“I know you’re lying to me,” he said, and I reached up and brushed his hair out of his face.
“I’m not.” I replied, pressing my forehead against his the same way I’d done to my boyfriend when the world ended. “When you come back, we can do even more.”
“Now I know you are lying,” Connor said, turning away and looking at Caleb. My boyfriend’s hands were in such tight fists blood dripped from the palms of his hands. “Take me to Death, please.”
“With pleasure,” Caleb growled, reaching out and grabbing Connor’s shoulder. Something about the way he did it, struck me as pleased in a combined “wrath of an angry god” and “jealous boyfriend” sort of way. It made me feel like the worst person on the planet. I’d hurt him, and for all I knew, this might be the last time we saw each other. Why couldn’t we have left it at our kiss instead?
I already knew the answer, and judging by the look on Caleb’s answer, so did he. Duty. It was sad in every sense of the word, and as I debated reaching out to him anyway, the two of them disappeared in a flash of blue fire.
As the flicker of blue fire faded from my vision, the ground went out from under me, and I fell, striking the burning bark of Yggdrasil and collapsing into the alcove where Thes’s body lay.
The flames overhead inched closer, eating through reality with every second. I hoped Connor could do it. I believed Nanashi, but at the same time trusting my fate to Connor seemed crazy. Either way, I was sure he wouldn’t come back, and I knew that was my fault. I knew Thes wouldn’t forgive me, either. This was why he’d been willing to sacrifice me because any moment he was going to wake up and realize what I’d done, and while one day, he’d come back in time and realize this had to be done, that wouldn’t happen for a long while. No, this Thes was going to hate me.
And the sad thing was?
The truly sad thing was if it saved the world…
I’d do it again.
In a heartbeat.
26
As I stared up at the slowly descending wall of fire, my chest began to burn like it was on fire. I grabbed the collar of my fighting suit and pulled the fabric down to get a better look. The spot where Mattoc had burned Apep’s sigil into my flesh was glowing with pale silver light.
I touched it without thinking, and as I did a surge of strength rippled through me. Not a lot, but enough to ease my aching ribs and let me suck in a deep breath. It felt like it’d been forever since I’d done so and something about that simple act cleared my thoughts. I needed to get moving.
Above, the world tree still burned and flames still fell from the sky. While I wasn’t sure if Connor would pull it off, I damned sure didn’t want to get caught in that blaze. It was one thing for them to stop whatever was causing the world to dissolve and quite another to let it dissolve me. Besides, it seemed painful, and if I could avoid it happening, I wanted to do that.
“You awake, Thes?” I asked, glancing at him. His chest was rising and falling too quickly for it to be good. His breaths were far too shallow. Still, I couldn’t leave him here to dissolve. I mean, I knew he survived, but then again, maybe he survived because I didn’t let him get dissolved. Damned time travelers. On that note, who the hell uses a DeLorean to time travel? That car had to be the worst idea in the history of bad ideas.
I shut my eyes and focused for a second. Power surged all around me, whipping itself up into a frenzy as the world came undone. I reached out to it, trying to draw some of it in me. It was hard work, far harder than it should have been. Fire, after all, is destruction, and I was trying to steal its fuel. It was one greedy bastard, but I was Lillim Callina, and I was as stubborn as a half-deaf mule.
My eyes snapped open as a surge of liquid fire filled my veins. I grabbed Thes and threw him over my shoulder in a fireman’s carry before lashing him around me with a harness of pure energy. It was no mean feat because he was like two feet taller than me, and weighed a lot more than I did. All those muscles add up. I was just thankful he wasn’t in wolf form. If he was, I don’t know how I’d have balanced, let alone carried him.
The fire was close enough for me to feel it on my skin. Surprisingly enough, it wasn’t hot, rather it was cold. Like instead of burning everything in its path, it simply leeched everything out of the world. It was like putting my hand next to aching, insatiable hunger and knowing it’d consume me without a second thought.
I grabbed Yggdrasil’s burning roots and began making my way downward. I wasn’t fast, not even close to as quick as the fire. I didn’t know what’d happened to the people above ground, but at the moment, I didn’t care. My only goal was to move as far down the world tree as I could before I was eaten by flames.
