by Lizzy Ford
Darkyn. The Dark One’s mysterious search for something past-Deidre left behind began to make sense. What would Darkyn want with past-Deidre’s soul, unless he intended to add it to the Army of Souls?
Controlling a deity would bring incredible power to the demon lord at a time when Rhyn was struggling to battle demons already. The Immortals were vulnerable, and Darkyn’s hunger for power and control of the mortal world was not something Gabriel questioned.
Grimly, he realized he should’ve taken up Wynn’s first offer to barter for the secret. The information was beyond valuable. It might be all that stood between the Dark One and the human world. As nonchalant as Wynn was being about it, he knew what it meant.
“I knew you’d find it worthy. The magic I used to kill her, I also used to seal the tumor. My thought was that it was a like a time bomb, awaiting the right moment for our dear deity to reemerge,” Wynn said. “I’m beginning to believe she didn’t want me to find her after all, that it was Fate who pushed our paths together.”
“Fate has been active lately,” Gabe said, pensive.
“Indeed. Summoned me a few days ago. He’s scheming.”
“Deities always are,” Gabe said. “The answer you seek: Darkyn.”
Wynn’s eyebrows shot up. “She made a deal with him?”
“Apparently.” Distracted, Gabe began to think about how he might be able to save Deidre using the powers of Death. All souls – even those of deities – came to Death eventually. Would the soul in her head respond to him? “You couldn’t get it out?”
“A few years ago, I could have. Now, it’s not removable by human medicine or by Immortal power,” Wynn added.
“I’m assuming the only reason you told me is because you think I can do something about it,” Gabe said.
“If anyone can coax an unwilling soul out of a human brain, you can. I’ll still kill her to get what I want, if I must,” Wynn said with a cold smile.
“I expect nothing less from you.”
“Good. You’ll keep her out of my way and make sure Darkyn doesn’t stumble upon her or the treasure in her head.”
Gabe eyed him. From any other Immortal, it wouldn’t have been a threat. Wynn was as likely as past-Deidre to make a deal with the Dark One. Gabriel began to see the Ancient’s plan as well. Whoever had the soul of past-Death, had immeasurable bargaining power.
“My part here is done. You’ve been warned. I don’t need to tell you that any further assistance I provide you will not be by my choice.”
“Understood.” Gabriel tossed his head in dismissal.
Wynn left.
“Harmony, pull in all the death-dealers to the lake in an hour,” Gabe whispered the order. His gaze settled on the body at his feet.
Will do. She responded mentally.
Gabe opened a portal and strode into the center of the shadow world.
“Fate. I need a moment.”
This time, there was no waiting. One of the portals beckoned him before he’d finished the sentence. Gabe stepped into an apartment. He glanced around the penthouse decorated in dark colors with flashes of burgundy and brown, attention settling on the familiar skyline visible through the window.
“You chose an apartment beside hers,” he said with a shake of his head.
“What can I say. She’s always had good taste,” Fate said from his seat on a couch. Dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, he resembled a college student on break.
“Just when I think things can’t get weirder …” Gabriel crossed to the living area without sitting. “You’ve done a lot of interfering for someone who believes in free will. Wynn, Deidre, me.”
“You are still thinking like a death-dealer and not like a deity,” Fate chided and motioned to the couch. “Gabriel, what made you hate your predecessor also made her very good at what she did.”
“She regarded the world as a chessboard. I know this.”
“What made her good was that she was able to work around the Immortal Code that has you by the neck.”
Gabriel listened. He didn’t like not understanding what to do. He didn’t like not being self-reliant. The Code had always been his foundation in a world that adopted him despite his origins.
“You don’t follow the same rules you used to. You work around the rules, between them, on top of them, beneath them.” Fate nudged him with the top of his foot. “Are you listening?”
“Yes.”
“But you’re not hearing.” After a moment, the deity continued. “View the Immortal Code like a woman and what I’m telling you to do like …making love to that woman. She’s more than a body, and the things you can do are only limited by your imagination. Did I dumb it down enough for you?”
