When we sit down she looks up, and hands a bucket of water, and wet rags to us. I dip one in the water again and press it to my forehead, wiping the blood away. Then I do the same for my leg, pushing aside the shredded fabric of the guards uniform I borrowed and changed into earlier, and I see the source of the stinging pain I felt.
Sure enough, I’ve got a gash running down my thigh, from my hip to my knee. I press a rag to it and wipe the blood away, then grab a dry rag and hold it to my thigh to staunch the bleeding.
The girl appears next to me, examining the gash in my leg. “I think you’re going to need stitches.” She holds up a needle and thread.
“Get it over with. Fast. I need to get back out there.” I grab the edge of the table as a bomb shakes the city.
I bite my lip to keep from crying out as she weaves the needle in and out of my leg. When she finishes she swabs the newly sealed cut with some sort of antiseptic, then wraps a bandage around it. “There.” She puts her hands on her hips and admires her handy work. “Good as new.” Then she hands me antiseptic ointment and a bandage. “Do your forehead.”
I do, then turn to Kellen, who is getting his ribs bandaged, and Kira who has her arm bandaged and is standing to leave. “Kira, are you leaving?”
“Yeah. I’m all bandaged up now” She holds up her bandaged arm. “so I should get back out there.”
I nod, and she turns to go, heading to the door and pulling it open. “Or...uh...maybe I shouldn’t.” She steps back and slams the door, her face pale.
Kellen and I are both on our feet in an instant, Kellen pushing the protesting girl away from him. “What?” He asks. “What’s the matter?”
She beckons us over the door, drawing the curtain away from the window. We look out and I gasp. The demons have re-grouped, hordes of them flowing across the other yards towards us. The ones at the front of the swarm reach the edge of the manor, and go right past it, racing towards the outer edge of the city. The Cathedral. They’re making their move.
Before all this happened, even before the Halloween party, I would have been frozen in place with fear, not sure what to do. Instead now I whirl around and search the crowd of injured people. “Kenzie!” I call determinedly. Another sign of how much I’ve changed I guess.
She appears in front of us, her dark eye wide, but fierce. “The Cathedral?” She asks, and I nod. She spins back around to face the people in here. “All right troops!” She shouts. “It’s time to lay a trap.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
I join the ranks of townspeople closing in on the horde of demons. As one we lift our weapons and point them out at the demons, leaving a bristling wall of weapons blocking the demons from retreating back towards us.
The first of the demons- and by ‘first’ I mean first hundred or so- have entered the Cathedral, and we can hear them squawking, hissing, and howling in confusion as they realize there’s nobody inside. The other demons spin around, realizing something’s wrong, but we advance on them, pushing our weapons at them, forcing them towards the company Cathedral. We surround the demons in a half circle, making sure the only place they can go is into the Cathedral.
Once they're in there I pull the door shut and shout “Secure the perimeter!”
People break away from our circle and race around the Cathedral, shutting all the doors, locking the demons in. A shudder runs down my spine as I glimpse the shadowy figures of demons moving around through the stained glass windows.
“Kenzie!” I spin around, searching for her, and see her weaving her way through the crowd, towards me. “They’re going to figure that they can break through the glass! Do we have a way to keep them in?”
She bites her lip. “Well….supposedly the first Halflings set up a sort of….failsafe to protect the city if the barriers failed. Legend has it there are five necklaces. I don’t know who made them but I heard it was some sort of shaman. Anyway….there’s supposed to be enough power in each one that combined they have enough juice to raise a new barrier.”
“So do you have one?”
“A necklace? I have a necklace, but I doubt it’s one of those necklaces.”
“Think about it. If those shamans had given anybody the necklaces, it would have been the royal family.”
Her eyebrows knit with thought, and she reaches under the neckline of her shirt, pulling out a necklace on a leather cord with a blue gem attached to it. “Even if we all have one, it’s still not enough. Titus isn’t on our side, and I don’t know where Lukas’s necklace is.”
