Above, I heard the sound of something louder than rain fall onto the roof. Gabriella looked at me. Rachel didn’t react; she was lost in the past.
“I waited until the first time I was sent to Pandemonia. I went straight to Hades. Told him that I wanted to bring down the Alliance and that when he chose to invade Earth, I had a doorway he could use that was completely unknown to the HASEA. In exchange he made me the leader of my own group of Rogues, so that I’d have the support I needed to weaken the Alliance in preparation for that day.”
“You’re working directly for the Demon King? Have you lost your mind?” shouted Gabriella. “He is the worst kind of evil! You blame Chosen, but as we speak, Hades is killing hundreds of your kind!”
Rachel pressed the gun against her forehead for a moment, as if trying to squeeze out a bad thought. “Don’t you think I know that? It kills me to have to work for that sick son of a bitch. But I can’t allow myself to become concerned with any of that. I have to stick to my plan.”
The traitor turned to me, continuing her speech as if a robot returning to her original programming. I could tell that this was a confession. Her way of achieving absolution.
“Then Hades learned that one of the Elemental’s had spoken of a new Awakening, one that could bring about the Chosen to stand against him. So when he was delivered the news about Alex, he immediately ordered The Sorrow to start tracking him. He wanted to use my doorway to send it through to Earth straight away. But I knew the moment I unsealed the Veil, Faru would sense it, investigate and my cover would be blown. Everything I’d worked so hard to put in place would come undone because of one little boy.”
Rachel stopped moving, letting the gun linger on me. “You’d be dead, The Sorrow would return to Pandemonia and I’d have to go into hiding or on the offensive. I didn’t want that. But still, it was an opportunity for me to advance my own plans. What I needed was a way to distract Faru and keep my cover in place. After I found out about Faru’s plans to seal the Warren’s Veil, I came up with the idea of the fake siege.”
“Fake siege?” I said incredulously. “I was there. That siege was real. Midnight died in that siege.”
“The siege itself was real, but the reason for it was false. I also ensured that you found out about it.” Gabriella and I looked at each other, lost. “Think about the attack at the Black Tap. Out of all the Coven, who exactly had the premonition?” said Rachel. “Sylvia,” replied Gabriella and then covered her mouth as if she’d sworn. “Exactly, and she works for me.”
Something clicked in my brain. “The attack in the bar was a setup. You wanted me to follow Dakin.”
Rachel smiled. “Exactly. Poor Dakin genuinely believed he was there to recruit new followers. He also believed the siege was real. I couldn’t trust him with the full truth. You killed his maker — he was too volatile. I just had to take the chance that someone would notice him leave the bar.” She gestured towards me. “Which the perfect person did.”
“But what about those girls? They were real and so was what almost happened to them,” I countered.
“That was easy. All it took was a few attractive young Bloodlings to mention about a secret bar they were supposedly heading to. Malachi despises humans — seems to have forgotten he used to be one. Plus he’s a supporter of the SOS. There was no doubt in my mind that if we sent the drunkest, loudest girls in the area into his bar, he’d do the rest.”
For the first time I saw the real Rachel. A woman so consumed with revenge that she teetered on the edge of madness.
“But what about all of the other SOS who attacked me?” I asked. “Surely that’s going against your plans?”
Rachel shrugged. “Hades wants you dead. He didn’t care how it happened. The Sorrow was a failsafe. He gave orders for you to be killed. Sage Asmund sent in his own followers — including Rahuman — to take you out. Others did their own thing so they could fall into favour with Hades. Like Sylvia who faked a premonition without my knowledge and organised a group of Rogues to kill you, or Bargheist who acted without my say so and got himself caught.” She smiled. “Which is why they had to go.”
I thought about Sylvia. How she’d been found dumped in an alleyway with her throat opened. It was Rachel.
Gabriella had one hand closed around the pendant on her necklace. The other was wrapped around the nape of her neck. At first I thought it was a position of grief. Then I noticed almost imperceptibly, that she attempting to undo the clasp with her fingers. It dawned on me. The necklace has diamonds on it!
