5.0 - Light Of The Stygian Orb

by Krista Walsh

  Zach stared at Daphne over Molly’s head, confused and alarmed by the development of having a teenage girl draped around his neck.

  The sorceress was no help at all as she covered her smile with her hand and turned toward Denise.

  The nurse appeared equally amused, though also exhausted and covered in blood.

  At the reminder of what his body had been through, sensation began to return to his skin as the last of his scales faded, leaving him cold. The sharp pangs in his lower back jerked him out of his hunch, and Molly pulled away.

  “Did I hurt you?” she asked.

  “Nah, kid. I’m just broken, that’s all.”

  “That makes two of us,” she said, and the smile she gave him removed a bit more of the tightness between his shoulders.

  He stretched out his back. The skin still ached where the feather and bone of his wings had been consumed in the fire of his energy, right before the rest of his power had washed away, ebbing back into his veins.

  He rubbed his arm where he’d been hit. The spell hadn’t been strong enough to pierce through the scales, but it had been enough to distract him. Enough for Lozak to get away.

  And now the demon was free to continue his reign of terror, working toward whatever Mayzell Industries hoped to achieve. The idea was enough to twist Zach’s guts into knots.

  But he also sensed the new strength in his blood — not the divided angel-versus-demon strength he’d always drawn from, but the combined force. A dangerous force if he dug too deeply, that much he’d already learned, but it would give him an advantage the next time he faced Lozak.

  And he would face him again, that much was a guarantee.

  The orb burned through the cloth in his palm, and he let it fall to the floor, not wanting it within ten feet of him. Whatever Karl wanted it for, Zach would ensure he never got his hands on it. Whatever the demons were planning, whatever reasons they had to build an army, he would do what he could to stop them.

  His skin prickled with the desire to wrap his hands around Lozak’s neck and throw him back into the otherworldly Tartarus prison where he belonged, chained to stone until death claimed him. Had he escaped? It shouldn’t have been possible.

  “Did you catch the license plate number of that car as it drove away?” he asked Daphne. Lozak’s lackeys had been taken care of, but Zach doubted it would take long for them to be replaced. Demons looking to kick ass for mediocre pay were easy to come by.

  “Enough to take to my contact in the DMV,” Daphne said. “Don’t worry. We’re going to find out who the asshole was who was lurking in there.”

  Zach brought the car to mind. A black limousine, as clichéd a vehicle as you could get for shady dealings. When Lozak had thrown himself through the open back door, Zach had caught sight of someone else sitting within. Someone waiting to see how the fight played out.

  Karl?

  No. Zach suspected the Topan demon was a small fish in whatever racket Mayzell Industries had going on. Karl would have been waiting outside the car, ready to jump into the fight to weigh down the balance if it had come to it. This person had remained hands off. An observer only. Whoever was in that car had been near the top, if not the top itself. And what had this person learned by watching them? Zach didn’t want to guess. He figured he’d find out soon enough how his great reveal might come back to haunt him.

  He growled, then drew back when Daphne called his name. He stared down at his hands to find the scales had returned, wrapped in that pure white light that hurt his eyes.

  He let his questions go and stood up, too full of energy to remain in one place. As he squeezed and released his fists, he felt his calm returning. The scales faded and the light died away, leaving the room bright with only the faint glow of the afternoon sun.

  As though his movement had dispersed the tension keeping everyone still, Denise wiped her hands on the towel she was holding.

  “I should get going. The kids were really looking forward to this barbecue. They’ve been wearing their costumes all morning.”

  Daphne looked at her watch and swore. She offered her friend an apologetic glance. “It’s not that much later than planned.”

  “No, we’ll get them to Cheryl’s in time for dinner, I’m sure. And Bob can stay there with them when I go off to work.” Her eyes narrowed in Daphne’s direction. “In three hours.”

  “Thank you for helping me,” Zach said. He’d offered so much gratitude in the last couple of days, he was starting to get used to it. Maybe that wasn’t the worst thing in the world.