“Yeah. That I understood,” Gabe replied. He wasn’t expecting humor at such a time, not when everything was wrong. But he found himself smiling at the enigmatic god’s explanation.
“The underworld wouldn’t have accepted you if you couldn’t do this. I’m pushing you to broaden your perspective.”
Gabe sat back, eyes on Fate, who looked little more concerned than any other college kid on spring break. The only real difference: the ancient intelligence in the deity’s steady gaze, which seemed out of place in such a youthful face. Grimly, Gabriel realized he was still missing too much, even on the mortal world.
“Ask me what you came to ask me,” Fate directed.
“Darkyn wants Deidre.”
“And you’re running out of time.”
“I know.” Gabe rubbed the back of his neck. “Wynn told me what he did and about the soul encased in her tumor. If Darkyn wants it, it’s gotta be past-Death. I … can’t …get to it without killing her.” Admitting the truth out loud was worse than he expected.
“Then you’re both fucked.”
He looked up.
“First things first. Darkyn wins now if you don’t figure out this simple truth.” Fate shrugged. “Like making love to a woman, Gabriel.”
He’d finally found a deity who used an analogy he understood. Thousands of years of experience rendered Gabe intimately familiar with both a woman’s body and the Immortal Code. He’d never viewed the Code in this light, as more than his master. He’d obeyed the Code and his predecessor without question, until forced to choose between them and his conscience. He broke with both to save Rhyn and Katie.
That the Code was malleable, flexible, alive … like a woman.
Deidre’s bucket list came to mind, distracting him from interpreting Fate’s cryptic comparison. He’d enjoyed himself that night, more so than ever before, because he let go of the side of himself that viewed sex as either a test by a dictatorial goddess or a necessary release for pent up frustration.
How the fuck did he translate a night of fun, passion – not to mention the most meaningful connection he’d ever made – into his job? The Code? That night, he’d done more than try to please someone else. He shared his need and pleasure with someone else for the first time in his life.
Fate leaned forward, studying him intently.
“Are you saying …” Gabriel paused. “The Code enslaved me as an everyday Immortal. But as a deity …”
“C’mon, Gabriel. It’s gotta click here and now, if you are to create a sustainable chain of events. You understand. I see it.”
“The Code is not an absolute for deities but a relationship. One I can determine,” he said at last.
“Determine. Influence,” Fate said, smiling slowly. “Control, if that’s your thing. The handcuffs never hurt, right?”
“Silk ties,” Gabriel replied.
“Jealous. She never used silk with me.”
“She didn’t trust you.”
“For good reason,” Fate admitted. “Same reason she knew better than to let me tie her. That would not have ended the way anyone thinks.”
Gabriel snorted, amused. They both knew past-Death wouldn’t let anyone place her in a compromising position. Fate was the single enemy that succeeded in cornering her and only after co
untless millennia plotting.
“Anyway, for you, those handcuffs will soon be falling away,” Fate continued.
Gabe tried to envision the Code as a woman, one that he could negotiate with. What if he approached the Code not as a slave but as an equal concerned about the greater good, a dynamic reality the Code had no way of knowing, due to its own static nature?
“I see it,” Gabriel said, frowning. “You’re saying a deity must look at the Code as one of many factor instead of the only factor.”
“We preserve it and the order of the worlds by any means necessary. If that means we break the Code to save it, then so be it.”
“Past-Deidre broke two rules and quit. Are you saying she didn’t have to?”
“There was much more to what she did. She broke the rules from the time-before-time, of which there are three: mates, blood, fate. No one can fuck with the bond each of those has to one another. The result of a deity breaking one of the three is basically the destruction of the world. She played the Code the same way she played each of us. We didn’t band together to stop her, because she had …dirt on all of us,” he explained. “Only the deities can force another deity to resign. No one wanted to cross her.”
