by Dianna Hardy
“Tell him yourself.”
Elena merely shook her head, fighting back tears, and brought the blade down—
“Elena!”
Oh, God!
She couldn't help it – not one hundred horses dragging her in the opposite direction would have stopped her from turning towards that voice in that second.
There he was. Alive.
His face was a mask of fear and desperation as he looked up at the gaping hole above them.
He knows … he knows what happens next...
And then he was there, in front of her, taking her in his arms. She sagged into him. Her world lit up and died at the same time.
An older man stood behind him, a grim look on his face. “What a mess you've made, young lady,” he tutted.
“I can fix it.”
“No!” said Karl, bringing her closer into him.
She looked up at him, suddenly too aware and ashamed of how she looked. “Karl … I never thought I'd see you again. And I'm so glad I'm able to. I'm so, so sorry.”
“Ssshh. You didn't know – none of us did.”
“Let me fix this – I'm the only one who can.”
The older man put his hand on Karl's shoulder. “There's no other choice, son. We're too late.”
Karl nodded, but the sobs he fought to contain threatened to rack his body.
“They're coming! Hurry!”
She turned to see shadows moving on the other side of the portal. Elena held the knife over her wrist once more, and pressed down. But before it could break skin, it went hurtling from her grasp through the air. “What...?”
They all turned to find Etienne standing a few metres away, now holding the knife.
“Etienne … why?” called out Amy, confusion in her voice, and something else … grief. Elena would recognise that emotion anywhere.
He said nothing.
A look passed between Elena and himself, and Elena felt her anger return … Grandfather.
Pueblo gave a shout, or maybe it was a war-cry.
The first Shanka demon fell through the portal, closely followed by two more, and all hell broke loose.
Chapter Eleven
Karl couldn't fly yet, not really. He couldn't even make his wings appear. Gwain had carried him wherever they went, which left him reeling at how strong the angel actually was. He'd had that moment of clarity at the morgue, when everything had been revealed and the world had made sense. It had lasted seconds, and now he was as befuddled as before. In some ways, he felt even more useless. He was an angel, or half an angel, but he still couldn't get his head around that. And he was trying very hard not to blubber like a pansy about Elena having to sacrifice herself to save the world, but he wasn't having much luck with that either.
Still, demons were coming at them from all angles now, and when backed into a corner, his instincts came alive. His only thought was to protect them all, and the thought seemed to surge from his chest, rather than his head – it always had. Only this time, it literally surged from his chest, surrounding them all in a golden light. The light acted as a shield, pushing every Shanka it could to the periphery of the light.
“Er … Karl?” voiced Elena.
“Yeah – Elena, there are a few things we have to talk about.”
They all stood within the shield, looking out as more and more of the Shanka fell through the portal. As a unit, they honed in on Elena, and began to pound the shield.
Karl grimaced, each pound sending a blast of pain into his solar plexus.
Pueblo and Mary looked at each other, seemed to make a silent decision, then jumped out of the shield and began fighting demons. Pueblo, unsurprisingly, moved like a pro, but Mary … he had to hand it to the tall brunette – she was awesome … and different. Something was definitely different about her, but he couldn't tell if she had changed, or if his new angelic eyes were seeing something he'd never noticed before.
He couldn't tell where Amy was at first, then realised she was having an argument with the white-haired man. His angel-mind understood straight away that this was Elena's grandfather. And it was clear that he meant something important to Amy.
Gwain seemed to have disappeared.
Mary cried out as one of the demons threw her face down onto the ground. He straddled her back, grabbing her head to smash it down. Elena left his side and was upon the Shanka in the time it took to blink, sending them both sprawling away from Mary, who simply got up, dusted herself down and carried on sparring.
With his shield mostly redundant now everyone was outside it fighting, he focused the best he could, pulled it back into himself, then jumped into the foray with everyone else.
~*~
Amy was more upset than she'd like to admit.
“Etienne, why? Elena was going to close the portal.”
“It will also suck her in through it when she does.”
So that was her sacrifice for creating the portal – she knew there'd be one. She flinched at the thought of Elena, forever a prisoner in the Shanka's world. Poor Elena … poor Karl.
As much as Amy didn't want that to happen, she wasn't naïve enough to think that Etienne had Elena's best intentions at heart.
“You're the one that wanted to erase her from history, remember?”
“I want to erase demons from history. I did a little research since you told me the Dessec were not cooperative. It turns out, that with Elena's great power as a witch and half-demon harnessed, I can use it to destroy all the Shanka. She is of use yet.”
She inwardly cringed at how his bigotry overshadowed everything else.
“At the expense of this portal killing us all first!” She looked around at her friends. They all had their hands full, and the number of demons was just increasing. “Etienne, you've not always been like this. Are you really so focused on your prejudice that you'll endanger the entire world, to see your hatred of demons satisfied? We have to close the portal.”
“Oh, yes, Amy, we do – I completely agree.”
