Page 26 of Discord
I never paid attention to Ripley’s social media accounts. The entire thing seemed silly. No one felt the need to share with an entire room what they had for dinner and I didn’t get the obsession with cat photos, even if I had been stuck as one for years.
I doubted anyone would believe me, but some of the followers of the current gods were miserable cunts about it. Witches and warlocks could be no different about Lilith.
It would really fucking help if all the rumors they started about their powers were actually true. I was pissed about that. I wasn’t mad at Reyson in the slightest. He’d been nothing but honest about what he was capable of, and he’d done nothing but try to help. If he could have waved his hands and stopped all this, well, I’m sure he would have. I appreciated what he had done so far.
I just really fucking hoped there were no more surprises in store for us. Bram was passed out with Talvath, and Gabriel could barely walk. Ravyn and Killian pushed their way in front of Reyson and flung their hands out. He was her familiar for a reason.
Killian had been a wealthy English lord before he died. We weren’t alive at the same time, and we wouldn’t have run in the same circles even if we were… I knew his type. He would have had the best tutors that money could buy, and would have gotten away with shit that would get someone like me publicly hanged.
He probably knew some shit I didn’t. Once this was over, I wondered if he would teach me.
Ravyn and Killian lowered their arms.
“Everything left is demonic,” Ravyn said. “I haven’t had the chance to study it in detail, but we have some objects at the museum that are rumored to be from demons. I don’t know the first thing about the different types, but I know what it feels like.”
“We should have scanned for revenants,” Killian said. “I don’t know what Gabriel did to kill it, but they give off a specific kind of magic. Most people aren’t stupid enough to create them on purpose. Even the best witches and warlocks can’t control them. You can spell them as strongly as you want, but they will eventually turn on you. That thing would have killed Talvath, broken out of here, and hunted Silvaria down to kill her. Even revenants know they are an abomination and are angry about it.”
Well,someonehad tutors who had gotten up close and personal with those things, because I wasn’t taught that back in my day, and I didn’t sit through it at the academy when Ripley was learning about revenants. Enough about that though, I just wanted to rescue the demon and get the bloody fuck out of there.
“You’re going to have to teach me what you know about revenants… because that wasn’t in my family grimoire,” Gabriel said.
“You can all trade witchy secrets once we’ve beaten the wicked witch,” Balthazar said. “This place gave me bad vibes before we broke in here. It’s worse now that we are inside. Bram and Gabriel are both down. Let’s get the fuck out of here while we have the upper hand.”
Balthazar had a habit of spitting out the most random crap, but he wasn’t wrong. We had two witches trained by the best battle magic teachers in the country and two familiars who had sat in on those lessons. Killian and I both taught things to our witches they didn’t learn in class. We also had a fucking god on our side, but our Hellhound was indisposed, and our warlock that had knowledge floating around in his brain of how to kill revenants could barely stand.
It would be seriously wise to grab the demon and get the fuck out before more surprises showed up. Silvaria had cameras in there and was surely recruiting an army. I could handle myself in a fight… to a point, but I knew when I was outnumbered and to get my arse out of there.
Ravyn had private lessons with Minerva Krauss, and Killian had been right there with her. If they said most of the bad shit in there was gone, I believed them.
Ripley clearly did, too, because she went running straight for Bram. Bram needed to have a come to Lilith talk with himself about his feelings, because Ripley didn’t run after any man, even if he was dying. Even if we weren’t in deep shit here, if she weren’t feeling the feels, she would have walked to him, not run, even in the middle of all this shit. She had a reputation to uphold.
We were a bunch of arseholes that weren’t worried about that kind of thing. We went running after her. Yeah, I wanted to get Bram and get gone, but I was mainly chasing after Ripley. I didn’t really give a shit about the demon, aside from his ability to locate Dorian’s painting.
According to Gabriel, it was here in the shipping container, so what did we really need him for still? I knew little of my family history, because they had rounded my ancestors up as part of the slave trade and brought them to England. Although they abolished the slave trade before I was born, it wasn’t like I could go back to where they’d kidnapped my people from.
So, yeah, I had a big problem with Talvath owning Bram. I didn’t know who I wanted to strangle more when Bram tried to defend him. If it were up to me, we’d grab Bram and the painting and leave Talvath here.
Everyone here was a much better person than I was, because we were bringing this complete knob back to the library.
What the utter shite had Silvaria traded to get this information? The sigil on the floor allowed Bram to get his arse thrown in there, but it was like there was a force-field keeping us from fetching them and the two people who could tell us how to turn it off were currently unconscious.
It didn’t deter Ripley and Ravyn at all. Ravyn was just insane with this crap, and Ripley? Well, she never could back down from a fight. They just stared at it. Ripley held out one hand to Ravyn, and the other to Reyson.
“It’s just a blood sigil. The others burned off. If we hit it with wonder twin powers and channel Reyson, maybe we can burn this one, too.”
Balthazar wrinkled his nose.
“That one differs from the others. The ones on the walls were from shifters.That,on the floor, is the blood of every living supernatural speciesanddemon. It’s not Talvath’s blood. It smells different.”
We already knew Silvaria was getting information from a demon, but she couldn’t have gotten blood unless they knew she was planningthis.We could talk about that later, but we needed to get the fuck out of there. I didn’t know the first thing about breaking that kind of magic, but sometimes, throwing shit against the wall and hoping it stuck was an acceptable form of witchcraft—it was how new spells and potions got made!
I grabbed Reyson’s hand and cocked my head at Balthazar.
“Channel all of us. Gabriel, you might want to sit this one out if you want any chance of walking out of here.”
Gabriel took his arm off my shoulder and leaned against the wall.
“It’s a good plan. Frankly, I’d like to get out of here as soon as possible, since I’d be worthless in any kind of fight.”
