Phoenix Contract: Part Four (Fallen Angel Watchers) (8 page)

“Magnus!” Aiden burst out. “Are there other members of your House like you?”

“Not exactly like me,” he said.

“Just answer the question,” she replied with an exasperated sigh.

He studied her before giving a grudging, “Yes. I taught others of Shemyaza the trick of cheating death, and they in turn taught many more.”

“How many?”

He hesitated, fueling her excitement to new heights.

“Dozens?” Aiden guessed.

Magnus shook his head slowly. “Hundreds.”

“Still? Surviving? Today?” Her jaw dropped. Her emotions hung in an uncertain balance between massive relief and vexation. Hundreds of Shemyaza’s scions—every last one a legitimate candidate to become the Phoenix. She’d only just started to get used to the idea that she was somehow special.

“Yes.”

“W-what? How?” The question exploded from her lips in rush.

“It’s a form of vampirism, but it’s not rooted in blood drinking,” Magnus said. “You don’t need to know the specifics.”

“Yes. Yes, I do,” she said, her face suddenly heated with fury. “What exactly do they eat? Subsist on?”

“Power, energy, the essence of life.” He spoke about the topic as casually as the weather. “Most prefer to feed on people. A host needn’t be immediately killed, but sooner or later the drain of being fed upon leads to the inevitable conclusion.”

“You’re making a mistake thinking that one of them can take your place,” he continued brusquely. “All of them have inherited my vulnerability to sunlight. Not a one is capable of bearing children or is free of the taint of corruption. House Shemyaza lies in ruins. Not a single one is suitable to become the Phoenix.”

She balled her fists at the Celt’s unnerving and uncanny ability to pick up on her thoughts. “What about you?”

“Me?” Magnus lifted his brow in a gesture that could have signaled surprise or amusement. He guarded his expression well. “You think I would make a suitable Phoenix?”

“No, of course not,” Aiden snapped. “A fool could see that you’re unfit!”

“Gee, thanks.” The man had the nerve to chuckle.

“What I was asking is what do
you
eat?” Aiden fumed at his audacity. “Matthew told me you don’t feed on people. Was that another lie?”

“Oh, that.” He once again sounded surprised as if he hadn’t expected her to signal out his obvious difference.

“Yeah,
that
,” Aiden said.

“No, that’s true. I take what I need from undead, weres, demons. Whatever monster crosses my path that looks appetizing.” He grinned, a deadly slash of white teeth.

The glimpse of his predatory nature made her shudder. “Why?”

“I’m a hunter,” he said simply. “There’s no challenge in hunting mere mortals.”

“Ahh.” So much for any hope she might’ve retained regarding his innate integrity. She'd wanted him to say he didn’t hunt mortals because it was wrong. Not that he found them to be boring prey. “So when you killed the Soul Eater?”

“I benefited, yes, but not much.” His eyes narrowed slightly. He struck her as touchy on the point, as if he disliked the implication that he’d abandoned Matthew’s side to go hunting and to feed.

So that too hadn’t been a purely selfless action. Aiden had begun to suspect that Magnus did nothing without an ulterior motive, or that wouldn’t bring him personal gain. Still, the Soul Eater had been truly evil, and she was glad and relieved to know it had been destroyed. Quibbling over the nobility of his motives served no purpose. She needed an answer to only one last question.

“When you destroyed it, were the souls trapped within it freed?” Aiden asked tentatively.
Thrash, Troy, a million others. Surely, they had peace now.

Magnus’ golden gaze took on a hue of sorrow, and he regarded her with pity that wilted her hope before he even spoke. “No, Aiden, they weren’t. When the Soul Eater died, whatever remained of its corrupt soul fizzled out. Those that it’d consumed were already used up.”

“Oh.” Aiden looked down, and tears trickled down her cheeks. Her emotions roiled, grief and rage seeking an outlet until she felt alienated. What good was it to destroy the monster if they hadn’t saved anyone?

Magnus winked out.

