by Nora Roberts
As if on cue, light flashed into the tunnel. Through the glare of it, three demons charged.
“He’s used the portal. He’s brought more through.”
Harper fired, and when the Glock clicked on empty, he used it as a club. His leg screamed as he sprang off it to launch himself into a roundhouse kick. The demon barely staggered, shoving Harper so that his wounded leg buckled. He skidded over the floor, and lost his breath and the gun when the demon landed on him.
For the second time, he felt the bite of claws. Screaming in rage, he plunged the knife into the demon’s throat, snarled like an animal himself when the thick green spewed onto his hands and face.
When he crawled out, covered with blood, he saw Kadra fighting both of the remaining demons.
Her blades flashed like lightning. She blocked the sickle sword that one of them swung at her, then plunged her dagger into his belly while she hacked her blade through the second demon.
“Next time,” Harper said as he limped toward her, “I get the two-on-one.”
Winded, she nodded. “Next time.”
The smoking blood hazed the air. She peered through it, pointed her sword at Sorak. His claws and face were smeared with the blood of the body that lay at his feet.
He had fed, and fed again, she realized, and would have the strength of ten.
Still, her stance was cocky, her voice a sneer. “You should have brought an army, demon king. We would have littered this place with your dead.”
“I brought better than an army.” Sorak reached back and hefted a small girl by the scruff of her neck. She let out a sobbing squeal as her little legs kicked in the air, two full feet off the ground.
Leering, Sorak skimmed his teeth over her throat. “The young are so sweet to the taste. How much for her life?”
Kadra lowered her blade. Though her hand was steady, her heart stumbled in her chest. “Will you bargain your life with a human child’s? Is not a king worth more?”
“I was not speaking to you, Kadra, Slayer of Demons.” Sorak lifted his other hand, and the gun.
Subway cop, Harper thought on a jolt of panic. Sorak had taken the gun from the transit cop, and he had been too angry to notice the empty holster.
On an oath, Harper shoved Kadra aside as Sorak fired. As she fell, blood streaming from her temple, the sword clattered to the ground.
“No. Goddamn it, no!” Harper fell to his knees, gathering her up, checking quickly for a pulse.
“I was born for her death.” Sorak shook the child until she began to wail. “Tell me, Harper Doyle, were you born for death?”
She was alive, he told himself. And slayers healed quickly. He would do whatever he could to give her that time, and to save an innocent child from death. Or worse.
He got to his feet, the knife gripped in his hand. “For yours. I was born for yours.”
“Approach me and…” Sorak ran a blue claw teasingly down the girl’s round cheek as her wails became the mewling sounds of a trapped animal. “I tear her to pieces. How much for the child, Harper Doyle? How much are the young worth in this world?”
Her eyes were blue, Harper noted. Glassy as a doll’s now, filled with shock. “How much do you want?”
“You will do. Your life for her life. I would enjoy taking what is the slayer’s and making it mine. Throw down your blade, or the child dies now.”
“And Kadra?”
Through the stinking smoke Harper saw the gleam of jagged teeth. “Do you think your life is worth both of theirs?” Sorak stepped forward, and Harper could see blood coming from wounds of the claws sliding down the girl’s white neck. “I could kill you where you stand with this weapon. But it would be…unsporting. Make the bargain, or watch while I give her my kiss.”
There was no bargaining with monsters. Even knowing that, Harper could see no choice. “Set her down, let her go. A knife isn’t much good against a gun. You’re smart enough to know that. In this world, using a kid as a shield is a sign of a coward. I thought you were a king.”
“I am more than king here. I am god.” Carelessly, he tossed the girl on the floor, then drew out the globe. The portal burst open. “Run, little human child. Run quickly, or I will take you after all.”
She ran, weeping. The portal snapped shut behind her.
“And now.” Grinning, Sorak streaked forward in a move so fast that Harper had no chance to evade or defend. Using the back of his hand, Sorak struck Harper in the face with a blow so vicious that it threw Harper back against the wall. The knife spurted out of his hand like wet soap.
