by Lizzy Ford
Kaylee shifted uncomfortably. Her wrists were tied behind her back. Her ribs ached from the trip into the house, and her muscles felt bruised from struggling to stabilize herself on the floor of the van.
No part of her felt especially good. Her head was woolly, her body sluggish to respond, and fatigue weighed her down. Her shoulders in particular burned from the awkward position.
“If we free you, will you stay put?”
Kaylee’s heart fell when she heard the familiar voice. It was as much dread as empathy for Nathan, who hadn’t known Maggy was a traitor.
“Yes,” Kaylee replied.
Maggy moved behind her and cut through the zip tie.
Kaylee groaned as she moved her arms in front of her. Her shoulders pulsed angrily, and she rolled them back tentatively.
Maggy pulled up a chair in front of her, appearing far less fatigued than Kaylee felt.
“Hey,” Maggy said. “How’s life been?”
The first and only time Kaylee met her was when Nathan brought Maggy to Kaylee’s office to explain the first of their horrible plans, which had ended with Kaylee’s death.
“Terrible,” Kaylee replied truthfully.
Maggy smiled. “It’s probably not about to get any better.”
“I’m not really surprised. I assume someone’s going to kill me at some point.”
“Not yet,” Maggy admitted. “Zyra has some crazy ideas about how we can use you before you die.”
“Great.” Kaylee sighed. “Any chance I can get some coffee before this crazy idea starts?”
“Sure. Breakfast?”
“Yes, please.”
Maggy motioned to one of the men at the door. He stepped away from his position and disappeared into the hallway. “You’re taking this all much better than the first time we met.”
“I was murdered and spent a month in a Satanist cult. The shock of all this wears off after a while.”
“How is … he?” Maggy asked.
“Shadowman or Nathan?” Kaylee retorted. “Or Eddy?”
Maggy snorted. “All of the above.”
“Nathan’s pissed. Shadowman’s not talking to me. Eddy’s psychotic as usual. I’m sensing a trend about the men in my life.”
“Me, too.” Maggy smiled again. “What’s wrong with Shadowman?”
Kaylee explained the archdemon’s inactivity the best she could. Maggy appeared to be thinking the information over. If Kaylee had to guess, her latest captor didn’t understand Shadowman’s strange distance either.
“Might be a good thing,” Maggy said at last. “It means he can’t control you or your environment.”
“Unless I’m in danger. He pops up then.”
“He didn’t stop us from kidnapping you.”
“Mortal danger,” Kaylee clarified. “The kind I won’t walk away from.”
“Archdemons are new territory for everyone. I have no idea what to expect. I do know Nathan kidnapped one of the gatekeepers. Know where Amira and Shanti are?”
“Shanti was in the house with me. If you didn’t grab her, then I have no idea where she is now.” Kaylee shook her head. “I’m useless to you, Maggy. No one tells me things, because they fear Shadowman will find out. But I also believe no one tells me things also because they can’t figure this all out either. Nathan alone knows where Amira is. Eddy knows where his people are and what they want to do with me. Neither is willing to tell me anything.”
Maggy studied her. Kaylee assumed the senior spirit guide was reading her aura, similar to how Nathan did. “I believe you,” she said. “You’re not helpful but you’re far from useless. You’re at the center of all this, even if no one understands exactly how or why. I’m leaning towards your theory about closing portals, because nothing else makes sense. This means you and Shadowman are potentially useful to us.”
Kaylee sighed.
“About Eddy,” Maggy continued. “None of his people were with him at the house. Why not?”
“He said they were wiped out or scattered by you guys, and he was waiting for someone to contact him. Probably Bullet, the demon.”
“They’ve gone underground, and Bullet is missing.”
“That’s all I got,” Kaylee said and leaned back, tired.
“You aren’t even trying to be evasive.”
“Why bother? I don’t know anything.”
Maggy studied her once more. “Okay, then. Enjoy breakfast, and we’ll talk about what happens next.”
