Jonah

by Nikki Kelly

  Instructing his people to remain outside with a nonchalant wave of his hand, Phelan removed a roll-up from behind his ear, taking his time to light it.

  “Do you have to do that in here?” Brooke whined. “It stinks!”

  Phelan blew out a stream of smoke, deliberately aiming it in her direction.

  “Lad?” Ruadhan said.

  “Them demons last night were not the only ones to make an appearance.” Phelan reached into his back pocket and pulled out a smartphone. “Got CCTV hooked up round Main Street, the house, and the church. It streams to my phone and tablet,” Phelan said for my benefit.

  “How many more?” I asked.

  “Enough. The demons disappear out of sight from the cameras once they get past the graveyard. As the sun’s up, we’re going hunting.”

  If they’d waited out the night and were choosing to go and investigate now, Ruadhan must have told them that Vampires were at their weakest at sunrise.

  Ruadhan looked at me. “Beyond the graveyard there’s a vast and lush garden, with acres of land adjacent.”

  “I remember,” I said.

  “Then you’ll also remember that at the very edge of it sit Hell’s gates.” Ruadhan put his hand on his trench coat and asked Phelan, “I assume that’s where you’re going?”

  “Aye. Seems that’s the direction they were heading.”

  “I’ll go,” I said. “You don’t need to risk your men, not after last night … not after Cameron—”

  “Nay, we’re going, but you should come.” Taking a long tug on his cigarette, Phelan gestured for me to follow.

  Ruadhan had his arms through his trench before Phelan managed to step back outside.

  Looping a wool scarf around his neck, Gabriel said, “Lailah, I don’t think you should go. Zherneboh will know by now that you’re still alive. It’s not safe.” He was quick to slip back into old habits, reaching out and touching me. I wasn’t totally devoid of compassion and so I didn’t shrug him off right away.

  As I followed Ruadhan out of the motor home, I withdrew from Gabriel’s grasp. “I’m not afraid of Zherneboh,” I said smoothly. “He should be afraid of me.”

  Gabriel moved ahead and blocked my path. “I still think—”

  “You saw firsthand what I did to Emery. I am more capable than any Pureblood and that includes Zherneboh. Besides, he still has unfinished business. I don’t have anything left to lose. I’d say that alone makes me more dangerous.” I paused and then repeated what my inner voice had assured me of in the third. “I’m ready to die.” It took me by surprise when an uneasy flutter rose in my chest. I may have sounded confident, but all of a sudden I didn’t feel it anymore, and I didn’t know why.

  Unexpectedly, the blast of shotguns roared all around, but the only missile to reach its intended target was Jonah, as in a flash he appeared beside me and said, “We’re not ready to let you.”

  The hurried slide of stocks snapping one by one as the next shells advanced into their chambers became my focal point. Instinctively I raised my hand and, as I willed them to, the guns on the shoulders of the six men accompanying Phelan levitated in the air. I swiped my hand as though I were clearing a misty screen. The guns flew through the air before bumping down to the mud.

  Phelan reeled, and then, seeing Jonah, spat to the ground. “Feck sake, I know you’re a demon, but round here you might wanna walk so you don’t get shot at.”

  Jonah was a new addition to the reformed demons now living on-site, and the Sealgaire hadn’t quite gotten used to seeing him yet. Phelan gestured to the lads around him, shaking his head in response to the blades they were pulling from their belts. “Get your gear and come round to the road,” he instructed, marching in the direction of the dirt track.

  “Ruadhan, you’ll come with me?” I said, turning my back on Jonah.

  He locked his arm in mine. “Aye, sweetheart.”

  Gabriel came up along my other side and I said to him, “You’re not coming.”

  “Yes, I am,” he said.

  Which caused Jonah to draw closer and say, “And you know the score by now, beautiful. You go, I go.”

  While my divine and devoted Angel and my rough-and-ready Vampire were very different, they did have one shared interest: me. Though they’d each taken turns saving me, now our roles were reversed.

  “No,” I said, “both of you can stay put for a change.”

