CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Darkness.
The in-between.
And then....
My heart threw itself against my ribs as if it too wanted out of here. My palms went slick against the folds of my gown as I took in my surroundings.
The apartment from my childhood, every detail, every beer can, ashtray, every single thing in its place and as I remembered.
That man in the armchair, snoring, a beer in one hand about to spill on the carpet, his looped belt in the other.
This was the night he beat me for making too much noise leaving for school.
Every emotion from that time, every fearful thought and whispered prayer for a savior crashed into me. And before I could shake it off and get my wits about me, there I was, walking through the front door, as quiet as an eight-year-old could. I set my backpack down silently, tiptoeing over the mess.
I scrunched my eyes closed, not wanting to see what I knew happened next.
Get your shit together, Zurie.
I shook my head, wanting to break free of the feelings this place conjured. It looked like my old apartment, but it wasn’t. I wasn’t here. This was a memory. I flicked it away like brushing away a fly and the memory dissolved in front of me, revealing Lucifer, his robes, and his throne room once more.
“You kept me in a hole for a week. Showing me a dirty apartment doesn’t quite have the same punch.”
Lucifer smiled, a beautiful, angelic smile and bowled me over with a blast of power.
Not just power, he didn’t throw back what I’d given him. No. This was magic overload, magic trying to squeeze into every molecule, every square inch of space in my body. I doubled over, like every time before.
“You forget who I am, Zurie, what I’ve already done to you.”
I sank to my knees, teeth gritted against the pain, dress rumpling in a pile of chiffon around me.
The suffering, the hollow cheeks and constant strain on my body wasn’t a faulty prophecy, it wasn’t my body failing at assimilating demon magic.
“It was you. You’ve been torturing me all this time.” I groaned as Lucifer, the Blood King, Prince of Lies smiled at me, extending his dark wings and letting all that light he kept within explode outward in a starburst of dazzling radiance.
He looked like a painting. Like an angel.
I screamed as he shoved more magic into my body. Cement-like shards of stolen power, gluing my insides together, dragging my bones, my will down with it. “You can end this, Zurie,” he said and rammed even more magic into me. Ribs cracked, my heart compressing in too little space.
I gasped for air, trying to breathe through lungs so full of power, there was no room for oxygen.
He was going to kill me.
I looked to my realm leaders, frozen, helpless. To Emma, a pained, horrified expression painted on her face. The witches, floating in stolen magic so they could corral even more.
“Give your power back to the hold. Give it up like Lillith and let me take your place,” Lucifer said.
Despite the pain, despite the nerve-shredding torture of too much magic violating me, I had a thought.
A good fucking thought.
Lucifer needed me to give up my power willingly so he could collect. Just like the realm leaders.
It’s why he tortured me with it these last days, hoping I’d eventually agree and relinquish demon magic back to the hold.
It’s why he kept me in the cell, hoping to drive me mad enough I’d say anything, give up anything to end it.
Lucifer dumped more magic into my trembling, broken body.
I was going to explode.
Someone was screaming.
I couldn’t think past the pain.
I’d had a good idea, a good thought, but I couldn’t find it anymore.
It was Jadzeera’s voice that cleared the fog, only for a moment, and only from a memory.
Hold the in-between and your destination in two different parts of your mind or else you’ll end up in walls.
Shimmering 101.
One shot.
I couldn’t shimmer more than once, not before Lucifer destroyed me.
Closing my eyes, I let the darkness of the in-between have me, focusing, but not too much, on my target.
I reopened them, my right hand warm and wet....
And wrist deep in Lucifer’s chest.
I tightened my grip on the demon’s heart, nails sinking into the muscle.
I gazed at his beautiful, terrible face once more.
And ripped the heart from his body.
Shock twisted his features as he fell to the ground.
He burst into red-gold light and smoke, his body gone, his power in the ether.
I dropped the heart. It fell to the ground with a sick, wet plop.
I wanted to cry, to scream, to rage at what I’d done but I couldn’t. Not now. I’d figure out how to feel later because the Blood King was gone but none of my loved ones were free.
My eyes darted around the room, waiting for the cages to unlock, for the spells to be lifted but they still sat there as if I hadn’t destroyed their captor. The witches still hung in the air, tranced into collecting magic for a dead king.
“What do you want now?” I screamed at no one. “I did everything! Everything! Now give me back my fucking family!”
“You did well,” Dex said from a healthy distance. “You pieced together what I was bound not to reveal faster than I anticipated.”
I whirled to face him, leveling a crazed stare at him. “Don’t you dare speak to me.”
He backed up three paces. “As you wish, High Queen. But there is a downside to your quick thinking.”
I approached him, one heavy foot in front of another, set on making him pay for his part in all this. He raised both hands in acquiescence. “Please, Zurie, I beg you. You did everything right, but a day too early. Tomorrow is the new moon. Tomorrow the hold would have taken my father’s power and redistributed it amongst the realms.”
“What are you saying?”
“Proper procedures were not followed. I will not be the new Blood Realm King. My father’s power will live on in the ether in perpetuity, trapping these poor demons in his last, treacherous act.
No. No! I’d fought too hard to be thwarted by a fucking scheduling conflict. “How do I fix this?”
Dex stepped back once more, hands still raised. “My queen, I’m sorry, I do not know.”
Fury boiled under my skin.
I closed my eyes, pictured that awful blood lake and shimmered out.
It was just as I seen in my mind. The burbling, thick liquid, the darkened sky above.
“You don’t want to take his magic back? Is that right?” I screamed at the source of power for the realm. “How about I make you take it back?” I searched the ether for every trace of red-gold tinged light, every shred of that tyrant’s leftover magic, corralling it into a massive, swirling nebula above the lake. “Here,” I said, plunging it into the viscous liquid. “Have it! It’s yours. Now do what you’re supposed to do! Fix the realms!”
The burbling slowed and finally stopped. The sky lightened and I breathed a full, steady breath.
I took a tentative step away, not believing, not trusting that I’d won.
And like the vision from before, the lake exploded, raining thick globs of blood on me.
“No!” I wailed as it boiled over, slinging sheets of blood onto the banks. “I did everything right! What else could you possibly want?”
The hold had no reply.
I wiped the blood off my face and chest and rubbed my arms against my dress. I looked at my filthy, bloody, murdering hands. “What the hell else do you need?”
Red-gold light shone just under my skin, setting me aglow under a rainstorm of blood.
That was it. The hold needed all the king’s magic, even what he’d shoved into me. “You want it? Take it.” I said and threw as much of the red-tinged magic into the lake as I could.
Unsatisfied, the lake still boiled and splattered into the air and on to its rocky banks.
I gave more, I poured in whatever I could find, forcing my magic into the darkest depths of the lake like the Blood King had done to me. I checked my hands and arms for more reddish glow. I’d emptied myself of the blood hold’s magic, but the hold still wasn’t happy.
“A valiant effort, my queen. But you cannot mend this.” Dex said from behind me.
“Why? Why can’t I fix this?”
“It’s simply too much for the hold to assimilate. Tomorrow, when magic is lessened—”
“I know! But there has to be another way. I won’t let my leaders stay trapped in your father’s spell.”
Dex’s beautiful, warm smile zinged through me, melting the fear and panic within. “You won’t have to, Zurie. The hold is dying. Soon it will implode and take the demon plane with it. Magic will cease to be.”
I stared at him, shocked at his nonchalance more than his words.
“It’s my fault, really. I should have trusted you’d puzzle it out quickly.”