Firestorm tww-5

by Rachel Caine

  And there was a corruption in it, too. A black, spreading, cold corruption that meant the Oracle had been infected, and the infection was spreading.

  Please.

  I sent my prayer up, up into the sky. Up to a heaven I wasn't sure even existed. Wardens were literal. Scientific. We weren't into the spiritual, and our theology tended to start and stop with the idea that nobody really knew what the hell was going on, beyond the aetheric level.

  But if God was out there, if he cared, this was the moment for that hands-off policy to be rescinded.

  I ran my heart out. Ran until my leg muscles felt like overcooked noodles. Until my heart was hammering so fast, it felt like one continuous long reverberation in my chest. Until I was soaked with sweat and spots danced in front of my eyes.

  Until I could barely lift my feet for each endless step.

  And then, I couldn't.

  I tried, made it halfway, and tripped. I instinctively put my hands out to break my fall… and someone grabbed my wrist. I still banged a bruised knee painfully against a stone step, but the pain barely registered as I looked up to see who had hold of me.

  Imara. Bruised, bloodied, but not beaten.

  My daughter gave me a slow, lovely smile, and reached down to take my other hand in hers. "One more step, Mom," she said. "Just one more."

  There was always one more.

  I raised my foot, trembling, and set it on the step. Imara pulled, and with her help, I raised myself up.

  One last step.

  And then I was at the top.

  Ashan stood between me and the door. Imara still had hold of my hands, and she was smiling so sweetly, so luminously, that tears flooded my eyes. Oh God she was lovely. She was all that was good about me, about David, and I barely knew her, I wanted to have time to understand her, who she was, what she meant…

  "I love you, Mom," she said, and let go.

  Ashan lunged at her from behind. He took her in both hands, snarling with raw fury, and snapped her neck with a dry, terrible crackle. I saw it happen, right in front of me, and I saw her eyes go wide, the pupils spreading.

  I saw my daughter die.

  He threw her down the steps as if she was nothing. As if she wasn't worthy of respect and love and devotion. A broken doll thudding down those steep concrete stairs to flop limp and shattered at the bottom, small and human and mortal after all.

  I didn't scream. I had nothing left to scream with. I stared at Ashan. He was primal. He'd defeated everything and everyone who'd come against him, from David to Venna to Rahel.

  But none of that mattered now. He'd killed my daughter. And I was not backing down.

  "No allies?" he said, and grinned. "No Djinn to rescue you? No Wardens to fight on your side?"

  "No," I said raggedly. "No one."

  He'd kill me if he could. If there was even the slightest chink in whatever was holding him back, it would break now, and my blood would soak into these thirsty, eternal stones, and it would be over.

  Just… over.

  I extended my right hand and walked toward him with deliberate steps. He snarled, and it was such a low, vicious sound that if I'd still cared about living or dying, I'd have stopped. But it was all or nothing, now. David had put my feet on the path. Rahel and Venna had defended me. Imara had pulled me when I couldn't make the last effort, and she'd—she'd—

  My turn to sacrifice all, if I had to.

  My hand was in his space. I waited for the blow that would snap my neck and send me to my death, but it didn't come. My fingers reached, moving forward, then flattened against his chest. His shirt was ripped, and my fingertips registered the difference between hot skin and cool fabric.

  We were close enough to be kissing.

  "You don't understand," he said, and suddenly I was talking to a man—an entity, anyway—not just a force of nature. Someone with flaws and fears and longings. I heard them trembling in his voice. I saw them in his inhuman eyes. "We were gods. We were kings of this world. Then you came, and we were slaves, slaves to you. You took our birthright. You took away our place."

  As if he wanted me to understand. Forgive. Wind blew cold over us, swirling the rags covering him, tossing my hair back in a banner. The Chapel of the Holy Cross was ten steps behind him, and the doors were open.

  "The Mother forgot us," he said softly. "Heat. Pain. Birth. A slow and quiet cooling. We were her children, but she forgot us."

