Absolute Surrender

by Georgia Lyn Hunter

  “You do taste delicious,” he said, licking his lips. His gaze flattened. “Enough of this stalling. Time to leave.”

  Her heart knocked around so hard, Echo had no idea how it managed to remain in her chest. Demoniis surrounded her with only one clear path out, which led directly to the portal.

  The demon flicked his hand. An invisible force took hold of her, pushing her along. Her legs sauntered forward with an ease that terrified her. Her brain screamed, and she struggled for control, but her limbs refused to listen. Try as she might, she couldn’t break free.

  The portal drew closer. Gripped with terror, Echo couldn’t take her eyes off it. Through the flickering opening, she saw the same images she’d seen in his eyes. A dark chamber and locked behind the walls were the damned. Humans, along with demons, were being mercilessly tortured. Skin was peeled away, bones broken before being put together again. And the torment started all over again.

  He whispered in her ear. “Don’t be afraid. It’s only my humble abode.”

  Oh, God! I don’t want this.

  She struggled with her unresponsive limbs. Didn’t matter, the bastard would undoubtedly win but she wouldn’t allow him to drag her into his hellhole without a bloody fight. She willed herself to move, to twist free. Still her body remained in lockdown. “No! I’m not going through there. You want to kill me, then do it, you bastard!”

  “Names, little human?” he drawled. “How unoriginal. I prefer Lazaar. You will want to remember it, because...” He ran one clawed finger along her jaw. “You are going to be mine. I have no intention of killing you—well, not yet, anyway.”

  The pressure in her lungs expanded and, unable to hold on any longer, her breath exploded out of her. Inhaling more suffocating, sulfur-drenched air, Echo hurled. Right there, on a pair of boots.

  The boots’ owner backhanded her across the face. Pain spread from her jaw into her head. Her lip split open, warm blood trailed down her chin.

  “Annoy my commander and Girion will hurt you more. As long as you live, I do not care what condition you are in.”

  Girion, unable to hold onto his human form, was more beastlike, grotesque. His black eyes were filled with such malevolence, they sent involuntary shivers down her spine. His mouth pulled into a sneer, revealing sharp canines and blackened teeth. Echo turned her head, her heart wedged in her throat.

  A demonii entered the portal and waited on the other side. Lazaar grabbed her arm, his talon-like nails digging into her flesh, and stepped through the gateway, dragging her behind him.

  The searing pain in her arm overtook her fear when she slammed into a stretchy, invisible wall and stumbled back.

  “That bloody hurts,” she yelled.

  “Force her through,” he ordered, confusion etched on his face. Rough hands grabbed her by the hair and shoved her through the portal. She hit the invisible wall again, bounced back, landing in a sprawl, and jarring every bone in her body. Her dagger flew out of her hand to land several feet away. The black blade started to glow a deep, pulsing amber.

  ***

  What the hell?

  The whirlpool of power that had sucked Aethan from the street, where he’d stood with Týr moments earlier, finally dumped him in...it took him a second to recognize the old abandoned station.

  His tattoo shifted and his sword materialized in his hand. He saw the portal flickering in the dark. Several demoniis surrounded it, while two were forcing someone through—a human.

  His irritation fell away. Ice encased him. Cold, brutal ice. His sword gripped in one hand, he remained where he was and focused his mind. In seconds, he shielded the mortal and let loose his power. It connected with his sword.

  The portal snapped closed. Pandemonium erupted as the demoniis realized what had happened. They scurried away, crashing into trashcans, tripping over broken pipes and metal sidings, the sounds resonating through the gloomy tunnel. Ear-piercing screeches filled the air as they desperately tried to escape. But it was far too late.

  Aethan swung his sword and white light hissed, spreading out in a deadly wave and obliterating every demonii in the subway. Only their ashes remained, scattering to the ground.

  His blade retracting, Aethan rushed to the fallen human. When he saw the choppy fall of black hair, his breath seized.

  Gods, no!

  “Echo!” Aethan fell to his knees beside her and pressed two fingers to her neck, checking for a pulse. Nothing. She lay there curled in a protective ball, bleeding, and unmoving.

