by Peach, Hanna
Alyx grabbed her sword and shoved it at the space width-wise. The ends lodged against the tunnel walls and for a moment the walls held. Alyx flew through the hole. The sword began to bend as the metal buckled under the pressure of the closing walls.
“Hurry,” she yelled back at Jordan behind her.
Alyx tumbled out into the Archives. She turned. Seeing Jordan reaching out at the entrance, she grabbed his hand and helped to pull him out. The entrance to the secret chamber slammed shut behind him.
They raced for the entrance to the Archives, Alyx noting in horror that the two guards that had been lying just inside were gone.
“Duck!” Jordan called, as a sword swung down for her head from the corner of a Threadcase. It was one of the guards.
Alyx rolled aside. She heard his sword clash with Jordan’s. She threw a knife from her boot, hitting the guard in the shoulder. The distraction was enough that it allowed Jordan’s blade to slip into his stomach. The guard’s eyes went wide before he fell back.
Alyx swallowed down the guilt that began to rise in her. This was someone’s son, someone’s friend. Maybe someone’s lover. She hesitated away from the door, then moved back to check that they hadn’t killed him.
Jordan grabbed her arm. “Keep going, Alyx. There’s a second guard out there.”
“But—”
“I know, Alyx. But we have to keep going.” When she looked up at him she could see the sorrow and guilt in his eyes, too. Neither of them had wanted to hurt any of the guards. They were just doing their duty.
She nodded.
They slipped out the Archive door and up the side of the building, just as a group of warriors rounded the corner below, led by the second guard.
“Stop them.”
“Go!” yelled Jordan. They made a break for it, flying across the Urielos roofs, hoping that they could outfly the guards who were chasing behind them.
Alyx and Jordan raced side by side without looking back, even as a knife flew past her shoulder. Two figures jumped out in front of them. Alyx swiveled her hips and her dagger was unsheathed from behind her so her attacker couldn’t see it. Without a break in her speed she twisted her body around his, skimming past her attacker’s sword and tracing a line in her attackers back.
A quick glance to her left and she could see that Jordan had managed to get past his attacker as well. They reached the edge of the city buildings.
“Now would be a good time for a miracle,” Jordan yelled. There were still a number of guards chasing after them. Alyx eyed the cliffs beyond the edge of the city and the swirling waters beneath.
“I have an idea,” she said. She grabbed Jordan’s hand and they traded a look. “Trust me?”
“Always.”
“Hold me,” she yelled as she dove off the cliff, pulling him with her, flying down, down, then pulling up to skim along the surface of the sea below. His arms went around her as they hurtled through the air.
She glanced back to see five warriors flying not too far behind them. She drew up all the WaterBearer left into her body, pushed it forward with both hands, then rolled them both in the air. The magic responded to her, pulling up part of the sea like a blanket and curling it over, creating a tunnel that covered her, Jordan and the warriors behind them. She watched Jordan’s eyes widen as the wall of water shut out the stars. She hoped to hell that she had enough WaterBearer left to pull this off.
Inside this dark moist water tunnel Alyx felt her ears pop with pressure. She felt the sheer weight of the water against the magic she was using to hold it up. She heard the panic of the warriors behind her. The last of the WaterBearer slipped from her hands. She heard the warriors’ screams being cut off by the crash of the water behind them.
“Alyx,” warned Jordan as the tunnel crashed around them. The exit was like an eyelid closing in front of them, the pressure in her ears becoming greater.
“Go!”
They both put on a burst of speed and shot out the far end of the collapsing tunnel, water crashing around them, drenching them both before completely collapsing. A quick glance back told her that no one was following them now. Alyx inhaled deeply with relief. They were out. They had made it.
The warriors who had been wiped out by the water would recover once they reoriented themselves and escaped the sea water. But she and Jordan would be gone by then.