  "She remembers you now." I looked over his shoulder at the open doors, the glow of light through the huge expanse of glass window at the far end of the chapel. It was a simple place, with polished wood benches, a plain altar. I could hear the whispering again, stronger now. A union of voices. The Oracle was within. "You've killed your own, right in front of her. I don't think she'll ever forget you again."

  He couldn't get paler, but I think he might have, at that. "Nature is selfish," he said. "Sacrifice is meaningless. Only survival matters."

  I couldn't think about Imara, about sacrifice. "I'm not fighting you anymore."

  His eyes filled with a silver sheen of tears, and he pulled in a sudden breath. "No," he said. "I choose this. I choose to stop you, now, here."

  "Don't."

  "I choose!" He screamed it, and reached out with all the power that was inside of him to destroy me.

  Stop.

  It was a pulse of intention, not a word, and the world froze between one pulse beat and the next, waiting breathlessly. I thought it was Ashan's doing for a second, but I saw the wild fury and fear in his eyes, and I knew.

  I turned. The air dragged at me, slow and thick as molasses.

  The Oracle was doing this. She was giving me a chance, and I knew it was my very last one.

  I walked into the chapel.

  Chapter Ten

  The Oracle was sitting on a bench, facing the glorious sweep of glass that looked out on the stunning vista. It really was one of the most beautiful things I'd ever seen. I'd looked into the eye of more than one storm, and seen the complex, mathematical beauty of it; I'd seen most of the most savage, gorgeous, violent faces of nature.

  But this was different. Deep and slow and silent. There was no math to it, no science. Only spirit.

  Unlike the other Oracles, this one looked… normal. A woman, with generous curves and a lived-in face, with lines at the corners of her eyes and mouth. She was wearing a dress the color of the rocks outside of the window, brick red, with a subtle patterning to it, like the creases and shadows and textures of the sandstone. It had flowing sleeves and a loose drape, and it pooled around her feet, into shadow.

  She was no race I could identify—coffee-and-cream skin, with a faint golden glow underneath; slightly upturned eyes, but not enough to make her distinctly Asian. Full lips. Beautiful bone structure under a soft mask of flesh. Her hair was dark, shot through with wide swathes of gray, and her eyes reflected back the light from the chapel's windows so strongly, I couldn't tell what color they were, at least not from a side-on view.

  She was sitting with her hands neatly folded in her lap. Rough, scarred hands. Hands that had seen a lot of work, and little gentleness. She looked tired, poised on the knife-edge between middle age and growing old.

  Her head slowly turned, and then she was looking at me. Seeing me. I can't describe what that felt like, except to say that it was beyond terrifying. As if the stars had come alive in the sky and were weighing me, judging me, finding me wanting. I felt small and dirty and ridiculous, a clumsy freak of nature with no business here, no business at all. The Oracles barely recognized the Djinn. Humans were beneath contempt.

  And yet, she was looking at me.

  I got to my knees. I did it instantly, without thinking, because I knew I was very close to something greater than the furious energy of the Fire Oracle, or the menace of the Air Oracle.

  The Earth Oracle was closest of all to the Mother.

  She tilted her head slowly to one side, considering me like a particularly interesting piece of abstract art.<
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  "Please," I said. The sound washed over us both, meaningless in this place. Talking wasn't going to get me anywhere. The Earth didn't use words. It spoke in the whisper of leaves, the hiss of grass, the groaning of rocks buried deep. Communication was something very different here, and I was completely unprepared, completely unworthy to try it. Not even an Earth Warden, which at least would have been something, some connection, however slight and fragile.

  I was just dirt on the floor in this place. No, less than that. She'd at least understand dirt.

  Her gaze slowly shifted away, toward the altar, the flickering banks of candles on either side in their red glass holders, and the astonishingly beautiful vista stretching out before us.

  She wanted something from me, and I had no idea what it was, or how to provide it.

  I felt the gradual withdrawal of her presence from me.

  I was being dismissed.

  "No!" I said, and held up my hands. "Please! Please listen to me, I need you to understand—"

  No answer. She didn't even blink. It was as if I didn't even exist to her anymore. Maybe I didn't. Time was different in her world. Geologic. Human lives came and went faster than the ticks on a clock.

