Endless (43 page)

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

‘What! Could you not then understand? This is the hell with which you were threatened.’

The Holy Quran 36:62–63

C
onflicting
smells hit me first. Something damp, pungent – like disinfectant. Then, salty sweat and heat. But above all, the tangy smell of fresh blood mingled with the rotten odour of dried.

The pain came next. From my forehead to the back of my neck, my shoulders, arms and down from there. Everywhere. It felt like my body was on fire.

I laboured to breathe. My throat was raw, every inhalation felt like knives to an open wound. On some level it registered that it was because of all the screaming, but the thought was too difficult to hold on to.

‘She’s coming round,’ a voice said.

Footsteps sounded, moving nearer. ‘Hey, Dapper just called. They’re almost back.’ Different voice.

Who? Was that … Spence?

‘Good. Go back outside and stand guard.’

A pause. Then footsteps fading away.

‘Get her some water,’ said the same voice.

‘I’m
not leaving her,’ a female, replied.

‘She can barely breathe, get her some water,’ the first voice growled in response.

‘I don’t trust you with her.’

‘I brought her here, didn’t I?’

Another pause. Scuffled footsteps followed.

Someone yelled out from further away. More sounds then a loud bang followed by a click.

My mind wasn’t working properly. I tried to open my eyes. Panic started to slowly rise as I questioned where I was and what had happened. Was I somewhere I’d been before? I started to see glimpses of light. Something flashing through the air towards me.

Arrow.

A hand smoothed my forehead with a damp cloth. It didn’t help the pain. There was a loud banging nearby.

‘Violet?’ the voice said. ‘You need to try and wake up.’

I couldn’t understand why. Nothing made sense. I saw more flashes.

Memories started coming back to me. My body jolted. Strong hands held me down. I remembered Lilith. I remembered the children – Simon, Katie, Tom. I remembered the arrows.

So. Many. Arrows.

I tried to speak but no words came out.

‘Don’t try to talk,’ said the voice. ‘You need to concentrate on waking up. When you wake up properly you can heal yourself.’

But why?

I was supposed to be dead. I’d felt myself slip away.

A
flicker of irony ran through me. I thought when I died all the pain would go away.

Just my freaking luck it hasn’t worked that way.

But who would talk to me if I was dead? And why did he sound so familiar?

God?

If so, then surely I wouldn’t get a house call; I’d never even believed in him.

‘Violet, I don’t want to have to slap you. Open your damn eyes!’

Definitely not God.

My eyes fluttered. The lighting was dim and my face felt badly swollen. Slowly, the person standing over me came into view.

There was more banging, louder this time. I couldn’t work out if it was coming from my mind.

‘Phoenix?’ I croaked.

‘Concentrate,’ he said. ‘This is very important. Can you understand me?’

I tried to nod. I was alive.

‘Good. Good,’ he soothed, as if encouraging us both. ‘Violet, you need to heal yourself. Dapper’s power isn’t going to cut it and I can’t help you until you’re strong. Jesus,’ he sighed. ‘We have to do this now or I never will. Do you hear?’

‘Chil-dren?’ I whispered, concentrating on simply breathing through the extraordinary pain. Coming to terms with dying was one thing, coming to terms with surviving in the face of so much awfulness, knowing if I recovered I’d have to relive over and over all that had happened was … earth-shattering.

Phoenix’s expression
softened.

‘You saved seventy-one.’ His voice held a strange kind of bewilderment. ‘Dapper and Onyx are making sure they get back to the Academy safely. I … I don’t know how you did it, but you stayed conscious through it all. I monitored your heartbeat the entire time, waiting for you to pass out, but you just kept going. When you finally closed your eyes, Lilith was sure you were dead, but I healed your wounds and Lincoln sent you the last of his strength. It was enough to keep you alive. She forced me to shoot you with another few arrows, but you didn’t stop breathing and she refused to let you have an unconscious death. She saw it as a waste. So she sent you away until you could be returned to her so she could kill you herself. I got you out of there, but this is only temporary and we don’t have much time. Violet, you need to help me.’

I was confused, trying to process all I had just heard. And the banging was getting more insistent. ‘Banging?’ I asked.

Phoenix shook his head urgently. ‘Don’t worry about that. We need to do this now!’

‘Do … what?’

I still couldn’t believe I was alive.

How did I survive seventy-one arrows?

Just the thought brought the pain back – pain I never believed I would have to remember.

‘Concentrate,’ Phoenix demanded. ‘You need to heal your wounds. I need you as strong as possible otherwise I can’t help.’

‘I don’t … understand,’ I said, struggling to speak.

He put a hand on my shoulder. ‘I’ll explain everything later. You have to trust me.’

The banging persisted
and I realised now that there were other sounds too. There were people shouting from far away – people who I knew.

I remembered Lincoln’s request. I felt him through our bond despite my weakness, and his. He was still alive. I felt the small flare through our connection – he knew I was thinking of him. He was willing me on. I remembered the promise I’d made to him that I would trust Phoenix.

I nodded and closed my eyes, concentrating on my abilities, calling them up. They were sluggish and tired, but my power slowly built and started to work its way through my body, healing the worst of the injuries. I could feel Lincoln adding his own power and I tried to block him so that he kept what I knew he would need, but it took a while before I was strong enough to effectively push him away.

Finally, I opened my eyes again. ‘It’s okay,’ I said. ‘I’m starting to feel better.’

Phoenix nodded, his expression now closed off.

‘What next?’ I asked, looking around. We were back at Evelyn’s cabin, in the basement. ‘Where’s Lincoln?’

