Days of New: The Complete Collection (Serials 1-5) (46 page)

Instead, he said, “It was a risk she was willing to take.”

Camille turned her head away, her disgust with him apparent in the way she shifted away from where he sat next to her. “You’ve signed her death warrant. She’s as good as gone. Can you live with that? Killing your precious Sophia’s sister?”

Clark cringed. “Sophia’s dead,” he whispered.

“And now so is Maya. Do you really think Lucifer would show her mercy? There’s nothing good in him, Clark!”

“She believed in him.”

“So now you do too? After everything?”

“No! Cami—”

“Don’t call me that!”

“Fine,
Camille
,” Clark said. “But it’s what Maya wanted. She wanted a chance to help him. She really thought she could. Even Michaela—”

Camille’s head jerked toward him, her eyes full of bitter spite. “Maya wants to help everyone because she’s good! She’s pure and innocent and wants to see the best in people. And you killed her because you’re selfish.”

“It wasn’t selfish to save you.”

“I’m dead too, Clark. You should have cut your losses and saved Maya. You could have been with her.”

Clark’s heart pounded with surprise. His fist clenched the edge of the sheets. “What are you saying?”

“She’s who you should be with! You two could have had a normal life together. And you sacrificed her.”

“Cami—”

“No!” Camille shouted. Her terrified, raised voice brought Zarachiel inside the cabin, his eyes flicking between Clark and Camille.

“I—”

“Never call me that again!” She screamed the words, and moving so fast that Clark couldn’t see, she reared up and struck him across the face, her nails digging deep into his cheek. Clark didn’t move away as she railed on him, hitting him over and over. “He called me that over and over again while he cut me, Clark! While I was naked and tied up, he cut me and said that name. Endlessly!”

Only when Camille winced in pain did Clark reach out and hold her wrists together, using his weight to lay her back against the pallet. But she still fought and struggled against him. She started to cry, her sobs choking her until she had to gasp for breath.

“Z,” Clark said quietly, seeing the angel hovering in the background. At his voice, Zarachiel moved closer and helped Clark restrain Camille.

“He asked about us and how you broke my heart. He whispered in my ear like he was you, and he said that name.” Camille spoke quieter now, growing still beneath them, her voice far away like she was remembering. “Sometimes I didn’t know the difference. So no more. Please.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know,” Clark stammered. He straightened off of Camille, and she remained motionless on the pallet, her gaze as distant as possible, like she might never return. Clark looked up at Zarachiel for help, but the angel looked just as lost as he felt.

Camille had caused her wings to bleed again. Her body was so riddled with holes that it seemed natural for her to seep blood, but it poured from her now. Horrified, Clark looked down at her body. Blood came from everywhere. Gold lines seeped through the thin sheet that covered her; the blood rose through the linen, appearing as if a ghoul was drawing on Camille with a gold marker. Her hand went to her belly, and she grimaced. It was such a small gesture, but Clark knew she must be in extreme pain if she’d allowed herself even that.

“I need to fix you,” Clark said, not meeting her eyes. He knew what she would say, but he couldn’t wait any longer. He couldn’t see her cry ever again. He didn’t think he’d live through something like that again. If she were better, she would be stronger. She could handle things like she used to, and things wouldn’t be so hard anymore.

“I don’t want you to,” she hissed through clenched teeth. Even her voice sounded drenched in pain.

“Camille, you’re in a lot of pain. Let Clark—”

“Shut up!” She shouted at Zarachiel, and a spray of blood rose in the air above her mouth, spattering back down on her face. She coughed, like her throat was filling with blood, and more dribbled out from the corner of her lips.

“Zarachiel,” Clark said quietly. “Help me.”

“Stop! Don’t touch me!” Camille tried to jerk free from Clark’s hand on her arm, but he didn’t let her. He held on, never looking at her face. He knew what he was about to do might make her hate him, but he couldn’t let himself think about it too much. He had to act. He wasn’t going to lose Camille too.