  Terror swept through him. Urias, please, he begged. Not like his damn creator would answer him now.

  “Come on, dammit!” He pressed harder on her neck and...there, he found a faint beat.

  Quickly, he ran a gentle hand over her body, checking her external injuries. Three deep slashes scored the arm of her jacket and bled in a copious amount. Her shoulder was dislocated.

  A psychic scan revealed her internal injuries. His mouth tightened. A fractured rib, abdominal bleeding—finally he moved her bloodied hand from her face and saw the damages she suffered from the feet of stampeding demoniis. Her face was a mess. Blood oozed from deep scrapes. A large bruise was forming on the right side of her jaw and her lip was split open.

  Keeping his anger in check, Aethan laid his hand over her wounds, let the healing blue light leave him and enter her.

  ***

  Echo slammed back into her body, like a comet crashing to Earth. Mind-numbing pain tore through her, as if someone had bashed her against a wall then used her body to scrape up gravel. Through the pain she could feel hands probing her, but she hurt too much to protest and prayed death would come quickly.

  Instead, gentle warmth swept through her, soothing the pain. Her eyes cracked open and she saw a blue shimmer of light moving, coalescing into her.

  The light...the light that souls traveled to after death is white, not blue, she thought fuzzily. But there had been white light too?

  The heat made her body warm and tingly. If God was giving her a second chance at life, she wanted just one thing.

  “Remember our bargain,” she rasped to Him. Her throat felt raw, like she’d swallowed a handful of razor blades. And her chest hurt.

  “What bargain?”

  The darkly sexy voice seeped into her, drawing her toward it. It was familiar, comforting. She tried to snuggle closer but pain held her in its grip.

  “To—make me—normal.”

  He shifted. Her body rose off the ground. Like a homing signal, she sought the wonderful, familiar scent. Rainstorms...

  Aethan? Did he come to save her? If she was leaving this mortal life, then she’d leave with one of her wishes granted. One she’d dreamed of. “Kiss me.”

  He stilled. Then, a brush of his lips on hers. As light as butterfly wings, they touched her mouth and pressed gently. She sighed, but a whimper of pain escaped her as the clamps around her head intensified. “I hurt all over.”

  “I’ll make it all go away. I promise. As soon as I get you to the oracle—”

  “Don’t tell Damon,” she fretted. Gran would be upset but Damon would blow a gasket. “He gets mad when I—” Pain blazed again, she moaned. “You’re hurting me.”

  Instantly, his arms relaxed, became gentle. A whisper of a breath brushed over her hair as if in apology.

  “Who is Damon?” The words were a low, hard rumble of displeasure.

  Echo forced her eyes opened and stared blurrily at her savior. His image wavered. She blinked, tried to bring him into focus. Reaching up, she touched a swathe of blue hair, but pain flared and spiked higher at the gesture. Her hand fell away.

  “Damon...pretty...like you.” She lost the fight to stay conscious and let blessed darkness take over.

  ***

  Aethan dematerialized to the oracle’s brownstone in Greenwich Village. His Drillers pounded up the steps, disrupting the quiet night. The entrance to the house had a jungle of shrubs and vines sprouting from old tubs and creeping over the trellis around the door.
A person would need a machete to hack through it just to gain entry.

  Aethan willed the over-hanging vines away from the entrance. Adjusting Echo’s weight in his arms, he knocked.

  The door swung open moments later to reveal a female of indiscernible age. Her salt and pepper hair was held back in a braid. Her cocoa colored skin appeared smooth and unlined. Lila Smith’s black eyes widened in surprise when she saw him on her doorstep.

  “Warrior—” She broke off and frowned, her attention dropping to his arms. Her surprise gasp morphed to horror.

  “Echo? Oh, dear heaven!” Worry aged her face. “Bring her in—come.” At a fast trot, she led the way into the herbs-and-incense-smelling home. “Where’s Kira?” she demanded.

  “Echo was alone.”

