by Julie Kenner
His voice echoed back to me as the vortex sealed itself. “Faith . . .”
And then they were gone.
And the clock was still ticking down.
TWENTY-ONE
F aith.
Gabriel’s words hung in the air as I picked up speed, rushing down the street toward my sister and Deacon, still fighting their way through the mass of writhing demons.
Faith in my choices.
The familiar words flowed through me. Calming me and yet, at the same time, disturbing me.
I remembered now where I’d heard them before—at Madame Parrish’s, when I’d had the vision. When I’d seen Gabriel’s face on her body.
I shivered. Because how could he have faith in my choices when I didn’t intend to make one? The third key saved me from that—let me hop-skip right over faith. It was the easy way out, and I’ll wholeheartedly admit that I was glad that Deacon’s faith in the key’s existence had paid off.
Now we just had to use the thing. Which was easier said than done because we had to get our asses to the Zakim Bridge. And if we got there late, all bets were off.
“Deacon!” I shouted, sliding into the fray, my own blade in my right hand and the dagger in my left. “We have to get out of here!”
“All for that,” he shouted back. “Got any ideas how?”
There were dozens of them still. Coming at us from all directions. I’d made my way to the middle, where Deacon and Rose stood back-to-back, and I joined in. We made a small circle of resistance, and though we were all strong—though I was certain we could hold out for one hell of a lot longer than your average Joe on the street—holding out wasn’t what we needed.
We needed to actually be out.
“Got any bright ideas?” Rose said.
At my neck, the Oris Clef thrummed with power. Now that Penemue was gone, it had apparently decided that I was an okay mistress after all, and I could feel the warmth from it tingle through me. I didn’t, however, feel supercharged. I couldn’t hack through the crowd no matter how much I wanted to. I’d take down a hell of a lot of them, but I couldn’t guarantee I’d get off that street alive.
And right then, I needed guarantees.
“Because if you do have one,” Rose went on. “Now’s the time.”
I did have one, actually, but I hesitated to suggest it. Hesitated even to voice the possibility. But right then, we were all out of options, and I had to make the hard choices.
“Deacon,” I said, hating myself for saying the words—for even thinking them—yet knowing that it was the only way. “Can you change? Can you fly us out of here?”
He didn’t answer, and the silence cut me to the core. I felt small, as if I’d failed him. As if I’d failed us.
“If you ask me to do it,” he said in a voice full of pain, “then I will.”
I wanted to close my eyes and pray for strength, but the demons rampaging all around us prevented that luxury. My eyes stayed open, and my blade stayed active.
And, yes, I wanted to ask him to do it. But somehow the words wouldn’t come. It felt too much like a betrayal, and I wasn’t going to toss Deacon back to the wolves. Not when there was another way.
And I really hoped that there was another way.
“So we run for it,” Rose said. “We count to three, and we just go. Fast as we can. That’ll work, right?”
“Wrong,” I said. “We might make it. Or we might end up dead.”
I glanced quickly at her and saw her set her jaw. “I know the risks,” she said. “I’m ready.”
“Maybe you are,” I countered, thrusting my blade out to nail a demon foolish enough to move in on his own. He fell back, dissolving in front of us, and as the sweet power filled me, I realized I’d reached up to hold the Oris Clef tight in my hand. Its power flowed through me. So sweet. So tempting. So—
“We can’t do this much longer,” Rose shouted, and Deacon yelled his agreement. All around us, the demons had moved in—swarming like flies who’d finally figured out the best way to attack a small group. They’d lose their advance team, but by the end of the battle, we’d be finished, and they’d be victorious. Not a great outcome for us and one I didn’t intend to let happen.
“Stop!” I yelled, and the moment I did, I knew what I had to do.
I stepped away from Deacon and Rose, ignoring their cries of protest.
“Stop,” I repeated, and this time my voice boomed out, as if it had been magically amplified. Because, apparently, it had. “Let us pass.”
I waited, somehow knowing—absolutely knowing—that this would work, and yet still fearing that I was wrong.
I wasn’t.
All of the demons that had rushed into the street now took a step back, their heads bowed. The ones right in front of us moved even farther back, actually getting down on their knees, so that by the time they were all done shifting about, there was what appeared to be a troop formation with a corridor right down the middle.
Wow.
I might not be queen yet, but I’d just had a taste of the power that went with the job, and I have to say, it was pretty damn sweet.
“Hurry,” I said to Deacon and Rose. “It worked, but it may not stick.”
“Holy shit,” Rose said, as we raced down the street, then broke into the first car we found. “Holy freaking shit.”
“About sums it up,” I said, then turned to Deacon. “Can you get us to the bridge in time?”
According to the clock on the dash, we had less than forty minutes to get there.
Deacon grimaced. “No problem,” he said, then gunned the thing. The bad news was that traffic was insane. The roads were a mess from the earthquakes and fires, and when Deacon slowed to take a corner, inevitably some idiot demon would toss himself on the car, thinking that would slow us down or something.
I didn’t try the booming-voice routine again. Considering how fast Deacon was moving, I’d be long gone before any demon actually got the message.
