A Crack in Everything (27 page)

Silver had tried to stop him. He sobbed, but in time and harmony with the melody of that marvellous music.

Part of him wished he had listened. Because the music was almost too much. The prospect of trying to capture it daunted him. And thrilled him.

Dylan’s consciousness reeled inside his skull.

Silver appeared as if from nowhere and caught him before he could fall.

‘I’m here,’ she said, as if speaking to a child. ‘Shh, don’t be scared. I’m here.’

She kissed him again and drew the music from him. The world shuddered back to normality. Weaker, drained but himself once more, the music fading to memory, a dream. Dylan drew in a breath and found every atom of his body transformed.

‘Silver, I … I heard … I saw …’ She rested her forehead to his, holding both his shoulders, and she stared deeply into his eyes, studying him as if she could see into his soul. Perhaps she could. He would put nothing past her.

‘I know,’ she said on a sigh heavy with regret. He could still feel it, the connection between them. Another kiss and it would reignite, he would hear that symphony again and be lost in it, in her. The music wasn’t gone and neither was she. A surge of relief swept through him, followed by one of fear, almost as powerful. He had agreed to this. To give up his life for the wonder of being with her, of hearing the music she heard. It had been his choice. It was terrifying, but glorious. Just like Silver. ‘But now, we have to go.’ She took his hand possessively, drawing him after her. ‘Stay with me, now. You can’t afford to get lost.’

‘Did you find them? Are they safe?’

She stopped and looked back over her shoulder, impossibly beautiful but alien, impassive.

He heard Jinx’s raised voice before Silver could answer. ‘Back to Brí’s domain, are you crazy?’

‘It’s the quickest way out of here,’ another woman replied, just as stridently. ‘Besides, I can offer safe passage.’ It was Blythe, he realised. But how was she here? Everything had changed while he’d been … what? Away with the fairies? Insane laughter bubbled up inside him.

‘For a price,’ Jinx growled. ‘The last price nearly killed Silver.’

They stood at the mouth of the broad tunnel leading back to the gate to Smithfield and the human world. Dylan’s world, the one he desperately wanted to see again. The Market was deserted, stalls and goods scattered, the traders and buyers fled. There was no sign of Holly either. Nothing but an eerie silence. And still the Cú Sídhe argued.

Izzy stood to one side, holding her arms tightly across her chest. Mistle hunkered down in front of her, his head bowed, breathing hard. Dylan couldn’t catch a word, but he was sure Izzy spoke to the fae. Not in English though. The language sounded so strange, lyric and unreal. Mistle’s eyes glowed with something like adoration. Weak though he felt, Dylan made straight for her. ‘Izzy, you okay?’

Mistle shuffled back, muttering angrily to himself. Izzy stared at Dylan, as if trying to place him. Blood ran down her arm, her skin torn, her sleeve ragged. And she held a knife. It too was covered in blood. Then she glared past him at Jinx.

She tightened her grip on the knife in a way that sent ice through Dylan’s veins. Then she seemed to see him for the first time and tucked the knife away behind her back. ‘You look like hell.’

He caught her arm and pushed up the blood-sodden sleeve to examine her shredded skin. She didn’t even wince. ‘Not as bad as you.’

Blythe and Jinx circled each other and the black dogs surrounding them cowered and snarled. Silver stepped into the middle of it, aglow with light.

‘Enough!’ Silver cried. ‘We don’t have time. We’ve just declared war and struck Holly hard. She won’t take long to regroup. And we cannot afford to be here when she does. Come with me.’

Her voice shook them all into action. Before Dylan could shout a warning, Jinx took off after Mistle, the other hounds breaking into a run behind him, running for the sheer joy of it, until Blythe called them back, a curse underpinning every word she used.

‘You’re looking at her a lot,’ Silver teased, without any real malice. Amused desire coloured her voice.

Yes, he’d been staring at Blythe. The naked woman with the exotic patterns marking her skin like pale scars.

‘There’s a … a lot of her to look at,’ Dylan replied as smoothly as he could.

Silver smiled at him and it was a smile that chilled him to the core. It knew far too much. ‘Get Izzy out of here,’ she said. ‘She needs you. She’s been through a terrible ordeal. Go.’

