“Guys? Valoel? Why did you ask where Tristan was when you saw that thing?” Abigail asked.
“Because that star, Abigail, shines more brightly than any star I’ve ever seen,” Valoel answered. “I think it’s the prince’s.”
I waved my hand and a velvet armchair appeared. I sank into it and threw my legs over one of the arms. Tristan was probably about to die. I wouldn’t have to share his emotions or his thoughts, and I definitely wouldn’t have to share Abigail. Best news ever!
“Where is he now?” Abigail asked, her voice shaken with fear.
“With D. He’s gone to the Underworld,” Valoel answered, and I wondered why Tristan would do that, since he could probably not stand the pain of the countless long-dead souls there.
“Why would he go to the Grim Reaper?” Abigail asked tentatively.
“Beats me,” I laughed, “but do tell me when you find out.”
“You seem awfully relaxed.” Valoel knocked my feet off the armrest and glared.
“Why shouldn’t I be?” The guy had made a move on my girlfriend. Dying should be like a vacation to him compared to what I could do to him. And it certainly felt like a vacation to me.
“You should be concerned because without Tristan here to guard Abigail from you, she isn’t truly safe. You know she isn’t.” I stood up from my chair when I saw the quick flash in Abigail’s eyes as she realized that what Val said was true.
“He’d better not be dead when we find him.”
I didn’t like hearing that even now Abigail needed Tristan, and I especially didn’t like knowing that what she needed him for was to protect her from me. I was a different angel than I’d been when I met Abigail, but I could never be sure the old Gideon wouldn’t try to hurt her one day. It killed me to admit it, but without Tristan lurking about, I couldn’t stay with Abigail. I might not always be strong enough to stop myself from acting rashly, and I had to count on him to be.
I had to be sure he lived. Ironic right?
“We need to bring him back.” Valoel’s voice was straight and true, her teenage slouchiness gone. She turned to Sela. “I’ll call on the hosts of the warrior angels. We can’t hope to bring anyone back from the Underworld without an army.”
Sela nodded, seemingly unsurprised that Val was taking the lead. “Val,” I interrupted, “you’re just a kid. Sela is a princess of this realm. Don’t get in over your head.”
Valoel’s eyes shone, and she set her jaw. “Sela cannot lead the host. She is not among the Hashmallim, the Dominions.” She spread her wings, dark and powerful, and prepared to leave to gather her army.
Abigail steadied herself. “I’m coming with you.”
“The Underworld is a dangerous place for any mortal, Abby. Today, it may be even more dangerous. There may be a battle.”
“And I can handle myself in battle.”
I looked at Abigail as though I’d never seen her before. She was clearly afraid, but just as clearly, she was excited.
Just like me.
Before, I had been attracted by all that Abby and I had in common—the isolation, the deadly skill—it was intoxicating. But now I worried that everything that made her like me put her in danger. If there was going to be a war with the Underworld, there was no guarantee that I would see her again. “Let me take you home, Abby,” I offered in a tone that sounded more like demanding than suggesting.
“Don’t start, Gideon,” she snapped angrily. “I don’t want to go home. I want to help find Tristan, and I’m not leaving until we do. If the situation were reversed he would come to help me.”
I was still trying to come up with a brilliant rejoinder, something along the lines of “so what?” when Valoel reappeared. “The angels are ready,” she said. With a snap of her fingers, we were standing in front of the Grandinian Palace.
A murmur went through the crowd as soon as we arrived. “It’s Gideon!”
The sky was filled with row upon row of warrior angels, thousands of them, with bright-edged weapons. All of them looked uneasily at me, and some looked ready to flee. Abigail looked at me even more uneasily. Yep, I thought. Everything Tristan told you about me is true.
Valoel snapped her fingers, and a sword appeared, which she held above her head. “He’s with us!” Valoel shouted to the warriors.
“Why should we trust him?” a voice called out from the crowd.
“Don’t. Trust me,” Val replied. I thought I was the only one she ordered around like that.
