“No one is coming to save you this time. I made sure of that.” The necromancer’s words rolled over him, stoking the fury blazing inside Cal.
He should have known the necromancer and wraith would have a plan, one designed to split him and his brothers up. How many other gates were under attack right now?
“My last plan failed, but this time I will succeed. How will your family react when you die here and we breach the gate?”
Cal refused to think about that. He wasn’t going to die here. He wasn’t going to fail in his duty. His brothers would be here soon. He had to trust them and believe in them, just as they believed in him.
He could do this.
He launched at Eli, aware that he needed the necromancer alive. He hated that, but he couldn’t risk killing the male. He needed to know where Calindria’s soul was being held.
The black-haired wraith leaped backwards, his long onyx coat flaring around his legs as he placed some distance between them. The male’s purple eyes brightened in the low light, the colours of the gate shimmering over the side of his face as he sneered at Cal.
Eli drew a blade.
One that had a violet gleam.
Cal couldn’t risk letting that blade cut him. It was toxic, would weaken him. If he was weakened… He flicked a glance at Marinda. She continued to struggle against the two furies, her gaze locked on the gate as it wavered, the outermost ring shrinking and expanding depending on who had the upper hand at that moment. She wasn’t strong enough to close it when it was two against one.
He focused on the gate too, using his connection to it to boost her efforts, commanding it to close as he shifted his gaze back to Eli.
The necromancer grabbed him from behind and Cal twisted, throwing him over his shoulder. The male hit the pavement in front of Cal and Cal made the mistake of looking at him.
He stared down into golden eyes.
Pain erupted across his skull and he clutched his head with both hands as he staggered backwards and tried to shake it off.
“Get it open,” the necromancer barked.
“She’s tiring.” One of the females grabbed Marinda by her hair and yanked her head back, tearing a cry from her.
Cal’s every instinct commanded him to go to her.
He stepped.
Eli blocked his path as he appeared, slammed a hand against his chest and sent him flying across the square. Cal grunted as he crashed into a stone pillar, bellowed in agony as he bent backwards over it, and landed flat on his face on the other side.
He picked himself up and ran at Eli, wishing he had taken a moment to arm himself with his blades and aware that he couldn’t risk another teleport. Each one drained him and he needed that strength to fight. He skidded to a halt. Eli glared at him.
What was he doing?
Cal drew down a deep breath and focused, trying to wrestle his rage back under control, seeking calm as he tried to centre himself. He needed to focus, needed to harness all of his abilities.
The air stirred, teasing the tips of his ponytail, causing the long hem of Eli’s form-fitting black coat to flutter around his ankles.
Air was all around him. His element. It was inside his foes too. He could use that against them.
He wavered as he thought about that. He couldn’t. What if he killed them? Eli and this necromancer had valuable information. He couldn’t kill them.
But he could knock them out.
He had never tried it before.
There was a danger that he might go too far.
He shifted his focus to beyond Eli, his gaze landing on one of the furies. The perfect test subject.
He reached with his power, sought the air around her, slowly seized control of it as it flowed into her lungs. He commanded it to stop before it reached them, held it lodged in her throat as she gasped. She released Marinda and clutched at her throat.
“Deal with him.” Eli rushed to the female.
The necromancer grinned coldly and the shadow the lamps dotted around the square cast at his feet writhed. Inky black bled from his dark trousers and leather shoes, mingling with the shadow. It twisted and contorted, and a thousand screams filled the air as it rushed towards Cal.
Black spikes shot up from the shadow as it rolled towards him, tendrils of it racing ahead only for others to pass them.
Cal leaped to his right before it could hit him, grimaced as he landed and rolled into a crouch and looked back at where he had been. A writhing, hissing mass of shadows loomed there, taking on a shape.
Almost human.
It lumbered towards him and leaned its head to its left, and its right at the same time. The head split down the middle and then the body separated, and two shadows loomed before him.
The second shadow looked as if it would split again.
Eli barked, “You dare defile her like that.”
The necromancer flicked an unrepentant look at the male, and then slowly bowed his head. “Very well.”
Cal wasn’t sure what they were arguing about until the shadowy figures began to take on a more defined shape.
One of them grew wings and curves, and ghostly colour like a faded photograph, and Cal recognised her.
The valkyrie.
Eli had feared the necromancer would use Lisabeta’s soul in the fight.
His gaze leaped to the other shadow. It was male, had glowing green-white eyes with black surrounding them. Jagged streaks of blue lightning emerged against that obsidian backdrop as his black lips curved into a wicked smile that exposed sharp teeth.
Cal didn’t know this one, but he guessed it was another of the enemy’s fallen.
Cal lashed at both of them with his wind, not willing to let them near him. The blast cut straight through them rather than sending them flying as intended. The shadows they were made from swirled and twisted, knitting back together.
Damn.
The two came at him at once and he brought both of his forearms up in front of his face and blocked as the male hurled a punch at him. The shadowy fist struck him hard and Cal had to brace a foot behind him as he was shoved backwards. He recovered quickly and lashed out at him. Snarled when his fist went straight through the bastard.