Before she reacted to his disappearance, the ground beneath Aiden’s feet heaved violently. Arms flailing, she scrambled to keep her balance. Pebbles and dirt dislodged from above rained down on her head, and a crack appeared in the earth, widening until it split the landscape. Entire sections of ground fell away, leaving behind a void.

Then a familiar voice invaded her dream, distant at first, but it grew steadily in volume as the mandate repeated. “Aiden, wake up!”

Another tremor and Aiden fell to her hands and knees. She crouched close to the earth, and sought her bearings. “Magnus?”

The Celt appeared from off to her left.

“Aiden, you need to wake up. We’ve run out of time.” Magnus seized her arms and forced her upright, then shoved her away, pushing her toward the sound of the voice.

The sky before her grew brighter in sharp contrast with the engulfing darkness closing in from all sides. Aiden took three hesitant steps toward the light. She moved faster and faster until she was running, racing for her life. She knew Magnus wasn’t following, and she didn’t stop to worry about the Celt. He was more than capable of finding his own way out.

Aiden woke suddenly, her eyes flying open to discover a figure looming over her. She gasped and reached for the hands on her shoulders which were violently shaking her to consciousness.

“Katsue?” Aiden gasped.

The Japanese Alastor heaved a sigh. “You’re alive. It’s amazing! Calm down, breathe. Can you tell me what happened?”

“I cast a spell,” Aiden murmured. She allowed her head to loll toward the fireplace as her memory returned in hazy chunks. The fire in the fireplace had gone out, and the rug beneath her was charred black. Everything in her immediate vicinity had burned, except her.

“What happened?” Aiden whispered in shock. She looked down at her arms and ran her hands over her forearms to confirm with touch what her eyes were telling her.

“I don’t know. You tell me,” Katsue said. Her voice sounded odd, high and tight as if she were a tightly coiled spring.

Aiden stared at the Alastor, and everything suddenly clicked into place. “You knew!” Aiden gasped. Wrenching her shoulders free, she jerked away from Katsue and retreated until her back brushed the fireplace.

“No, Aiden, wait, you don’t understand…” Katsue reached for her former friend, beseeching for understanding where none existed.

“You knew all along that that thing had killed Troy! You knew it was here among us, and you said
nothing!”
The angry accusation hissed through her clenched teeth. Her fury was so great and consuming that she literally trembled with rage.

“I had no choice. He ate Troy in front of me and threatened to do the same to me!” Katsue pleaded while succumbing to anger at the same time. Prideful and arrogant, she stood stiff and erect, her fists clenched. She obviously wasn’t used to having to explain her actions, and she had never begged for understanding and forgiveness.

“No choice?” Aiden demanded, full of scorn. “Don’t give me that. You had a choice, and you chose to betray us!”

In the dark room lit by only a few candles, movement on the other side of the room drew Aiden’s attention. Just out of Katsue’s line of sight, Matthew clamored to his feet, and Aiden breathed a sigh of relief. The priest appeared uninjured, and seemed to have recovered his strength.

“All right, so I knew and I didn’t tell anyone,” Katsue said. “You have no right to judge me! Troy was my partner, and that
thing
consumed him in front of me and then wore his face to mock me!”

Father Matthew lurched forward, taking an awkward, lumbering stride, and Aiden checked the impulse to run to his side. With him unharmed and awake, Father Matthew would mediate the situation with Katsue and dispense appropriate justice and punishment.

“The Soul Eater sent me to look for some sword, and then he oozed off through the sewers,” Katsue continued to explain in spite of Aiden’s inattentiveness. “Where is it?”

“Acerbitas?” Aiden asked, regarding her ex-friend with hard suspicion. She wasn’t buying into the casual “some sword” wording. Katsue and Troy had recovered Acerbitas after Thrash had been killed, and Katsue’s hand had been burned. Aiden knew damn well that it was more than just “some sword” to the Alastor.

“Father Matthew,” Aiden began just as the priest reached Katsue.

The Japanese woman turned when Matthew lashed out unexpectedly. His arm closed around Katsue’s throat, and he hauled the Alastor off her feet, holding her dangling in a chokehold. Katsue instinctively reached for her assailant’s arm with both hands, gasping and kicking in the grip of panic, her defense training momentarily forgotten.