Kaylee had wanted to know what happened next since this entire journey started. But something about the way Maggy said it, and the guide’s smile, left her chilled rather than eager for the answers.
Maggy left, and one of the guards brought Kaylee a tray of food and coffee. He set it down on an end table near the wall.
Kaylee waited for him to leave before she dragged her chair to the end table and wolfed down the food. It was plain but filling. She wrapped both hands around the mug of coffee and leaned back, content to sip it. For all she knew, this was the last coffee she’d ever drink.
Her mind roamed over her options and returned to the fact she had none but to wait to see what the world had in store for her, which made the sense of doom over her head grow more ominous. She looked around the room as she drank her coffee. There were no windows and only one door. A surveillance camera pointed at her had been placed into one corner.
Kaylee glanced towards the floor, recalling Eddy’s secret hiding place. She wasn’t going to get lucky with a second cellar twice.
There was one way out, and it was guarded by two men twice her size.
Things have to break my way. I’ve been through too much, she told herself without an ounce of faith in her luck. Pedro’s advice echoed in her thoughts.
She had what she needed to become who she needed to become. What exactly was that? How did she access the inner chamber of her soul where these secrets lived? How did she discover her purpose, before someone succeeded in killing her?
Dizziness hit her suddenly. She dropped to her knees. This time, the fatigue and heaviness were more intense. She struggled to stay on her knees beneath the oppressive sensation of being crushed by an invisible weight. Her head throbbed, and her body was like stone, too heavy to move. Not even her lips would form the cry for help stuck in her throat.
Dying. Shadowman’s voice was stronger than usual. She didn’t sense him becoming stronger, only that he put more effort into communicating with her.
Kaylee was too panicked to respond. At first, a sudden onslaught of images flooded her mind too fast for her to make sense of it. It slowed, and she made out one scene playing in a loop.
*
Eddy carried her out of his beater car and into the forest. Her features were pale, her lips blue, her clothing soaked through with blood. He laid her at the center of a pentagram, lit black candles, and used her blood to trace a circle around the pentagram. He slashed his arm and walked the circle again, mixing their blood with the dirt. When he reached the top of the circle, he began to chant words she didn’t understand.
He glowed black and cold, and his eyes became bottomless holes in his face. For a moment, she could almost see his true form, which was no solid form at all but a mixture of darkness and light. His chanting became louder. The pentagram glowed next, followed by her body, which lifted off the ground.
Eddy’s body emitted black shadows that took on the form of tendril-like fog stretching towards her. They began to circle her, moving around her and then through her, winding in and out like a ribbon. They remained tethered to Eddy, whose chanting took on an otherworldly sound, as if a hundred voices whispered in unison.
A blinding flash of lightning, many times the brightness of the sun, burst into the circle, knocking Eddy back. It was joined by a flash of black lightning, as cold as the first bolt was hot. The two merged and swirled, fusing together light and dark, hot and cold. They sank into Kaylee’s body and disappeared. Eddy climbed to his feet, eyes on her corpse. His features and ey
es had returned to normal.
The shadows lowered her to the ground, though one of them remained tethered to Eddy.
*
The heaviness released Kaylee and she gasped, resting on all fours. “What the fuck did he do to me?” she whispered, horrified by the images of how Eddy had returned her to life.
He could not bring us back fully. He reanimated us, Shadowman explained.
“Reanimated? Like … I’m a zombie?”
Reanimated.
Was that a yes? She didn’t ask again. She wasn’t going to hold onto her wits much longer if he confirmed she was the undead.
Eddy sustains us. He cannot find us here. Dying. Shadowman explained with effort. Dying. Dying. Dying.
Kaylee sat back on her haunches, breathing quick and hard. “What do we do? Tell me!”
The image of lightning flashed in her mind, accompanied by a trickle of warmth. He had given her this answer before, when they were in danger in the forest.
Before she could demand he tell her more, thunder exploded overhead, loud enough to cause the walls of the house to shudder.
