I follow him out the door and down the stairs, then into the late-morning air.
“You seem . . . tired,” I say. As I watch him, a piece of me that I hadn’t known was there rises up inside me, like I’m a boy wishing his dad would save him, protect him from all the horror around him. It’s a need that I know will never be realized, not with Daniel. Because this man is never going to be my father. But I chance the question anyway. “Where have you been?”
He studies my face like he knows what I’m feeling. “I cannot speak of these things with you. My role is not to be played out for many years. For now, I merely prepare. And wait.”
“For what?”
“The end and the new beginning.”
I swallow as the truth of his words sinks into me. “Because you’re the Harbinger.”
“One of many. Your sister is one as well.”
“What does that even mean?”
“It means that I am here to prepare the way.”
Wait, he said years. Does that mean my sister isn’t going to end the world? “When does the end come? How?” Is it my fault? So many people have died because of me.
“You must understand now that all things are fluid,” he says, like he’s trying in some strange way to comfort me. “This is what I wanted to tell you, Fire Bringer. What was written can shift, as your existence attests. Though HaShem is unchanging, Humanity and its fate are not. Otherwise this world would have long since passed into dust. We are like children beginning to walk, only to take a step and fall, then we rise again and learn how to take the second step. This is what you have done. Grace carries you when you cannot carry yourself, and Hope presses at your back, urging you always forward. To save them.” He motions to the warehouse. “To save her.” And I know he means my sister.
The pain in my heart grows.
He moves closer, like he’s trying to impress on me the importance of what he’s saying. “Free will is both a curse and a gift. With one hand it creates, with the other hand it destroys. It is the reason you and I stand here in this place and time, today. It was my will to love your mother that created you. Your mother’s will kept you alive. Sid’s will to stay in this time is the reason he died, and he knew that would be the end result. In the end, his will to preserve your power also allowed for the making of your sister.” He pauses. “And your will could save those you love. You are very powerful, Aidan. Not because of the fire within you, but because of the force of your love. You care deeply and sacrifice for those who most people would deem unworthy. With just the spirit of your will you have changed much.”
His words swirl around in my head and I don’t know where to put them. He’s telling me it’s not my fault. That free will brought us here. But still, the people I love keep getting hurt, and I can’t see anything that I’ve changed for the better.
“I sense your disbelief,” he says. “You cannot know what might have happened if you’d not been born, but I can. And those souls in that warehouse would be living in darkness—if you see nothing else in your existence, see that. Your sacrifices have been pure, Aidan. That will not go unnoticed.”
“By who?”
He just looks at me as if he thinks I already know the answer to my question. Which I guess I do.
“When I was dead . . . a voice spoke to me about you,” I say quietly, not sure why I’m telling him this. “When I was dead. A presence came to me and said you felt lost.”
The thick wall he’s got around himself cracks, and something flickers in his eyes that looks like surprise.
I think about the words he spoke to me the last time I saw him, how I should acquit my mom, let go of Ava. And forgive my father. But I’m not sure how.
“I feel that I am cast adrift in a storm without a rudder,” he says under his breath. The vulnerability in his voice is jarring.
“Yes,” I say, his words voicing my own burden.
Our eyes meet and an understanding passes between us, a connection of pain that makes my chest ache with longing.
“I would regret my actions,” he says, still holding my gaze, “but I cannot imagine a world where I would regret you. I mourn the years we have not had together.”
My eyes sting and my throat burns with his confession. I can only nod and try to hold it all tight, try not to let it take me over.
He looks into me for several seconds, like he wants to be sure I feel the truth of what he said. “Good-bye, Fire Bringer.”
Panic hits me for a second, thinking I need to say more, that I need to ask him what’s next. But as I study him, I realize he’s given me everything I need already. He’s given me understanding. I’ll accept that and allow it to be enough.
“Good-bye,” I say as he backs away.
He gives me a sad smile and then disappears with a pop of air, leaving me alone.