I bite my lip, eyeing the window panes, now shaking as the demons throw themselves against the glass. Suddenly something dawns on me, and I reach under the collar of my shirt, my fingers closing around the cord of the necklace I found in the envelope with the note from Mer. Maybe…………
I pull out a necklace just like Kenzie’s but with a pink gem in the center. “Lukas is a guard, so he wouldn't have one would he?”
She shrugs. “I suppose not.” Then her gaze lands on the necklace in my hand. “Liv! Is that…….?”
“I think it must belong to my Grandmother. It was in the envelope with the letter Mer sent me.”
“But we only have four necklaces.”
“Maybe. But we do have a way to get the last one.”
Her eye sparkles. “Let's pay my big brother a visit.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
“Titus. Give me your necklace.” Kenze barks.
“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about, sis.” Titus says snarkily. “Was that a challenge to my masculinity?”
We are in the dungeons (one of them), in front of Titus’s cell, after the necklace. We’ve been talking in circles for at least five minutes, and I’m starting to get really frustrated. We are running out of time. The demons will get out, Dillon will figure out the trap, Kira and Kellen won’t be able to hold off anymore demons, or something. Something will happen if we don’t hurry up, I have no doubt about that. And that would be okay as long as we could reign it in, regain control. What I can’t bear is the fact that people, so many people, will die because we couldn’t take a necklace from a stupid boy who’s in jail for crying out loud. Because I couldn’t. Their Seventh, the one who’s supposed to protect them, even if she didn’t ask for this, couldn’t. And I’m not willing to let that happen.
“Titus.” I step forward, shoving Kenzie aside, and pushing my face up against the bars of the window thing cut into the door. Kenzie gives me a startled look; the plan was that Titus didn’t know I was there so he wouldn’t get suspicious. “The Necklace. Right. Now.”
He gasps, a startled little sound that-judging from the look on his face-wasn’t supposed to come out. Then the self-assured glint is back in his eyes. “Liv-sorry Seventh- shouldn’t you be out fighting, not begging me for a necklace? Which, quite frankly, is pathetic.”
I feel myself shaking with anger, but I don’t indulge him. I make my face as expressionless as possible, and lean close to the bars again. “Titus you do not want to push me. I am not in the mood.”
His eyes narrow. “Why do you want the necklace so bad? Or is it need? Do you need the necklace Liv?”
“It doesn’t matter does it? You’re going to give it to me either way.”
“Am I?” He says with a smile that says he knows something I don’t. Then he steps back, turning away from the bars. I study his tattered suit from the party (it may as well have been centuries ago, instead of yesterday for all that we’ve gone through since), and I feel dismay wash over me. I run through every time I’ve ever seen Titus, every outfit I ever saw him in. No. No.
“Kenzie!” I whirl around to face her, no time for self-control, or the pretense of it anyway. “We’ve wasted a lot of time.”
“What?” She asks, her eye wide.
I hear Titus curse behind me. “How?” He calls. I ignore him.
“He doesn’t wear it. Have you ever seen him wear it?”
“He has to!”
“He doe
sn’t keep it on him.” I say grimly. “I’m positive. He was stalling us.”
Her shoulders slump, but I see that she believes me. “Then what are we waiting for?” She turns on her heel, racing out of the room and I hurry after her, Titus shouting curses behind us.
“Kenzie, wait! We don’t know where he kept it, if he even did!”
“I think I have an idea.”
“But if you’re wrong, then we could just be wasting time!”
She stops, spinning to face me. “Liv, think about all those people out there. What do you think is going to happen to them if we don’t find that necklace?”
I swallow. Then I take off running, racing for the servant stairs, Kenzie a step behind. When we reach the top I stop, spinning around. “Which way? Which way!”
Kenize doesn’t stop, she just keeps running, down a hallway, skidding to halt in front of a shut door, then she yanks it open. “Titus’s room.” She says by way of explanation.