  Denise smiled, the corners of her eyes creasing, and tossed the towel down on top of the blood-stained sheets. “I might curse and swear like a sailor whenever Daphne calls me these days, but I can’t deny I enjoy the way these adventures shake up my day. They make my shifts at work seem like a vacation by comparison. Thanks for not killing me, by the way.”

  Zach grunted, certain there was only so much jesting in her words.

  Daphne chewed on the outside of her thumbnail. “Careful on your way out. There are, um, bodies. Kind of all over the place.”

  Denise’s hands dropped by her side, and her eyes rolled skyward. “Let me guess.”

  “Would it be possible?”

  “I work until six tomorrow morning. Better not wait so long to drop by this time.”

  “Thank you, D. I owe —”

  “Don’t say it,” Denise said, shaking her head. “You really don’t. I’m glad I was able to do some good. Although I think it was Emmett over there who saved the day.”

  When all eyes turned toward the lanky teen, he flushed and looked anywhere but at them.

  “What did Emmett do?” Molly asked. Zach noted the interest in her tone and wondered what he’d missed while he’d been almost dead.

  “Nothing,” Emmett rushed to say. “At least, I don’t think I did. I just found this sphere thing in his pocket.” He bent down to grab the orb off the floor. In his hand, it didn’t respond the way it had done for Daphne and Molly. No magic ran in this kid’s veins. “Do you guys want it?”

  Molly, Daphne, and Zach instinctively took a step back.

  “Where’s the box?” Molly asked.

  “It’s in my car,” Daphne said. “Emmett, you can just hang on to that for now, and I’ll grab it on our way out.”

  “Are you going to destroy it?” Emmett asked.

  Daphne winced. “It’s probably not the worst idea, but somehow I don’t think I could bring myself to do it. It’s…well, it’s a relic. I don’t feel that I have the authority to get rid of it. Zach?”

  He frowned. Both sides of the argument weighed him down, but a louder voice told him it would be safer to hang on to it. They didn’t know if it might serve to bind their enemy’s strength if the demons came after them again. Apparently his angelic brain hadn’t regressed as much as he’d thought it had.

  “Might as well make sure it stays safe,” he said.

  “I’ll keep it,” said Molly.

  The suddenness of the offer made Zach raise an eyebrow. “Is that a good idea? You know what it did to you.”

  “If it’s in the box, it shouldn’t affect me, right? I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to keep it. If they come after you again, they might find you and the orb in the same place. It’s smarter to split you up.”

  Zach and Daphne exchanged a look, and the sorceress shrugged.

  “Fine,” Zach conceded, but he didn’t like it. He didn’t want Molly any more involved than she already was, and if Karl discovered she had the orb…

  He pushed the thought away. He would be watching her closely after this fiasco anyway. They wouldn’t get anywhere near her.

  Molly’s brow furrowed. “Did you ever come up with a good theory about why they wanted this thing? Daphne told me what she learned about it, how it’s some tool that’s supposed to make the gods mortal, or the otherworldly human, but why would some sort of supernatural criminal mastermind want to turn human? You’d think the goal would be
to destroy it. Or find a way to use it on any otherworldly beings that don’t toe the line.”

  Emmett held the orb into the light streaming through the window. Gold and red reflections spilled over the floor like diamonds. Dusty came out of hiding to chase the shifting colors, pouncing on them and getting confused when she came away without a prize.

  Zach eyed the glass sphere in Emmett’s hand, hating that such a small item held such mysterious appeal for the wrong people.

  Dusty soon grew bored and brushed against Zach’s leg. Zach scooped her up in the palm of his hand, appreciating how much weight she’d gained in the last week. Molly’s meals had done her some good.

  “And it’s not just the orb we need to worry about,” Daphne said. “They’re after Zach’s guardian blood as well.”

  “What if they found a way to harness the orb’s power?” said Zach. “If they’re trying to build an army, then that means they have enemies they want to destroy. They would have fewer losses if the enemy was stripped of their otherworldly energy. Left at the mercy of the soldiers.”

