Angelfire (30 page)

“No.” I threw my power at Will and it hit him like a wall, preventing him from coming any closer.

He threw his shoulder into the barrier, but I didn't give him another inch. His eyes, bright in the gloom, met mine, but his gaze was firm, as if he could read my mind and knew it was no use trying to bring me back from the edge. Even if he wanted to stop me, calm me down, it would be impossible. At that moment, as my power pounded on the inside of every last inch of my skin, desperate for release, I was very aware of how much damage I could do to him and everything else on that ship.

“Get the sarcophagus!” Nathaniel roared as he fought off the demonic vir. “Throw it over before Ivar takes off with it!”

Will's gaze left mine at last and he nodded. He bolted to
the wooden box containing the sarcophagus, sweeping it up over his head effortlessly. He ran back up the stairs.

“No!”
Geir shrieked. He darted away from Nathaniel, but I caught him with my sword in his belly before he escaped. He snarled at me, sharp teeth bared, and grabbed my throat, squeezing hard. His other hand clenched my wrist and pulled my sword from his body as flames of angelfire lapped up his chest. Time slowed, and everything around me blurred except for Geir. He swiped his talons at my face, but I jumped back and swung my swords. The flames slashed through the darkness, casting twisted flashes of light and shadows across our faces. My blades sliced across his belly, but not deeply enough to kill him. I kicked him in the chest as hard as I could and he soared backward, smacking into the far wall.

“Nathaniel!” I shouted.

He turned to me, eyes wild.

“Go help Will! I'll keep Geir busy.”

His mouth dropped. “But—?”

“Go!”

He obeyed, disappearing from the hold. I spun back to face the reaper, who grinned at me as his belly wounds closed up and scarred within seconds.

“Now it's just you and me, baby,” he sneered, his eyes cold yet blinding like sunlight.

I stepped back on my heel, summoning my power. The trawler shivered and groaned.

Geir launched himself toward me, and as I raised my sword, he vanished right in front of me. I swung, slicing through air, and he reappeared to my right. I slashed my other sword at him but met only his disembodied laughter echoing through the hold as his form disappeared into the darkness.

“You're going to die down here, little girl,” his voice sneered.

My eyes searched around me, and my heart pounded with fear. If I couldn't see him, then how could I fight him? I let the fury wrap around me, drowning out every distraction, every creak and whine of the ship, the rushing of water, everything but the heartbeat of my enemy stalking me from somewhere in the blackness. I felt none of the uncontrollable bloodlust that had consumed me during my final battle against Ragnuk; instead, my mind was now disturbingly clear as I ached to release my power. Now it obeyed
me
, not the other way around.

I felt energy flicker behind me and I spun like a tornado, swinging the flaming Khopesh up. The blade cut through Geir's throat. He staggered back, spilling blood, gurgling and clutching at the wound. When his skin didn't burst into flames, I knew my strike hadn't been enough to kill him. With a cry, I stabbed my other sword up and under his rib cage, destroying his heart. He collapsed forward onto me, drenching me in his blood. I shoved him
off of me, disgusted, and ripped my sword back out. I felt the hook on the back of the blade catch on his rib cage, and things inside ripped and crunched as I wrenched the Khopesh free.

Geir staggered toward me, his face twisting in horror and agony. One hand fell away from his throat and grasped at his torn chest. A dark, brackish flood spread from his wounds, and flames erupted over every inch of him, licking over his body and drowning him in light. His claws swung at me, engulfed in angelfire, until they crumbled into ashes. In moments the rest of his body burned up, his flapping wings vanishing last, until nothing remained of the reaper but ashes drifting in the water rising to my ankles.

I froze. Something heavy settled on me, like a great power, but not my own. It weighed down on me like a thick blanket of snow and just as cold, with an immense strength that seemed to slow down all my senses and even time itself. I turned my head to look behind me, fearful of what I might see, and my body followed my gaze.

A silhouette shaped like a man stood in the hold's entrance at the bottom of the stairs. His black form was etched in the light from the deck, and feathered wings spread wide as if he'd just landed. He stepped closer to me, the light billowing around him so that I could at last see his face. He didn't appear much older than me or Will.
His white wings folded into his back and vanished. His power rolled from him like a storm, but he felt like a black hole, sucking in every last bit of oxygen, so I was left feeling dizzy and ill.

