by RS Black
“Pandora.” She nudged me. “What is your plan?”
I felt so detached from all of this. I should be tracing far away from her, refusing to give her the one piece of intel that would save her afterlife and screw what was left of mine, but I was so tired of carrying this load alone.
“Luc,” I whispered.
I felt her frown. “You would really tell me this, even knowing that I would betray you?”
My smile was sad. “What does it matter anymore? I thought I could do it, thought I could use him to do what I can’t, but I’m not sure I can. All I know is that with each keeper’s soul I carry inside me, resistance seems less realistic. All that is left is doing as they bid me.”
“That’s not like you, to just quit.”
I chuckled. “Now you sound like Asher.”
“Hate to say this, but he’s pretty wise. Share with me your plans and I can tell you whether it was even feasible.”
I opened my mind to her, let her see all the good and the bad, let it all flow through her. Purged myself of it, and when it was all over, I sagged with relief. “That’s it. All of it. And now you see why I can’t do it.”
I sensed her shock. “Pandora?”
“Grace, can I trust you?”
A gentle warmth flooded my soul. “I would never have given that sack of poo a thing about you, even for the chance at eternal happiness.”
I hung my head to my chest and sighed with relief even as I felt the pressure of my brain chip activating. They weren’t hearing me, so clearly now they were going to plan B: locate my whereabouts and send in the goon squad to come pack me up.
I really couldn’t understand why they went through all the hassle. All Dick had to do was call me back. Which meant this was purely a power trip for him.
Dean clearly wasn’t in on this, because he knew exactly where I was at. Which meant the Triad had no idea Grace was still alive because Dean had failed to tell them so.
Interesting.
The jarring buzzing in my head grew. They were super close to getting a hit.
Grace was on death’s door, and the berserkers had nothing to fear from the Triad; it wouldn’t matter at all if they found me here. But I didn’t want them to find her. This was her sanctuary. I wanted her final days to be as peaceful as possible.
I smiled sadly. “Thank you, my friend. You have no idea the gift you’ve just given me.”
“Pandora, wait. Your plan will—”
I closed my eyes, not wanting to hear any more false hope. I’d looked at this forward, sideways, and backwards. There was no hope. Not anymore.
“Goodbye, Grace.” I slipped out of her mind and traced away a mere millisecond before they got a hit on my location. It didn’t even matter where, so long as I got far away from here.
~*~
Grace
I’ve lain in this bed for months, knowing I should be dead, nothing but maggot food by now. I hated Dean for what he’d done to me, but now I was also oddly grateful for it. Because I now knew I could help her.
With a mighty struggle I opened my eyes.
Flint jerked as if I’d slapped her. I hadn’t moved in months. I almost chuckled at her shocked expression.
The girl was young and innocent still in so many ways, but also with a layer of steel to her.
I would miss my family.
Grabbing her hand, I urged her face toward my ear and whispered, “I know what she’s doing, Flint. I know what Pandora is doing, and now you must help her. Tell her the truth, and tell no one else of this night.”
Quickly I clued her into the plan. It was such a brilliant idea, and I was humbled to know that Pandora knew all along how to right the wrong, but the only reason why she hadn’t was because of the lives that would suffer for it.
In the end she’d done as she’d always done—sacrificed herself for the sake of others. Except this time, I knew something she hadn’t. Something that would turn this chess match on its head.
Flint’s eyes were wide and panic-filled.
“What if she doesn’t listen? What if she doesn’t come?” She shook her head.
“She will come. She always comes. Now go, hurry, before he returns.”
“Who?” She glanced around with a confused frown.
I feebly slapped at her. “Just go. Now. Call Ya-El and tell her the truth.”
Good girl that she was, she got up, and even though I could sense her confusion, she went and did as told.
Dean arrived mere seconds later. But I was at peace. I’d done right by her in the end and at least in that, I could hold my head high.
The mattress sagged as he sat on the edge of it, his tricolored eyes bold and holding mine. Then sighing broadly he said, “You will not tell me, will you? Eternal purgatory, and you will not tell me.” He shook his head, running blunt fingers through his thick brown hair. “She’s gotten to you too.”
I laughed, the desiccated caverns of my lungs wheezing with the energy it took to do it. “I would say it’s the other way around. You know, I’ve had time to consider your ‘offer’”—I snorted—“and kind though it is, I cannot accept. I’ve dealt with monsters nearly my whole life, and always I’ve hated them. Seen them for what they really are. But Pandora, she was always different.”
His nostrils flared and though I doubted Death would ever admit to it, I knew that he knew everything I said now was true.
“Why her? Why of all the Nephilim in the world was she chosen?”
A nerve under his eye ticked, as if he were trying to hold himself back from saying what he really thought.
“She did not deserve this.”
Dean glanced away for half a moment before turning back to look at me and when he did, I saw my heart reflected in his gaze. “I know. You ask why—because she embraced her soul, unlike the others. It was why the Triad had never succeeded in the past.”
My smile was weak. Just a twitch of my lips. “That is a cruel irony. We meddle in the lives of so many; what if we’ve been wrong all these years, Dean? Have you ever wondered?”
