I growled low in my throat. Not on purpose, but it rumbled up from my chest just the same. They all turned to look at me, the one I knew was Henry and the five others I couldn’t quite make out.
“You’re trying to resurrect Andrew?”
My eyes lifted slowly from Ash toward them, but I didn’t focus on the men. I still didn’t want them to know how much I’d actually recovered from the drug. I didn’t want them to see me coming.
“You’re trying to free Andrew from the Shadow realm just so you can kill him correctly?!” I screeched.
My entire life I had raged against every little injustice I perceived in the world around me. My hunger for justice had awoken that first day I met Andrew, when we were six and that hopeful little boy had so feared his father that he’d felt the need to hide any glimmer of hope for a better life. It had burned continuously since that day, and now we had somehow come full circle. My thirst for justice had begun with me trying to protect Andrew, and there was a good chance I would die tonight, trying to accomplish the same thing. But if I played it right, I might save both the men I loved from this monster in the process.
If Ash needed time, I would buy him whatever time he needed. I felt an inferno blaze to life within me, spilling out of my soul and into my flesh. My eyes flamed bright and warm, and my wings and tail exploded from my spine with such force the wind they created blew my hair around wildly and every flame in the room flickered. Savage, wild, deadly, I could see my true self reflected in the terror-filled eyes of the men before me.
Vengeance… Justice… Whispered promises drifted through my mind, and I would fulfill them without mercy because sometimes, they are the same thing.
“My God!” one of the men gasped as he watched me change. “She’s... the Guardian. A true Guardian!”
“She’s an imposter!” Henry growled at the men around him, desperately trying to maintain control. “She’s a usurper. A trickster and a thief. She stole the power that should belong to our people. To Claire. Do not be fooled by parlour tricks,” he hissed. “There is more power for our people if we remove the Anchor and re-anchor the Veil to someone new. I have seen it.”
The men stayed next to him, but more than one of them looked doubtful. A single thread had freed itself from the tapestry of power he’d woven. Just one, but one is usually enough to do infinitely more damage.
So, I pulled at the thread. “Your people? Your people? You killed their Anchor. You’ve plotted and planned behind their backs. With the very demons threatening to destroy them. Did none of you wonder how he survived? I killed him. He was dead. Not almost, not nearly, D-E-A-D, dead. Care to explain it to us, Henry?” I purred insolently.
“You need to learn some manners, little girl,” Henry whispered. “And when this is all over, I’m going to take a moment to teach you... everything.” His tone made my skin feel like a thousand cockroaches had been set loose on me, but no… No, it was worse. I’d prefer the cockroaches to Henry touching me, I thought, swallowing the rising bile in my throat.
“The next time you put your hand on me, you lose it,” I warned, crouching low, the beginnings of a growl rumbling through my chest. Time was not on my side. Everything inside me wanted to kill him now, but I had to keep him talking a bit longer. Ash would let me know when he was ready. “So, Henry, what is all this, anyway? The Veil is coming down. Why go through all this just to speed it up?”
“Girl, you know so little about this world and still you assume. I’m trying to repair the Veil, not destroy it. Andrew has not moved on, but we can’t find him. It’s still attached to him, and we can’t reinforce or re-erect it until we find him and correct whatever aberration is keeping him from crossing back into the abyss.”
Henry was a liar and a murderer. Fact, not opinion. But something in his words, the tone of his voice, the set of his expression, rang true. “You can fool them, but I know you’ve been working with the demons. Why would you want to fix the Veil?”
It was small but it was there, a slip in his perfect mask, the first emotion I’d seen from him that wasn’t smug or pissed: shock. Surprise, Asshole, I thought, but instantly regretted it. Because the very next thing to cross his unholy face was recognition. He knew. He knew I’d seen Andrew. I hadn’t been surprised to hear he hadn’t crossed over, and I knew something there was no way for me to know. Henry was a full-on psychopath. He was evil, but he wasn’t stupid. I’d made a mistake. I just didn’t know how bad it was yet.