“There!” I shouted, when we finally reached the entrance for the freeway that became the bridge. “Faster! Faster!”
Deacon didn’t answer, just kept barreling forward as time ticked away until we finally came to a screeching halt just at the edge of the Charles River. Close, but not exactly where we needed to be.
We couldn’t, however, get to where we needed to be because of the cars that were practically stacked on one another in what had to be the worst traffic jam I’d ever seen.
“Eight minutes,” Deacon said with an accusing glance toward the clock. “We need to run.”
Also not easy with all those cars, but we managed, scrambling around and over until we reached the first tower that stretched up into the sky, the cables draping down to form an angel’s wing.
“What now?” I asked Deacon. Beneath us, the bridge started to sway, and the water of the Charles started to bubble. The bright daytime sky started to fade, the shadow of the moon falling across the sun. An eclipse. And not one that scientists had predicted. This eclipse was all about portents and portals and heralding doom.
“What’s happening?” Rose asked, grabbing onto one of the cables. Around us, civilians gaped, although we weren’t attracting as much attention as we would have had it not been the end of the world. After all, the boiling river was at least as interesting as the crazy, knife-wielding people standing on top of the stalled cars.
“Demon coming,” I said, nodding toward the water. And then with a tilt up to the sky. “And a whole lot more after that.”
“Up,” Deacon said. “We need to climb up.”
We started to climb, which was not exactly an easy feat, as the cables were slick and set at an impossible angle. It’s times like that when superstrength really does come in handy, and although I won’t say we scaled the cables with ease, we did manage to make it to the top. Or I did. Deacon was close behind me, and Rose was taking up the rear, hanging on with one hand and battling back a wiry, fuzz-covered demon that had followed her up.
> I had a similar problem, because when I reached the top of the concrete tower, I found myself sharing my tiny little chunk of concrete with a snarling, snapping monkey-shaped demon who had apparently come up on the opposite set of cables, just to piss me off.
“It’s coming,” Deacon said. “Lily, it’s rising!”
Rising?
I risked a sideways glance and saw that the portal was indeed rising. A sliver of dark, like a cat’s pupil, had formed out of thin air, a few feet above the river. As it rose, it expanded, and from what Deacon had said about the portal opening above the towers, I figured it would be wide enough for hell to burst through by the time it got up here.
“What do I do?” I said. “How do I use the key?”
The dagger had come with no instructions, no nothing, and the portal was not shaped like a giant keyhole, nor did it resemble a bull’s-eye where the knife should hit dead center.
“Shove the knife in,” Rose called up. “Before it gets too big.”
Since that sounded like as good a plan as any, I started to shinny back down the cables, wanting to position myself above a relatively small portal rather than a gaping maw.
The demon sharing the tower with me wasn’t keen on the idea of my leaving, though, and he lunged toward me. I shifted, lost my balance, and started to fall off the tower. I reached out to balance myself, and ended up grabbing the serrated edge of his knife and ripping my hand to shreds.
The blood made my hand slick as I reached down to grab the cables, but I had a decent enough grip, and I used it to steady myself as I lashed up with my leg, whipped it sideways, and sent him tumbling off the tower into space.
I shifted my grip and slid down the cable, and this time the blood on my hand turned out to be pretty useful, as it got the cable all slippery and increased the speed of my downward shinny at least threefold.
I stopped when the portal was about a foot below me. About the size of the mouth of a jar of pickles, and I thrust out and stabbed the blade hard into the rising void, then held my breath anticipating—something. A whooshing sound, maybe, as the portal slammed shut.
There was, however, no whooshing.
There was, in fact, no nothing.
Worse, the portal was still rising, and all of a sudden I was actually below the damn thing.
Shit.
I shifted the knife to my bloody hand, then shoved it in my belt again as I climbed yet again up the cables, calling down to Deacon as I went. “It didn’t work! What did I do wrong?”
He, however, didn’t answer, as he was otherwise preoccupied fighting off the five demons that had managed to climb up and surround him as he clung with one hand to a cable and tried to battle them off with the other.
I reached the top of the tower, thankfully faster than the portal, which was growing bigger. I could hear them, the waiting demons, biding their time until the portal opened.
And around my neck, the Oris Clef seemed to sing, trying to draw me in, to entice me, to pull me toward the dark.
I thought about what it could do for me. The power I could wield.
No. Not power. Good. The good I could do. The control I could foist upon the demons, just as I had made them bow down to me during our escape. It had felt right, that power. I could do that.
I could.
And because the third key didn’t work, there really was no other way.
Or, rather, the only remaining way still made me quiver with fear, especially since the portal was still widening, and I could peer down. Especially when I could see the writhing shadows of the hordes and feel the rising heat of the hellfire.
Especially having felt the power of what I would be giving up.
I swallowed, calling on my courage. I could do this—I could lead, and so I lifted my hand high, then raised the dagger that was still in my hand. My palm was already bloody, but in the vision, I’d sliced my hand right before grasping the Oris Clef, and now was not the moment to veer from procedure.
Beneath me, I could hear Rose and Deacon battling fiercely as demons climbed up the cables beneath them.
