Unborn

by Natusch, Amber Lynn

  When he stepped onto the roof behind me, his eyes immediately turned to the sky, a scowl overtaking his strained expression. I followed his gaze up to the heavens, only to find them blocked out entirely. A black, leathery, swirling sky converged upon us. The missing gargoyles had been found.

  “I guess those fuckers really wanted to cover all their bases,” he scoffed under his breath.

  “Am I to assume that we won’t be flying out of here then?” I queried, watching him as he stalked to each edge of the roof, peeking over to see if there was an acceptable alternative. The look in his eyes when he turned to me told me that none existed.

  “We weren’t flying out of here in the first place,” he muttered, walking back to me. “Seems like nobody around here really understands what ‘fallen’ means. It’s hard to fly when you no longer have wings.”

  A shot of electricity arced between my shoulder blades, behind my markings, as though somewhere deep inside me understood what the potential absence of my wings might feel like. I may not yet have birthed them, but I had not lost them either, a distinction that was now painfully clear.

  “Oz—”

  “There’s no way out,” he said softly, cutting me off. “They’ve got the whole house surrounded.” His eyes were heavily weighted with an emotion I had only recently come to recognize—sadness.

  “Then we will stay and fight,” I told him. “I will fight alongside my brothers, as is my birthright.” I started for the window, but he intercepted me.

  “No,” he boomed. “I told you what will happen if they get you, and neither option presents a pleasant outcome. Pierson’s magic has fallen, don’t you see? There’s nothing to protect you from their pull . . . the darkness. And I cannot protect you frorotasantm yourself and fight them at the same time. There are too many, and the risk too great. Letting you anywhere near the Stealers in this war would be madness.”

  In a rare moment, I felt my mouth lift ever so slightly at its corner, mimicking an expression I had so often seen Oz wear. A so-called smirk assumed its place upon my face.

  “Is that not one of your specialties, Oz? Madness?”

  “This is no time for you to find your sense of humor!” he yelled, snatching my arms up violently in his hands. His grip was harsh and punishing. “They cannot have you. Do you understand me? They cannot have you!” His attention snapped back toward the house, a commotion coming from deep inside. I pulled my arms from his hands and drew my blade, turning to go and aid my own. As I strode toward the window, I heard him mutter under his breath, a plea to someone I did not know.

  “You failed her once, Celia. I pray your choices do not fail her again.”

  Then, from behind me, a great wind blew, carrying words not unlike the call to battle he had spoken earlier—words as old as time. Oz was chanting something that called to me, but in a way quite different from the call of the darkness that was upon me. A softness characterized it. A caress.

  I looked back to see him in the most glorious light. Though it burned my eyes, it felt like home, willing me to it. I was of the Light, and they wanted me back.

  Suddenly, I saw what made Oz so powerful. His formidable silhouette was highlighted by the glow that emanated from all around him, and I stood in awe. Slowly, he approached me, still shrouded in the burning light.

  “Khara,” he said, his voice carrying a divine power. “I tried to keep you from this fate. I did not wish for it to come to this.” I looked at him as if he was the world. “But I see no other way. I have no choice.”

  With his aura of godliness surrounding him, he muttered hypnotically in that same ancient tongue, but this time his words were discernibly different than those he had spoken before. As his melodic chanting surrounded me, lulling me softly into a state of calm, I felt a nagging sensation as something sought to interrupt it.

  Darkness. It was coming for me.

  I turned to look back to the window behind me, but the second I did I felt the markings on my back rage in protest, burning violently. I wanted to cry out against the pain as my skin protested the awakening it withheld, but I could not. No sooner had Oz finished his own call—the call to the Light One within me—when his lips fell upon mine, strong and brutal. He held me tightly while my knees threatened to give out from the pain stabbing through my back, but his intentions never faltered. He kissed me with the desperation of one who truly saw no means of escape. I tasted the fear on his lips as mine met his, and that is when I sensed what he was doing.