FIFTY-TWO
Aidan
I stand in the parking lot, staring at the asphalt where my father stood only minutes ago, and absently rub the green ribbon Selena gave me between my fingers. It’s still tied to my wrist but now it’s stained with blood. I can’t decide whether to go back upstairs or not. I need to think, to process everything that’s happened. I feel like I need to fix something, that I should be searching, but even if I went looking for my sister, I don’t know what I’d do with her when I found her.
There’s been so much death.
A click comes from behind me, and I turn to see Hanna coming out the warehouse door. And then I remember, we’re still waiting to hear from Eric. By her disheveled look, I’d guess there’s still no word.
“Aidan, you’re all right.” Sad relief fills her eyes as she comes to me, taking me in her arms. “Oh, thank heaven. I was so scared. When they brought you here—” She holds me tighter. “I was praying so hard.” She squeezes my shoulder gently, then pulls back.
“Your face . . .” She touches my cheek and my hand reaches up, too. I feel a bump of flesh running from my temple to my chin. Then I remember the Heart-Keeper marking me with his talon.
“I’m okay,” I say, trying to smile for her. Just one more scar to join the rest.
“But Finger . . . that poor boy.” She shakes her head and looks away. “I’m having my guys take care of everything. We’ll find him a place to rest.”
“Thank you, Hanna.”
“Of course.”
“Sid is . . .” I clear the emotion from my throat. I feel like all I’m doing is crying. “We said good-bye a little bit ago.”
“Yes, Rebecca told me. I have a bone box for him; it’s what he wanted. Is Rebecca all right? The bruises on her wrists and arms, and her poor feet—should I call a doctor to come in?”
“I’m not sure.”
The door squeaks behind us and we turn. Rebecca’s limping from the warehouse, looking nervous.
“Sorry to interrupt,” she says. “Can I talk to Aidan?”
“Certainly.” Hanna takes me into a hug one more time, then kisses my cheek before she pulls away and goes back into the warehouse.
“Sorry, I just feel like I shouldn’t wait anymore,” Rebecca says, faltering a little in her steps. “I need to tell you what happened.”
I go to her, seeing her obvious pain. “Let’s go inside,” I say. “You shouldn’t be walking around like this.”
“I’m fine,” she says, not liking me fussing over her, but she takes my arm and lets me lead her to the bench in the alley where the club workers go for smoke breaks. She sits with a sigh, and looks down the alley to the street. “This sucks. I hate being helpless.”
I wait for her thoughts to settle a little before I ask anything. But as I look over her bandaged knees and feet, the bruises on her arms and neck, urgency forces the question from me again. “What happened to you, Rebecca?”
“Your sister,” she says, darkly, still watching the cars zip past the mouth of the alley. “She came to me with Hunger.”
I start to ask what they did to her, but then I realize I’m not ready for that answer yet,
so instead I ask, “Where did they take you?”
She shakes her head. “No, I ran. And . . . your mom helped me.”
I stand and face her. “What?” I couldn’t have heard that right.
“Your mom. Her ghost helped me escape them.”
I blink at her, speechless.
“Remember how you said I can channel? She came into me and protected me from the demon. For a little while, anyway. That’s why I was missing.”
“Her spirit went into you?” If that’s true, then . . . then she’s not trapped in Sheol anymore. As the realization settles in, a weight I hadn’t even realized I was carrying lifts off my shoulders. She saved Rebecca. Like she saved me.
“She was lovely, Aidan. And kind. She loves you very much.”
My throat goes tight and I stare at the ground, nodding.
“And the demon, Hunger, is gone now. I trapped it.”
I lift my gaze to her face. “How?”
“I knew what to do and I . . . I just did it.” She looks at me like she can barely believe it herself.
I consider what that means. Could it be that Ava’s truly alone now? Weakened? I start to pace a zigzag in front of Rebecca and she grabs my hand, stopping me.
“Stop thinking,” she says. “Just take a breath, rest.”
“I can’t.”
She pulls me closer to the bench and gives me a dramatic frown, ordering, “Sit.”