As I scrambled downward, gripping the roots with my bare hands, their thin ridges sliced into my palms. My hands started to bleed, but I ignored the pain as best I could. My chest still burned with every breath I took, but just when the pain got too much for me, the sigil on my chest would flare to life. When it happened, it was so bright, it actually shown through the dark material of my fighting suit, which was somewhat nice because it was getting darker.
The flames drew closer, and as they did, they seemed to suck the light from around me rather than cast it in the way fire ought to do. Then again, these weren’t normal flames, and there was nothing I could do but run.
Only, maybe it wasn’t all I could do. Maybe it wasn’t all I could do by a long shot. Something about those flames felt familiar although I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. The sigil on my chest pulsed again, and as I looked down at it, I could almost have sworn I heard Mattoc’s voice.
“Enter the flames. Quell its hunger.”
That didn’t make sense. How could I quell the flames’ hunger? Still, it wasn’t like I had other options. I reached for the power radiating from the sigil. As I did, I felt Mattoc’s hands wrap around mine, felt a burst of confidence fill me. I knew it was impossible. Mattoc had ceased to exist, had sacrificed himself to help me defeat Crom Cruach. Only this felt real. Besides, if I couldn’t trust the voices in my head, who could I trust?
I dropped Thes into the next alcove I found. Then I did what I was told. I leapt into the fire. Hitting it was like cutting open the ice above a glacial lake and leaping inside. It froze me to the core of my being, rent me nearly limb from limb with cold. My flesh began to dissolve, began to come apart, and as it did, the heart of the hunger throbbed like a living breathing thing. It was so empty, so desperate to sate itself that it would consume us all, and the truly sad thing was, it wouldn’t be enough. Not by a frigging longshot.
Even though it was impossible and crazy, I reached out toward that heart of hunger. As my power touched it, I felt it turn to look at me. And I knew it.
This was Ian. We’d only spoken briefly, and he’d barely meant anything at the time. Just another lost soul tormented by too much power and too much responsibility. Only, this was him and Haijiku and the whole of everyone I ever knew. It was everyone all at once and jumbled together and they were hungry. Their power pulled me into them, and as it did, I found myself staring out at oblivion through a pair of eyes that were not my own.
Caleb lay bleeding and broken on the ground of some void plane, some non-place. His blond hair was matted to his scalp with crimson and his eyes were closed.
My heart wrenched. I tried to reach for him, but I couldn’t. This was not my body to control. Still I tried, and still I failed. I had to get to him, to make sure he was okay, and I just couldn’t. An impotent cry tore from my lips as I struggled to help, to do anything, and found myself unable to do anything at all.
Connor stood next to him with the twin blades of Shirajirashii blazing in his hands like the sun and the moon. Apep rose up behind him, adding its power to the force of the destroyer. Set and Isis stood astride him. Them against the world, and it wasn’t enough. At least, not like this.
I stood in front of them in the body of a girl who looked familiar although I couldn’t have told you where I’d seen her. O
nly I knew her power. Ian knew her power. She was a horseman of the apocalypse. She was War, only she was not just War. She was also Death and Conquest and Famine. In this moment, she was everything and everyone. She hungered and in her hunger, she raged.
It was terrifying because she didn’t want this. She was trying to stop it, to quell the hunger, but it was like trying to sweet talk a black hole and knowing it didn’t give a handful of warm shit as to whether or not you lived or died. This was not how the world should end, not at the hands of complete and utter indifference.
“Stop,” Connor said, and as he spoke, the sky came undone in a sea of black flame and ice burst from the ground like a crystalline geyser.
“I’m trying,” War replied and her voice wasn’t just hers. “I can’t.”
I believed her because I was in her. Something was doing this. Something dark and angry. Something that knew only pain. Something that found solace only in death. And not the little death. No, the greedy, end of all things death.
“I know,” Connor replied, shaking his head. “But I had to ask. You always have to ask.”