The salt water stung her eyes, so she squeezed them shut again. She could feel the wind rushing around them as they continued to fly away from Urielos. She felt Jordan’s gentle fingers brush at her eyelids, then push the strands of wet hair sticking to her face. When she opened her eyes, his eyes were serious.
“That was fun,” he said as he held his palm against her cheek. “But let’s never do it again.”
Alyx laughed and let herself enjoy Jordan’s warmth along her damp body. “Deal.”
* * *
In a tiny fishing village off the coast of Croatia, Alyx and Jordan pulled themselves out of the surf. She followed him as he walked up the pebble beach towards a clump of thick brushes. He glanced around before pulling aside leaves. Alyx felt the faint pop of a mirage as she walked into the bushes. The thick foliage faded to reveal a small path in the long grass that fringed the shore. She let Jordan lead again.
Soon they arrived at a small stone cottage. All the windows and doors were shut up. Jordan pulled a key from a fake stone near the front door. He unlocked it and opened it for her. “Welcome to Majka.”
Majka was a Rogue safehouse. Alyx and Jordan had decided that it would be better if they stopped here to rest and review the Threads of Dark rather than travel straight back to Saint Joseph. They were both exhausted. Alyx could feel the beginnings of a headache from lack of water coming on. Ironic as they had just been swimming through an ocean of it.
Jordan told her that Majka meant “mother” in Croatian.
“You know Croatian?”
He shrugged. “I picked up a few words from a Croatian girl I knew once.”
Another friend no doubt. Alyx tried to ignore the stab she felt in her stomach.
Inside there was a bed on wooden slats in one corner, a kitchen in another and a bath with a curtain you could pull around it in the other. The only other room was a small toilet. Jordan, led her to the table in the middle and eased her into a chair. She slumped forward across the table, leaning her arms against the grainy wood.
Within minutes he had started the fire in the small fireplace. Alyx turned her body towards the fire and closed her eyes, letting the crackling warmth soothe her. There was the sound of cupboard doors being opened and cans being moved from the kitchen. She found a bottle of water being pushed into her hands.
“Drink,” he said as he slid into the chair next to hers.
She unscrewed the lid and did just that. The tepid water was like silk to her parched throat. When she was finished she wiped the drops of water from her lips with the back of her hand. She found Jordan pushing an open can of tuna with a fork at her.
“Eat,” he said. She glanced up briefly to see him tucking into his own can before she attacked her can with the vigor of someone who hadn’t eaten in a week.
When she looked up, he was chewing thoughtfully.
“Can I ask you a question?” she ventured.
“Sure.”
“Why do you do… this?”
“Do what?”
“Be the hero. Risk your life. You weren’t a warrior in Michaelea, but you chose to become like one. I’ve heard from Vix and Tobias that you were running missions like this long before I came along and complicated things. Any time anyone needed something dangerous done, you’d volunteer.”
He shrugged and put on the cool face that Alyx recognized as his mask. He opened his mouth to speak.
Alyx cut him off, “Don’t say you do it for the chicks because I know that’s just a cover.”
He looked startled, and she knew that it was exactly what he was about to say. He closed his mouth, his face growing serious. “
Okay then. You want the truth.”
“Yes.”
He leaned back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest. All of a sudden Alyx could imagine Jordan as a little boy.
“After I escaped Michaelea I just kept flying, God knows where I was going. Nowhere. Anywhere. Just away. Away from all that… anger and guilt and pain. But it didn’t matter how fast I flew away, the pain kept up. I flew all night and all day and into the next night ‘til I was exhausted, and finally I collapsed on the forest floor somewhere and fell asleep. When I woke up the next day, the pain was… gone. It was just gone.”
“Isn’t…” Alyx ventured, “isn’t that a good thing? To not feel pain?”
“At first I thought so, too. But then I realized that in losing the pain I had lost a lot of other things as well. Emotion isn’t one sided, Alyx. Nothing is. You can’t just choose to shut off the bad half of your feelings and not the good half. If you numb yourself to pain, you numb to happiness, to hope… to love. That’s what I had done.”
