It flung the lightning at me, and I raised my sword to counter, but my grip was off because I wasn’t braced right. The sword slipped from my hands and spun across the battlefield.
“You know what they say, if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again,” the lich said, smiling at me as lightning crackled within its hands once more. “I ought to thank you. If you had not grown more powerful, I’d have never crossed the breach.” It flung the lightning at me, and while I tried to scramble away, I knew I’d never make it.
This was it. This was where it’d end.
I hate to say it, but I shut my eyes like a coward in that last second and waited for death. I felt the heat of the explosion ripple across my flesh, felt the force of the explosion fling me backward, but as I hit the ground, I realized something.
I wasn’t dead.
My eyes fluttered open, and my jaw hit the ground.
Standing between me and the lich was Sam. Her black wings were outstretched, throwing shadows of darkness across the ground. Her left hand held a massive black scythe with a blade like polished bone.
Awe-inspiring power radiated off of her as I looked her up and down. Sam made Gabriella and Mammon’s power feel like nothing, and she had command of it in a way neither of them did. Hell, even though she was on our side, if I wasn’t so shocked, I’d have been terrified.
“The dead were never meant to rise.” The skies rumbled, breaking open to the wails of the damned. “Be reclaimed by the earth.” Sam waved one hand at the creature.
The ground beneath the lich erupted with earthen hands that grabbed hold of the creature and jerked it into the dirt with no more effort than it’d take a giant squid to pull someone beneath the surface of the ocean.
As the lich disappeared from view, she waved her hand again, and the bone prisons holding my friends shattered into effervescent shards.
“Be safe, Arthur,” she whispered before collapsing to the dirt in front of me.
35
“Sam!” I cried, racing forward and gathering her up in my arms. Her skin was like ice, her lips as blue as a cloudless sky. Her chest barely rose as I cradled her against my body. “Someone help!”
“Why is she not recharging?” Gabriella said, dropping down to her knees in the dirt next to me. Her face was screwed up in concentration as she laid a hand on Sam. A little spark of light leapt from her fingers before fading. “It’s like her internal energy is being drawn away.”
“It’s Dred,” I said, tearing open her shirt to reveal the mark she’d shown me. It pulsed like Darkness incarnate. The surrounding flesh was blackened and bruised, and red lines of infection spread out from it. The mark hadn’t looked like that before, more like an intricate tattoo.
“I understand,” Gabriella said, taking a deep breath and turning to me. “I did not realize she had given herself to Dred. He must be drawing on her power. What little she had left probably kept off the effects of the Darkness, but now? Now, she’s used that up.” Tears filled her eyes, and she sniffled, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. “You should say your piece. I’ve seen this happen before. There is no return.”
“No,” I screamed, barely resisting the urge to throw down with the archangel. “There has to be a way to save her. There has to be.”
“Arthur,” Gabriella said, and as she touched my shoulder, I saw the others gather around us. Only I didn’t really look at any of them. Instead, I fixed my gaze on Sally.
“Help her, Sally,” I said, my voice cracking partway through. “Please.”
Sally nodded, chewing her lip as she laid hands upon Sam. As her hands began to glow with energy, the infection around the mark seemed to recede. Not much, but enough for me to know something was happening. The only problem was that Sally was starting to pale. Sweat broke out on her forehead, and she started to sway.
“I’m trying my best,” Sally wheezed, her breath barely a whisper as the glow on her hands began to dim. “I just don’t have the power.”
I cursed. If I had Clarent, I could augment her power, make her able to fix this, and I’d ruined the blade. No. No, no, no.
“No,” I whispered as Sally collapsed into a heap beside Sam.
“Sally!” Crystal cried, grabbing hold of her friend and pulling her away. I’d have cared, but I knew Sally would be okay once she rested. Sam wouldn’t be.
“It’s not enough,” Gabriella said, meeting my eyes. “She needs more power.”
“How do I give it to her?” I asked as the feathers on Sam’s wings began to gray and fall out to litter the ground around us. “How do I help her?”
