. Inany other situation it might be amusing. But today, I failed to see the humor.

“The Supernatural Alliance of Magea has made it quite clear that any surviving Lovell witch is a threat to the order of things, and should be killed or captured on sight. You should be honored you still draw breath, Oleander Lovell, given your lineage and your family's penchant for attempted genocide and war mongering.”

I huffed. “Oh, come off it. If you believed the smoke the SA has been blowing up your ass, they'd still have the artifact and I'd already be dead. You know they're full of shit, don't pretend otherwise.”

Was that…? Yes, it was. For one second there, just for an instant, the pompous asshole's lips twitched, and his eyes narrowed. So, he wasn't quite as indifferent as he pretended to be. If nothing else, the SA had irritated the angels enough that they had taken back the artifact the SA previously “borrowed.”

“Chorus Master,” Elijah interjected, floating forward to address his leader. He was a pale, ghostly version of the others on the dais. But the hollow, echoing quality of his otherworldly voice brought a hush to the room. “We are all aware of the elaborate deception this realm thrives on. And we are not asking you to deviate from that. I could spout tenets at you all day, from holy books I know mean nothing to you. All we are asking is that you support the winning side in this conflict. For the best interests of everyone involved, including yourselves.”

One of the other angels opened their mouth, probably primed to deny Elijah's insinuations about their ruse with the humans. But Elijah didn't give him a chance to interject. “The Supernatural Alliance or the cult of witch supremacists… no matter which faction comes out on top—if they evenaredifferent factions at their dark hearts, which remains to be seen—the angelic realm stands to lose credence with half thepopulation of Magea. And you'll lose your even greater source of power in the Planus realm, once the disease of this corruption spreads to the mortals there. They'll be too busy worshipping their new witch overlords to care what the angels have to say. But you can prevent this if you help us stop the civil war that is brewing. All you have to do is give us the artifact. We will do all the work and take on all the risks ourselves.”

“Ghost,” the leader of the chorus said, distaste lacing his words. “We are not so weak as to be beholden to this ragtag band of would-be… heroes.”

He did crack a smile then, but it was not the sweet, beneficent thing you'd expect from the humans' storybook angels. No, this smile was cruel, blooming across his face like poison. “Are you really that naive? Do you not realize how much power we draw from people of faith in times of war and upheaval? The dying prayer of a true believer is one of our strongest sources of power.” He spread his hands as if presenting us with some great, exciting revelation. “Why else would godlike beings such as ourselves allow such suffering to persist in the mortal realms?” He narrowed his eyes at our dead angel. “Pity you did not live long enough to fully understand our greatness, child.”

I just blinked at him, unable to form words. While I wasn't exactlysurprisedat his take on things, Iwasmore than a little taken aback that he would just flat out admit that they were benefitting from the death and suffering of the delusional mortals who had fallen prey to their lies.

Something prodded me in the brain. A little tug at the deepest of my bonds to the others. With a mental eye roll, I opened myself up to Dyre and Sunny. We couldn't really carry on a conversation in our minds. But they could send me enough thoughts, emotions, and faint pictures for me to get the message. And what a message it was. The necromancer was all for killing everyone in this room and simply taking the nullifier. Therewas a chance we'd all die. But he was fairly confident he could reanimate enough powerful angels to even the odds.

I gave him a subtle head shake.

At my other side, Aahil watched me with narrowed eyes, clearly aware I was communicating with someone. He glanced at Dyre. My bond to Aahil tingled with warmth, and he arched a dark brow at me, one corner of his lips curling up in an evil, hungry little smirk.

No. Nope. There had to be a better way.

Goddess, my new family was every bit as bloodthirsty as my old one.

The head douchebag angel interrupted our silent conversation, drawing my attention back to wondering how the hell we were going to take the artifact if we weren't willing to straight-up murder these jackasses. “The squabbles of the lesser beings occupying other realms are no concern of ours. They will work things out themselves. And whatever the outcome, it will not affect our ability to maintain our power and authority here in our own realm.”

Basically, not his problem.

I shook my head at him. “You seem so sure of that, dude. But how do you know they aren't planning on coming for you once they're done with the other realms?” I put my hands on my hips and looked up at him with all the awful confidence a Lovell witch could muster. “If I got here all on my own, you'd better believe the SA and the cultists have ways of breaking into your realm. And trust me, they don't have the inconvenient moral compass that I follow. Much like you dumbasses, all they'll care about is power and how to steal it.”

Someone in the group up on the dais scoffed at me. They were just so sure of their own superiority. And so damned unwilling to give a single shit about the wellbeing of anyone other than their own people.

“Fuck this,” Aahil said from my side. Then he formed a fireball in his hand and lobbed it at the high chorus.

I sighed. I had really hoped to work this out diplomatically. But, sadly, diplomacy didn't seem to be our strong point.

The flames bounced off some sort of magical barrier and rained down around us. I had to give it to Aahil; he really had regained impressive control of his fire powers. The flames that fell around us didn't burn anyone in our group, but they rapidly destroyed the arcing rows of intricately carved wooden benches behind us, and the gaudy woven tapestries that adorned the walls. Ha. So there, angels.

Aahil's distraction allowed Ambrose to travel through the otherworld and slip through the choir's barrier, where he materialized behind the choir master and placed his ebony hands on the either side of the douche bag's head. The guy's mouth opened, his face scrunched in fury as he prepared to shout orders, but then his eyes rolled back in his head as nightmares swamped him.

Dark tendrils of terror leaked from Ambrose, affecting everyone on the dais. Unable to maintain their concentration, their magical barrier dropped.

Niamh and Zhong moved in to make sure the remaining chorus members didn't try anything. I stayed where I was, Biz on my shoulder making the flow of my magic even stronger, in the way only a bonded familiar could. I kept an eye on the situation, my earth magic ready to split the earth if things went south. Hasumi stood beside me, calm and placid as usual, their magic also waiting, at the ready.

Dyre paced forward, climbing the dais and looming over the head angel as a menacing black aura wreathed his tall, gaunt frame. The sharp angles of his face were cast in shadows, and his violet and black eyes burned as he held out his arms, hands spread wide. “Tell us where the artifact is and how to obtain it,or I will drain the soul from every angel in this room,” he said softly, his deep voice eerie and full of dark promise. He wanted this. The ancient darkness that lived inside my necromancer was always hungry. It wanted to feast on their souls and reanimate their corpses. Some part of Dyre wanted to lose himself to the dark power that he and the wraith shared.

I couldn't really blame the angels if they wet themselves.

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