His smile was short lived. Samantha stepped forward, her mind on fire as she prepared to obliterate her foster father's murderer.
Karael recognised the threat she posed and stumbled back.
“No, please. Sammy.” The voice that came from Karael's mouth sounded different, a higher pitch, that of her recent companion and eventual tormentor.
“Lucas?”
“Spare me, Sammy. Only by sparing him do you keep me free.”
Samantha closed her eyes, feeling the pressure build.
“Sammy?”
“No, Lucas. What you did was wrong, and you paid for it. Karael is the perfect match. You belong together.” She raised her hand, intent upon wreaking revenge on the angel in the exact way he killed her foster father. An eye for an eye.
As she lifted her hand Karael's face appeared to register surprise. He looked down. Six inches of gleaming silver protruded from his chest. His eyes rolled back in his head and Karael slid off Io's blade.
Robbed of her target, Samantha screamed, a wordless sound full of anguish and rage. She focussed on Karael's body, still ready to obliterate it.
“Sammy, don't. Pause for just a moment and think through your actions. You were told you would use power for the right reasons, were you not? You did that. You saved everybody at the power plant and the millions who would have been infected by radiation. At the church you saved me. A time may yet come when your actions may be costly even if you consider them correct. Don't let that time be now.” Io thrust his sword into the ground, leaving it wobbling, and approached her. “Don't let a petty act of vengeance stain your soul.”
“But why, Io? He killed John.”
“And he wanted you to kill him in return, to become a dark soul, like that in your sister. I spared you that fate. If he is not to come home and face justice then it is better I ended him than you. Save your rage for what's behind us. We still have to open the portal.”
“Well what's that?” She waved at the prism of light beyond the trees.
“The conditions being met. The grave, the stone, the sacrifice. It activated when we stepped into the church. This moment has been long in the planning. Our enemy expected a trap and a procession.”
“Instead they got an intact angel and a pissed off … whatever I am. Karael recognised something in me. I saw it in his eyes. Io, what am I?”
“I still can't be sure. You may be something very rare, and very special. You certainly have power. Let's just describe you as a Legacy. If we survive the next ten minutes maybe I can work out a way to find you the answers.”
After Samantha moved John's body to a position of some composure, with his arms across the chest, she watched as Io strangely did the same for Karael. They each bowed their head and then they climbed the hill through the woods.
She was eager to see an end to this chaos and win her sister back. The trees gave way to a strange field where Samantha came face to face with the doorway to Heaven. Patterns revolved within patterns, carvings shining from the ground as light beamed upward from dozens of points, creating the shaft of light that pierced the boiling cloud. The air reeked of ozone. It was all wrong.
“It's one giant glyph,” she said.
“And you could have created such a pattern at any time,” said a voice from the other side of the portal. Nina walked out from behind the light, Thorsten beside her, dragging a bound and gagged Tricia Pellirojo.
“Didn't your tame angel tell you such a thing was possible?” Nina sneered. “He doesn't need a sacrifice, or a grave, just someone with the power to call forth the pattern. As luck would have it, when we powered the satellite, his fall led him straight to you. Once the Phaethon Stone was complete, what was your reasoning for coming here, Ioviel?”
“To stop you. To end your ascension to Heaven. You will not activate the Godmissile and doom humanity.”
“A noble gesture, but one doomed to fail. Do you believe for one second my master is concerned with the creatures infesting this rock? There are other worlds, other beings to worship Him. Crustallos will ascend straight to Heaven and there He will take the place your God usurped. Then mankind ends.” Nina held her hands aloft. “See as life powers this doorway.” Birds began to flock toward the portal. As each bird touched the light, a streak of red shot out from the pinnacle of the prism. The glyph began to glow red.
“No,” Io said, shocked. “What have you done? What has this portal been activated with?”
“The life of an innocent,” Nina replied, triumphant. “Birds are faster but all life will be drawn toward this portal until it closes. See why for yourself.” Nina stepped aside.
At the centre of the prism, a body could be seen rotating. “Alexander,” Samantha said. “Why?”
