by Harley James
A rip current swept their feet out from under them, severing Katherine’s grip on Mary’s hand.
Katherine came up, gasping, gagging from all the salt water she’d swallowed.
Mary! Mary!
Don’t let me drown! Kitty, help!
Katherine kicked her legs, her arms flailing to keep her head above the water. A chorus of screams sounded from the beach and from the panicked people in the water. A young man, his green eyes wide, his lips babbling incoherent words, grabbed her head and shoved her down, trying to climb her like a ladder. Pain, burning. Her lungs. Her eyes, open underwater, seeing blue and silver fish zoom and dart among the thrashing legs.
Then, brown strands of hair like silk ribbon. Mary! Katherine struggled to swim toward her sister’s limp form, her chest ready to burst. Mary, please, please, please!
She grabbed her sister’s lilac muslin dress and pushed off from the sandy bottom. She broke the surface of the water again, sputtering, pulling her sister by the hair so her face would crest the waves.
Don’t give up.
But the water was so cold, and they were being forced so far from shore. Help!
Crying. She couldn’t stop.
Swim parallel to the shore, Mother had said. But she couldn’t swim and hold Mary.
Another wave. Water poured into her nose and open mouth. She let go of her sister’s hair for a moment.
Her arms grew numb from the cold and exertion.
Her body…heavy.
She couldn’t live if her sister died.
She reached again for Mary’s dress, her fingers grasping the lacy hem. She gathered her sister’s body to her as they both went under, floating down, face up, jostled by an unseen force, slow, like they had all the time in the world for drowning.
Silver fish. Sea kelp. Bubbles sparkling like the gems on Mother’s fanciful ball gowns.
Savage sounds of the liquid underworld faded. A pregnant darkness wrapped around Katherine like the light dimming as her father closed the closet door as she sat huddled inside. Alone. Arms wrapped around her knees for hours.
All because she’d broken Mary’s doll.
Echoes of her father’s words…You’re only here to protect Mary and Paul. Never leave her. No matter what.
No matter what.
Father had told her.
And so she didn’t.
I’m sorry, she thought as they sank further down into darkness.
They were supposed to have died together.
Instead, Katherine had been thrust out of the rip current and washed ashore by the breakers, her dead sister tied to the sash on her dress.
The vision faded from her eyes. Katherine sat back on her haunches, then managed to stand despite her trembling. Mary was now waist-deep in the churning water. Katherine brought her hand to her mouth, then thrust it toward her sister. “Mary, come!”
She tried settling the water, but her mind was racing, too manic to control the waves. What good is my element if I can’t control it when I most need to? Thunderclouds built and then flattened, glowing with jolts of electrical energy articulating her wild jumble of fear.
A loud wind roared over the water. Katherine staggered from the force, shielding her face with her hands as a new form rode a wave toward her.
Leviathan.
Katherine shook her head against a creeping fog that confused her Guardian energy and made it hard to concentrate on the demon walking the last few yards on the water. Leviathan held up her hands nonthreateningly, and Mary’s form winked in and out like she was a superimposed image against the ocean’s backdrop.
Katherine’s eyes snapped fully open. “Oh God! No! What are you doing?”
Leviathan stopped, her hands coming up placatingly. “Shh. I’m not here to hurt you or your sister, Guardian. I felt your pain. It drew me.”
Suddenly Mary’s form was gone. Not sucked under by the waves, just…
Gone.
Katherine’s whole body shook. She tried to form words—bring her back!—but she couldn’t get her voice to work. Leviathan pivoted slowly to stand a few feet from Katherine, looking out to sea.
“So, that was Mary’s ghost. Your greatest tragedy. I’m so sorry, Katherine. I know you blame yourself, but you were only a child. Your parents never should have left you and Mary alone by the ocean. They should have taken you along when they hurried to attend to your brother.”
Sweet words of redemption. How she longed to believe them.
You are an evil child. Mary would have never gone in the water without you. Now your mother can’t function, and I don’t know what to do. You will carry the shame of your sister’s death your whole life. It’s all your fault.