  He was saying good-bye.

  Seconds later, the window behind us shattered into pieces, spraying us with glass. The enemy had announced its presence. Oz sheltered me with his massive body, turning me and forcing me backward toward the roof’s edge. But there still was no escape.

  One by one, the Stealers stepped onto the roof, wielding a power of their own—the power of the dead. A power that rivaled Oz’s own. He held me behind him as I struggled against him, but with a whisper of my name he calmed my protestations ever so slightly.

  “You will not take her alive,” Oz shouted, his voice deep and threatening.

  “It need not come to that,” the newest lӝ t">“You eader of the Stealers purred in response, stepping cautiously forward. “Death is not part of his plan. He has . . . loftier aspirations for her.”

  I felt Oz tense before me, and I fought to peer around him, at what was happening. Surely, I had missed something terrible for it to have elicited such a physical response from him.

  “I’ll kill her myself if I have to,” Oz countered harshly.

  Finally able to gaze around his arm, I saw the Stealer who spoke to Oz looking at him incredulously.

  “I think we both know that you are unwilling to do that, Ozereus,” he replied patronizingly. “The reason why is written all over your face.” He hazarded another step toward us, which tripped something in Oz. He reached around to me, snatching me up in his grasp and pinning me tightly against his chest. Overwhelmed by the alluring call of darkness, which pressed down upon us, I fought his hold, bucking wildly to escape it. My body was betraying me.

  “This ends now,” Oz boomed, drawing his weapon.

  “This is her destiny,” the Stealer roared, his features twisted into an ugly expression. “You cannot stop it!”

  “I am her destiny, and she is my charge,” Oz bellowed, stepping closer to the roof’s edge. “And I can stop you.” Oz growled four final words in his ancient tongue, the rumble of his chest vibrating fiercely against my back.

  And then he released me from his grasp.

  Before I could take advantage of my newly obtained freedom and run to the Stealer who continued to beckon to me, I felt Oz’s massive arm strike me, knocking me over the roof’s ledge. Falling through the air backward, my hair rushed over my face to obscure my last view of him. Even through that veil, I could see how pained his expression was when he looked down at me. Then the enemy fell upon him, engulfing him and stealing him from my view. He shouted something to me as they did, but I never heard his words. Instead, I closed my eyes and thought of my father, knowing that, once the awaiting Stealers found me and either had their way with me or delivered me to Deimos, I was going to see him soon. Given the way Oz had explained that situation, it appeared that all roads would lead to Hades, no matter which path was chosen for me.

  But if I were lucky enough to just die from the impact of the fall, which seemed to be what Oz had intended, I prayed there would be enough evil within me to demand my soul’s presence in the Underworld with Hades.

  I missed him.

  I was ready to go home.

  23

  But I did not go to my father; I did something else entirely surprising instead.

  Just before I crashed to the ground below, another searing pain tore through my back, and my shirt shredded to pieces as large, mottled-gray wings unfurled. I swooped up into the sky, a survival instinct propelling me upward, for I had no conscious control over my newly developed appendages. It felt right having
them behind me, spread wide for the winds to carry me. It felt as if I had had them my entire life. However, making them do exactly as I commanded seemed to be an acquired skill that I lacked entirely at first.

  I may have avoided crashing into the ground and the Stealers that occupied it, but my control over the massive wings was minimal at best, and I soon found myself smashing into a brick wall only blocks away from the Victorian. I crumpled to the ground, the awkwardness of my wings making me clumsy as I foughtovebuI soon fo to stand, staggering to find my balance. Looking around to get my bearings, I realized I was in an alley of sorts, not unlike the one I had found myself in when I first arrived in Detroit, though the buildings that bound this alley were far more residential in nature.

  Before I could better assess my escape options, a strategy the brothers had taught me, I turned to find myself being stared down by the very enemy Oz had sought for me to avoid—the Stealer that had been on the roof with us only moments earlier. And the smile he wore was wicked.