That wasn’t fair.
If Cal couldn’t hit them, he would just have to focus his fight elsewhere.
He summoned the air, condensing it around his fist, and launched it towards the wraith. The spiral of wind, twisting like a tornado, shot across the terrace, rushing past the necromancer. The male hurled himself to one side, leaving Eli open.
The funnel hit Eli and the male bared his fangs on a pained snarl as he shot backwards. A violet-black portal rapidly formed in the air behind him and he disappeared into it.
Cal waited, sure the bastard was going to make an appearance again.
His senses sharpened, anticipation coiling inside him as he braced himself.
The two shadows chose that moment to attack him as one, forcing him backwards, and he fought them off, hitting them with spears of air that blasted holes in them. They recovered from each one, the black smoke knitting back together.
But they were slowing.
He risked a glance at the necromancer.
Sweat dotted the male’s brow.
Hurting the shadows was hurting him. Because he had to keep funnelling power into them to repair them?
Cal growled and attacked them harder, blasting them in rapid succession, hitting them with dozens of tiny bursts of air like bullets.
Hope began to grow as he glanced at Marinda and saw the outermost ring of the gate was smaller now, almost completely gone.
They could do this.
Together.
Fire burned in his right side.
Eli whispered from behind him, “You never did learn to guard your back.”
Images flashed across Cal’s mind, a rapid-fire burst of them that had his head spinning as pain spread outwards from the point above his hip, white-hot flames crawling over his skin to steal his bre
ath.
And his strength.
He saw the Underworld. Saw a small village. Saw his sister. She squatted beside him, her face dirty, sky-blue dress stained with black around her ankles as she eyed the collection of huts.
He needed to get her away from this place and there was a chance that the villagers could help them, could somehow get word to his father.
But there was an equal chance they would attack them.
The last village they had come across had done such a thing.
He focused on what was ahead of him, aware that he had to try the village. “Wait here.”
He stood and Calindria seized his wrist.
Her blue eyes were luminous as she looked up at him, her pale eyebrows furrowed. She was afraid.
He smoothed his fingers across her cheek and smiled, concealing the fact he was afraid too. He didn’t know what was going to happen. He only knew that he needed her safe. Away from this place. To do that, he had to try to find someone who could help them, even when it was risky. Dangerous.
If he had to fight to keep her safe, to get her home, he would fight until his very last breath.
“Brother,” she whispered, as soft as a summer breeze, love and fear in her eyes. “Let me come with you.”
He shook his head. “It’s too dangerous. Stay here. Stay hidden. No matter what.”
She hesitated for the longest time before she eventually nodded.
He took a step back.
Fire blazed in his side and he looked down, his eyebrows knitting as wetness spread across his stomach. What?
He blinked.
Slowly edged his left hand towards his right side and fingered the strange point in his dirty black tunic.
Flinched as something sharp sliced through it.
“Brother!” Calindria surged to her feet, her eyes wild as she hurled herself at him and grabbed his shoulders, pulling him towards her.
A grunt fell from his lips as something sliced through his side, filling the thick air with a wet sucking sound.
He collapsed to his knees, landing against Calindria and taking her down with him. She held him as fire burned through him, her words wobbling in his ears as his head spun, twisting so violently he wanted to vomit.
He focused, managing to snag a few words a male said to her.
“First lesson. Always watch your back.”
Cal collapsed to his knees on the terrace of the basilica, struggling to shake off the effects of the memories and the poison that laced the wraith’s blade.
Eli was the one who had captured him and Calindria. He had been the one to take her soul.
Cal snarled and shot to his feet, twisting to face the wraith at the same time. He seized the daemon’s throat and squeezed, pain and fury burning through him, stealing his control from him. The wraith would pay for what he had done to her.
But what if the wraith was the only one who knew how to find her?
He faltered, that thought stealing his strength as he stared at the male.
“Get off me.” Marinda’s voice, laced with fear and pain, had that strength pouring back into him.
He needed to protect her.
He wouldn’t let these fiends take her from him, and if he didn’t fight, that was going to happen.
He threw Eli away from him and looked across at the gate. It was opening again. A fourth ring had appeared. Marinda was losing the fight against the furies. She needed his help.
The necromancer moved to stand between him and Marinda, a cold edge to his smile, a look in his eyes that dared Cal to make a move.
Eli joined him.
The two shadows flanked Cal, the male waiting fifteen foot to his right and the valkyrie at a similar distance on his left.
Cal clamped a hand down over his side and focused, using a gift that had felt like a curse his entire life. The wound slowly knit back together, the power to heal that came from his mother purging the toxin from him.
How many times had he cursed this gift?
It had been a torment when it had awakened inside him during his captivity, discovered by accident when he had come close to giving up and had rested his hands in his lap. The wound on his left thigh that had been gushing blood had healed before his eyes. Hope had soared.
He had crawled to Calindria and tried to heal her too.
Only his power hadn’t worked on her.
It had only worked on him.
It only ever worked on him.
