Baleful Betrayal Read online

  Baleful Betrayal

  Overworld Chronicles

  Book Twelve

  John Corwin

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Demonicus Chapter 1

  Demonicus Chapter 2

  Conrad Edison Chapter 1

  Conrad Edison Chapter 2

  Chapter Meet the Author

  Copyright © 2016 by John Corwin.

  Digital eBook Edition.

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  LICENSE NOTES

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people unless expressly permitted by the author. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please go to a digital ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  To my wonderful support group:

  Alana Rock

  Karen Stansbury

  My amazing editors:

  Annetta Ribken

  Jennifer Wingard

  My awesome cover artist:

  Regina Wamba

  Thanks so much for all your help and input!

  Books by John Corwin:

  The Overworld Chronicles:

  Sweet Blood of Mine

  Dark Light of Mine

  Fallen Angel of Mine

  Dread Nemesis of Mine

  Twisted Sister of Mine

  Dearest Mother of Mine

  Infernal Father of Mine

  Sinister Seraphim of Mine

  Wicked War of Mine

  Dire Destiny of Ours

  Aetherial Annihilation

  Baleful Betrayal

  Overworld Underground:

  Possessed By You

  Demonicus

  Overworld Arcanum:

  Conrad Edison and the Living Curse

  Conrad Edison and the Anchored World

  Stand Alone Novels:

  No Darker Fate

  The Next Thing I Knew

  Outsourced

  Seventh

  For the latest on new releases, free ebooks, and more, join John Corwin's Newsletter at www.johncorwin.net!

  PAYBACK IS HELL

  After the crystoid incident nearly destroyed all magic in Eden and killed a dear friend, Justin Slade wants payback. That means invading the angel realm, Seraphina, and squashing the usurper, Cephus, like a bug.

  Unfortunately, another crystoid in Seraphina is preventing the Alabaster Arch from opening a portal into the realm. Using a sky portal from the last remaining crystoid in Eden, Justin launches a desperate bid to open the portal from the other side.

  Cephus, however, is more than ready for a counterattack. Not only has he fortified his fortress, but he's built a new arch and plans to open a portal to the Void, releasing the Beast and Armageddon.

  Enlisting the help of the Seraphim sky fishers and their fleet of flying ships, Justin has to repair the Alabaster Arch leading back to Eden and bring through the mightiest supernatural army Seraphina has ever known.

  Chapter 1

  Falling from a magical hole in the sky and into another dimension wasn't exactly how I thought I'd spend the day before my best friend's wedding.

  I had way too much going on with my calendar, but that was expected nothing new when planning an interdimensional war that could determine the fate of angels and man alike. Glowing eerily far below us lay the ultraviolet dome of Murk erected by Cephus, usurper of power and traitor to his own people, the Darklings.

  Tarissa, the capitol city of the Darkling nation, Pjurna, lay in ruins for at least a mile radius around the dome, many of its exotic structures, organically twisting skyscrapers, and gravity-defying designs nothing but rubble. The city had a violet crystalline sheen to it, the result of being constructed from the primal force of creation, Murk, the power favored by Seraphim of the Darkling persuasion. Their opposing kin, the Brightlings, used white Brilliance, the force of destruction, as their primary tool.

  Though the forces seemed opposites, they were merely two sides of the same coin. During my first visit here, I'd learned more about Murk than I'd ever thought possible. Even the furnishings in most buildings were created effortlessly through the use of magical gems that focused aether into desired forms.

  Cold wind whistled through my ears, tore at my hair, and pressed my goggles against my skin. The Templar Nightingale armor insulated me a little, but as I angled out of the lone beam of magic powering its charms, its protection began to fade.

  "I thought the ring Shelton bought Bella was a little gaudy," Elyssa's voice said through my earbud. "And it all feels a bit rushed."

  I gave my girlfriend a disbelieving look. "Is this really the best time to talk about that?" I spread my arms to let the webbing between my armpits and my legs catch the wind and angle me to the west.

  Elyssa paced my flight as easily as if it were something she did every day, and raised an eyebrow. "Why is it such a touchy subject for you, Justin? Every time I bring it up, you talk about something else."

  "It's just weird thinking of him getting married and having kids."

  "You're sad, aren't you?" Elyssa dodged around a golden bird and flitted through a cloud. "You think he's going to leave you and the bromance will be over."

  As usual, she hit the nail on the head, but I was too proud to admit it. "Nah, of course not." I pretended not to care and focused my vision on the ground still far below. The squirrel suits, as Shelton called our modified Nightingale armor, gave us enough lift to stay airborne until we were in range of our objective, a crystoid meteor soaking up all the magical energy in the vicinity.