  “Oz has taken you from me, Unborn,” he said enigmatically, the anger behind his smile seeping through in his tone. “You were to be my sweet prize, but now you are ruined. You are little more than a feast of revenge. But that matters not. Feast, I shall.”

  “And what of Deimos?” I asked, my tone laced with an authority I had never before possessed.

  True amusement lit his smile, his teeth gleaming in the scant light of the alleyway.

  “Deimos . . .” he delighted, stepping toward me slowly. “I’m surprised your fallen one never told you.”

  “My fallen one told me Deimos was coming for me and nothing more. But you will tell me,” I said, an equally wicked grin overtaking my face. “You will tell me now.”

  “He has a plan for you. That’s why I am here,” he replied, sweeping his hands wide.

  “And what are you to do, Stealer? Deimos is not one for minions. I see no reason why he has involved your kind at all. To do so seems so beneath him.”

  “He requires my skills, our skills—skills that he lacks,” he continued, inching toward me as he spoke. As he neared, I realized that I felt no pull, no need to go to him. I truly was no longer an Unborn. But I felt the darkness of his presence, just as Oz had said I would. It screamed at my soul. “I am to change you. He wants you purged of whatever lightness keeps you from going to him willingly.”

  “He has taken me before,” I said coldly. “What would stop him from doing so again?”

  “He may be able to take your body, but he cannot take your mind. His inability to do so vexes him greatly. He thinks that the solution to this lies with me. And we are going to find out.”

  “But I am of the Light, and with that comes a choice,” I reminded him, holding steadfast in my position. “And I will choose death. I will not become what he plans for me.”

  “Oh, sweet girl . . . so, so sweet,” he whispered, approaching me still. “Don’t you see? Either way, he wins. In that death, you will become a slave in the Underworld. You will beg for his protection—his favor. You will run to him willingly, and he will own you.”

  “Hades maintains that I don’t belong in the Underworld. That my soul is destined for a lighter place,” I countered.

  “And that would be true,” he replied, his smile impossibly wider, “if you had been born of a Light One. But your mother . . . your poor, poor mother, she was not. She chose the ways of the Dark long ago. You were born while her black wings spread out wide behind her.”

  “You lie,” I refuted, knowing that he could not possibly have such knowledge. Oz had implied that my mother was a Dark One, but had done so only to agitate Sean, or so it had seemed. When later confronted, he did not confirm the veracity of his claim.

  Though he did not deny it either.

  The Stealer standing before me leaned in close, whispering to me in a conto y sospiratorial fashion.

  “You are not as much a secret as you would like to think, sweet girl. How else could Deimos have come to such a plan in the first place?”

  He was right. Deimos’ plan could never have come into being had he not known the very reason I had been hidden away for centuries in the first place. The hiding that had eventually placed me in the Underworld with him and in his sights. He knew whom I was born of, and it was apparent that he also knew what I was—what I had only minutes earlier been. I could not dispute the Stealer’s logic.

  So, instead, I would fight it.

  “There is only one flaw to your plan,” I whispered back, brushing my lips along his earlobe. “You have to succeed in taking my soul. And I do not wish to part with it.”

  He turned wide eyes upon me, staring in disbelief, as though he could not fathom one so new to the Light fighting him off. He lunged for my face, not bothering to try his enchantments on me any longer. It was clear that he had little interest in making this experience pleasant for me. He was recruited to do a job, and anger now fueled him. Oz had stolen something truly precious from him.

  He seemed obliged to do the same in return.

  With lips locked violently onto mine, a familiar sensation started to pull at something—my essence—from deep within me, a dark and burning pain accompanying it. But then, suddenly, the sensation stopped. Inexplicably, his attempt to take that which he sought had no effect on me. He pulled away, looking at me in utter disbelief as he did. His plan was not working as he had hoped—my soul was not to be his.

  And we were both about to see why.

