Thirty-One
Isaac came back into the hallway, a black smear of ash on one cheek. He brushed plaster dust off his shoulders and arms. “We need to talk about your girlfriend,” he said.
“Save it,” I said. “Jordana’s our only link to finding Arkwright, and she’s got Bethany.”
I jumped over the hole Jordana had blasted in the hallway floor, and started after them. Isaac walked quickly to keep up.
“Trent, I heard the awful things Jordana said—”
I cut him off. I didn’t want to talk about it. “If we don’t get through to her first, she’ll kill Bethany the moment she doesn’t need her anymore. We can’t let her leave this house.”
Isaac nodded. “Agreed. I take it you have a plan?”
“This is my fault,” I said. “I’ll finish it, one way or the other. You just make sure Bethany is safe.”
He handed me my Bersa. “You’ll need this.”
I took the gun from him and holstered it. “Not like that. I can get through to her. I know I can. Some part of the real Jordana is still in there.”
“And if you’re wrong?” he asked.
I didn’t reply. We both knew what the answer was.
Figuring out where Jordana had gone wasn’t hard. She and Bethany had both left smeary, plaster-dust footprints on the carpet. We followed the trail to a door at the center of the house. On the other side we found ourselves on the top level of Erickson Arkwright’s prized, three-story library. We were on the south side of the balcony that wrapped around the perimeter of the room.
Jordana was directly across from us, on the north side. She was dragging Bethany toward a door in the wall.
“Jordana, wait!” I called. “Let her go. Take me instead, okay? Then we can talk. We can talk about everything. It’s not too late.”
“You just don’t give up, do you?” Jordana pushed the Thracian Gauntlet into the side of Bethany’s face. “Stay back, or I’ll turn her skull into dust. You know I will.”
Isaac whispered to me, “I can kill her from here, Trent. There’s a spell that’s quick and painless. She won’t suffer, I promise you. She won’t even know what hit her.”
“Don’t,” I hissed back.
“We may not have a choice.”
“Don’t!”
“Safe passage out of the house,” Jordana continued. “That’s what you said. Safe passage so I can get back to Erickson.”
“Why help him, Jordana? He wants to end the world,” I said.
“I want it to end!” she cried. “This world took everything from me! My brother. My mother. It took my birth father before I was even born. So if the world has to burn, I say let it!”
Above us, the stained-glass window in the library’s ceiling exploded inward as Gabrielle came crashing through it. Shards of glass rained down three stories to shatter on the floor below. Gabrielle flew down into the atrium. She cast a spell, and suddenly the door behind Jordana swelled and warped in its frame. Jordana tried to pull the door open, but it was stuck. She was trapped on the balcony with nowhere to run.
“Let Bethany go,” Gabrielle said, hovering in midair.
“Stay back!” Jordana yelled. She was breathing hard. Her eyes darted nervously around the room, trying to find a way out. She was like a cornered animal. That made me nervous, especially with the gauntlet still pressed against the side of Bethany’s face. Jordana was too unpredictable to be certain what she would do next.
“You’ve been planning this from the start, Jordana,” Gabrielle said. “You gained my trust. Got me to make the necessary introductions. You used me.”
Jordana looked at her again, but her expression was one of confusion. The anger and determination were gone, as if some part of her was trying to push through the infection.
“No, I … that’s not why…” she said, her voice trembling.
“That’s not why you went to those meetings, is it, Jordana?” I said. I started along the wraparound balcony toward her. I kept my voice calm and my hands up to show her I didn’t mean any harm. “Your grief over your mother’s death was real. And when you met Gabrielle at the meetings, maybe your friendship was real, too, at first. Maybe it still can be.”
