Iron Inheritance (41 page)

He chuckled lightly. “You can't control it forever, Eve. Sooner or later, your powers will be too much for you—the way they were for every other Blood Nephilim—and when that day comes, I'll be waiting to point you in the right direction.”

“Stop talking!” Josh yelled, this time running straight at Procel like he was going to tackle him.

Lightning flashed before a cry could escape my throat. Josh froze in mid-air and flew back in a sizzling explosion, his back snapping as it hit a boulder. He didn’t move again.

Duke ran at Procel in the next moment—no scream, not even the sound of his feet padding the ground, his golden spear gripped with both hands—but Procel turned at the last second and threw his axe out like a boomerang. It spun and sliced through his leg. Duke screamed and fell to the ground, his right leg severed at the knee.

The axe appeared back in Procel’s hand, and Duke passed out, his wound black instead of red.

I cupped my scream into my hands, first for Josh, then Duke. I shook my head and cried. Josh, Nate, Ria—everyone. This was exactly what I’d tried to avoid, what was so inevitable that I couldn’t admit it to myself. They were dead because of me, and each tear for their broken bodies carved a singular path down my dirty cheeks.

Procel laughed. “So weak.”

I shot forward and twirled the scepter around so the pointed end would stab through his heart. Mine was already gone.

He turned toward me and waited with his axe, but the moment he swung, I slid to the left and dug the point of the scepter into his thigh. A spurt of black light bled out of him like a solar flare. He screamed in pain and surprise as some of the scars disappeared from the immediate area around his leg, revealing smooth skin through the torn cloth.

Then he laughed. “Oh, that was good. Come on. Come at me again.” He turned around, hands behind his back now.

I panted for breath. “You will never—” I swung the spindly, serrated orb back like a baseball bat so it cracked his jaw. “Ever—” I pounded my foot into the ground and spun my body into a back flip. The scepter’s jagged metal top raked across his head. Splinters of darkness cracked out of his shell.

I landed on the balls of my feet, my chest heaving even though my mind was calm. The scepter pulsed in my hand, and I could see three moves ahead of what he would do. I didn’t know how it was possible, but I didn’t question it either.

He looked up from his kneeling position and smiled, part of his face, for the first time, not making me want to throw up—his skin looked almost smooth. “You feel it now, don’t you? I can show you how to harness all of it.”

I flipped around and snapped the scepter in and out like a snake several more times, then stood calmly with my feet apart and the point of the scepter barely touching the earth. My blue essence swirled in and out of the scepter and my skin.

He spat black goop on the ground, doubled over but still smiling. Each area I’d stabbed had considerably fewer scars now, which meant he was considerably weaker. That’s where Morales said they got their power.

“You were meant to find this artifact and all the others. You were meant to join me to find the answers you’ve been searching for your whole life.” He stood, one hand behind his back still.

I almost laughed. “I wasn’t searching for anything. I was going through a normal life like anyone else when you showed up and took my family from me.”

I looked to the side. Ria’s tree was still smoking. Josh’s crumpled body still hadn’t moved. Only the hell mouth’s unrelenting inhale drew air, never satisfied with who it had already taken.

Procel circled around me, inching closer, his face handsomer than I expected.

“Haven’t you ever wondered about your mother? Her past? About my big brother Uriel’s role in all this?” He grinned when my mouth gaped open. “The questions go on and on, darling, and I can help you with the answers.”

I lunged forward and punched him in the stomach with enough force to break a boulder. He keeled over without putting up his arms, and my other fist collided with the bottom of his chin, launching him into the air.

“Fight!” I yelled, rushing forward to where he landed to beat him with the scepter, breaking his limbs only to watch them heal as the scars disappeared.

The cold iron felt good in my hands.

I could kill him. I should kill him.

I raised the scepter above my head, but then Grandpa and Nate and Ria and Josh and Freddy and Miranda and Duke’s faces flashed through my mind, this time pleading with me not to do it.

My grip loosed and retightened. I could at least get him to the hell mouth. He’d be trapped down there…with Nate.

“There’s no escaping who you are, Eve.”

I stepped around to the side. We were only five large steps from the hell mouth.

Procel staggered up, his arms now completely free from scars, though the darkness inside of him was having trouble staying in—black flares peeked out whenever he moved. His skin was a fragmented vase with weakening superglue.

“You could use the other artifacts to get your Guardian back.”

I looked up and clenched my jaw. He was lying.

But what if he wasn’t?

“Come with me, help me to find the others, and I’ll tell you all you’d ever want to know.”

“You killed my grandfather, my mother, my—” I pictured Nate’s face, Ria’s. The feeling of Josh’s lips on mine.

Procel stepped forward, his yellow eyes wider and more fanatical with each passing second. “I didn’t kill your mother, love.” He sighed and darted his eyes to the hell mouth. “You can’t keep me down there forever. I’ll come back, and it’ll happen all over again.”

My neck tensed, my skin prickling.

“Any person, Patron or human, who you get close to, will be snatched away by my hand when I get back. This first offer is a courtesy. Next time I won’t be so nice.”