He nodded and caught Izzy’s uninjured arm. She didn’t fight him, didn’t argue.

Like a sleepwalker she followed him, and together they ran from the Market while the hounds formed a line behind them, a retreat line of military precision, with Blythe holding the centre.

The gate shimmered ahead of them, like a moonlit pool, capturing the light from the other side, natural and man-made. Distorted shapes moved beneath the surface, and the
lights, so many lights swarmed across the surface. Too many. Dylan hesitated, but Izzy didn’t stop. He tried to pull back, tried to stop, but in the last moment her fingers dug into his arm and with inhuman strength, she dragged him after her.

‘They followed you,’ she hissed in a voice that wasn’t her own. ‘You idiot. They’ve been whispering to you all along, directing you and tracking your every move. The angels planted a beacon in your brain and then just followed you right to us.’

Chapter Twenty-Seven

A World Away From Help

T
he air rushed over Jinx as he crossed the threshold of the gate in pursuit of Mistle. Fresh, cool and charged with ozone. He shuddered, shaking off the transference, and the silver carriages of a Luas tram slid along the bottom of the square, cut by the intervening trees and then swallowed up behind buildings. It was a momentary distraction, but he cursed it as all around him, host upon host of slender, beautiful figures closed in. Angels. Everywhere. All their attention was fixed on the gate, on the girl just now emerging with Dylan at her side. On Izzy.

With a brief intake of breath, Jinx tried to fall back, to put himself between her and them.

Mistle barrelled into him, pinning him down. The old fae
brought a knee up into Jinx’s stomach and with surprising strength, wrapped his hands around Jinx’s throat.

‘You should have died. You should have died.’ Spit speckled Jinx’s face. ‘I took care of her father, just like she told me. And I’ll deal with his wife too, if she gets in the way. I didn’t kill him but I could have.
I could have
. For my angel. The Grigori do nothing for us, nothing at all. They’ve abandoned us all. Why should we protect them and hold them inviolate? Sorath’s need is greater. She is greater. Brí isn’t enough to hold the girl here. If you’d only died there’d be nothing to hold her here at all.’

The grip tightened, closing off his airway. Jinx twisted, marshalled his strength and flipped Mistle to one side. They landed heavily and even as Jinx tried to right himself, Mistle was on him again.

Three blows, face, stomach, face again and Mistle went down snarling and spitting, crawling across the paving stones towards Izzy.

‘Izzy!’ Jinx yelled, scrambling up from the ground and trying to reach her before the angels. They’d take her and tear her to shreds in order to get to Sorath. They’d destroy her to take back the spark. ‘Get back, get inside. Run!’

But Izzy didn’t move. Not even when Dylan tried to break free of her, Dylan who up to that moment had been apparently supporting her. Her hand locked onto his arm and she pulled him against her, locking her other hand around his throat. Silver gave an outraged cry.

Light burst from the air around Izzy and Dylan, flames rained down on her and around her. Izzy smiled, her eyes blazing with an incandescent glow, and she raised one hand, her fingers splayed out like a shield.

Angelic voices rose in song, in a war chant that assaulted Jinx’s ears and drove him to the ground, but Sorath – it had to be Sorath … No way Izzy could stand before it, holding Dylan and facing down a host the like of which Jinx had never heard of on this plane or any other.

Not since the war in heaven. Not since the stories only the oldest fae told.

‘Go back?’ The angel’s voice made the ground shake. The paving stones shattered, cracks spreading out from her position like the fingers of her hand. ‘No. I shall go on. And they cannot stop me. No one can stop me. He shall be freed. He shall be freed and we shall be together again. A soul and a body is all I need.’ She shook Dylan like a rag doll. ‘And here it is. You have no power over me, not anymore.’

The angels took a step forward, Zadkiel and Haniel at their fore. Their mouths opened and their song rose, worse than a banshee, more beautiful and terrible by far.

Mistle dropped to the ground, little more than a yard from Izzy, grovelling and crying out Sorath’s name. ‘I did everything for you, my angel. Everything. Please, don’t leave me here!’

The song swept over them. Dylan screamed, wilting in Sorath’s grip, her hostage, her failing shield. Silver cried out, stumbling forward to try to save him, but the song robbed her
newly regained strength. The Cú Sídhe howled, whined, and dropped to the ground. All the Sídhe, no matter what their power or nobility of birth, were felled in a single stroke.

