“If you follow your natural bent; you will definitely go to heaven”
― Dante Alighieri
Zachary cursed under his breath but didn’t drop his gun. I had to make a split second decision, either to use my powers to get these morons out of my way and keep chasing after the prince or let him disappear. I didn't think that these men were in any way linked to the missing royal. Their thoughts would give them away otherwise. Questions kept rushing through my mind. There was no way that my excellent vision could have misled me. Prince George was at the cemetery, most likely under the influence of the human woman from the apartment.
“I’m a cop, you fucktards, so I suggest you drop that gun and walk away,” Zachary shouted. Yeah, he wasn’t really helping the situation. That insult only made the guy that was holding a gun even crazier. On top of that, I saw he just said in his thoughts that he hated cops.
I glanced back, seeing that Jessica (well, I was certain that Jessica was somewhere in the body of a demon that was likely controlling her) was shouting and pointing at the prince to move. I chewed on my bottom lip, concentrating on the strong current of my demonic power, calculating the risk of using it against humans. The burst of energy made the tiny hairs on my body rise.
The man with a black moustache and long untidy hair, the one holding the gun replied to Zach, “I don’t believe you, arsehole. My sister’s grave was vandalised. We caught you and now we’re going to deal with you accordingly.”
My skin was itching to hit them with a strong bolt of energy, but I couldn’t let myself be exposed. This whole situation was beyond comical. The rain kept pouring down, and I couldn’t see well through the streams of water. There was another demon in the vicinity. I felt him or her leading the prince away from the cemetery.
Zach’s anger escalated and he gripped his gun tighter. He was ready to shoot these idiots and I couldn’t let him do that. His career would be on the line and I still wanted to live.
“You fucking arseholes, you will be rotting in prison for obstruction of justice. We are on a case here,” he shouted furiously. Then too many things happened all at once. First someone—and I had no idea who—fired a gun. Then a loud terrifying scream spread over the whole cemetery. I struggled to remain on my feet, suddenly showered with waves of my own light energy. I was able to gather it from earth, from every living being, from water that ran underneath the grounds, from leaves and plants. I felt it surging through me, igniting my demonic soul to action.
I brought my hands together, making time pause in its natural moment. Now I had more than enough time to destroy the flying bullet and deal with the human, but bending destiny like that was going to cost me big in the long run.
Everything stopped—the small dots of rainwater had been suspended, the air shifted and all the humans around me became frozen statues. It took me a second to realise that the bullet was heading straight in my direction. I was going to die here, in this wet cemetery. I had never truly experienced using my abilities to this extent. The demon nearby was watching, sensing the fact that I was breaking all of Lucifer’s rules, just to save myself and possibly Prince George.
I knocked Zachary off his feet, moving at least a meter away from the speeding bullet. Those couple of seconds gave me enough time to reboot time again. I screamed at the top of my lungs landing on top of Zach, reaching for the energy of the storm. The light pulsated, became more of a living entity as waves crossed over, feeding me with bits of nature’s power. Lightning slashed its angry light through the sky and then I summoned it. My fingertips were red as they throbbed, and tiny wisps of smoke began drifting away from my arms. The lightning hit the human man that fired the gun, but the impact knocked the others off their feet.
My eyes started to glow, as I shot back on my feet, feeling the enormous power of my energy begin tearing my flesh apart and joining itself with my demonic soul. Two humans that landed on the soaked ground were screaming their heads off.
I didn’t even realise that Zachary was fully conscious now, staring at me with his eyes wide open. The pain eased off as the power slowly faded away. Mist began covering the entire space, drifting through the graves. I had brought it in, so whoever was watching couldn’t see what I was planning to do next. A second later, the bullet hit the grave behind me, missing my hair by about an inch.
“Your eyes, Maxine, your eyes are glowing,” Zach shouted. He shot back on his feet and lifted his gun. We didn’t have time to play this game right now. The prince was already out of sight, somewhere behind the cemetery walls, and Zach was ready to shoot me on the spot.