  Lila nodded, her expression tense. She’d treated them for demonii wounds and understood how bad their battles could get. Seeing him carrying Echo, Lila would know what had happened to her.

  “You know Echo?” Aethan asked. He couldn’t have been more astonished if his old mage jumped out of the portal and told him his banishment was over.

  “Yes, from the time she was a young girl. She and my granddaughter, Kira, are close friends—Kira’s supposed to be staying with her tonight.”

  The wooden stairs creaked under his weight as he followed Lila. She barged through a door into a feminine room with twin beds. Aethan laid Echo gently on the bed aligned against the inner wall and forced himself to step back.

  “What happened?” Lila asked as she removed Echo’s jacket.

  He filled her in about the attack, what he knew of it anyway.

  Lila nodded as she listened, making short work of removing Echo’s sweater. She cut through it with a pair of shears, leaving her in a tank top. Moving aside when Lila turned to set the scissors on the bedside table, he paced to the end of the bed then back again. But staring at Echo’s damaged face made it hard for him to think rationally, so he walked to the end of the bed again. Remembered he still had to go do recon at the subway and check that the dark portal hadn’t done any damage to the smooth flow of the psychic veils between the realms. And find his missing dagger—

  “Warrior?”

  His head jerked up. At Lila’s pointed stare, he snapped himself out of his gloomy thoughts. Shit, he was in her way again. He had to get out of here, before she cast a binding spell on him or he ended up with an aneurism.

  “I’ll be back,” he told Lila. He left the room and hurried down the stairs. As he passed a mirror at the bottom landing, he halted. His anger grew when he saw the blood on his mouth and chin. He swiped it off with the back of his hand and dematerialized, taking form in the dank tunnel.

  The subway station appeared as if all life force had been wiped out. The continuous drip of water hitting the floor cut through the deafening silence.

  He opened his psychic senses and studied the planes between the realms for a fracture. The smooth transcendent waves flowed into each other. They revealed glimpses of the mystical thread woven together into a veil that shimmered like millions of crystals. He found no tears, not even a snag, as the waves flowed over and hid the veil again.

  Aethan scanned the filthy concrete floors for his dagger. He found a shitload of roaches scuttling about. Rats, with their beady black eyes, stared holes at him for ruining their scavenging.

  He’d seen the dagger glowing on the ground beside Echo. But the image of her lying in the same filth, battered and bruised, rendered him helpless—then rage blazed once more. All that mattered was finding the bastards responsible and ending them.

  He willed his dagger back, but nothing happened. He summoned a light ball. The glowing white orb sailed alongside him, lighting his way as he combed every corner of the crap-infested dump.

  Where the hell was his blade? Damn thing was nowhere to be found. When Echo dropped the dagger, it should have returned to him. The obsidian couldn’t be stolen. So where—

  The truth hit him like a sledgehammer rammed into his gut. Air whooshed from his lungs. He staggered backward.

  No, Urias. No! his soul pleaded. It can’t be!

  CHAPTER 9

  Stalking the narrow passages of the black cavern he called home, Andras banged open the door to his chambers. A flick of his hand and several torches lit, casting an orangey glow to reveal the Wall of Screams.

  Flames leapt up to melt the skin of those trapped in the wall, while invisible hands tore off their limbs, piece by piece. The cries of those he trapped soothed his soul and fed his psyche.

  He’d have to devise something a little more interesting for tomorrow’s entertainment.

  Passing a mirror, he growled. His fist shot out and he shattered it, despising the image it revealed. That gaunt male with sunken holes for eyes wasn’t him. He was handsome and he would be so again. Tugging at his lank blond hair, he stomped away from the scattered pieces of mirror which lay sparkling like diamonds on the black floor.

  Taking a mortal’s life had bound him for a century. It had been a careless decision, he’d realized too late. But he’d been so sure he’d found the one he’d been searching for. The moment he got a whiff of her scent, a dark haze took over. He’d torn into her neck and fed voraciously on her blood, then he’d sucked her soul into him.

  Delicious as she was, the bitch had protected the girl he sought. And that was the reason why that bastard, A’Damiel, had him incarcerated.