He stared down the daemon and the Hellspawn, deeply aware that he wasn’t going to win this fight.
Not if he continued to hold back.
He was pulling his punches, afraid of accidentally dealing a killing blow to either Eli or the necromancer.
Another ring emerged on the gate, flashing bright blue before it swirled with colour and glyphs appeared around it.
If he killed these men without forcing the location of his sister’s soul from them, it would be released, but he wouldn’t know where it was. The chances of him being able to locate it and guide it to the Elysian Fields would be slim to none.
He looked at the gate.
And then at Marinda as she desperately struggled against the Erinyes, her movements weak now. Sluggish.
Cal stared at her, his heart aching, breaking in two as he stood there, torn.
The necromancer was too powerful for him to defeat without going all out, had clearly been feeding on all the deaths of his allies, and was able to summon those allies as shadows to fight for him. The Erinyes were powerful too, and Eli was a force to be reckoned with, his blade a danger that could easily tip the scales in the enemy’s favour. Cal couldn’t heal himself on the fly. He would need time and space the enemy wouldn’t give him again. He could see that in Eli’s violet eyes.
Cal wavered, pulled in two directions, battling with himself as he tried to find a solution. There was only one.
He needed to keep the gates safe, needed to protect the Underworld and this realm, and he needed to save Marinda.
To do that, he had to eliminate those standing in his way.
The necromancer included.
Wind slowly built around him, a gentle breeze that rapidly became a hurricane, fuelled by his pain, by his misery, by the hope that bled from him.
Because to succeed in that mission, he had to fail in another.
He closed his eyes, pressed a hand to his chest over his heart, and silently asked his sister to forgive him. He would find her, somehow. He wouldn’t stop searching for her soul. He wouldn’t rest until she was safe at last. Even if it took him the rest of his days.
Warmth bloomed beneath his feet, giving him strength.
Courage.
He flicked his eyes open and locked them on the necromancer.
Unsure whether he was strong enough to take him down, but sure of one thing as he focused all of his will on it.
He would stop the gate from opening and protect it.
His eyes narrowed on the Hellspawn.
He would save Marinda.
Chapter 32
Calistos made a straight lunge for the necromancer, his eyes locked with the male’s golden ones as they shone in the low light. Beyond him, the gate flashed brightly, colour dancing across the rings as the largest of them began to shrink.
The shadowy male and female appeared between him and the necromancer. The female launched a hand at him, claws raking through the air where his shoulder had been as he dodged left, narrowly evading her attack. The male was waiting for him, the lightning that blazed outwards from his ghostly green eyes flaring as he snarled. The sound echoed strangely, seemed to reverberate in Cal’s head as he swept his hand upwards. Air followed in the wake of it, a whip of wind that sliced through the shadow male before he could attack.
The necromancer grunted and shoved his hand forwards.
The valkyrie attacked Cal, relentlessly striking at him with her claws, driving him back again as the shadow male recovered, his form knitting back together.
Ma
rinda screamed, the pained sound ripping at his focus. He flicked a glance at her as he hurled his hand towards the valkyrie, sending four twisting needles of air at her.
Marinda wrestled with the two blonde females, shoving one and yanking on the other, but they quickly subdued her, their fingers pressing hard into her arms and digging into her hair. The ring of the gate began to expand again. Cal cursed. If he didn’t do something, the gate was going to open. Marinda was doing her best, but she wasn’t strong enough to fight alone. He could feel the fear in her, the doubts that were holding her back.
Cal mustered his strength and risked a teleport, desperation driving him. He had to reach Marinda and get her away from the furies.
Someone collared him the moment he appeared, a cold hand closing around the back of his neck. Sharp claws pierced his skin and he howled in agony as he was flipped over their head and slammed into the ground face-first. Air exploded from his lungs and he gasped, struggling to remain conscious as the one holding him shoved him into the ground. His throat burned, spine aching. If he didn’t do something, he was going to pass out.
He lashed at the one holding him, using spirals of air to barrage the male. The thick scent of blood laced the air and the pressure on his neck disappeared.
The blood wasn’t daemon.
He sprang to his feet and looked at the necromancer. The male growled as he shirked out of his ruined black suit jacket and looked at the lacerations in his onyx dress shirt.
The necromancer held his hand out and shadows flowed into his fingers.
The wounds beneath his shirt healed before Cal’s eyes.
Apparently, Cal wasn’t the only one who could heal on the fly.
Pain exploded in a sickening wave as the necromancer appeared before him and his fist ploughed into Cal’s stomach, lifting him off the floor and sending him sailing through the air.
His lungs burned again and fire swept across his back as he landed hard. Pain spiderwebbed across his skull as the back of it hit the flagstones.
Marinda cried, “Cal!”
He shook off the blow.
His vision cleared just in time for him to see the shadow valkyrie diving towards him.
She struck him hard, barrelling into his stomach, sending a fresh wave of pain crashing over him. He tried to grapple with her, but his hands passed straight through her. Her claws sliced him though, shredding his T-shirt and the flesh beneath.
Calistos: Guardians of Hades Series Book 5 Page 31