Sela closed her wings around herself, and when she spread them again she was clad in silver armor. “Enough of this! We’re all here for Tristan. All of us, Even Gideon.”
“Maybe Gideon just wants to drag this human alive into the Underworld,” another voice called out, an archer, far at the back. “Maybe it’s just another game to him, and he doesn’t want Tristan at all.”
The crowd’s murmur grew to a roar as all of the warriors talked at once. I couldn’t make out the words, but I’m betting none of it was praise for me. I was used to hearing people insult me, but I wasn’t used to Abigail hearing it. That was unbearable.
I materialized in front of the archer. “I want Tristan, trust me,” I said, and ripped the angel’s heart out of his chest. His body fell to the ground, and the arrows in his quiver skittered across the cobblestone courtyard of the Palace.
“Anyone else have concerns to share?” I shouted, the heart still in my hand, blood dripping through my fingers. “Anyone else question my motives?”
I questioned my own motives, actually, but they didn’t need to know that. The angel’s blood cooled on my skin and ran in horrible streams down my arm. “We…we were…” The angel who murmured this started screaming because I began inflicting pain on him with my mind. He went down on his knees as his screams got louder. In that moment, I realized how much I’d missed killing, and how easy, how sweet, it was to change into the monster I’d been before.
“Gideon, stop!” It was Abigail. “You said you’d change.” She gaped at me, and suddenly I actually regretted killing someone. Or did I just regret killing him in front of her?
“I am changing. I’m trying to!” I said, but she just shook her head.
“You were so close.”
Sela appeared between us. In one hand she held a bow and quiver, the other hand rested on the proud neck of a gray winged horse. She handed the bow and quiver to Abby. “Take this,” she said, “you and I will go with Valoel. She’s leading half the Grandinian forces, and since you can’t transport yourself to the Underworld, you can take him.” She tipped her head to indicate the flying horse.
“Pegasus?” Abigail asked in wonder.
“No. Same species, but it’s not Pegasus,” Sela laughed. “His name is Heck, actually. He’s from my father’s stables.”
Abigail situated herself on the horse’s broad back, just behind where the wings attached, and Sela handed her her bow. “If you feel like you’re losing your balance you can grab onto the mane. It doesn’t hurt him. You shouldn’t have much problem, though. Heck knows what he’s doing, and he’s been in battle before.”
I coughed. “So you’re leading half of this army, and, let me get this straight, my bratty little sister is leading the other half.”
“I don’t lead any of the forces. I am not a Hashmal.”
“So who’s leading the other warrior angels?”
Sela looked me dead in the eye. “You are.”
“What? I can’t lead them, and Abigail isn’t going to war.” I pointed at Abigail as if she couldn’t see us. “Her humanity has no place in the Underworld. She’s weak and—” out of nowhere Valoel appeared in front of me, only to casually reach out and snatch an arrow out of the air that had been on a course for my chest. Abigail’s bowstring was still thrumming.
I turned in surprise to Abigail. She lowered her bow when she saw my stunned face. Did she almost shoot me with a freaking arrow? “You’re pretty dangerous, aren’t you?” Valoel asked, raising an eyebrow. “I guess
you two are meant for each other after all.”
“I told you. I want Tristan back.” Her eyes never once left mine as she reached to take another arrow from her quiver. “Keep that in mind.” She narrowed her eyes. I recognized that look. It was the look that had been on her face the night she’d tried to kill Andrei.
Was she this worked up over Tristan? Over the angel that had thought I wanted to subject her to the tortures of hell?
“Abigail, those arrows are poisoned. Don’t waste them on my brother.” Valoel took off into the sky, and with her went hundreds of angels. Then they were gone, the last of their black banners disappearing in a flash. Heck leaped into the air with Abigail after them, and was gone as well.
I was left with hundreds of Grandinian soldiers, all of whom were looking to me to lead them. Me, who found out about this mere minutes ago. To someone who had any regard for the lives in his care, this responsibility might have sounded daunting. To me, it sounded like fun.