“I—I told Erickson I was spending time with Gabrielle, and that she worked with the—the Five-Pointed Star,” Jordana stammered. We were getting a glimpse of the real Jordana now, I was sure of it. She was fighting to break the infection’s hold on her. “Erickson told me there was someone else in the Five-Pointed Star, the Immortal Storm, a man who—who doesn’t know who he is. He put—he put more magic inside me. He told me what to do, and I had to…”
“He took advantage of your friendship with Gabrielle,” I said, edging closer. “He twisted it to serve his own ends. He did the same to you. He turned you into a tool he could use. Let Bethany go and put the gauntlet down, Jordana. You don’t owe that man anything.”
“No! He’s all I have left!”
Just as I thought we were starting to get through to her, her face changed, hardening. Her eyes focused on me like lasers. Damn. The infection was too strong.
She smirked. “Erickson’s plan was brilliant. Use your amnesia to keep you on the hook and get the Five-Pointed Star to find the fragments for us. I wish I’d thought of it myself.” She pulled Bethany closer. “Better keep your distance, loverboy. This could get messy. You, too, Gabrielle. Stay back.”
I stopped where I was, halfway to her. I kept my hands up. There was nothing in Jordana’s eyes I recognized anymore. The infection and Arkwright’s hold on her were too strong. Was any part of the real her left?
“It’s over, Jordana,” Isaac said. “You’re outnumbered. There’s no place left for you to run. Let’s end this now.”
“You’re right, it’s time to end this,” she said. She pushed Bethany face-first into the wall of books. She put the gauntlet to the back of Bethany’s head.
“Jordana, don’t,” I said.
She locked eyes with me. “You promised me safe passage. You should have let me go.”
“Jordana…”
“When you think back on this moment, remember: You made me do this.”
The gauntlet began its high-pitched whine. Bethany gritted her teeth and squeezed her eyes shut.
“No!” I shouted.
In my desperation, something snapped inside me. Time slowed to a crawl. My vision changed. Everything became atoms, sparking and blazing like suns. Around them wound the silken threads, binding it all together. I saw a dark cloud growing inside Jordana, swallowing the tiny stars within her and turning them dark. There was so little left untouched by the infection inside her. So little, but there was still some. I held onto that.
Instinct took over immediately, as if some part of me knew what to do. With my mind, I pulled and tore at the threads all around Jordana. The north balcony shook, destabilized. Then it buckled, knocking Jordana and Bethany off their feet. Jordana fell backward just as the blast erupted out of the gauntlet. Bethany was knocked forward. The blast clipped her across the back before it continued on to strike the north wall. Shelves of books were destroyed in a fiery explosion. An entire section of the north balcony floor was obliterated. Being grazed by the blast had extinguished some of the starry atoms inside Bethany, I saw, but not all of them. She was injured and unconscious, but not dead. Not yet. Though she would be if she didn’t get help soon.
Threads began snapping all across the north side of the library. Between destabilizing the balcony and the blast from Jordana’s gauntlet, the structure of the entire north wall was seriously weakened. It was all going to come down and take what was left of the balcony, plus Bethany and Jordana, with it. Books tumbled out of the shelves. Shelves fell out of the wall and crashed to the floor far below.
Gabrielle swooped down toward Bethany’s unconscious body. I saw a dark cloud within her, too. It was small, much smaller than Jordana’s, but it was there. Damn. The infection was already in her.
Gabrielle pulled Bethan
y off the balcony just as another section fell away, taking the metal railing with it. The rest of the north balcony warped and tipped. Jordana slid toward the edge. She grabbed hold of it before she fell and dangled some thirty feet above the floor below.
Gabrielle flew Bethany to the south balcony and laid her gently down beside Isaac. They bent over her, tending to her. Now that Bethany was safe, my vision began to return to normal—but not before I had another flash of those seven dazzling, titanic figures watching me. Watching while the whole world went to hell. They were so bright they seemed to sizzle. I only saw them for a moment. Then they were gone, and everything looked normal again.
I ran to what was left of the north balcony. As soon as I stepped foot on it, it bounced and shifted under my weight. I heard a bolt slide out of the wall somewhere beneath me and tumble to the floor. Jordana, dangling off the edge, gave a sharp cry. I didn’t know how much longer the balcony would stay up, but I refused to leave her here. I threw myself prone onto the balcony and grabbed her wrist with both hands.