With the wall bracing him, Harper slid to the ground.
“You are mine now. A warrior slave in my army, in this world. I will rule here.”
“Fry in hell,” Harper choked out as those claws closed over his throat. In his mind, he called out to Kadra to wake, to save herself from the horror that was coming.
“Soon you will see what it is to be as I am. To lose those weaknesses that make you human.” Sorak leaned close, his mouth only a fetid breath away from Harper’s, his gleaming teeth bared. “I will give you the slayer when you wake, and we will feed on her together.”
He knew pain, agony beyond imagining as that mouth, those teeth closed over him. The shock of it ripped through his system, tore at his sanity as those keen blue claws tore through flesh until he felt his own heart prepare to burst.
The hand that had been fighting to reach the gun in his boot convulsed, dropped limply to the ground.
He had visions of fire and smoke, of blood and brutal death. Torment and anguish. With them came a lethargy that weighed his limbs down like molten lead.
Through the smoke, through the pain, he heard Kadra scream his name.
His trembling fingers closed over the gun. His numb arm moved, slowly, slowly, in exquisite pain to bring it between their bodies. Without being fully aware of where the muzzle was pointed, he fired.
9
WHEN KADRA CAME to, her vision was smeared with blood and pain. Her body knew a thousand stings and aches from the battle. Her ears still rang from it.
And her first thought as she pushed to her knees was: Harper.
The air was clogged with smoke and stink from the blood of a dozen demons and demi-demons. She remembered the child and her heart jerked. Burying her pain, she picked up her sword, gripped it in both hands.
The sound she heard now, slicing through the filthy air, was one of greed, one of bitter glory. Whirling, she swung the sword high over her head.
She saw, huddled by the dripping wall, Sorak, his regal cape unstained as he gifted the bleeding Harper with his evil kiss.
Fear, rage, horror gushed through her and poured out in a single urgent cry that was Harper’s name.
She ran, screaming still, the point of her blade pointing toward the ceiling, where it caught the dim light and glinted like vengeance.
The gunshot was a small sound, a muffled crack like the rap of a fist on wood. Sorak’s body jerked, and his head lifted with a kind of baffled shock. He pressed a hand to his belly where his blood spilled between his slender blue-tipped fingers.
“I am king of the Bok.” Sorak watched in confusion as his own blood poured. “I am god here. I cannot be destroyed by human means.”
“Wanna bet?” With what little strength he had left, Harper fired again. “You lose,” he managed before his head slumped.
Kadra leaped between them as Sorak collapsed. She whipped her sword down, the point at its heart. “He has killed you. Harper the warrior has sent you to hell.”
“And I have made him mine.” His grin spread. “And you, Kadra, Slayer of Demons, must destroy what you love or be destroyed by it. I have won.”
“He will never be yours. That is my vow.” With all of her strength, she rammed the sword home. Leaving it buried in Sorak’s body and in the stone beneath, she dropped to her knees beside Harper.
There was blood, his own and Sorak’s, on his face. The healing cloth around his wounded leg had soake
d through. His eyes were already going dim.
But they met Kadra’s now with something like triumph. “He’s done.”
“Yes.” The slayer’s fingers shook as she brushed Harper’s hair from his face. “He is finished.”
“Mission accomplished, huh? The kid.” He closed his eyes on a wave of agony, a flood of impossible fatigue. “The kid got back through the portal.”
“You traded your life for hers.” For mine, she thought. And for mine.
“She couldn’t’ve been more than two. I couldn’t stand there and let him…Christ.” He had to gather strength just to breathe. “Your head’s bleeding.”
“It’s only—”
“A scratch. Yeah, yeah. Got a few of my own.” He bore down, fought to clear his vision so he could see her better. “Baby, I’m pretty messed up here.”
“I will get you to a healer.”
“Kadra.” He wanted to take her hand, but couldn’t lift his arm. “Bastard kissed me. It works faster here, the change. We can’t be sure how fast.”