I follow her into a neat room with stone walls and a granite floor, filled with Halfling military memorabilia. We spin around, searching, scanning. “There!” I say, pointing to a neatly pressed admiral's uniform hanging from the wall, along with a shining gold sword, and a necklace with a black jewel in the middle.
She snatches it from the wall and studies it. “This looks like all the other necklaces.”
“Have you never seen it before?”
She studies the admiral’s uniform with disgust on her face. “Once. On his tenth birthday, when he got it as a present. We all got them on our tenth birthdays. We were told they’re family heirlooms.”
“Well, we don’t have time for it to be anything else.” I say. She nods and we turn to go, running back through the halls and out the main door of the palace.
We meet up with Kellen and Kira in the town square. “Did you get it?” Kira asks breathlessly. We had passed them on the way here and told them about the necklaces.
“Ye-yes.” Kenzie gasps, holding it up.
“So now what?” Kellen asks. “The Cathedral isn’t going to hold much longer.”
“The necklaces are supposed to raise a defensive field, like a force field, right?” I ask. When they nod I say “I think maybe we should spread out along the edges of where we want to have the force field with the necklaces.”
Kellen nods. “Ok. Liv, you're the Seventh so you should stand at the Cathedral. The rest of us will spread out around the perimeter, in line with the Cathedral.”
“So we want the Cathedral to be the center? The strongest point of our force field?” Kenzie asks.
“Well Liv is the Seventh.” Kellen says. “She's the strongest.”
I twirl my necklace around my finger nervously. “Ok. Let's do this.”
“Wait!” Kira shouts. “When we raise the force field we’ll be cutting off almost a quarter of the city. There are people living in that section. We can't just shut them out!”
“Kira.” I say as gently as I can under the circumstances. “We don't have a choice. We wait much longer and the soldiers at the Cathedral won't be able to hold the demons off for much longer. We don't have time to evacuate the people.”
“Yes.” She says, her voice hard and determined. “We do. All of us still have to get to our places. We can use that time to get the people out.” Before we can say or do anything to stop her, she's racing away.
Chapter Twenty-Five
When we catch up with her, Kira is standing with a group of soldiers, waving her hands and gesturing wildly to the section of the city we’re going to cut off. “Evacuate as many people as you can, as fast as you can.” She orders them, eyes hard and determined, back straight, head held high.
The guards don’t even question her orders. They simply nod, and salute. “Of course Princess.”
“No soldiers don’t.” Kenzie says, her voice filled with authority. “That will waste more time.”
The soldiers exchange a glance, then turn to face her. “Sorry Your Highness, no can do. We have our orders.”
“I'm giving you your orders.” She says angrily.
The guard looks apologetic. “My squad and I…...we….follow Princess Kira.”
Kenzie looks livid. She opens her mouth to retort, her eyes flashing, but Kellen cuts her off. “Well, I guess we know who they want to be Heir.” He says wryly.
Kenzie's lips are pressed together, her eyes filled with anger. “Liv, Kellen, Kira get in your positions.” She barks, turning on her heel and striding away.
I look at Kira pointedly and she shrugs. “I wasn’t going to let all those people die. Besides, I didn’t tell them which heir to root for.”
I shake my head. “Whatever. Just get going.”
They turn, running towards their positions and I do likewise, sprinting towards the cathedral. I reach the edge slowing, wondering what I am supposed to do. I wait to see if Kira or Kellen will teleport over to me. Kellen does.
He appears next to me, his golden eyes panicked. “Do we know what we’re supposed to do?”
“Um….no…...maybe we just wish really hard?”
“Legend goes” Says Kira, appearing beside me. “that we have to break the necklaces and then use our powers.”
“How would ome of our powers work on the necklaces?”
She shrugs. “That's what the legend says.” Seeing Kellens raised eyebrow she smirks and says “I read.”
As he opens his mouth to retort, a window shatters behind his head and he jumps. “Guys! Go!” I say, slashing at the demon clawing its way through the shattered glass. They look at each other, eyes wide, then vanish.
