Phoenix Contract: Part Five (Fallen Angel Watchers) (4 page)

“Thanks, but I’ve got it. I know how to gut a pig.” She shoved with all of the strength in her body, and her entire hand to the wrist disappeared into his torso.

Cassio laughed, harsh and amused, but remained rock solid still, braced as Mariah carved his heart from his chest. She wasn’t as fast or as clean as she could have been, but finally his heart detached and slid free. The forgotten stiletto dropped to the frozen ground.

Removed, the organ manifested as a remarkable presence. A living, breathing thing within its own right–the Heart.

She extracted the fist-sized organ, holding the still beating Heart in both hands. It was wet and warm, pulsating with life and power, and blood gushed continuously from the severed pulmonary and aortic arteries with no reduction in flow.

She stared at the organ in rapt fascination, flexing her fingers into the meaty flesh. A steady stream of red gushed forth from the palpitating mass. The Heart throbbed and thrashed, restless with the desire of a captured creature to rip free.

“I’m supposed to eat this?” A sneer of disgust contorted one side of her face. She asked even though she knew the answer: the successful completion of the transference ritual demanded that she consume the Heart.

“It’s not so bad,” Cassio lied. The Immortal Watcher stood with a great gaping hole in his chest, face twisted in agony but expression intent. He was so close to achieving his goal at long last.

“Go on, do it,” Cassio ordered in a harsh tone. “Let’s get this over with.”

At his urging, Mariah reluctantly raised the Heart toward her mouth. The throbbing organ was inches from her lips when a hand snatched it away.

“I’ll take that. Thank you,” the intruder announced, speaking with a distinctive French accent and the cultured affectation of a nobleman.

The Frenchman removed the Heart from Mariah’s grasp so smoothly that she blinked at her empty hands in disbelief. She hadn’t even wanted immortality until she’d touched it, but having the Heart suddenly snatched away left her bereft, her soul crying out for the loss.

“Guillaume! You bastard! How dare you!” Cassio exclaimed. The Immortal Watcher had been taken equally unaware as Mariah. Neither had heard the stealthy approach of intruders.

“How dare I? Cassio, really, your thick headedness never fails to amaze me. What can I say? I’m a ballsy bastard, so dare I? Of course, I dare!” Apparently, the Immortal Watcher’s obtuseness also amused the Frenchman, because he laughed, a wicked and yet jovial expression of mirth.

The burning pillar at the heart of the pentagram provided sufficient illumination for Mariah to make out the faces of their assailants. Two henchmen accompanied Guillaume, the Frenchman, but neither spoke. The pair wore heavy leather cloaks and carried swords. Both hung back, mere shadows to their charismatic leader.

The Frenchman had striking, angelically beautiful features. Fine eyebrows and high cheekbones defined a narrow face, and his pale blue eyes held a cold, calculating intelligence. His shoulder-length golden blond hair was plastered to his skull because of the rain, but the waves alluded to a wealth of curls. Tailored clothing made from expensive linen, also thoroughly soaked, clung to his superbly muscled body beneath.

Belatedly, Mariah recovered her senses. She lunged at the Frenchman, but rough hands seized her from behind. “Let go!” she cried as the man dragged her away from Guillaume.

“I’m afraid I can’t do that,” her captor replied. While the Frenchman seethed arrogance and audacity, this man wielded an air of absolute authority.

A chill swept over Mariah at the sound of the terribly familiar voice. His accent was foreign, a sweet, melodic lilt that lodged in her ear like a warm tickle. She did not recognize his voice, and yet she was overcome with an overwhelming sense of déjà vu. She
knew
him. But how? Certainly, they’d never...

“This intrusion is unacceptable. The audacity is monumental, even for you, Guillaume. I don’t know what the hell you think you’re up to,” Cassio snarled. A halo of fire flickered about his form. Towering with rage, the Immortal Watcher strode toward the blond Frenchman.

The sight of Cassio striding about with a huge hole in his chest unnerved her. How easily and ludicrous to listen to him reproach the man who held his beating heart. Guillaume’s trim figure cut an equally ridiculous image. The blond man clutched that beating heart to his chest like a peasant in possession of some great treasure. Unwittingly, she allowed a high, nervous laugh to escape from her throat.

