Cam's Justice

"That's... quite reasonable, and prudent of you. Yes, we must face Jacen either way, he is our true enemy this night, and the architect behind the threat to our lives. The only question was if we'd be freeing you in the bargain."

She nodded in acceptance.

I looked at both Cassia and Faith. I already knew Faith's response, I felt her calm and confident acceptance at my decision as alpha. My Faith truly had no doubts about my decision to add a fourth to our coterie, no more than she had doubts about the fifth woman in my life back in the castle's gardens. She'd be cautious in the beginning, and watch for betrayal, but she would welcome her as a sister and more protection for her alpha as well as a powerful addition to our coterie.

Of course, Faith had never doubted her place, or my commitment to her as my mate, she could feel it in me, always.

In short, my concern there had most lied with Cassia, but I found no doubt or worry in her eyes either. It was good to know how confident she was in our love at that point in our lives, and her surety in our relationship and her status as my permanent mate. She'd give Irze a fair shake too, Drow priestess of one of the good gods, or not.

Cassia said, "What can you tell us about the tower, and where Jacen would be. It would be best if we took care of it now, we don't want to start a war with every sorcerer in the tower of Abyxis, not if we can help it."

Faith added, "Plus, we need to leave her tied up until it's done."

That was a good point, we needed to move, and as soon as we could. I figured it to be around two in the morning.

It wouldn't do to rush though, and it was closer to three by the time we'd gotten all the details and layout as we could out of Irze. Not to mention a bit of planning. Jacen's suite was on the third floor from the bottom, he was a powerful sorcerer but one of very little influence. There were also guards on the first floor of the tower, and lots of human servants, which meant no magical alarms, just human ones.

The goal was to kill just one, Jacen, and evade the rest, the last thing we needed to do was start a war with the sorcerers' tower. Fortunately, we lived in the upper-class area of the city at that point, and it wasn't all that far to the tower...

Chapter Four

The night was cool, and there was plenty of light under the moons once we were outside. My thoughts strayed to Lysa, it'd be good to have her along for this, but we really couldn't wait to attack until the next night. Her and the kiss were part of our ally network, but it took time to call them in. Outside of the fact we'd have to leave Irze tied up over twenty-four hours, we feared waiting would also tip off Jacen we were still alive, and his readiness would rise in result.

"Quick question, why was it we couldn't feel Andrew was a sorcerer? That might be pertinent to the night's events."

Cassia smirked, "We can't feel them unless they're actively doing magic and invoking the elements. That goes both ways, they can't feel a witch at rest either. Of course, we both have shields on most of the time, so we stand out that way."

I frowned, "So that truth detection of theirs doesn't require active magic then?"

Cassia hummed, "I suppose not. We can feel the ebb and flow of the world around us and our bodies without expending magic as well, or in being detected by non-witch races. It may be something similar."

That was true, my demon side could only feel when Cassia was casting spells, it was my witch side only that could feel her reaching out to the world around her.

The Spire of Abyxis was a large and very wide twisting tower, with eight sides making it mostly rounded, and the walls twisted around each other as they rose, giving it a swirling appearance. It appeared to be one giant stone, there were no mortar joints at all, just one piece of smooth stone. It was also quite tall, taller than the castle towers by quite a lot, and I was glad we only had to make it to the third floor since it was a stealth mission. Irze hadn't known exactly how many floors there were in the tower, she'd never been higher than the seventh level.

The stairway was tightly circular in the center of the tower, and each landing led to a small circular corridor around the stairs, which had various large rooms or living suites facing out toward the edge of the tower. The tower was about a hundred feet wide at the base, which gave each floor over seven thousand square feet of space, though that was almost halved at the top of the spire which was about as half as wide.

It was a huge amount of space, but until a few days ago I'd have said every sorcerer in the city lived there, but apparently that was only mostly true, except for the royal family. Point being, they definitely needed the space.

The circular wall around the property and tower was twenty feet high, and it had sharp cast iron spikes sticking up out of the thin wall to discourage climbers. As a result, we walked right up to the gate.

The guard said, "Halt, identify yourselves."