  It didn’t matter. Being old and powerful, Andras would have it all once he got the next part of the scroll translated. Damn annoying, he couldn’t decipher it himself.

  At least he’d known what to look for, a puny human with angelic powers.

  Oh yes, it was only a matter of time before he found her. Next on the list: to find out what must be done with her.

  Andras cringed as his chest constricted. Breathing became difficult when stinging pain caused other parts of his body to follow in a mind-numbing cramp.

  His cravings were growing worse. He wanted, needed a human soul to ease his pain. He never understood why light filled that weak race, while demons, so strong and powerful, were plagued with darkness. And then there were those Otium demons trying to walk the line between both. They were a disgrace to his species, preferring to live like mortals. But they would all fall, one by one, like the traitorous insects they were. Their dark souls would succumb to the temptation, eventually.

  The door to his chamber opened. He snarled, barely managing to hold himself back from killing the unfortunate person. He hoped it was either Bael with a soul, or Lazaar with news.

  He tempered his scowl when he saw who it was.

  His sire, the Sin of Greed, strolled inside, his expression calm, his eyes bland in a parchment-pale face. Long brown hair looped into a tail flowed past his hips.

  The fact the Sins weren’t tempted to take a soul made him hate his sire more. Of course, they weren’t. Not when souls were sent to them in Hell to satisfy their depraved needs.

  “This is a surprise.” He forced a smile, concealing his contempt. “A visit from the Sin.”

  “Boy, you don’t want to take that tone with me,” Greed said coolly, ambling around the room.

  Boy? Andras’s jaw compressed at the word. He fisted his hands to keep from wrapping them around the decrepit fool’s neck. But he didn’t dare take on his sire. Greed would kill him without remorse.

  Besides, he had far bigger plans.

  A flick of his hand and Greed turned off the Wall Of Screams. His gaze fell on the broken shards of mirror on the floor. His tone implacable, he said, “I sent for you.”

  “I’m busy. I have work to do. An army to train.”

  “Would this work have anything to do with breaking the Ancients’ laws that keep the balance in place?” Greed stopped strolling and fixed unflinching eyes on him.

  Andras dismissed the comment with a wave of his hand. “I have no idea what you speak of. I merely prepare my army for war.”

  “Yes, the very war which will occur by the
rift that opened into the mortal realm. You have no idea of what you dabble in, boy. Fix it. Close the rift and get those demoniis back to the Dark Strata.”

  Andras stared at his father, flames licking across his skin as he fought to keep his temper in check. The old goat had repudiated him as heir to inherit the sin greed, because he took the soul of a protected mortal. And because of that one foolish mistake, his father chose his fuckhead-loser brother, Lazaar, to inherit.

  No matter. He had better things to look forward to. His sire would regret his choice soon enough. The tension eased from his body at the thought, the flames dwindling.

  Greed’s demeanor didn’t change. His black eyes remained pinned on him. “You show much restraint. Good. A’Damiel bound you to this realm for your transgressions. You just had to go after a protected mortal...” Greed shook his head. “I saved your life only as a favor to your dead mother. She was my favorite. But break out of here and you will die. There will be no rebirth for you. Nor will I intervene again.” Delivering his warning, Greed flashed out of the chamber.

  Bastard!

  Like he cared about rebirth. The same damn cycle, over and over again. The same thing all demons went through if killed on another realm. The only way to end it was by iron or for those flaming Guardians to get hold of them. But once they turned demonii, then there was no rebirth for them. Just Purgatory.

  Why had he given into impulse and taken that soul?

  Andras’s teeth snapped down hard and a molar shattered. He cursed again at his fate. Grabbing the chair nearest him, he sent it crashing into the wall, the splintering sounds soothing to his ears.

  His sire’s threat meant nothing to him. He could taste his success, the freedom of having it all. Elation flowed through him like a dam breaking its walls. He would find the right mortal psychic this time and all would be his.

  “Bael!”

  The demon came in a few seconds later, his dark gaze wary. He wasn’t a demonii, which made it easy for him to procure souls.