  "Please!" This time, I shouted it, and I did something that was either very, very brave or abysmally stupid: I reached out to her, and took her hand. It felt warm and rough, more like sandstone than flesh. "Please listen."

  Not a flicker. Not a tremor. I'd come so far, fought so hard, run so fast… and she was ignoring me. Unlike Rahel, this wasn't someone I could give a hard right cross to the chin to get her attention. There was a strong sense of deep holiness here. Respect was required.

  Respect was demanded.

  Outside of the glass windows, I saw the sky… change. It had been getting darker, but now it curdled, like ink dropped in clear water—a sense of something wrong, something desperately and fatally wrong. I felt it happen inside of myself, too. I felt the deathclock we all carried, all mortal things, speed up.

  Oh God. Was she going to just wipe everything clean? All life? Destroy it all and wait that long eternity for things to grow again? Or would the Djinn step back into their place as firstborn, best loved?

  I went up into the aetheric, and there I saw it for what it was. A storm coming. A storm that showed bloodred, full of fury and power. I felt a tethering tug, and looked down at my aetheric form to see that there was a line, a thin, unbreakable line stretching from the center of my being up into that storm.

  It was connected to me, and as I looked around, I saw hundreds of lines. Thousands. Millions. Like solid raindrops, each leading down to a human life. A human who'd just felt an instant of shadow, of doubt in his or her own immortality.

  Who'd had the sensation of someone walking over their graves. Six billion graves, and only one entity walking, but it only took the one.

  It was starting.

  "Please," I said. "Please don't do this. We don't deserve this. We can't deserve this! Dammit! What do you want me to say?"

  The Oracle trembled, a sudden all-over shake, and I felt the Earth itself groan in response. What the hell—?

  Her eyes closed, and the hand I was holding suddenly turned and took hold of me. Hard, hot, unyielding. I felt the tremors continue, both through my knees and where she was clutching my fingers. Something was wrong. Terrifyingly wrong.

  Oh no.

  I took an aching breath and reached forward to move the neck of the Oracle's robes aside, and there, battened on her like a black nest of worms, was the Demon Mark. The skin around it was drained white, leached of life, and I could see the black writhing tentacles bulging under the skin. It was burrowing.

  I was too late. It already had a firm grip on her.

  I reached out and put both hands on the Demon Mark, willing it to come to me. It ignored me, burrowing for the rich, burning source of power that was the Oracle. I was insignificant. There was no way I had enough power to make it come to me.

  There was something coming toward us, digging through stone and concrete. Something dark and terrible. The adult Demon was on its way here, following me or drawn to the immense outpouring of power that was going on—no telling. But we didn't have long.

  None of us did. I could feel the terrible pull inside of my life being dragged away.

  The Oracle's power was compromised as it tried to fight the infection of the Demon Mark, but even so, it was channeling the intention of the Mother to wipe humanity out of her way.

  I couldn't stop it. I couldn't even heal the Oracle, which was the only way I could even begin to make things right.

  "Take my hand." A rusty, exhausted voice. I looked aside and saw Rahel, holding out a trembling, blood-stained hand on which the claws had raggedly broken. When I took it, it felt cold.

  She extended her hand to Alice—Venna—who was equally damaged. The line stretched on. Djinn after Djinn after Djinn. And with them, humans. I recognized a few Wardens. A few members of the Ma'at.

  A chain of hands, joined one to the other, building a circuit of power that, while it couldn't possible be as huge as the potential of the Oracle, was a much easier target.

  Come on, I begged the Demon Mark. Come on, you sick little freak. Take us. You know you want it.

  It wasn't coming. I hissed in frustration, grabbed hold of it, and pulled with all the fury and grief and rage in me. Felt it spiral through the circuit of hands, rebound, and come back again, stronger. Stronger still.

  They poured their power into me, and the Demon Mark moved in my hand, turned, and struck. It was enraged, and my skin was nothing like the barrier of the Oracle's; it tore into me with full force, already bloated to twice its original size, and ripped toward my heart.