“Anyone who finds Tristan should let me know,” I shouted in what I hoped was a booming and commanding voice. I squeezed the heart in my hand. “Leave him to me.”
WHITE SATIN
Abigail
“Father into thy hands, I commit my spirit.”
Luke 23:46 (The Holy Bible)
Abigail, breathe!
You can do this. You are doing it for Tristan!
And to think, this morning I’d actually worried about whether Sarah’s presentation for Mr. Bernard’s class was going to make ours look bad by comparison, and whether that might get us a B on the project.
And now? Now I was on a flying horse headed for the realm of Death itself, and I was afraid of heights.
When Gideon had asked me to stay behind, I’d almost jumped at the chance, but I remembered what my father once said: “Bravery doesn’t mean not being scared. Bravery is being scared, and acting anyway.”
The air—was it air?—around me was filled with powerful, heavily-armed supernatural beings. Their faces bore expressions of grim determination. Behind me a serial-killing angel had been put in charge of a large number of similarly powerful heavily-armed supernatural beings. I was afraid even to look back at Gideon. At the moment, he scared me even more than the prospect of heading into the Underworld.
“We’re here!” Valoel shouted, and I looked down at an Iron Gate, taller than any tree I’d every seen, that seemed to radiate cold. In front of it were massed thousands of angels in armor bearing gray banner, probably the Lumenian army. I realized we were either going to leave with Tristan, or we weren’t going to leave.
“Stay close,” Valoel told me as she helped me off the horse. I could hear screaming voices beyond the gate, souls crying for help. Knowing I was powerless to help them made hearing their screams all the more terrible.
“Princess,” said one of the Lumenian angels, bowing to Sela.
Sela acknowledged the bow. “Yes?”
“We’ve tried everything, but we can’t get the door to open, Your Royal Highness.”
From somewhere far back in the crowd Gideon’s voice called out. “What are you waiting for?” he asked as he slowly made his way through the ranks to us.
“The gate is locked,” Sela answered.
Gideon took a step closer, and then out of nowhere a tiger and a lion appeared in front of the gate. I tightened my grip on Valoel’s hand.
Gideon smirked when the menacing beasts fixed their eyes on him. “Panic and Pain,” he said. “Or are you still going by Deimos and Phobos these days?”
The lion roared, but Gideon didn’t even bat an eye, and then suddenly, he had the lion by the throat, holding it in the air as though it were just a kitten. “Pain!” he hissed. “Where is Tristan?”
I thought it couldn’t get any weirder, but I was wrong. Before my eyes the lion and tiger transformed into people—a woman and a man, both young and extraordinarily beautiful. At least, I assumed the man would be beautiful, if he weren’t gasping and clawing at his throat. Gideon released his grip.
“Gideon! Welcome,” the man, Pain, said with a smile that wasn’t entirely convincing. He flinched when Gideon took a step toward him.
“Do you want to open the gate, Pain, or do you want me to do it?” He didn’t wait for an answer. Instead, he raised his left hand and released a powerful jet of flame that blasted against the cold iron. The gate cracked with a loud grating sound.
OK, my boyfriend can make fireballs, completely normal.
“Now don’t make me ask you about Tristan’s whereabouts a second time,” he threatened, and then, with a flick of his wrist, Pain was levitating in front of him.
“He’s on his way to see D,” Pain wheezed. “Please, don’t kill me!” Gideon threw him to the ground with a crash and made his way to the gate. There was a shudder, and suddenly the gate was bristling with swords. Pain and Panic blocked his way.
“Really, guys? After I brought you catnip last week?”
“You cannot enter,” said Panic. “And don’t bother trying to fight, because you’re already surrounded.”
Sure enough, when I looked more closely at the shadows, I saw that they were filled with all sorts of hideous creatures that shouldn’t exist anywhere outside of nightmares. Their weapons rattled in the dark, and I imagined I could almost feel their icy breath on my skin. I squeezed my eyes shut, blocking out the sight of them. I figured if I couldn’t see them, my fear might subside a bit.