Zarachiel crossed to the other side of the pallet. There was little room, and he ended up kneeling more over top of Camille than beside her. He was so close that his head almost touched Clark’s. “What are we doing here?” he asked Clark.

“What I have to.”

“Clark, don’t. Please.” Camille’s begging almost broke Clark. “Don’t do it. I can’t bear anymore. Please stop.”

Clark tuned her out and looked up at Zarachiel. “I need to focus for a minute. Try to keep her still.”

“Maybe we should give her more time,” Zarachiel said. The soft brown of his eyes were quiet as a placid lake, but in their depths, Clark saw that Z was worried for him, worried about what would happen when Clark did what he was about to do.

“I’m doing what you told me to do. I’m helping her through the hard parts. I’m showing her how much I love her,” Clark said. “By healing her.”

“I didn’t mean like this,” Zarachiel whispered.

“Keep her still.”

Zarachiel nodded, his face grim. His eyes took on a faraway look as if he was distancing himself from his body. But Clark ignored him too. Camille kept crying beneath them, her body small and withering beneath Clark’s hands. He closed his eyes so he wouldn’t see her tears anymore.

“I’m sorry.”

She started screaming, but Zarachiel held on, his body jerking as she writhed. Clark felt like he was in a boat, the waves crashing his small vessel about, breaking it apart piece by piece. He realized he was crying too. The tears dripped from his cheeks and onto Camille’s bruised belly. The sheet slipped off of her body, exposing her, but he didn’t look down to rearrange it.

“Don’t do this to me. Please, just stop. Clark, no. I don’t want this,” she begged.

But Clark withdrew. He slowed his breaths, focusing on his breathing so he could tune her out. Her wretched cries grew distant, like she was disappearing down a long, dark tunnel. He felt every beat of his heart, every pulse of blood through his arteries. He’d been wrong before. He wasn’t a boat breaking apart as Camille sent waves crashing against him. He could see it now so clearly. It was his heart, his very soul, that was breaking. Pieces crumbled off as he watched. He was losing himself with every second that passed as he forced Camille to save herself. He knew it was wrong, but he couldn’t stop. Something else was steering his body now, and the magic came forth easier than it ever had.

It came so easily because this was wrong. Clark was doing something bad. And this kind of magic thrived on the wickedness.

The magic started as a growing warmth along his arms, raising the little blond hairs along his skin. It turned his fingers scalding hot, and Camille cried out in pain, like he was burning her, rather than just torturing her more, breaking her more. The heat spread up to Clark’s shoulders. His clavicles turned into scorched fire pokers that stoked the flames until the fire was billowing through him. It was so hot that Clark assumed he could open his mouth and spew smoke.

Words swirled through his mind in the Watchers’ ancient language. He understood them all, knew them like they were his own name. They flickered by, one after another, until there was a mountain of discarded magic in his mind. He was looking for the perfect thing to save Camille. The words raced by faster, their speed accelerating until Clark became just words. Words and whispers. Whispers of magic. He was a Watcher, an angel of secrets and long-lost magic. He was the Apocrypha, a book hidden since Creation. He was all of it, and yet, he was still just a lost guy trying to save the girl he loved.

It wasn’t the magic whispering. It was him. He’d found the words.

He strung them together, over and over, until the fire inside him was redirecting, pushing itself back down to his fingers. The flames were herded by his ribs, his spine. His very bones stuffed the magic through his body until it flooded back down his arms and out his fingers.

Camille’s scream broke off. The silence echoed a million times more than her pleas for him to stop had. The emptiness rang through his mind until everything inside of him was wrung out, like an overused dishrag. He sagged against the wall as Zarachiel’s hold on Camille eased. She was deeply asleep, all the magic from Clark’s body working through hers now.

For the first time, Clark looked down at her and knew what he’d done. Her eyelids twitched like she was watching something from behind her lids. Her mouth was pressed into a tight line, but her cheeks blossomed with color. Enough to make her not look so dead. Her fists clenched tight even in sleep, like she was fighting against him still. Every muscle in her body was rigid, but the blood was spooling out from underneath her belly.