“Arthur, you can’t help her,” Gabriella said, looking toward the sky. “There is not a way I know of.”
“Then what good are you?” I asked, pulling Sam close. Her pulse was so shallow, I knew she didn’t have long. Already the infection was back, and it looked worse than ever before.
“I-I’m sorry,” Gabriella sniffed, getting to her feet. “Samael is my sister. I wanna help her, but I can’t.” She balled her hands into fists and sucked in a huge breath. Gwen went to her as she went and said something I didn’t hear.
“I’m sorry, Sam.” Tears filled my eyes as I held her dying body against mine. My gauntlet-clad fingers gripping her like I could somehow keep her on this earth through sheer force of will.
I needed Sam. Not just because she could fix Clarent but because she was special to me. I couldn’t lose her. Not like this, not because she’d been trying to protect me from some redshirt monster. It wasn’t fair. She was mine! My responsibility. I couldn’t let her go. Not even when death came.
“Please,” I whispered, and as the words left my lips, my neck started to freeze. The gauntlets in my hands began to glow with silver light, and Sam shuddered beneath me.
Then I felt the pulse of the Darkness within her. I could feel it deep within the quilt of her soul someone had cut out some of the patches and replaced it with a clawing all-consuming hunger that was, even now, trying to eat every last bit of her.
My eyes opened as I realized what was going on. That wasn’t Darkness inside her, not really. Maybe it had started that way, but it wasn’t now. It was Dred, and at the end of the day, he was a fucking man trying to tear down a beautiful woman to make himself feel better.
It was terrible, and horrible, and I couldn’t allow it.
Before I realized what I was doing, I plunged my hand into her chest. My fingers pierced the corrupted flesh. Silver light flared from the wound, and my vision started to blur, started to warp around the edges. I tasted blood in my mouth as I grabbed hold of those patches in my mind’s eye.
Black ichor spilled from the room, filling the air with the smell of week old garbage and rotten eggs, but I ignored it as I pulled on the Darkness with all my might. I focused just like I had with the coti, filling it with every ounce of energy I had. And, as the patches started to tear at the seams, I knew I didn’t have enough to get the job done. Knew it deep within my soul.
My neck was so cold. Each breath felt like trying to drink a gallon of ice water while skinny dipping in Antarctica. Yet I pulled anyway.
“Please, Sam. Help me, help you.”
“She can’t hear you,” Gwen said, putting her hand on my shoulder. “But I can. Take my power, Arthur. Save her.”
A fresh surge of warmth flowed into me, burning the chill off the ice in my veins.
The patches frayed around the edges as slimy tentacles reached out, wrapping around my metaphysical hand and burning me.
I screamed, blood spraying from my lips as Gabriella touched my other shoulder. Power unlike anything I’d ever experienced flowed into me. It irradiated me like a nuclear blast, practically blew the flesh from my bones. It hurt so much I screamed again.
White hot power flowed down my hands like magma, burning up every inch of my being before slamming defiantly into those greedy black patches of corrupted soul. As they did, I watched them wither under the cleansing fire.
I bit down
, focusing on Sam’s soul as I tore at the patches with everything I had, everything Gabriella and Gwen had given me. More hands touched my shoulders. Crystal and Sheila, and as they did, the first seams finally tore within Sam’s soul.
Grabbing the edges of the patch, I pulled, and as it came loose, I realized there was a problem. It would leave a hole in her soul that would kill her just as easily as the Darkness. It’d just be a different kind of death. She’d traded a piece of her soul with Dred, and without it, well, she wouldn’t be whole, wouldn’t be able to survive.
“It’s not going to work,” I said, my hands still holding onto the frayed edges of Dred’s soul. “Even if I rip it free, I have nothing to fill it with.”
“That’s not true,” Gabriella said, and her voice was defiant and angry. “You have a soul, Arthur. You can fill the hole within her with your own.” She swallowed hard. “It will hurt like you wouldn’t believe, but if you want to save her, it’s the only way.”
As she spoke, her plan materialized inside my head, and I realized it was similar to what Mammon had done with me. In essence, the Princess of Greed had exchanged a piece of her soul with me when she’d given me the Armament.
