Howler's Night

by Marie Hall

  Pantomiming a loud yawn, Pandora eased off the tree, placing her slender neck so close to the crossed blades that my heart gave a lurch remembering a time she’d done something very similar with me.

  Pandora seemed unfazed that she was currently staring down three death priests in their prime.

  “And why do you want my lover’s key?” She arched a delicate brow.

  Dahlia hissed as if slapped. “You will choke on your bile as I steal your heart, abomination.”

  Pandora’s shoulders tensed. It was such a quick movement, and even I only noticed it because I knew her well. Her full lips still wore a smirk, and she was doing a damn good job of getting under their skin through her apparent lack of fear.

  That little movement, that clear sign of her distaste for that term, almost brought a smile to my face. Everyday I could see her becoming her old self, and it was a beautiful thing to behold.

  All three of the priests were bristling. Axel now had his axes gripped in his fists, and Ari held a deep black bow notched with a golden arrow.

  Every weapon they used, even my own, had been blessed by Allora to be deadly and accurate. As strong as Pandora was now, I wasn’t sure of our odds. Priests had been created to destroy her, but she was so much more than she’d ever been. My only hope was that Allora had underestimated her.

  When Axel and Ari broke away, both heading toward me, I knew they had.

  Calling the shadow to me, I formed the Gray Man. The air became dense and heavy and popped with static and charged bolts of energy.

  Axel’s eyes widened, and a rumbling growl tore form his throat. “That was you!” He roared it, screaming his fury as the reality of what had really butchered Jezeel stared back at him with glowing red eyes.

  “She got too close. I had no choice.” I let them hear my smirk, let them see my disdain for our fallen brethren who’d very nearly taken Pandora from me when she’d stumbled upon her true location.

  The very one I’d mercilessly taken down.

  Ari’s chin notched higher, his hawk-like nose flaring as he said, “You’ve the devil in you, Asher.”

  Beside me I heard the battle raging between Pandora and Dahlia, and I forced myself not to look, not to join in, because if I gave either of them even an inch they’d own me.

  “So do you,” I bit out, and then there were no more words.

  Axel had tossed an axe at my head, it whistled past my ear, barely grazing my flesh. I gave the gray man free will and sent him to take on Ari, distracting the other priest just long enough for me to handle Axel.

  The caveman threw his head back. “Ye always were a slippery one.” He held his hand out to receive the axe that’d magically returned to his waiting palm. “But I was always stronger.”

  A war cry rent the air, and then he rushed me, swinging his axes in tandem, creating a whirling dervish of rhythm and motion. I thrust the blade, parrying his blows left and right, right and left, whirling behind him and slamming the hilt into his left temple, only to have him shake his head, squat, and flip me over onto my back.

  Black spots danced in my vision as his smiling face leaned over me. “Now you will die.”

  As he lifted his boot, I knew what he would do. He was readying his signature death blow, preparing to drop the ball of his boot into the center of my sternum while swinging his blades across my neck.

  But I had always been faster than him.

  Waiting until the moment he’d committed, I rolled out of the way. His boot clipped my rib where I’d been stabbed, and I grunted as the hot wash of blood immediately seeped through my shirt.

  Jackknifing to my feet, I turned on him, and in one smooth motion rammed Veritas through his belly, slicing and cauterizing his wound at the same time so that there was very little blood as his insides spilled to his feet.

  His upper lip pulled back as he stumbled against the trunk of the kissing tree. “Ye fink bastard!” he yelled.

  Gathering momentum for a true decapitation, I whirled, raising my sword above my head. Just as I was about to drop my blow, an arrow sliced through my shoulder blade, embedding itself into the tree just above Axel’s laughing eyes. His hands overflowed with his insides as he attempted to push them back in before his wound healed over.

  Roaring, I turned to Ari, who now had another arrow notched and aimed square between my eyes. “Put it down, Asher, and your death will be merciful.”

  “Screw that,” Axel growled. “The man deserves no mercy.”