  I wasn’t used to seeing lines in Gabriel’s forehead when he scowled, but one thing that hadn’t changed were his dimples. They were still perfect.

  “And keep an eye on Brooke. Don’t let her leave while we’re gone, okay?” Whatever it was that she was up to—or whoever—experience told me that her judgment couldn’t always be trusted.

  “I’ll look after Lailah,” Ruadhan reassured them, and it was only then, though neither of them liked it, that they agreed to stay behind. It irked me that they would listen to him and not me.

  Outside the house, near the main road, Phelan was talking with Riley. The six men who’d aimed at Jonah divided into two groups of three—one set ahead of Ruadhan and me and one behind. Ruadhan and I hung back, not keen on being sandwiched between the two crews laden with silver weapons.

  “Lailah, Ruadhan,” Phelan barked, calling us forward.

  I shook my head. “If you want to speak with us, you need to get used to changing your formations.”

  Phelan didn’t like being told what to do and grunted.

  “Fine,” I said, impatient to get started. “We’ll meet you there then.” I took off in a sprint. To the naked eye, I vanished into thin air, as did Ruadhan, who quickly followed. I came to a halt only when I reached the gates that restricted access to a long path leading up to the coffered doors of the church. A second later and Ruadhan was next to me.

  “A little warning wouldn’t hurt, sweetheart,” he said, straightening his trench.

  “Sorry, but his attitude stinks,” I replied, scanning the area. It might be morning but the streets were empty, the townspeople not yet having left their homes.

  “Someone’s overslept. The gates are locked.” I jiggled the bars.

  “Careful, love.” Ruadhan gestured to the speared finials at the top of the tall wrought-iron gate. They were cast in silver and clearly could double as weapons.

  He explained, “The church only opens for Sunday mass. It takes too much coordination, too much time, and too many resources to make the area secure for the locals every single day.”

  “Ruadhan, the fixed gateway to the third is on the church’s land. Why would anyone come here at all? And if the situation’s worsened, why haven’t the locals left?”

  “It’s their home, love. They won’t let anyone, or anything, take it from them.” Ruadhan’s smooth tone suggested he agreed with the townspeople, but then perhaps he understood better than me. As far as I could remember, I’d never put down any roots.

  “I’ve never had a home, at least not before now.”

  My home was not made of bricks and mortar; home was wherever my family was. Ruadhan understood what I meant without having to ask. “Well, the fact that we’re mobile at the dawn of the apocalypse is an added advantage.”

  A gruff laugh left him, and I grinned. “Too right. Shall we?” I nodded to the gate.

  “We should wait for Phelan. It’s not altogether respectful to proceed without him.”

  “Yeah, well, he may rule the roost around here, but I don’t answer to him, and neither do you, Ruadhan.” Though he, Gabriel, and Brooke may have spent the last few years conforming to Phelan’s way of doing things, we had been a team first. Still, Ruadhan hesitated, glancing over his shoulder, hoping perhaps that the members of the Sealgaire would have caught up by now. Ruadhan was scratching the bristle on his chin but stopped when I said, “You made me a promise once.”

  “And I will die before I break it,” he said in a deep, assertive tone.

  “Well then, to stand beside me, you’ll have to keep up, old man.” I elbowed
him playfully, lightening the mood before springing up and catapulting myself over the gates.

  * * *

  RUADHAN AND I LANDED on the other side of the cemetery’s fence. While the graveyard was no different from any other, providing a final resting place to the bodies of the damned and the saved alike, what lay behind it was what made this church, this location, unlike any other.

  The church’s land resembled circles, positioned side by side, separated by shrubbery. The central circle contained a lush garden, the circle to its right housed a dense forest, and finally, the circle to the left was only bare dirt, save for the ancient oak tree.

  The outer perimeter of each circle combined to form a wave—a long, undulating cliff edge that led to the River Liffey below.

  An ordinary human wouldn’t be able to see what I could. This truly was hallowed ground. The one place on Earth where all three dimensions interlocked side by side—where Heaven met Hell, separated only by one garden, where the red and white roses bloomed brightly, untouched by the season.