An odd feeling trickled through Kaylee, as if her instincts almost understood what Shadowman had been trying to reveal to her through the images.
She stood and looked up at the ceiling, unable to see the storm roaring outside the house.
“Barachiel,” she repeated quietly. “Lightning, storms, luck and guardian angels.” She didn’t quite understand how they all fit together. At the moment, she cared only about lightning – and a little bit of luck.
She was dying and with her, Shadowman.
“Nathan said you were a guardian angel, the only one to fall since Creation,” she murmured. “And Barachiel was the head of the guardian angels. That’s why we were fated to be connected, isn’t it? You fell, and I went after you. To save you? Stop you?”
Shadowman was quiet, distant.
The heaviness slammed into her again, shoving her to the floor. Kaylee groaned beneath the weight of what she now knew to be death. The vision of how Eddy had reanimated her … the nights of sleep where she felt as if she died … the general sense of fatigue she experienced since waking up after Nathan murdered her … Her body wasn’t going to be able to fend off death for much longer. Eddy was her anchor, and he couldn’t defeat all of 3G’s forces to reach her in time, assuming he found her.
Kaylee lay on the floor, struggling to breathe. She could do nothing until the spell passed. Vaguely aware of footsteps and voices, she didn’t have the strength to resist what 3G planned to do to her. Hands lifted her off the floor. A heavy vest was tied around her torso. Someone hefted her up and carried her.
Rain soon wetted her face.
With effort, Kaylee opened her eyes. Her moonstone vest glowed and reflected the ripple of lightning above. Those around her spoke words her dying mind couldn’t process. The 3G members sounded urgent, as if they had figured out she was in some serious shit health wise.
Pedro’s three claims echoed in her mind. He hadn’t appeared to be concerned about her ability to survive, because he understood what Barachiel, and therefore, what she, was capable of.
Thunder crashed loudly enough for her teeth to chatter and ears to pop. It was followed by an extended flash of lightning. She squeezed her eyes closed.
Lightning. The evidence of divine will, influence, judgment. A means of both vengeance and, when joined by rain, of growth. Prosperity. Abundance. Blessings. Protection by guardian angels.
The information came from somewhere deep inside her and faded once more, as if every part of her, down to her soul, was dying. Understanding and warmth trickled into her. According to the vision Shadowman showed her, light and dark existed within her, archangel and archdemon, good and evil.
The full meaning behind it all, however, eluded her mind, which was sinking towards oblivion.
You are who you believe. You have what you need. It is what you think.
Cold rain pelted her face, and the second violent crash of thunder dragged her back from the brink temporarily.
“I am Barachiel. I am lightning.” She mouthed words she didn’t have the effort to speak aloud. Shadowman shifted inside her and with him, the warmth she had experienced on several occasions. “I am Barachiel. I am lightning.” She continued to repeat the affirmations without believing they meant anything.
Sustained brightness lit up the darkness of her eyelids. Agitated by the brilliance preventing her from sinking into herself once and for all, Kaylee opened her eyes. A second bolt of lightning smashed into something near her. The man carrying her was flung away, dropping her in the process. Kaylee landed in a puddle. She lifted her head, jarred out of her stupor by the frigid water.
The world went dark. The heaviness of death lifted from her as it had before, though she suspected with no small amount of panic that the next one would kill her for sure.
Weakened by the experience, she twisted to orient herself to who and what was around her. One of 3G’s cars was on fire, torched by lightning. Several of the rebellious guides climbed to their feet. Her ears still ringing from the lightning strike, Kaylee couldn’t make out what they were shouting about. She didn’t have to. They were looking for her. She’d landed in a puddle near the wood line on the other side of the van they’d probably been taking her to.
She sucked in a breath and pushed herself up. She wasn’t going to last much longer; her body was wooden, her breathing labored. She was dying faster, and Shadowman was all but gone. Water dripped off her face and hair. She was drenched from a combination of the puddle and steady sheet of rain.