  Quickly I glanced over to where Pandora had been, but I could see neither her nor Dahlia. A large stain of blood coated the grass where they’d been, but off in the distance I could hear the clang of steel and the grunts of hard battle.

  “I will not die on my knees.” I snarled, and lifted my sword in my good hand, calling the gray man to me.

  He floated above the ground, the light in his eyes a little dimmer than it had been. Ari’s arrows were dipped in ichor and deadly—it seemed—even to flash.

  Axel’s arms were suddenly wrapped around my middle, squeezing like a python and cutting off my oxygen. Tapping into the deepest source of my power, I pulled every inch of dark matter to me until my body hummed like a live wire, until I was nothing but living, breathing, killing energy, and in one explosive blast of will, I sent it rushing outward.

  The blast knocked them both flat on their asses, giving me just enough time to maneuver away from the tree and toward more open ground. The gray man took my back, and together we fought. The ichor running through my blood would wear off in a few hours, but I didn’t have that long. So long as it tainted my body, I could not heal.

  My right arm hung limp and useless by my side as my left one burned from parrying bolts coming at me like flashes of lightning. Then I felt the shudder of energy at my back as Axel snicked his axe through the Gray Man’s form, obliterating my flash. I no longer had the energy to create a new one.

  Sweat coated my body, my vision blurred from the toxin racing through me, and now my back was exposed.

  The sickening crunch of blade meeting bone made me writhe in agony as Axel’s axe sank deep into my bicep.

  Veritas dropped from my suddenly limp wrist.

  “And now”—Axel laughed—“you die.”

  A shrill scream like an animal dying exploded through the woods, and my heart ached because I’d never know if Pandora made it out of there alive. I could only hope I’d bought her enough time to escape.

  A black coiled band of dark shadow suddenly manifested before us. From the corner of my eye, I could see Axel raise his axe, could see Ari release the arrow he’d aimed at my neck.

  I lifted my chin high, ready to meet my death, when the darkness enveloped me. It was shadow, but it was more. It was strength, it was pure energy, it was cold and heat, atoms that bounced and rubbed excitedly against me.

  From the very wellspring of the universe, Pandora drew a power so dense no light could enter and no light could escape. There was no sound, nothing to tease my senses, to let me know which way was up or down.

  An event horizon.

  This was a black hole, and it was contained within a vehicle. A person.

  My lover.

  The moment I realized that, she shifted. The shadows pulled away from me, and I inhaled a greedy gulp of briny sea air, dropping to my knees from the aftershock of being released from that energy.

  Axel and Ari were also on their knees, clutching their necks and staring at Pandora with wide, frantic eyes.

  Their weapons lay useless by their feet.

  But this was not Pandora, this was Ya-el. This was a demon. Her skin was black and coated in blood, her claws long and curled. She wore no clothing and was covered only by the long length of obsidian hair that fell down her back. The scars still covered her body.

  Her head turned, and she looked down at me, her eyes fully black. She was gone. Whatever thrall she had Axel and Ari in, they still couldn’t move.

  She blinked, and for a split second, I could see the
lavender eyes, could see the woman trapped inside the beast. But then that too was gone and she whispered one word to me.

  “Ash…er.”

  In that one word I heard her. Pandora was there, and as long as she was there, I could reach her.

  “Come down, little demon.” I reached out a hand to her, remaining stoic even as my skin stretched the wound open again.

  The black in her eyes wavered between lavender and twilight. I nodded, clutching onto my aching ribs.

  “You did good. You did great.”

  I whispered it over and over to her. Axel and Ari could not be left to live; they had her scent now and would never stop looking until they’d killed her. But I didn’t want Pandora doing it in this form; I wanted her rational. Wanted her driven not by an instinct for blood and violence but by intellect. Because if she killed as Pandora it wouldn’t haunt her, but each death she made in this form would only fuel the souls inside her, would only make her dark hunger worse and send her spiraling down into a madness I could never crack.

  Her body shuddered, trembled, and the colors on her skin began to blur, to shift from black, to gray, to something even lighter still.

