by Cate Morgan
It was her turn to catch her breath now. His full mouth was firm against hers, questioning. She felt the crease of his lip scar as she opened her mouth beneath his.
He groaned low, deepening the kiss until his hands were entangled almost painfully in her hair. She caught up against the roof ledge balance and ended up pulling him almost on top of her.
“Took you long enough,” an amused voice said behind them.
They sprung apart, turning. Mairya shifted her sparking, laughing gaze between them.
“The sword has been found,” she continued softly. “Desmond is there now, borrowing power from Lillith so he might handle the blade long enough to get it properly contained. He’ll take it to the Crypte, and summon the All-Mother there.”
Cara switched gears in a blink. Well, maybe two blinks—Alex’s intensity had made her a little dizzy. “Then there’s no time to lose.”
She slipped from Alex’s grip and stepped up onto the cornice. The world opened up beneath her, and a moment later she dropped expertly into between. A moment later she landed on the pavement, knees bending. She looked up, behind her, just as Alex swung out into open space and plummeted after her.
Alex moved to follow in Cara’s footsteps, his blood still buzzing with the feel of her in his arms, the heart-stopping, and then pounding, wonder of her mouth and body softening against his, pliant as melting wax. Interesting, that his demon tracked her as anxiously as he.
Before he could climb up onto the roof’s edge, however, Mairya halted him with a hand against his chest. “You need to prepare yourself.”
Alex studied her face. For all the good it did. “For what?”
“This is the fight of her life.” She stepped aside with reluctance. “And it just might be her last.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Mairya’s words remained with Alex as he followed Cara down into the catacombs. They echoed, over and over again, in his mind until he began to wonder why they did not ring from the walls.
Walls largely made of bone.
Lots, and lots of bone.
Had he mentioned creepy?
Cara’s voice reached out in the dark--cool, calm. Soft as a wool blanket on a dark winter’s night. He latched onto it like a lifeline.
“When Brendan and I first came to Paris,” she began, “this whole place was overrun with Carrion. We’d no idea where they all came from. It’s not as though they breed or anything.”
He knew from Andreas that Carrion demon took the human form of those who’d scavenged the dead and dying of battlefields. They were attracted to shiny objects, like a more insidious form of magpie, and could only be killed with pure light.
“You think Lilith unleashed them?” he asked, when she seemed to be waiting for a response.
“Probably,” she replied agreeably, as though they were discussing the weather. “Anyway, it was an effective training ground. And it gave me a routine to hold onto, after.”
“After” meaning “after the war”. He knew all about “before the war” and “after the war”.
He asked anyway. “So, what? You fitted in ‘demon slaying’ somewhere between lunch and doing the laundry?”
“Something like that.” She sounded like she was suppressing her amusement. “Point being, it also gave Brendan a chance to map out the catacombs. Some areas were destroyed during the fighting. Later, as refugees flooded Paris, walls were knocked down to make room for them all. Things got moved around, relics scavenged for money or faith. People went a little mad, in the end.”
And wasn’t that just the understatement of understatements?
“Did Brendan know how Michael’s sword got to Paris in the first place?” he asked, to keep the conversation going. He realized this was Cara’s purpose--to take his mind off his environment and resultant, bleeding panic. Gratitude flooded him.
“He reckoned it was hidden in the Holy Land during the Crusades by the Templars and brought back when their order was disbanded. It went missing more than once over the centuries, but he eventually tracked it here.”
Alex did the math. “The catacombs weren’t built until much later--late eighteenth century, right?”
He discerned her nod in the bobbing globe emitted by her flashlight. “Before that they were a network of ancient mines and quarries that stretched beneath the city. Before that the city proper was moved from the Left Bank to the Right, and Brendan guessed the sword might have been hidden at that time.”
It clicked. “Stone masons and Templars,” he murmured.
“That was theory, anyway.” She paused at an intersection of tunnels, a crossroads of sorts, examining the map they’d brought with them. She fumbled a bit to open Brendan’s journal.
Alex came up beside her to hold the flashlight. “Here, let me.”
“Thanks.” She flipped through the journal pages, bracing the book in the crook of her arm when she found what she needed. She then placed the folded map on the opposite page. “Does that look about right to you?”
Alex looked over her shoulder, a loose strand of her silky hair tickling his cheek.
“Hard to tell,” he said, cocking his head to one side. “About as many buildings were destroyed due to cave-ins as from outright fighting. Haven’t you been all through here before?”
“Yes, but I’ve never considered them through Brendan’s point of view before. He was looking for the sword, I was hunting demons.”
“And I try to stay out of here as much as possible,” he concluded with a wry smile. “Lead on, Keeper.”
She snapped the journal shut over the map as a placeholder and took her flashlight back. She pointed it down each corridor in turn before deciding on one. “This way, I think.”
They followed the bone-filled tunnels for a time, Cara always choosing a route that turned them toward the center of the city.
Suddenly she increased her pace, her breathing changing in that narrow, dark space. The light from her flashlight flashed past gaping skulls and tightly packed long bones as he hurried to keep up. Soon she was running, as he loped along in her wake.