  I let go of Rahel's hand just as the adult Demon erupted from the stone beneath my feet, scattering razor-edged shards like thrown knives. I felt the hot cuts of the debris, and hit the floor, panting, gagging on the sensation of the Demon Mark.

  I don't know why I thought it might work. Don't know why it did work, except that I knew that two Demon Marks couldn't touch without fighting. Destroying each other. I knew that because having two of them inside me had killed me, once.

  I turned and threw myself directly on the Demon, wrapping my arms around it.

  It didn't feel like I'd expected it to feel. I'd thought it would be cold, ice-cold, and sharp to the touch, but it was lukewarm, and its flesh—if that was flesh—was only semisolid, sickeningly fragile. I felt its talons dig into my shoulders to push me away, but I pressed harder against it, driving my hand into its chest.

  And I felt the Demon Mark stop its burrowing, stir, and turn. It raced down my trembling, bloody arm, distending the skin as it went, sliding like a bundle of worms.

  It didn't care what kind of damage it did, and it felt like being set on fire from the inside. Like having every muscle ruptured, every bone shattered on the way. I screamed, but I didn't let myself pull away.

  The Demon Mark erupted out of the palm of my hand, the one bearing the mark of the Wardens, and slammed into the center of the adult Demon.

  I looked up at it, but there was no face, no sense of any sort of humanity to it. I couldn't tell if it felt pain, or fear, or even disappointment.

  And then it screamed, a high thin metal sound, and plunged back through the hole and into the dark.

  Gone.

  Maybe dead, maybe not, but it was in trouble.

  I collapsed to my knees, bleeding, whimpering, exhausted. The death clock inside of me was ticking slowly, inexorably down.

  "Please," I whispered. "We saved you. Please stop this."

  The Oracle hadn't moved from where she sat on the bench, but now, her head turned. I don't know what she saw, because her eyes were white. Pure white, with a tiny dot of black for pupil. Eerie and totally inhuman.

  She said nothing. Did nothing else. But at least I had her attention.

  "We're not invaders," I gasped. "Maybe we're greedy, and selfish, and stupid, but that's
our nature. That's all nature. Weeds strangle wheat. Bees go to war against each other. Humans are just… better at it."

  Nothing. But she didn't turn away, either. I felt tears break free, and I didn't try to stop them. So much to cry for, right now.

  "Please," I whispered, out of strength. I leaned forward and rested my forehead on her lap. Soft fabric rustled around me as she shifted, and her scarred right hand slowly moved to rest on top of my hair.

  I felt something tug inside and heard my deathclock tick faster. Faster. Years running out of me with every exhaled, terrified breath. It was going to end quietly after all. Not in blood and fire and storm, but in silence.

  When there was nothing left, I collapsed in a heap at her feet, on top of the pooled brick-red fabric of her dress. It wasn't fabric. It felt like sun-warmed stone. It smelled like the empty, quiet places, and clean wind, and for a few seconds, it didn't seem to matter so much, that everything would be gone that I knew. That I loved.

  She was offering me peace.

  The hell with that. Peace was overrated.

  I reached out with one flailing hand, grabbed hold of the bench beside me, and pulled myself into an awkward sitting position. Staring up at her. "No," I said. "Hear me. Hear me. Listen. We're a part of you. Hear us!"

  Millions of voices, talking. Babbling.

  —scared, honey, there's nothing to be afraid of—

  —Ayudame, padre—

  —Jag inte den sa goda känselförnimmelsen—

  A storm of languages, of voices. Merging into one sound.

  Into a jagged, discordant human chorus, six billion strong.

  The Oracle slowly tilted her head, listening. I clapped my hands over my ears, but it wasn't enough; the din was enough to beat right through the barrier, billions of voices shouting in my ears. Howling. Scared.

  And one of them said—Listen.

  I knew that voice. That low, calm voice, with its blur of warmth and assurance.

  Lewis was speaking, too. Lewis, who was like Jonathan had been, who had the keys to power. Once I'd opened up the line, it was like creating a network, and all he had to do was tap in.