“Hello, Ellie,” the reaper said, his voice smooth and cool as chilled butter. “I am Bastian.”

I STARED HELPLESSLY AT BASTIAN'S HAUNTING face. His smoky black power pulled at mine, like fingers combing through my hair and brushing my face as gently as a flutter of eyelashes. His eyes were the brightest, most unnatural blue I had ever seen, a toxic cerulean. He seemed so familiar to me, as if I had met him before, but I couldn't recall when or where. Even his energy, at a level deep below what I felt on the surface, seemed familiar.

“Red is a good color on you,” he said at last.

Bile rose in my throat. I was drenched in Geir's blood. The dirty, salty smell revolted me. I held my breath, desperate to keep from retching in front of Bastian. “Where's Ivar? Where are my friends?”

“Ivar is destroying the angelic vir on the upper decks. They're lost to you now.”

No!
I wanted to scream, but no words escaped my lips. I cried out and rushed forward, swinging my blade, but a blinding wall of black power hit me all over and launched me back through the air. I crashed into the far wall and climbed to my feet with my arms and legs aching. Bastian's power had bruised my skin and torn the cloth of my shirt, but the pain and wounds vanished in seconds.

“I'm not here to kill you,” he said.

I glared. “No? Well, I'm still going to kick your ass.”

He watched me, his eyes examining me so thoroughly, I felt like an animal on exhibit at a zoo. “How charming. I am so pleased to finally meet you.”

“We've never met before?” I asked, surprised. Then why did I feel certain that I knew him? Surely I'd met him in a past life. His face…He was so familiar.

“No, my dear,” he said, his voice soft, but I heard him perfectly over the noise of water rushing into the hold, swallowing my shoes.

“So you thought you'd swing by with your buddies and kill us all?” My fingers clenched my sword tighter.

“I'm here for the sarcophagus and that is all. If I kill you now, then all this would have been for nothing.”

“Where's Cadan?” I asked. “He decide to sit this one out?”

Something dark flickered in Bastian's smile. “He and I don't quite share the same sympathies.”

I studied his face, trying to find any emotion to read, but
he revealed nothing. “Just fight me already!”

His form blurred, and he appeared suddenly right in front of my face. His voice was a whisper, seething with malice.
“I know what you are.”

“What?” I asked without thinking.

Bastian drifted away from me, spreading his white feathered wings wide. “Your very presence breaks all the rules.”

My body locked up until I felt like I was about to break. “What are you talking about?” I asked through clenched teeth.

“You hide among the humans you love, and in doing so, you gamble with their lives.”

My temper flared. “I'm not gambling with their lives!”

His smile darkened to pitch-black. “Don't be angry. Selfishness is only a side effect of living in this mortal world. It's very human, don't you think?”

“Humans have taught me compassion,” I said. “The best parts of me exist because I was taught to love and to be kind. What can you say? That you've killed and tormented only creatures weaker than you?”

That smile faded. “For one so very ancient, you certainly are naïve. Do you think you're better than me? You know even less about me than you do about yourself. Little girl, you are barely any different from me.”

And he vanished, blurring from sight. I stared at the space he had just occupied. Was he lying? Did he really
know what I was? Fear lapped at my legs in the form of swelling, ice-cold seawater. I shook my head, steadied my nerves, and splashed up to the main deck. I swung around the cabin and spotted Nathaniel just as he hurled the sarcophagus over the side of the boat. My heart leaped for joy—but crashed right back down again when I saw Ivar dive into the ocean after it.

A shadow passed over my head, and I spun around, preparing for attack. Will landed. Spreading out from his back was a pair of ivory wings—
wings!
I staggered away from him in shock. The feathers glistened in the moonlight, pearlescent. They were absolutely beautiful. He looked like an angel towering over me, and his electric green eyes met mine for a brief, terrible moment. He folded his wings above his back and spread them wide again before shakily returning them to his body. I couldn't move, couldn't breathe. All I could do was stare at him as he collapsed to the deck, holding a hand over his chest. When I saw darkness spreading over his shirt, I knew he was badly hurt.