She turned so sharply he nearly missed a step. He shuddered as he braced a hand against an ancient femur. His mind skittered back in self defense.
As a result, he nearly barrelled headlong into her on the other side of the corner. She stood before a literal mound of skulls that appeared as though it had once been part of the wall.
“This should be blocked off,” she said quietly. “It looks like someone opened a path to cut across here.”
Alex looked through the opening. “I take it this wasn’t here before?”
She shook her head. “I think…”
She didn’t finish her thought, however. Instead she clambered over the skulls, bracing her hands on either side of the opening with apparent unconcern. Alex gritted his teeth and followed.
Into the belly of the beast, and all that.
Cara’s heart thundered, slamming against her chest until she was short of breath. There was something here she hadn’t sensed before, not since the day she’d lost half her unit in an ambush that had come from literally nowhere. It had been her first encounter with demons, and Brighid.
The feeling increased, of pressure closing in on her, stifling her movements and thoughts. She pushed through, coming to realize it was a physical barrier she struggled against. She heard Alex’s harsh breathing behind her, felt the rhythmic fall of his boots as her senses intensified.
Deeper and deeper into the labyrinth she went, into its lost, forgotten heart. The sweat prickling on her skin turned cold and clammy as the walls. She slowed as a stray draft blew over her cheeks, beckoning her forward. She held her palm out behind her to slow Alex’s progress, and handed him the flashlight. Then she drew her sword.
Heel to toe, heel to toe, as her hold on the familiar leather-bound grip tightened. Another wall had tumbled to its component bits, and then been pulled apart to reveal the cavern beyond.
Low ceiling, no light except for that
produced by the flashlight. An echoing drip somewhere in the ceiling the only sound other than her hard exhales and those of Alex behind her. She swallowed, seeking to soothe the beating of her heart. To enter that strange juxtaposition of awareness and calm. The place of a soldier.
Two large pillars bolstered the ceiling with seeming implacable strength. A solid wall of skulls lay beyond, its empty eyes sockets staring at them expectantly. And there, on its side, as though it were of no account, lay a stone basin.
Cara sheathed her sword and approached it carefully. She knew without a doubt that this was what she’d been meant to find. Not Michael’s sword, but this simple and rather innocuous combination of pedestal and bowl. Chipped, shoved aside as unimportant.
A heavy, resonant sense of the future coursed through her as she bent to lift it upright. She felt a compelling, if strange, need to offer it comfort. She ran her palms over its rough stone rim, knowing it was more than it appeared.
It seemed to be waiting for her.
“What is it?” Alex asked in a hushed voice.
“The Sepulchral Lamp,” she said, smiling a little in wonder. “The quarriers who built this place supposedly used it for airflow and light. But it’s far more than that.”
“Stone masons and Templars again,” he said, on a small huff.
“There were Celts in France before there were Romans.” She beckoned. “Got the water?”
He handed the canteen over. “What are you going to do?”
“Light it, of course.” She emptied the container, watching the steady glug of water first soak the stone, then fill the bottom of the basin. She handed the canteen back. “Stand back. I don’t know if this will work, or what will happen when it does.”
She waited for him to retreat back into the shadows, until she could almost believe she was alone. She gripped the basin on either side and gazed down into the clear liquid. She found that kernel of light, that small flickering flame that had been a part of her since that day. The part that had been fighting to come alive since her dream.
“Brighid,” she breathed. “I am here.”
Nothing, at first.
Then, a slight, almost indiscernible dip in the water that sent little ripples across the surface. The light within her grew a little warmer, but wasn’t quite enough.
She pulled her sword free of its sheath, and ran the edge lightly against her left palm. “Take my heart’s blood,” she said in Irish, “and know me for what I am.”
She squeezed her fist over the water. All it took was a single drop of blood for the flame inside her to translate to light in the basin. The initial flash lit the whole cavern in light so pure it was tinged with blue.
Alex approached, staring. “How long will the light last?”
Cara watched the steady flame. “I don’t know. As long as it needs to, I suppose. Perhaps longer. But only Brighid can make it everlasting.” She put her sword away once more, but didn’t avert her gaze. “I vowed once that I would protect this city,” she said, almost to herself. Perhaps to Brighid, in the hopes that she might hear her. “I vow it again.”
She opened her palm. As she and Alex watched, the shallow cut healed between one blink and the next. She took it to be as a blessing, a sign that Brighid had indeed accepted her little prayer. She felt pride, and hope. Determination to succeed.
“Let’s go,” she said, turning to follow the path set out before them.
Alex’s mind continued to tick over as he followed Cara through the serpentine passageways, his claustrophobia reduced to a pronounced but manageable level of discomfort tightening his chest. Solving puzzles had always helped to distract his mind from his surroundings, which perhaps explained why he’d been so good at his job.
So Andreas’ men hadn’t known what they’d had when they found Michael’s sword. In their excitement they’d missed the implications of something as the sword itself. Of the apparent alliance of powers centuries old, to hold against this day.