Then Henry smiled. A horrific twist of his physically perfect face, but when beauty was infused with evil, it somehow became more ugly than evil alone, add joy and it became the stuff of nightmares. Something that evil being happy couldn’t be good for anyone.
Henry took his wrist in his mouth and ripped it open, releasing blood into the bowl on the dais. Black blood. It mixed with the wolf blood already contained there, hissing and smoking. He chanted a few words that I didn’t know but something inside me recognized as an invitation followed by something that meant open. An unnatural wind began to blow around the room as the air next to Henry began to shimmer. It almost looked like a heat mirage, but it stretched and swelled like a membrane as something started to push its way through.
We were out of time, but luckily, at just that moment, Ash burst our link wide open, spilling every facet of his plan into my mind. It was time.
28
Death
Iwas running out of time, but I needed every second Alex could give me. I needed to be as strong as possible when this began. Ash needed to be as strong as possible. Then the Veil tore open in front of me and I saw the membrane stretch as something started to come through.
I was out of time.
I sent Alex everything I had to offer in the way of a plan through our bond before I took over, shifting wings and feeling the fire take over my eyes, then I called the hounds. You see, Hellhounds aren’t demons, and as such, aren’t subject to the same rules demons are. No one seemed to have taken that into account.
Death’s servants, Death’s messengers, they had answered to Me in every form I had ever inhabited. When Ash’s mother had been killed, they’d had no Death to follow and had simply followed Henry because he was her mate and they were lost without their beloved master, Me. When they had come for Alex, they hadn’t known. I was sad she had killed so many, but my hounds would have killed her. She’d had no choice. Once they’d recognized their master, they had submitted and hidden themselves away from Henry, awaiting my command.
Now they would be our allies, our army. They were fierce, dedicated, and fearless. I ordered half the pack to hold back for a second wave of attack, but the other half came running when I called, half in and half out of this world. Simply phasing into existence as they ran from the surrounding forest and overtook the grounds. I could feel their movements as they swarmed the castle, quickly dispatching anyone who stood in their way. They had my ability to read souls. They knew who had evil in their heart and who did not. They knew who would deceive them, and they would stop at nothing to get to me.
I refocused my attention and energy on the room in front of me. I felt the change wash over Alex through our bond, like the warm rush of water in a hot shower, it took her, and me with it. I had held my true form back so far to maintain the element of surprise, but as demons poured through the gaping hole Henry had torn in the Veil, I knew I needed my full strength. My body grew, broke, reformed, along with Alex’s, and we released our battle cries in unison, her earth-shattering, falcon-like shriek and my thunderous roar shaking the room around us.
Like the true warrior she was, she didn’t spare me a glance. She went straight to work quickly diminishing the demon population in the room. As I joined her, I knew this was how it was meant to be. Side by side for eternity we would fight, defending the natural order of this world.
We were doing okay, but more and more demons kept pouring through the tear in the Veil. Every time we made some headway, another surge of demons would come through, and for
a moment my hope began to fade. We were fighting on top of corpses piled higher and higher, and we'd each sustained numerous wounds when the battle tipped. Through the tear waltzed three of the Fallen. I didn’t know they had a dog in this fight, but based on their expressions, they didn’t expect either of us. When they saw Alex in full Cherubim form, and then me in all my wolfish glory, their faces fell, but as more and more demons rushed in, they couldn’t get back through to the other side.
The only thing giving me hope when the Fallen arrived was the obvious fear at the sight of Alex and myself. If they were afraid, then we had a chance of winning. And our chance came when, finally, a hellish howl rose from the hallway behind me, followed by dozens and dozens more. Hundreds were out there by the sound of it, thousands, and a second later they burst through the door and into the fray. Alex turned, and I loosed my own howl. It served the purpose of getting her attention, her avian eyes widening markedly at the sight of me, but each hound answered my call, reassuring her that they were following me, now. They were mine and nothing to fear.