“You will not change. You will not.” Tears ran down her cheeks unchecked. “I will take you back, through the portal. To Rhee, the sorceress.”
“I’m going under. I can feel it.” He was cold, cold to the bone. Losing, he knew, the warmth of his own humanity. “We can’t take the chance. You know what you have to do.”
“No.” She gripped his face with desperate hands. “No.”
“I dropped the gun. Get it for me, let me do it myself.”
“No.” She pressed his face to her breast and rocked. “No, no, no.”
The smell of her flesh brought comfort, but under it, creeping under it, was an ugly, alien hunger that horrified him. “Don’t let me change. If you love me, end it. Let me die human.” He pressed his lips to her heart. “I love you. Let that be the last thing we both remember from this. I love you.”
He went limp. Panic filled her, a wild weeping as she shook him, slapped him, called to him. But he was in the changing sleep, a kind of living death, and could not be reached.
“No. You will not take him.” She leaped up, whirled to where Sorak had died. All that was left was her sword, still in the stone, and the globe the demon king had stolen. She scooped up the globe, then with a piercing battle cry, wrenched her sword free.
Tears streamed down her stony face as she dropped down beside Harper again, wrapped her arms around him.
But when the portal opened and the light burst over them, it took them to a world she had never seen.
The room was white. Through a wall of glass were trees of crimson and sapphire against a pale gold sky. Framed by it, robed in white, stood Rhee.
“Help him.” Kadra laid Harper between them, stretched out her arms in pleading. “Save him.”
“I cannot.”
“You have power.”
“So do we all. Child—”
“Do not call me child.” Furious, primed for battle, Kadra leaped to her feet. “Some are saved from the changing sleep through sorcery. I have heard the tales.”
“It is beyond my means to save him.”
“You say we share blood, but you refuse the one thing I have ever asked of you. You sent me to him.”
“Not I, but destiny.”
“Destiny,” Kadra spat out. “Who weaves a destiny that asks a man to fight what is not his war, to risk his life in a battle not his own? This he did. He fought with me, and for me. He destroyed the Bok king when I failed. He laid down his life for a child who was not his own. And for this courage, for this valor, he is repaid by becoming what he fought against. Who asks such a sacrifice?”
“There are no answers to the questions you ask. What did he bring to you, what was your gift to him?”
“Love.”
“Then there is a way. Courage and strength,” Rhee said as she stepped forward. “Vision and love. With these there is a way for you, only you, to save him.”
“How? Whatever it is, I will do. A quest, a battle? Tell me, and it is done.”
“A kiss.”
“A kiss?”
“A gift of breath, of life and love. If your love is true, if it is pure, one to the other, the power of that kiss, of the love in it, will overcome the evil of the demon’s.”
“Can it be so simple?”
“Nothing ever is,” Rhee said with a smile. “You must be cleansed first. I will help you, and tell you the rest.”
“There is no time.” Her heart lurched as she gestured to Harper. His fingernails were a pale blue. “He is already changing.”
“Time stops here. That I can give you. He will remain as he is while we prepare.”
“There is choice,” Rhee said while Kadra bathed. “There is great risk.”
“I am a warrior,” Kadra replied.
“You must be woman and warrior now.”
“So I bathe in scented oils, wash my hair with jasmine blossoms. I have no patience for such matters.”
“Rituals.” Rhee’s lips curved as she held out a thick white towel. “Do you not sharpen your sword before battle? This is not so different. Not all warriors are female, daughter, but all females should be warriors. He will need all you are if he is to survive this.”
“If I fail, may he stay here? Sleep, as he is sleeping now?”
Gently, Rhee touched Kadra’s hair. “Would you wish that for him? An eternity of nothing?”
“I cannot let him change. It was the last thing he asked of me, to take his life so he might end it as a man.”
“And will you?”
“I will not let him die a beast. I will not fail him. If I use my sword to end it, I will never lift it again.”
