Immediately, the fehin reacted, swimming faster through the murky aura, going round and round and back again in a jerky, erratic pattern. The unconscious man moaned.
“Gently,” Gaebryl crooned.
He took up his lyre again and began to sing in a rich baritone. The fehin’s movements slowed. Lilith was able to find the glowing bit of orange she thought of as the demon’s heart. She moved her hand, pacing the orange glow, focusing on the thing, moving closer, then pulling away. Teasing and luring until the demon’s attention was well and truly caught, and then, just then, she swiftly inserted the crystal in the glowing heart, and it was captured.
The man in the red shirt convulsed and died.
Lilith shuddered and closed her eyes. She wanted to mourn this life, but she had not known him. So many deaths and all lay at the seraphim’s feet.
“Don’t tell me you’ve taken up prayer, now?” His voice was a lazy drawl.
She opened her eyes. “No, but perhaps you should, because I was calling power.”
She lifted the crystal high. Within the facets, something that looked like smoke swirled. What the seraphim didn’t seem to realize and what she had suddenly understood when she’d watched poor, doomed Erin cavort in the clearing, was that a fehin, fat and full of the life energy of its latest victim, was a source of untold magickal power.
A weapon, indeed.
She turned that weapon now on Gaebryl. Focusing her power through the crystal and spoke the words she’d been longing to say for three hundred years.
In darkness, light.
In death, life.
Fear is the spike that binds me—
I feel no fear.
Truth is the blade that frees me—
I seek only truth
I will not turn from it though I pass the gates of death.
I renounce you.
The silver rune she’d worn since childhood burned for the last time and then vanished.
She was free.
She didn’t know how she’d expected Gaebryl to react. Slow, arrogant clapping was not one of the options.
“You can’t control me any longer,” she said.
He smiled. “I haven’t for some time, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t still mine.”
She glanced over her shoulder then back at Gaebryl and the crystal. Shock soured the triumph she’d felt at finally winning her freedom from this monster.
He’d wanted a new weapon, and he’d created one, just not the one she’d thought.
Nine by Night: A Multi-Author Urban Fantasy Bundle of Kickass Heroines, Adventure, Magic
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The reason Remy found the cave entrance was because Lilith had left a glowing trail only an idiot could have missed. Which meant every were in a five mile radius would be converging on this spot shortly. He concluded it was what Lilith had intended, that or she’d lost her mind.
Trust me, she’d said.
Well, he’d delivered.
Gently, he lowered Tasha to the ground. He’d untied her bonds and released her from the quilt that had been tightly wrapped about her before heading up the mountain. She held on to his arm for a moment to steady herself.
“Are you all right?”
She nodded. There were huge dark shadows under her eyes. She was frighteningly pale, exhausted and pushed beyond her ability to cope, but as far as he could tell, untouched by the fehin. She wore a baggy sweatshirt, gym shorts and sneakers that looked like they were a size too big. Shivers racked her body. She wrapped her arms around her middle and hunched her shoulders.
“I’m sorry about your friend.”
Tasha sniffed, and tears welled in her brown eyes.
A powerful roar broke the silence. Gideon Black, in human form, strode out of the shadows like a force of nature. Behind him loped an army of weres, big and deadly.
Tasha gasped and clung to Remy. He backed into the entrance to the cave dragging a terrified Tasha with him.
Gideon commanded the middle of the clear space outside the opening while his warriors formed a half-circle, blocking any avenue of possible escape. With relief, Remy saw no sign of the Lost Legacy alpha. But that meant one of two things: either they hadn’t found him yet, or they had, and he was dead.
“Thank you for finding her for me,” Gideon said, “but you’re going to have to explain why you brought her up here.” He looked around and spread his hands wide. “I can’t imagine coming here was her idea.”
“We need to talk about the situation,” Remy said, “but not now and not here.”
Gideon whistled. A large white wolf broke free from the pack and trotted to Gideon’s side. “Owen disagrees.” He scratched behind the wolf’s ears.
“His eyes,” Tasha said softly. “They’re blue.” She looked up at Remy. “That’s not… that can’t be…”