  I shifted my focus to the land on the left—the spot where Jonah and I had returned through the fixed gateway. The aged tree dominated, situated in the middle of the barren field. Its thick roots grew up and cut through the dead stone beneath it. And though from this angle it could not be seen, I knew what the drooping branches were helping to conceal: the cave.

  “Sweetheart,” Ruadhan said.

  He was shaking me by my shoulder, which snapped me out of my deep concentration. I was so focused that I couldn’t hear the now clear shrieks resounding around us. “Where’s that coming from?” I asked.

  Ruadhan pointed toward the land on the left, to where I had just been focusing.

  I covered my ears, trying to drown out the harrowing howls. “I can’t see anything, at least not around that tree.”

  “Let’s try from the garden,” Ruadhan said.

  I nodded, and we ran at superspeed through the foliage into the central garden. And that’s all it took—a change in perspective and we could see what we hadn’t been able to before.

  The tombstone Jonah had pushed remained where we’d left it; the hole in the ground was still uncovered; and, one by one, a group of Second Generation Vampires were plummeting down it, into the cave. Cloaked Purebloods roved around the demons, sniffing at their throats and hissing at their ears as the line moved along.

  But these were Second Generation Vampires, not Purebloods. They could not pass through the fixed gateway, because if they touched the dark matter, they would immediately lose their forms and simply fail to exist at all. That couldn’t be the plan. No, the Purebloods were sending them somewhere else, and I had an inkling as to where.

  “Ruadhan, are you seeing what I’m seeing?”

  “Aye, love.”

  Crows perched on the oak tree, and though I was conscious of the deathly flap of the birds’ wings, it did not hold my attention for long.

  Red, orange, and green smoke poured out of the oak tree’s branches. Twisting into streamers, the breeze caught and carried the color upward, splashing it against the sky.

  I had wounded Hell, and now Hell was bleeding.

  I was certain the aurora I had left behind had somehow followed me here. The universe was indeed plotting a truly dramatic backdrop on which for me to die.

  I smiled. “You’ve got artistic vision, I’ll give you that.” But as swiftly as I’d conjured the words, my inner voice was silenced by a troubling sensation—fear.

  I glanced to Ruadhan. He stared straight ahead, his expression blank.

  But I remembered what he’d said to me once, that if he were ever presented with an opportunity to rid the world of a Pureblood, he would surely take it. I swung my arm out in front of his chest. “No.”

  This was the closest I would ever let Ruadhan get to Hell.

  Still staring straight ahead, he fumbled to find my hand. When he did, he pressed down, squeezing tighter than he had ever squeezed it before.

  And I squeezed back.

  A cloaked figure was watching over the proceedings; with his back to me he stood entirely still. I didn’t need to see his face to know it was Zherneboh. I was connected to him. It was his venom that had changed the makeup of my soul, and though his intention had been to forge his own image upon me, when the girl in the shadow had perished, he had failed. I had asserted myself as my own person, one he could not control, but that didn’t change the fact that the darkness that made up half of my gray being had come from him.

  “Come then, before they see us.” Ruadhan tugged at my hand, and I let him lead the way.

  I’d seen enough.

  Just then, leaves crunching under hurried feet met my hearing, and I glanced back the way we’d come. “Phelan and his men are passing through the graveyard.”

  “Aye, I hear them.”

  “Then it won’t be long before they do, too. I’ll get Phelan and his men, and we’ll meet you at the church gates.” I disappeared in a blur as I thought myself away. Phelan was the only one not pointing a gun at my head when I appeared next to him a moment later. “It’s me,” I said calmly, and the men lowered their weapons.

  “How nice of you to rejoin us,” Phelan snapped.

  Leaning into his ear, I whispered, “I don’t think that’s how your men would expect you to speak to the Savior.” Pointing to the church, I gestured for them to follow. “Come on.”

  “No,” Phelan grunted. “We need to see what’s going on.” The three lads out front ambled ahead, but the bodyguards behind me had the sense to hang back.

  “Every second you stay here, you’re cheating death. Trust me, it’s time to go.” I changed my tactic when he still didn’t budge. “I’ll give you the lay of the land, but not here, please, Phelan.” My plea was not for my benefit; it was for his, for Riley’s, and for these men.