  “Come back to me, Pandora.” I made my way slowly to my feet, ready to take her in my arms.

  But her hold on the men must have slipped because I barely had time to register the snick of the bow’s release, or hear the nearly silent whistle of an arrow slicing through the air.

  Her eyes were rimmed in inky black again like a chameleon’s, her flesh colored instantly, and with a roar she snatched the arrow an inch away from my throat and snapped it in half between her fingers. Then she was nothing but mist.

  “Pandora!” I screamed, rushing up to her, desperate to get her back, but she swirled around the men like a raging sandstorm, whipping up rocks and sticks in her wake.

  I ignored the countless slashes against my arms and face as I leaned into the storm, trying to get at her. The men were screaming, and even as she whipped around them I saw the black sands of her body slip through Axel’s lips. His body began to shake and gasp and tremble, and a terrible, unholy sound exploded from his lips an instant before I was showered in blood, flesh, and gore.

  Wiping my eyes with the back of my hands, I screamed again. “Pandora, stop. Don’t do this. Not like this. Not like this!”

  But she didn’t hear me. She slipped inside of Ari, and two seconds later he’d exploded too.

  When the storm of her rage had finally died, the devastation was more horrific than any I’d ever seen before. Not because I hadn’t seen death, but because for once I saw her evil.

  The waters lapping the shore were dirty brown and red.

  Birds circled in the air, crying and calling out as they came and landed on trees, snapping up bits of flesh dangling from broken limbs.

  And then I heard a choking, crying sound. Pandora was back, crawling out of the puddles of their blood. Her hair clung to her forehead and she was covered in blood.

  She was staring at the ground in horror, shaking her head, and moaning.

  “Oh no.” She moved her hand over the spots where they’d been. “Oh no. Oh my God, what have I done? Oh noooooo.”

  Her last “no” nearly shattered my heart.

  Swallowing the bile stuck on my tongue, I couldn’t move. I saw her, but I couldn’t get the image of what she’d done out of my head either.

  Covering her face with her hands, she dropped to her knees and moaned then clutched her stomach before quickly scrabbling away into the bushes. The sounds of loud retching made me close my eyes.

  And I knew what I had to do.

  Sometimes it’s only after the darkness that we can fully appreciate the light.

  Running to her, I knelt and rubbed her back until it’d passed. She didn’t even wave me away. She simply shuddered and stared down at the ground with a hollow and empty look.

  “They’re winning,” she whispered.

  “No.” I wanted to yank her around, but my arms were almost useless. So I nudged her. “Look at me, Pandora.”

  Her eyes slowly came up to mine, and I could see she was broken. Covered in the blood of her enemies, with her dark hair plastered to her face and shoulders, I could see the shadows killing her light. They were trying their damnedest to take her, and I wouldn’t let them.

  “Whatever life gives you, even if it hurts, be strong. Stand up, and be bold. ‘Strong walls shake,’ Pandora, ‘but they never collapse.’”

  Her lower lip trembled, and her eyes filled with more tears. “Orebela Gbenga,” she whispered.

  I nodded, giving her a small smile. Pandora had always loved her quotes, I wasn’t surprised she’d caught the vague reference. The ice ice in my own soul started to thaw as I saw her true self begin to slowly emerge again. She’d had a setback, but we could get through this. She could get through this.

  I had to believe that, because to believe anything else was unacceptable.

  I let her cry on my good shoulder for a minute more before I wiped her eyes with my thumbs. “We need to get you dressed and cleaned up. We’re going to find Luc.”

  She bit the corner of her lip but didn’t argue with me. “I need to get this blood off me, Ash.”

  Making my way gingerly to my feet, I helped her to stand and led her to the water. She sank into the cool depths with a loud sigh before slipping her head under.

  Going back to the kissing tree, I used the last of my reserves to cloak the ground in a mirage of normalcy. This was a national park; tourists would come, and the last thing I wanted was to stir up fears of a mass murderer on the loose.

  Once done, body feeling lethargic and beyond the point of exhaustion, I dragged my sorry carcass around the forest looking for a specific plant.

