Page 23 of Discord
I knew full well that if he wanted to, he could zap me with god mojo and influence my feelings towards him. But he didn’t do that, and it was one of the reasons I was falling for him on my own. Reyson was using his power to calm Bram down and prevent him from doing anything stupid. Could he do that on my twin sister next?
“No one is stepping foot in there until I hit it with my magic. That goes for you as well, twin sister,” Reyson said.
Killian looked like he was grateful because he was losing his argument with my sister. He had to be one damn patient familiar, because Ravyn got up to someshit. Ravyn was pouting because she got off on the thrill of this and didn’twantto walk in there if nothing was going to kill her.
Killian was a tall and relatively thin man, and he couldn’t ever stop Ravyn back when he was a bat, but he had options now.
“I didn’t just teach you the battle magic I knew that you didn’t learn at the academy. I was born at a different time, and I know Bartitsu. Don’t make me kick your ass.”
“All the uppity rich people learned Bartitsu for a time,” Felix said. “I was a street thug, and got my arse kicked with it a few times. I’d listen to your familiar. It’s our job to protect you, even if it means knocking you out cold to stop you from doing something stupid.”
If Ravyn didn’t have the feels before, she certainly did then.
Bram was no longer fighting. I knew a lot of that had to do with Reyson’s magic, but some of it had to do with Reyson offering to use his magic to get us in there. Bram had a lot to say about Hell, and its treatment of Hellhounds, when we stayed up all night together and he’d also told me a lot about Talvath.
Talvath treated Bram well. I didn’t even know what the demon looked like, but I believed differently than Bram. If we stopped this, Talvath would let him stay with us. He’d never be truly free in Hell, but we cared about him here. From what Bram told me I gathered that Talvath seemed to care about his Hellhound too, but if that were true then he had to see Bram was better off remaining here.
Reyson let Bram go. He clapped his hands, and a pulse of magic went out that rattled all the walls in the buildings and blew my hair back.
“Anything witchy in there can’t kill you. I know witch magic, and I’ve had it used against me. I’ve fought Hellhounds before, but demons make themselves scarce around gods. I know what someone feels like when they are demon touched, because it leaves a mark on their soul. I’m not familiar with the mechanics behind a demon’s magic, or what Lilith did when she made them… I can feel it, though. There’s some of that inside, and it’s not just Talvath,” Reyson said.
“None of this should be possible!” Bram growled. “No onewould share this kind of information with a witch. Especially if someone was going to be collecting a payment on them.”
Someonewasgiving out information, though. Bram looked through the books in the library. According to Bram, many of our books on demons were total works of fiction, but there were some that contained genuine bits and pieces of demon magic. It was never enough to do any damage and was never all in the same book, so there was no way for anyone on Earth to put those tidbits together into something functional... unless it came from someone in Hell. Silvaria definitely couldn’t have pieced any of that together without help.
Bram knew that just as much as I did. Reyson had let him go, and Bram’s anger was back in full force. Before anyone could stop him, he shifted and took off running into the dark shipping container.
I didn’t care what was in there. I ran after him. Reyson had disabled any witch spells, but there was still demon magic lurking inside. I didn’t know if it would hurt me, but it was keeping Talvath hostage and in a weakened state. It could definitely hurt Bram, and I wasn’t letting that happen.
I heard the pounding of feet behind me as they followed. No one grabbed me and tried to stop me, despite Felix and Gabriel having been close enough to... and the fact that Balthazar could have used his vampire speed to catch up and grab me. Oh, and Reyson probably had something in his god arsenal to freeze me on the spot. None of them intervened. I might be their girlfriend, but Bram was still one of us. They wanted to stop him from getting hurt just as much as I did. They weren’t going to stop me from getting hurt at his expense. We were all going to stupidly charge into the unknown together if one of us was in danger.
It was dark in there. The only light was cast from glowing sigils on the wall that were definitely demonic. Someone behind me hit the lights, but not before I could make out candles towards the back and a giant glowing sigil on the floor, with a man in the middle of it.
Bram didn’t make it very far. He’d shifted back and collapsed on the floor. I ran to him.
He’d better be breathing, or I’d kill everyone associated with this plot.
16
Bram
This was bad. As soon as I charged into the shipping container, I knew how fucked we were as soon as I shifted back against my will. Only demons knew these sigils, and they’d used some of them against the Hellhounds during the war. A simple witchwould notknow how to rob me of my beast.
I got weaker the more I tried to make it to Talvath. I could smell him in the back.Someonein Hell had helped this witch. I tried. I tried my hardest to make it to Talvath as blood poured out of my nose. I failed. I collapsed before I could get there. I was shivering on the floor, and that wasn’t right. Hellhounds were always hot.
I felt a hand on my shoulder. Ripley rolled me over.
“You’d better not be dead, Bram!”
I smiled weakly.
“I wouldn’t dream of dying on you. Go get Talvath.”
“Fuck Talvath! You’re hurt.”
“The sigils… you have to disturb them. They are hurting me.”
“I can only get what I can see. I’m going to murder Silvaria!”