The overwhelming numbers of hounds gave us a momentary advantage, but the demon’s numbers just continued to grow. As my hounds fell in battle, we were soon outnumbered again. I redoubled my efforts, pushing myself beyond what I thought capable, and tearing into demon after demon. Faster and faster I moved, but it wasn’t enough. Ash and I weren’t strong enough yet, and we never would be until he accepted me... or us rather. He thought acceptance meant giving up power, submitting, but we had to exist as one, not coexist, not one or the other. Our bond, our existence would never work that way. And I feared we would pay for it dearly, tonight.
I could feel myself fading fast and sent a command to all my hounds to follow Alex in my absence. I let out one final monstrous howl, to warn her she was on her own. Through our bond, I sent with it every bit of love I had for her, how sorry I was to leave her alone, how sorry I hadn’t protected her better. Then we fell, human before we hit the ground, fighting the blackness the whole way.
29
Alex
My mate. He was breathtaking. And I had been right, sort of. His shift form was different, but I wagered it was only when he was Death personified. The massive gray wolf at the back of the room caught me off guard at first, but not nearly as much as the wings had. Wings. Ash’s whole body was the same pale gray his wings were in his partial shift, and not the typical gray of a gray wolf. He looked like a crayon, all one color, but beautiful and just a few shades short of white.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t take as much time to appreciate him as I would’ve liked. The demons were swarming us from every direction. His hounds were a huge help, but there just weren’t enough of them. Then I heard that monstrous howl. I felt absolutely everything my mate sent me, but by the time I turned around, he was human, on the floor, and surrounded by demons.
My heart stopped. No. A single word whispered through my mind, but we were in agreement. I saw the hellhounds surround my beloved to keep him safe, felt their connection to him through my connection to him. They would die to protect him, but then they would just all die, so I screamed their orders from my mind to theirs. Get him out! Now!
I didn’t know what my body was doing exactly, but I couldn’t stop shaking, and all I could hear or think was Light... Fire... Judgement…
My body had shrunk back down to its normal human size and shape, wings and tail still out, by the time I realized I was high above the fight. I was floating, not flying, and thought to the few stragglers still trying to protect me, Go, now! All of you!
Hesitantly they all fled, following my silent orders.
A beautiful voice far below me called out, “Whatever you’re thinking, little one, it won’t work. Your partner is dead, and your hounds have abandoned you. Give up, and perhaps we’ll let you serve us rather than torture you to death over the next few centuries.”
Fallen, breezed gently through my mind as I was filled with rage and a sense of betrayal so deep it seemed to emanate from my very bones, but I ignored both. First things first… Kill all the demons. I knew there was a pretty good chance this was going to kill me too as I felt the Light swell within me, the Heavenly Fire growing rapidly into a ravenous inferno, hungry for justice, vengeance, and the peace the destruction of evil would bring.
Whereas before it had focused in my hands, this time the Light seemed determined to scorch and penetrate every inch of my skin. The pressure built as the energy condensed, then with a force rivaling any nuclear bomb, it exploded from every pore of my body, flooding the room in Light and Flame. It burned everything in its path to ashes, then to nothing in seconds, but Light kept pouring out of me reaching beyond the room, stretching to the far corners of the grounds and flooding the surrounding forest. Once the other targets were gone, I could actually feel the tear in the Veil. The Light purged it of its Darkness then healed it, stitching it back together like an opened seam until it was whole again.
Once the tear was no more and all the demons were dead—only a matter of seconds really—the Light faded along with my strength, and I plummeted back to the ground. Unfortunately, the Light hadn’t affected the Fallen. I could only guess it was because they were forged in Heaven and it was Heavenly Light. Two of them were waiting on me when I hit the ground, but I had no idea where the third had gone. They surrounded me, staring down at me like vultures waiting for their prey to die.