“But…” a part of Alyx understood what he was telling her, but it felt so… at odds with what she believed of Jordan. He wasn’t cold and unfeeling. “But what about Rosa?” Or this Croatian girl.
“Don’t get me wrong. I liked Rosa. I definitely liked her body and the things she could do with it. But I didn’t love her.”
Alyx flushed. Did he have to talk about Rosa that way? Did he have to talk about any of them?
Jordan paused, taking a deep breath. “At first I was glad for the absence of feeling. It was a sort of peace. But… life becomes dull without the colors of emotion to enrich it. And an immortal life without the promise of vividness and depth that emotions bring you... well, sounds like a sort of hell, doesn’t it?”
He continued, “I started running missions for Tobias, the crazier, the more dangerous, the better. Just to get a kick out of it, just to feel a little alive. I got Vix to teach me how to fight like her. Hell, that’s probably why I had so many, um… friendships. I started spying within Michaelea wards. That’s when I came across Mayrekk in the forests one day and we started communicating, and he started feeding me information when he could.”
Alyx frowned. “So… you run dangerous missions and sleep with lots of woman because you get a kick out of it?”
He watched her for a moment. “You don’t understand it, do you?”
Alyx shook her head.
“No. I imagine someone like you might find it hard to understand what it is like not to feel anything.”
“Someone like me?”
“Passionate. Intense.”
Alyx blinked rapidly as she stared at Jordan. Her? Passionate? Intense?
Jordan smiled. “Even now. I can see your mind showing across your face. Yes, Alyx, as much as you don’t believe it is so, as much as you don’t like to let people see you, I can see you. You are one intense and passionate little creature.” Jordan turned his head to watch the fire. “Like fire. Angelfire.”
Alyx felt her cheeks warm and she told herself it was just from the flames in the fireplace.
He continued, “You might hide it or have trouble admitting how you feel, but you feel. You feel with every fiber of your being. That’s what I see when I see you.” He turned back to look at her, the flames dancing across his face. And she felt exposed. And it was uncomfortable to be this transparent to him. So she averted her eyes.
He continued, “Me… I don’t show how I feel because I don’t really feel anything.” Then he frowned and said in a softer voice, “Until recently, it seems.”
“What’s changed recently?”
His eyes met hers. The tenderness in them made her throat restrict. Suddenly she felt that the fire was too hot.
Jordan broke eye contact and cleared his throat. He pulled the Threads of Dark from his hip and laid it on the table. “We should review this.”
The Threads of Dark. Right.
Alyx pulled her chair in close to him. The air hadn’t seemed to clear completely of the previous tension, and her skin crackled when their arms touched. He didn’t seem to want to meet her eyes.
“You should review it first ‘cause, you know… Israel…” he said as he removed the case and unrolled the Threads across the table.
She wasn’t sure why, but his voice seemed to hold a kind of bitterness when he said Israel’s name.
The Threads were actually a blood red – so dark it looked black. An inky pattern was weaved across the material, slick like oil. Alyx took a deep breath then lowered her palm to the Thread and swiped across the material in a slow sweep.
Thoughts filled her mind.
There was a section on types of demons and demon magics. Everything that she’d been taught in lectures.
Then a section on poisons and demon magics came into her mind. A sense of relief filled her. Israel’s cure was in here.
Then demon history… and a section that caused her stomach twist.
“No,” she said, her face draining of blood. She retracted her hand from the Threads, shaking her head as she did. “It can’t be true.”
“Alyx, what it is?”
Alyx turned her face towards Jordan’s. “The Thread talks about the Day of Between. You remember the story of Day of Between?”
“That Lucifer locked the gates to Heaven and Hell? Yes, what of it?” Jordan demanded.
She swallowed. “This Thread states that… Lucifer wasn’t the one to do it.”
“What? Then who did?”