Turning away from the scene beside the cottage where they’d taken her, she staggered into the forest. Kaylee caught herself against the nearest tree and pushed away, lurching forward. Her body remembered how to function and steadied her, as if it had been dead for the few minutes she was stuck in the place between life and death.
A shout came from behind her.
Panic fed Kaylee’s desperation, and she tore through the forest, oblivious to the branches scraping her skin or the bushes trying to trip her. She ran.
Lightning blinded her. She gave up on understanding her connection to the meteorological phenomenon and ran as fast as she could.
Her foot twisted beneath her, caught between branches of a fallen tree. Pain cut through her. Kaylee fell hard and stifled a cry. She tugged at her leg without luck. Sitting, she gingerly touched her ankle. It was hot to the touch. Her fingertips brushed an out of place lump, one that – combined with the pain pulsing up her leg – confirmed she’d probably broken it.
Tears blinded her as she tried hard to dislodge her foot. It came loose finally. She rose on her good leg and gently shifted her weight to the other. Sharp pain caused more tears to spring into her eyes. Kaylee leaned against the tree beside her.
She couldn’t run. She couldn’t fight. In about five minutes, she’d lose what little control she had over her circumstances when the first 3G member found her.
“I am Barachiel. I am lightning,” she whispered and wiped tears and rain from her eyes. She sank down with her back to the trunk of the tree and stared at the sky. Her ankle throbbed, and the familiar sense of fatigue descended upon her once more. “I’d like to say I had a good run, but that’d be the biggest lie of all. If anyone is listening, if guardian angels are real, I could use some help tonight.”
Another roar of thunder shook the earth. Kaylee covered her ears and slumped, not trying to fight the heaviness of death as it crept upon her.
A bolt of lightning smashed into a tree near her. Wood pelted her exposed skin.
A second bolt hit another tree nearby. This one was black, the same shadowy lightning she had witnessed in her vision.
A third and fourth brilliant bolt slammed into the trees, followed by a rapid succession of three black bolts.
Horrified by the display, Kaylee staggered to her feet. Both light and dark strikes were creeping towards her. She hopped away from the tree w
hose trunk she had sat against. As soon as she stood, it, too, exploded into pieces.
Kaylee hit the ground hard enough to knock her breath out of her. Her ears rang painfully. She was disoriented by the brilliant lightning and immobilized by her ankle. She rolled onto her back, certain she would never stand again.
As with her trip over the edge of a cliff, the next moment happened in slow motion, and then too fast. A streak of brilliant lightning shot from the sky, a black bolt in its wake. The two raced towards her.
Time caught up to her.
Hot and cold smashed into her, tearing her apart from the inside out. The dual sensations coursed through her, each creating its own flavor of searing agony. Shadowman thrashed, as vulnerable to the lightning as she was.
Kaylee screamed, and hundreds of voices from hundreds of directions screamed with her.
The blessing of unconsciousness enveloped her, removing her from the pain.
The gentle patter of rain against her face pulled Kaylee from the recesses of her dark mind. Drops crept down her nose, tickling her sensitive nostrils and upper lip.
Kaylee wriggled her nose. Her ankle throbbed with pain and her limbs were stiff. She remained where she was in the mud, reliving the memories of where she was and why. Her skin was cold, her insides unusually warm. The scent of roses filled her nose.
How much time had passed? Had 3G given her up as dead when the lightning hit?
She opened her eyes, not fully believing she was alive after being hit by two bolts of lightning. The storm had calmed and started to move on. Thunder rumbled in the distance, and lightning flared within the clouds.
Rose petals surrounded her. She lay in the middle of what appeared to be a wasteland. The forest around her was gone. Nothing but charred sawdust and woodchips had been scattered for a hundred yards in every direction.
She wasn’t alone, either.
“How are you here?” she whispered.
Shadowman, in his dark form without definition in his features or body, was kneeling near her, wobbling.
They couldn’t bring you back without returning me as well. They split us.