I cleared my throat, which got his eyes to snap to mine instead of trying to get an answer from Cassia's tits. I usually hated when men looked at what was mine, but I had to admit it worked out for the best in some things, he'd been totally distracted and put at ease from their beauty.

I smiled, "You will relax, open the gate, and let us in. You will ignore our presence for the rest of the night, and after we leave, you'll forget we were even here."

It was the plan we'd come up with, no proof of our presence, just one dead sorcerer who'd exceeded the intentions of the whole through greed and ambition. We didn't want to start a war, and the fact they used humans as guards was a weakness we could exploit. Normally, it'd be fine, the greatest enemy of the sorcerers and other non-human races were humans, human guards would be more than enough to deal with a bunch of bigots trying to start trouble.

But for us, a little compulsion went a long way.

He was a bit slack-jawed as he opened the gate, and the three of us slipped through and headed for the door into the tower. According to Irze, there'd be two human guards in the public bottom of the tower, one by the doorway, and another by the center stairwell entrance. Two we could handle quietly, if there was more the mission might go tits up. Hopefully that didn't happen until later. Supposedly all the guards had breakable objects that would set off an alarm and wake the whole tower in an emergency.

We pushed open the large door, and there was a guard right there about to challenge our presence, and fifty feet down the corridor at the entrance to the stairs there was another guard watching closely. Cassia muttered under her breath in a low tone, had been for the previous few seconds.

My eyes captured the first, and Cassia finished her chanting and a spell flew down the corridor to freeze the second. I let out a sigh of relief that there was no outcry, we couldn't have handled three as easily as two.

I gave the first the same orders as the guard at the gate, to ignore us and forget us once we left for the night. Then we moved to the stairwell, where I repeated the compulsion for frozen guy, and then Cassia let her spell die. So far, so good, but I wasn't depending on everything going to plan. I'd never fought a sorcerer before, but I knew they were powerful, and unlike witches they didn't have to cast their spells with words.

Sometimes plans worked for a bit before they went south.

We moved slowly and silently up the stairs, which as Irze said was a tightly circular corkscrew around a central column of stone. When we reached the entrance for second-floor landing, we paused long enough to ensure no one was around before exposing ourselves to the second-floor entrance, then we continued up toward the third floor. Some sorcerer or sorceress having a sleepless night and going for a walk could blow the whole the operation.

Fortunately, that bit of pessimism went unrewarded.

We reached the third-floor landing, and paused again, no breathing, footsteps, or any other sounds reached our ears. I looked to Faith, she had the best hearing of all, and she nodded the all clear before we stepped up on the landing, and we opened the door and walked out into the tight circular corridor. We turned left, and went to the third door on the right, which according to Irze was Jacen's suite of rooms.

I tried the door, and I raised an eyebrow at the quiet snick as it opened and swung in quietly. No locks? Trusting lot, these sorcerers.

The entry room was much as it'd been described to us. There was a sitting room, with several chairs and wide couches, glass tables with parchment laying on them randomly, as well as a dirty glass. There were glass shelves along the walls with various knickknacks, stones, and crystals, half of which registered with my half-demon side as magical, and my witch side cringed away from it as well. They felt... unnatural. No wonder witches and sorcerers didn't get along. I also knew the enchantment or geas for Irze was on one of those, but I didn't search the shelves for it, we had to deal with Jacen first.

Glass was also extremely rare, even in the upper-class part of the city most windows were simply shuttered, including our home. That room's glass furniture and shelves alone would go for a fortune in the human market. It made me wonder if sorcerers could just magic some out of a pile of sand. Truthfully, the whole spire of Abyxis was quite impressive, there were no seams of any kind in any of the walls, stairs, ceilings, or polished floors. They must've somehow reformed the stone and building materials into one large piece somehow.

Elemental Earth magic, no doubt. It also seemed to me the sorcerers had retained far more of their power, if that room was any indication, or perhaps they'd merely rediscovered a lot of the possibilities, and shared amongst each other, while the witch covens were far more segregated and kept the secrets of power to themselves. Not that I was judging, Cassia and I were guilty of the same, we had no intention of sharing the tomes with the other covens.

