A Crack in Everything (28 page)

‘Lie still. You’ll make it worse. Help will be here soon.’

What help? Help was too far away.

Dylan sank back onto the ground. He knew. He understood. ‘Tell Silver …’

‘I know. I will.’

Jinx turned to the stone. Sorath was on the third level already, almost around to the steps. It was magic indeed. Human magic, and like all magic the rules were everything. He sprinted for the stone and this time, once he’d circled it, he could step up onto the first level.

Wishes, human magic, like prayers, like faith, all the intangible things his kind could never really understand, so called by other names.

‘Sorath,’ he shouted, ‘don’t do this.’

‘It must be done, faeling. I swore it long ago, when I cast your ancestors out, when the Morning Star fell and I was parted from him. I swore it. I’ve planned for so long. Why would I stop now when I’ve given everything to be here in this time, this place, with this body?’

‘Let her go.’

‘Why when she’s mine? She wouldn’t exist without me. The blood of the Grigori, her family line, Brí’s obsession with her father, even Brí’s own expulsion from heaven for the sin of refusing a side … who else could have done all this? I designed her to be my vessel.’ She stopped, towering over him, the wind whipping Izzy’s bright hair back from her face, her eyes aglow with all the fire of the sun. ‘Is she not perfect? The fire is part of her, you see. Brí’s blood welcomes me, recognises me, as like knows like. Fire is an integral part of us both. You’ve felt drawn to her from the moment you first interfered. So come, follow us now and see it to the conclusion. Come, Jinx, and try to take her back.’

He pushed on. Sorath reached the top ahead of him and stood there, arms outstretched, facing the waters. Light formed around her, a circle of light, a nimbus glow, and the hill quaked beneath them, nearly throwing Jinx off the steps altogether. He grabbed her, wrapped his arms around her waist and tried
to topple her, but it was like trying to uproot a mountain.

Sorath laughed. ‘I would have used Dylan as a host for my lover. But you’ll be so much better. So much more stable – Aes and Cú Sídhe combined. Holly prepared you so well as a vessel, with all her spells and charms.’

‘Izzy,’ Jinx shouted. ‘Izzy, listen to me. Whatever she’s promised, she’s not going to do it. Whatever she said to you, it’s all lies. She’s not going to save me, or your dad. She’s not going to help anyone. She’s going to destroy us all. She’s going to break the world apart!’

‘Of course I am. I’d tear the universe and all its realities apart to be with him again. And you’re going to help me, faeling.’

She grabbed the back of his head in her hand, the grip impossibly strong, inescapable, and pulled his mouth towards hers. Jinx tried to shout, but his voice was snatched away as fire consumed him, fire the like of which he’d never seen or felt, brighter than magnesium, devouring more quickly than acid, acrid like brimstone.

‘Izzy,’ he managed to whisper. ‘Forgive me.’ He’d thought it so many times in his heart, wanted to say it, wanted to tell her. Time for her to actually hear the words the Sídhe couldn’t say. He forced them out, tumbling from his lips. ‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.’

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Swimming Upstream

D
eep within the fire, Izzy opened her eyes at the sound of his voice. Jinx, so lost, so far away, penitent. Desperate.

He had to be, to ask her forgiveness.

The fire surrounding her didn’t burn. It didn’t even hurt. She knew it intimately now, was as much a part of it as it was of her. It was easy to fall back into its eddies and flows, to forget and be at peace. It seemed so long since she had actually felt at peace. And yet, she burned.

But why did Jinx need her forgiveness? After all that had happened, all he’d done, she would have thought he’d be grateful to be rid of her.

But instead he called her name, held her, kissed her. Refused to let go.

She could feel it. The first sensations to touch her for what
felt like years. Sorath didn’t know desire, or love, or not on a level Izzy could comprehend. Everything burned so brightly within her. Love was obsession, desire was pure craving. But Jinx made her feel …

Like a salmon swimming upstream, Izzy struggled back to herself as he spoke of lies, of her father, of betrayal.

Where was she?

A cool breeze touched her face, lifted her hair. Blissfully cool. She saw the sea, and the beam of the distant Kish lighthouse. Endless points of cold, manufactured brightness. Just for an instant, as if she saw them while she blinked her eyes, instead of the darkness she expected.

Sorath’s fire reared up again, not a comfort now, but a wall of rage intent on pushing her back, quashing her.

The salmon swims against the river, Izzy
. She could almost hear Dad’s voice.
It has to. No matter what. That’s part of its destiny, to struggle, to overcome. That’s knowledge. It’s easy to give up, to be mundane and never try to rise above the flow. But that’s not our way. We study, learn and understand. We must know. We’re like the salmon. We’re stubborn.

‘I threw it away, Dad,’ she murmured. ‘I had to. To save us both.’

The spell Sorath wove faltered and her wish … Izzy could feel it brewing within her, within the stone on which she stood, potent but not yet strong enough. It used the power imbued in this stone of more than a hundred and fifty years of hopes and dreams, tapped into desires and prayers. It fed on
those wishes to serve Sorath’s will.