  His insides churned as the scene played out in his head — thousands of warriors created with the DNA of multiple demons being sent out against the masses who stood powerless against them. It would be more than a massacre. It would be complete annihilation.

  “Okay, what is up with these guardians?” Denise asked, then she threw up her hands. “Never mind, tell me later. I really need to leave. I have so many questions that if I start to ask them, I’m never getting out of here. See you later, Daph.”

  She quickly kissed Daphne’s cheek, waved at the others, and left, letting the door close behind her. A moment later, a sharp squeal drifted toward them from the hallway. Zach suppressed a smirk at her expense, picturing the nurse stumbling upon the demon corpses, but Daphne didn’t bother hiding her amusement. Apparently the sorceress got a kick out of seeing her friends exposed to the otherworld.

  Although he’d wrangled his angelic side under control, part of him still wondered if she was going to be a problem because of that. She caught his eye, and her smile faded.

  He made the decision to let it go for now, but he’d keep a careful eye on her. It wouldn’t be good if she tried to make up for her magic addiction by stepping too far beyond a different set of boundaries.

  “What’s this about guardians?” Molly asked once the side door closed.

  Zach explained what the Collegiate had told him, including their mention of the book the demons had got their hands on.

  “I’ve never heard of it,” Daphne said.

  “Neither had I, but apparently it contains the DNA codes of all the species that have crossed into this dimension since the barrier opened, as well as the steps to combine them into a new species.” He snarled. “They hinted that someone voluntarily handed it over.”

  Daphne frowned. “Why would they mention something like that?”

  Zach remembered the context in which those women had told him about the book. How they’d found him because the person who had possessed the text had been in the locked room with him. He stared at Daphne, thinking, not for the first time, how strange it was that she had so suddenly come back into their lives. As though the ties that had been created in that magically sealed room had never been cut.

  “Perhaps because it’s someone the three of us know.”

  Daphne stiffened. “You can’t be serious. Who would do that?”

  Zach considered all the other beings who had sat around the table with them on that day. It would make sense for it to be the bookseller, but just because she sold books didn’t mean she’d possessed the one the demons needed. It could have been any of them. Even Daphne, no matter how surprised she appeared.

  “I don’t know, but they’d better hope I don’t find out.”

  “Something tells me that if Lozak’s got that book, your blood would have just been a bonus,” Molly said.

  As she moved around her crate, her legs wobbled, and Zach regretted that he hadn’t thought about the toll the fight might have taken on her, being too caught up in his own problems and the threat bearing down on them. He tensed when she stumbled, her knee giving out, but Emmett jumped to her side to catch her elbow before she fell.

  Zach frowned. She could have caught herself. She didn’t need this scrawny kid helping her.

  But instead of telling him off for coddling her, she smiled at him. Zach rolled his eyes and turned his attention to Daphne.

  “Molly’s right,” he said. “The Collegiate said the same thing. I don’t think we’re going to have a lot of time to figure out what they’re doing.”

  The sorceress raised an eyebrow. “It sounds like these professors are already looking into it. Are you sure you want to interfere with however they plan to take these guys down?”

  Zach considered her point. The Collegiate had come here to get him to run, not to ask him for help. He didn’t need to butt in. He could take off today and vanish from Karl’s radar. He doubted it would make much of a difference, as Molly said, but it would be an excuse not to get involved. To remain detached from this world he was forced to live in.

  But something in him had awakened during his brush with death. The combining of his power had given him a new purpose, suddenly making sense of all the desires he’d carried with him. He still had no interest in being out in the public eye and no intention of playing superhero, but he was filled with the need to act. To step up and do what his newly discovered angelic side was born to do: dispense justice. With practice and focus, his demon side would serve as a counterweight, keeping him from going as far as he’d gone today. He wanted to do what he could to keep the otherworld safe, even if that didn’t mean keeping it secret. And the first step would be taking down Karl and his bosses.