There were two doorways in the room, besides the exit I mean. The one on the right wall led into a kitchen, the one in the back led to the bedroom, and we headed slowly toward the latter. The room was full of magic, which was probably why we missed the subtler magic on the floor before the bedroom door, until it was too late.

Jacen's muffled and sleepy voice called out, "Who's entered my home? Cara, is that you?"

I kicked open his bedroom door while I reached for my belt, and as it slammed open a throwing dagger flew from my hand toward Jacen's throat, only to stop dead in the air several inches from his neck. The room hummed with his unnatural magic, as he chuckled.

"I see my assassin failed, very well."

The dagger flipped and shot back at me like an arrow, and I dodged to the side and used the wall next to the doorway as cover. I considered and rejected drawing my sword, he could probably control any metal or earth with his magic. I debated using hellfire for a moment.

Faith shifted and ran into the room in her beast form, and Cassia had started to chant.

I looked back into the doorway, to see Faith on top of the bastard and trying to tear his throat out, but her claws were somehow being stopped just an inch from his flesh. Some kind of magical shield, against physical damage.

"Faith, move!"

She growled in anger, but rolled off the asshole, and I raised my hand and smote him with the fires of hell. Or at least, that had been the plan, but a shield of elemental fire exploded into being between us, and his fire ate mine.

Cassia leaned into the doorway as she spoke the last word of the spell, and her magic passed through the fire like it wasn't even there, and I heard Jacen grunt in pain a moment later and the fire winked out.

Cassia said, "He's fighting it."

Right, I pulled a second dagger, covered it with dancing hellfire, which was a new trick and took me by surprise as I once again threw a dagger the bastard. That time, he was far too busy fighting to dispel Cassia's killing spell, to focus on my dagger.

The sound of a blade slamming into flesh reached my ears, as the dagger disappeared into his neck, and the fire started to lick and spread over his body. He was already dead, and in just a few moments he wouldn't need a burial. Apparently, his dead body was still alive enough at the moment, for the fires to consume.

Cassia raised an eyebrow, as Faith said, "That's new."

I shrugged, "I was angry. You alright?"

Faith nodded, "It was like air pressure, the air itself was deflecting my claws. He didn't hurt me back, I imagine it took most of his concentration to maintain the shield."

I grunted, and I walked into the bedroom and plucked my clean dagger off the bed, where no sign of Jacen remained. Of course, the fire just burned living flesh, which meant not only was his bed perfectly fine, but my dagger was already clean as the blood had burned as well, and I shoved it in the sheath.

We went back into the living room, and Cassia started to search for the object with the geas while I found my dagger across the room. I sighed, I'd have to clean and sharpen it, it had a small nick in the blade from where it'd hit the stone wall. The stone wall itself had a small chip in it, which was evidence I didn't care to leave behind, but there was nothing we could do about it. Regardless, they wouldn't know who had killed him, as long as we got out without being seen.

Still, they'd know it wasn't a sorcerer, if anyone noticed the chip in the wall.

Cassia sighed in satisfaction, "Found it, I need a minute."

She started to cast. It was a variation of the shield spell we both had around our bodies against magic and the elements. In essence, the spell would fight the geas on the object which was a large crystal, as it tried to restore the natural properties of the crystal, which didn't include elemental magic. It would be worthless after that, and a new geas would require capturing Irze again, they couldn't restore it without her presence.

She finished the spell, and it got to work.

I wasn't a thief, but I gave serious consideration to pocketing a few things in that room. It wouldn't be wise though, if we sold glass, or someone saw it in our home and word got around, the sorcerers weren't stupid.

My head snapped toward the door, and I moved quickly and quietly across the room.

"Jacen?" asked an annoyed yet alluring female voice, "Why are you doing magic in the middle of the night, you woke me up, and I don't appreciate..."

Her words cut off as the door opened the rest of the way, and I grabbed her and covered her mouth with my hand.

