by R. K. Ryals
"This isn't about you and me anymore. It isn't about Lilith's desire to see me rule. It isn't even about getting us unbound. Lucifer is involved now. He has power surpassed only by God. And the Earth is his playing field. He can possess any human or Demon. And he will use me. They will use me." Marcas looked away a moment, his eyes searching the skies before meeting my gaze again. "I will be forced to kill. Not only you, but everyone with us. Do you understand?"
I was frozen, my limbs numb. I knew what he was saying. I understood him perfectly. Satan was now involved, had been made aware of our power, had been made aware of Marcas' betrayal. And he would possess Marcas, would control him to get what he desired. But I refused to promise to trap Marcas. I wouldn't do it.
"Why hasn't he possessed you already then?"
It was a reasonable question that I was pretty sure I already knew the answer to, but I was desperately hoping I was wrong.
"You know why, Blainey. I see it in your eyes. He can't possess me while I'm bound to an Angel. As long as we are bound, he can do nothing."
I felt all of the oxygen in my body leave in one big "whoosh." I had known the Seal would cause a quandary. But I had never considered anything beyond the fact that it could kill me. I hadn't considered what being unbound would do to Marcas.
When had things gotten so complicated? In Italy, it had only been about getting unbound with the nasty possibility that the ring could kill me and trap Marcas in the process. In Egypt, it had been decided that Sophia would place the ring on my finger and that Lucas would return me to my father because even unbound I was in danger. But then . . . Marcas and my powers had grown stronger, the bond was steadily changing the longer we were bound, and then Marcas had combined our powers and all Hell broke loose. Literally. Now, Marcas was a traitor, my chance of dying had risen, war was an imminent possibility, and I was beginning to fall in love with the enemy.
"I can't."
The words came out weak. This wasn't an argument I was going to win.
"You can and you will. Promise me, Blainey!"
He was shouting in my head. It was the first time I'd ever really heard him raise his voice at me. How odd that was considering he was a Demon. He had been angry with me, sure, but he had never yelled. Raised his voice a little, but never yelled. I felt tears prick the back of my eyes. What would it mean to be trapped? Would he be like a genie? Could I release him later?
"What does being trapped mean?
The voice I used to speak in my head was small, vulnerable, but I didn't care. I wasn't going to tell Marcas that I had started to care for him. I wasn't going to tell him that what he was asking me to do could break my heart. Something told me he wouldn't appreciate the admission.
"It will eventually destroy me."
I fought not to sob. I couldn't do it. I didn't care how much Marcas used to crave death, he couldn't crave it now. He couldn't!
"Promise me, Blainey!" Marcas insisted.
I looked away from him, my eyes closing against the wind as the sun set completely. It was dark now. I didn't even attempt to use my night vision. I didn't want to see anything.
"Promise me, Blainey!"
The shout was so strong, it made my head pound. One tear escaped the corner of my eye. My heart cracked.
"I promise."
I whispered it into the night, letting the breeze carry the words away. But Marcas heard. I knew he heard, and he sighed with relief. It made sense that he would be comforted by the words. No one should be forced to kill the people they were closest to. And I knew, even though he'd never admit it, that he cared about the people traveling with us. But those two words broke me. I would be destroying him. It wasn't something I wanted to live with. I wasn't sure I could.
"There are things worse than death, Blainey," Marcas whispered into my ear.
It was easy for him to say that. He wouldn't be the one living with the guilt, with a heart rent in two. I kept my eyes closed.
"Living can be worse."
I hadn't meant to say it aloud, but there it was. I was doing that a lot lately, saying things I didn't want to say. Unconsciously, however, I think I wanted people to know how I felt. And yet, I wasn't even sure how I felt. Maybe that sounds wishy-washy, maybe it sounds ridiculous since, being me, I'm supposed to know how I feel. But I had never been in love before.
