A part of me still regrets that I never got to be a mother.
I couldn’t shake her words.
The world is a dangerous place. But that doesn’t stop us from wanting what we want.
Around and around, those words circled in my head. I supposed I didn’t want to shake them. Maybe I wanted to torture myself. Or maybe a part of me really agreed with her.
Love is the best shield you can have. And the best sword too. If that love is strong enough, it can weather any spell and topple any empire.
I was so tired. Like a lullaby, the memory of Leila’s words sang me to sleep.
When I woke up, I knew several hours had passed because I could see Purgatory in the distance, waiting to welcome me home. Nero was out there somewhere. I wished he would welcome me home too.
Sighing, I pressed a button on my armrest, and a large television slowly dropped from the ceiling. As the screen flickered on, Angel jumped onto the seat beside mine. She meowed at me.
I scratched her under her chin. “Glad you’re speaking to me again.”
She purred.
“If only Nero were as reasonable as you.”
She folded one paw primly over the other.
“My thoughts exactly,” I told her. “If he doesn’t want to talk to us, then we don’t want to talk to him. And good riddance.”
She stared at me.
“Yes, I am aware that I can’t bullshit you, Angel. But it’s easier to pretend I don’t care that Nero’s mad at me, you know?”
She nudged my hand with her pink nose.
I petted her head. “I knew you’d understand.”
A flash of familiar images on the television screen caught my eye. I tapped the controls on the armrest to increase the volume.
“Late last night, a system overload resulted in numerous holes opening up in the Magitech barrier at Desert Rose,” said a melodramatic male voiceover. “No citizen need be reminded that these barriers are all that stand between us and total annihilation.”
“If no one needs to be reminded, then why is he reminding people?” I asked Angel.
She licked her paw, then shook her head. Obviously, she completely agreed with me.
“But for those viewers who have not seen over those walls, here’s a taste of what lies beyond,” said the reporter.
Images of old city ruins flashed across the screen. There were overhead shots of large monster herds. And extreme closeups of monsters’ snarling jaws. Whoever had taken those shots had gotten really close to actual, real-life monsters.
They were insane. Monsters were dangerous and they killed people. But these people had cared more about getting newsworthy, shocking images than they cared about their own lives.
“Earlier today, one of these terrible monsters broke past the Magitech border at Desert Rose and invaded the nearby Frontier town of Inspiration.”
The reporter was more than a voiceover now. He was on screen, wearing a green t-shirt and a pair of brown shorts, along with a very big outdoor hat. The outfit wasn’t much different than the Legion’s wilderness uniform.
“Not long ago, Inspiration was a bright beacon of hope on the Frontier,” said the reporter. “But now, it is little more than ruins.”
The camera switched to a shot of the wilderness reporter standing in front of the supply yard where Leila and I had fought the armored panther just hours ago.
“But it wasn’t a monster that destroyed Inspiration,” he said. “It was Leda Pandora, the so-called Angel of Chaos. Her recklessness destroyed this once-flourishing town.”
The screen played a montage of scenes from today’s fight. They showed the exploding crates. They showed my potions knocking the door off the digger. They showed the piles of construction debris. They showed me hacking heavy metal plates off the monster, and those plates smashing through fences and houses. They showed roofs on fire. They even showed the damn outhouses exploding.
“The incident at Desert Rose has been labeled an unmitigated disaster,” continued the reporter.
“Labeled by you,” I growled at the screen. “Because disasters bring higher ratings.”
“Many are questioning whether Leda Pandora was promoted too early. They question if she was truly good enough to ascend to her new position among the angels. And after today’s events, everyone is looking back at her past successes with a skeptical eye.”
I jumped to my feet and shouted at the reporter, “You are not everyone!”
Angel growled at the screen in a sign of solidarity.
I patted her head in appreciation.
“The question on everyone’s mind right now is: were Leda Pandora’s victories well-earned, or was it all the result of sheer dumb luck?” A sardonic smile twisted his lips. “Within just a few short weeks of becoming an angel, she’s already accumulated many titles, including the Angel of Chaos, the Angel of Purgatory, and the Angel of the Plains of Monsters. Will this black sheep of the Legion now add ‘Barbarian Angel’ and ‘Berserker Angel’ to her name?”
More images of our fight with the monster flashed across the screen, each one more incendiary than the last.
“That monster would have killed everyone in town if we hadn’t taken it down,” I snapped at the reporter.
“Is this angel worthy of the gods’ love? Or will they stomp her out?”
The montage ended with a shot of the monster falling dead on top of me.
If I could have pulled the remote out of the armrest, I would have thrown it at the television. But as it was, my next best option was to simply glower at the screen.
The program switched to an advertisement for ‘Angel Weddings’, Tessa’s new party planning business. Wow, my little sister must have really been raking in the dough if she could afford ads at this time of the day, on this channel.
After Tessa’s ad, the news returned, thankfully with a different reporter this time. Mr. Incendiary was clearly a first class ass more interested in manufacturing drama than in reporting real news. This other reporter was far more subdued as he talked about supernaturals who had gone missing. No one had seen or heard from them in days, sometimes weeks.
Supernaturals didn’t generally get along with other kinds of supernaturals—or, sometimes, with their own kind. So those reports were unfortunately nothing out of the ordinary. The paranormal soldiers were undoubtedly already on the case and maybe the Legion was too. I only hoped they succeeded.
A picture of Lucy replaced the news report on the television. I pressed a button in the armrest to answer her call.
“What’s wrong?” I asked Lucy because the look on her face told me something definitely was.
“Major Somerset’s team was tracking down a nest of rogue vampires in Purgatory,” she replied. “They found the vampires, but they are all dead.”
Another regular occurrence, especially out here on the Frontier. Rogue vampires didn’t just have to worry about the law; they had to worry about other rogue vampires too.
“Who killed them?” I asked.
“That’s just it, Leda. We don’t know who killed them, or even how they could have died. The vampires seemed to have been poisoned by the very blood that gives them life.”
12
Second Guess