“Shut up,” Trent exclaimed, the point of his sword pricking my flesh.
“You know I can’t stay here,” I said, holding my hands up. “I can do more good out there than I can while I await my death sentence.”
“Wilder would never execute you,” he argued.
“Wilder is bound by the Codex as we all are. As the Inquisitor, he will do as it decrees.”
Silently, Trent shook his head.
“I have to go,” I urged. “The Dark has its eyes on Camelot and this thing inside me might stop it before whatever it is begins.”
“And him?” Trent demanded.
I tightened my grip on Elijah’s hand. “I will keep my promise. I will help him find a cure.”
He shook his head and curled his lip. “What’s stopping him from returning to the Dark and betraying us all?”
“Me,” I replied.
Trent’s arm began to shake, and I felt a single drop of blood trace its way down my neck.
“You know me, Trent,” I murmured. “Nothing’s changed other than my awareness of what I’ve always been.”
He glanced at Elijah. “Not always.”
“No,” I shook my head, “just the last five years.”
“Semantics,” Elijah muttered.
Trent hissed and lowered his sword. “Go.”
I backed way, forcing Elijah to do the same. “Thank you.”
“If I see you again…”
I understood. He’d be forced to follow through on orders, no matter what they were.
I dragged Elijah away, drawing him into the embrace of my unknown power. Trent blinked and looked around in bewilderment. I knew to his eyes, we were gone. The score between us had been settled and now it was about what came next.
No one stopped us as we walked out of base camp. The barrier of Light around the outer wall was nothing more than an illusion as we stepped through to our freedom. Not even Excalibur stirred in his castle.
We were ghosts moving from one life to the next.
“Come,” Elijah said as we climbed the hill hand in hand, “we have work to do.”
I nodded as I glanced over my shoulder one last time, despair tugging at my heart.
Goodbye, Madeline Greenbriar, I thought. It was fun while it lasted.
17
We found a cheap hotel on the outskirts of Birmingham.
After a little alteration on the clerk, we got ourselves a room at the back of the building, away from other guests. I was just thankful that part of my power still worked the way it used to.
The hallways were empty, though it was past midnight. A few ‘do not disturb’ hangers were on the door handles as we passed, and the faint hum of televisions ebbed through the walls here and there. If it wasn’t for those few indicators, it would have been easy to think the entire hotel was empty.
Our room was next to a fire escape at the end of the longest corridor known to man. I slipped the keycard into the lock and pushed the door open.
“Let me do some work next time,” Elijah said, following me into the room. “You’re emasculating me.”
I made a face. “Threatened by women, are we?”
“What do you think? I spent the better part of the last week incapacitated.”
“Glad to see you’re feeling better.”
I checked the bathroom, then turned on the lights. Elijah walked past me and peered out of the window at the city beyond. The lights of Birmingham were bright, the lack of complete darkness jarring after Camelot.
“You don’t seem concerned about Wilder finding us,” I said as he swept the blackout curtains over the view.
“Your fancy sword-man won’t find anything,” Elijah replied, proceeding to open and close all the drawers in the bedside tables.
Speaking of swords, I realised I was unarmed. My arondight blade was still in Camelot and I had no cold iron dagger to speak of. All I had were my new abilities.
“Shame there’s two beds,” he said. “I enjoy being the big spoon.”
I rolled my eyes to cover my embarrassment. “Don’t think me saving you is a declaration of anything.”
He paused his curious searching and looked at me. “A declaration of what?”
“I’m taking a shower,” I snapped.
“Can I come?” Now he was just trolling me.
“No.”
He laughed, then flopped down on the bed closest to the window and picked up the TV remote. The old Elijah was back with a vengeance.
Closing the bathroom door, I listened to the hum of his channel surfing and sighed. It was going to take some getting used to travelling with a half-demon.
Stripping, I slunk into the shower and scrubbed the filth of my prison off my skin. The water beat down on my back, soothing the pain and stress of the past week from my mind.
What was I? I’d become something dangerous, that much was clear. Even Wilder seemed afraid of my potential and he was the embodiment of celestial power.
Light couldn’t stop me, neither could Darkness. That kind of power was unfathomable—there had to be a loophole. Nothing was absolute.
I shook my head and turned off the taps. Everyone I’d ever known hated me, and if they didn’t hate me, they feared me. I didn’t know which was worse. How had I become the enemy in my own story?
I stepped out of the shower and lingered in front of the mirror. Sweeping my palm across the condensation on the mirror, I stared at my reflection. My black hair was wet and stringy, my skin white and sallow, and my eyes… I blinked as the blue in my irises shimmered—red, silver, then dulled to grey. I rubbed my fists against my eyes and leaned closer to the mirror. Still grey like a monochrome pencil drawing.
The old Madeleine was dead and whoever was looking back at me was being reborn.
* * *
I emerged from the bathroom in a waft of steam, wrapped in one of the fluffy hotel bathrobes.
Elijah was where I’d left him, watching an infomercial on television, but there was a pile of clothes on the bed I hadn’t seen before.
