by Hanna Peach
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’s 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 away 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 hand became 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.
With nowhere for her anger to go, the deep pool of sadness rose up and up and…
“No,” she cried as panic overwhelmed her. She couldn’t cry. She wouldn’t cry. She just needed to…break something, hit something, kill something…to stop the tears from coming. “Let go of me,” she screamed again.
“No. I’m not letting you go.”
She shook her head violently against his chest. A final moan fell from her before the sadness overflowed. Her knees buckled as the sobs started to shake her, sucking out all her strength. But she didn’t fall. Jordan held her up, his body like a blanket around her. She cried until her eyes were raw and her throat felt cracked open.
As her cries lessened, she felt the warming sensation of DreamWalker magic flowing from Jordan’s hands into her. She didn’t have the strength to fight against it. She accepted the darkness, feeling completely safe.
* * *
Jordan stepped from the compartment after laying Alyx out on the bed. Tobias and Mason were both waiting for him. And from the looks on their faces, they had more bad news.
“We need to talk about Alyx,” Tobias said, cutting straight to the point. “We believe that her mind has been altered.”
Jordan took in a deep breath. “How?”
“The MemoryThief has taken all her memories of falling in love with Israel. Dianne confirms this.”
Jordan froze, stunned. Is that what had happened? That was why…the way she was looking at him now…the way she was reacting to him…it wasn’t just all in his mind. Israel was no longer keeping him from Alyx’s heart.
For now. Jordan ignored this voice.
Tobias continued, “It hasn’t appeared to have affected any other parts of her memory.”
“We need to tell her as soon as she wakes up,” said Mason.
“No,” Jordan said. “She’s under enough pressure right now without having to deal with any more.” He almost believed that this was the only reason.
Could he be blamed for wanting one more day? Could he? Would he be a terrible person if he had one more day without Israel in her heart?
“We have to tell her,” Mason growled.
“We will. After we get this cure. Does anyone else know except for you two? No? Good. Well, let’s keep it that way.”
Jordan ignored Mason’s suspicious stare and turned to Tobias. He slipped the Threads of Dark from the pouch at his hip. “Let’s go over this.”
* * *
Jordan and Tobias bent over the Threads of Dark rolled out on a table on one of the platforms of the Saint’s Revenge. His eyes kept flittering to the compartment where he had laid Alyx down, deep in sleep, after her breakdown. Mayrekk’s body had already been removed from the station. One of Mason’s contacts worked in a crematorium and promised that he would take care of Mayrekk without having to run any paperwork.
They had found the section on Pan’s Arrowhead, the demon poison that Mayrekk had identified before he... Jordan’s chest squeezed. Mayrekk had been his friend, too. Jordan shook himself. No time for grief. Not yet.
Pan’s Arrowhead was a Hell plant, a thin reed-like proliferate with deep purple leaves and pale flowers with black hearts that grew around the base. It was the heart of this flower that was poisonous. According to Hell’s history, native tribes of Satyrs, half man-half goat creatures, would dip their arrowheads into the hearts of the flowers to add a deadly bite to their weapons. Pan was the name of their leader. At least, this is what the Threads of Dark had to say about it.
The base ingredients for the cure for Pan’s Arrowhead poisoning were the same, but they had to add the heart of a single ghost o
rchid to cure a mortal, raindrops from an Arctic storm to cure a Seraphim, and blood of a Darkened human to cure a demon. So for Israel they had to retrieve a ghost orchid and blood of a Darkened.
“Ghost orchids are like, super rare,” the mortal named Owl was saying. The thin young boy, supposedly a computer whiz, was sitting behind a laptop and was researching these ingredients. The base ingredients were common enough: sage, myrrh, sandalwood. But these other two...
“How rare?” Jordan asked.
“Like, extinct rare.”
“What?”
“They’ve been extinct for like, 20 years already.”
Jordan gripped his fists together so that his knuckles cracked. “Make them un-extinct.”
Owl narrowed his eyes at the monitor, leaning forward, his fingers flying across the keyboard. “Wait…there have been sightings…”
“Where?”