But Sorath, in Izzy’s body, stood firm.

‘Would you have them all die for you?’ Zadkiel asked, breaking off his song. ‘Does your pride extend that far?’

She cast her eyes around the square where fae and human alike toppled whether they could see the angels or not. ‘What are they but beasts that walk the horizontal? Lower plane creatures. They are nothing. You know the truth, Zadkiel. You know what we are. Feel this power. Revel in it. Come with me, share this.’ She stretched out her hand, the one she had previously used to threaten Dylan, and beckoned to the angel.

To Jinx’s amazement, Zadkiel hesitated. He felt it too, the sheer desire to fall at her feet, to worship and love her. She gave off the imperative to everyone there and he saw them waver. The Dawn herself, most beloved, the angel who heralded the new day and the joy of morning, queen to the Morning Star … who could fail to love her, to want to please her?

Zadkiel shook her off. An archangel, made for war and inured to such enchantments, he stood straighter than those around him who failed.

‘Give back the spark and accept your fate,’ he declared, his voice ringing out through the night. Across the square, the street lamps flared and exploded, bursting for a moment with power. ‘Sorath, you are fallen. You will burn. Accept it!’

The spell she wove shattered. Jinx felt its tendrils slither
off him, freeing him. Too long under the bonds of a desire to please, he welcomed the release, shook himself free with relief and joy, but others all around him wept with grief – human, fae, and even angel. Haniel dropped to his knees, burying his face in his hands, all his pride wiped away as he sobbed her name.

‘I accept nothing,’ Sorath snarled, her hatred transforming Izzy’s pretty face to something snide and detestable. ‘I
will
burn. That is what I do, you fool. That is my strength. You cannot take me. Not in this form. It is mine. She has agreed.’

No!
Jinx dragged himself up on his arms, his body shaking as he tried to fight off the massed powers of the heavens who strove to drive him down. How could Izzy have agreed to let Sorath possess her? Why?

And he remembered the iron in his belly, the sense of drifting away to peace, to darkness, to another side of existence before he was drawn back, before the light. Light like the dawn.

‘Izzy,’ he breathed. ‘You didn’t.’

Sorath cast a glance his way and she smiled. Not Izzy’s smile. There was no joy, no innocence, no love in that smile. His heart stuttered to see it and he shied back. She couldn’t have done it for him. She wouldn’t have. She wasn’t that much of a fool, surely. No one was. Even Izzy wouldn’t have given that much for another, for someone who had hurt her, betrayed her and let her enemy take her. She couldn’t be such a naïve child.

But she could. He knew she could. And it wasn’t naivety. It was part of the reason he loved her.

Sorath raised her hand a third time and fire billowed forth from the gate. Without a moment’s hesitation, she stepped back into it, pulling Dylan with her.

And the fallen angel, the young man and the girl who had given herself to save him were gone.

Without hesitation Jinx dived after them.

She had twisted the Sídhe-way beyond the gate. He felt it the moment he passed through its burning embrace. Her fire had scorched the Sídhe-way, making it writhe from its intended course and twist to a new destination. Nature shrieked at such an offence and travelling along this new, unnatural path, even Jinx’s body rebelled. His mind squeezed on all sides within a migraine-inducing vice, his teeth aching from pressure, his lungs straining to breathe air that should not be there at all.

But he forced himself onwards, following Sorath and her path cloven through reality using her power combined with Izzy’s fae and Grigori blood. He should have known, or at least have guessed that Izzy herself was the goal. All planes met in the girl; Grigori blood was demon and human. Add to that Brí as her mother, and she became as potent a blend as might be found. Sorath – and Holly for that matter – had called her a vessel, and so she was, one designed to hold an angel. One designed to survive as a human. A creature of magic with a soul, possessed of the divine spark. Sorath may have fallen, but she herself admitted she chose the time and the place so Izzy
would be there.

She’d even put Mistle in place to ensure the girl touched the after-image so the transference could take place. She was cunning and she’d had millennia to plan this. The thought sent a tremor of fear through him.