“No path is truly innocent, sister. Sometimes a little sacrifice is required.”
“I'm not your sister,” Samantha stated. “Nina is my sister. You're a parasite feeding off of her.”
Nina smiled. “I'm the same person you grew up with, played with and fought with, Sammy. What difference does it make that in the back of my mind lurks a weak and pathetic child? Join with me, sister. Let us ascend together and place the final key in the lock. Your tame angel has mentioned it, yes? There are few, if any in Heaven, who can stand against only one of us. Together we will be unstoppable. I can teach you to unlock it. Your power combined with mine terrifies them. I know what you are, what we are. Join with me and I'll tell you. He,” Nina pointed at Io, “would keep you ignorant of this knowledge. Up there, we could rule. Up there, we will be gods.”
She doesn't know what I can do.
“And him?” Samantha indicated Thorsten. “He killed Swanson.”
Thorsten grinned, with wide psychotic eyes. “I would do it again just for the pleasure. Alexander confessed before I threw him in. I know about the ARC council still living. Well, most of them. I understand you couldn't keep old Wolverton alive. I'll enjoy hunting them down again.”
“Old Wolverton went doing what he loved, something meaningful,” Samantha spat Thorsten's words back in his face. “He'll be remembered as a hero, unlike you. You're a traitor, nothing more. Not even worthy of the name you bear. An insult to your ancestors.”
Thorsten roared aloud, his rage making him drag Tricia closer and closer to the portal. “I will be remembered as the man who changed life as we know it, a warrior prepared to make the difficult choices and sacrifice in the name of mankind.”
Tricia Pellirojo tried to scream through her gag. The red-headed ARC finance director squirmed against her bonds, her movements frantic and desperate. Nina looked on, approving, as more and more birds hit the prism, turning the sky blood red.
Io, forgive me if this is wrong.
Uncomprehending, Io turned her way.
“Thorsten, if you're gonna sacrifice someone, spare Tricia. Let it be me.” Samantha dropped her pack to the ground, handed The Well of Souls to Io and stepped forward to block his way, the portal at her back. She felt the pull from behind, its purpose being twisted as each avian life extinguished. “I'll be your sacrifice.”
His grip loosening on Tricia, Thorsten turned to his master.
“Do it,” Stektes said through Nina's lips, the sound of her voice now crystalline and profoundly alien. “Throw her in. I'm still going to destroy Heaven.”
Samantha took a step backward into the portal. “No. You're not.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
The energy of the portal enveloped Samantha. Extending her hands, she watched as tiny flecks of light were drawn into the glow above. Beneath her feet, the runes continued to swirl and with each creature that touched the portal, it flickered.
Outside the boundary of light, Nina had a look of pure horror on her face, surprising for a creature from a dark dimension.
“Why don't you join me?” She held out a hand. Nina looked at the invitation with horror, mouthing words neither of them could hear.
Io, what's she afraid of?
Io frowned, tapped his
head and shook it. Samantha was alone in the portal. A miscalculation with good intent.
She turned to the slowly-revolving body of Alexander Steadman at the nexus of the light. Reaching out she touched his neck. There was the faintest flicker of a pulse.
“Alexander, can you hear me?”
There was no response.
Alexander? She threw the thought at him.
Who summons me?
“Huh?” The thundering response caught Samantha off guard and she spoke instead of thinking.
Alexander it's me, Samantha.
Samantha. There is no angel by that name.
This wasn't Alexander Steadman she spoke to. The portal was open. Judging by the responses that threatened to make her head explode, she was talking to an angel in Heaven. If she could speak to Heaven, maybe she could do more.
Not yet there isn't. I bear tidings of Metatron and Ioviel. But first, I need a little favor.
This gateway opens only for the fallen. We don't listen to the prayers of traitors.