I spin back around, facing the front of cathedral, and drop the necklace on the ground. I raise my foot and crush the jewel beneath my shoe. It crushes into a fine pink powder, and a pale silver light seeps out of it, hovering in the air just above the necklace. I raise my hand, and reach out. Before I touch the light, it moves, following the path my fingers are making in the air.
I raise my eyebrow, and move my hand up and down. The light follows it, and I think I know what to do. I spread my arms wide and the silvery light spreads out to the left and right. Across the city I can see the silver light beginning to spread as well. Kira, Kenzie and Kellen have figured it out. I spread my arms wider, feeling my power course through me. The light begins to spread faster, as I tap into my power reserves as a Seventh. I smile as the gap between my light and Kira and Kellen’s on either side of me begins to close. If I can just pull this off, then-
“I’m afraid I can’t let you do that Liv.” Says a quietly threatening voice. I look up, meeting Dillons empty black gaze with confidence.
“And how are you going to stop me?” I ask, wrapping my fingers around the hilt of my dagger.
He laughs harshly. “You can’t get rid of me that easily Liv. I thought you knew that by now.”
I return his laugh, sounding better than I thought it could. “Oh Dillon, it’s not just you I’m trying to get rid of.” I say, channeling more power through me, pushing as hard as I can to finish the barrier, before Dillon does something to stop me.
His eyes widen before he can stop them, and his gaze darts to the cathedral. “You think you’re so clever?” He asks snarkily. “Well, you’re forgetting who’s more powerful.”
“No.” I shake my head. “I would never forget that. That’s what makes me smarter.”
My dagger is out almost before I even finish talking, and I’m diving toward him as soon as I do finish talking. He reacts as fast as I expected him to, almost faster, grabbing my wrist, and spinning me around. I toss the dagger from my left hand to my right, even though I’m not great with my opposite hand, and duck under his arm. He roars, and before I can even blink his fist connects with the side of my face, and my vision goes dark. I fall sideways, and blindly slash the dagger in the air. It connects with flesh and I hear Dillon grunt. When my vision clears, I’m on the ground, gasping, my dagger sticking out of Dillon’s thigh.
He snarls at me, his expre
ssion murderous. “Oh you’re going to pay for that Liv.”
“Am I Dillon? Am I really?” I respond snarkily, my gaze focused on the silver light behind him. It’s been hovering in the air, but now it’s retracting, shrinking back towards the remains of the necklace. I have to do something.
I narrow my eyes at him, then turn invisible, sweeping up my dagger and turning it invisible with me. I lunge at him again, hitting him with the hilt and flat of the blade, pushing him backwards, outside of the light. Dillon laughs sharply. “I can still hear your breathing, Liv.”
“I was counting on it, Dillon.” I say, moving around him, so he’s facing away from the barrier.
He growls, and lunges at me. His hearing is exceptional, in a terrifying kind of way. I run at him, and he pauses, puzzled to hear me actually coming closer. I smile. Then, a split second before we collide, I fling myself into the air. I lose my invisibility when I focus on hovering but my plan works nevertheless. My foot slams into Dillon’s head, the kick made stronger by my momentum, and he staggers back, dazed. I fly past him and hover in the air in front of the receding silver light, reaching deep down inside me and pulling out every ounce of power I have, using it to push the silver light toward the waiting edges of the barrier created by Kenzie, Kellen, and Kira, while still hovering in the air.
Dillon begins to recover his senses and staggers toward me, his eyes filled with a kind of desperate rage, but he’s too late. My light slams into the rest of the barrier when he’s just inches away, and the world explodes in a flash of silver.
Chapter Twenty-Six
When the light clears, I’m laying on the ground my head spinning, feeling drained and exhausted. I moan and sit up, clutching my head. God. I stagger unsteadily to my feet, and my vision goes dark, my head spins and I feel my legs buckling. I feel arms wrap around my waist, steadying me. “Liv?” Someone asks.
“She used too much power.” Someone else, a girl this time, answers.
Seventh (The Hafling Chronicles Book 1) Page 14