“But why let us know what was happening; why not just attack us unprepared?” I said in an effort to keep Rachel distracted. “If you’d done that, then the SOS might have won.”
Rachel shook her head as if I should understand her twisted logic.
“I already told you, the siege was a fake. I didn’t want the SOS to actually succeed in unsealing the Veil. Although, Dakin almost managed to get Faru to do it, which is why I had to stop him. In fact it was the perfect cover. He needed to be dealt with anyway; his hatred for Alex was making him a liability.” She nodded her head as if that justified her act. “I’d managed to convince Hades that opening the doorway and unleashing The Sorrow inside a Guardian base would be seen as an outright declaration of war against Earth. One that he wasn’t yet in a position to deal with. So he agreed for me to pretend to the rest of the SOS — apart from my own followers of course — that there would be a real siege on the base to force Faru to open his section of the Veil. All the while it was just misdirection to keep the HASEA and Faru distracted…whilst I opened mine.”
“No…” breathed Gabriella.
“You mean The Sorrow is here?” I choked.
A dark grin appeared on Rachel’s face. “Not just here Alex… here. And you don’t have the Crimson Twins.”
More loud bangs hit the roof. It was followed by the sound of dozens of feet scrambling about. Then I heard the unmistakable scream of The Sorrow’s demented Unicorn. “Not long now,” said Rachel. I looked at Gabriella. She was still struggling with the clasp. “So you’re going to offer me up to get into Hades good books? Is that it? Very original Rachel.” I said sarcastically.
Rachel banged the gun against her head. “No, no no. You don’t understand! Hades is merely a means to an end. My end. I just needed him to trust me. I told him that if he gave me command of The Sorrow whilst it was on Earth, then not only would I get it to murder the boy Lafelei spoke of, I’d give it the hybrid baby that it missed the first time around.”
Gabriella’s jaw tightened. I could see she was trying not to lose her composure. She had also managed to get the clasp undone.
“So what’s the plan after we’re dead?”
Rachel turned to me. “That’s the beauty of it. I’m going to unleash The Sorrow on the Warren anyway. Then everyone will know it was me and that I was working directly for Hades.” She leaned forward with a huge smile on her face. “I’m going to start the war.”
“How could you?” shouted Gabriella. “People we care about died because of you! And you want to kill more? What about all the people who you’re betraying? Faru, Sophia…Delagio?”
The corners of Rachel’s mouth turned down. “I don’t want any of you to suffer, but this is the only way to get my revenge. You think I don’t care but I do.” She stared at us. “I care about all of you, but this is the only way.” I took a step forward and the gun was instantly aimed towards my head. “You’ve got funny way of showing it!” I shouted. “Stay back!” Rachel ordered. The howling grew louder. I could hear footsteps closing in from somewhere nearby. Each one sounded like the beat of a death drum. “Or what Rachel? We already know you’re going to have us killed. So go ahead!” “I said stay back!”
With a movement so quick it was barely perceptible; Gabriella threw the necklace at Rachel. It sliced across the Pixie’s cheek with a loud hiss.
“Bitch!” she screeched, clutching the side of her burning face. Sprinting forwards, we both dived for her at the same time. Connecting hard, we all slammed to the ground together. Gabriella pinned Rachel down and I prised the gun from her grip, throwing it to the other side of the room.
“NO!” Rachel screamed like a demented beast. She bucked, catching Gabriella unprepared and throwing her off. The frenzied Pixie kicked upwards with her leg, landing a crushing blow to the side of my head. Dazed, I collapsed to the floor. Through blurry vision I watched as Rachel sprang into a predatory crouch. She slipped the blood soaked dagger from its sheath. Behind her, Gabriella was still scrambling to her feet.
“I’m not going to let a Chosen kill me like you did my family,” she hissed.
“I’m not trying to kill you!” I insisted, but she wasn’t listening. I recoiled as she raised the blade above her