“One in northern Canada, but that was like, ten years ago.”
“What about more recently? Like, today?” Owl didn’t seem to register Jordan’s misdirected anger at him. Or if he did, he ignored it. Smart boy.
“Here’s a sighting from a few weeks ago. In the Scottish Highlands. I can print you out an exact location,” Owl said. He leaned over to where a small printer was spitting out a piece of paper. As he handed the paper over to Jordan, his face pinched slightly in what was obviously an attempt to mask his curiosity. “So what did you say you needed these things for?”
Jordan ignored him. He looked up at Tobias. “If you can get one of the others to run down these base ingredients, I can track down the blood and the ghost orchid.”
“We.” Hearing Alyx’s voice caused his heart to clench.
He turned his head to see the petite warrior moving towards them. Her hair was mussed from sleeping and there were dark circles under her eyes. The paleness to her skin made her jade eyes stand out more. For a moment he feared that she may be angry at him for sending her to sleep like he did. But when she turned her eyes to him, there was nothing but a shy embarrassment. Her cheeks colored and she looked away.
Jordan understood. She was embarrassed because he saw her cry. His strong, fierce warrior, so used to dealing with things on her own, so used to not needing anybody else. He recognized this so much in himself. He could see it now. She had helped him see it. Except now…he needed her.
Just one more day. One more chance with her.
Tobias was speaking to her, his voice not masking his concern. “Are you sure that’s the best—?”
“The best thing I can do for Mayrekk is to honor the information he gave us before he…”
Her face turned to the Threads of Dark and her lips pressed together. With a small nod, almost imperceptible, she looked up and met Jordan’s stare. With the full force of her eyes on him again he found himself having to remind himself to breathe.
She spoke directly to him, “How soon do we leave?”
Chapter 31
It’s not hard to find Darkened roaming the night in Saint Joseph. Even when you’re not looking for them. No sooner did Alyx and Jordan land on one of the unwashed roofs of the wrong side of town did they smell them. Alyx spotted two of them dragging an unconscious mortal into an abandoned hotel across the empty, shadowed street.
The Hotel de Banville used to be a boutique upmarket hotel. Three levels of cozy suites decorated in French chic and small Juliet-style balconies of black iron. Now abandoned, the wallpaper was faded and peeling, the windows were cataract-thick with dust, and the curtains were sun-bleached bones. The brickwork had turned a pallid gray, pale like death.
Pale like Mayrekk’s face. Despair gripped Alyx as she gripped the edge of the roof. She felt her muscles lock up and she began to struggle to breathe. Pale like Mayrekk. Pale like death.
“Hey,” a strong grip on her forearm brought her back to the present. Jordan was peering at her with concern lacing his features.
“I’m fine,” she lied, and she struggled to control her breathing. He would make her sit this mission out if he thought she couldn’t keep a hold of herself.
Please don’t ask me if I’m okay. Please. I’ll fall apart.
He spoke softly, “Alyx, I believe, maybe more than anyone, that you can handle yourself in any situation. I also trust that you know where your limits are and I trust that you would be brave enough to say so if you couldn’t go on.” He paused, then added, “You know I would never think anything less of you if you did.”
He turned back to the hotel casually, oblivious to the fact that his words had stunned her. She had expected a lecture, she expected him to get angry that she had insisted on coming, she had expected him to demand that she turn back. Instead he gave her trust. Faith in herself.
He loosened his grip on her forearm but he left his hand there, warm and comforting. Solid like an anchor just when she needed one. She felt her heart open further to him.
He stretched his arm out and leaned closer to her, causing her to snap out of herself. He pointed to one of the lower floor windows where they could see the shadows of the creatures moving behind them.
“They’re in that room.”
She watched his profile, his long, thick, gold-tipped lashes flickering. He was adorably oblivious to how the world had just shifted inside her. He tilted his head to look at her. Suddenly painfully self-conscious of how transparent her eyes might be, she looked away.
“What do you think?” he asked.
“Let’s check it out first from a window,” she said, thankful that her voice, at least, sounded steady. She made a move to fly off the roof, but Jordan’s hand still gripped her forearm, stopping her.