“Will!” I screamed, running to his side in terror. He doubled over and his wings stretched over us, cloaking us in shadow. When I reached for him, he pulled away from me, his face showing more than just his physical pain. I wanted to hit him hard for keeping the fact that he had
wings
from me, but as soon as I saw them, I remembered them as if I'd seen them only yesterday.

He pulled his face away from my hands and shivered. “Don't—”

“Let me see,” I said.

His wings shook and shuddered. “I don't want—”

I laid my hand over his and pulled it away from the wound. “Let. Me. See.”

He closed his eyes in agony and allowed me to move his hand. It was worse than I thought. Blood leaked from a wound in his chest. I panicked and rolled up his shirt. He grimaced and let out a choked swear. My lips went numb when I got a good look at the extent of his injuries. A hole bigger than my fist had been punched right through the center of his chest. I forced my eyes away when nausea boiled in my gut. He gasped and gagged as if he couldn't breathe.

“My lungs—,” he sputtered.

I looked at him frantically, touching his face. “I don't know what to do. I don't know how to help you!”

He grabbed my hand and clenched it tight. “Can't breathe—just wait—”

The glow in his eyes dimmed, and my worst fear whispered in the back of my mind. Was this one of those wounds too severe to heal? “You can't die,” I told him. “I can't do this without you!”

“Just wait—,” he repeated, closing his eyes and grimacing.

The hole in his chest began to fill in, and his skin started to cover it over. His breathing became less ragged and his
hold on my hand loosened. “I said…to just wait….”

My smile widened, and relief overwhelmed me. I had completely forgotten about the sarcophagus. I smoothed Will's shirt back down and took a deep breath. “You're okay,” I sighed, elated.

“Of course I am,” he said in a weak voice. “But I didn't want you to see me like this. I didn't want you to see them—not before you remembered.”

There was no time for any questions. Another shadow loomed over us, and I craned my neck back to see Bastian perched on top of the cabin, silently watching Will and me with a blank expression. I heard a great splash behind me as I helped Will to his feet. His wings vanished, and we turned around. Ivar surfaced without the sarcophagus, her soaking-wet hair matted and stringy but one arm hanging limply at an odd angle. I looked more closely, and as Ivar dropped her head back and screeched in fury, I saw why her arm looked so strange. Her shoulder blade was exposed, her arm ripped from its socket, her body torn wide open, and her collarbone stabbing out in plain sight. She held her uninjured hand wrapped across her chest and pulled her ripped-off shoulder back to her body. The muscles and veins strung back together, weaving in and out, pushing out dead flesh and sealing up what was left until she was perfectly healed. Her throat was a deep red, as if someone had grabbed hold of it savagely in order to tear her arm off,
but that injury too was fading.

I stared in horror. My eyes found Will, whose hands were covered in blood. An icy-cold feeling rushed through my body. Had
he
done that?

“Surrender, Preliator!” Bastian called from the top of the cabin.

I looked back up, and he stepped off the edge, landing light as a feather on the deck, his wings folding into his back. “You've lost, Bastian!” I shouted. “Geir is dead and the Enshi is at the bottom of the ocean!”

Bastian ignored me and looked at Will. A cruel and subtle smile spread across his face. “So good to see you again, William. I see you're pleased to be reunited with your charge, though it appears to me things have changed between you.”

Will stared back, his gaze dark and defiant.

Ivar stepped forward, her face twisted with wrath, but Bastian's power lashed her across the chest. She staggered back, her wings shivering around her in pain and not because of her ice-cold, drenched clothes.

“Leave them,” Bastian warned.

Ivar snarled and bared her teeth. “But why?”

“If you kill her now, she will just return. We must wait. Be patient.” Bastian's cerulean eyes met mine. “Have no doubt, Preliator, this isn't the end, not yet. The Enshi will awaken and consume your soul.”

Ivar's head cocked to one side like a bird's, her soaked, pale hair pouring over her shoulders. “Have you ever watched a soul die?” she asked. “Just wait until you feel your own soul dying.”

I stared back at her boldly, but my bravado began to waver when I considered what the Enshi might be able to accomplish.

From the corner of my eye, I caught a flash of silver-gray wings. I staggered and backed into Will as another vir descended to the deck.

Cadan. His opal eyes were on fire as he looked from Bastian to me and back again. His leathery wings gave a shake and folded to his back but didn't disappear.