  Cephus had hit Eden with hundreds of crystoids nearly two months ago in an attempt to keep our army out of Seraphina so he could remain in power. The crystal meteors nearly drained Eden of all magical energy for good. As a backup insurance plan, Cephus had used a couple of the crystoids in his own city, Tarissa. Not only had it crippled the local militia, but it had taken the skyways out of service as well.

  Our only way of transporting our army was by using the skyway connecting the Alabaster Arch on the floating island of Kdosh to the mainland of Pjurna. I had to take out the crystoid so the skyway would work again.

  Elyssa groaned. "Boys are so weird when it comes to expressing their feelings."

  "Hey, I express my feelings all the time," I shot b
ack. "Like this morning when I kissed your nose and said you were my sweet little booger."

  A snort sounded in my earbud. "I'm talking about with guy friends."

  Lights glowed from within the shield dome protecting the Ministry of Research, offering a blurry view through the translucent material. Towering in the middle of the plaza outside the ministry building stood an arch that definitely hadn't been there the last time I'd visited. Even from this bird's eye view it looked larger than the Obsidian Arches we used in Eden for instant transport from one part of the globe to the other. Through the haze of the ultraviolet barrier, it looked almost purple.

  I pointed it out to Elyssa. "Do you see that?"

  "Cephus built an arch?" she said. "That must be how the crystoids opened those sky portals."

  A hole opened in the top of the shield dome. Four Darklings on blazing wings of ultraviolet fire streaked our way. They wore black uniforms and creepy masks like something out of a cosplay convention. Unfortunately, they weren't a group of harmless nerds.

  "Uh, stupid question," Elyssa said, "but how are they flying without any aether?"

  I switched to incubus vision, which allowed me to see things invisible to the naked eye. Daemos—demon spawn—used it to scout for soul essence like the brightly blazing halo around Elyssa. Since I was also part Seraphim, it allowed me to see aether, the magical energy imbuing the air, the earth, and everything around me.

  Seraphina was a realm so abundant with magical energy that sometimes chunks of land broke free and floated in the air over a vortex of aether. The concentrations of aether grew so great in some places it was visible to the naked eye. The sky should have seethed with energy. Instead, it looked depressingly normal. A bright beacon of aether glowed to the west, the aether beam from the crystoid. The meteor sucked up the energy and beamed it through a hole in the sky and back to the Ministry of Research, supplying the dome and those within with an endless supply.

  It quickly became apparent what powered the Darklings pursuing us. Thin beams of aether speared from the dome and into the Seraphim, keeping them supplied with all the power they needed. The lead Darkling swooped upward and for a moment, the beam wasn't on him. Instead of faltering, he continued to steadily rise. The aether beam swiveled to intersect him once again and it was then I realized why the brief lack of connectivity hadn't affected him.

  Each Darkling wore small fanny packs glowing with concentrated aether. "They're wearing batteries on their butts," I told Elyssa. "They're being recharged by directed aether beams."

  "They're catching up fast," she said. "How far to the crystoid?"

  I looked west toward the beam of energy cast skyward like a Hollywood spotlight. "Another mile." The entire city of Tarissa floated over an aether vortex and the meteor rested near the edge of the skylet—the local term for a sky island. While the crystoid sucked up all the aether above the skylet, it apparently wasn't enough of an energy sink to disrupt the vortex.

  Elyssa grimaced. "They'll catch us long before that."

  I glanced at one of the sai swords sheathed on her thighs and wondered how she'd use them in an aerial battle. If we folded our arms or legs for even a moment, we'd plummet to the ground. Already the skyscrapers in the undamaged western section of Tarissa loomed only a few hundred yards below. If we lost much more altitude, we'd never clear the city without dodging through the maze of high-rises.

  Elyssa seemed to read my mind. "Plan B?"

  Beams of ultraviolet Murk whined past us. One struck Elyssa's rocket stick. Sparks showered from the tip. Another salvo speared past us, narrowly missing the webbing of my squirrel suit. We leaned left and right, dodging shards of energy.

  "I think your rocket stick is toast," I told her. "Plan B isn't going to work." One rocket stick wouldn't hold two people very well.

  "I don't suppose you want to talk about this?" I shouted at our pursuers, but the wind snatched my words and tore them apart. I motioned my head down. "We gotta do this the hard way. Plan C."

  She raised a dark eyebrow. "Isn't this already the hard way?"

  "Harder way," I clarified. "I'm glad we practiced with these squirrel suits."

  "Oh god." Elyssa glanced down. "I just figured out Plan C."

  I flashed a grin. "Hey, me too." With that, I tucked my arms to my sides and closed my legs. Without the wings to catch the air, I dropped like a lump of frozen turds from an airplane. My stomach hugged my spleen and held on for dear life.

  Blazing wings folded tight, the Darklings dove after us, firing blindly and missing. Elyssa and I streaked down the side of a tower that twisted in a corkscrew spiral.