Was it love or just attraction? Marcas was more than easy on the eyes. Attraction was the simple part. And yet, I knew it wasn't his looks that had me caring. I hadn't gotten along with him at first, had even hated him to an extent. He was everything I was supposed to hate, a Demon and an unwanted partner in a bond that wasn't supposed to be possible. But somewhere along the way, my opinion of him had changed. And with that change had come an emotion I was too afraid to define. Because, honestly, when the thought of someone dying makes the chest hurt so bad breathing isn't possible, then there's something more than "like" going on there.
Marcas let his chin come to rest on the top of my head, and I let myself believe the gesture meant he cared. When standing, I barely came up to his chest, but when we were flying, he held me high enough my head was always beneath his chin. And I was comfortable there. It made me wish I wasn't a Naphil and he wasn't a Demon who'd been around longer than I'd care to admit. But if we were normal, we wouldn't be here right now.
"You really shouldn't think so much," Marcas said into my hair. The resulting heat against my scalp made my toes tingle.
"If only it were that easy to turn a brain off, Craig. You can't tell me you don't do the same thing. If you didn't, you wouldn't have made me promise what you did."
He knew I was right.
"But when I make a decision, Blainey, I stick with it. I don't let it eat away at me."
He could tell me that all he wanted, but I knew he was lying. And even though I wanted to call him out on it, I let it go. I let it go because I knew arguing was pointless.
"Why do we use our last names when we talk to each other?" I asked him instead.
It was an abrupt change in subject, and I felt him falter slightly as he flew. He fell back from the Angels, the distance between us growing but no more than a few feet.
"It's a manner of speech. Nothing more."
He brushed the question off, but I was circling him now (metaphorically speaking), and I was determined to close him in. It had been a diversionary question at first to keep from arguing, but now it seemed important. Marcas had always addressed me using my last name with the exception of only a few instances when he'd referred to me as Dayton. I bit my lip slightly but not enough to bring blood.
"Manner of speech or not, I'm the only one you do that with."
Strange how I realized that now. He called Lucas, Luke. He called Sophia, Soph. And he addressed Alessandro as Ander. Everyone else, he referred to by their full first name. I was the only exception.
"Why?" I insisted.
I might refer to him the same way, but it was only because he'd always done it to me. And I often used his first name except when I was irritated.
"You're overanalyzing again."
I hated when he did that. He pointed out my idiosyncrasies just because he thought he could use the distraction to avoid answering a direct question. I gritted my teeth.
"Why do you do it?"
He didn't answer me, just flew without saying a single word. Blainey. I'd almost started thinking of it as a pet name. But it wasn't. It wasn't remotely romantic at all. Very un-romantic actually. And then it hit me, and I gasped.
"You want to depersonalize me."
I wasn't even sure depersonalize was a word, but it made sense. He wanted to strip me of any human characteristics, of all emotion.
"Now would be the time to withdraw, Blainey."
He said it with an edge to his voice, but I was too far gone. I couldn't stop now even if I wanted to. It was that damn stubborn streak of mine.
"Were you able to pretend I was nothing when you kissed me, Marcas?"
The dead silenc
e that followed didn't bode well for me. Marcas' arms tightened around my waist.
"You tell me, Blainey," Marcas suddenly growled into my ear.
I wasn't telling him anything. I was not going to be the first one to admit I had feelings.
"Go to Hell," I muttered under my breath.
I thought I'd said it too low for him to hear, but he leaned his head in closer, his breath hot against my neck.
"Funny, I thought we'd both already been there."
I bit my tongue, this time with enough force I knew I'd made myself bleed. Marcas sucked in a breath, and I could hear Luther doing the same from behind us.
"That wasn't the least bit appropriate," Marcas snarled.
"Neither is lying, but you're managing that quite well," I said sweetly.
This time, Marcas chose not to answer, and I could feel his breathing grow deeper against my back, his heart beating faster as he flew. I would have said it was my blood that caused the rhythm of his heart to change, but we had shared blood on more than one occasion. He might still be tempted by it, but his control had to be remarkable by now. It still amazed me how much like the mythological vampires Lilith's children were.