  Phelan scratched underneath his camouflage beanie before nodding. “Right, back to HQ.”

  THIRTEEN

  I PACED THE LIVING ROOM of the motor home as I explained to the group what Ruadhan and I had seen.

  “I counted six Purebloods, including Zherneboh. That’s six of the type of demons you saw me end in Henley. Plus one hundred and twenty-two Vampires aboveground.”

  From inside the kitchen where she stood with Iona, Brooke wagged a bottle of vodka at me, and I nodded, accepting her offer.

  “I’ll take one of those,” Claire said, swinging her two-year-old from her lap to her hip as she rose from the sofa. Though the world was dangerous, still Claire and Riley had chosen to bring life into it—perhaps that was the definition of hope.

  “You counted out one hundred and twenty-two exactly?” Riley asked.

  “Yes,” I said. “I don’t think the Vampires from last night intended to attack us. I think we just got caught in the traffic.”

  Ruadhan grunted in agreement, but his attention never left the door. He was on guard.

  Iona placed a chilled glass in my hand, and I took it gratefully.

  “It’ll help settle your nerves, like,” she said, as if I needed justification to drink hard liquor first thing in the morning after what I’d seen.

  I glanced at Jonah. The concern on his face and my reassurance back to him threatened to expose what we’d been up to last night, but right now I wasn’t sure I cared.

  “So what were they doing on the hill?” Phelan asked, throwing down his beanie and picking up the vodka bottle.

  I took a breath, gathering my thoughts as my gaze rounded the room. It was just like old times. Gabriel and Jonah were both listening intently, though from different ends of the living room. The girls were coming in and out of the kitchen, Ruadhan was on lookout, and Riley and Jack were quietly taking stock while trying their best not to look too terrified. But things were not exactly as they were before; things had gotten worse, as evidenced by the forty other men surrounding the motor home for protection.

  And things were different for me, too. Gabriel, Jonah … things with them were not as t
hey were. I’d been to Hell. I’d seen things. I’d learned things. And all those things began to coalesce in my mind as I pieced together what I’d just witnessed. “The gateway to the third dimension, or Hell’s gates as you’d prefer, is hidden underneath the tree on the hill. Within the ground there’s a structure made from cold, dark matter. Basically frozen dead rock, and it’s the same material that made up the third. There’s a tombstone, which Jonah shifted for us to escape, but there was also another stone, exactly the same, directly below it.”

  “What are you getting at, beautiful?” Jonah said, stepping out of the shadows.

  “The tombstones act as doors. We could see the Second Generation Vampires dropping down through the first one, and I think when they went belowground, they just kept on going through the second.” I fiddled with the edge of my mask as I pondered. “Two tiers: tier one houses the fixed gateway to the third, and below it, out of the way, tier two…” I trailed off.

  “Go on, love,” Ruadhan said, encouraging me to finish my theory.

  I pondered. “Do you know Pandora’s box wasn’t really a box at all? It was actually a jar?” A few heads shook and I continued. “Tier one is the lid, and tier two is the belly of the jar. I think the Purebloods are depositing their Vampires, collecting them inside.”

  “But why?” Phelan asked sharply.

  “The last time we saw multiple Purebloods gather, they were joining their resources, their armies, to hunt me down. Only this time it’s not me they’re after.” The memory of Zherneboh’s story, of his desire for Orifiel’s death, came to the forefront of my mind, and the answer was apparent. “He wants Orifiel. Zherneboh’s readying his forces for battle, the final battle.”

  “You’ve mentioned this Orifiel before. What part does he play in all this?” Phelan asked, taking a swig from the bottle of vodka.

  Gabriel came forward then, perhaps feeling better placed to offer an explanation suited to their beliefs. “Hell’s gates may be on your doorstep, but so are Heaven’s.” Though Phelan was Gabriel’s target audience, he seemed more interested in Iona’s reaction as his gaze fell to her. “The entrance is within your orchard, which means your garden is the only thing separating the two gateways.”