Page 24 of Discord
Ripley held out her hands, and the sigils burst into flames and burned off the wall. Everyone caught up to her. Balthazar and Gabriel helped me to my feet. They slung my arms around their shoulders and held me up. I was weaker than a newborn pup. Reyson came to stand in front of me, placed his palm on my bare chest, and I felt this surge go through me.
I knew he’d used magic on me earlier, and I wasn’t angry with him. Now that I knew what was in here I had to acquiesce—he was right to stop me. My back bowed as his healing magic worked its way through me. Just like that, it was over, and I felt totally refreshed. Well, as strong as I could be, considering there were still more wards in this shipping container.
“They painted the sigils in blood. They burn right off without setting the place on fire,” Ripley said.
“We have a bigger problem… Silvaria couldn’t have done any of this without demonic help,” I said. “She didn’t make her deal with Talvath, or I’d know about it. He has his enemies, but no one would give a witch information to have a go at him when she could also use it against them.”
“Talvath might know something,” Reyson said. “We saw what those sigils did to you, and it’s probably worse for him after being here for so long. Are you okay with moving? I’ll take the front. Join me in battle, my witch. We’ll burn all the sigils off and make it safe for Bram.”
How utterly embarrassing. A witch stuck my Hellhound in a kennel, and I couldn’t let him out unless a librarian cleared a path for me! I wouldn’t argue. I could see Talvath on the ground towards the back. If he were conscious, he would have heard us, he would have sensed me and called for help.
I never thought much about witches and warlocks. I knew they were distant family, since Lilith also created them, but they tended to be nasty little things when it came time to pay for the gifts they were given. I’d bedded just about every supernatural creature ever created that wasn’t extinct… except angels. If I ever met an angel, I’d rip his fucking wings off and shove them up his ass!
Yeah, I’d fucked both a witch and a warlock before. I snuck out of their apartment before they woke up and decided they wanted more from me. I feared nothing, but I didn’t trust a species Lilith created. I knew what I was capable of. I knew what demons could do. I still didn’t knowhowshe’d gotten the information, but it wasn’t a big shocker to me that a witch had orchestrated this.
Ripley still fascinated me. Before I set foot in her library, I had this policy about witches. Even if Hellhounds could date, I’d never go there with a witch. Fuck, after I got it out of my system I stopped taking witches and warlocks to bed when Talvath let me out to play. Sure, I still flirted, but I never went there again.
She was an entirely different beast. She gave just as good as she got. Ripley was utterly magnificent as she burned the sigils off the wall. She was walking in front of me, shoulder to shoulder with a fuckinggod,and he was treating her like his equal. He could have handled this on his own, and there could still be something nasty further back in this container—he trusted she could handle it.
I was in so much trouble because, as much as I was avoiding it, I had fun staying up all night chatting with her. She was easy to talk to. All of these people were. They were a little weird… but frankly, so was I. Fuck me. Iwantedto stay here, and that was bad!
Why should I stay here in comfort with people I cared about and who cared about me, when all the other Hellhounds were suffering? Every Hellhound deserved that. I wasn’t unique.
By the time we got to the back, all the sigils were disabled. I could feel my Hellhound again. Talvath had never used those sigils to neuter me, and I was not fond of that feeling at all.
We weren’t alone. Silvaria wanted to make damn sure no one was getting to Talvath. This was the last level of this funhouse of horrors. Balthazar wouldn’t have heard the heartbeat, and Reyson wouldn’t have sensed another living presence, because what was back there was already dead. It was also tough to put down.
I rushed forward and grabbed Ripley and Reyson just as the revenant sensed us. It charged right at Ripley as Balthazar groaned.
“I hate it when witches play with dead things!”
So did I. It was a death sentence to make a revenant. They didn’t care if you messed up your necromancy, and it was an accident. Revenants were no joke. A warlock once created one to stop me from taking his soul. I ripped that thing to pieces… then its arms started dragging themselves across the floor, still trying to kill me!
The revenant would have been spelled to sit in the corner and not attack Talvath or anyone bringing him food. They had better not have been starving him.
The surrounding sigils were gone. My Hellhound was right there. Ripley and the others kept saying I was a part of this, and they wanted me to stay with them. I knew better. I was a Hellhound. I was expendable. They’d created me to kill, and their lives were worth more than mine. All I brought to this team was brute strength.
Yeah, I cared, and they’d trained me to die to protect Talvath. I’d die for Ripley and her friends, too. I shifted and jumped between Reyson and Ripley, then bared my teeth as the revenant came into view.
If I had to die to protect them from this putrid thing, then so be it. It was the entire point of my existence.
17
Gabriel
This was a total shit show. The sigils all over the walls that’d hurt Bram were painted in blood. No one could have survived that much blood loss, and Silvaria didn’t strike me as the type that would hit up a blood bank for some art supplies. There was more protection in this shipping container against anything demonic than any other creature alive. That was, until the fucking revenant popped out. Why was I not shocked she’d created one just for this? My relative once turned an entire village into revenants to protect himself from the demon when it came to collect payment. It didn’t matter what century you were in—everyone looked down on those.
Revenants could come into existence by accident during necromancy spells, no one cared if you didn’t mean it. The general consensus was that if you weren’t totally sure about what you were doing, you shouldn’t be raising the dead in the first place. Everyone agreed on that. I didn’t agree with a lot of the shitty rules the witching community had in place, but I was entirely on board with that one.
Bram jumped in the way, like he was going to take this rotting thing on himself. Revenants might be animated corpses, but they were insanely strong and hard to kill. I had no doubt that Bram was a formidable fighter, his Hellhound was insanely giant and muscular, but revenants couldn’t be put down with brute force.
Bram jumped at its throat before I could do anything. We’d all seen him easily kill the wolf that was outside standing guard. The revenant grabbed his throat and threw him all the way towards the back, where there were still sigils. I could see a body lying on the ground in the middle of a big one that'd been painted on the floor. Bram was thrown all the way into the sigil.
We watched him shift back and go limp. The revenant snarled, and his gaze settled on Ripley. Fuck that. It wasn’t hurting her. There might be some dark shit in my family grimoire, but my relative didn’t turn an entire village into revenants without writing down an insurance plan.
It was illegal, and they could arrest me for it, but people called me to deal with their mistakes when their necromancy went wrong. My relative may have been dumb enough to make a deal and a mess to try to get out of it, but he was a brilliant spell writer. He’d done what no one had managed to do—create a spell that could kill a revenant, for good.
The process now was to get close enough to chop it to pieces and then burn them to nothing. I knew how to do it magically. Yeah, I could have shared that knowledge with the Paranormal Investigation Bureau, but why? Knowing how to do that should have given me a job there. Shit, I should be teaching a class at their academy.