Samantha stopped listening. Whoever was at the other end of the portal reeked of hostility. Raising her hands, she sought the spirit of Alexander Steadman, focusing through Alexander's dead body in front of her. She closed her eyes, imagining him standing in line before two giant white gates of purest alabaster. “Got you,” she said, and pulled. Nothing happened. Samantha felt herself rising as something tried to pull at her. This was a trap, not a doorway. But she was not an angel and the presence above was baffled. She took advantage of the confusion. Just like the tribes, she pulled Steadman's essence back, focused on settling it within his body.
Steadman's eyes popped open. He stared at her for a moment and his face registered intense pain.
Before he could scream, Samantha shoved him out of the portal where he stumbled into the arms of Io. Turning and pointing at her, Steadman began to shout at the angel.
Nina stepped back from the portal, her Stektes-controlled face showing the first signs of doubt.
Thorsten said something to Io and then turned. Eyeballing Samantha, he grabbed The Well of Souls from Io's hand and leaped toward her, his teeth bared in a snarl. His arm pierced the veil of light, the blade aimed for Samantha's chest. The rest of his body made it no further than the surface. Caught in the haze, Thorsten began to scream, a muffled noise that filtered through the portal's core.
Samantha remembered her sister trying to shout underwater when they were kids. This time the gurgling voice wasn't fun. Thorsten's face began to dissolve away as the portal claimed another mortal.
Samantha truly realised she was something more. Even in his agony, the disintegrating arm of Thorsten Guyomard stretched out, the obsidian blade reaching for her heart. She watched the blade, preferring it to Thorsten's slow and agonising death, coming to the conclusion that it was The Well of Souls itself keeping him from release. With the arm locked by the portal's edge, Samantha reached out and claimed the blade, plucking it from fingers, now little more than bone and sinew.
In an instant Thorsten's body evaporated, the portal swirling red as he merged with its energy.
“More than a weapon,” Samantha called out to her sister and friends outside the portal. She raised the blade above her head and screamed, “Come back! I need you.” Samantha closed her eyes and reached out to a hundred and forty-four thousand recently departed souls.
You shall not, the voice Samantha dubbed, the Angel Alexander, roared out of space and time, the power of the words forcing her to her knees.
And yet I will. You can't prevent my attempt. Nor their response. There aren't enough prayers in the world to stop me. Samantha pulled at the souls through the blade, her will amplified. She stood, resolute.
And they came. Willingly, twelve times twelve thousand souls shining above as nebulous lights, burning the cloud away as they passed through the portal. Focussed initially above her, the orbs spread all over the hillside.
The portal began to flicker; the light surrounding her was strobe-like. Io watched her, his face a mystery as the portal faded away and the runes flickered out one-by-one, and sat dark and still on the hilltop.
“What have you done?” Nina asked, her eyes wide with fright. She looked around the hillside with quick, jerky movements as if a fight for control within consumed her. As each glowing orb settled to the ground, it became the glowing image of a Hebrew man or woman. As each materialised, they became aware of the being inside Nina; faces of pale serenity filled with rage. The person closest to Samantha, a woman Samantha cleansed from the shadows, spoke loudly in Hebrew, her voice harsh.
“What's she saying?” Alexander Steadman asked Samantha.
“I'm not sure there are words in English that quite do it justice,” she replied. “From the feeling of these people I would say Stektes had a direct role in entrapping them.”
The ghostly tribe parted to allow Charlotte and Jim to escort Clare and Eva to the hilltop. The half-sisters stood watching Nina, eyes wide, staring in disbelief.
“It was all you,” Eva said. “Everything. Aeon Fall, the kidnappings, Rockwell's return.”
“It's always been me,” Nina replied, unrepentant. “These are the movements of dust compared to the avalanche to come.”
“Io, who is Alexander?” Samantha asked.
“The master of Heaven's prison, The Fearvent,” he replied. “He is the one who taught me the angel trap.”
“Alexander spoke to me when I was within the portal. I pulled the tribe from his grasp. He wasn't pleased. There was more, though. This portal led directly to him. I felt he was waiting for someone. Io, I think this was never a return to Heaven. It was another trap—one set by somebody who wanted to barter their way into Heaven using a fallen angel as a bargaining chip.” She turned to her sister, held firm within a network of ghostly hands. “You've got allies inside Heaven.”