“Then let me take the dagger back to Elena.”
Instead he gripped her arm, his hold vice-like.
“Ouch! You're hurting me!”
“The direct translation of the instructions to create a portal are as follows: only a witch by her blood shall open the door; only a witch by her blood shall close the door behind her.
“It doesn't specify which witch.”
Horror froze her insides. “No...”
He brought the blade down to her wrist.
“No!”
She sent a blast of power into him, but he was fully expecting it and had already shielded himself. So she kicked him in the shin instead, as hard as she could.
He stumbled and groaned, but tightened his hold on her arm. In his other hand his fingers whitened as he gripped the dagger, and then it was slicing her arm. It went deep and her scream filled the air.
Everything seemed to still for a minute – all sounds of fighting stopped. Pueblo cried out her name and started running towards her, but Etienne sent him flying with nothing more than a thought. And then all chaos resumed, the shouting louder and more urgent than before, from humans and demons alike. She looked for Elena, probably the only person who could fight Etienne, but she was already fighting off about six demons … my God, they really were outnumbered.
She struggled with everything she had, but was also scared that her struggling would move her arm in such a way that the blood would fall sooner.
Etienne simply laughed and threw her on the ground with himself on top of her, holding her down with his body, as he held her arm up above her head. The blood trickled down her arm at an alarming pace. He did cut deep – there was so much of it. Seconds … her life as she knew it would be over in seconds.
“Why are you doing this?”
His eyes hardened as he looked at her, disgust colouring his features. “You took him into you,” he spat out. “I trusted you and you drank his blood!”
Even with his evident loathing
of her, his eyes still shone with tears. “You're nothing but a demon whore!”
Tears fell from her own eyes. She shouldn't have given him the satisfaction, but love was a funny thing. He had been like a father to her her entire life – to hear those words directed at her with such repulsion was more than she could bear.
“I'm so sorry,” she whispered.
His eyes softened for a second, then grew harder than before. He began to chant.
~*~
Elena was exhausted, as well as beside herself at what was about to happen. They were also fighting more demons than they could handle, and they kept on coming. She used her magic whenever she could, but more often than not, she got knocked from behind, or from the left, or right, before she could even finish a thought-form. They were all battered and bruised – well, except for Karl, who didn't bruise. But he looked like he was about to collapse.
Pueblo – or at least she assumed that was his name, since she'd heard it being directed at him several times – was desperately trying to reach Amy, but like her, he got knocked back with every step he took.
Then Elena heard Etienne begin to speak the words that would close the portal.
Oh, God! Amy!
And then she heard another, familiar voice, chant with him. She caught Etienne's look of surprise, just before she turned to find the source of the voice herself.
Her mother stood directly on the hotspot, below the portal, a shield of protection surrounding her, keeping everyone away. Unlike the rest of them, she looked refreshed and calm. Clearly none of them had noticed her teleport in. What Elena did notice – what no one could miss – was the knife in her hand, the blade glinting red. Her wound ran straight down her wrist in a long gash.
“Mum...”
The last word of the spell left her lips, and her blood hit the ground half a second before Amy's did.
“No!” she heard Etienne shout.
The Earth began to tremble and the portal expanded and contracted, expanded and contracted...
The Shanka scrambled over each other to get away from it, but the portal was like a giant Shanka magnet, and they all found themselves being pulled upwards, toward it.
At that moment, a man flew – yes, flew – from the opening onto the ground, with a very impressive sword in one hand, and … Nathaniel's head in the other.
“Oh, my God!” she found herself saying, partly because of what he was holding and partly because of his wings! He had wings!
“Gwain!” exclaimed Karl.
He knows him?
You went into their world?” he asked, in an unbelieving tone.
Gwain simply shrugged and smiled at the head, which he held like a trophy. “We had business, him and me. I've been waiting for this opportunity for a long time – I wasn't going to waste it.”
The demons looked at their King's head in horror and fury, but there was nothing they could do about it. They disappeared one by one back into their shadow world. And then Elena felt herself being pulled towards the opening and screamed!
Karl grabbed her hand, and yanked her back down, showering light around them both.
“It wants me.”
“Because of your Shanka half. Don't let go of me.”
She didn't.
He held her fast, increasing the glow around them, until she couldn't feel the pull anymore.
Elena stared at her mother. There were so many things to say … none of them could be said in just a few seconds. So she said the only thing that could. “I love you.”
Her brown eyes, a shade lighter than Elena's own, shimmered in tears of gratitude. “It's been so long since you've said that to me.”
“I don't want you to go,” she said in a small voice, suddenly six years old again.
“I know, baby. I wish I could hold you right now.”
Instinctively, Elena stepped forward, but Karl pulled her back.
“You can't,” he said, his voice pained. “I'm sorry.”
Her mum looked at Karl, and smiled a smile she'd not seen for almost twenty years. “You look after her, boy.”
He nodded.
