Page 19 of The Malevolent Seven

But what about spells that don’t target them directly, you may ask? What about, you know, causing an earthquake beneath their feet or setting the countryside around them on fire?

That’s where the second benediction comes in. That lovely shiny armour the justiciars wear isn’t plain old steel. The alloys from which the plates are forged have been infused with the sentience of dead angelics, which, somewhat ironically, makes the armour alive and aware. Crumble the ground beneath an armoured justiciar and they won’t actually fall. Catch one asleep in a barn and set the hay on fire, and their angelic armour will keep them beautifully cool until they have time to finish their nap and enjoy a hearty breakfast before coming to chop off your hands for having the temerity to attempt– notsucceed, mind you, justtoattempt– to interfere with their righteous repose.

Oh, and when theydoround you up? They’ll uncover every crime you’ve ever committed, however minor, even if unrelated to their current investigation. Then they’ll make you pay for each and every one, to the fullest extent of Auroral Law.

‘There has to be some way to escape!’ Green insisted.

Teenagers. They never appreciate the fundamental unfairness of existence.

Actually, there is one way to evade the justiciars, which is to abandon the guilty party, leaving them to keep the bastards occupied while you run away as fast and as far as you can. The only problem is that it doesn’t usually take the justiciars long to extract a full confession from their victims, which invariablyincludes the names of all their associates. That’s why you never leave them a living body, and why my fellow wonderists had all turned to watch me as I dangled in the air by my desperately aching ankle.

‘There can’t be anything left of him but ashes,’ Narghan said.

‘And we must burn away all traces of ecclesiasm,’ Lady Smoke added.

She was absolutely right about that; anyonecan burn a body. Destroying the evidence of a soul? That takes far more potent magic.

‘Aetheric lightning will do the job,’ Corrigan said. He stared down at me and shook his head with disgust. ‘I’ll take care of it.’

‘Such a spell requires preparatory rituals, does it not?’ Zyphis asked. ‘Don’t think the rest of us are going to walk out of here and just trust that you’ll do him. Everyone knows you’ve got a soft spot for Cade.’

‘No preparation required,’ Corrigan replied. ‘I got everything ready before the rest of you arrived.’ Once again, he glared down at me. ‘You stupid shitbag. This was a great gig until you fucked it up.’

‘It was a lousy gig, working for a spiteful arsehole,’ I reminded him. ‘And was nobody listening when I mentioned I’mnotthe one who summoned the hellborn?’

Lady Smoke glided towards me, those mists of hers writhing closer as if they meant to throttle me. ‘Everyone here knows you use Infernal magic, Cade. You pretend it’s Fortunal, but we recently learned the truth about you.’

Great. That was the one thing I reallywastrying to keep secret. I wondered if one of those kids, Galass or Fidick, had run off and ratted me out. It was hard to imagine either of them wanting to get near another wonderist, though.

‘I’m pretty sure I’ve caught you casting an Infernal cantrip or two, Somaka,’ I countered, ‘and Zyphis practically oozes the stuff!’

The wraith-like, wrinkled youth spat at me. ‘Not the kind you use, you pervert! Your conjurings don’t just draw on the laws of the Infernal plane, you actuallybuyspells from a diabolic, don’t you? You make deals with the Lords Devilish! No wonder the fucking Glorians show up wherever you are, just waiting for our employers to give them the go-ahead to rip us all to shreds for whatever it is you did to piss them off!’ He turned to Corrigan. ‘Time’s running out. Either you obliterate him or I will.’

Zyphis’ little tirade elicited indignant grumbles of agreement from the others. There was something funny about the fact that in this room filled with merciless killers,Iwas the one whose practices offended their delicate sensibilities.

‘I’m telling you all, for the third time, I didnotbuy the hellborn conjuration,’ I insisted. ‘The price was too high. If you haven’t any faith in my integrity, maybe you could at least give me credit for being cheap.’

The assortment of faintly dubious and outright bloodthirsty scowls I got in response wasn’t exactly reassuring.

‘Well, Corrigan?’ Narghan asked.

My erstwhile best friend made a sign to the woman behind the bar, who had finally stopped pretending to polish her mugs and was instead sobbing quietly, her hands clasped together in desperate prayer. She got the message and without a word, ran as fast as she could out of the back door. Corrigan turned to Locke. ‘Does one of those trinkets on your bandolier open a door to somewhere very far away from here?’

The key mage nodded. Holding up what looked like a rod with a set of wolf’s fangs on one side, he said, ‘Won’t be especially pleasant. Are you sure you can pull off enough aetheric lightning to destroy his ecclesiasm?’

‘Yeah,’ Corrigan replied. ‘Like I said, I prepared the spells before the rest of you got here. Somehow I just knew Cade’s stupidity was going to wind up with us needing to burn the evidence.’

Like I said before, he may look like a big, hairy, ill-tempered brute, but the truth is, Corrigan’s always been better at advanced planning than most wonderists. For the third time in as many minutes, he glared down at me with such consuming disappointment that I almost felt guilty that he felt he had to eradicate me from existence. ‘This was your fault, Cade.’ I saw the first tell-tale smouldering of the air around his right fist as he prepared to summon the lightning. ‘Anything you want to say to the others before it’s all over?’

‘Yeah,’ I said, oddly grateful for the opportunity to unburden myself. I took a deep breath, and as politely as I could, said, ‘You’re all a bunch of unconscionable pricks and I wish I’d killed a few of you before my own time came.’

Zyphis hissed out a laugh, Lady Smoke rolled her eyes and Locke shook his head in dismay. Apparently, my speech-making skills needed work.

Corrigan’s fingers twitched, flicking out to all four corners of the tavern as he activated his aetheric lightning spell. I’d never seen him cast this particular variation before, but as I prepared for my no doubt richly deserved death, I thought absently how odd it was, because his explosive spells usually involve first delineating the area where the lightning would strike. I couldn’t stop myself wondering if setting the boundaries to all four corners of the tavern might not cause it to—

Someone swore aloud, but they were too late, for Corrigan had spun around and was hugging my upside-down body in a way that would have been awkwardly intimate were the air around us not suddenly igniting as bolt after bolt of black and gold lightning struck every inch of the tavern– and everyone inside except us. Most thunderers’ spells come in two parts: the first bursts open a portal to the Tempestoral plane, which unleashes its particularly destructive physics into our own, while the second protects the caster from their own summoning. By grabbing onto me, Corrigan was keeping me inside his protective sphere, safe from the lightning strikes. I didn’t think this was the time to complain about body odour as I hung upside down, my head just below his crotch, watching the endless cascades of lightning striking our fellow wonderists, turning both bodies and souls to ash. I caught the look on Green’s face as he searched for an escape. His eyes met mine as if to remind me that he was young, that he’d committed no great crime save that of wanting to be one of us. I fear the look I returned him said that was crime enough.

As the flesh and spirit that had once been Narghan was destroyed, his binding spell disappeared and I fell to the ground, twisting to avoid smashing my skull open as I hit the floor. The storm ended abruptly as I lay there, staring up at the scorched ceiling, my eyes barely able to focus. Corrigan’s big head loomed over me, gold sparks still dancing across his indigo hair and beard. When he spoke, I couldn’t hear what he was saying over the thunder echoing in his voice. Didn’t matter, though. I got the message anyway.

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