The sight of her stopped me cold. She lay on her back. A shit tonne of blood pooled around her. If you ignored the fact that her head was only semi-attached to her body, you might have thought she was sleeping. Except I knew she was never still when she slept. Alessia tossed and turned in her sleep like something was always chasing her. Her big, blue eyes were wide open, her mouth slightly ajar. Surprised. She had been surprised when she died.
Two men stood peering down at her. One of them was Jonah Rhee. The other was a meaty bastard with runes tattooed on his gratuitous muscles. He had no discernible neck. It didn’t matter. His head would come off just as easily without it.
Footsteps echoed from around the corner. Tiberius came shuffling into the room. A thin, scruffy mage followed him. The prison medical examiner. Otherwise known as the executioner. Tiberius spotted me first. “Malac–”
I cleaved his head off with a single swing of my blade. The inertia made it bounce off the wall. It rolled into the middle of the room. The executioner tried to retreat. His back ate up my blade. The glowing tip speared through the other side of him. I jerked it up. It sliced clean through his left shoulder. Blood splattered on the walls. On the floor. On my face.
A fireball shot past me. A half-teleport saved my side from being burnt. Jonah was the foremost expert on fire magic. It was the only element that could dispatch a supernatural with ease. The fire hit the wall and clung to it. Self-fuelling. It needed neither tinder nor oxygen. As long as Jonah lived, the fire would burn.
It wasn’t going to burn for long.
I whirled around.
An arcane circle weaved around the two men. The one I didn’t know cringed away from the orange light. An aura of darkness licked around him. The stink of undead clung to his skin. Necromancer. What were they planning to do? Raise her so they could control her in the afterlife? Cold fury gripped me.
I ran the tip of my angel blade against the edge of the circle. Old magic danced across the blade, trying to erode the light. Jonah winced.
“Malachi,” Jonah said. “You know she couldn’t be allowed to live. She’s forsaken.” His hand shook. The spell holding the circle together flickered. His eyes never left the sweep of my blade.
Right then I knew it was a lie. They’d tagged her so the demons would come for her. So the supernatural community would cast her out. So they could kill her without any protests. Basil had been right. “Which one of you did it?” My voice was a blade of its own.
I pressed the tip of my sword against the barrier. The rebuff of Jonah’s magic caused the tip to smoke. Electricity snaked up my arm. It singed the hairs and burned my skin. I held firm. A little more. The circle broke.
The necromancer made a run for it. One step. Two. I launched the blade. He ducked. It clanged against the wall. I teleported, caught the angel blade on the rebound and took his head off.
Jonah was by the security panel. He waved his palm over the eternal fire. Alarms blared overhead. Cloaked figures streamed into the room. The Dominion guards took on a defensive stance. High magic of every calibre blossomed in their palms.
“Detain him,” Jonah croaked.
I had known for a while now this place was rotten. Ever since that first prison breakout last year. But the extent of it grated on me. Besides Durin, nobody else on the Council wanted to believe it. Without the prison, we had no means to control the criminals. They were quick to dispatch demons and humans, but loathe to condemn their own kind. It was no wonder the Sisterhood hated us.
A layer of cold swept over my skin. The draining was beginning to take hold. Angelfire clashed with it. The two opposing forces were at loggerheads. A dozen others joined the fray. Bit by agonising bit, my angelfire leaked away. Smoke swirled from my skin. They could take all of it. I didn’t need magic to kill them.
Behind the line of mages, Jonah called out to me. “This doesn’t need to be difficult,” Jonah said. “She would have destroyed everything. We aren’t a match for the Morning Star. The prison won’t be able to contain much more. Why should we suffer because of one girl? One human for the lives of all supernaturals. It’s a fair trade.”
My blade sailed over the head of the mages. It bit into his shoulder and pinned him to the wall. Jonah groaned. Several other mages scrambled to his aid. They dislodged the angel blade, but Jonah was bleeding profusely.
“Squirm all you like,” I seethed. “It’ll only drag this out.”
The blaring of the alarm changed tone. It began to whoop. Magic retracted. Not the magic of the mages in front of me but the magic holding the cell doors closed. He was letting the criminals out. A desperate measure. I grinned at Jonah.
He turned tail and ran. The mages opened up portals and followed. I catalogued each and every one of their faces for later.
I stepped in her blood. There was no avoiding it. It bloomed like a fatal rose around her. Distantly, I was aware of the demons rattling closer. Freed of their cages, they would tear this place apart before spilling out into the world.
I knew it was too late. There was a limit to my healing magic. But logic was the furthest thing from my thoughts. I picked her up as gently as I could. Just in case I made her deader than she was. The reality of it punched me in the gut. She weighed nothing. I still staggered.
My back hit the wall. I slid to