Nina began to laugh. Despite being trapped, she seemed the only one truly at ease. “We have allies everywhere. We are everywhere. He is coming, and nothing you can do to me will prevent that.”
Samantha concentrated, letting power flow into her sister. “I have some tricks yet to try.” Using her newfound powers, Samantha stepped fully inside the landscape of Nina's mind.
Samantha stood on a barren wasteland, limitless, flat, the rocks beneath her feet black and cracked. In the far distance, mountains rose below a murky sky, the stars, the moon hidden. A glow came from all around her, the source just out of view. She walked toward the center of the light. “So this is what they've reduced your existence to,” she said aloud, her heart filled with pity. “What have they let you become?”
It seemed that hours had passed as Samantha maintained a dogged pace. In time, a plateau rose above the desert. She climbed, the light now brighter. When she reached the top, the source became clear.
“Nina!” Samantha cried out, rushing forward to grab her sister. Nina shone with pure white light.
Nina looked up to her and screamed. There was a tentacle wrapped about her waist. It lifted her aloft, pulling her away from Samantha into the maw of a nightmarish creature.
Coils spun around coils, tentacles reaching out in all directions, around a series of crooked claws. One red eye glowered at Samantha from the centre of the writhing mass, above an arsenal of teeth. Where she imagined the other eye to be, there was only darkness. The creature rose up, slithering toward her.
“Stektes. So, this is the real you.” Samantha stood, her feet firmly planted, her hands on her hips.
The creature appeared baffled by her indifference. It recoiled, unsure of her or itself. “She is mine,” it roared. “You will not free her.”
“Shall we pit the power of a hundred thousand souls against you and see what happens then?” The Well of Souls materialised in her hand and Samantha pointed it at the creature. A beam of light shot out from the tip of the blade, spreading to become a latticework of pure energy. The net wrapped Stektes tightly, squeezing the claws and countless scaly coils to the tip. Whe
re it touched its skin, there was a hissing, emitting an acrid stench. The being's skin bubbled and decayed under the onslaught.
“Let her go!” Samantha commanded. The net closed tighter. The creature roared and screamed. Black ichor spread beneath the mass of tentacles that supported it. Stektes lashed out with tentacles trapping her sister. Samantha ducked, as it passed over her head with countless hungry mouths yawning and chomping. Nina screamed in its tip.
Hold on, Nina.
“That's a no, then,” she decided. “Better death than to return to your master a failure, eh?”
The ground shook, and Samantha stumbled across the plateau. From within the net of souls, a guttural laugh rumbled. “Do you feel the world beneath your feet begin to disintegrate? Yes? What you feel is her body under assault.”
The tentacle returned, Nina wrapped in the tip, hanging just out of reach. Her face was as pale as those of the Hebrew tribe. Blood dripped where the tentacle had speared her through her abdomen.
“My sister,” Nina beseeched. “Kill it.”
“But I'll kill you.”
“I don't care. It's had me always. I have been a prisoner. I've watched you my entire life, Sammy, while this thing has abused my body and mind. Kill it. In here, before it does any more damage out there. You've got the strength to do what I could not. I'm proud of you, little sister.”
Nina screamed as the tentacle twisted tighter. Blood fountained from her mouth. The ground shook so violently Samantha was forced to her knees. “I'll find a way to save you, Nina,”
Nina's face pleaded with her as she was drawn away into the air. “Noooooo,” she wailed as Stektes moved her body out of sight.
Samantha couldn't be sure if Nina's plea was for her or for the creature in her mind. She collapsed to her knees as the world around her violently bucked. The plateau cracked, rocks falling into the valley below.
“Release me, or we all die!” Stektes' voice quivered.
Samantha had the power to deliver death to this monster. All around her, Nina screamed.
And then, she heard a distant voice. Her mothers.
Thornfalcon (The ARC Legacy Book 1) Page 33