This, Rhee thought, was what I wished for you. Beyond valor and might, beyond battle cries and quests, a love so deep it is a drowning pool.
“These are choices that only you can make. There is one more. The magic that passed from my blood to yours is strong. But more potent is the magic you found in your own heart. Trust it.”
Rhee closed her hands around her daughter’s arms. Arms, she thought now, that had learned to lift a sword and to embrace a man who was her equal. “Give yourself to it without hesitation. If you waver, if you doubt and still do this thing, he may live. You may not.”
Rhee offered a long white robe. “Wear this.”
“Strange garb for battling life and death.” Kadra put it on, belted it. “If my love isn’t strong enough, I die.”
Rhee folded her hands because they longed to reach out, to touch, to soothe. “Yes. I gave you to your fate once before. And my arms ached from emptiness. I watched you, in my way, as you grew, as you became. And I was proud. But my arms were empty. Now, I give you once more to your fate.”
“Did you love the man who was my father?”
“With everything I am. And yet I could not save him. I could only watch while he was taken from me. He would have been proud, as I am, of the life we made together in you.”
“Mother,” Kadra said when Rhee turned to the arched opening. And she stepped forward, let herself be gathered close. Let herself hold.
“You found kindness,” Rhee murmured. “And forgiveness. They will make you stronger.” She held tight one moment more, just one moment more. “Be strong, my daughter. It is time.”
She led Kadra back into the white room. Now Harper lay on a bed that was draped with thin white curtains. A garden of white flowers surrounded it. Dozens of slender, milky tapers added a quiet light.
He wore a white shirt and trousers. His face, while deathly pale, was unmarked.
Kadra parted the bed curtains. “His wounds.”
“This much I could do. His flesh is healed, as yours is.”
“He is beautiful. He is…” My life, she thought. “I have only known him a day, yet he has changed me forever.”
“You changed each other. And that change will be stronger than the one Sorak put inside him. You must believe it.”
“A sword is not enough.” Kadra glanced over. �
��Is this my lesson?”
“You have always had more than a sword. Sorak is dead. Together you have accomplished this great feat, and both our worlds are safe. For this gift, each of you is granted passage into both worlds. As you choose.”
“How can this be? The balance—”
“Love makes its own balance.” Rhee walked to a table where each of the globes stood on a small pedestal. One emerald, one ruby.
“The emerald is your stone, and its key opens the portal to the world you knew. The ruby is his, and its key opens to his world. I must leave you. What you do now is between only you two. I will always be with you. Kadra, Slayer of Demons, your fate is again in your own hands.”
Rhee held up her arms and vanished.
“This I must do without sword or dagger.” Still, she took her circlet from the table, placed it on her scented hair. “But I am what I am. And all I am is yours, Harper Doyle.”
She stepped to the bed, placed a hand on his cold cheek. The words were inside her, as if they, too, had been sleeping. “I love you with heart, with soul, with body. In all worlds, in all times. Come back to me.”
And bending, she laid her lips on his.
Love and life, she thought as she breathed both into his mouth. Life and love. Strong as a stallion, pure as a dove. She drew the poison in, gave him her breath. Gift of heart and soul take now from me, and from the Demon Kiss be free.
Pain vibrated through her, but she kept her lips warm and gentle on his. Dizzy, she braced a hand beside his head, and gave.
I would die for you, she thought. I would live for you.
When his mouth moved under hers, when he stirred, she slid bonelessly to her knees beside the bed.
Outside, the sky deepened, gleamed gold, and the jeweled trees shimmered.
Harper dreamed of swimming, fighting through a black and churning sea that was swallowing him whole. He broke through its icy void, searching for her, battling the greedy waves that sucked him back.
Until he slid into a warm white river, floated there. And woke speaking her name.
She lifted her head, and felt no shame at the tears as she gripped his hand. “Yes. Yes, yes.” She pressed his hand to her cheek, kissed it, then taking his hand, she laughed in relief at the healthy color in his skin and nails. “Baby,” she said, relishing the term, “I am with you.”