  I felt my eyebrow cock as evil started to flow into me. I wasn’t aware of where it was coming from until the mighty Stealer before me started to writhe in pain, collapsing to the ground as he slowly withered. The tables had been turned.

  No being could survive without that which sustained them, and he proved no exception. In a surprising twist of fate, I had taken into me all those tormented souls that he had fed on, forcing him to painfully fade. By the time I was done freeing him of them, the Stealer was little more than a shell, a sloughed-off casing that had once looked human—for it harbored no soul of its own.

  The grossly disfigured expression staring up at me from its unmoving countenance gave me no pause. I felt nothing about what I had done to him. Nothing at all. His life had long ago been forfeit; I just carried out his overdue punishment, though I had no idea how I had managed it.

  As I hovered over his corpse, I suddenly realized that I was not alone. Without the distraction of the Stealer to occupy me, that familiar fear shot up my spine. I looked down the narrow way to find Deimos, in all his terrible glory, staring at me. His distaste for what I had done was plain in his expression.

  “Your plan has failed,” I called to him. “You can send as many of them as you wish after me. They, too, will fall.”

  His chest heaved furiously and his nostrils flared. His exterior, normally a calm yet terrifying façade, was marred by raw fury, all of which was aimed toward me.

  “You’re coming with me,” he roared, charging me. I did not move. I had expected him to take me at some point. At least I would return to the Underworld as a winged version of myself, though I would pay dearly for spoiling his plans. His retribution would not be immediate, though. He would wait, toying with me until he felt it was safe to unleash his retribution. He maibuearly have wanted me for his own, but that did not mean I was exempt from his evil machinations.

  “She goes nowhere,” a voice growled from far behind me. Sean’s presence stopped Deimos in his tracks. His brow furrowed heavily as he stared at the man behind me. My brother. My twin. At that moment, I experienced the connection that Kierson had spoken of.

  Sean murmured something in Greek as he neared me—something I could understand. A spell. A banishing spell.

  I looked on stoically as Deimos began to dissipate, his once-corporeal form slowly becoming transparent and dispersing into the air around us. With one final word, the small remainder of Deimos that was still visible disappeared in a flash, a loud popping sound accompanying his exit.

  I t
urned to find Sean standing right behind me, his eyes wide as he took in my winged form. Something about the intensity of his gaze made me want to escape, but, when he reached out and ran his finger along one of the delicate gray feathers, I could see the sad reverence in his eyes. He was not disgusted by them. He was envious.

  “The others?” I asked, a flash of the impending battle ricocheting through my mind suddenly. “We have to help them!”

  I turned in the direction I had come from and ran as quickly as I could, my wings eventually taking action of their own accord and lofting me into the air. When I saw the rooftop of the Victorian, I was relieved. Oz and the Stealers were no longer there. Flying directly over the property, I looked down to locate my brothers.

  I saw nothing.

  They were gone—all of them—and that knowledge, combined with Oz’s absence, created a tension in my chest, causing my breathing to become tight and shallow. In a burst of speed, I soared over the neighborhood, searching for any sign of the battle, the dead or the survivors.

  Still, I found nothing.

  Fear. I felt abundant fear in that moment, but not of the kind driven by Deimos’ presence. My brothers were gone, and Oz was nowhere to be found. That unwanted emotion threatened to take me over, and I retreated back to the house, praying to the gods that my brothers were the warriors I knew them to be and had easily slain the enemy while I was eliminating the Stealer that sought to prepare me for Deimos. It was all I could do.

  Landing on the roof, I raced to the shattered window of Oz’s room. My bulky wings refused to retract fully, making the task of entering infinitely more difficult than expected. Annoyance was all I felt, and I cursed aloud, forcing my newfound appendages through the sharp opening. I felt a surge of pain in retribution for my efforts.

  Glancing back at the damage I had caused, I was met with something unexpected. The downy appendages that had been gray only moments earlier in the alley with Sean had inexplicably turned as black as night.