I leaned back against Marcas' chest because, no matter how angry he made me, being there still felt good. The Angels had started to descend in front of us and we followed.
"You drive me mad," Marcas mumbled.
If he hadn't meant for me to hear, he'd failed. And I couldn't help but grin. Driving him mad was something at least. And I'd take what I could get. The way he settled back against me made me think "driving him mad" wasn't such a bad thing.
The descent was coming faster, and I switched on my night vision only to be completely taken aback by what I saw. It was a rock wall, a ravine maybe? And it rose up on each side of us as we got lower. The ground below wound through the rock "tunnel," and I watched in amazement as the stone gorge opened up just enough for the facade of a building to suddenly appear at the end of the passage, its rock walls and columns built undeniably into the cliffs.
"What is this place?" I whispered. Talking almost seemed sacrilegious.
Marcas' feet touched the ground just at the end of the rock ravine. If that was even what it was.
"Petra. We are in the Siq, the entrance to Petra."
I didn't know the place, but what I was seeing now was nothing short of amazing.
Chapter 20
There is one thing Satan hates most. He kills with a vengeance. He coerces people into sin. And he takes joy from misery. And although he is eternally angry, his wrath knows no bounds when faced with defiance. For Satan abhors one thing over all others:
He will NOT be denied.
~Bezaliel~
I think, if we hadn't been followed by the denizens of Hell, that getting the Seal would have been easy. It wasn't a difficult process after all: get the ring, place it on the Naphil's finger, have Naphil trap bound Demon for an eternity, then purge Demon blood from Naphil's system. Other than the prospect of dying, there actually wasn't much to it. But then . . .
"They are going to attack."
It was a simple sentence uttered by Luther. And yet it was a sentence that wrought more than trouble. It meant death. And we were all aware of it.
Sophia moved to the side of the gorge, her back against what Marcas had referred to as the wall of the Siq. Lucas flew beyond the ravine and placed himself just inside the building built into the face of the cliff. Marcas and I were apparently staying where we were.
"We can't win this one, Marcas."
It was Luther that pointed this out, and I was inclined to dislike him severely for it, but I had a sneaking suspicion he may be right. Marcas had implied that Satan was involved. This wasn't going to be a normal fight.
"You underestimate us, brother," Marcas replied.
His words caught me by surprise, and I turned to find his eyes searching the sky, his brow furrowed. He looked determined and resolved, and even though I knew this was a normal look for him, his courage brought me strength. Nothing ever seemed to rattle him.
"How much time do we have?" Sophia hissed.
Luther and Marcas were silent a moment, their Demon senses searching. And, for once, I reached out too. This wasn't something I wanted to face unaware, and I knew I could sense the same dangers the two Demons sought if I tried.
I wrapped my light around me, now pink with the mix of Angelic and Demonic energy, and I searched, using my light to guide my vision through the night skies. I reached, and I searched. And then I recoiled. I recoiled because what I felt wasn't just Demons, it was Dark. It was honestly the only way to describe it. And it wasn't the normal kind of dark either. It was like a black hole seeking to drag objects into it while knowing, without a doubt, that it was going to devour whatever dared to enter. I had a hard time breathing.
"Is that him?" I whispered.
Marcas didn't look away from the sky.
"The Dark Lord," he muttered.
If the moment wasn't so infinitely serious, I would have laughed. I felt like I was Leia being confronted by Darth Vader in Star Wars. But the moment was serious, and the dark feeling I'd felt when I'd touched Lucifer's essence had sucked whatever courage I had convinced myself I had straight out of my system.
What I'd managed to find in those skies was worse than the fire pits of Hell. It was desolate, cold, and without mercy. And although the fires had been devastating, I was beginning to learn that the cold could be more fatal than heat. My light had burned bright in the pits, protecting me, but I wasn't so sure it could withstand the black hole I'd felt.