“What’s that?” I asked. He’d been up to something while I was contemplating my terrible life choices in the shower. Trickery and chaos were in his nature, after all.
“While you were using up all the hot water, I glamoured some clean clothes out of the neighbours.”
“Elijah.” I picked up the jeans—which turned out to be an extremely convincing pair of jeggings—and scowled. “If we’re going to stick together, you need to stop stealing things.”
“Why? Humanity is crippled by consumerism. Most of the things they buy they don’t even need. Think of the environment.”
I shook my head and pulled on the jeggings, shimmying them on under the robe. We didn’t have time to wait around for my clothes to dry, so I was forced to accept Elijah’s stolen bounty.
He switched the TV off and grinned as I turned my back to put on the long-sleeved T-shirt. “Glad to see we’re on the same page.”
“I’ll find a way to pay it forwards.”
“Ever the Natural.” He smirked. “I forgot to get you a bra.”
I threw the bathrobe at his face. “No, you didn’t.”
He caught it with a chuckle and tossed it onto the floor. “You’re too clever for me.”
I lowered my gaze, imagining I could see his scars through his T-shirt. “Does it hurt?”
“My Darkness stops me from feeling any pain,” he replied stiffly.
The playful tone faded from the room and our predicament began to tug at me once more. We had to find the Dark and stop its plot against Camelot, then escape the clutches of both sides of the balance. Then the search for Elijah’s cure would begin. My identity problems seemed to be little more than a trifle compared to all of that.
“What will happen to you if we remove your mutation?” I asked. I hadn’t thought about the consequences removing his demonic side would have, much like I hadn’t thought of my own evolution.
“I don’t know…” he admitted. “I might wither and die on
the spot, or I may live out the rest of my days as I was meant to.”
Watching him closely, I frowned. “You’re willing to take the risk?”
“You’ve seen my mood swings. They’re epic.” He smirked and held out his hand.
I slipped my palm against his, my shyness forgotten. It didn’t matter anymore.
“I can feel you,” he murmured.
I shivered, his words sliding over my body. “What is it like?”
“Infinity,” he whispered. “I can’t see where you end and I begin.”
“I don’t understand any of it,” I admitted as he tugged me onto the bed beside him. “I accepted this without knowing the consequences.”
“You didn’t have a choice, Madeleine. This is who you are.”
“I was made. How can—”
Elijah placed his finger over my lips. “Creation is a fickle concept,” he told me. “Your soul has transcended. What came before—your birth, your journey—is irrelevant. Only now exists.” He threaded his fingers through mine, locking our hands together.
I thought about the circuit I’d created between my two halves to escape Camelot. Negative to positive. That was inside me, creating an endless loop. I was like an ouroboros serpent eating its own tail, a creature in a constant state of life and death. The paradox of infinity.
“If I have no beginning or end, does that mean…” I took a deep breath to steady my nerves. “Am I immortal?”
Elijah tightened his grip. “I think so.”
Now I understood why Wilder was so conflicted about my fate. I hadn’t accepted what I’d become yet—not until I allowed my two halves to merge—but he’d seen what I would become when he’d taken my hand.
I was the first—and possibly last—of a new supernatural species and I did not understand how my power worked. I couldn’t even fathom how I’d gotten here.
“Do you regret it?” Elijah asked.
I wanted to say yes, but it wasn’t entirely true. “It’s difficult to let go of a lifetime of belief when you didn’t see your fate coming.”
“Yes,” he said, “it isn’t easy.”
I looked at him, desperately wanting him to open up to me. Who had he been before? I’d caught a glimpse through the link he’d created between us, but that was it—merely a few images of a life lost.
“That first night below Ben Nevis,” I began, “when I touched you… I saw something.”
He tensed and I knew he hadn’t meant for me to see anything, but neither of us understood what was going on back then. It seemed so long ago, even though it had only been a few short weeks since my capture.
“What did you see?” he asked tentatively.
“An overgrown forest, standing stones, and smoke from a campfire.” I worried my bottom lip. “Bare feet dangling in a stream. The rest was blood.”
“The day the Dark took me,” he murmured.
“When was it?”
He shook his head. “I can’t.”
“You said they took your colours.”
Ramona suspected Elijah hadn’t been human and now the pieces seemed to be falling into place. There was only one supernatural race I could think of that manifested their abilities in a prism—a hologram that contained all the colours of the universe.
“Elijah, are you—”
“Madeleine, there’s something I need to tell you.”
I groaned and let go of his hand, frustrated at his constant evasion. “Are you kidding? I’ve had enough secrets and revelations to last a lifetime.”
“Unfortunately not.” Elijah grimaced and wrung his hands together. “I told you I was only playing at working with the Dark, but that’s not entirely true.”
“Light help me. I put a lot of faith in you.”
“I know, but you took me to Camelot.”
“To save your life!” I threw my hands into the air. “And you can’t even tell me the truth about yourself!”
“I’m bound to the greater demon who captured you,” he blurted.
My blood turned cold and I jerked away from him. “What?”
“That’s why I didn’t want to go to Camelot.”
“What are you saying, Elijah?” I stood and glared at him.