My intention was to try compulsion, so we didn't have to kill anyone else, but I was frozen for a moment as I realized the soft willowy flesh under my hands belonged to an elf. A full elf, five foot seven, pointy upswept ears, with beautiful silver hair that looked like a curtain of shiny liquid metal, impossibly bright and vivid green eyes, and an exotically beautiful elfin face comparable to Irze's, except her skin was porcelain fair instead of a deep ebony. She had the same long and thick eyelashes, and slightly bowed lips was really the only major difference, Irze's were poutier.

Of course, I also saw double, as her greatest fantasy played in my mind in a split second.

I also took in a few more details in that vision, her body was willowy, with extremely long and toned thin legs, and small hips, with a long valley for a waist and a lovely tight little ass. Willowy, except for the fact that she had the biggest breasts I'd ever seen, they looked almost obscene on her tight willowy body, at least double Ds in size, and impossibly supple and gravity defying, with very little downward movement from the obvious weight. Last but not least, she also had nipples an even lighter and more deliciously delicate pink than my Faith's, which I'd have said was extremely unlikely before that moment.

As to the fantasy itself, I saw her being seduced, pampered, and adored by a faceless man, after which they made love and she was cherished deeply afterwards. A little bit like Cassia that way, except higher maintenance, swept away in a romantic way, instead of by a strong man that would merely protect and cherish.

"Don't speak or fight," I ordered.

Her eyes narrowed at me, and then wind exploded out of her body, and shot me across the room where I slammed against the wall, pinned there by the wind until the stone itself melted and secured my wrists and ankles.

Faith growled and went at her next, but she too was flung against the wall and secured.

Cassia dropped the object, and she started to cast.

The elf said politely, "None of that witch," and suddenly Cassia was gasping for air, and it didn't look like she was able to breath.

I thought we were fucked, and any mercy in me died as I imagined my ladies dying to a random event as our plan went to total shit. In a last-ditch effort, I shot shadowed flames in her direction.

The bitch looked amused, and twirled her finger, the first actual movement she made to shape her magic, and a funnel of air started to circle her like a tornado. It sucked up the flames I cast, and they twirled around her in raging funnel of shadowy fire, without touching her at all.

I screamed, as my wrist popped, and my hands were twisted around the face the wall. I wouldn't be casting any more fire.

The elf smiled genially, as Cassia fell to her knees suddenly started gasping for breath.

That elf was a total badass, and had us helpless in moments, far more powerful and apparently could do more than one thing at a time, unlike Jacen. She was calm, relaxed even, and held her head up high as she examined us. After a moment a broad smile crossed her exotic facial features.

She said, "Isn't this better? We can speak now. You are the new coven, the ones helping the king stay in power."

That was a statement, not a question, so I was unmoved to answer her.

She studied us a bit longer, and then nodded thoughtfully after a moment. The crystal Cassia had been working on rose from the ground, and it shot across the room into her palm. She studied it for a moment, and then frowned slightly.

"I am Siora, an elven sorceress of Ironwood. Is it safe to assume Jacen sent an assassin after you? I know he was playing with that Drow cleric, distasteful that."

I nodded, "That is so, our intention was to end the threat only, and not start a war."

Siora smiled, "Was that so hard? Humans are so... rude."

"Rude?" I asked doubtfully.

She nodded, "Is it so hard to be polite?" she asked politely.

Oh great, we were trapped by a crazy elf, who was really delicately stunning in appearance, a match for any of the beauties in my coterie. I was also in no way foolish enough to believe she'd be joining anytime soon, despite my dick's thoughts on the matter.

"I suppose not, but my first reaction was to spare your life, I'd hoped a little compulsion would take care of it."

Siora nodded slowly, regally, in thought.

"I am here in an exchange program of sorts, to share our sorcerous knowledge between the human and elven sorcerers. I was given quarters on the third level, the lowest level of the spire that has personal rooms, and the most crudely appointed, while I know their representative on our land has been treated much better. I also believe they are purposefully holding back on me, and only agreed in order to gain our knowledge without reciprocating fully. I find this whole situation, unsatisfactory."

The crystal raised up out of her palm, started to spin, and then was crushed violently into dust. I could feel the magic dissipate from across the room. Then the dust itself was consumed in a flash of fire.