  "Get ready," I said. "Three, two, one, go!" I spread my arms and legs and arched my back. The wind slammed into the wings, steering me inches from the shimmering surface of the building. Elyssa and I leaned hard right and whipped around the corkscrew, dodged left and threaded the narrow slit in the center of a heart-shaped building. Another hard dive and we twisted back and forth through a maze of high-rises.

  For a moment, I thought we'd lost our pursuers.

  Four shadows on the deserted pedestriums below gave us only an instant's warning that we'd been outsmarted. Rather than attempt to follow us between the buildings, the attackers maintained altitude and watched us from above. I craned my neck and saw them swooping in for the kill. A bolt of Murk exploded against the building ahead and to my left. Shards of crystal exploded in a deadly cloud.

  Elyssa cried out and swooped right. Another blast of Murk blocked me from following. At the last instant, I dodged left to avoid receiving a face full of glass. I crashed through a window and got it anyway. My ribs bounced off a wall, the wind exploded from my lungs, and I rolled across the floor of an empty apartment before skidding to a stop.

  Gasping for air, I looked up in time to see a Darkling aiming his glowing fists of death at me. I reflexively threw up my left hand to channel a shield, except—oops!—I didn't have any aether to power it. Thankfully, my enhanced Daemos reflexes weren't affected by the lack of magic. I blurred left. A spear of Murk crashed into the wall like a sledgehammer, punching a hole clear into the next room.

  Instead of fleeing like anyone with a lick of common sense, I dashed forward and punched the attacking asshat right in the stomach. With an explosive grunt, he doubled over and flew backward out of the window. My hopes of him falling to his doom were thwarted when one of his companions caught him and carried him to safety.

  I ducked back inside as Murk hammered the area where my head had been. This time I used common sense and ran through the hole in the wall and into a huge, empty room overlooking a park. I spotted a levitator alcove in the left corner that housed what passed for an elevator in Seraphina. I drew up short when I realized there was no glow of light emanating from the shaft. I peered over the lip and was greeted by a dark hole promising a quick trip to oblivion.

  Unless there were stairs hidden somewhere, I didn't know how I was supposed to get to ground level. The window to my right exploded and a Darkling barreled into me. His momentum carried us crashing through the glass and outside into empty air.

  "This wasn't what I had in mind!" I shouted as we plummeted earthward.

  He tried to let me go forty stories above the ground. What he hadn't counted on was my demon strength and desperation. He spread his wings but they weren't enough to hold us aloft. We lost altitude, cruising high over the small park and crashing through a window across the street. He caught a wing on the window frame while I tumbled across the room.

  Like many buildings I'd visited in my previous trip to Tarissa, it lacked permanent furniture since magical gems on the wall allowed occupants to furnish the room on a whim. Without aether to power the buildings, the rooms were empty unless someone left the furniture in place from the night before.

  I wished for a sturdy chair to break over the head of my assailant, or even a couch to duck behind as he tried to pound my head to hamburger meat with shards of energy. Instead, I was forced to juke back and fort
h across the room, slowly closing the distance.

  I tried to reason with him in Cyrinthian, but it had been a while since I'd spoken the language aside from the crash course I'd taken from none other than Cephus himself the last time I'd been here. "Cephus is destroying this city!" I shouted.

  My attacker didn't acknowledge what I'd said—in fact he seemed to be emotionally numb to everything, though it could have just been the creepy mask he wore. I ducked beneath another attack, came up from below, and delivered a crushing uppercut. My fist launched him off the ground so hard he hit the ceiling ten feet overhead and thudded back to the floor.

  "Sweet dreams, flyboy." I knelt and inspected his uniform.

  The symbol on the chest looked familiar. I flashed back to the day I'd gone to the Ministry of Research to save Nightliss. The guards all wore the same symbol—a white line spiraling into black—the Void. "There is no god," one of them had said. "Only life and the Void."

  I knew a bit more about the Void than they did, namely that it had a denizen of its own, a creature called the Beast. Though I'd never seen the creature, I'd heard it growl after accidentally opening a portal into that dark realm. That had been more than enough incentive not to investigate further.

  "If there's no promise of afterlife, only oblivion, why would anyone be so eager to die?" I wondered aloud.

  Now was not the time for introspection, so I tugged the mask off the soldier to reveal a shaved head with a freshly puckered scar across the temple. That wasn't what nearly made me lose my breakfast. One of the seraph's eyes was gone, replaced by a white gem.

  Seraphim come in two flavors—Brightling and Darkling—each with an affinity for opposing primal forces. Brightlings utilize Brilliance, the force of destruction, while their Darkling kin who they treated like second-class citizens, channel Murk, the magic of creation. In my experience, Darklings were usually the good guys. After all, my best friend, Nightliss, had helped me fight her evil twin sister, Daelissa, and her Brightling forces.