Blood Redemption (Angel's Edge #3) (29 page)

“We have to help him,” I insisted, near tears now, unable to understand why Jack insisted on holding me back.

“We’re just here to gather information,” Jack whispered fiercely. “Don’t you remember? We can’t afford to get caught.” His grip tightened for a moment. “I won’t let it happen. Not here. Not ever again.”

Shadows flickered to life against my palms. Despite my best efforts at control, dark energy swelled and pulsed. My skin slid against Jack’s, where my arms grappled with his. The electric cold caressed his skin. I watched as his eyes widened in surprise, then felt the subtle blue glow of his tattoos. The familiar power we created leapt up between us, suffusing my body with a warmth and a strength I hadn’t felt before.

Hope exploded into existence as I realized how powerful Jack and I could be here. We might even be enough to free Asheroth and fight our way out of here. I felt a new resolve as I stopped resisting Jack’s hold. I straightened so that my nose was level with his chin. “We’re stronger together,” I said, resting my hands on his forearms. “We can get him out of here.” My hands changed into fists. “In fact, I’m not leaving without him. And I don’t care who we have to kill to get him free.”

circled the stone pallet, my horrified gaze locked on Asheroth. It was hard to believe it was him. In the time I had known him, Asheroth had been many things to me, but they all involved
action
. Yelling at me, dragging me places, forcing me through portals, and even just pacing like a madman―in almost every memory I had of him, he was busy, crazy, and vibrant. Yet here he was, chained to a stone, every square inch of him preternaturally still. Despite the obvious agony that racked his body, he seemed somehow distant. Damaged. Even his eyes looked empty.

“What did they do to you?” I whispered to no one in particular. My hands ached to reach out to him, but something told me that would be a bad idea. Who knew what kinds of alarms I might set off?

“Maybe he can tell you himself.”

My head snapped up. He’d caught my interest. “How so?” I asked.

“Like
this
,” Jack said, reaching out a hand to the motionless figure.

I watched, as fascinated as I was horrified. I thought again of alarms and fighting. But before I had time to stop him, Jack’s hand hovered over the body for just a second. Then he thrust it against Asheroth’s immobile side, sending waves of blue fire across his body. I had to choke down a scream.

“What are you doing?” I demanded. “Can I help?”

Jack looked as if he was going to dismiss the idea, but then he turned to me with an excited look, grappling for my hand. “Maybe you can. You do boost my power. Maybe together it will be enough.”

“So, what do I do?”

“Just hold on. Don’t let go, no matter what.”

I can do that, I thought, weaving my fingers through his. As Jack reached for Asheroth again, I concentrated on holding his hand as tightly as I could.

“Now,” Jack said, his eyes glazed with effort. “Channel the Shadows.”

forced down my nervousness and reached for that deep part of myself, for the darkness inside me I hadn’t ever been able to understand. That place was where my Gifts lived, dimly understood, but powerful nonetheless. Perhaps it was being so close to the energies of the Dark Realms, but I felt an immediate response to my summons. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up as cold fire caressed my palms. The tingling grew more powerful until the numbing, throbbing sensation spilled out from my palms to travel up the hand I held. Jack’s eyes widened slightly, letting me know he felt it, too.

Then he moved his fist to rest over Asheroth’s heart.

The effect was immediate and electric. Limbs flailed as my guardian jerked bolt upright. His skin was bathed in a familiar faint blue glow that ebbed as Jack withdrew his hand. He looked even paler than normal. More corpse-like. His eyes, which had been dead before, snapped with brilliant light. Although an expression of pain remained, wariness coupled with a dawning awareness of the situation appeared across Asheroth’s face. I wanted badly to go to him, to demand to know what had been done to him, and to tell him things would be okay. But I knew that was a lie. Things were far from okay, and they were getting worse by the day.

Jack held me back from Asheroth with firm hands on my shoulder. “Just give him a minute,” he cautioned. “We don’t know what he’s been through.”

I nodded. It was a painful process to watch. He moved as if injured. It took everything I had not to rush to him.