In a glance, Izzy saw what the angel wanted to set free. It wasn’t real. She knew it wasn’t real – it was more like looking at a scene projected on the scenery around her, as if she was looking at the present and the future at the same time.

A figure strode from the hill with Sorath at his side. Wings of smoke and fire spread out behind him, and the ground withered where he walked. She saw the scorched earth that would follow, the death and destruction as the angels went to war against this creature, fallen from their number so very long ago and trapped in stone, in nightmares. In hell. She saw the death of countless humans, demons and fae as they were used as cannon fodder in an impossible war. He looked like Jinx. But he wasn’t.

And it wasn’t real.

Stronger now, she tried to recall what had happened since they left the Market.

Nothing.

Where’s my father?
she asked.
You promised to heal him. Where is he?

‘In good time,’ Sorath replied, her voice just a touch too soft and cajoling to be believable. How could anything want its mate with such a passion and be prepared to consider anything else before it? Not even for a promise. Not with the controlling obsession for the Morning Star Izzy had seen in the angel.

The Morning Star. She knew that name. Remembered
it from Religious Education classes. From brief snatches of Milton and
Paradise
Lost
. Lucifer. That was what she’d seen in Jinx’s form, wasn’t it?

And all it would take to bring him through was a crack in reality, a flaw in the world. Like she was. Something that shouldn’t be, but was nonetheless.

‘Forgive me,’ Jinx had said. A plea. A different kind of love in his voice, one strained with regret. She tried to find him, but she met his pain first. It speared her mind and made her gasp in shock.

Elsewhere Dylan struggled to drag himself towards them and keep on breathing. But he didn’t give up. Couldn’t give up, even if it killed him. She could see into his mind, could read his determination that what was happening before him had to be stopped. And further off, amid the trees, shadows moved, terrified like children when they should have been fierce like monsters. Beneath her hill, locked in the hollow by Sorath’s spell, Brí raged impotently.

There had to be a way to stop it.

‘There is no way. Give up your fight, Isabel. It’s senseless. You’re just a child, too weak, too helpless. And look at him. Look how magnificent we will become.’

Jinx lifted his head, drunk with pain, and his eyes burned even brighter. His mouth twisted to a cruel and heartless line. He closed his hand around Sorath’s throat and squeezed. But the angel just leaned into it and gasped as a surge of ecstasy made the fire even more fierce.

No. It’s my throat
, Izzy thought.
My throat, my body, my life she’s stealing, and Jinx’s she would sacrifice to Lucifer
. Her skin burned under his touch and her heart skipped as it tried to beat too fast. Darkness broke through from the place behind the fire. A darkness terrible and eternal. It sought its way out, through her, into Jinx and into the world.

My body
, Izzy told herself.
My life. My blood. No more lies. No more tears. No more other people coming to the rescue. It ends here. It has to.

Her hand flexed, fingers curling according to her own will at last. It moved spasmodically, jerking out and in again, closing around the iron knife.

‘Go on,’ Sorath sneered. ‘Kill him again. It won’t matter now. It’s his body we need. It doesn’t have to be alive.’

No. Not him. She’d never hurt him again. He had saved her, even from herself. But she had Sídhe blood too, right? Brí’s blood. Anything was possible with Sídhe blood.

And from a distance she imagined she could hear Brí.
Yes my daughter, my child, my blood kin.

She thought of her dad, lying helpless in the hospital bed and Mum by his side, curled up like a child against him, sleeping fitfully. What would happen to them if this nightmare broke free? What would Sorath do to rid herself of Izzy’s last connection to the world?

Can’t allow it. Just can’t allow it.

Her fingers locked around the hilt and she pulled it free.

‘No, Izzy!’ Jinx’s voice rang out. His own voice, the horror
in his face real. He knew. Somehow he knew.

But she didn’t – couldn’t – hesitate.

And she didn’t aim for him.

She drove the knife up to the hilt into her own body.

Sorath screamed and an answering cry tore up through the earth, through the Wishing Stone and through her, a howl of thwarted rage.

There was a soft whoomph, like an exhalation of air. Wind lashed the hilltop as figures appeared from nowhere, angels. Angels everywhere.

And the sudden cold, crisping the grass with frost, infecting the evening with winter’s chill. The shadows deepened, writhed with sudden sentience. The shades and their masters were here too. So many of them, swarming from the shadows with glowing eyes and gleaming teeth.

Angels and demons, all over the hilltop.

Izzy’s legs buckled, but Jinx caught her, his arms trembling. His body felt feverishly hot, his skin slick with sweat. He shook as he tried to hold her. But he didn’t let her fall.

‘What have you done?’ he shouted. ‘Ancestors, what have you done?’

Jinx lowered her to the top of the pyramid, lying beside the topmost cube. The knife jutted from her stomach. But it didn’t hurt.