She should have died instead of Mary.
It would have made everyone happier. She could only imagine how much blacker her father’s hatred would have been if she’d had the courage to tell him she’d pressured her sister to join her.
Katherine was hiding under her bed when the gunshots shattered the numbing silence of that big, sad house.
She flexed her fingers, overcome by the sharp memory of the dark crimson blood pooling on the hardwood floor. She gagged, remembering the rawness of her screams and the awful coppery scent of the blood welling past her palms as she covered her mother’s bullet hole. She looked at her hands, now seeing Mary’s pretty hair twisted in her fingers. Her ears ringing with her sister’s cries for help each time her head broke the surface of the waves.
Two memories colliding as she stared at her hands.
Hands responsible for not one, but three deaths. Sister, Mother, Father.
Paul was the only other one of the family who’d survived, Jade his beautiful legacy.
Katherine’s arms dropped limply to her sides as she drove her torments back into the shadows in her mind. She returned her attention to the beautiful demon who was patiently waiting by the water’s edge. “Did you make her?” Katherine whispered.
“The ghost?” Leviathan turned away from the ocean. “No, I don’t waste my time with ghosts. But I can bring her back for real.”
Chapter 21
Leviathan was lying. Playing on Katherine’s deepest wound to create an artificial intimacy. “No one but God can resurrect humans.”
Leviathan’s eyes smiled. “Oh, but you’re wrong, Guardian.”
“Why would you do that for me?”
“We are different sides of the same coin. Reviled and abandoned by the ones who were supposed to love us unconditionally.” Leviathan looked off into the low-slung gray clouds that pulsed with lightning, her face filled with pain.
“Most of the world never knew, but I was born a twin,” she continued. “I had a brother. Your leader Alexios killed him long ago, but the misogynistic pricks in history decided to write me off instead, whispering stories of the great and wicked Leviathan—male. Always male. God forbid a woman be more powerful or cunning than a man. Neither of us have done anything wrong, but still our fathers took out their disappointments on us.”
Don’t trust her ploy to relate. Katherine took a deep breath. “Tell me more about Mary, or I’m leaving.”
Leviathan regarded her quietly. “Mary’s ghost appeared because your misery called to her. Just as it called to me.” When she paused, Katherine’s gaze returned to the water, not certain if she wanted to see the ghost again, or if she hoped it would never return.
“Together we can bring her back,” Leviathan continued, “but it requires use of dark arts. You’d have to keep Ari far from here because he’d detect its power almost immediately since he’s so fucking old.”
Katherine didn’t know much about dark arts other than they entailed surrendering yourself to Satan’s influence. A ball of lead formed in her gut. “If Mary really came back, how long would she stay, how old would she be, and would she be…mentally stable?”
“She’d be as you saw her ghost just now—nine—her age at time of death. You’d be responsible for her until she became an adult.”
Katherine
’s legs trembled and her pulse rose. The archdemon made it sound normal when it should be anything but. Was she supposed to sacrifice everything—her soul, even—to atone for Mary’s death? “Would she remember everything?”
Leviathan folded her hands in front of her. “You wouldn’t want her to, would you?”
No. But that would be dishonest and cowardly. Still… “Can you have her remember only the good parts?”
“Yes.”
Do it.
“You didn’t answer if her mind would be intact.”
“There might be some…glitches, but I’m confident she’d be fine.”
Glitches. That wasn’t comforting. Ari’s warnings filtered through her mind. “If I damn my soul by practicing dark arts to bring Mary back, what do you expect in return for helping me?”
Leviathan’s eyes glowed silver. “I want a companion of my own.”
Chapter 22
Katherine pressed her lips together, trying to hide her disquiet. Dark arts. A companion for Satan’s daughter. Holy Hell.
It’s time for you to show up, Grimm. Her eyes searched the horizon briefly before bringing her gaze back to Leviathan, who hovered calmly where the specter of Mary had been only moments before. She needed to stall until Ari could get here. “A companion of your own. What does that mean, exactly?”