Alyx shook her head. “It doesn’t say. It just says that the gates weren’t locked by Lucifer or any of the demonkind. They don’t have that kind of magic.”
Jordan let out a small curse. “If it wasn’t the demonkind, who trapped us on Earth then… a Seraphim?
“But… who would do such a thing?” Alyx said.
Jordan pressed his lips together. “Who do you think?”
Michael.
Alyx shook her head. “He wouldn’t…” But her voice trailed off. Who knew what Michael was capable of?
“If it was Michael then whatever he has planned, he has been planning for a long time.”
Alyx felt her skin crawl. What was Michael planning? Why would he lock the Seraphim out of Heaven? Or was his intention to lock Heaven from Earth?
Chapter 30
Alyx entered through the north gate into the Saint’s Revenge, Jordan behind her. She could see Tobias and Mason standing together just outside one of the compartments, heads tilted and both in deep discussion.
“Tobias,” she said as she neared them. “We did it. We got the—”
Her blood soured when their morose faces turned towards her. “What’s wrong?
Tobias’ eyes were bloodshot and ringed with shadows. “Thank goodness you’re back. He has been asking for you.”
Tobias led her into a compartment where Mayrekk was lying, sheet up to his neck on the bed. He was paler than the sheet. The only movement from him as she entered was a weak flutter of his eyelashes.
“We tried everything…” Tobias said softly, “but there was too much internal bleeding. The only thing left was to make him comfortable. He wanted to say goodbye to you.”
Alyx shook her head. “No,” she hissed. “Don’t say that.” She fell into the empty chair at Mayrekk’s side.
“Al-yx…” his voice was croaky and sounded so soft it clenched her heart.
“Mayrekk, you’re going to be okay, you hear me? You’re going to pull through.”
“Alyx, I’m glad I got to see your face once more before…” He took in a gulp full of air, wheezing, his face screwing up as if it hurt just to breathe.
Alyx shook her head. Her voice trembled. “No. You’re not going anywhere.”
“You were the only reason I kept myself alive all these years. So someone would be here to pass on Raphael’s message to you, locked in that charm. And I did that.”
Alyx gripped her fingers around the charm around her neck. She would never, ever, ever let anyone take it awa
y from her again. She would do everything to uncover Raphael’s message for her.
“I have… no reason left to stay.”
“You do. You have me. I need you.”
Mayrekk took another painful breath… “Alyx, please. I am ready. It hurts too much.” He looked at her with moist eyes as if asking for her permission.
How could she be so selfish to ask him to stay just for her? She held back a sob and she nodded.
“Don’t forget me.”
“I won’t,” she promised. She grabbed his hand and pressed his palm to her jaw. His thumb brushed her cheek. “Never.”
He attempted a smile, but it never reached his eyes. His pupils glazed over. His hands become heavy in hers. And he was gone.
“No.” Alyx clutched at his hand, his fingers now limp, and pushed it against her face, again and again, willing his thumb to brush her again. “No, I just got you back. You’re not going anywhere. No.” She shoved his palm to her face again, but when his fingers still didn’t respond she let them slip from her grasp. His hand flopped out to his side.
Her world blurred into a mess. She heard a howl tearing from her throat. Like a madwoman. A creature. Something she didn’t recognize.
No one else was supposed to die. Something in her broke. She exploded up, vaguely aware that she had knocked her chair back violently against the wall behind her. The crack of one of the legs was a small satisfaction. She turned. Grabbing two of the legs, she picked up the chair and smashed it against the ground.
How dare the world be in order when her insides were broken? This insensitive world didn’t deserve any order. She needed to break it all down so it matched her inside, so that everything hurt just as she did. She looked around for something else to destroy.
But suddenly she couldn’t move. Warm strong arms trapped her. It was Jordan.
“Let go of me,” she raged at him and beat against him. But the harder she thrashed, the tighter his grip became. His voice remained soft as he shushed into her hair.