I look down on her and feel her fresh energy. A part of her is inside of me now, a part of each of these souls I call friends is in me, making me whole again. I grip her hand back and start to move to sit—
Something shifts around us. The air shivers and my skin prickles with the energy.
“Aidan . . .” Rebecca says, voice wavering.
And I hear something. Behind us in the parking lot. Music filters softly in the air, rising in pitch as my heartbeat begins to thunder.
A violin.
Before I can move to grab Rebecca and run, before I can turn to see it, the sizzle of energy in the air pops, shaking the ground around us.
I stumble to the side, grabbing the bench for support. Wings rustle behind me. I’m gripped tight by the back of the neck. And yanked into a storm.
FIFTY-THREE
Aidan
I’m released from the torrent, falling into sand, then I thud into a rock.
All the air whooshes from my lungs.
Before I can catch my breath, I’m wrenched like a rag doll and tossed into a wall. Bones fracture, a rib gives way with a crunch as it hits.
Heaving breath fills my ears, echoing off every surface around me. Growls and tortured snarling. I squint my eyes open just in time to see a fist coming at me. Thorns protruding from the knuckles dig into my jaw as they hit, slicing through skin and tissue. Agony fills my face, my whole body pulsing with it.
“Enough!” a voice barks. “Tie him up before she returns.”
I’m dragged sideways, sand scraping at my flank, then I’m pulled up, stone cutting into my back. My arm is tugged, stretched out, one wrist bound, then the other side, and the ankles, until I’m splayed like an X. My shirt is ripped from my chest. Muscles tear in my back and shoulders, forcing a cry from my gut.
And I don’t understand. What just happened? I heard a violin, I was taken. But the thing kicking my ass isn’t Ava.
A few seconds of torment pass with only the sound of shuffling. My refreshed power slinks over me, miraculously numbing me a little as it begins the healing process. I hiss and gasp air through my teeth, each tendon and torn bit in me resealing itself.
I blink back the fog in my head, the splotches of darkness speckling my vision.
And my surroundings come clear.
I’m in a cave, the beach cave, somehow held off the ground, bound to the wall across from the gateway. The uneven edges of stone dig into my back and wrists as I look around. And see my attacker.
It’s Jaasi’el. But it’s not Jaasi’el. The creature standing five feet in front of me is no angel of Heaven. Its massive wings fold behind it, a pale grey, just a shade lighter than its shadowed skin. The once-green vines growing over its arms and legs, creating gauntlets and shin guards, are black now, each thorn tipped with a silver glint. Its hair is no longer a thick bright red, instead it’s thinned and gone totally white. Larger ears poke out on either side of its head, and its jaw is wider, teeth long and silver through its snarling lips.
It’s the eyes that strike terror through me, though. They’ve become a strange molten ash color, as if they’re embers in a dying fire. The remade creature stares at me through those eyes, so much hatred and viciousness coming off its eerie grey skin, I know it’s dying to rip me to pieces.
A fallen angel, in all its glory and fury. Ava’s father seems to now be her minion. I thought it was dead.
By the way this thing is looking at me, if it has its way, I definitely will be.
When I pull my eyes from the horror glaring at me and look around the cave, I see we’re not alone. There’s a man as large as a mountain standing guard on my right. A corporeal demon or a possessed human. He’s bald and covered in tattoos, playing with a large knife, flicking it in his hand, over and over, like he’s itching to use it. My only salvation is that my power is at its full strength right now, so whatever the thing is, it can only cause me pain. Unless I figure out a way to get my hands free to burn it to a crisp. It’s keeping a safe distance, though.
I can tell the wounds on my face are almost healed, and my shoulders only ache now. The fallen archangel, Jaasi’el, watches my power pulse over my skin more in curiosity than trepidation. It’s obviously not worried about the flames harming it.
I try and make my fire burn through the ropes, I struggle in my bonds, but it’s all useless. I’m stuck tight.