He drove the twin blades of Shirajirashii into her, and I felt them puncture me. Felt the pain of his power ripple through me. War’s face twisted into a mask of agony as he twisted the swords and spilled her entrails onto the ground.
I felt the greedy death reach out of her as it happened. A tentacle of green lightning grabbed onto something within Connor’s chest and pulled. I think I knew he was dead before he knew he was dead, and the sight of his lifeless body, nearly unmade me. Yes, I’d known he had to die, but I’d expected his death to matter, to change things. Right now, it seemed like Thes was wrong. Connor would die and the world would still end. Connor’s death was less than a footnote in history. How could that be? It wasn’t fair. It shouldn’t cost this much to just be a damned footnote!
As her blood and guts spilled onto her feet, Connor’s lifeless body collapsed backward. His soul writhed in the tentacle’s grip, struggling for all the good it would do. Green veins wriggled up across Connor’s soul, and I realized the greedy death was trying to absorb him, absorb the destroyer. I wasn’t sure if that was possible.
“No!” I cried and Shirajirashii pulsed within War’s torso. I wasn’t sure how, but I could feel them, could feel them struggling. They blazed, still sunk deep within her, still crackling with energy.
Connor’s soul started to dissolve, and as it did, I reached out for my swords. They were mine, and I would wield them. Energy surged around me, suddenly hostile and angry. I felt it pushing on me, thrusting me forward.
War’s hands fell to the hilts of the swords. The air around me sizzled as I touched Shirajirashii with her hands, and instead of jerking the twin blades of Shirajirashii free, I drove them deeper into her. The sigils along the swords blazed white hot, burning through her flesh and casting a blazing ouroboros onto the horseman.
“I won’t ask you to stop,” I said, pulling all the godly might I could through those weapons and unleashed it at her. Shirajirashii shattered, unleashing everything in a catastrophic explosion. The blast caught her full on, flinging her backward in a spray of gore, but it had been enough to get Connor free. His soul slipped from the tentacle’s clutches as she toppled to the ground.
Connor’s soul flitted through the air for a split second before diving straight into her. It hit her center mass, driving her deep into the white of the void. Then I was falling away.
“Connor!” I cried as the white shattered, melting away like sheets of ice in an inferno. The world lay behind it, fresh and new, and yet old and familiar.
“It’s done,” Thes said from behind me, and as I turned toward him, I realized I was back in the alcove where I’d leapt into the flames. Only this wasn’t the unconscious Thes. No, this was jerk-face toga Thes. “I’m not sure how you did it.” He took a deep breath. “But I’m glad you did.”
“What do you mean it’s done?” I asked, but before he could respond, I saw the white all-consuming fire that had shrouded the whole of the planet lift from the horizon. I saw everything returning back to how it had been, and while I couldn’t have said how I knew it to be true, I knew everything was going to be okay.
Well, maybe not okay, but at least how it was before the entire world had turned to ash. We had won. A costly victory, sure, but a victory nonetheless. So why didn’t it feel like one? I almost asked future Thes, but as I turned my gaze back to him, I realized he was gone.
27
“If I said everything was fine, would you believe me?” I asked Thes as he got slowly to his feet and rubbed his head.
Truth be told, I was dying. I knew that. I could feel my body shutting down. Call me selfish, but if I was going to die, I wanted to draw it out a little longer.
I barely had the energy to sit here with my eyes open, and soon, I probably wouldn’t be able to do that.
“No,” Thes replied, still trying to shake the cobwebs out of his brain. “Where’s Connor?”
“Dead.” There was no use sugar-coating it, and this was what he’d wanted. He didn’t know that, and everything inside me was scared he’d hate me, but I had to let him know, if only so his future self would know too. “He sacrificed himself to stop Death from melting the world.” I took a deep breath. “He died a hero.”
“He wasn’t supposed to die at all,” Thes growled, taking an angry step toward me like he could bring Connor back to life by beating me with his fists. He couldn’t, but I might let him try if it’d make him feel better. I was going to die anyway. It could be my parting gift to him. After all, we’d saved the world. I was fine dying for that.
