Blood Redemption (Angel's Edge #3) (16 page)

“I think we just have to be holding hands,” he said, his breathing slowing. Sweat ran in streaks down the side of his face. “Maybe next time we’ll try it standing side by side.” His smile was slow and full of triumph. “Besides, I don’t even have my sword. Your Ethan has it.”

Ethan, I thought abstractly, finding myself looking at Jack’s lips. His bare chest glowed with blue symbols, and his fingers still rested against my waist. I felt so wonderful, so full of life, that I instinctively reached out to Jack with my own still-tingling hands.

But then I didn’t know where to put them, and the moment turned awkward. “Ethan,” I said out loud. “Yes, Ethan has it.” I pulled back from him slightly, and I thought I saw his eyes narrow in disappointment, or anger, or both.

He let his hands drop.

“My daggers are lost. Somewhere in the Dark Realms. I guess Belial has them by now. Too bad because if you could find them, you could use them. Maybe to get free, or something.” I let the thought go. I didn’t want to think about him trapped there, subject to cruelty and abuse. Belial wanted to use him to hurt others, no matter how Jack felt about things. He was still locked in a fate I had managed to escape. Suddenly I felt terrible. “Oh, Jack,” I said, fighting the urge to reach out to him. “You’ll escape somehow. We’ll find a way. We have to. Our gifts have to work together, and that can’t happen if we’re on opposite sides of the war.”

“I know.” His hangdog expression made him look so forlorn that I couldn’t help myself.

I grabbed his arm and gave it an encouraging squeeze.

He gave me a brave smile in return. “But that’s a subject for another day. Right now, we have this.” He slipped his other palm across the top of mine. “Caspia, I…”

Across the rushing Navau River, a figure slipped out from behind a tree. The Navau wasn’t as wide as the Saint Clare, but I still had a hard time seeing the person clearly.

“Jack,” I said slowly, not sure I wanted the answer. “Who else might be here in the Dreamtime?”

Jack spun, alarm clear on his face. As he stared across the river, I watched his features harden into steel. One hand gripped mine while the other dropped to his side, reaching for a sword that was no longer there.

“Hunters,” he said with a low growl. “Caspia, run!” His iron grip towed me after him as he pulled me up the pathway, heading straight for the scarred, old oak. Fast footsteps echoed behind us, but I didn’t dare look. Instead, I concentrated on running faster.

ack squeezed my hand in his and pulled until I thought my bones might snap. I slipped and skidded on the pine needle-strewn path as I hurried to keep up. Behind us, heavy footsteps got closer and closer. Old-fashioned, metal armor clinked and creaked.

Jack pulled me off the main path, sending me right into an overgrown bush that showered me with droplets from a recent rain. I didn’t have time to protest as my feet scrabbled for purchase in the mud. There was no need for him to encourage me to run faster; I was terrified of the creatures that pursued us.

“Have to… get away,” Jack said, panting. “Have to get
you
away,” he clarified.

“We’ll find a way together,” I insisted. “I’m staying with you. Besides, it takes time to make a portal.” I grimaced. “Time we haven’t got.”

There was no response. He just pulled me even faster. Branches snagged and caught in my hair, bringing tears to my eyes, but there was no time to brush them away. I skidded though mud again until my feet hit a new surface: the damp mulch and pine needles of a new path.

Instead of providing an escape route, the way was blocked with my current worst nightmare. Hunters. They stood fanned out in a semi-circle, their expressions grim and their eyes a burning gold. Jack screeched to a halt and I went crashing into his bare, ink-whorled back.

He threw his hands wide as if to protect me. “What do you want with us?” he demanded. “We aren’t a threat to you.”

The largest of the Hunters put a hand on his sword. I wondered if he was the same one that had tracked us to Blackwood Lodge. With golden helmets obscuring much of their faces, it was difficult to tell them apart. “Abominations,” the Hunter said, his voice low and deep. That single word ricocheted through my brain, raising my breathing and my heartbeat even as it angered me.

“We’re not,” I said, wishing I sounded stronger, more sure of myself. “We’re just as human as anyone else. We’re not a threat.”

In front of me, the muscles of Jack’s neck and shoulders tensed. He hadn’t lowered his arms. He took a step backward, pressing himself fully against me until I could feel the tightly coiled muscles of his entire body. My breath came in fast pants of fear, crushing my chest against the taut muscles of his back. Some dim part of my mind told me to step back, that this was too much, too intimate. I didn’t want to pull away though; on a deep, primal level, I was grateful for the safety he offered. Given the events of just a few moments earlier, I knew that together we posed a threat to the immortal beings. My palms tingled with cold dark energy, and I knew it was only a matter of seconds before I lost control. I slid my palms up Jack’s bare biceps, pressing my cold hands against his skin.