What else had she done? Izzy’s father’s accident – Mistle had all but admitted causing that. It was too convenient to be an accident. Jinx didn’t believe in coincidences. And the rest of them? Lives ruined, lives changed forever, lives lost, lives so readily dispensable. What did it matter when you were older than the stones, older than the stars? What did it matter when all that you thought of was heaven and hell, with humans and fae just an irritating infestation of the horizontal plane?

Angels and demons never saw the whole. Sometimes he thought the Creator had made them blind to it deliberately.

It had worked. Until now.

So why did he still live? Why save him? Unless it was the only way to ensure Izzy’s cooperation. She had saved him once, healed him using the spark. Now that Holly had bound them together, Sorath needed Izzy’s cooperation. Had that been the angel’s plan all along? Or had she simply played Holly when the opportunity arose? A dangerous game. Holly loved nothing in the world so much as to kill, and nothing to kill so much as angels. She’d tied Izzy and Sorath together so Sorath would die when Izzy did. But if that was Sorath’s plan, so they could not be parted … Izzy would be hers – heart, body and soul.

But why?

He sensed the break in the Sídhe-way and reached for it. It was a ragged tear, with no grace or elegance in its formation. The angel had simply ripped her way through, the opening malformed and higher, it turned out, than the ground on the other side.

He fell.

The earth, grassy and damp from the late-night rain slammed into his body. He rolled onto his back, unable to stop the groan that the impact wrenched out of him. No way of knowing how much time had passed, how much redirecting the Sídhe-way had disrupted the world around it. It was dark, cold and he’d have to deal with it. The time was of no importance. Now was all that mattered.

Another body lay a little way off, at the foot of the slope where the ground flattened out before falling away to gorse and rocky cliffs. The dark expanse of the sea beyond reflected the low moon. Jinx knew this place.

The body stirred and gave a similar groan of pain. It was Dylan, Jinx realised, the music he made silent now. He lay very still and pale, his chest moving only a fraction of an inch to betray the fact he still lived. Such a waste. Such a senseless waste of a life of talent and promise. He’d heard Silver’s music, followed her call. And look where it had led him.

Beyond Dylan, a stone structure rose from the ground, man-made, modern, especially by Sídhe standards, but shaped like something older and alien to these shores. A stepped pyramid,
topped with a single square block. It was a folly, out of place and out of time, locally beloved. They called it the Wishing Stone.

He stood up, stretching out his aching body. This was Killiney Hill, in the shadow of the white Obelisk, right above Brí’s hollow. Close to Izzy and Dylan’s homes.

And a world away from help.

Light blossomed out of the darkness, dawn breaking, or so he thought at first. But this light came not from the horizon, but from the Wishing Stone. Sorath walked around the base, took the first step up onto it.

‘I know what you’re doing,’ Jinx shouted.

She didn’t respond, just kept walking on, circling the first level anticlockwise until it was complete and she stepped up to another.

‘I won’t let you take her,’ he marched towards the steps and felt the power imbued in the stones. Not magic, not angelic or demonic, but something else. Something he’d never felt before.

Human?

As he tried to step up, the power in the stones rose up, lashed out, flinging him backwards. He took a glancing blow off the boulders, gorse and brambles behind the pyramid and landed heavily.

Sorath’s laughter, so like Izzy’s, and so unlike it too, rang out over the hilltop.

‘Jinx,’ Dylan whispered, struggling up from the ground.
‘Jinx, it’s the stone.’

Jinx shook his head, trying to clear it of the high-pitched whine drilling into his brain, trying to force himself up. ‘It’s magic.’

‘It’s the Wishing Stone. Wishes. Human belief. Human dreams. That’s what she’s going to use. She has everything else already. You have to stop her.’

He seized Dylan’s shoulders and shook him. ‘How, when it won’t let me set foot on it after her?’

Dylan gasped for breath, breath he couldn’t quite draw. Jinx released him in shock. His ribs were cracked, a lung punctured. It would kill him, slowly and painfully, without help. ‘She made the same mistake at first.’ He wheezed out the words, each one an agony. ‘Made me tell her. You have to follow the rules, circle each level of the stone before climbing to the next. Then face the sea, the island, to make your wish. Did it a thousand times as kids, Izzy and I …’