Page 35 of Nope, No Regrets
Did they honestly think we were just going to hand it over, after everything they’d done?! Plus, we were winning here. At some point, you had to realize you were beaten and were not getting your property back.
Autumn started another chant, and this time, the forcefield was around us and not the witches. I knew it was only a matter of time before they took it down, if they had the counter spell memorized, so I took the opportunity to experiment with my new powers and bring out some of my old favorites.
It was pretty damn cool. I could shoot lightning out of one hand and fire out of the other. I blinked an oil spill all over the floor. Everyone was hanging back and letting me do this, and I appreciated it.
I felt teeth on my tails, and a little tug, and then fur brushed against my leg. Faust was okay. He was covered in blood, and his fur was singed from magic and fire dragons, but he was okay, and showing me support. Dakarys’s sphinx brushed against my other leg. He ruffled his wings and sat back on his haunches. Rajack pressed against my back, and he cupped his wings around me. Wren wasn’t touching me, but I knew she was back there, helping keep this forcefield up so I could work out some issues on the Aether Circle.
Sota’s Tengu shrank down and landed on my shoulder. I knew him the least out of everyone, and he didn’t know me, but he always seemed to just naturally get me. I knew everyone here, even Sota, wanted to make these witches pay for what they’d tried to do to me. Wren had every reason to obliterate them for Astrid.
I needed to work through some shit. I rarely set witches on fire when I did that, but things were different now. My entire life changed when Autumn contacted me to steal that grimoire. Maybe getting away with that for so long made me arrogant enough to think I could steal the amulet from Venus when she crashed my theft and ruined it.
I couldn’t even imagine how this whole Hell reunion thing would go down if I hadn’t gotten arrested. Sota would have waited until Kudan was captured before he made an appearance. I probably would have punched him in the face before I heard him out, if he showed up at my apartment and said we were engaged. It probably would have taken forever for me to agree to go home and meet my very cool parents, and find out my adoptive parents were there, too, if it meant having to marry a stranger.
I wouldn’t have met Faust, Dakarys, Rajack, or Wren. Yeah, all this started because I stole that grimoire and left a hair behind, but I still regretted nothing, even if all these witches had crashed Hell just to kill me. I had my tribe, and I wasdyingto bite Dakarys, Rajack, and Wren. Sota had been nothing short of amazing so far. I’d probably want to sink my fox teeth into him soon, too.
We just needed to wrap things up in this dirty jail. The Aether Circle knew precisely how to shatter this forcefield and stop me. They could have put up one of their own, and we could have had some stupid stalemate as both sides tried to break them.
I used to use that oil slick trick in high school, when racist idiots would fling shit at me thinking I was Chinese. I played all kinds of tricks on them, but the entire school would laugh at them when their feet flew over their head, and their tailbone made that cracking noise when it hit the floor. I straight uplovedit when a particularly nasty jock fell so hard that he fractured his and couldn’t play football for the rest of the season.
It was such a minor power, and I hadn’t used it in a long time. I didn’t even think when I brought it out now. We were winning. It was only a matter of time before those witches were dead, or at least in dungeons. We were much stronger than their magic, between the power that came from my tails and the people fighting with me they were no match for us.
Iwantedthem to feel embarrassed and scared. For as long as I’d been alive and aware of the supernatural, they had been untouchable. Everyone knew they were up to nasty shit, andeveryonelooked the other way and let them get away with it. That kind of power had clearly gone to their head.
I didn’t just want them dead, I wanted them to know how everyone else felt when the Aether Circle targeted them. I wanted them to look at me and know all that bad karma they built up was about to explode in their face.
One of the witches who had been fighting to stay upright towards the back started chanting. They were behind a wall of witches, so that I couldn’t get them with any of my magic. I knew those words. I had just heard Autumn using the same ones. They were trying to destroy our forcefield. We needed to get back, because when Autumn blew up the one they were using, the people in the blast radius all died.
“Everyone, move!” I yelled.
“I got you, boo!” Wren called.
Wren hollered a chant like we were playing a football game against, and she was trying to taunt the other team. Every remaining member of the Aether Circle just up and dropped into all the gore and oil on the floor. Charley started laughing.
“Iadorethat spell. You might want to call backup, or you’ll hurt your back, Solron.”
Solron cracked her knuckles and stepped towards the pile of witches.
“You couldn’t magically knock these assholes sooner? I could have tortured the shit out of them, and done it somewhere I wasn’t planning on running a business. If we hire any non-demon guards and I ask them to live here, they are going to think dead witches haunt this place.”
Sota changed back and glared at her. That was some prettyepicstink eye, considering her boyfriend was the king of Hell.
“Shut it, Solron! You’ve made bigger messes than this before. If Bael hadn’t gifted you this prison to run, you would have made a bigger one. Rei needed this.”
Solron stood there, pouting in the middle of all the gore, but she knew he was right.
“I would have thrown her a torture party in Bael’s dungeon, where we have adequate drainage and high pressure hoses to dispose of all kinds of mess. We could havebondedover listening to these witches scream. I could have taught her the subtle, and not-so-subtle, ways to peel someone’s skin off without killing them. She’s new and adorable. I wanted my moment, Sota.”
“I don’t think I have the stomach for that,” I said.
Every person in the room started laughing then, including the people who came with me from Silverhold and who didn’t look for real estate with dungeons to torture people. Faust and Dakarys shifted back, and so did Rajack. I was suddenly in this massive, naked, bloody hug.
“Little fox, you’re stronger than you think. It was sexy as fuck watching you exact your vengeance. Solron took Sabrina to Bael’s dungeon while we figure out what Autumn wants to do with her. None of us will judge, and we’ll be there cheering you on if you want Solron to teach you how to skin her.”
I surveyed the carnage we’d caused. Honestly, I didn’t know what I wanted to do with Sabrina. That waswaytoo much pressure after all of this, and I didn’t want to deal with it. I wanted this to be over. I wanted to settle into that enormous palace in Hell, and be reunited with all my family. I wanted to get to know Sota better, and bite everyone I’d brought with me. I never wanted to think about the Aether Circle again.
“I’ll leave that to Autumn. The Aether Circle tried really hard to kill me, and I’m not dead. All my lost family is here. I have my freedom, and I have all of you. What happens to Sabrina from here is out of my hands.”
“Not quite,” Autumn said. “This isn’t over. Sabrina was the one that killed my mom, but she’s only the High Priestess in the United States, and that grimoire you stole isn’t the only one they are misusing. My coven believes everyone has a purpose; they just have to find it. I will work with Solron and Bael to fulfill Sabrina’s. We will use her to annihilate the Aether Circle. They’ve been hurting people for far too long.”
Okay, so maybe I couldn’t move on just yet. Not every coven member came to Hell. They sent their best, and we beat them. The coven would have known they came here to kill me, get the grimoire back, and possibly set up real estate here if they’d been trying to find a way here for so long.
They’d look for any connection to me back on Earth that they could use to hurt me. My adoptive parents were in Hell, but Hauser and plenty of my friends were still there. I couldn’t let them be hurt.
And when the Hell parties could officially start, I was making sure Hauser was in attendance, so he could meet everyone and get drunk as fuck with me.