‘He’s still there.’

‘And Evelyn?’

Phoenix just nodded.

I sighed. ‘What about the kids?’

‘She let Onyx take the seventy-one, but she still has almost thirty locked up and she’s already planning to go after more.’

‘Who else is here?’ I asked, things becoming clearer. The banging I’d heard was coming from the other side of the basement door.

He
shrugged. ‘The whole damn gang by now. We don’t have long before they figure a way through.’

Why is he keeping them out?

‘So we’re going back, right? We have to get the rest of those kids out of there,’ I said.

Phoenix shook his head slowly. ‘There’s something else we have to do first.’

‘What?’

What could possibly be more important?

‘It’s better if you don’t ask.’

On his last word, Phoenix was on top of me, straddling and holding me down. I was helpless to stop him, my strength no match for his. My eyes went wide when his hand closed over my mouth and nose.

I kicked out and bucked beneath him, but it was useless. He was too strong. Every movement of mine was easily counteracted and I couldn’t breathe as Phoenix suffocated me.

The solid door blocked my way to help. They would not break through in time.

I felt Phoenix shaking on top of me and his haunting eyes penetrated mine, a million words within them, yet I couldn’t pluck out one.

Was this the way I was always meant to go?

The way that had been intended for me?

I had thought for so long it would be Phoenix who would kill me. Had he only lured me back for this final, most awful, betrayal? He must have planned this. He’d wanted me dead for so long.

This is his revenge.

I stopped struggling.

This is my time. I’ve done what I could and now I will end.

I stared
at him. He was crying. I didn’t understand.

The colour in my vision and the life in me began to fade away. As the last pixel of light disappeared, I was suddenly standing before my angel maker.

This time, I knew beyond all doubt – I was dead.

There was no desert. No art studio.

I was in a field. Long, air-light grass, sun shining, its heat going all the way to my bones. The pain was gone. And this was not my world.

If felt strangely like a dream, though it was not. This was something else – for starters, it almost always rained in my dreams. But just as the thought crossed my mind, the sky crackled loudly and rain began to pour.

My angel maker stood before me. He was perfectly dry, not one drop of rain touching him. His face was clearer than ever before. More human and yet less.

‘I’m dead,’ I said, the words sounding all around me.

‘Right now? Yes,’ he replied.

I spotted the odd floating things I’d seen so many times before in my visits with Uri and Nox. They hovered in the background, shimmering and jutting in an unpredictable fashion. With so much water falling, they reminded me of large jellyfish. I took a step towards them, more drawn to them than ever.

‘Child, no. Not yet,’ my angel maker said gently. But it was a command. I froze.

‘Is this heaven?’

‘Is this what heaven would be for you? A field of rain?’

‘No.’

‘Then, that is your answer.’

‘Is this the angel realm?’

‘We have no need for land and physical substance. We are beyond that.’

‘Then where?’ Even in death, he was still annoyingly cryptic.

‘Where you must be. You are within the link, the place where we can be close to you. It is neither ours, nor yours. It is a place we make together.’

Suddenly I knew. This is what it was all about. This place. This was somehow what I was.

‘Others don’t come here, do they?’ I asked.

‘No. When we must, we can simulate a place for them. A place for their trials – a dream, a vision – but no other has the ability to create space in the universe with us. You are the only one.’

I closed my eyes and intuitively knew what to do. I willed myself to see the truth – to see this place as it really was. I opened my eyes again.

The first thing I saw was the limits, as if we were on an island surrounded by … not nothingness and yet, not something either. Space unknown. Then I noticed the sun. It was much closer than it should be, and the rain I’d started stopped instantly, clearing my view to the sky.

I gasped, backing up a few steps.

The now-dusky sky was filled with rainbows. Dozens. Hundreds. Rainbows were encircling the universe, connecting everything.

‘What … What does this mean?’

‘New possibilities.’

‘For what?’

‘Many things.’

‘But I … I’m dead.’

‘For now.’

‘But Nox and Uri said this was the angel realm when they visited me, that the two realms were touching.’

My angel maker shrugged. ‘In a way, it is true. They told you what you were ready to hear. How is Evelyn?’

His change of subject surprised me. ‘She’s … Lilith has her.’

He nodded. ‘It is the way it must be. Those of us who chose our paths earliest are the strongest and Lilith was the first to exile – her power grows. Evelyn is no longer a worthy opponent. She did what she could, remarkable it was, but now it is time for this battle to finish. It is time for you to take your place.’

‘How?’

‘You have all the tools you need.’ He glanced at my wrists and my markings began to swirl. I held them up, remembering what Onyx had said.

‘The thirteenth ingredient,’ I murmured.

He actually laughed, surprising me again. ‘The
only
ingredient.’

I blinked. ‘But … Onyx said … Why … Why the other ingredients, then?’

‘Humans like to complicate things. It is time to go.’

‘Do you care?’ I asked quickly, not knowing what was going to happen, where I was going to go.

‘For many things,’ he replied.

Desperate for something to make me whole again I pushed. ‘For me? Do you care what happens to me?’

He considered me for a moment. ‘Enough to allow what I know must now happen,’ he said, fire erupting behind his eyes.

When I just stared at him, he looked beyond me. ‘Go. Win the war and ask what you will afterwards.’

He pushed a finger over my heart and I felt something heavy thump into me, throwing me clear of the universal island and into the abyss.

I floated.

Another slam.

Air rushed into my lungs.
So much, I thought they would explode.

They didn’t.

I was forced to breathe.