“Oh, spare me the pompous bombast! You abuse my ear, Cassius! As for my intent, I should think it obvious.” Guillaume stood his ground, refusing to retreat before Cassio, and held up the Heart. “I’m taking what belongs to me by right. What you were too weak and undeserving to possess.”

“You’re a bigger fool than I thought,” Cassio retorted scornfully. “The Phoenix cannot be taken, it can only be given! AND I DO NOT CHOOSE YOU!”

Cassio’s hand shot out, and a jet of fire erupted from his palm and seared toward the Frenchman. Clutching the precious Heart in one hand, Guillaume extended his other and shouted words that were lost to the howl of the wind and the roar of the fire. The fiery attack blasted against an invisible barrier with tremendous energy.

Realizing he couldn’t penetrate his opponent’s defenses, Cassio allowed the fire to dissipate. “You can’t win,” he told Guillaume, but a detectable shade of doubt crept into the Immortal Watcher’s voice. As always, Cassio gave up easily, unwilling to exert an effort in the face of any obstacle that presented the least bit of a challenge.

Mariah’s jaw set in disgust and anger, and her breath hissed through her teeth. So intent upon the fight, she nearly forgot the man holding her prisoner.

“If that’s your best, then this is going to be a disappointingly short fight,” Guillaume remarked. “Why don’t I save you the embarrassment?”

The Frenchman gestured in Mariah’s direction. In response, the man restraining her shifted his grip. One of his arms crossed over her torso and firmly pinned her arms as he produced a dagger and positioned it with the tip over her heart. Mariah’s token resistance was a futile effort in the face of the man’s over-whelming strength.

“Let’s trade,” Guillaume said. “A heart for a Heart. Put away your weapon or my henchman will kill the girl.”

In the act of drawing his saber, Cassio froze in his tracks. “Let the girl go. She’s done nothing to you,” he said, tone taut with tension. Indecision was written in every inch of his lean frame, paralyzing him.

Mariah could almost read Cassio’s mind. She knew that the Immortal Watcher did not fear for the loss of his wife’s life. Rather, he feared failure. He was trapped, terrified, and faced with a terrible quandary. His Heart had already been removed, the Ritual of Ashes and Rebirth already begun. There was no going back. Cassio had to die, and another Phoenix must rise in his place.

They were hundreds of miles from another suitable heir. If Mariah died, then Cassio had no choice but to transfer his power to Guillaume. If Cassio failed to choose even a marginally competent heir, then his name would be cursed for generations to come, and their people would be lost. Even Cassio wasn’t callow enough to risk the fate of the Phoenix to a killer’s knife.

“Actually, the girl is everything to me,” Guillaume replied with an ironic smile. “Because you’re about to bestow upon this pathetic child what is rightfully mine. Look at her. She’s a lamb, not a lion. Bad enough that I had to track you to the ends of the earth, but did you really think you could elude me?”

“I had to try. How did you find us?” Cassio asked, mournfully resigned.

Mariah’s fingers itched, and her anger roiled. If she could’ve reached the man’s throat, she’d have strangled him.

“Spies, Cassio, spies. The enlightened and wise general employs them, and I’ve always fancied myself a divine manipulator of the threads,” Guillaume said.

“Another lesson that you never mastered,” the Frenchman continued, shaking his head with mock sorrow. “In five centuries of complete incompetence, you’ve made plenty of enemies—our own people turned against their divine leader. It’s shameful.”

“You have no idea what I’ve endured for the sake of our people!” Cassio informed him, bristling with indignation. “You’re a fine one to be making such accusations! It’s
your
actions that have brought Shemyaza to the brink of ruin!”

“You fool! Our House
is
ruined!” Guillaume snapped. “You’re too blind to see what’s right before your eyes, Cassio,” he retorted, succumbing to petty bickering. The two men fell into what sounded like an old and established mode of interaction as though they’d known one another for a long time.

