“Why am I here?”
As expected, he didn’t answer my question. Nothing new there.
As he inserted the blood sample into the machine, the glass doors opened once more. This time a woman entered the dungeon. Divinely beautiful, she wore her black, glossy hair long. It flowed past her waist like a curtain of black silk fluttering in the wind. Her eyes sparkled green-blue, the color of blue fir trees. She smelled like freshly-fallen pine needles, burning together with a potpourri of wood and metal, like a sleepy forest after a snowfall.
She wore a black leather uniform adorned with armor pieces that looked as much like jewelry as armor. Metal guards set with gemstones covered her forearms. She wore a matching headband. No, a diadem, a sign of power and sovereignty. There was magic in her gemstones, a potent magic that magnified her own. I could see it in the unearthly glow of the gems, the mesmerizing swirl in their jeweled depths, like an ancient story was playing out inside of them.
Her magic was dark and rich. I’d only ever felt such powerful magic in the presence of a god. She had to be a demon, the gods’ dark magic counterparts.
“Progress?” the demon asked Soulslayer.
I recognized that voice. It was the one that had spoken to the dark angel in the arena.
“I’ve taken a sample of her blood. The machine is analyzing it now,” Soulslayer told her.
The beautiful demon came over to me, stopping at the wall I was chained to. “I am Sonja, Demon of the Dark Force, the Dark Lady of War, the Mistress of Telekinesis, and Queen of the Psychics,” she introduced herself.
Gods and demons always had so many titles.
But it was the title ‘Demon of the Dark Force’ that caught my attention most of all. The Dark Force was the demons’ version of the Legion of Angels. Sonja was the demon who ruled over the Dark Force. Her equivalent was Ronan, Lord of the Legion of Angels.
“So I’m in hell,” I said. “It’s cleaner than I expected.”
“The old stereotypes of hell are so very wrong. Fiery pits and burning volcanoes. Pillars of fire, sulfur and smoke.” Her nose crinkled up. “Nothing but fantastical lies spun by scared humans and encouraged by the reprehensible gods.”
“Reprehensible? And what is all of this? Kindness?
I couldn’t move my arms because they were bolted to the wall, but I moved my gaze from my chained limbs, to my sisters locked up in their cells.
“This is progress.” Pride rang in Sonja’s voice. It danced off every syllable.
My chains clinked as I pushed against them. “Your kind of progress is distinctly medieval.”
“You need to free your mind from these mortal misconceptions. They are so limiting. See things for what they truly are.”
“You have me chained to a wall,” I said drily. “There’s really no room for interpretation here.”
“Well, I can’t very well have you running away, now can I?”
She said it patiently, like she was speaking to a child. It wasn’t even a question. It was a statement of fact, plain and simple. Like one plus one is two. And that she was sick and tired of explaining it, thank-you-very-much.
“Your peacock-winged minion threw monster after monster at me for who knows how long,” I said. “You abducted my sisters and me. How am I supposed to see things how you do if you won’t even tell me why you took us? And how did you convince the Pioneers, who shun all divine intervention on Earth, to take your potion and do your bidding?”
I was going out on a limb here, guessing the demon had made the potion, but it was the best theory I had.
“Well, of course the Pioneers didn’t know they were working for me,” said Sonja, amused. “They purchased their superhuman potion from Balin.”
The dark angel had been masquerading as a mercenary. The spells in place that kept demons out of Earth had holes in them, areas weak enough for someone with less potent dark magic to get through. That’s how dark angels and other Dark Force soldiers made it to Earth.
“The Pioneers’ potion seems to defy magical laws,” I said, prompting her further.
“Not really.” Sonja’s laugh was deceptively sweet, a poison thorn hiding beneath a beautiful blossoming rose. “The key ingredient of the potion is my blood.”
I just let Sonja keep stroking her own ego. Immortals loved to show how clever they were. Usually, it was annoying, but right now Sonja’s ego was filling in the gaps, providing me with much-needed information.
“Just a drop of my blood was needed per vial, mixed with some other ingredients that mask my blood and make the magic die as soon as it leaves a human body or the safety of the magic containers. It is one of Valerian’s better ideas.”
Valerian, the Dark Lord of Witches, was another demon. He also happened to be Bella’s grandfather. So he and Sonja were allies, plotting to use the Pioneers to destroy the Legion. How many other demons were involved? Gods and demons generally formed alliances on a case-by-case basis—allies in one battle, enemies in another.
“But the potion isn’t a real magic pill,” I realized.
“Oh?” Her eyes twinkled.
“You were controlling them. As long as your blood was inside of them, you held the reins. The magic they used was you channeling your magic through them. There is no miracle magic potion, no new way to make supernatural soldiers without the consequences. The Pioneers never had any magic at all.”
“Do you think I’d actually give divine magic to a group like that?” Disgust rolled off her tongue.
Of course she wouldn’t. She’d just been using them. In their desperate quest for power, the Pioneers hadn’t even considered the reality that a potion like theirs shouldn’t be able to exist. Any witch could have told them that. They didn’t know they were drinking demon blood, or who’d really given it to them. They didn’t know that they were just Sonja’s tools. They only knew that the potion made them powerful—strong enough to rid the world of gods. And then after that, they’d move on to wiping out the demons. They would be the heroes who freed the Earth from its foreign invaders.
The Pioneers were such fools. And I’d been a fool to think that they were the real threat.
I looked at Soulslayer. “You were the shooter on the roof in Purgatory, the one who killed the werewolf mercenaries. You left the final werewolf alive on purpose.”
“Of course I did. It wouldn’t have taken much magic to make my bullet pierce the pitiful ice spell you’d cast around him.”
“But why? Why leave him alive when we would have gone after the prisoners anyway—” The answer hit me like a falling block of bricks. “You wanted us to think something fishy was going on, that this was more than just your everyday kidnapping. To draw me into your trap.”
“You’re starting to see things as they are,” said Sonja. “The hazy cloud of humanity is lifting from your eyes. That which limits you, constrains you, prevents you from reaching your true potential, is falling away.”
“And what is my potential? You obviously brought me here for my magic, just like my sisters.”
“I want to understand your magic and your sisters’ magic, to harness it to strengthen the Dark Force.”
“Fourteen years ago, you were the one who told the Rogue King that Hellfire was holding two girls with powerful otherworldly magic.”
“Yes.”
“When Hellfire attacked, Gin and Tessa escaped into the jungle,” I said, talking it through. “You sent in your soldiers. Those were the ‘black beasts’ my sisters spoke of, monsters even the warlords feared. Dark Force soldiers dressed in black leather, the most fearsome creatures in the whole jungle. You were going to capture my sisters for yourself, but Calli found them first. She brought them home, far away from there. Their memories wiped, their magic masked, there was no trace of them. You couldn’t find them.”