We began our circular dance, trying not to trip over Nicholas’s unconscious body. I was doing a decent job deflecting the first four attacks. Unfortunately, this is when Count Ice-Heart evaluated my very amateur skills.
Well, what was I expecting? He had been fighting like forever. I was, what, a few weeks in, training with sticks? I wasn’t as strong as he was, but worse yet, I didn’t have the many conniving tricks under my sleeve like he had. Yet, I had some advantage with a dagger and my speed to move.
He had many moves I had never seen before, including repulsively flirting with me—eew. Too distracting and not for the right reasons. Unfortunately, he pressed more until I had to cross both my katana and the small dagger to hold his weight back. That was when he found a way to press a kiss on my lips. More eeeew. I spat up at him—not exactly a ladylike thing to do—luckily countering him but not without the difficulty of the edge behind my step. He wiped his cheek with elegance. In his mind, that was just part of his bedroom foreplay. And the ick-ing didn’t stop there. I reminded myself to stay as much as I could out of his mind.
“I can teach you so much, katyonak,” he offered, as if I ever would. He was just toying with me, wearing me out until I tired. I had to try something else, or else I would be on the floor next to Nicholas very soon.
“Yadda-yadda-yaddah, so you say,” I struck his blade as hard as I could to weaken him too.
Use your powers. Finish him, Francis’s mind commanded. He was watching my every move from his frail position. Obviously, he wasn’t quaint with the imprint rules.
“Whatever you do, do-not-kill-him,” Gavril contradicted.
“SERIOUSLY?” I yelled at both Francis’s and Gavril’s contradictory orders. I needed them to be quiet, so I could focus. I inhaled deeply for strength.
Keep him at bay with your power, Gavril suggested. The trouble with that was that I would last less time holding back the physical attacks if I did. On the other hand, my arm was getting too tired, even with the armor. It was a doomed situation. Crap!
I felt the electricity in my fingertips already igniting. Oh, the bloody hell with it… I charged against my ex-katana. Sparks and a voltaic tendril knocked the sword out of the Count’s hands into the hot pit under us.
Scary-face’s mouth fell open with a gasp. His eyes had this priceless incredulous expression as he shuffled one step back. His expression shifted into a wide, cruel grin. Crap. Not the reaction I was looking for.
He stood rigid and gave me a once-over again, except this time there was some sort of evaluation. Apparently, I had just gained a couple levels of respect above the silly girl category. I held my katana and the small dagger. I was the one with the advantage, yet I couldn’t kill him.
He walked fearlessly straight at me. I pointed my katana at him to keep my distance as we reinitiated the circular dance.
“Do it,” he ordered me. “KILL ME,” he shouted.
What? I froze, simultaneously watching Gavril, turning a faint spectrum of colorless shade. My hands shook. He had called my bluff. I couldn’t kill him. If I did, it was game over. Ash would win. To kill him or not to, that was not the question, and I had to decide in the next two seconds how to knock him out.
In one powerful fast blow, he knocked the dagger out of my hands. With a gasp, and in slow motion, I watched the dagger fall into the pit and get devoured by the hot lava. I avoided more contact with him, crouching and rolling over the ground. I slid the katana back into my leather holster. This was going to be a mano-a-mano combat. No more weapons.
We played the circular dance for another minute. I had trained with Francis on self-defense, and I was depending on the armor too much. I had to reassess my strategy. The Count was cornering me against the edge.
As soon as he reached the closest point, I hit his open jaw. The Count played with his dislocated jaw, and his nose began to bleed again by consequence. He wiped it off again. It was time to get more advantage using my legs. The Count was taller, and his arms were longer and stronger. His arms were his best attribute, and his stands were that of a boxer. I had seen him doing the one-two with Nicholas. I knew it was coming soon. It did.
One, I evaded his fist, rolling into the center of the space. I set up my stands for a little Krav Maga or a little Jujutsu. Unlike him, my legs and feet were my best attribute in this fight. He turned to face me. His eyes saturated with hatred as he evaluated this new development. He changed his strategy. “One-two” wasn’t going to work anymore. He was breathing heavily as he approached me. I smirked and shrugged my shoulders as I prepared my next move.