“Understand?” Gabriella asked, and I nodded.
“Yeah,” I said and used everything in me to rip the corrupted pieces of Dred free of Sam. As they came free, the sky above exploded into crimson lightning. Blood began to rain from the sky.
Sam’s entire body convulsed, arching upward like I’d struck her with a live wire as I pulled the wriggling piece of Dred’s soul free of her body. It writhed in my hand, a blot of inky Darkness, teeth, and claws.
The Darkness at the border screamed, pulsing with light every color of the rainbow, but I ignored it, turning back to Sam. Nearly all the feathers had fallen from her wings, and her skin had turned sallow. Her breath was so shallow, it was practically non-existent.
She didn’t have much time.
“Please, Sam. Don’t die,” I whispered, leaning toward her and pressing my lips to hers. As I did, I pushed on my own soul using the knowledge Gabriella had given me.
My essence emptied into her, filling the hole left behind in her by Dred.
Only, as it did, I knew I wouldn’t survive. Pain far worse than what I’d felt when I’d bonded with Mammon struck me.
And I knew why.
Because I was carving a hole in my own soul instead of trading. But that was okay.
I was willing to trade my life for hers if I could. She was ageless and eternal. Her death would matter? Mine? Well, at the end of the day, I was only a man, and the best I could hope for would be to have my death mean something. Dying to save her would mean something.
It would be a good death.
A noble death.
“Stop,” Mammon said, her voice a whip crack, and as I turned toward the sound of it, the Princess of Greed grabbed me by the throat. Her fingers clamped around my throat as she hauled me off of Sam, breaking the ritual. “I will not have you give up your life for her, even if she is the Archangel of Death. You are mine now. I will not let you escape my clutches so easily, Builder.”
“What are you doing?” I squeaked as she tore Dred’s writhing soul from my hand.
“What you should have done in the first place,” she said before flinging me across the battlefield. “Make a goddamned deal.”
“Arthur!” Gwen cried, racing toward me as I slammed into the ground like a broken mannequin. Agony ripped through me, letting me know my arm was broken.
“Do you want this?” Mammon asked, raising it to the Heavens. The whole world seemed to erupt in fire at the sound of her voice. “Because it’s mine now, and I’ll not let it go easily!” She smiled as silver light began to flow around the writhing soul in a way that reminded me of a spider wrapping up a fly caught in its web. “And you know what I can do with this, don’t you?” She licked her lips. “So do we deal or do I have myself a meal fit for a queen?”
The Darkness churned beside us and the heavens crackled as a broken pustule of space split the horizon asunder. The gaze of that creature from before fell upon us, its massive eye seeing us all and finding us easily wanting.
“What is it you wish, Mammon, Princess of Greed?” The voice tore at my sanity, and I screamed out in pain. All around me, my friends collapsed. Everyone save Mammon and Gabriella that is. “What would be an equivalent exchange?”
“A soul for a soul,” she said, holding up the struggling fragment before turning and gesturing at Sam’s nearly lifeless body. “A piece for a piece. Dred for Samael.”
“You would trade the life of the Destroyer for one silly Archangel? You have grown sentimental in your old age, Princess of Greed. Then again, you never could let things go, could you? I bet even now, you are scheming a way to have it all.” Laughter boomed across the horizon like thunder. “Very well, Mammon. Your terms are acceptable.”
The squirming fragment of soul in Mammon’s hands vanished in a flash of red as a shower of crimson goo burst from the rent in reality. It crashed over Sam in a twisting wave that filled the air with the smell of blood.
“What did you do?” I asked as Gwen helped me to my feet.
“Me?” Mammon asked as the portal sealed itself shut, leaving the sky as it had been before the gaze of the Darkness had torn it open. “I just saved Samael.” She gave me a hard look. “You’re welcome.”
36
“Arthur?” Sam asked, her eyes fluttering open. “Where am I? What’s going on?”
“Sam!” I cried, rushing forward and gathering her into a tight hug. “Thank God you’re okay.” I swallowed hard, tears rimming my eyes as I buried my face in her neck. “I was so worried.”
