Jessica Shirvington - Empower

I wriggled into a better position and waited patiently, knowing that this would work in my favour.

Sure enough, the exile who had spoken out first also struck out first, engaging with the suited exile. It didn’t last long. The suit, clearly the older of the two and a true fighter – my guess was he had once been either a Domination or a Power – overpowered his opponent, snapping his neck and making quick work of removing his heart.

We had our methods of ending their immortal existence, they had theirs.

Happy days. I now have one less exile to take care of.

I checked the time and sighed. If I didn’t get this show on the road I’d lose my window. And fighting alone was always my preference.

The drop to the ground was at least two storeys high, but I landed behind the group of exiles lightly, thanks to my angelic enhancements.

Breathing calmly, I let go of the power I was holding tightly within, just enough to lower my shields.

The exiles, who had been preoccupied with their boasting, stiffened instantly and spun around to face the new threat. It was almost comical, the look of surprise on their faces. I guess a Grigori had never snuck up on them before.

Responding quickly, the suited exile stepped forward, shoving two of them to the side, the five of them quickly forming a semi-circle around me.

So nice of them to stand in single file.

But the way he studied me – with trademark exile insanity and undisguised raw desire – made me think that this one recognised me. It happened from time to time.

I wanted to sit around and chew the fat. Really. I couldn’t think of anything I’d rather do with my time than hear about how they intended to rip me limb from limb and how that would make them as great as gods and me the most pathetic of humans. But when you’ve heard it all before, and always walked away – or, at the very least, been carried – while they were returned for their ultimate judgement, it gets old. So, I cut to the chase.

‘You have a choice. Make it or I will make it for you,’ I said, knowing that of all Grigori, I alone had the right to put it like that. ‘Consider wisely,’ I reinforced. After all, I could return them like any other Grigori with one of our blades, but if I willed it I could also strip them of their angelic strengths and leave them human – a fate exiles considered worse than an eternity in the pits of Hell. As far as I was aware, I was the only Grigori who could do this without requiring the exile in question to first choose such a fate. Which, of course, never happened.

‘You brought Lilith to her end,’ the suit said, his head tilted to the side, as if confused.

Yeah, that’s right, little ol’ me.

And it only cost me everything that mattered.

I raised my eyebrows. ‘Time’s almost up,’ I said, refraining from closing my eyes briefly as I felt a surge of power within, something that had been happening increasingly. I was getting stronger, and exactly what that meant and how to harness it wasn’t the kind of knowledge I was excited to discover.

I could strip them all, make their choice for them and be done with it, but I’d only done it twice. Onyx had been my first and I’d seen the pain it caused him. I didn’t like knowing I was the one who took away his choice. Who was I to do such a thing? The second had been a demonstration, and had resulted in the exile in question meeting a quick death. I can’t say I regretted it – he’d been one of the exiles so happy to see me strapped to a crucifix and tortured for hours – but still …

Anyway, tonight was more like training, and I’d been taught to be thorough. So, when the suit threw the first exile at me – knowing he’d be nothing more than a momentary distraction while I took him down and he lined up the next one – I got to work.

I braced, grabbing my dagger and moving into position. By the time the exile came within range my dagger had sliced through his heart and he was no longer there. Simply gone. Where did their physical forms go? Beats me.

I was already spinning by the time the second one was sent flying through the air towards me. My foot stopped his momentum and threw him back. I was on him in an instant, my dagger going straight to his heart. It didn’t need to be the heart to return them, just a killing blow inflicted by a Grigori weapon. You could slice into exiles all day long with your garden-variety knife or shoot them with a gun but neither option worked. I’d never seen a Grigori manage to rip out an exile’s heart barehanded, and even though the trick worked for exiles taking out other exiles, something told me that it did not alter our rules. Permanent results for Grigori over exiles only came via the blades of angels.

Or my blood.

The third exile went much the same way and soon enough I was left being circled by the two suits. To my surprise, they actually worked together – exiles aren’t good at that – boxing me into a corner. The brown-haired exile in the black suit moved in on me when the other one feigned a move to my right. I took a closed fist across the face and a foot to the stomach.

I heard a crack. Broken rib. But I didn’t register the pain. That kind of pain was barely a tickle compared to the agony I carried inside, every moment of every day.

My pause gave the other exile the chance to take a swing. His foot collided with my hand so hard that my dagger went flying across the room. I kept my eyes on my attackers but my ear on my weapon, listening to the reverberations as it slid along the concrete floor and eventually hit the far wall with a clang.

The exiles smiled.

I sighed.

Then I leaped into the air, gaining enough height to grip the brown-haired exile’s throat between my knees. Twisting my body as I fell through the air, I dragged the exile down with me, his neck breaking with a loud crunch.

It wouldn’t keep him down for good, but a broken neck buys time.

The exile in the grey suit grabbed me roughly from behind and threw me into the wall.

I groaned as I slid down the metal piping my back had hit. It was the opposite wall to my dagger.

Damn it.

It wasn’t an ideal situation. And I wasn’t fool enough to delude myself into thinking I could make it to my dagger. I was regretting my decision not to wear any other weapons tonight, but my dagger was the only weapon that, when sheathed, was invisible to human eyes.

Think, Vi.

I’d come down behind a wall of old crates. I was considering how I could use them to my advantage when I spotted a piece of the slim metal piping I’d broken in my fall. It lay by my foot.

I could hear the exiles moving towards me. They were cackling.

‘We should take her body with us to the tournament tonight,’ one said.

The other one laughed. ‘That would definitely put dark in the lead.’

‘And everyone would know that we were the ones who killed her.’

Can anyone say: premature victory?

Without stopping to think I pulled off the bracelet from my left wrist, using the specially designed clasp to cut open the flesh around my silver marking, currently swirling in the presence of exiles, and let it spill onto the end of the metal bar.

It took just a few seconds and as soon as I palmed the pipe, the exiles started to throw the crates aside then came into view, their smiles wide with anticipation.

I stood. I didn’t return their smiles. I didn’t bother to do anything other than what needed to be done.

I lunged, raising my elbow into the face of the black-haired exile as I spun, the metal pipe striking his companion through the heart. He was gone. I turned back to the first exile and, hoping that there was still enough of my blood on the pipe to do the trick and using my supernatural speed for all it was worth, I jammed the pipe straight into his neck.