“A little late, aren't you?” Bastian asked calmly.

Cadan straightened and brushed off the front of his shirt. “Better late than never.”

Bastian vanished and reappeared directly in front of Cadan and grabbed hold of his chin. “The repercussions of your…act of defiance will be great,” he hissed very close to Cadan's face. “I would feel nothing if I killed you.”

Their gazes locked until Bastian shoved him away and strode up to Ivar. She stared at Cadan with a strange, hardened expression. Bastian's blinding white feathered wings spread wide, and he took off into the air and vanished. Cadan looked away from Ivar as if her gaze hurt him, his pale-gold hair whipping in the air, his fists clenched tightly. Ivar stretched her wings to take flight and follow Bastian.

“The sarcophagus,” Cadan began as he started toward me. “Where is it?”

The next instant Will's sword sliced through the air between us and halted, poised right between Cadan's eyes. Will was exhausted and breathless, but he'd never give up fighting. “One more step and I turn your face into a doughnut.”

Cadan stared wide-eyed down the blade. “Pretty sure that sword would turn my face into two pieces, if you want to get technical.”

“Only one way to find out.”

“Will!” I shouted, grabbing his free arm. “We don't have time for this. Cadan, the sarcophagus is gone. There's no way you can—”

“Good,” he said abruptly. “Bastian can't let that thing out.”

“What do you care?” I demanded. “You work for him, though it sounds like you might get fired.”

He let out a surprising laugh. “If only. Things are a little more complicated than that.”

“Save the speech,” I said coldly. “The ship is sinking, and we need to get the hell off it.”

“I love it when you get assertive,” he said with an edge to his voice.

I rolled my eyes, and Will shoved his sword a little closer to Cadan's brow. “Are you done?”

He gave a curt nod. “Quite.”

Will withdrew his sword, but he didn't step away from
me. He touched my arm. “We have to go.”

“Yeah,” I agreed.

“So, the sarcophagus,” Cadan said. “It's gone?”

“Nathaniel threw it over,” Will said, his voice laced with ice. “Now go.”

Cadan stared at him for a long moment before spreading his wings wide. “Then this journey wasn't for nothing.” He beat his wings and flew off into the black sky.

Exhaustion consumed me suddenly, and I looked around me, dazedly, at the human corpses—all that was left of the
Elsa
's crew—littering the deck. The sarcophagus was gone, I was emotionally and physically depleted, and now we were stranded on a sinking ship.

Nathaniel rushed by me. “We need to get the lifeboat down. The ship's going under!”

“Did we make it to the Deep?” Will cried out.

“Close enough!” Nathaniel yelled frantically. “There's no way the sarcophagus could've survived, but we've got to get out of here or we're going down with it!”

Will scrambled for our swords and disappeared into the cabin.

“Gabriel.”

The voice was a whisper in my mind, creeping through my veins, through every part of my insides. I felt my winged necklace grow hot and I gaped down at it, pulling it away from my bare skin.

“Will?” I asked. “Is that you?”

“Gabriel,”
the gentle voice in my head whispered again.
“Close your eyes.”

That was definitely not Will.

The world grew bright very quickly, so bright that all I could do was obey, or else—I knew from deep within—my eyes would burn up in their sockets if I didn't. I threw my hands over my face as the black night lit up as bright as day. I shivered, my eyes squeezed shut as the temperature dropped, and energy rolled across the deck—pure power unlike anything I'd ever felt before. I fell to my knees beneath its onslaught.

“Ellie!” Will's voice called from somewhere around me.

The brightness dimmed enough for me to open my eyes. Ethereal golden-white light beamed out from all around a silhouetted form, like sunlight peeking out from behind clouds. Had Bastian returned? My pulse pounded through my skull as I tried to find my balance, and I stared up in wonder at the thing above me.

A figure came into view: the ghostly shape of a man surrounded by creamy white wings covered in a fine layer of fiery gold, as if the feathers were the color of dawn on a field of newly fallen snow. His head was crowned by close-cropped golden curls, and over his billowing, blinding white robes he wore armor made of gleaming gold. The weight of his power bore down on me like the summer sun, the glory too pure and divine to be real. My lips grew numb, and I couldn't stop myself from weeping.