My head was banging loudly, and for the first time since I came back, a human had witnessed the real me. This whole thing was supposed to turn out differently. Zach was meant to be knocked out when I landed on him, so I could deal with the rest of the guys.
“Zach, put the gun down. We have to go after the prince!” I shouted back, wondering if he was really ready to kill me. His mind was confused, convinced that I was the cause of his partner’s death.
“You were one of them this entire time. I knew there was something wrong with you,” he shouted. The other two guys stopped moving and that wasn’t good. Zach was ready to blow my head off. He believed that I was evil, that he was finally seeing the real me.
“I’m Maxine. You know me. Just put the gun down, so we can talk about it,” I said firmly. A haunted look crept into his eyes right before he averted his gaze down to my hands that were most likely still sparkling. His dark eyes turned into the furious shade of liquid tar, as his mind filled with dark images of his partner that spread over the bed, her wrists were sliced, sheets soaked with blood…. The prince didn’t matter anymore.
“Witch, you’re a witch, like the rest of them. The government is twisting our minds, but I finally know the truth,” he kept mumbling, shaking the gun right in front of my face. More humans were on their way and I couldn’t let him ruin us both.
I concentrated and froze the bullet in his gun with the magic that was still alive in my sore fingertips. He pressed the trigger convinced that he was doing the right thing, and I covered my face with my palms, ready for the worst. The gun didn’t fire, so I took this opportunity to jump and deliver a roundhouse kick that would knock the stuffing out of him and leave him disorientated.
He was lying on the ground, touching his face. I reached out and grabbed his hand. A second later my wet palms connected with his cheeks, and the words started floating out of me before my mind could process what was happening.
“You made a mistake; I didn’t do anything extraordinary. The thunderstorm hit the tree nearby, distracting the guy that held the gun and he fired it accidentally. The bullet nearly hit me, but now everything is fine.”
His pupils were dilated, and his eyes darkened as he ran his thumb along my face. I was in his head again easing the anger slowly until I saw that one covered-up memory from the past that someone replaced with the image of his dead partner.
“Hey, Cora, I brought your favourite chocolate cake, the one that makes you extremely horny,” I shouted through the threshold, knowing how much that kind of thing wound her up. This whole thing between us was very new, but somehow exciting. We started sleeping together over the past few weeks, after I made a move on her in the car.
First I thought she would slap me, but she kissed me back instead. This wasn’t something that I planned; it was a spur of the moment thing.
My mother kept nagging me, saying that I would end up alone, never marry and never settle. There was some truth in that, because I’d been enjoying myself a bit too much, partying most of the time and sleeping around. Women liked the fact that I had a badge, that I wasn’t looking for anything stable.
I walked into the living room, smelling the odd burning scent, suspecting that she most likely ruined our dinner for tonight. Being in the kitchen wasn’t one of her strong suits. There were masses of paper lying on the floor, the sofa was turned upside down.
Something was wrong. I took out my gun moving forward. There was an intruder in the house. This area wasn’t one of the safest.
I started climbing upstairs, quietly, listening in. A few days on the run Cora had been acting strange. She seemed convinced that someone was after her, telling me that she had been followed home a few times. I kept telling her that she was working herself to death. Sometimes we spent over sixteen hours on a case, driving around the city and checking all the leads. She was drained and needed some time out.
“Please, no. I didn’t do anything wrong. You can’t take me, you can’t,” I heard her talking to someone. I stopped halfway up the stairs, wondering what the hell was going on inside her main bedroom. There was someone there with her. I swallowed hard forcing myself to move.
Another voice spoke. “You broke the rules of your faction. Leviathan needs you in the underworld. There is a new army being formed. You cannot say no; this is your duty.” The man, whoever he was, wasn’t from around here, and he had an unrecognisable accent. The lights from candles flickered, and an odd terrifying sensation rippled through my spine. My grandmother had told me that there were things in this world that couldn’t be explained. Somehow she fucking sold me her sixth sense.
