He was ever the pragmatist, assessing the strength of our enemies, the threats around us.
“There are a few Masters on Nightingale.”
“Nightingale?” I asked.
“What we call this world,” the girl replied, smiling. “Spell-breaking is a skill that requires a lot of natural talent and years of study to master.” She looked at me. “You’re not there yet. But you could be. You have the potential.”
“How do you know?” I asked.
“You have a certain glow about you.”
“I am an angel. We often glow.”
“This is different.” Her gold eyes turned on Damiel. “You have it too. But it’s different with you. You’re a unicorn.”
So I was a mermaid, and Damiel was a unicorn. We were a regular pair of mythical creatures.
“What did you call me?” Damiel said coolly.
I almost laughed. I bet no one had ever had the gall to call the Master Interrogator a unicorn.
“That’s what we call them: unicorns. Commonly known as Hunters,” said the girl. “We don’t have them here, but there is a world of Hunters. They can sense magic, follow magic breadcrumbs, using that to track people. Some Hunters can read so deeply into another person’s magic that they see into their soul, into the fabric of magic that makes them what they are—and all the events that led to their creation.”
Well, Damiel did have a reputation for being able to track down anyone. It’s one reason he was the Master Interrogator. One reason Nyx sent him to hunt down traitors.
“Did you observe Damiel’s powers in the battle too?” I asked the girl.
“Yes. He very quickly tracked the course of the bounced spells and evaded them before they could hit him.”
I looked at Damiel. “Have you ever heard of Spell Breakers or Hunters?”
“Not by those names. But some of the abilities are familiar.”
“Yes,” I agreed.
The gods’ Nectar bestowed many powers upon soldiers in the Legion of Angels.
First, we acquired the strength, stamina, and speed of the vampire, as well as the vampire’s ability to heal by drinking the blood of another.
With the second sip of Nectar came the potion-making and technology-tinkering powers of the witch.
Then we gained the compulsion of the siren, the power to influence others, to compel them to do as you commanded.
Next, we mastered the four elemental powers of fire, earth, sea, and sky—together called Dragon’s Storm. Dragon was a name of another mythical creature. Just as the Spell Breakers were sometimes called mermaids and the Hunters unicorns, we too had a few unusual names for our magic abilities.
After Dragon’s Storm was Shifter’s Shadow. The Legion’s fifth level came with the power to change our physical appearance, to create powerful illusions and tricks.
That was followed by the Legion’s sixth level, Psychic’s Spell, the power of telekinesis. The ability to move objects with your mind.
The seventh power we obtained was Fairy’s Touch, the power of healing—and, conversely, of curses and plagues.
After that, we became angels. We gained the power of flight. At the same time, all of our existing magical abilities received an enormous power boost.
A second-level angel gained the power of telepathy, to read thoughts. That particular power had given me a lot of grief on the Sienna Sea, when it came to Damiel reading my thoughts.
And then we became archangels. The promotion to the Legion’s tenth level was unlike those that came before it. An archangel gained unique, individual powers. It was different with every archangel.
“Yes, it does sound familiar,” I said again.
Archangels gained powers a lot like those of a Spell Breaker or a Hunter, or something else special. Those ‘special’ powers for us were normal here. Granted I’d never seen a magic-resistant archangel refold magic, just as I’d never met a magic-tracking archangel with the power to see into someone’s soul—but maybe those archangels could expand their powers with the proper training.
“There are other powers like these, aren’t there?” I asked the girl. “Such as the power to infuse magic permanently into artifacts and weapons.”
That was one I knew some archangels possessed. Sure, a decent elemental could cast a spell on a weapon, and it would even hold for some time. But it would eventually run out. Our fire swords and lightning whips only worked for so long before they needed to be recharged. That’s why a Legion soldier who could cast those spells on their own weapon was a more effective fighter. There were no spell-recharging stations for weapons in the midst of battle.
“Yes, that is another ability,” the girl confirmed. “A Magic Artist, a person with the power to infuse permanent magic power into a weapon. Sometimes called an elf.”
Somehow, I doubted these elves had pointy ears like in the children’s tales.
“These other powers she’s describing, they are ones the archangels acquire,” I said to Damiel.
Archangels generally got one or two of these special abilities. The older they got, the more special powers they acquired.
“But here’s the thing. Neither you nor I is an archangel,” I said to Damiel. “So where did you get your Hunter ability? And where did I get my Spell Breaker powers?”
“That is a good question.” He frowned. “One to which I have no answer.”
I glanced at the girl. She was smiling at us—a big, wide smile, accompanied by big, wide eyes. It was kind of creepy, to be honest.
“What’s your name?” I asked her.
Maybe if she had a name, she wouldn’t seem so creepy.
“Faith.” Her smile persisted.
And, no, a name hadn’t made her any less creepy.
“I am Cadence. And this is Damiel.”
Her smile grew wider. Her eyes too. Giving her our names hadn’t helped alleviate the creepiness factor either.
“These powers you describe, they are all kinds of indirect magic,” Damiel told me.
“Indirect magic?”
“Yes,” he said. “When it comes to indirect magic, you don’t cast a spell directly. You absorb a spell, or you redirect an already-cast spell. You follow the trail of someone’s magic. You reshape magic, funneling existing magic, infusing it into an artifact.”
“You’re pretty smart, you know,” Faith said, clearly surprised.
He folded his arms over his chest. “Yes. I know.”
“So he’s right?” I asked Faith.
She nodded. “Yes, he’s right. Hunters, Spell Breakers, Magic Artists—these are all forms of indirect magic. Passive magic. Just as the power of the vampire, witch, siren, elemental, shifter, psychic, fairy, and telepath are forms of direct magic. Or active magic. Active magic has two sides, light and dark; each is simply the same kind of magic, the flip side, powered by either light or dark. Passive magic has those two sides—light and dark—as well.”
She pulled a notepad out of her jacket, drew a few things on it, then showed us the page.
I looked up from the magic cross she’d drawn.
“Magic is a tad more complicated than your gods and demons would have you believe, angels,” she told us.
So they did know about the gods and demons here.