Part of it was that I sort of felt like I’d served my purpose. After all, I’d been brought back because Dirge had been a hero and I’d never quite felt like I’d lived up to what she had been. Now, I didn’t feel that way. I felt like I’d earned my life, like I’d made something of it. Yes, it had been shorter than I’d liked, but at the same time, I’d done my duty. I’d made the hard sacrifice, and I liked to think Dirge would be proud to have come back as me.
“Yeah, he was.” I sighed, wondering just how much to tell him or if it’d do any good. Something told me I should just save my breath. Only, I needed to tell someone. It might as well be him. “I’m going to let you in on a secret, Thes.”
Thes looked angry enough, that for a second, I thought he might grab me by the throat and throw me into the abyss. I probably wouldn’t have stopped him. I mean, what I’d done was horrible. I’d lied and promised things to Connor to get him to sacrifice himself. It was made worse because I didn’t even know if Caleb was alive. The last thing he’d seen me do was kiss Connor. God, I was despicable.
“What secret?” he asked, shutting his eyes and visibly calming himself. I wasn’t sure how he managed to do it since he was a werewolf and they were notorious for the whole “berserker rage” thing, but then again, Thes had always been a remarkably calm werewolf.
“You told me to do it.” I sighed, not able to look at him as I continued because I was every kind of coward. I wasn’t telling him for him. No, I was doing it for me. I knew that, and I went on anyway. “You may not believe me, Thes, but you came from the future and told me how it had to be. You told me you spent years trying to find a way to bring him back, but that Connor’s death was the lynchpin. It was him or the universe.”
“Then I was wrong,” Thes snarled. He was so close to me I could feel the heat radiating off of him. He was mad at me, and that was okay, but being mad at me wouldn’t make it less true. I just wasn’t sure I knew how to explain that to him.
“You weren’t,” I said, turning my gaze upon him. The tears in his eyes hurt me more than any physical blow ever could have. Thes had sacrificed so much to save Connor, and in the end, he couldn’t. I saw that realization hit him, saw him wallow at the end of a life-altering depression that would drive him to become his guilty future self.
“You don’t know that.” He tried to smile, failed, and
hit his chest anyway. “I’m a fool. What do I know?”
“More than you know,” I replied, reaching out and taking his hand. He didn’t pull it away which was somewhat surprising. “Right now you’re thinking, I went to Egypt and made Connor into the destroyer. If I hadn’t done that, well, maybe he’d be alive. He wouldn’t be, Thes. None of us would be because at the end of the day, we needed Connor, not the destroyer, to win. We needed someone who could hold all the power of the universe in his hand and decide he was still going to do the right thing. Only Connor could do that, Thes. So, no, you did do the right thing even if it doesn’t feel like it.”
“Why are you holding my hand, Lillim?” he asked, and the hostility in his voice radiated along my skin. Hadn’t he heard a single thing I’d said? It seemed like he should have, but if he had, he didn’t seem to care much about it. That was too bad, I hoped that when he replayed this conversation in his head later, he wouldn’t be guilty. After all, I had way better people to haunt than him.
“Because I think I’m going to die.” I wiped my lips with the back of my free hand, and they came away red. I showed it to him. “Because my vision is fading to black, and I don’t want to go into that great beyond alone. I know you don’t care, and let’s be real, you’re not my first choice.” I tried to smile, but failed. “But you’re not my last choice either.”
“Lillim,” he said, only it wasn’t his voice. At least, it didn’t sound like him, and it was coming from behind me. “I’m not letting you die.”
I turned toward the sound of it, and as I did, I felt the pulse of magic on Mattoc’s brand. It pushed back the darkness encroaching on my vision, and for a split second, for a tiny, nearly unfathomable length of time, I felt Mattoc’s touch on my hand instead of Thes’s.
Now, I know that’s not possible. I know Mattoc is gone. He wasn’t dead in the way my mom was dead. He wasn’t waiting around in Hades or Valhalla or wherever the heck he was supposed to go when he died. No, Mattoc had been erased from existence. He couldn’t talk to me.
Fatal Ties: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Lillim Callina Chronicles Book 7) Page 17