Too startled to react, Aiden gasped and watched with uncomprehending horror as her mentor and father launched an unprovoked attack against Katsue. His strength was uncanny and inhuman, enabling the frail old man to accomplish a physical feat that should have been impossible.

The priest snarled, his mouth open wide to issue a guttural growl. The blood-curdling, animalistic sound wholly lacked any reason or humanity. Abruptly, Aiden realized what had happened. She went dead inside, and her soul filled with a numb stillness, calm and cold.

At the exact same moment of Aiden’s epiphany, Katsue recovered her senses, and her ingrained training as a fighter took over. She released hold of Father Matthew’s arm with one hand and reached for a knife concealed in her boot. Aiden also launched into action. Jumping to her feet, she looked around, searching frantically for a weapon.

Matthew’s head dipped, and he bit into the back of Katsue’s neck just behind her ear, removing a chunk of flesh and hair. Katsue released a sharp, piercing scream and jerked away hard, thrashing in his arms. Blood wet the Alastor’s black hair and flowed down the priest’s chin, and a piece of loose skin dangled from between his lips.

Shrieking, Katsue twisted around and slammed her knife into Matthew’s eye. The short blade embedded in his socket to the hilt. He bellowed, and his arms flew into the air. Releasing Katsue, his hands clawed frantically at the knife.

Katsue landed on the floor, and in spite of her efforts to staunch the flow with her fingers, blood gushed from her throat in steady spurts. Intending to help Katsue to safety, Aiden darted forward but was unprepared when Matthew bellowed and flung one of his arms out. He caught her in the face, and the blow knocked her backward off her feet. She landed on her side, thoroughly winded.

Jerking the knife free, Matthew tossed it away and resumed his single-minded attack on Katsue. Already on the ground, the Alastor fended him off with a series of sharp kicks to the face. She scrambled backward and attempted to escape beneath one of the tables. She left behind a trail of splattered blood from her arterial wound.

A hard, lumpy object had bruised Aiden’s ribs when she landed and reminded her of Magnus’ parting gift. Shoving a hand into her pocket, she struggled to her feet and drew the .45 caliber pistol that the Celt had insisted she take.

Aiden fumbled with the gun. It took her a second to locate the thumb safety which was on the left side just above the trigger. She worked it with minimum force until the mechanism clicked as it toggled from one setting to the other.

Katsue’s defensive efforts had weakened, and Father Matthew finally managed to grab hold of her kicking legs. The priest-turned-ghoul possessed the preternatural strength of the undead, but it still took a considerable effort for him to pin her beneath him.

Trembling, Aiden stumbled forward and drew the hammer which possessed a significant draw weight compared to the safety. At Matthew’s insistence, she’d taken a firearms class a couple years before with a .22 caliber pistol. The .45 felt huge and heavy, unwieldy in her hands.

Matthew had his face buried against Katsue’s throat, and she was no longer moving. The ghoul produced awful, stomach-turning slurping sounds as he fed, seeming to prefer hot fresh blood to flesh. He didn’t even acknowledge Aiden’s presence as she stood over him and took aim, bringing the muzzle of the firearm to his temple.

Tears slid freely down her cheeks, grief and misery fueling her resolve. The first shot was deafening and scared her to death. Her ears rang as bits of bone, brain tissue, and blood exploded forth from the other side of Father Matthew’s skull, following the bullet’s exit. His body collapsed and landed limply atop Katsue’s.

The second, third, and fourth shots came as less of a shock to Aiden, because she knew what to expect. They might’ve been unnecessary since the first bullet seemed to have done the job, but she wasn’t taking any chances with her mentor’s death. It would be final.

Aiden used her foot to roll Matthew’s body off of Katsue. She cringed as more material spilled from his ruptured skull. She bent to check Katsue for a pulse, and her fingers sank to a bloody mass of torn flesh. The Japanese woman’s throat had been savaged.

She was dead.

But she wouldn’t stay dead, not for long if left like this.