I launched a side kick to his chest that he barely avoided by stepping back. We danced in a circle facing each other once again. I knew then that he had never done martial arts before. Francis could have gotten me on the floor with that faulty kick. The Count was a probably a good swordsman, just like Nicholas, was but a terrible hand-combat fighter in comparison to Francis. Now I understood Francis’s insistence to learn hand combat prior to taking a sword. One could have many more advantages with a sword if your feet were fast and unpredictable.
I also had another advantage; I could listen to his thoughts—not that I wanted to. But I realized I could in most instances be prepared before his strikes. Unfortunately, it wasn’t sufficiently far from his left arm as he fooled me playing the one-two again, which had turned into a real hard slap across my face, nearly making me fall onto the floor. I didn’t see that coming. I gasped.
For a short moment, I stood there looking at him, transfixed with humiliation holding my cheek with my free hand. I felt my cheek pulsating with heat as I collected myself after he hit me. A taste of iron was in my mouth.
“Now that we have settled our differences, it’s time to learn my new rules.” His voice was proud and joyful. My shock transformed into rage. My fingertips clicked and sparked. Ha! So he thought one slap was winning.
A guttural sound emerged from the depths of my being as I met him fully in this battle. This time around, Count Something-Cruel-ish’s hand got shocked as he tried to hold my attack. He also tried to slap me again, but it was my turn to anticipate his moves. I used my armor to deflect most of his strokes. Then he got creative and used my braid that at some point, it had come out of my all-weather jacket. He held me back, so my electrified hands couldn’t reach him behind me. Crap. Not my hair. That hurt—a lot.
I used my head to hit his nose once again, feeling a nasty crack with the back of my head. He loosened his grip on my hair and stepped back. But as I turned, I felt my katana slide out of my holster.
Count I-knocked-him-down-again held his nose in acute pain. Yay, me! Or not… His eyes reflected the fire pit around us as he glared at me, giving the impression of how much more hatred he had for me than even before, if that was possible.
He hissed and charged at me. I avoided the sword, but not even my power was going to stop the momentum of the impact when he collided with me. I realized in slow motion that I was being thrusted into the open air and desperately grabbing onto anything as I fell into the pit of hell. He was watching me fall with cruel joy.
With perfect timing, Nicholas’s strong arm reached for mine and grabbed me in the air as the motion of my body continued and slammed me back into the edge of the large crevasse. The air came out of my lungs. Adrenaline ran amuck inside me, and my ears were full of a distant pulse thudding loud, like a drumbeat in my head, when I recovered from the impact.
I was one beat away from the lava claiming me. Then I felt my leg being pulled. The creepiness went several degrees higher. The ghoul incinerated instantly just to be replaced with another pulling me down again, incinerating, too, as they tried to hold onto my legs. Nicholas kept his grip tight on me. I kicked them without aiming since it was impossible from my dangling position.
I felt Nicholas lose his grip on my arm a little.
I screamed, holding fervently onto his arm as my last chance. Those ghouls were pulling me down, even when they incinerated. I turned my glanc
e to Nicholas, and his face was in pain. Trust the infamous-cheat Count not to disappoint. He had stabbed my prince in the back. What else could one expect of Count Something-rotten-egg. However, despite the painful moment, Nicholas still held me and pulled me over the edge. I crawled onto the floor not needing to look at what weapon the Count had used, because the katana had dropped onto the ground. The heavy drizzle was washing away the blood.
At the same time, the Count’s feet had left the floor. An invisible force held him, hovering in midair. I tried to focus on Francis’s mind to see the image. Asmodeus held Count Rurikovich by his throat with his own gold-nail hands.
“Forgive me, I didn’t mean to hurt her,” he begged? Right. Liar, liar. Pants on fire.
“Hello-o, you tried to kill me—twice,” I yelled back at him, making my peace and love sign.