“Get away from me!” she shouted.
“I’ve got you,” I said.
Her expression softened. She looked up at me. In her eyes, a sliver of her humanity rose to the surface through the infection.
“Let me go,” she pleaded. “Just let me fall.”
I looked past her at the floor below. Under normal circumstances, it would have been survivable if she landed right, maybe gaining her a broken leg or arm as a souvenir. But these weren’t normal circumstances. The floor was cluttered with jagged, bulky debris—wood, concrete, twisted bits of rebar and steel joists. If she fell, she would break her back, or her neck, or both. It would kill her.
“I won’t do it,” I said.
Jordana released her grip on the edge of the balcony and dangled from my hands. “Just let go.”
I got on my knees and started to pull her up. She struggled against me, bracing her feet against the underside of the balcony so I couldn’t lift her.
“Damn it, Jordana, I’m not going to let you fall!”
“Why?” she demanded. “I never loved you, Trent, not even for a minute. None of it was real. Don’t you get it? I used you.”
“I get it,” I said. “I just don’t care. Call it a character flaw.”
“I can make you let go,” she said. She raised her other arm and wrapped the cold metal fingers of the Thracian Gauntlet around my forearm.
I shook my head. “Don’t.”
The gauntlet began its high-pitched whine as it powered up.
Tears streamed down Jordana’s cheeks. “Let go. I don’t want to hurt you. I’ve hurt enough people.”
“Jordana, don’t!”
I refused to let go. I braced myself, ready for the blast to take my arm off, or kill me, or whatever else it would do at this close range, but instead the gauntlet began to spark. Arcs of electricity crackled across its metal surface like twisting serpents. It didn’t fire its blast, but it still hurt like hell, searing the flesh of my arm through my trench coat and my shirtsleeve. I gritted my teeth through the pain and held onto Jordana as tightly as I could, refusing to drop her. She took the gauntlet away from my arm, and the pain subsided.
She looked up at me in confusion. “What—what happened?”
“Magic acts weird around me,” I said. “I can’t explain it. It goes haywire. Either it doesn’t work right, or it gets stronger than it’s supposed to be. It must have caused the gauntlet to short out.”
I started pulling her up, but she stopped me with her feet again.
“Why are you doing this?” she demanded. “Why would you want to help me, after everything I did?”
“Because it’s not too late,” I said. “I saw the real you, Jordana, even if it was only for a moment. You showed it to me when we were in the supply room together. Remember? You asked me if I ever felt like I wasn’t in control, if I ever felt like I was falling toward something and couldn’t stop. You were reaching out. Not the infection. Not Arkwright. That was you, Jordana, the real you reaching out for help, only I didn’t know it at the time. But I know you’re still in there. I know the infection hasn’t taken over fully yet.”
“Then let me go,” she said as more tears spilled down her face. “Let me die while I’m still me.”
I struggled to pull her up. She grabbed my arm with the gauntlet.
“Don’t make me do this again,” she said.
“Stop!” I shouted. “The gauntlet is already malfunctioning. I don’t know how much more it can take—”
But it was too late. The gauntlet sparked and fizzled again. The pain was excruciating, but for Jordana it was worse. This time, the electrical arcs that had crackled across the gauntlet spread over her whole body. We both cried out in pain.
When she took the gauntlet off my arm, she was weeping, and not just from the pain. There was horror in her eyes, revulsion and regret.
“I—I killed … so many people…” she sobbed.
“You can still come back from this, Jordana,” I said. “I know. I’ve killed people, too. Some of them were innocent, just in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was because of something inside me, something I couldn’t control, just like you. But I found a second chance. You can, too. The infection can be reversed. I know it can, I’ve seen it.”
She shook her head violently. “Everyone at the office … they begged me for mercy, and I—I killed them without a second thought. I didn’t care. I thought it was fun. But now I can’t stop hearing them scream. I can’t stop seeing their faces. I just want it to stop.”