“Arthur, I’m glad to see you too,” she replied, tears filling her eyes as she hugged me back. “I didn’t think I’d get to do it again. When I first saw you sitting there, I couldn’t quite believe it.”
“Don’t ever do that again,” I replied, hugging her tighter. “I don’t know what I’d do if I lost you.”
“I won’t,” she said, looking me up and down. She bit her lip and pushed me away. “Arthur, how long have I been out?” She gestured weakly at my face. “You smell like desperation and sadness, and you’ve got that whole unshaven thing going on…” I knew what she was trying to do, to diffuse the situation by focusing on me when she’d tried to sacrifice herself.
“Three days,” I said, taking a deep breath. “And sorry about the smell…” I rubbed my chin. “I haven’t really left this room.”
“Three days?” she asked, and I could hear the guilt in her eyes. “Arthur, you have things to do. You can’t—”
“Sam, there was nothing more important than making sure you were okay.” I reached out and touched her hand. “Mammon was able to restore your soul, but even then someone had to keep watch over you, to make sure you didn’t relapse. As it was, I’ve had to call Sally in here six times.” I shook my head. “Everyone else has important things to do, but for me, making sure you were okay was the most important thing I could do.”
“Thanks,” she replied, and I could tell she meant it. This wasn’t like the fake “thank yous,” she’d said over the last few months. No, in that one word, I could tell she appreciated me, and crazily, that was more than enough.
“It’s okay.” I wiped my eyes with the back of one hand. “Mammon told me that if you survived the soul fusion, you would wake up, so I didn’t worry that much.”
“Soul fusion?” she asked, shaking her head in confusion. “Arthur, I guess I’m still confused.” She took a deep breath and moved to get up, only as she did, she teetered, her eyes going a bit distant. As she fell, I grabbed her, holding her steady until she regained her bearings.
“Sam, you need to rest.” I gave her a hard look. “I mean that. I didn’t do all this so you could go off and die because you’re still too weak. I will tie you down to this bed if I have to, but you are not getting up for at least another day.”
She looked
like she wanted to argue, but instead, just nodded. “Okay.” She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I guess I just don’t quite understand why I’m still alive.”
“Check your mark,” I said, pointing at the spot on her chest where Dred had marked her so long ago.
“My mark?” she asked, confused. “Arthur—”
“Just check it,” I said, sitting next to her on the bed and taking one of her hands. “Let’s start with that.”
She bit her lip. Then, very carefully she pulled down her shirt and looked. Where once there had been an ugly black bruise, there was now the symbol of a scythe, the very same one she’d used in battle. Only, around it, was silver stitching, like someone had crudely sewn a patch into a blanket to fix a hole.
“I don’t quite understand,” she said, touching the spot. “This feels like me.”
“It is you,” I said, smiling at her. “Well, mostly anyway. We had to use some of our soul to stitch it into place, and Mammon did the actual work. That’s what the thread is. We all gave some to stitch yours back into place. Buffy, Gwen, Maribelle, me.”
“How is this possible?” Sam asked, tears filling her eyes. “How could you make me whole?” She took a deep breath. “It’s been so long, I forgot what it felt like.”
“It’s not so complicated.” I patted her shoulder. “Well, it is, but for details you’d have to ask Mammon.”
“What about Dred?” she asked, turning her gaze to me. “He will come.”
“He will,” I agreed. “But not today and not tomorrow. Not for a while.” I kissed her forehead. “I want you to rest a bit, okay. I’ll get you some food and whatnot. I also want to get Sally to check on you, okay?”
“Okay,” she said, taking a deep breath. “I’m not sure what’s going to happen now, but thank you. Not just for saving me, but, well, for not denying me for what I’d done in the past.”
“Sam,” I said, kissing her forehead once more. “Nothing you could do would ever make me stop caring for you. Especially something you’d done before I was born.” I stood and moved toward the door. “Now rest. I’ll send Sally in.”
The Builder's Greed (The Legendary Builder Book 2) Page 22