Izzy stared up at the stars. They seemed awfully close all of a sudden. As she watched, they spun above her, revealing wave upon wave of colours impossible to define, like one of those
space telescope pictures seen through the naked eye. So beautiful. So cold. Fire in the heavens.

There was music, voices, harmonies, sweet and moving. They echoed through her, through the air and through the earth. They rippled up through her, rained down upon her, and the voices of the angels and demons seemed to join in.

‘Izzy, talk to me. Please, talk to me.’ Jinx’s voice shook and the urge to leap into the sky above and swim against that current of light and sound faded a little. She focused instead on his face. He might have been carved from marble, he looked so pale. The tattoos stood out in sharp contrast to his skin. So beautiful. He didn’t even realise how wonderful he was. No one had ever shown him that he too was beautiful, a wonder. A glorious never-should-have-been, like her. ‘They’re here. They’re just watching. What are they waiting for?’

‘For the end.’ Her voice grated against her throat. ‘They need to know, to be sure. And if we didn’t do it—’

‘Why did you do it?’

‘Had to do it,’ she sighed and the stupidity of the whole situation flooded through her.

Something filled her throat and she coughed, a violent racking movement. Then there was pain, pain like she’d never imagined, and blood filled her mouth. She gagged and spat it out.

Shit. That couldn’t be good.

Sorath stirred, as angry as a wasp in the back of Izzy’s mind.

Tied together, Izzy thought triumphantly.

‘You idiot,’
Sorath said.
‘You’ve killed us both. I’m an angel. I don’t die.’

‘Yes,’ Izzy whispered, resigned, determined. ‘Yes, you do.’ She closed her eyes. ‘And if you don’t, they’ll rip you out of me and we’ll die anyway. So what does it matter?’

‘Izzy!’ It was Jinx again. ‘Izzy, don’t you dare go and die. Talk to me! We can get help!’

‘No. Too late. Doesn’t hurt.’ A lie, but as she said it the lie became true. It didn’t hurt.

‘But you’re a grail. Can’t you … can’t you heal yourself?’

She blinked tired eyes open, glared at the concern in his face. She wanted to laugh bitterly, but didn’t have the breath.

‘Obviously not. You’re a moron, you know that?’

And God, she loved him for it.

‘I should have kissed you when you first kissed me, Izzy. I should have seized every moment. Izzy … Isabel.’

‘Don’t. Not Isabel. I hate Isabel.’

‘Tell me what to do.’

Yes, definitely a moron. ‘Kiss me now. And pull the knife out.’

‘It’ll kill you.’

She smiled. That hurt, though it shouldn’t. ‘Yes. Your kisses are bloody awful. You need to practise.’ What did it matter now? She might as well say what she wanted. What she felt. She might as well tell him, before it was too late for words, before—

Tears hit her face. Not hers but his. Jinx was crying? Not
possible. Must be rain. Jinx the cruel, Jinx the caustic … How could Jinx cry for her?

The angels stirred expectantly, the shades murmured on the edge of hearing. They moved forward, but only to the foot of the pyramid. No further. Izzy frowned, feeling the pressure building in the air around them. Tightening around her skin, squeezing her, until she thought she’d pop. But all she could do was lie there and wait.

‘Isabel Gregory,’ said a new voice, one she had half been waiting for. Hoping for. He would have killed her the last time they met, but only the angel interested him. Now she had done the job for him. She was dying and here he was. Come to collect. With the sound of a billowing black cloak, or the unfurling of great wings, Azazel appeared from a twist of shadows, standing on the next level of the steps. The magic warping around the pyramid didn’t hold him back, she realised. Because she was here. And so was Sorath. He held a gold-rimmed crystal bottle in his hands. ‘Are you ready?’

Information filtered directly into her mind and she knew what had to be done. The spark couldn’t stay here. This was the only way to get rid of it and rid of Sorath too. She wasn’t afraid of Azazel, not this time. He had what he wanted, or would have it shortly. She gave up the fight.

‘Pull out the knife, Jinx.’

The angels and the shades hissed, a low-level sound that rippled across her senses like sandpaper. He had to do it. When Jinx didn’t move, she closed her own hand around the hilt. But
she wasn’t strong enough. It hurt to try, each effort wrenching an agonised cry from her. She twisted in Jinx’s arms.

He held her still and then closed his hand over hers.

‘Just remember I love you,’ he told her. Perfect words, words she’d longed to hear from him. Suddenly nothing seemed to hurt any more.

The knife slid out of her flesh and with it a golden mist came too. It floated up into the night air and Azazel quickly gathered it up in the bottle and sealed the lid in place. It floated there, like pollen on a breeze, like plankton in the deepest ocean. A perfect element of creation, a primal being.

Sorath’s voice was gone.

‘Where is she?’ Izzy asked.

There was a susurration of relief from the creatures watching them, infernal and divine alike.

Azazel tapped the lid of the bottle. ‘She’s in here, where she belongs.’ He glanced up, surveying the attending crowd. ‘Angels are dangerous enough without allowing fallen ones to run amok. You did well, little Grigori. Very well.’