Brendan had been an angel, in search of Michael’s sword. The sword another angel--perhaps even Michael himself--had hidden, with the help of...what? Another Keeper of the Flame? Brighid herself? And Brendan had prudently recruited Cara to his cause?
“Hang on a sec.” Alex hurried to catch up to Cara, capturing her hand to slow her progress. “So angels and these Tuatha have been allies for all this time?”
“Seems so.” In the glow of the flashlight her eyes had taken on a hint of that lightning blue he’d seen in them the night he’d chased her into between. He was tempted to switch off the light to see if he could still discern their odd luminescence in complete darkness. “It’s not like Heaven keeps detailed written records.”
But they’d been preparing for this conflict since Lucifer first fell. The experiment that was humanity was about to come to a very violent head.
Time didn’t work the same for angels, and Lucifer, first and foremost, had been an angel.
“But the Celts did, didn’t they?” he said slowly, and she smiled.
“Famous for it. The Book of Invasions, The Book of Kells…” she stopped and shook her head. “Brendan was a scribe at the time. And he’d been keeping track of the sword since the beginning.”
“He must have traced your bloodline, too. He knew it was you who would be here, even if he didn’t know exactly why. Then he put the pieces together, and found you. Trained you. But didn’t tell you why?”
“As far as I’ve worked out, that about sums it up.” She sighed and shook her head, her gaze taking on a distant look. “They’re not supposed to interfere, you see--free will, and all that. It’s a prime directive of some sort. So he did what he could, gave me the tools I needed to figure it all out.”
Still seemed harsh. “He really expected you to defeat Lilith?”
“After a fashion,” she said, her smile hesitant now. She tugged gently at his hand, which he’d still been holding. “We have to hurry.”
“Do we have a plan?” he asked, falling into step behind her once more. “Please tell me it doesn’t amount to crashing a summoning ceremony with the All-Mother of demon kind.”
The now familiar rustle of thick fabric snapping in a stiff wind sounded behind them. They turned to find Mairya leaning against a bone wall with her arms crossed and a faint smile. “Funny you should ask,” she said.
Of course. Neither he nor Cara could handle Michael’s sword--but the Angel of Death should have no trouble.
Still… “Tell me you’re here to deal with Andreas,” Alex greeted her between clenched teeth.
“Vengeance is not mine, children,” she answered, in the tone of a parent mildly disappointed in their progeny. “Nor is it yours.”
Alex turned to Cara. “Seriously?”
Her lips pressed thin. “He killed Brendan,” she agreed. “But personal isn’t the same as important. He taught me that.”
He stared, marveling. His inner demon growled, but she simply gazed back. Hurt, but accepting.
“Do you honestly think he’s not damned one way or the other, Alex?” she added softly.
He relented. After all, his personal betrayal, and that of Cara, looked petty in light of imminent apocalypse. “I suppose you’re right.”
Mairya nodded, and came forward to take Cara’s hands in hers. “How do you want to play this, my dear?”
Cara stared. “You’re asking me? You’re the Angel of Death.”
“And this is your destiny,” Mairya pointed out. “Your choice. I promised Brendan I would look after you. But you are the champion, something even I have never been.”
She looked at Alex, no longer as confident as she’d been up to now. Only then did he realize just how much she was struggling.
He came forward and took one of her hands from Mairya, squeezing to offer assurance. “What do you need?”
She bowed her head, her eyes closed. “The important thing is the sword,” she murmured, as though to herself. “Nothing else matters.”
After a time, she l
ifted her head. Her eyes had turned to moon-bright steel. “Alright. I know what to do.”
The Crypte Archeologie was tucked snugly beneath the square that fronted Notre Dame. It had originally been meant to showcase archeological discoveries made in the previous century, proudly displaying Paris in the ages that had come before.
In other words, it was a perfect setting to engage in an apocalyptic summoning of absolute evil, the likes of which man was not meant to tinker. Which, of course, had never stopped them before.
Cara, in that long moment when Mairya and Alex offered their support, accepted her fate in whatever capacity it presented itself. That was part of the deal, the price of power. Ascension was inevitable--survival another matter entirely.
She would give the city everything she had. She could only hope it would be enough.
“Distract Andreas,” she told Alex.
“What are you going to do?” he’d asked.
“Suppress the summoning so Mairya can retrieve the sword.” She paused. “Alex, Lilith might take control over the demon inside you. If I screw this up…”
He swallowed, and nodded. “Don’t worry about me. Just do what you have to do.”
They crept up through the eerie old exhibitions that had long fallen to disuse. It was sad, in the way that abandoned libraries and schools were--without the hum of daily activity the place lost its energy, like a slowly fading sun.
Cara just stopped herself counting her steps. It would be too easy, to get lost in what might be instead of focusing on the present. On the mission.
A member of her unit had been a sniper. Welsh and funny, tone deaf in a culture known for their stunning music. But the laughter hid the pain of the well and truly haunted. He’d once spent three days straight in sleeting rain with his eye unwavering from his target. The day before he’d died in that final attack, she’d asked him how he did it. Where the patience came from, the surety of purpose.
“You make up stories.”
“Stories?”