Forfeit Souls (The Ennead Book 1) (25 page)

-Joellen-

“Lilith!” I said as I burst through the doors. “Where’s Lilith?” I all but screamed at Lizzie as I turned toward the door to the room I had come to think of as belonging to Lilith.

“She’s….” I heard Lizzie’s voice trail off, but I was already in the other room.

“Lilith,” I began, but had to stop. Lilith looked at me with concern, wrinkling her brow. She looked ill, she was almost translucent. “Are you alright?”

It was as though my voice had rejuvenated her, she solidified and looked at me with mild confusion as she solidified. “Joellen?” she asked, and then she seemed to return from wherever her thoughts had been. “You are a force to be reckoned with, aren’t you?”

“I need your help,” I said quickly and quietly, before detailing what had happened in the basement.

“I am not sure that I can do anything,” Lilith said when I was done. “I do not have the ability to interfere with what she does with or to her Asakku, just as she cannot interfere with my rule over the Lilitu.”

“So you would let him die?” I asked, I was beginning to feel the black sand as it encroached on me, but I fought it back.

“He is already dead,” Lilith said quietly, “I know that you may not wish to hear it, but it is the truth.”

“You’re right. I don’t want to hear it.” I was mad, but I was trying to keep control of my temper. I could hear the nearby glasses tinkling together on the sideboard. “I thought perhaps there was some room for compassion in you. But I see now that you are merely a Demon, just like Gallu. You dangled salvation in front of his nose and then when he needs your help most you just sit here in your comfortably furnished room, ignoring the plight of someone who did not choose this life.”

As I turned to go, I could feel the fury mixed with the black sand as it threatened to engulf me. I wrenched the doors open once again, and Lizzie jumped, casting a wary glance toward me, but wisely said nothing.

“Joellen, wait,” Lilith said as she formed in front of me.

I just allowed myself to fade and reform on the other side of her. I could have disappeared then and never looked back, but if I was going to storm out, I would do it dramatically. As I passed Nate and Christi, they cast sidelong glances at each other, and worried looks crossed their faces.

“You cannot save him, Joellen.” Lilith’s airy voice followed me through the hall. “But know that Gallu will do everything she can to keep from killing him. She does not like to waste her pets when she sees that they still have potential.

I turned as I reached the door. “I may not be able to save him,” I said with my anger under much better control, “but I can sure as hell try.” For the added drama, I burst into flames as a departing insult to her.

Once in the glassy tunnel, I rushed back into the chamber. It was a blackened mess of plates that had once been gold; they now hung off of the wall and littered the floor. It looked like even more of a battlefield than when I had left it, but it was empty. There was no sign of Paul and I couldn’t help but feel that leaving him had been the wrong thing to do.

I picked up one of the heavy bronze plates and threw it away, letting out a cry of anger and sinking to my knees.

“That certainly won’t bring him back.” I heard the screeching caw that came from behind me and tensed slightly, though I knew I had nothing to fear.

Ryan stood on the massive column I had formed in the center of the room earlier, looking down at me. His feathered head was cocked to the side as he snapped his beak at me and let out a screeching laugh.

“Didn’t your precious Lilith tell you that our kind can commit suicide?” he said as he hopped down from his perch. “Paul was too much of a coward to face me, so he took his own life.” He flipped his head to the other side, “perhaps he thought it would save you.”

“I am not afraid of you Ryan.” He circled me as I spoke, but I did not follow him. I looked up to where Gallu’s throne had once been. “Your brother, Demetrius, isn’t afraid of you either.”

“Lies,” He hissed and but I heard his feather’s ruffle. “My brother is a traitor to our kind.”

“Gallu, it seems, is the one who’s lied to you,” I said in a casual tone and began to inspect my fingernails. “While she may have been correct in telling you that your brother has been with the Lilitu for the last four hundred years, she was wrong to have let you believe he was
your kind
.”

I saw his shoulders tense.

“I never lied to him, my pet.” Gallu said from behind me. “Had he asked, I would have told him.”

“You hide information from your
pets
until it is necessary to divulge it,” I said without turning around, “omission is often worse than Lying.”

Ryan was within arm’s reach now, and I grabbed his elbow, forcing three memories to him simultaneously. It was difficult to do, as he wrenched his arm away from me almost as soon as I touched him. He let out a horrendous screech and clasped both hands to his head, disappearing in a burst of flames that left several feathers floating in the air.

“That wasn’t necessary, now, was it?” Gallu said, her voice crackling like the embers of a fire. “Knowing whatever it is you’ve made him know won’t change anything.”

“Maybe. But it got him to leave.” I snapped at her.

She squinted at me. “You wanted to be alone with me?” 

I just nodded. I would let her ask the first questions, let her steer the conversation, give her control.

“Why would you want that? It’s almost a death sentence.” She said with an evil laugh.

“Because I want the truth, and I figure that since you’re just going to kill me anyway, you’d be willing to give me that,” I answered with a smile. “But I didn’t think you’d want anyone else around. This way you don’t have to worry about anyone else knowing.”

Her lip curled into a snarl as she looked down at the floor, though her eyes seemed fixed on me. “What is the one truth you would like before I kill you?”

I stood perfectly still, looking directly at her, with a posture my mother would have been proud of, and asked in an unwavering voice, “Why me?”

“Why you?” She repeated as he looked up. “I have asked myself that many times in the past six months. More so in the past hour. Honestly, you feel like a cosmic practical joke.” She shook her head and looked about her. “I mean, look what you’ve done to my throne room! I have been here for over a millennia and you burst in here and in a matter of minutes force me to move!”