“What am I doing here?” I ask.
The looming angel stares back, unmoving.
“Where’s my sister?”
Its lip curls up in a snarl. “She comes.”
And just as the words vibrate from its lips, the cave walls shiver, dust and tiny rocks rattle loose. The air breaks with the familiar sound of someone or something traveling. I close up my walls, trying desperately to block my mind in case she tries to link to me.
My sister appears just beside the altar to my left. Her feet settle gracefully, her hair drifts back down to her shoulders. She smiles at me like a hello, just as another form appears beside her, sand kicking up as the person falls forward and lands in a heap, red hair covering her face like a shroud.
My whole body jerks in my bonds. “Rebecca!”
She tries to get to her hands and knees before she heaves, throwing up into the sand, gasping and crying in pain. Fear grips me tight as the smell of her power hits the room. The green spills from her in rivers, sinking into the sandy floor beneath her, like it has no choice.
I turn to my sister, who’s watching Rebecca with impatience.
She’s Ava, but she’s not. She’s no longer the little girl who played in tide pools and loved the color purple. Her skin is white, with a web of silver and black veins showing through on her neck and half her face, down her right arm. Her eyes are so pale there’s almost no more color at all. Her skin is filthy, coated in dirt and grime, the smell of her pungent. She’s thinner, too, bones jutting from her shoulders, jaw sharp.
“Ava, what’ve you done?” I ask.
She sighs. “What I had to, Aidan. Sheesh.”
“Leave Rebecca out of this. She’s not a part of you and me.”
She clucks her tongue. “Don’t be silly. She’s your soul mate. And now that I’m free from the Heart-Keeper, thanks to you and your humans, we’re going to be a family.” She tosses something to the ground. Pieces of wood. A broken violin. “But first I need her to learn some manners.” The violin’s neck is snapped, the strings the only thing holding it together. “No respect. Especially after all I’ve done for her. I even let her have that Hunger freak after our mom gave her the grimoire and locked i
t in a tree.” She shakes her head like a disappointed parent.
She directs her words to Rebecca now. “Do you really think I didn’t know what you’d be able to do? I knew you’d get that demon bound. I just wanted you to believe it. And now you realize how powerful you are.”
“Shut up!” Rebecca screams.
“What a fuss,” Ava says, then she turns to me. “She’s so ungrateful. After everything I’ve done to help her. And did you know that our traitor of a mother went against me? That bitch, Fiona, chose the redhead instead of me to give her legacy to. The redhead!” Her features twist in a frightening scowl and her pupils dilate. “I’d rip Mother’s head off if she had one.” Then she bends over and screeches in Rebecca’s face. “We’re on the same side! We’re the same!”
“The same what?!” Rebecca yells back.
“The same genetics, dummy, the same blood. Same. Not human, derp.”
Ava’s words jar through me and Rebecca just stares at her, dumbfounded. “What?”
Ava sighs in exasperation. “We’re not human.” She says the last word slowly like we’re all dense.
Then Rebecca asks so quietly I can barely hear, “What are we?”
“The children of angels, obviously.” When Rebecca just stares at her, shaking her head, Ava adds, “Okay, maybe I shouldn’t say we. I’m way more powerful than you, obviously, but that’s just because my father was so huge.” She motions to the stone-like Jaasi’el. “Yours was . . . uh, not so much.” She gives an apologetic smile. “He was what they call a Brethren. They kind of live in both worlds, unlike real angels. They’re more like, um . . . faeries!” Her eyes brighten like she’s happy with her description. “It means you’re not human, though. Not really. And it’s time you accept that.”
A shadow passes over Rebecca’s face. “I’m like you?”
My heart beats so hard in my chest I can barely breathe. What is Ava talking about?
“Don’t listen to her, Rebecca,” I say. “Look at me!”
Ava doesn’t take her eyes off Rebecca. “I can teach you and we can rule together. We’d be unstoppable.” She grins wickedly.
Darkness Savage (The Dark Cycle Book 3) Page 30