Fallen Reign (Sins of the Father 1)

“What – what did you do to me?” I grunted. I could hardly speak. My lips were frozen nearly as badly as the rest of my body.

“Surely you know yourself,” Monica said, stepping around her kitchen counter so that it stood squarely between her and my friends. “With the right kind of wards, with the right kind of glyphs, you can use ritual magic and arcane geometry to create a circle of protection, to lock out any kind of entity in existence. Gods, angels, demons.”

My heart pounded as my mind put the pieces of the puzzle together. I couldn’t move, but I sure as hell could feel the sweat trickling down my throat.

“Ah,” Monica continued. “So you’ve figured it out. You can use wards to keep entities out. But you can also use them to seal entities in. And since only half of you is human, I can use the same sigils that might affect lesser angels to keep you trapped here.”

“No,” I groaned, the sweat pouring out of me in buckets. Something else was happening to my body. It wasn’t just the paralysis. Heat was flaring from every one of my cells.

“I should have mentioned,” Monica said, examining her fingernails. “Against a regular angel, the sigils I drew would be enough to keep them trapped. But against a mongrel like you? The effect would be horrific. Terrible.” I gasped for breath through a slitted mouth as her own lips twisted into a cruel grin. “With you surrounded by all these glyphs, the reaction would be catastrophic. Simply agonizing.”

I forced my head down to look at myself, wondering why it felt like my blood was boiling, my entire body on fire. Nothing had changed, no magical flames trailing across my skin, but I felt just like a lobster thrust into a boiling pot of water. My teeth clenched together so tightly that I thought they would shatter.

Florian banged his fists against the invisible wall. Just behind him, I watched through eyes quickly filling with tears of pain as Quill muttered and incanted to himself, preparing some sort of spell.

Hurry, I thought. I could die here.

Just when I thought that the pain couldn’t get any worse, the proverbial pot burst, dropping my body directly into the fire. I crumpled to the ground. I screamed, and I screamed, the noise from my throat begging wordlessly for the mercy of a swift death.

32

I thrashed wildly on the ground, my limbs wracked with agony, each convulsion of my body causing my joints and my bones to contort with horrible creaks and cracks. I was too weak to scream by then, but scream I did, the sound ripping itself from my lungs. The world was only just visible to me through my tears. My back and my arms were soaked in sweat and blood.

“Don’t be so dramatic,” Monica said. “It gets better over time, as with everything. You’ll develop a greater resistance to the pain – oh, after a few hours, or so.”

“Not unless we kill you first,” said Florian’s voice, his tone brutish and threatening.

Monica laughed again. I twisted my head just far enough to watch as Florian launched himself at her, huge fists thrashing at the air in barbaric fury. The witch’s body seemed to blur as she dodged and weaved away from every last one of his blows.

Then I heard it, the rush of gravel and wind that Quill’s voice turned into each time he unleashed one of his spells.

“Ignis.”

The kitchen flared bright orange as Quilliam released another torrent of flames from his palm. The roar of fire filled the room, but so did Monica’s laughter. She lifted a pot up to her face, its opening absorbing every last tongue and spark of the guttering fire into its recesses. When she slammed the lid on top, Quill’s flames died out completely.

“Try again,” Monica said.

I never knew that brujeria could do that. Even the greatest, most terrible witch I knew had her own weakness

es. Something was off. Completely off.

“Who are you?” I shouted, more at the room than at Monica, my body still twisting and twitching from the pain of the sealing circle. “What are you? You’re not Monica Rodriguez.”

She laughed, her voice coarse and wicked. “I’m really, really not. Did you really think I would squander twenty grand on you? I don’t have that kind of money.” Her eyes flashed green, the color of emeralds. “Or maybe I do.”

Something was wrong here, even more fucked up than it already looked. Those last words that came out of Monica’s lips sounded different, as if spoken by another voice. Even her demeanor seemed changed. Tougher, harsher, and more sadistic.

The door burst open, a terrible wind whipping through the house, the pots and pans in the kitchen dancing in a clattering ruckus. The force of the gale was so strong that it blew Quill, even Florian off his feet, sending them crashing to the ground. And then she came, hovering just off the floor like an apparition, her eyes red, her mouth full of craggy teeth, her skin charred black in places, angry red and raw in others: Leonora.

Hope, I thought. The two witches would duel, and whoever was left over would be weakened, someone the boys and I could more easily deal with. But Monica’s reaction to the sight of her grandmother wasn’t one of anger, or fear. It was welcoming, pleased, expectant.

“Abuela,” Monica cooed, reaching her arms out, kissing the blackened mass of skin and flesh that was once Leonora’s cheek. That part of her face came off, falling to the floor with a wet, crusty squelch.

“What’s happening here?” Quill had pushed his back up against the corner of the kitchen, his eyes huge and confused as they glanced from one witch to the other. “I thought you were enemies. What’s going on?”

“Foolish boy,” said the witches, speaking as one, in the same voice – one that belonged to neither Leonora nor Monica. “You are caught in a trap. That is what has happened. You shouldn’t be blamed for your confusion. This deception has been extensive and fruitful. A worthy investment, indeed.”

Quilliam’s fear turned to anger, his lips curling back as he hissed. “Show yourself. I know who you are.”