Then her mum looked at Gwain, and at the head he was holding. A silent understanding passed between them.
They know each other.
Elena suddenly realised that she was witnessing something she wasn't privy to. Reading her mother's diary, it had hit her personally. Without even realising it, she had made it all about her – it never once occurred to her, in her traumatised state, that it was her mother's diary. It wasn't about Elena at all. It was about her mother – her mother's life. Something she didn't know very much about, and would now never get the chance to.
The last Shanka demon was sucked through the opening.
Her mum looked at her, one final time, and beamed with joy, even as tears fell down her cheeks. “I'm so proud of you, Elena.”
And then her body was jerked backwards through the eye of the portal, it closed down on itself, and both portal and witch were gone.
Elena turned away, beside herself, and sobbed into Karl's chest.
Everyone grouped together in shock, not knowing what to do or say next … until Pueblo's strained voice broke through the silence. “Where's Amy?”
All eyes fell to the spot where her and Etienne had been. Her blood stained the ground. Neither of them were anywhere to be seen.
“He's got her,” said Pueblo. “He's taken her … somewhere protected. I can't sense her.”
Mary placed a hand on his shoulder. “We'll find her … but we all need to rest.”
He nodded, his face grim. “You all rest. I'm going to start searching now.” And he dematerialised.
“Mary, can we all use your flat to regroup?” asked Karl.
She nodded, and the four of them, too tired to travel by any other means, and looking like the cast from a B-horror movie set, walked eastwards towards the now rising sun, and towards the gates that would lead them out of Hyde Park.
Epilogue
The rest of the week went by very slowly. Despite them all having so much to come to terms with, they were also mourning the two souls that they'd lost.
Pueblo had made it his personal mission to search for Amy – he spent every waking hour looking for a clue as to her whereabouts. Unfortunately, every clue he found led to a dead end.
They couldn't all stay at Mary's house, so Karl and Elena had moved into Karl's parents' house, which had been empty for little over a month since the last tenants moved out.
Mary had all but forced Elena to take the week off work, to which she had no choice because her skin was still cracked and her eyes were still bright green. But Elena had another problem. She was now fully awakened to her succubus Shanka half … and it was hungry. So Karl had phoned John, his second in command at the shop, and arranged to have the week off as well. They both spent most of their days naked, Elena needing satiating at least every four hours.
Needless to say, she was reluctant to even go near Karl again after what she had done to him, but her demon's needs couldn't be ignored, and won out each time. Besides, he was an angel now – something which blew her away, but at the same time seemed to make perfect sense. His angel half could handle her succubus half, for which her very hungry, newling succubus half was grateful. Every time they made love, he glowed gold light – he didn't mean to, it just happened. “Love,” Gwain had said, as a way of explanation, and that was all he'd said.
Karl's light kept her shadow back, and her succubus from losing control. It also gave her super-powerful orgasms – something else for which her succubus half was grateful. In fact, Elena was pretty damn sure her succubus was as much in love with Karl's angel, as their two human halves were.
Now lying, curled up in his arms on the living room floor, she took one of those rare moments, where she allowed all thoughts to fly out of her head, so she could solely concentrate on how wonderful it felt to be with him. The moments never lasted long – merely seconds – because guilt always crept in to
rule her heart.
“Karl?”
“Mmmm?”
“I need to get her back.”
She felt his arms stiffen around her.
“I know you won't want me to go, but I can't leave her there; I just can't.”
“I know, darling … I know. I'll go with you. We'll see if Gwain can, too.”
She nodded her thanks.
“It should have been me.”
“Sshhh...”
“I don't understand how you can all forgive me, after everything that I've done, everything I put you through...”
“Well, I'm not sure Pueblo has forgiven you … but you'll always have my forgiveness,” he said softly.
She squeezed his hand in silent thanks. “I wonder where Amy is … what Etienne's doing to her.”
“I know.”
“My father was a demon; my grandfather's crazy … no wonder I lost it. I think I'm totally fucked up sometimes.”
“Look at your skin, Elena.”
She looked down.
“See? The cracks are disappearing, and your colour's coming back.”
It was true. They had noticed that the more contact she had with Karl's glowing self, the less demon she became.
“Just a few more days, I reckon, before you look like your old self. You're not fucked up – you've just had a lot to take in all at once. What you learned about yourself – how it all happened – it would send anyone around the bend.”
“What about you? You're an angel.”
He laughed. “Outrageous, isn't it?”
“Actually, I think it makes perfect sense. I've always teased you about being saintly.”
“And I teased you about becoming a wanton harlot – guess we were both right.”
“Hey!” She elbowed him in the stomach, which earned her a small groan, then she turned to face him.
“What happens to the witching pen now?”
“I'm not sure. Gwain's told me next to nothing – just that the angels created it, which is why I've been able to hold it, and that it was going to help save you. I don't remember seeing him use it, and as far as I know, he still has it – he can keep it as far as I'm concerned.”