“All I had to do was pass the outer wall,” he muttered. “Just stepping foot inside the city was enough.”
“Enough for what?”
His gaze met mine. “To let them in.”
“It was a set up,” I whispered, my eyes widening. “This whole thing was a trick to get back into Camelot.”
“Madeleine, no—”
“How dare you!” I screeched, hauling him off the bed and shoving him against the wall. The plaster cracked under the force of the collision and he held up his hands. Grey eyes, unnatural strength…what was I becoming?
“I didn’t know,” he pleaded.
“I betrayed my people and threw away my entire life for you!”
“Madeleine, I would have gladly died on that hill if I had known they were using me to get to you.”
“And now you’ve killed us both,” I snarled. “Why should I let you live? You owe me your life, Elijah.”
“That’s your Dark talking,” he declared. “You wouldn’t kill me.”
“Yeah? You wanna bet?” I curled my hand around his throat, my power simmering. It appeared within me, swirling like a red and silver oil slick, mixing then separating.
“Not really.”
Elijah’s power tugged on the invisible tether that bound us. My knees buckled and I collapsed against him with a frustrated cry. His arms wrapped around me, caging my body against his. I struggled for a moment, but his touch was soothing, and I began to settle.
Why was that? I trusted him, I supposed, even though we were still connected. Elijah hadn’t let me go, which meant he wasn’t afraid of what I was becoming.
That had to mean something.
“I don’t know what I am anymore,” I whispered, pressing my cheek against his chest. “I feel it inside me, trying to consume everything.”
“You know how to control it, Madeleine. You’ve had a lifetime of training that says you can.”
“What am I supposed to do?”
“You’re already doing it.”
I tensed. “Doing what?”
“Can’t you see?” he whispered.
“Your…” My touch had soothed his inner demon.
“Take advantage of it while you can,” he drawled.
I didn’t know how. My people skills weren’t as developed as my warrior abilities.
“What do we do now?” I asked.
“We save your friends,” Elijah murmured against my hair. “You fought for the Light your whole life. That doesn’t have to change. The rest will come in time.”
“If I go back, they’ll kill me. Wilder knows what I am. He won’t risk me turning to the Dark.”
“How do you know? You might turn up when it’s most convenient.”
“Your demonic duplicity won’t work on me.”
Elijah snorted and let me go. “Open your mind, Madeleine. It’s not about you.” I pulled back as if he’d slapped me. “All this time you’ve been showing me you can handle anything that’s thrown at you. What I don’t understand is why you can’t see it yourself.”
I wiped my damp eyes and sat on the end of the bed. It was a little late to deal with my existential crisis right now. I was broken, but so what? Everyone I knew was a little bruised and battered by life. Scarlett was orphaned at three years old when her parents were murdered by the Dark. She’d been ostracised, tormented, and ended up alone in the world until she’d met Jackson and Wilder. Through all the darkness, she’d grown up to become Arondight, one half of the Twin Flames that saved the world. If she could overcome a lifetime of suffering, then so could I.
Camelot was in danger because of me and Elijah. Now I had to get over myself and fix it.
“You’re still linked to the Balan?” I asked.
“Yes.” Elijah smirked, pleased
he’d goaded me into action. Looked as if his demon was showing again.
“Then we sever his hold over you.”
“I’m not sure how. I was attempting to use his shackle so I could find you, so I didn’t bother trying to remove it. Now it seems like an annoyance more than anything.”
“Does he know where you are?”
Elijah shrugged and leaned against the splintered wall. Luckily, we hadn’t paid a security deposit on the room because we so weren’t getting it back. “Maybe. It’s hard to tell. Demons can be so duplicitous.”
Choosing to ignore his demonic smart arsery, I said, “The Dark could already be at Camelot. If the Balan is there, we take him out. Death is the easiest way to sever the connection.”
“And how do you suppose we kill a greater demon? They’re impossible to end, you know.”
“Wilder’s there,” I said, my heartbeat speeding up. “He can kill the Balan. Excalibur has the power.”
He grunted and rolled his eyes, his opinion of Excalibur clear. “Or there’s the chance that you can.”
It was my turn to pout. “I don’t know what I can do yet.”
“Like I said—”
“Open my mind,” I drawled as I stood.
“You can nullify Light, why not the Dark?” His grin widened as his demonic side caught a whiff of imminent chaos. “You can nullify him right out of existence.”
I shook my head and shrugged into my jacket. “Whatever. We need to go back to Camelot. If we’re lucky, we can warn them the Dark is planning to attack before it’s too late.”
“I would call it more of an infiltration.”
“Elijah.”
“So, you want to go back and get ourselves recaptured after we spent all that time escaping?”
I grunted and pulled on my boots. “I’m not arguing about this with you.”
He looked me over and wiggled his fingers at me. “You know, when I said take advantage, I meant take advantage.”
“Seriously?”
Laughing, he opened the door. “Shall we go kill some demons? Chaos is my forte, after all.”
18
A full moon had risen over Camelot, casting the entire landscape with a crystallised sheen.
Demon Bound: The Camelot Archive - Book One Page 14