“Someone with whom to share my life. Isn’t that what every human desires?”
But you’re not human, Katherine wanted to say. Instead, she folded her hands in front of her to stop them from shaking. “And this companion…you want it to be me.”
Leviathan smiled, and the ocean calmed.
A shiver crept up Katherine’s spine. “A true companion can’t be forced. You must know that.”
Leviathan’s lips drew down, her blue eyes doing that silver thing again. “I don’t have the luxury of time to build trust with you. I thought our instinctive connection would be enough for you to take a leap of faith. I’d hoped we could help each other grow. Help one another heal.” She brushed at her eyes, and Katherine’s heart nearly stopped.
Has a demon—much less, an archdemon—ever wept? Could a natural-born demon rise above her nature and environment? Humans did it all the time.
Sure, but always with tremendous struggle, came a voice inside. You’re exhausted. Why work so hard to get what you want when there’s an easier way?
Dark arts. Hadn’t she already been riding that line for her entire, artificially long life? Her stomach rolled as a new sequence of memories assaulted her in slow motion. Highlights of her selfishness, her need for control, her quest for power. All of it, defensive weaponry she’d honed to awful perfection.
Katherine’s stomach tumbled so viciously she sank to her knees and retched on the sand.
I’m sick. A hundred years of fighting to become invulnerable to abandonment, all for nothing.
Ari, I need you.
“It’s time for you to choose, Guardian.”
Katherine wiped her mouth and looked up at the archdemon, whose eyes gleamed with hope. She wanted to trust.
Leviathan held out her hand. “Will you take a leap of faith with me? Or will you continue to let others decide how our story should be written?”
Join with her. One who’d been born in evil through no choice of her own. Katherine sat back on her haunches, fighting the heaviness in her limbs, the white noise in her brain. “I am open to a journey of self-healing. I will even share that road with you, Leviathan, since God knows I need it, too.” She gasped, struggling to hold the toxin’s effects at bay. “But dark arts can play no part in self-healing—mine or yours.”
Leviathan stood motionless. “So, you reject me?”
Katherine shook her head. “No, not you. Only the dark path. There’s a difference.”
“I am born of darkness. I see no difference.”
“We are the sum of our choices,” Katherine said, and a wall came down inside her, revealing another’s presence, which cleared more of the Nephilim toxin from her mind. Ari?
Her heart was beating so fast. She rose slowly to her feet and took a step toward the water, which had begun to ebb and flow once more. “Life has been difficult for both of us, but good and evil are products of free will. We can choose to make life-affirming choices. And so far, you’ve demonstrated that you have the power to make good choices. All you need to do is keep making them.” She held her breath as Leviathan stared at her.
“If I can’t have you, I want Ari.”
What? Katherine’s gut clenched, her skin tingling painfully. Of every possible scenario, she hadn’t expected this. She shivered. “He’s not a doll to be fought over, Leviathan.”
The demon raised her arms. The waves lengthened, and the sky filled with gauzy, charcoal clouds that pulsed with a deep red light. “I could’ve made you happy.”
Katherine staggered back from the furious water, thunder ricocheting through her chest, filling her with dread. If Leviathan chose this moment to strike, she didn’t stand a chance. Katherine looked down at her hands once more, this time envisioning Ari’s strong fingers engulfing her own.
No matter what, there was always a choice to be made. Always a choice to love. To forgive. To do the right thing.
Until you were dead, you had a choice.
Her gaze wrenched back to the demon. “Leviathan, please listen. You can choose to be good. I believe in you.”
Leviathan lowered her arms, her eyes alert, her body calm. Katherine swallowed, taking a step toward the archdemon, her heart bumping against her rib cage.