“If you’d left Paul alone, this wouldn’t have happened,” I said calmly, hoping this wasn’t the only answer I would get. Her vented frustrations were not good enough for me.

“Paul,” she said his name in disgust, “was even more of a disappointment than you were. He had to be brought back. He had to pay for his defection.” She turned away from me and ran her hand over one of the walls, “neither of you were worth the trouble.”

“But why me?” I prodded.

“There is one of my kind who can see the future,” She began

“Mamitu,” I said, hoping that she would realize that I knew enough for her to use their names. I didn’t want her to beat around the bush.

“Yes, Mamitu told her brother Namtar that Adam was planning to convert you,” she said with a hiss that reminded me of water being thrown on a fire. “He said that in her vision she saw that you would bring the downfall of all of us. Not just myself and the Asakku, but all of the Ennead.

“I sent Jack out after you to circumvent that. But he botched it entirely, and you were taken by Adam anyway. But the Asakku change had started and I hoped that that would somehow change the future that Mam saw.”

“You’re asking me to believe that you killed me to save the nine of your kind and the countless followers they have collected over the last thousands of years?”

“I ask nothing of you,” she said with a bemused look. “I’m going to kill you. There’s no reason for me to lie.”

But the flicker in her eyes told me I could not trust her. “You don’t seem that philanthropic.”

“Perhaps you’ve just been listening to the wrong reports.” She said with an offended expression.

I still wasn’t buying it, but I was done. “Aright, if that’s all you’re going to tell me before you kill me…” I trailed off as I saw the shimmering white cloud behind her. “Never mind.”

“Gallu,” Lilith said in a thundering voice that echoed through the room.

Gallu’s face contorted into an evil glare and I could feel the heat of the fire in her eyes as her gaze was fixed on me. And then a false smile was plastered on her lips as she mechanically turned towards Lilith.

“Sister,” Gallu said in an all too practiced tone of happiness. “I’m glad that you’ve come to collect your pet, she’s caused quite a bit of trouble as you can see.”

“From the sound of your conversation so far, it sounds as though you were going to attempt to take matters into your own hands.”

“Don’t be silly, Lilith,” she said in a condescending tone, and immediately vanished in a puff of smoke. It was just like any bully – as soon as she was faced with a fair fight, she fled.

“I’m sorry I didn’t arrive sooner,” Lilith said to me as she stepped over a pile of rubble.

“Was that true?” I asked, feeling more suspicious than ever.

“I don’t know about what Gallu said, but I can assure you that none of our kind can commit suicide, Joellen. It is part of our curse,” Lilith said as she cast a wary glance around the room. “He couldn’t have killed himself. Gallu or one of her goons killed him.”

I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was being tricked as she led me out of the battlefield; I looked back into the desiccated room and what had once been my heart sunk.

One thing was certain, Paul was gone.

I stood staring out the window into the darkness of the early Christmas morning. The snow that blanketed the rooftops of London shimmered slightly in the predawn light that crept over the horizon. By all rights it should have been beautiful and I should have been happy, but the serenity of the early morning was lost on me.

“It’s Christmas, Jo. Please cheer up.” I heard Demetrius behind me, but I couldn’t turn to him. Christmas didn’t seem like something that was worth celebrating anymore. He had to understand that. “Please Jo; I can’t stand to see you like this. Is there anything I can do?”

“I don’t want to be here. Can we go somewhere else?” I asked. The words came out sounding flat and empty.

“Anywhere you want to go,” Demetrius said quietly, “I’ll follow you.”

I wanted to turn back time. To have just a little more time before Christmas came. I knew that time travel was impossible. But then again there were places where it wasn’t Christmas yet. I smiled as I closed my eyes and let myself fade away, feeling the cloak on the chair fade with me. When I re-solidified I held out my hand to the warm looking cloak that floated in the air down too it.

It was raining lightly and I quickly put up a bubble that covered the whole area. I’m sure there were several people who would be pleased with that small Christmas present. It was the least I could give.

“Where are we?” Demetrius asked as he looked around the grassy lawn like area that we had appeared in.

He looked warily at the observation structure in front of us. In the dark it looked like a strange sort of house. Behind us I could hear the crashing of waves, their white caps illuminated ever so slightly by the large full moon.

“Shore Acres,” I said matter-of-factly and held my hand out to the confused man standing next to me.

“What and where is Shore Acres?” He asked as he followed me without hesitation.

We passed the large fallen tree, where I remembered seeing so many children climbing in and out between the tangled mass of roots that stood perpendicular to the hard clay ground during the summers of my youth. I answered his question when my foot touched the rough cement path way that lead past the restrooms and toward my destination.

“Shore Acres is a botanical garden in Oregon, in my hometown, actually,” I said as we walked through the now dense copse of trees separated only by our path.

“And what are we doing here?” he asked, the curiosity seeping through his words.

“You’ll see.” I led him along the path a little farther before stopping at a trellised gate covered by an arbor. “We’re taking the back way in.” And with a smile I opened the gate.

There in front of us was something that I could always count on, something that helped me to see past all of the death and destruction that had been wrought in this season. The gardens that spread out before us were lit with a multitude of colorful lights. I moved to one of the benches that lined the small square portions of the path and watched all of the water runoff the flat surface of the bench before sitting down to enjoy the display in front of me.

Demetrius seemed quite enraptured by all of what was before us. He watched the animated lights that cycled through an orca jumping into the air and splashing into the lawn, and I saw him smile at the old groundskeeper’s house. It always reminded me of a life-size gingerbread house this time of year. But the thing that he watched most was the humans.

I leaned into him and rested my head on his shoulder. It seemed right that he was here with me. If there was one place that made me feel truly in the Christmas spirit, it was this place.