“Oh, and what would that be?” Cassio demanded.

“That Shemyaza has been in decline since the moment you became the Phoenix.
I
should have been Channah’s heir, and would have been, had she not chosen while blinded with grief! She made a disastrous decision when she picked you! The wrong decision, but one I was unable to change, so I was forced to seek another path to immortality.”

“They’ve known each other for five hundred years?” Mariah exclaimed in a soft voice. The very idea shocked her, but it also explained the pair’s venomous hatred for one another.

“Five long,
long
centuries of them bickering like children,” Mariah’s captor agreed with a forlorn whispered sigh in her ear. “As unbelievable as it sounds, they used to be the best of friends.”

His broken silence served as a startling reminder of his presence. She’d almost forgotten him, quite the feat considering their relative positions. The knife he held over her heart had never wavered.

“Another path!” Cassio sputtered. “You used the blackest of magic to transform you and your followers into soul sucking demons!”

“A slight exaggeration,” Guillaume said with an arrogant smirk. “And not exactly accurate, but close enough.”

“What else would you call it then?” Cassio demanded.

For the entire world, Mariah would have sworn that the Immortal Watcher knew exactly what answer to expect from this old argument, and yet he asked anyway, as if following a script.

“Cursed is most accurate, but vampirism suffices,” Guillaume replied. “Besides, the point will soon be moot. I’m confident that the curse will be lifted as soon as I inherit the Phoenix.”

“Tonight it is you who is exceedingly dense. It is you who have maligned my reputation to other members of our House,” Cassio retorted, prisoner of their argument, perhaps thinking that it could go on and on. “It is you who have turned them against me, and there is not a chance in Hades that I shall—”

“Do it,” Guillaume commanded, gesturing in Mariah’s direction with a casual wave.

At his master’s bidding, the henchman plunged his knife straight into Mariah’s heart. The suddenness of the attack left Cassio gaping in shock. Mariah grabbed hold of her killer’s hand which held the hilt of the knife embedded in her chest. She blinked raindrops from her eyes and waited for the pain, but she felt nothing.

“Now you have no choice in the matter. There is no other candidate
Of the Blood
within hundreds of miles, and here you’ve already cut out The Heart,” Guillaume said, sounding quite reasonable and not like a man who’d just participated in the murder of an innocent girl. He held up the Heart of Shemyaza. “Now shall we complete this ceremony?”

“No!” Cassio shouted, recovering his senses. “No! I won’t! I’d rather the Phoenix be lost forever than see you gain such power!”

The hysterical Phoenix threw himself backward toward the pentagram and flew into the towering pillar of fire. Guillaume shouted in angry denial and leapt forward, but it was too late. Cassio’s body combusted like a Roman candle. Sparks and smoke rained down, and all of the Phoenix’s immense power, which had been contained within his undeserving body, flowed into the sky.

“Deny me, but hear this!” Guillaume shouted to the sky. “I will have my revenge! I’ll start with Shemyaza and kill or turn the entire bloodline! And when I’m finished with Shemyaza, I’ll destroy all of our people!”

In her killer’s arms, Mariah rested comfortably as her lifeblood seeped past the blade lodged in her heart. She felt numb and detached and had witnessed Cassio’s destruction with a twinge of amusement. A small smile played on her lips.

“H-he finally got what he wanted,” Mariah whispered.

“Shhh,” her killer shushed, stroking her dark brown hair with a kind hand.

Mariah whimpered, and tears trickled down her cheeks. She didn’t want to die, but it was coming. Death, certain and inevitable, would claim her life.

But no! A soul stronger than Mariah’s stirred within the girl’s injured heart.

With the last of her strength, she grabbed for her killer’s cloak. Dragging his hood aside, she gazed upon his face. Those golden eyes stared back at her with curiosity and complete inhumanity.

“Magnus,” she hissed with her dying breath. Her use of his name caused a glimmer of surprise in his lovely yellow eyes. Mariah had not known her murderer’s name.

“There will be a reckoning for what you’ve done this night,” she promised him.

“There always is,” he replied with a slow smile.

With a gasp, Mariah died.