He scoffed, leaning back on his hands. “The ravings of a half-dead woman. Mortals and your right and wrong, what matters that?”
I tapped my finger to the hand he had resting by my thigh. “I don’t think you mean that anymore. She’s gotten to you too. You tell me this is fair, and you mean it, and I will tell you everything you wish to know.”
“I could just lie.”
“Hm. You could.” I nodded. “But you won’t. So tell me, monster, do you believe she deserved this fate?”
His silence was answer enough. I nodded after a minute.
“As I thought. What I cannot figure is why this matters to you. Why her plans matter to you. The more I think on it, I don’t think it has anything to do with your chessboard.”
His eyes thinned and I knew I was definitely on the right trail.
“I would call what you’re feeling love—”
His nose curled with affront and I couldn’t help but chuckle at the adolescent response.
“But you’re Death. And for Death it is not love which causes your feelings to waver, but respect. She has earned your respect.”
He shook his head, but said nothing. I understood the sentiment well. The minx had once done the same to me and I’d never been the same since.
“Pandora made me believe in hope again, Dean. You feel it too, which is why you want to know. Because if she’s betrayed your hope, you want to arm your emotions in such a way as to do what needs doing. But instead, I think you should do as the rest of us.”
“And that is?” His deep voice rumbled with a hint of annoyance.
“Just wait and see.” I crossed my arms and closed my eyes. “Now, let’s get on with it.”
“Laughable, since you now know her true intentions.”
“Well”—I peeked with one eye open—“in all fairness, you’ve come to claim my soul, wretch; I was never going to get to the end of this. I shall take the secret to my grav
e and die knowing that I’ve laid my life down for something truly honorable. Now, please, I will not ask you again—take me to purgatory and let us be done with this. This skin suit offends me.”
He laughed, the sound of it thick and gravelly, and if I’d been fifty years younger, it would have surely enticed me to try and ‘tap that,’ as my boy Abel always said. But I was tired and, in truth, not nearly as fearless as I seemed.
An eternity of purgatory—not Hell, but not Heaven either—the thought of it made me want to cry. Eternal separation from any true peace. I wasn’t sure that I wouldn’t break if he kept me talking much longer.
But I hadn’t lied when I’d said it wasn’t fair to her. Everyone had betrayed Pandora, and I had no desire to be added to that long list. Just this once, I wanted her to know she’d had a true friend.
“I can see what she saw in you, mortal. I will wait and I will hope. You’ve earned your rest.”
I snapped both eyes open. “What? But I thought—”
His look was droll. “Say another word and I’ll change my mind.”
Pandora was out of my hands now. I wished her well and prayed for the best. Dean reached a skeletal hand through my chest and I smiled with relief as my eyes closed for the final time.
Chapter 16
Pandora
Blood called to blood.
I felt the call of my brethren move through my flesh like prickles of heat. Sitting up from my bed of moss on the forest floor, I stilled, listening intently for the quiet call to come to me again.
I was currently calling Kodiak Island my home for the night. But even as far removed from humanity as I now currently was, my brain had been racing a mile a minute. I couldn’t stop thinking about what I was becoming, the things I was doing, and wondering if it was worth it anymore.
If any of this was worth it...
Ya-El.
The cry of my true name rang like bells through my blood. I was definitely being beckoned. But by whom?
This wasn’t a Nephilim call. The degree of power felt different; it was strong, but unique. Where a Neph’s call would be a powerful roar, this was like a butterfly flapping its wings.
Done by someone unused to using summoning a demon.
I had no idea where Dean was. Knowing him, he was busy moving chess pieces around on his board. Or finally putting Grace out of her misery. I wondered what she’d told him.
Ya-El...
The cry was fading, growing dimmer and more unsure.
I had only now to make my choice.
Tonight I’d killed. Tomorrow I’d kill again.
But I was still me, and there were times, like now, that I needed that reminder.
Blowing out a harsh breath, I made my choice. Getting up, I re-dressed quickly, pulling on the tightest pair of leather pants I owned, a black leather jacket, and lots and lots of knives.
I no longer needed them to fight, but they were a comforting presence, helping to remind me, if only for a little while, of the woman I used to be.
I felt the presence begin to drift off.
Wait. I’m coming.
~*~
I followed the soft call of that blood to a graveyard in the Deep South. I recognized the mossy trees in an instant, the hilly terrain. I was in South Carolina, and very close to my brother Adam’s turf.
I scanned the eerie moonlit night. Bullfrogs and cicadas cried out an elegiac melody, which fit my mood to a tee, I must say.
The breeze carried the sweet scent of candy and the earthy fragrance of pine. Whoever had called me, he or she was near. But also terrified out of their mind.
I sighed. I could beckon the soul to me with the crook of a finger, but in cases such as these, sometimes merely being patient and waiting it out was the best course of action.
Shoving my hands into my pockets, I rested against the sinking corner of a crumbling headstone with the name Jebediah Bell and the dates 1708–1784 written on it. My lips twitched, wondering what Asher would have been doing in 1784.
