Page 27 of The Malevolent Seven

I should pause here a second because there’s a danger you might assume the moral dilemma which Corrigan believed to be plaguing me was easily solved.

‘But Cade,’I hear you mumbling excitedly,‘don’t you see? It’s simple! All you have to do is give up your pathological desire for wealth or spells or. . . whatever the fuck it is you want out of life (because you really haven’t made that clear thus far), and instead, go and fight on behalf of those brave mummies and daddies rebelling against the baron! You, Corrigan, Galass and whoever else you’re about to recruit will surely find spiritual redemption and mend your crooked hearts and—’

Let me stop you right there.

First, as I might have mentioned earlier, Corrigan and I arenotthe good guys. Like every other wonderist who’s managed to acquire powers beyond those of our fellow Mortals, the two of us are absolute human garbage. Our only aim in life is to get rich enough that we can make it hard for those jealous of our magic to torture us, imprison us or, worst of all,deny us the luxurious comforts to which our abilities have accustomed us. I’m not being down on myself here, either; as pieces of human garbage go, I think I’m one of the nicer ones.

I’m trying to be, anyway.

But let’s get back to your visions of crusading heroes, shall we?

The Glorian Justiciars are the chosen disciples of the Lords Celestine, who happen to be the apostles of the Auroral Sovereign himself (or herself, or itself– pick whichever pronoun you like). So the beings to whom most people pray haveactualrepresentatives on earth, following their teachings, spreading their gospels, and being absolute pricks about it.

The Gloriansarethe heroes. They’re the ones following the ‘will of the eternal’, after all. And they want to rip out my toenails before using them to stab me in the eyeballs and testicles.

Keeping one step ahead of the Glorian Justiciars means collecting as much wealth and as many Infernal spells as I can until the day I’ve either accumulated enough to hire my own army to massacre the bastards, or they’ve got to me first. In the meantime, I do my best not to make the world an even worse place than I found it. Today that meant keeping a seventeen-year-old blood mage alive in the hope that I could find someone with the esoteric expertise and basic human decency to help her before she woke up with a hangover one morning and drained every drop of my blood through the pores in my skin. Oh, and I’d try to keep the jackal alive, too.

How’s that for redemption?

Chapter 13

Choosing Sides

‘We’re nearly there,’ Corrigan said, the gruffness of his tone not hiding his weariness.

I leaned on the rail, looking out onto the eastern bank, only now noticing that what had been mostly scrub and dry dirt these past few days had gradually eased into a delightfully wooded glade. Tall trees covered in blue-green leaves stood quiet sentry on either side of the canal, their long, spindly branches towering above us, reaching across the water as if to hold hands. A gentle mist carried the sweet fragrance of sap, while the scent of earthy bark was strong enough to overpower the stench of the floating dead. It was quiet here, and peaceful.

‘It’s like a cathedral,’ Galass marvelled, looking up at the arches formed by the tree branches. ‘A cathedral dedicated to nature.’ She reached out a hand to brush the spindly lower branches hanging down. Mister Bones jumped up enthusiastically, trying to bite the dangling leaves and instead landing in amiably silly fashion and spitting out his leafy prey.

What neither of them noticed amidst all this pleasant serenity was the absence of any birdsong, the croaking of frogs, or any other life, really, save for the scurrying of tiny feet along the banks and a horde of little grey bodies with beady black eyes and quivering whiskers, pausing frequently to sniff in the direction of our sloop before resuming their dash further down the canal.

‘What’s going on?’ I asked Corrigan.

He began steering the sloop towards the eastern shore. ‘That would be our next recruit, I imagine.’

‘We’re hiring rodents?’

‘Not exactly. . .’

Our path was mirroring that of the swarm of rats, and as we negotiated one of the canal’s rare bends, I caught sight of their prey: a group of men and women standing near a heap of earth some six feet long. The incantations they were casting upon the mound were probably not helped by the hundreds, maybe even thousands of rodents charging them. They wore long brocaded coats of varying colours and designs (the humans, not the rats, although the latter would have been more interesting). People in our profession don’t normally go around advertising our esoteric specialties, as that makes it too easy for our enemies to work out the best way to get past our spells. The exception is when meeting with a prospective employer, when we need to make an impression.

Four of them, three of us, and a job that calls for seven. I shot Corrigan a questioning look. ‘You usually have better taste in travelling companions.’

‘Currently my travelling companions consist of a soon-to-be-psychotic blood mage, a yappy mutt and you. What the hell gave you the impression I had any taste at all in travelling companions?’

A rumbling roar drew my gaze back to the shore. Judging by her coat, pure black save for the silver tendrils of lightning swirling along her sleeve, the bigger of the two women must have been a Tempestoral mage like Corrigan, and sure enough, bolts of blinding white lightning erupted from her clenched fists as she punched the air between herself and the oncoming rats, scorching a dozen of the frenzied assailants at a time even as the others darted around her to attack from the other side. Tiny, lethal claws and short, sharp teeth were scratching through the four wonderists’ clothes to draw blood from the fragile flesh beneath.

Galass suddenly cried out in pain. Time in Lucien’s camp might have accustomed her to violence and depravity, but her newly awakened attunement to the flow of blood meant the slaughter of the rats on the shore was a kind of emotional deluge that threatened to drown her.

She needed my attention first. ‘Close yourself off from the flow,’ I urged her. ‘Think of it like holding your breath underwater.’

She shut her eyes, frowning so hard that lines furrowed on her forehead, making her look much older.

‘Better?’ I asked.

‘Shut up,’ she replied.

Mister Bones jumped onto the wooden ledge beneath the rail, gnashing his teeth and snarling; I wasn’t sure if he was warning off the rats or the mages– or maybe he disliked both. I undid the top buttons of my own coat and shirt and traced a fingertip along one of the more pernicious Infernal runes Tenebris had sold me, warming up the spell in preparation for whatever was going to happen next.

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