“Except you.”
“You want to know how?” Fate’s eyes glittered as he rested his elbows on his thighs. “I revealed her mate to her. You’ve never seen anyone so angry.”
“You told her about me, and she spazzed. Great.” Gabe mumbled, infuriated by past-Deidre once more.
“You think I told her the truth?” Fate grinned. “She wanted it to be you. I lied my ass off and told her it was the Dark One. Learn a lesson from your predecessor. Don’t fuck with me.”
“That was the bet she lost?”
“Yep. Said she knew who her mate was supposed to be. I pulled her Sight, so she couldn’t tell I was lying, then asked what she’d wager on it. I lied. I set up the chain of events millennia ago and knew if I could push her enough in one direction, she’d go peacefully over the edge,” he said. “She made deals with a few people she shouldn’t have to try to outmaneuver a fate that didn’t exist, thereby breaking all three – mate-blood-fate – without annihilating the worlds as we know it. She was fucked, though.”
“The underworld cracked, and the demons came,” Gabriel guessed. “She knew she was done.”
“Exactly. I then called in the favor she owed me from the bet I actually lost.”
“You made her pay up?” Gabriel asked.
“Damn right I did. At that point, everyone was collecting, or trying to.”
“Can I ask what you won?”
“I told her to walk through the portals, and where she ended up, was up to me.”
Gabriel studied Fate. “You were kind to her.”
“No, I was kind to you and to the human Deidre. I’m a deity, not a monster, Gabriel, and I happen to see the Future. Sometimes I favor an outcome and nudge the chain of events to fulfill it. I restored the path she forsook so long ago, as I was obligated to do,” Fate said then added. “I am also the only deity, Immortal or human alive who ever crossed that bitch and won.”
“By losing.”
“Exactly.”
Gabriel found himself laughing.
“What are the lessons here?” Fate asked.
Gabriel’s smile faded as he thought. He saw first of all that he’d chosen the right mentor. Or maybe, the right mentor had chosen him. Fate was both vengeful and impassioned in his treatment of past-Deidre, and Gabe sorted through the tangled web that marked the tumultuous relationship between Fate and past-Death.
“Aside from not pissing you off,” Gabriel started. “Sometimes you make love to the Code and sometimes you fuck it.”
“Well-put. What else?”
“You’ve been much more …clear-sighted in how you dealt with her,” Gabe said regretfully. “You broke the Code out of duty and pushed her to do so out of emotion, which ultimately screwed her. I’m guessing if I break the rules, to do so out of duty.”
“Good. Get the point?”
“I had no idea she cared enough about me to break so many rules. This touchy-feely shit is giving me hives.”
“Me, too. You will have to cause me some trouble, so I have a reason to begrudge you,” Fate said.
“That can be arranged.” Gabriel chuckled. “Doesn’t explain why your apartment is next to hers.”
“Rarely do I get to see the Future unfold in person. I can see everywhere but cannot be everywhere. I chose to be here,” Fate replied. “I will not need to interfere, unless you reject all we’ve discussed when you leave.”
“No chance.”
“Go forth, and use your resources.”
Gabriel rose. He liked Fate, though after the story of how the deity took out past-Deidre, he knew better than to trust the godling completely. He didn’t expect his portal to the underworld to be waiting and wasn’t disappointed. No, it wasn’t going to be that easy. He still had the challenge of the mortal world to knock out.
This time, he knew the secret to succeeding in the human realm.
The Code was no longer his master. Neither, he decided, was his past. What past-Death and the Code had been to him - the one-way relationship they’d forced upon him – would not survive the day. Fate hadn’t answered the question he wanted, but he provided the response Gabriel needed to hear. Death didn’t live in the shadows as Gabriel had for the majority of his life.