  Once I found what I was looking for, I yanked up a handful before going back to her.

  She was out of the water now and scrubbing her legs down with rocks. The blood was gone, but she still seemed frantic in her cleaning.

  Taking a seat beside her on a worn shelf of driftwood, I gently eased the rock out of her hand.

  “I’m not clean yet, Priest.”

  Chucking the stone into the lapping waves, I shook my head. “You’re as physically clean as you can get, Pandora. Here.” I handed her the plant.

  She sniffed before taking it from me. “Wild mint?”

  I pointed to my lips.

  “Oh,” she said softly before snapping off a handful and slipping it into her mouth, chewing thoughtfully.

  I didn’t talk to her as she cleaned up; truthfully, I didn’t have a clue what to say. I wasn’t upset that she’d killed them, I wasn’t even upset that they’d died as they had. Allora wasn’t done with us; more would take their place. But Pandora had permanently marked her soul with darkness.

  I didn’t know where the point of no return was—this was all virgin territory for me. She’d not snapped yet, becoming fully demonized, but what if the next time did it, or the time after that? It could be next week or twenty thousand years from now. I just didn’t have a clue, and not knowing ate at my soul like a cancer.

  Spitting out the mint, she stood slowly to her feet.

  It was hard forcing myself off that seat, but I draped an arm around her shoulders, and she eased stiffly into my arms.

  “Do you still have the key?” I asked. We’d fought so hard for it, it would be pointless now to go away empty handed.

  “I hid it. Let me go get it real qui—” She was just about to head off when she looked straight ahead and gasped, clutching onto my shirt with terrified fingers.

  Pandora wasn’t prone to excitement; that something could startle her that way set my pulse thundering. I turned my gaze from her to what’d caught hers and sucked in a sharp breath at the stunning woman standing beside the tree.

  Her skin was as pale as ivory and her eyes as blue as frost. A silky mane of snow- white hair fell in gentle waves past her hips. She was dressed in white armor with detailing that looked like feathers pr
essed into the bodice, and metal cuffs ran from her wrists up her arms, stopping just at her shoulders. A split skirt of white slid down to her ankles, highlighting the roman sandals running up to the tops of her calves. In her hand she held a staff topped with a gold crescent moon that glowed a faint, luminescent blue.

  But what had made Pandora gasp wasn’t any of that; it was the downy, snow- white wings extending from her back.

  The shudders wracking her body picked up in intensity. A demon feared nothing more than an angel.

  I hugged her as tight as I could, never taking my eyes off the woman before us. She cocked her head. There was an alien-like, almost mechanical movement to it, as if doing so was foreign to her.

  As I knew it was.

  Blinking, she stared at the ground, then at us, shifting her gaze back and forth for several tense breathless seconds that felt more like minutes.

  I clenched my jaw and snarled as she extended her staff, which now glowed hotly. Shielding Pandora behind me, I awaited our fate, recognizing instantly that I’d never really expected to walk away from this trap.

  The priests hadn’t gotten us, so she had come to clean up the mess.

  But before the bolt of her radiance could incinerate us, Dean materialized and latched his skeletal hand around her throat with a gleeful smirk. His Armani steel- gray suit was just as pristine and wrinkle free as it’d been back in the bar. Not a hair on his head was out of place, and though the woman beneath him was powerful enough to topple a city, we all knew who was stronger.

  Then, reaching his other bony fist into the woman’s abdomen, he yanked and pulled out a glowing, spherical blue undulation of energy.

  I frowned, perplexed, when Dean drove that ball through his own chest. The pores of his skin radiated a blue light before slowly dying out.

  “You’re mine now, priest.” Dean chuckled and then, in a bright flash of radiant, white light, disappeared, taking the woman with him.

  I dropped to my knees, sucking in a sharp breath as a wash of energy foreign to me steamrolled through my veins.

  Pandora’s hands were gentle on my shoulders as she forced me to look at her. The ichor that’d tainted my blood was burning away under the onslaught of Death’s power merging with my own.