  The revelation the Collegiate had shared with him rose to the surface of his mind, a truth that had been lurking in his thoughts since he’d first gone out to face the demons. He had been created to become one of them. If his power had come through from the start, as his creators had intended, he wouldn’t be standing here with Daphne and Molly — he would be one among thousands trying to kill them.

  The idea left a sour taste in this mouth. The shock when the Collegiate had first told him had been strong enough, but now that he’d experienced how his full power felt, he couldn’t imagine what the world would look like if Karl’s bosses succeeded. There would be nothing to stand in their way. The world would be destroyed.

  But he could still stand against them. Be the chink in their chain. They’d made a mistake in not getting rid of him when they’d had a chance, and now he would make them regret their failure. Yes, he wanted to save the otherworld, but he also had a personal score to settle.

  “I don’t want to leave this with anyone else,” he answered Daphne. “If these demons are going to be stopped, I want to be the one to tear them apart.”

  Molly gripped her bow in her hand. “And I’ll be there to help you.” At everyone’s silence, she stepped forward. “You can try to stop me, but if you think that’s going to work, then you’ve learned nothing over the last couple of days. I’m in this now. I’m invested. I can do an internet search just as well as either of you, so I’ll keep working on my own if you don’t include me in whatever you find out.”

  Zach swallowed a groan. He hated that she meant every word.

  Before he could say anything, her cellphone rang. Groaning, she reached into her pocket and answered it.

  “Hel — mom, calm down. I’m fine…I’m just out with a friend…I know, I should have left you a message. I’m sorry…Yes, all right, I’m on my way home.”

  She ended the call and slouched her shoulders. “I guess I should get going.”

  “Do you want a lift?” Emmett asked, to Zach’s chagrin.

  “That would be awesome.” Molly fingered her torn and bloody shirt and ran her hand over her blood-soaked pants. “Although I’m not looking forward to going home like this.”

  Daphne shoved her han
ds through her hair. “Head back to my place first,” she said. “Emmett, take her to Mom. She’ll make sure you’re cleaned up before you go home, Molly. I’ll call her so she knows to expect you.”

  Molly’s cheeks flushed. “Thank you.”

  “No problem. Zach’s desire to kill us all might have been rash, but he wasn’t wrong. We need to do what we can to keep our secrets. And to watch out for each other.”

  The girl’s face lit up as though Daphne had spoken some magic words. Which, for Molly, Zach supposed they were.

  “Don’t forget to grab your arrows on your way out,” he said. He paused, then added, “Take care of yourself, kid.”

  Molly turned her head over her shoulder to face him as she headed toward the door. “I brought some sandwiches for you and Dusty. They’re in Daphne’s car.”

  “I’ll make sure he gets them,” Daphne said. “Don’t forget your case.”

  Emmett offered his arm, which Molly accepted, and they disappeared into the boiler room.

  Dusty jumped down from Zach’s arm and went over to sniff around the blankets, which were covered in blood.

  “You’ll need to do some renovating,” Daphne said, looking around.

  Zach grunted as he considered the broken support beams, the hole in the floor, and whatever other damage the demons had likely caused around his emergency exit.

  “Most of my traps have been destroyed, so I don’t think there’s much point in sticking around,” he said. “I guess I’m off to find somewhere new to stay.”

  “I wish I had a place to offer you. Unfortunately, we already have an ogre living in our basement.” She jerked her head toward the door, and he realized she was speaking of Emmett.

  His narrowed his eyes at her. “He a good kid?”

  Daphne laughed and scratched the back of her neck. “That’s a loaded question. He’s a complicated kid, but who isn’t at seventeen? He’s made some mistakes, no doubt he’ll make a thousand more, but yeah, he’s a good guy. Don’t worry, he won’t get Molly into any trouble.” She frowned. “Hopefully. I really hope he returns that van right away.” Zach grumbled, but fell silent when Daphne winked. Then her smile vanished as she turned to stare out the window. “I’m not looking forward to what’s coming, Zach.”