My breath was now coming out sharply. Terror raced through my body as the screaming around us became louder and louder.
“Abigail,” Valoel whispered, “I think your aim is probably better with your eyes open.”
I forced myself to open them. “I’m fine,” I lied and inhaled deeply.
“Sorry about this, Gideon, but I’m afraid no one is going home today,” Panic rasped.
“Everyone! It’s time!” Pain shouted.
Suddenly, spears flew in every direction. Many of the Lumenians and Grandinians were able to overlap their shields so that they formed a protective metal sphere around them that sent the spears bouncing off of it harmlessly. But others, not fast enough with their shields, fell screaming from the sky.
“You know, Gideon,” Panic shouted about the din, “I can see why you love killing. It’s quite a rush.” Gideon threw a fireball at Panic that sent him flying. The swords on the cracked gates were growing larger and larger, until their crossed blades knitted up the hole, as though the gate were healing itself. Gideon broke through some of the swords with another shot of flame and Valoel, Sela, and I managed to get inside with one-tenth? One twentieth? Of the angelic forces before the iron finally sealed itself completely behind us.
The land on this side of the gate was rocky and barren. The ground was hot to the touch beneath our feet, and sulphurous steam rose in wisps from it. The sound of the battle on the other side of the gate was muffled here, and seemed very far away.
Sela handed me a short sword. “Take this. You’ll need it. A sword is better for close-in fighting than a bow.”
I knew that. And I knew, somehow, that this was what I’d really been training for all those years.
Valoel looked over the small band of warriors that had managed to follow her inside the gate, and flew into the air to address them. “Brothers!” she shouted, and all eyes turned to her, “The demons have struck the first blow. It is almost certain that there will be war. Thousands of us came to the Underworld on this rescue mission, but only a few shall return. Be fierce during this visit to the Underworld. Make them tremble at the thought of keeping you here.”
Valoel’s words rattled me, but the soldiers were silent and still.
She continued. “Brothers, I’m not going to promise you tomorrow. The truth is, we are going to die, and the best we can do is to take as much of D’s army with us as we can!” The warriors cheered. “Do we want our families to weep tomorrow for their loss?” she asked, and the warriors shouted together, “No!”
> “No!” she continued. “Tomorrow, we want them to toast to our victory!” The warriors shouted in agreement. Valoel threw her hands into the air, and suddenly the sky was filled with flaming arrows, all of them arching toward the gate.
I caught Valoel’s eye. “The warriors,” I asked in a hoarse whisper, “why don’t they care that they will all almost surely die?”
Valoel smiled and said, “It’s simple. Any angel would die for Tristan if need be, because without him, none of us will live. None of us. He is our only protection. The warriors know that if Tristan dies, they and their families are sure to die soon after.”
I didn’t understand. “But what are they afraid of? What is it that only Tristan can save them from?”
“Gideon,” she replied, and then she was gone.
Oh.
It seemed whenever I thought Gideon couldn’t really be all that evil, I was proven wrong. I clasped my medallion, breathed in deeply, and prepared for battle.
The first creature my sword slid into turned into ash, and I was so taken by surprise I almost dropped it and ran. But soon, the rocky soil around me was covered in ashes. Layers and layers of ash.
“Is that a human?” asked a gruff voice from the crowd.
Panic answered, from a position close on my left. “It is! A living human.” I raised my sword above my head and held it parallel to the ground to defend against a vertical blow from the sword of a demon with wide, froglike eyes. In my head I said a quick thank-you to my father for drilling me on defensive techniques, and realized that I might get to thank him in person all too soon. The thought actually made me laugh.
I looked through the crowd for Panic, and felt my feet slip beneath me. Stupid! I let myself lose my focus!
And then I realized that it was not that I had lost my footing. The ground itself had fallen away beneath me.
I screamed as I spun downward in a deepening gyre of sand. I tried to call for help, but my lungs were caked in bitter stinging sand and ash. My victims?
Dominion (Re-edition) Page 28