The flag had only worn thirteen stars then, and the US Congress had ratified the Treaty of Paris with Great Britain to bring about the end of one of the bloodiest wars of that era, the American Revolutionary War.
And for just a moment I suffered a pang for the easiness and innocence of those days. Bloody it might have been, but I’d been free then.
A blade of grass shifted.
“Who are you to call me?” I asked in a deep voice.
I hadn’t even turned, but I could taste the youth of the soul behind me.
“Please...please don’t turn around.”
The voice belonged to a girl.
I smiled broader.
I inhaled deeply, saturating my lungs with the essence of the child. In human terms, she’d be considered fully grown. But I was over five thousand years old and twenty was nothing but a babe to me.
“You’re human, and yet, you’re a monster. So what are you exactly, girl?”
She gulped and I licked my fangs, enjoying the fact that even with my back turned and exposed to her, we both knew I was the one in control here. There was nothing she could do to me.
Pride began to stir within me. I’d never learned to truly use that demon, but I was powerful enough that I could at least leak a little of his will into her.
I smirked when she inhaled a deep, choppy breath. “Wha...what are you doing to me?”
Pride cackled inside me as a tendril of his will pierced through her brain like an arrow.
I would not let him harm her, but she didn’t need to know that.
“Since you don’t seem to be in a talking mood, I’m simply trying to figure out why it is you’ve summoned me. And how it is that a non-demon such as yourself should even know to do such a thing. Who gave you my true name, girl?”
She was silent under Pride’s assault.
I was growing stronger. Which wasn’t really good.
But then my thoughts stilled and my gloating was drowned out by the information Pride had gleaned.
I twirled on my heel and the girl gasped. Holding up her hands, she took two slow steps back. “Don’t hurt me.”
Frowning, I clenched my hands to my sides.
“Flint DeLuca,” I murmured and she gulped, shaking her head and causing a curtain of red silky hair to hang like a veil over the left side of her face.
“Where’s Adam? Abel? Cain? Are they okay?” I growled, taking a menacing step toward her.
She lifted her chin high. I could taste her terror, but underneath it I could also taste a strong nip of steel. Scared of me she might be, but she was brave, I’d give the girl that.
“They don’t know about this. In fact, Cain would probably kill me if he knew I’d called you to me this way, but I discovered something last night and I was told by a reliable source that you needed to know this too.”
“Who? Adam?”
She shook her head.
I narrowed my eyes. If it wasn’t Adam, then who was it? And what was this about? Did my family know secrets they weren’t sharing? Or was Adam keeping these secrets all to himself and not sharing with Bubba?
“So what makes you think you can trust me?” I snapped and narrowed my eyes. “Trust is a game demons don’t do well; surely you know that by now, girl.”
The girl was shorter than me, but dressed oddly similarly to myself. There was a look about her, innocence and fire all rolled into one. I remembered Cain mentioning her to me once; that this small human (though not quite so human anymore) girl could tame a beast like a berserker gave her high marks in my book.
“It was Grace.”
Grace had told Flint, and she’d sent Flint to me under cover of darkness. Which meant...she hadn’t told Death.
“Did she?” I cleared my throat. “And is she still alive?”
I hated that my voice sounded rough just then. Hated that my eyelids burned all of a sudden, that my heart had literally just skipped a beat. Because if Grace had sent this child to me, then it meant whatev
er she knew went far beyond dangerous. So far beyond it in fact that she was willing to sacrifice an innocent in order for me to hear it.
Flint shook her head. “She was in a panic for me to leave before he came. It’s all she told me.”
It was my turn to swallow hard. Dean had come for her. He had been spying on me.
Flint glanced away, as if realizing I needed a moment to gather myself.
Shaking my head, I lifted a brow. “What did she want?”
Sighing, glancing away, Flint twisted the bottom edge of her shirt in her hand. Her knuckles were white with agitation. “There’s something I think you need to know.”
Glancing over her shoulder, Flint took the remaining few steps toward me and, pulling me forward, whispered a shocking revelation in my ear.
“We discovered something yesterday. Something we haven’t even had a chance to share with your folks.”
By the time she finished I could hardly blink.
It made a sick, twisted sort of sense and one I wished I’d seen coming. Though looking back on it, I definitely should have known. The clues had been there all along.
“This changes everything.” I looked at Flint.
She nodded. “She thought it would.”
“Go home, girl, and tell no one of this night.”
The moment she left my side, I knew exactly where I’d be going next. It was high time to pay my family a visit.
Chapter 17
Pandora
I knew Luc wasn’t ready for what I was going to have to do tonight. His mind was still fractured, still wrong. But I also understood why that was. It hadn’t been me after all.
But there was one place I needed to go to first.
I scented him long before I got within reach of the door. I didn’t knock. I didn’t make any sound he’d be able to hear. I traced into the trailer we’d once shared, that we’d once dared to dream could be the start of more, and stared at my Priest.
As much as he’d hurt me, as much as I’d hurt him, he was still mine. He’d always be mine.