“Please, my lord. I’ll never do it again.” His legs kicked around in the empty space. “Pleeease,” he cried.
Asmodeus dropped him in the open pit. Crap. Oh, crap. I think I just said something I should not have said—again. I wasn’t thinking clearly.
I closed my eyes, wishing I hadn’t heard those horrendous cries as he fell inside the bubbling hot cauldron beneath us. Bubbling slurp and swallow, slurp and swallow, Count Rurikovich was gone—vanished. But not the lingering horror of his screams. Everyone above became silent, hoping for the horror to disperse from our ears.
My thoughtless words had killed him. I wondered if that counted as killing him.
Exactly what Gavril asked me not to do. Crap.
Ash’s message was clear, no one was safe. Ash wasn’t going to negotiate either. I understood the two things he wanted. He wanted the medallion and me to open hell with it. Technically, I was already here. He was coming after the medallion; Nicholas was next.
I couldn’t let him hurt him or anyone else. No. And my choices were already set up. The first was to open hell for him and save everyone I loved, just to condemn them to a life of eternal hell on earth. Would they hate me for bringing doom into this world, even when I had saved their lives? For what? For a life in hell? Right. Nuh, I didn’t think so.
The only choice left…
I had to die.
Was it worth the price?
My life for the lives of my beloved ones. My life for the life of this beautiful earth, for humanity. I deliberated for less than a split second. Yes. Francis was worth my respect and love and so had been Gavril’s life or Raphael’s or any of the were brothers. As long as the medallion wasn’t found, Ash would let Nicholas live. I loved Nicholas far too much not to think that he would find a way to cure Marcum and himself. I glanced at his shoulder injury. It wasn’t a terminal one. He would make a great king one day. All this mess was my fault anyways. I would give my life in exchange for theirs. End of discussion… I inhaled to gather my decision.
There was just one way out. If I died without the medallion, no one would open the gates—ever again. I inhaled and did the unthinkable, as everyone watched me jump into the lava. I closed my eyes.
Shouts. A chorus of known voices screamed my name. I was going to be in the good company of the Count after all… God help me.
I waited for my end as I fell into the cauldron.
I waited for the boiling lava to claim my body any second now.
… … … and waited
Chapter 57
I opened my left eye to see if I was close to my hot cauldron, slurping end, just to discover I was floating back up. Ash’s powers held me in the air. I could feel his powers suffering the touch of mine. I knew he hated it, yet he saved me. Crap, so he wasn’t going to let me be a martyr like he’d called me before.
“Ash, you big ape. You want a piece of me, this is all you will get.” I paused, pretending that hovering over the hot lava wasn’t unnerving. “I will die because I love them.” I pointed at Nicholas and Francis. “I LOVE HUMANITY. That thing you hate. L.O.V.E. So as long as I care for life on earth, those gates will never open. If you keep planning to destroy everything I love, then I will give my life for them but not to you. Ever. Do you understand?” I shouted at him. I was then thankful to Francis for taking the medallion.
The ground rumbled and shook violently once again, stronger than ever before. I swallowed hard. Crap.
Frustration with me.
Yeah, I tend to do that often to people.
With an earth-shattering thunder, the ground shook rampant again. I watched with horror how everyone scrambled on their fumbling feet while I hovered in the empty space with a hell pit beneath. The demonic ghouls found a way to escape onto the surface, and a dozen warlock-sized primordials joined the demonic frontline. He was going to show me how my loved ones would die in one very unfair blow.
Francis… he was defenseless.
“I hate you, Ash,” I said. “I promise you, I will destroy your hopes if you kill anyone I care for again. The gates will never open—EVER. Not by me.” I vowed my oath. Tears fell down my cheeks. I ignited all the love I felt for everyone, and the light that came out of me was like glittering gold. I felt his instant rejection to it.
“Ironic, isn’t it? You are allergic to the gold light.”
He was Lord Aurous, the fallen angel with golden wings, golden hair and nails, and more gold than anyone could ever dream about. And he was allergic to the golden arrow’s power. He threw me against the cross, slamming me hard on the steps. I still turned to sneer at him.