The blood on the sheets seeped back inside her body, retracing its previous path back into her wounds. It was like she was bleeding out again, but in reverse this time. It was beautiful in the most horrific way.

“Clark,” Zarachiel said, his eyes on Camille. Slowly he looked up at Clark, and Clark saw the sadness in his best friend’s eyes.

He couldn’t take it. Like a drunken man, Clark shakily rose to his feet and stumbled toward the front door. He barely made it, crashing out of the house and onto the front porch, where he retched. Zarachiel came out behind him, quietly closing the door and waiting until Clark was done.

Clark straightened over the railing and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He stared for a long time into the woods before he turned to Zarachiel. The Archangel looked too disappointed, too pitying of him; Clark had to look away. “I had to do it,” he said. “I couldn’t let her die.”

“I understand, but it wasn’t right. Clark, we forced her to do something she didn’t want. I feel dirty.” Zarachiel looked down at himself like he really could see the filth on himself. He raised his hands and examined them, his sins—like grimy dirt—beneath his fingernails.

“It had to be done.”

“But—”

“I’m sorry I made you do it. I should have done it myself.”

“I still would have helped you. No matter what, I would’ve. But that doesn’t make it right.”

“She wanted to die. How ridiculous is that?” Clark snorted with laughter, but the sound shriveled up and choked him.

“It was her choice.”

“No, it wasn’t.” Clark spat out the words, spinning away from Zarachiel and pacing along the porch, the wooden planks squeaking beneath his boots. “Lucifer broke her. Probably made her say that just to hurt me. She doesn’t know what she wants. I had to help her.”

“I—”

“Maybe it makes me weak,” Clark continued. “Maybe I’m no better than Lucifer. But she wasn’t going to die because of him and what he did to her just to hurt me. I wasn’t going to lose someone else to this war.”

“Clark,” Zarachiel said quietly. “The war is over.”

“Maybe for Michaela. For Gabriel. For the Aethere. But it isn’t for us.” Clark motioned between them, his gestures uncontrolled. He was spinning out of control. “It never will be for us until we’re all dead.”

“You shouldn’t look at it like that.”

Clark threw out his arms, helpless and hopeless. “It’s how I feel. That’s why I did that to Camille, okay? I’m not some great hero.” Clark was yelling by now, but he couldn’t stop. “She was right. I’m selfish. I’m a horrible person because I can’t bear to lose someone else. I get it! That makes me a coward.” Clark bent over, putting his hands on his knees, panting like he’d just run miles uphill. His chest heaved, his heart ached. Whispering, he said, “But I’m the coward who loves her, and before Lucifer took her, I thought she loved me too. I thought we could be happy.”

He stared at the rough-hewn planks like they might offer up their condolences. Zarachiel didn’t say anything for a long time, and Clark worked on catching his breath until he could finally stand upright. His ribs complained, and his neck was riddled with tight knots that seemed to wiggle up his spine and into his brain, turning his vision fuzzy and slanting.

“You should rest,” Zarachiel said finally, not commenting on what Clark had said.

Nodding, Clark limped back inside. He avoided Camille’s pallet, where she was still fast asleep. Instead, he leaned against the far wall and slid down until he was propped up like a forgotten doll, his limbs lank at his sides. Zarachiel paused in front of him, but Clark didn’t want to talk anymore, and as he drifted into sleep, he heard the bedroom door open and close. Heard murmuring coming from behind the wall. Heard Camille’s tense breathing only feet away.

He settled into sleep, his last thoughts of Camille and how he’d lost her tonight when he’d been trying so hard to find her again.

* * *

Zarachiel crept into the bedroom, wanting to check on Grace before he started his watch. He figured she would already be fast asleep, but she wasn’t. She was sitting on the edge of the bed when he came in, wringing her hands.

“What happened out there?” she asked, her voice high-pitched. She looked up at him with extremely round, bright eyes. He sighed.