He knew what was happening in an instant. He said nothing out loud, but his arms began a slow, steady descent downward into a posture that would more easily allow us to link together. As I slid my now-electric palms slowly down his smooth skin, our fingers entwined. He gave me an encouraging squeeze, which I gratefully returned. On my own, I would have been terrified. Together, I knew we had something resembling a defense plan. Whether it would work remained to be seen.

“Abominations,” the angel repeated, and drew his sword with a clean, clear ring. “You are the children that should never have been born. We must cleanse the Earth of your presence as we did once before.” His surrounding companions drew their swords as well, and the clearing echoed with the sounds of metal pulled free. The air at their backs shimmered, then burst into flames.

Wings. Unlike the gentle, warm golden glow of Ethan’s wings that had sheltered me so long ago, these creatures burned with the searing force of the sun. Theirs was a hungry, angry light that promised destruction and painful death. It made my heart hurt to think that Ethan had once been like them, down to the same fiery wings, but I knew by the time he met me he had left that way of life behind.

“Now!” Jack yelled, yanking our joined hands forward so that my arms wrapped themselves around his chest. His sides heaved from either fear or exertion, and I knew he could feel my own violent trembling. I didn’t ask what he meant. I didn’t need to. Instead I closed my eyes and buried my face against the back of his neck, searching deep inside for the place where my deepest Darkness lived.

What had been a trickle of Shadows across my palms became a torrent. My first instinct was to fight it as I had always done before. Instead I clung to him, and let myself become a conduit for dark energy like a rickety bridge trying not to collapse against the onslaught of rising flood waters. Jack pulled and I channeled. When the cold I was used to turned to searing heat, I knew we had done it. I looked up in time to see the ground explode at the large Hunter’s feet.

The angel’s burning golden eyes flared wide with surprise as he took a hasty step backward. His hands tightened on the hilt, swinging the sword upwards into an attack stance. “You dare,” he sneered, balancing right on the edge of the huge hole Jack and I had created together. The other angels tightened their ranks, drawing closer to the one who was clearly in charge. “You are nothing but demonspawn, and we will destroy you.”

I thought of my Gran, the gentlest woman I had ever known, and of the first Caspia, who had crossed the sea to find a better life for herself and the baby she carried. I was descended from a line of strong, brave women, not demons. These Hunters were little better than bullies.

Dangerous, deadly bullies with swords and wings of fire.

The ground underneath me trembled. Gently at first, so that the trees merely swayed and shook their leaves. The next tremor was more forceful, rocking the earth so that even the Hunters felt it, squaring their bodies for balance. I clung to Jack, grateful for his solid presence. “What’s happening?” I rasped as another quake shocked the Dreamtime.

“Someone wants you to wake up,” Jack said, and he didn’t sound happy about it. “Someone wants it very much.”

I cast a furtive glance over Jack’s shoulder. The group of Hunters still held their swords tightly in their grips, staring at us like we were vermin they couldn’t wait to eradicate. Wake up, I thought. That didn’t sound like a bad plan to me.

“Can’t you just wake up, too?” I asked as the ground shook so much I stumbled. “Isn’t that the best way to get out of this?” I thought about Jack’s control of the Dreamtime, and a terrible suspicion bloomed. “In fact,” I demanded, feeling anger bubbling up. “Why haven’t you just taken us somewhere else already?”

“Because they would follow us wherever we went. They roam freely though the Dreamtime now, and I don’t want to risk bringing them close to defenseless people who are sleeping.” He jerked our linked hands in front of him again―a warning gesture to the Hunters. “And I haven’t woken up because that would mean leaving you.”

The big Hunter leapt effortlessly over the hole in the ground, landing within striking distance. “Now, Jack,” I urged into his ear. He didn’t have to ask what I meant.

As the trees swayed wildly with whatever force battered the Dreamtime, Jack aimed our linked hands directly at the huge Hunter. A thick stream of blue flames hit him squarely in the chest. The force of our attack sent him stumbling backward until his feet met the empty gaping hole and tumbled him into nothingness. The other Hunters closed in, stepping around the small crater as if it hadn’t just swallowed their leader. As they moved in with raised swords, Jack pulled hard on the Shadows within me. He hit them with a swath of our combined gifts, starting counter-clockwise and moving across. I watched in fascinated horror as the beam of light tore smoking holes in their battle armor, exposing smooth marble skin.

The only other things that could penetrate angel’s armor were my lost knives and Jack’s sword. I couldn’t believe the power we’d just unleashed.