“But I paid off my duty. Leviathan cursed me out a long time ago. You can’t just expect me to go back. I have a life here on the outside.”
“That’s true, but you have broken the rules, bedded with a human. Lucifer sends others to pits; he punishes them severely. He doesn’t want to see any more mongrels being brought into this world,” the strong voice stated.
I shook my head and barged into her bedroom, holding the gun in my hand. My own voice died when I saw Cora naked on the bed with the older, bare-chested guy. There was something wrong with his eyes—they were white, without any pupils. He jerked back with a hiss.
“So he is the one that services you with earthly pleasures?” the man questioned her, standing up. He was taller than me, wide through the shoulders, and his chest shined with sweat.
“Zach, leave, please. You don’t want to get involved. There is always a price and I have discarded the rules. I thought that no one would care,” Cora said in a sad tone of voice. She was radiant, her hair sleek, eyes gleaming in the dim light of the room. There was something wrong with the way she was staring at me, with that overwhelming sadness. That crazy-eyed guy most likely had done something to her. This was beyond normal.
“Get up, you son of a bitch. I don’t know what the hell is going on here, but you have two seconds to get the fuck out of here!”
Then I felt the pain in my head, gut-wrenching pain that spread to every part of my body. My gun slipped from my fingers and I fell to my knees, screaming in agony. Suddenly the man was standing beside me, and bright yellow light filled the room, but I couldn’t see anything. I was holding my head, wanting to bang it against the floor just so the pain would ease.
“I’m taking her with me, human. She’s going back to the underworld where she belongs. You will grieve her here, but you will never know what happened,” the voice in my head said.
The pain faded as quickly as it came. I woke up on the floor in Cora’s bedroom. Then I saw her. She was spread on the bed; the sheets were covered with blood; her wrists were slit.
When I got to her, I knew she was dead, and my thoughts went racing. I didn’t even remember how I got upstairs, why I was in her house. Everything was blurry, until a quiet sob escaped me.
I pulled away from Zach, breathing hard, trying to gain some oxygen into my lungs. Suddenly everything was clear. His partner, the woman that he’d worked and slept with, was a demon cast out of hell. That night when Zach arrived at her house, a Watcher was there, ready to claim her back. All this time I suspected that Zach was under someone else’s influence, but I was wrong. He’d simply witnessed something that he wasn’t supposed to see.
Cora used him as an escape and he fell in love with her. She lied to him. She knew about the rules from the very beginning. The Watcher couldn’t leave himself exposed, so he killed her and made it looked like a suicide. He made a choice to end her life there.
Now I was sitting on the cold grave filling Zach’s head with images that were far from the truth. When we were surrounded, I exposed my true self, not caring for the consequences. The violence could have been avoided, but that human had fired a gun. I had to react, and not thinking things through I merely acted on instinct.
“Max, are you all right?” Zach asked, looking around, disoriented and confused. His gun was lying on the grass, a few meters away. The prince was gone. I couldn’t sense him anywhere. The fried humans were alive, barely, but they were going to make it.
“I’m fine. The prince was here, with Jessica. Her friend was right, she had him,” I said, falling to the ground exhausted and shivering with cold. I had lost my focus, my strength, and all because I was high on magical tequila. Nothing else mattered because I failed to recognise the danger, failed to see beyond my own stupid ego.
Zach got up, wiping the excess water from his face. Then the stranger’s voice echoed in my head.
“Maxine Brodeur, surrender yourself to the temporary hearing outside the dark gates. You have broken the rules and exposed our world to humans. You have until midnight to show; otherwise you will be brought down to the underworld by a Fallen.”
I tangled my hair, knowing that this was it. I had finally crossed the line, exposed my own abilities. The head of my faction was summoning me down to the gates. My death was upon me.