Her eyes flicked back to his. And they held her gaze. Set with concern, they seemed to ask the question that she couldn’t bear to hear out aloud. Are you okay?
She nodded slightly and he let go of her arm.
“Let me go first.” He launched himself off the roof before she could protest. He landed lightly on a second floor balcony. Alyx followed.
“What are you doing?” she whispered. “You can’t see them from up here.”
He kicked up his feet over and out so that he was sitting on the rail. He grinned at her before letting his body fall over. Hooking his feet into the railings he swung upside down like a bat so he was facing the high first floor window underneath. In a few seconds, Alyx had copied his movements and joined him. Even with gravity causing his blonde hair to hang the other way, he still looked good. Damn him.
“Show off,” she whispered.
She could see that he was trying to repress a grin. He wiped at the dust on the window, clearing it somewhat. She leaned forward so she could see through the gap in the curtain.
Inside it looked to be the main dining area of the once-chic hotel. Most of the tables and chairs had been broken in haphazard, splintered pieces. Old tablecloths pooled around the floor and were stained with dried blood. There looked to be at least seven Darkened in there, probably more that she couldn’t see. Two of them were feeding on mortals.
“You know,” she heard Jordan say in a low voice. “We never did get to finish that bet.” When she glanced at him, a grin stretched lazily across his stubbled jaw.
“Really? You want to bet again? Now?”
“Or you could just concede that I’m the better fighter.”
She had to stop herself from smiling, splinters of guilt locking the corners of her lips down. It still felt too early to smile after…Mayrekk. But at least she knew that she could and that soon she would be without guilt.
“I concede nothing.”
Jordan grinned. “We’re on, then?”
Their eyes locked. She knew what he was doing. He was trying to keep the mood light to stop her from freaking out again. He was trying to keep her focused on something else entirely. Even though she knew that was his aim, it still helped. Gratitude spilled across her body.
Alyx reached for her sword and heard the sound of Jordan’s blade being unsheathed as well.
&nb
sp; “We’re on.”
They kicked off the balcony. Swinging their legs around, gaining momentum and aiming for the glass window, it broke with a terrible shatter. Alyx landed amid the glass, swinging her sword around her shoulders. She studied the frozen Darkened in the old hotel dining room. Hmmm, definitely more than seven. This calls for more serious measures. Alyx pulled a second sword from her hip and it joined the first one whirling around her.
The Darkened unsheathed their weapons and began to attack. Alyx eyed the first few coming at her. She remained frozen, showing no indication of her intent until… She leapt and twisted in the air like a hurricane, arms out and blades extended like lethal helicopter blades. Three Darkeneds’ heads went flying across the room, bouncing off walls and landing with unceremonious squelches.
The next one paused momentarily before lifting his sword and charging in a desperate run. Really? Alyx almost rolled her eyes at his blatant disregard for shielding his chest. In one fluid movement, she threw both swords in the air, snatched two throwing knifes from her thigh and threw them. Then spinning around, she caught the handles of her swords and slashed out at the Darkened coming from behind. The first Darkened fell with her knife coming out of his heart. The second fell with a fan of red gushing from his throat.
She felt an arm lock around her neck from a Darkened who had snuck up behind her. There was a knife in his hand aimed for her heart. She blocked his knife with her sword. Their blades shook as they pressed against each other for an advantage. She tried to elbow the Darkened behind her in the stomach, but he was holding her too tightly. As she continued to struggle, she could smell the first Darkened’s sour breath as he laughed in her ear.
“Ugh, your breath.” She screwed up her face. “You know, a little personal hygiene will take care of that.”
Another Darkened charged for her from the front, a blade aimed for her heart. She raised her other blade across and up in a block. The Darkened’s sword tip, meant for her heart, went into the Darkened’s face behind her. Warm blood sprayed on her cheek and neck, and she heard his gurgled cry. The Darkened in front of her froze in shock. Alyx kicked out with both feet, throwing him back. He landed on the splintered leg of an upturned table, the wooden stake driving up through his stomach and skewering him in place.