"Remember that most of your powers come from God, Blainey. It's a part of your light Satan can't touch," Marcas said, and I looked up to find him watching me. My fear was obvious.
"And your power?" I asked.
"Is still strong despite him."
I tried to take comfort in his words, but the dark feeling had been . . . overwhelming.
"How long do we have?" Sophia asked again, and we turned to her.
"Long enough," Marcas answered.
In the distance, I heard a plane's engine, and I knew he meant that the others still had a chance of reaching us.
"Can they land?" I asked.
From what I could tell, we were surrounded by mountains. Luther chuckled. How he found it in him to laugh at a time like this was beyond me, but I had never understood Luther and I doubt I ever would.
"They won't need to land. The S.O.S. is trained well. They will parachute in and walk to the Siq."
Parachute in? I was having a hard time grasping this.
"Monroe?"
I whispered it, my voice shaky with fear. For some reason, I didn't fear for Conor's life. But Monroe; did she even know how to use a parachute?
"She'll jump with Conor. He'll fly her down."
I looked at Marcas as he answered me, my frown evident.
"Fly? Gargoyles can fly?"
"The winged ones can."
Of course, how stupid of me! Of course, I would fail to notice that Conor could sprout wings. It wasn't like I knew all he was capable of, just what he'd been able to tell me back at the tents. I felt so out of the loop.
I tried envisioning him with wings and failed miserably. Angel wings sure hadn't been what I expected. Why would gargoyle wings be any different? So I switched to Monroe's reaction instead. She had discovered that Conor was a gargoyle the same time I had which meant that anything she'd learned about him, she had discovered while I'd been in Hell. Her face when Conor sprouted wings had to have been classic. I grinned just thinking about it.
"Amusement does not suit you at the moment, Naphil," Sophia grumbled from her place at the wall.
For some reason, Sophia's remark made me grin wider.
"I'm taking it where I can get it, Angel."
Luther snorted.
"I'm thinking now is not the time for a cat fight."
He was right of course, but Sophia could really rub me the wrong way, and I kne
w she did it intentionally. That's what irritated me the most. And where was Lucas?
"He's scouting the area. And the feeling is mutual, I assure you."
It wasn't until I heard Sophia's words that I realized I wasn't blocking. And it made me angry.
"Can you please just stay out of my head?" I asked sourly.
She didn't look the least bit fazed.
"Can you please quit inviting me in?"
I didn't invite anyone in. I was sure of that.
"You invite everyone in, Naphil. It's in your nature to be forward. And in this case, with the blocking, unless you can learn to really control it, it isn't in your favor."
I was sorely tempted to growl at her, but a noise near the Siq stopped me.
"I think our intrusion comes just in time," Conor Reinhardt's voice cut in suddenly , and I looked up to find him standing just outside the Siq with Monroe positioned next to him, her brows raised. Lucas wasn't far behind. They were all wearing bemused expressions.
I found it somewhat irritating that I could induce amusement at a time like this. But it didn't last long.
"We need to spread out," Luther insisted, his eyes on the sky.
The dark feeling was suffocating now. No one argued with the Demon, just backed away from the Siq carefully, eyes trained on the sky.
"Will he fly in?" I murmured.
Marcas moved toward me and took my upper arm in his hand.
"Lucifer won't. He'll just appear."
With that, Marcas motioned to the space outside the Siq. I let him lead me beyond the gorge.
"If he can just appear anywhere, why hasn't he come already?"
I asked this nervously, my eyes scanning the area.
"Because Lucifer likes games. He enjoys building suspense."
His words chilled me. I had read a story once in a crime book about serial killers, about how many of them enjoyed toying with their victims. The idea terrified me. The idea of having my death drawn out was more than I could bear. If I was going to die, I wanted it to be done quickly.
"We should use the Treasury for fortification," Conor offered, his hand gesturing toward the building built into the rock behind us. Marcas shook his head.