Neither did Death sit back and wait to discover the information he needed to do his job. In all his years, he’d known one Immortal with the unrivaled gifts of not only tracking demons in the mortal realm but manipulating the minds of Immortals and mortals. The same Immortal would balance the damage done by past-Deidre when she raised Wynn and help Rhyn manage the Council and Immortals. Though the power of mind manipulation was far from brain surgery, he might also know how to help Deidre.
It was a long shot, but Gabriel was willing to bet that raising the dead-dead Immortal would pay off.
He was about to fuck the Code hard.
Gabriel returned to the lake. There was no way of knowing whose souls had crossed over to the mortal world, but he was going to trust that Fate was on his side, for the time being. Gabriel stripped off his shirt and weapons then his heavy boots, dropping everything into a pile while two of his assassins watched. He whipped off his belt and added it to the rest of his belongings, leaving a single knife strapped to his thigh.
He dove into the cold water. The souls sensed their Keeper and rose from the floor of the deep lake to hover around him like suspended, tiny green lanterns. Each spoke to him as he swam, filling his head with visions as they told him their stories. Gabriel slowed his movements, quickly overwhelmed by the voices. He stopped trying to sort through everything.
If you’re here, come to me, he ordered the soul he sought.
Nothing happened. He swam deeper into the lake. One of the gems touched his face. Images flashed through his mind. He snatched the soul and shoved off from the bottom of the lake, kicking upwards.
Breaking through the surface, Gabriel gasped in a few breaths before swimming towards the shore with powerful strokes. All five of the death dealers on guard had drawn near the lake. He hauled himself out of the cold waters and sat on the shore that turned to mud beneath his dripping body.
He placed the soul on the ground beside him and drew his remaining knife. He heard how to bring an Immortal back from the dead-dead from past-Death but never saw it done. Mainly because it broke a few thousand Immortal Codes. It didn’t break the triumvirate of laws he was required to follow, though it was likely to put him on the radar of the other deities, who were going to be cautious to trust him after past-Death’s antics.
Gabriel sliced his palm and squeezed blood out over the soul. If there were magic words, they were stuck in the manual he never got. He willed the magic out of his body and channeled it into the blood-covered soul, visualizing what it was he tried to do. And hoping it wasn’t like Wynn, wh
o was reincarnated without even Darkyn realizing the soul was revived. Green power flowed from the souls in the lake, through him and into the gem. The lake blinked out for a second, the light gone completely, then blinked back on, this time much, much dimmer.
He’d always known the source of Death’s magic was the souls, but he’d never seen his predecessor wield the light of the souls. Shut off from the underworld, he could only hope he had enough soul power here on the mortal world to reincarnate one Immortal.
The earth beneath him trembled, which he took as a good sign. The soul sank into the ground. Gabriel grabbed at it, until he saw the shape of a man form beneath a haze of green. He stood and stepped back, breathing hard from his swim. His death-dealers were fading into the shadows of the forest as the ground shook.
Gabe sat down on a boulder, a thrill working through him. He’d been ignoring the extent of the power available from the souls for fear of violating the Code, which he now understood was not binding in the face of a threat like Darkyn.
If this worked, could he do the same for Deidre? Kill her, remove the soul and revive her? Gabriel’s gaze went to the lake. The souls were barely glimmering; there was no way he’d be able to pull the amount of power he needed to save Deidre.
He needed more than access to the underworld to save her; he needed the medical advice of someone like Wynn. From what he knew, if they brought her back, she’d be however she left the earth. He couldn’t have the tumor – or half her brain missing – when he revived her.
Gabriel shuddered at the thought of hurting her.
Was this why Darkyn hadn’t grabbed her? Had Wynn unknowingly protected Deidre by linking her life to that of the soul in her head?
The haze cleared, and the earth settled. Gabriel rose and approached the still form. The night-skinned Immortal appeared to be either dead-dead or sleeping. Squatting, Gabe shook him. Tanzanite eyes opened, the familiar blue-purple making Gabriel smile in triumph. He was going to win this round against Fate, Darkyn and anyone else who stood between him, the underworld and his mate.