“Well, well, well…” said the first, a blonde-haired angel whose golden beauty reminded me way too much of Ash, “That was an extremely impressive show. It might be worth keeping you alive. If you could be persuaded to see reason, that is. What do you think, Samael?”
“Hmmm...” pondered the dark, olive-skinned angel as he tossed his mane of pitch black hair over his shoulder. “She is a nephilim. But not one of the old ones. This one is new. With her Cherubim powers and her angelic heritage and free will, she would be a very powerful ally indeed. Very useful. If she could be persuaded to see logic. What do you think, Belial?”
Were these two for real? “Oh, God,” I managed, “Please just kill me now before Pinky and The Brain here decide to ‘try to take over the world’.” The quizzical looks on their faces were too much. I started to giggle, and the giggle soon escalated into a full belly laugh.
Eventually, beautiful Belial spoke. “She’s absolutely mad. What do we do with her now? Does that make her more or less valuable to us?”
“I don’t know,” responded Samael, “It’s an interesting conundrum. What do you think Belial?”
“Oh, for the love of God, will you shut up? Shut! Up!” I interrupted their ridiculous banter again. “It doesn’t matter anyway. You’re too late. The cavalry’s here.”
Right on cue, Jade, followed by every hellhound left in the universe, burst through the doors, looking every bit the goddess she was. Her mocha skin, caramel curls and beautiful green dress were covered in blood—some wolf and some demon—her hair was wild and unkempt from the fight, and her eyes were filled with rage. Her entire body glowed a sickly pale green and an unearthly wind was blowing only around her. Someone was in deep shit, and for once, it wasn’t me.
“The Goddess,” escaped Samael’s mouth like a gentle breeze. They both backed up two steps, then turned and fled, flying through a stained-glass window and out into the night.
Jade bent to examine me immediately. I watched her concerned hands palpate every bruise and scratch, a few broken ribs, and finally take my hands. She never spoke, just held my hands and quietly cried.
I feared the worst, and it took a moment for me to find my voice to ask, “Is Ash…” I swallowed, unable to finish, and the question hung in the air between us for a second before she squeezed my hand and the man himself burst through the doors.
His eyes found me immediately, raking over every inch of me, seemingly trying to convince himself I was whole as I did the same.
I started to breathe a sigh of relief at the sight of him but pulled up short. “The wolves?” She had
no answer, but her soft tears turned to sobs, and then wails of grief for her people, her children. Even in my relief seeing the two of them, my tears joined Jade’s as we wept for all that had been lost that day.
After a few moments to relieve the pressure, we managed to compose ourselves and Ash dared to come forward, dropping a bag I hadn’t noticed before at my feet. He wrapped his arms around me and pressed his trembling lips to my temple, then grabbed the bag, removing a pile of fabric before handing it to me.
“I thought you might want your clothes,” he explained, then began his report as we both pulled clothes on. “Thankfully, not all the wolves were lost, but a lot were. A lot.” His eyes grew glassy, his gaze grew distant, and he took a deep breath, exhaling slowly. He pulled a sweater over his head, and when he continued his voice sounded steadier, stronger. “But our people live on. The children are all safe which is a blessing in itself.” Ash looked at Jade gratefully, and she nodded.
I’d never heard him refer to the wolves as ‘his people’ before. He’d always counted himself as separate. It looked like he might be on the path to leading them after all, and I knew if he chose to, he would make an amazing Alpha.
Still, he looked like he was holding something back, and I could feel a mild version of his tension through our bond, which he had mostly blocked again.
“There’s something else. What is it?” I asked, but they exchanged a look I hadn’t seen them exchange since those first days at Ash’s place, and I started to think I didn’t want to know.
“It’s…” Jade began but faltered.
“Oh, come on guys. Just rip off the bandage.”
Jade took a deep breath to continue but was interrupted by Ash whose face looked sickly and pale.
“They had Andrew’s body.”
Veiled Guardian: A Borne of Angels Novel (The Awakening Book 1) Page 25