The world stopped shaking. The ground closed its gaps, and the fissures and canyons were gone as if nothing had happened. Except that we were surrounded by an army of demonic ghouls led by a dozen crazy warlocks with supernatural powers. Nicholas ran to reach me.
“They cannot touch me, you better stand behind me,” I half lied to him, getting on my feet. I didn’t know at this point if they would turn into ashes at his touch. He rolled his eyes at me as I limped a little.
“You and I have a lot of to discuss,” Nicholas said.
“I know, but right now we have to fight our way out of this,” I told Nicholas.
Raphael gave me a nod as a signal, grabbed Francis’s sword that had been left on its own by the late Count, and threw it into the air for us. His face had also metamorphosed back into a half werewolf. Then he went on to protect Francis from the demonic forces. He didn’t need anything but his sharp claws. Nicholas caught the sword, but not without flinching from the previous fight.
I needed to cut through to reach Francis and heal him enough before it was too late.
Gavril. I wanted to know how was Francis faring, but all I could muster was an unspoken question for him, dreading the answer.
He is barely breathing, he said.
All this had been my fault. Mother Clarisse died because she swore to protect me and so did Gavril. Nicholas was poisoned, and Francis was injured, and who knew if I could save any of them at this point. My father and my mother had suffered the consequences of having me. Pain and loss.
I watched how Nicholas struggled moving that sword with his injured shoulder. He had seen better days. But he was proud to carry his wretched bruises. He had earned them after all. Count Pants-On-Fire was now in Hell. RIP the stupid fool. I placed my hand on Nicholas shoulder and summoned the healing energy tendrils. I mended his tendons and sutured them to stop the bleeding. It was then that I realized something, his DNA was changing alarmingly fast, his eyes were getting bloodshot and irritated, and he looked sickly green, like Marcum had when I met him. I squeezed his hand with an unspoken question but didn’t argue for once. I inhaled deeply for courage.
“Let’s go,” he declared.
A war cry erupted from my mouth as we ran to meet the amok demons. They had a zombie-like type of walk and red glowing eyes. I punched or kicked anything that tried to bite me.
I moved with confidence and smooth steps, cutting a path for Nicholas and me through the mass of ghouls. Francis would have been proud of me if he wasn’t on the dire line of survival. Raphael and his brothers fo
ught them too.
The warlocks had decided to keep their distance. I didn’t. In two blows, I dispatched the first one into ashes.
Raphael followed my lead from the opposite end. He was making a safe circle of protection for Francis and Queen Anne with the help of his brothers. Now it was up to me to carry on. Unfortunately, Nicholas seemed sicker by the minute and was almost dragging himself by now, but he held his sword with slow, brute force against anything that came against him.
A creepy cackle suddenly broke into the battle. I recognized what was left of Sister Clementia. The poor thing… or not. She was launching for me. I avoided her claws on her first attempt, but I knew it was just a matter of time before she was going to be ashes to ashes too. I had no choice; it was her or Francis. So I launched for her, hoping she still had a soul and wouldn’t incinerate with my touch. We collided, and barely two seconds after, she was turning into a pile of ash.
Then, I noticed we were suddenly surrounded by ten times the number of ghouls. Crap. I incinerated ghouls, fighting my way toward Francis without any success. The more I wanted to reach for Francis, the more ghouls tried to stop me. There was a constant of four rows of demons between Francis and me.
This was Ash’s sick joke to make me fail trying to save Francis. So evil.
Nicholas had been separated from my circle while Raphael and his brothers held the defense line well. However, little by little, their circle was becoming smaller and smaller.
Raphael snarled and growled at them, but they never retreated. He fought them with his own hands that were large, clawed, and hairy. He had ghouls climbing on his back like monkeys trying to bite him, yet he destroyed them with single strikes of his hands.
Ailie… I hope you are listening. I want you to promise me to wear my ring always… Francis said telepathically. I gasped, and I hoped those were not Francis’s last words. They sounded like his last. Crap.
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