I drew in my breath, then issued a command, just as I had on the street. “Stop!” I cried, but this time there was no booming undertone, and the demons did not even hesitate.
I understood why—the Oris Clef had given me a taste of power. But now, for more, I had to fully embrace my throne.
Rose’s scream pierced my ear, and I looked down, saw that the sharp talon of a demon’s claw had ripped into her thigh. It was bleeding badly, the wound exposed all the way down to the bone, and my sister’s face was pale, her breathing shallow, though she was still fighting, still holding her own.
I clutched the dagger tighter. I had to do this. One moment. One change, and I could save Rose.
I brought the dagger toward me—then stopped. My blood was smeared on the blade, and I saw that the blood had raised an inscription. For my daughter. May you find the courage to do what must be done.
My heart stuttered in my chest, and I felt tears prick my eyes. Margaret had believed it would be her own daughter, Alice, who stood on this precipice, but the words seemed meant only for me.
I understood now the real truth—why I’d been unable to locate the dagger in the book. Not because it was in another dimension, but because I’d been searching for the key. And the dagger was not a key; it couldn’t close the gate. It couldn’t prevent the Apocalypse.
Instead, it was a gift. A mother’s gift to the daughter she believed would save the world.
Oh God.
Beneath me, the portal gained speed, rising faster and faster. I stood there, torn and terrified. The time to make a decision was now, and I was paralyzed.
That, however, didn’t last for long, as I was thrown into motion when the bridge began to buckle.
The screams of the humans on the bridge reached my ears, along with the cry of my sister. “The water. Lily, look at the water!”
I looked, and as it bubbled and hissed—as the bridge shook with tremors—something large and gray was rising to the surface.
A violent jolt shook my tower, and I fell to my stomach, grasping one of the cables as I tried to ride out the waves. Beneath me, I watched with horror as the bridge split down the middle, the concrete breaking, the steel cables snapping. Cars and people tumbled into the river, their screams drowned out by the screech of ripping metal and the roar of shattering concrete.
Rose, too, went down, and it was my turn to scream as she fell, then even louder when I saw what caught her—a hideous beast emerging from the bubbling, steaming river that was slowly evaporating, dissipated by the hellish heat generated by a massive demon that could only be Kokbiel.
That is right, little bitch. I am Kokbiel. I am the destruction and the light. I am your origin and your destiny. I am the one who will rip the head off this foolish child if you do not give me what I want.
The Oris Clef, my child.
Give it to me, and I will let you rule at my side, your sister a princess, your male a prince.
Give it to me, and fulfill your destiny as my heir, for my blood—my essence—burns in your veins. Of this, you already know.
Give it to me, he said. And together we can transform the world.
TWENTY-TWO
I clutched the Oris Clef tight.
No way, no way in hell, was I giving it to a demon like Kokbiel.
But I had to save Rose. I had to do something, and I had to do it fast, or else I’d lose not only Rose but the whole damn world.
I looked down to gauge the location of the portal, and realized that it was no longer beneath me. The quake that had shaken the tower had also lowered it—and shoved it down so that it was now at an angle to the riverbed, whereas before it had been perpendicular. Instead of the portal being a straight drop below me, it was not only above me but also about twenty feet away.
Which meant that unless I could sprout wings and fly, I wasn’t doing a single damn thing. Not the Oris Clef, not my own sacrifice, not
anything.
Closing the gate meant being at the gate, and I couldn’t get there.
Kokbiel, rising up to stretch out wings beneath me, though . . .
Well, I could see that he wasn’t going to have similar problems. More than that, I knew what was going to happen, and I braced myself for another earthquake—the final one, which would shake him free of the dimension from which he was emerging.
And once he was out, he would rise up, straight to me.
Straight for the Oris Clef I wore around my neck.
Now, girl. The child’s time is running out.
He had Rose tight around the chest, and her face was pale as she gasped, trying to draw breath. But she didn’t scream. She didn’t cry. She just looked up at me with pleading, defiant eyes, and mouthed the word, “No.”
Screw this.
I knew what I had to do, and I scanned the area beneath me for Deacon. He was on a bobbing piece of concrete, the cable he’d been clinging to apparently having snapped. He balanced on it like a life raft as he cut down demon after demon trying to capsize him and thrust him into the boiling water.
“Deacon,” I shouted. “Fly.”
He looked up at me, confused, as if he couldn’t have heard what he thought he had. As if he knew there was no way I would ask him to return to his demon state, because to even ask would be to betray everything between us.
I steeled myself, hating what I had to do, but knowing I had no choice. “Dammit, Deacon, you said you would change if I asked. Well, I’m asking now. I know what I have to do. But I need you to fly me.”
“Lily, I—”
“Please.” I could feel the tears clogging my throat. “Deacon, trust me. I need you to trust me.”
He hesitated, then bowed his head. And when he looked up again, I saw fire in his eyes, along with self-loathing and a desperate control.
I also saw his wings, spreading out, strong and powerful. He rose, a majestic beast clinging to a frayed thread of control, and rushed straight toward me.