Suddenly, the air molecules shifted as Ari and two other Guardians soared through the sky. Leviathan shouted an Enochian curse as the three ancient Guardians landed on the beach. Raj and Alexios flanked Ari, whose face was a mask of anger, his body covered in blood and sweat. “Katherine must learn—like the rest of us—how to make herself happy. You are no one’s path to joy, demon.” Ari opened his arms, marshaling high humidity and competing air masses to wind together with enough force to develop a low-pressure center.
Katherine raced to the edge of the ocean. “Wait! She’s not entirely evil like the others.”
Raj and Alexios raised their hands, thrusting power into Ari’s typhoon before Leviathan’s water shield was at full strength. The tearing winds ripped through her wall of water, enveloping her in a twirling, twisting mass of air and sea water.
“No! Please, give her a chance!” Katherine screamed. Ari grabbed her arm, adrenaline and violence pumping through him. Leviathan was wailing, but whether in fear, pain, or rage, Katherine couldn’t tell. She tried to wrench herself from Ari’s grasp, her gut somersaulting to feel the water swell over her ankles. “Give her time to make the right decision. She was on the cusp of it!”
Alexios’s features seemed carved from stone as he turned to pin her with a fierce glare. “This has all been an elaborate ruse, Katherine. You are still under the influence of Nephilim toxin. Stand down. Now.”
Ari’s gaze was nearly as aggressive as their Guardian leader’s. “This will be over soon.”
Her hands covered her mouth, her shoulders quaking with her sobs. “But this is wrong.”
Wasn’t it?
Katherine pressed her palms against her temples to quell the horrible sounds of battle. She watched, helpless, as it took three of the oldest Guardians in existence working together to control the archdemon. How was she so strong?
Katherine backpedaled from the turbulent water as Leviathan rose up in the tsunami and battled back the waves. The three Guardians were pushed back, blood dripping from their ears and noses. Katherine tested the mental pathway to the men’s power chain until the razor-sharp pushback from the archdemon made her double over in pain. Raj bellowed ferociously, his black hair lighting on fire as he launched himself toward Leviathan.
But the archdemon disappeared with a shriek that felt as despondent as it was ominous. Suddenly the sea and skies calmed. Raj fell limply into the ocean as Alexios, Ari, and Katherine collapsed
on the beach.
Katherine stared up at the still-swirling clouds, matted pieces of her hair whipping in her face. Pain rode every muscle in her being. Still, it wasn’t nearly as sharp as the stabbing in her soul.
The lines had been drawn in the sand, and now she’d never know if she’d been right about the demon.
There could be no Mary.
No more choice.
And no more hope.
Chapter 23
Ari lay unmoving on the beach, catching his breath. The sun emerged from all those ominous clouds, baking his blood crusty all over his body. He’d been inside Kat’s head as she’d relived her near-drowning while trying to save her sister.
Horrific.
He’d known about the tragedy, but never the particulars. It had been the one thing Kat had never shared with him.
Fuck.
Fuck, fuck, fucking fuck.
She’d been a little girl. In the long history of the world, what sibling hadn’t engaged in silly taunts? Kat hadn’t wanted any real harm to come to her sister. And then for her parents to blame her for her sister’s death…
And then their deaths.
How could the universe allow something so awful to happen to a child? To carry that weight all her life was inconceivable.
A knot worked its way into his throat as he sat up and crawled over to Kat. When a broken sob choked out of her, he gathered her in his arms, pulling them both back onto the sand. He held her body on top of his as she feebly fought against him, the Nephilim poison in her body continuing to confuse her.
“What if I was right? Now I’ll never know. Damn you, Grimm.”
There was no heat to her accusation and no use arguing with her in this state. Until they found a way to clear the toxin inside her, she wouldn’t be able to see things for what they were. He squeezed her in his arms and willed love and healing energy into her soul. He would give her everything, every last drop of his essence if he could. “I’ve got you, North. I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere.”
She laid her head on his chest, her fingers relaxing on his shirt. “We should have given her more time. She might have chosen the right path,” she whispered. Her submissive tone and behaviors increased his urgency to find a cure for this goddamn poison.