“What,” Asheroth rasped in a voice that sounded like raw charcoal, “have the two of you done?” His eyes began to shine their brilliant, Christmas-light white. “What are you doing here among the forces of the Dark Realms?” He jumped down from the stone platform and paced toward us. Slowly like a big cat, he prowled closer and closer. “I thought I made it plain you were not to come here again.” Even his voice had a growl buried in it. “I made your escape possible
at great personal cost
.”

“Umm,” I said, none too brightly. I went from straining to get to him, to pushing back against Jack in an attempt to get away. It seemed as if unpredictable, angry Asheroth had weathered whatever had been done to him. I tried to tell myself this was good news as words began to pour out of me in a torrent. “We didn’t know you were here. We were just looking. Preparing. We’re just here to… check things out. Like the Hunters, and Belial, and…” Oh, hell.

Asheroth’s eyes narrowed. He was almost within reaching distance. “Hunters?” he asked, drawing out the “s” so he sounded like an angry snake. “You’ve been ‘checking out’ Hunters?”

Jack stepped between us. “None of that is as important as the fact that we found you.” Jack crossed his arms. “At great personal cost to
us
, I might add. And now nothing is as important as finding a way to get you out of here.”

Instead of agreeing immediately as I had expected him to, my Fallen angel’s eyes snapped diamond fire. “I found her, you know,” he said softly, almost forlornly. “Or rather, she found me.”

“Who found you?” I asked, a tight feeling rocking my insides. Surely he couldn’t mean…

“Katerina,” he said, almost reverently. “I found her in the Dark Realms.” He dropped his head so that his black hair obscured half his face. “We found each other.”

My throat tightened. “That’s… wonderful,” I forced myself to say. I was surprised at my response. Maybe it was the fact that he had met my dead great-grandmother’s ghost that freaked me out so much. Maybe he was delusional. I wasn’t sure which scenario I preferred.

“He changed her,” Asheroth went on. Something dark and cold had crept into his voice. “He changed her form, but I knew her anyway.” When he lifted his head, his face was almost a mirror of the one his frozen form had worn―agony ravaged his features. “He made her into a Grey Lady,” he wailed. Then his voice rose to a powerful shout. “And I will kill him for it!”

“Oh my god,” I whispered, and this time, when I hung on to Jack, it was for help standing. My great-grandmother, the first Caspia, stuck in the Dark Realms as one of Belial’s personal servants? I remembered the Grey Lady who had seemed so helpful, the one who had hidden my daggers and jacket. The one who felt like spring rain, and sent me memories of a blonde child playing in the fields. “That was her.” I clung to Jack. “He has her trapped.”

“I will kill him,” Asheroth repeated, conversationally now. “And then I will take over his kingdom. I will reign over the Dark Realms until I have found a way to make her whole again!”

Nothing he said seemed rational. I couldn’t take in his words, couldn’t make them sensible. I noticed how battered his body was. Had they tortured him out of what little sanity he had left?

“Just come back with us,” I pleaded. “We’re being attacked on both sides, and we need your help. Once Belial has been defeated,” I swallowed hard. I couldn’t believe I was playing along with his insane ravings. “Then you can come back. If that’s what you want.”

He said nothing as black abysses unfurled on his back. His eyes were stark white like bolts of pure electricity, or lightning before it hit the ground. A dark portal shimmered behind him. All he would have to do was step through, and be lost to us.

I held out my hand to him, an echo of the gesture he’d made to me over Katerina’s grave. A gesture I’d rejected. “Please,” I whispered. “We need you.”

“She needs me more,” he said, and stepped backward into the opening. “I
will
come to you,” he promised, the portal closing around him. “But I have other matters to attend to first.”

I almost choked on my disappointment. Having Asheroth back would have been a major coup. And a part of me missed him, missed him terribly. I hadn’t realized how much I had come to depend on him―for protection, for power, for all kinds of things. And now he was gone.

But he had found a new reason to live, I reminded myself. My great-great grandmother. Katerina. The first Caspia. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.

Jack sketched another shimmering arch in the air, and I took a deep breath before stepping through.