“I can help you, Jordana. Together we can figure out how to reverse the infection. Let me help you.”
“You don’t understand,” she said. “How am I supposed to live with this?”
Sobbing, she put the gauntlet on my arm again.
“Please, don’t do this,” I said.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I can’t.”
The gauntlet sparked against my arm. I cried out and clamped my eyes shut against the pain. But it wasn’t me she was trying to hurt. She knew the gauntlet would malfunction if it was touching me. She held it against my arm, taking the brunt of its backfire herself. I could feel her body jerking below me. I smelled burning hair and clothes. I held onto her as long as I could, but it wasn’t long enough. Her arm slipped out of my grasp. I opened my eyes as the pain subsided and saw her falling toward the floor. She was completely enveloped in flames, a falling comet, a shooting star. She fell silently, without so much as a scream, and I realized she was already dead. It took only seconds for her to hit the debris below, but by then there was nothing left of her but a smoldering, blackened husk that burst apart into ashes and charred bone. The gauntlet, weakened by its own malfunction, broke in two. A stream of sparks erupted from each piece, then lessened and died.
I knelt on the edge of the broken, ruined balcony, feeling cold and empty inside. Everything had been a lie. Our relationship. Lucas West. It had all been a trap set by Arkwright. Yet even knowing that, there was a part of me that wished I really had known Jordana before, because I was sure that Jordana, the one I’d seen snippets of through the infection, was someone special. But she’d had the bad luck to have Erickson Arkwright as a stepfather. He’d taken advantage of her loyalty, her sense of family, her need to hold onto the one thing she valued above all else. He’d infected her. He’d turned her into a cold-blooded killer, something she couldn’t stand to be. Something she would rather die than be.
The infection was supposed to be irreversible, but this was the second time I’d seen someone break through it. First the Black Knight, and now Jordana. What was the connection between them? Nothing. I couldn’t think of a single thing they had in common.
Isaac came up behind me and put a hand on my shoulder.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said, but it was as much a lie as the rest of it. I wasn’t okay. I didn’t want to be okay. Not until Erickson Arkwright got what was
coming to him. I stood up, my hands curling into fists.
“What happened to the balcony?” Isaac asked. “The blast from the gauntlet couldn’t have done this much damage.”
“I’m what happened,” I said. “I couldn’t control it. It just came through me again, like a reflex.”
“You mean Stryge’s power?” Isaac asked.
“Something like that,” I said. Whether the power was Stryge’s or mine, I didn’t care just then. I only cared about one thing. Finding Arkwright.
I walked back to where Gabrielle was bent over Bethany. Bethany was still unconscious, lying on her stomach to keep the pressure off of the angry-looking burn that ran diagonally across her back.
“How is she?” I asked.
“Isaac and I were able to stabilize her with healing spells, but she’s hurt bad,” Gabrielle said. “We should get her back to Citadel. I can take better care of her there.”
“Take her,” Isaac said. “You can get there faster than we can.”
Gabrielle didn’t wait to be told twice. She scooped Bethany up in her arms and flew out the hole in the stained-glass window above us.
“I want Arkwright,” I told Isaac. “When we find him, he’s mine.”
I turned and walked back into the third-floor hallway. Isaac followed me.
“Trent, I’m sorry about Jordana, but you need to keep a level head. If you go looking for revenge, you’re going to get sloppy and slip up. You’ll give Arkwright even more of an advantage than he’s already got.”
He was wrong. The only thing I would be giving Arkwright was a bullet in his brain. Erickson Arkwright should have died fourteen years ago with the rest of his doomsday cult. Now, the son of a bitch would die and stay dead. I would see to it myself.
I found the stairs and started down.
“Slow down,” Isaac said. “Where are you going? We don’t even know where Arkwright is.”
“There’s nothing left in this house that will tell us where he went,” I said. “He covered his tracks too well. I’ll turn over every damn stone in this city if I have to, but I’m going to end this.”
Die and Stay Dead Page 33