I silenced the voices in my head and raised the scepter one final time. “No, you won’t.”

I spun the scepter around and shoved the point toward his chest like a stake, focusing every bit of strength and thought into this one moment, unable to see anything else.

“Eve, no!” A deep voice called from my left and tackled me to the ground with a blast of red essence just before the metal pierced Procel’s shell. The scepter slipped out of my hand.

I landed on my side and cried out in pain as one of my ribs cracked. “Josh?”

“I’m here.” He kneeled down with a grimace and stroked my hair. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t let you do it.”

My mouth opened and closed without words as tears welled into my eyes. “How?” I reached up and pulled him closer. “I thought you were—”

He wrapped his hands around my back and pulled me to my feet. “I couldn’t leave you,” he whispered, his lips next to my ear.

Warmth spread down my neck and into my chest. I pressed my hands into his strong back, feeling him breathe in and out, almost not believing it. I’d heard it snap.

He let go, and I pressed my lips to his, not caring what was going on, if we would die in the next moment or not. His hand cupped the side of my face. Everything else ceased to exist and all I felt were his lips, his hands, his chest pressing against me.

Then he pulled back. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?” I said, my eyes still closed.

“You’re not a murderer, Eve.”

I parted my eyelids painfully. “He’ll never stop.” I shook my head, reality seeping back in, as much an enemy as Procel now. Grandpa was gone. Nate was God knew where and Ria…? Everyone else? They couldn’t all miraculously be fine like Josh.

I shook my head more violently because I couldn’t accept it. “If we throw him in that hell mouth, he’ll just crawl back out and keep coming after everyone.”

“I know.” He nodded and looked back at Procel standing several yards away, still injured, but waiting with a curious smile on his face. “But if you kill him, that’s it. There’s no coming back from that blood on your hands.”

“Why are you saying all this?” I closed my eyes and reached for his hand. It slipped away, and all I felt was cold metal.

A lump caught in my throat as Josh turned and walked toward Procel, the scepter in his hand.

“So you
are
alive.” Procel squinted at Josh like he was only seeing a part of him, a glimpse of an old friend who he almost didn’t recognize.

“More than you.” Josh smirked, the same smirk I’d seen so many times, but this time much more pronounced. Procel chuckled and put his hand on Josh’s shoulder.

Every ounce of feeling drained from my bones. What was this? What was he doing?

“I thought you had died, or given up,” Procel said cryptically, looking stronger by the minute with his hand on Josh for support.

“You always were a glutton for punishment. Why’d you let her hit you so much?” Josh jerked his head toward me.

Procel looked at me and smiled. “Girl only seems to show any real talents when she’s got someone to hate. Figured I would help her. What happened to your face?” Procel reached his dirty, scarred hand toward Josh’s clear skin.

“Like you.” Josh swiped the scepter across his jaw. “Let ’em beat me and leave me for dead before the scars cleared up. It was the only way to get close to her. In the end, it shielded my essence so well her Guardian couldn’t even tell.”

“
I
couldn’t even tell,” Procel laughed.

My jaw hung agape, and the air went stale.
This isn’t happening. No. This isn’t real.

“Who else knows of the quest? How many are under your command?” said Josh.

Procel dropped his head in shame. “No one, Sir. You and I, the true believers, are the only ones who remain to fulfill our master’s work.” He looked over at me. “But don’t worry. She’s almost broken, and once that happens, she won’t be stopped.”

My eyes were dry, and my mind worked harder than ever to reason through what I was seeing. I could see beyond what Procel projected in his human form. I saw his black essence, his powerful wings and black scars against a shadow of a body. Yellow eyes peered out of both forms.

And then there was Josh—red essence coursing through him like always.

“You’ve done well, Commander.” Josh held the scepter in front of Procel’s eyes so his pupils could feast on every inch.

I took a step forward, my hand stretched out. All this time? Procel orchestrating, but Josh silently guiding? All for a scepter?

No, there was more. There had to be.

Josh turned his back to me and put his hand on Procel’s shoulder. Procel continued to stare at the iron object. Then Josh, quicker than anything I’d ever seen, twirled the scepter around and plunged the point up and under Procel’s ribs.

Procel gurgled roughly and grabbed Josh’s throat, his yellow eyes bloodshot and his skin chipping away like cheap plastic. Josh lifted him off his feet with one hand and twisted the needle deeper. Thunder rumbled from the cloud as Procel opened his mouth in agony and, all at once, exploded in a shockwave of shadow that leveled me and all of the trees in the grove.

My ears rang, and I coughed dust out of my lungs. Josh knelt down and scooped me up. I knew it was him the moment his skin touched mine. I recoiled with the little strength I had left, but he stayed firm. He walked me to the end of the clearing and set me at the base of the oak tree with the hole in the center—the only thing still standing.

“I’m sorry,” he said when his skin wasn’t touching mine anymore. “There was no other way.”

I licked my lips and opened my eyes. What was probably a concussion wasn’t helping things. Had Josh just saved me? Was he actually helping me? Only pretending to know Procel in order to get close enough to kill him? But how could he pull that off? Procel knew him.

“It’s better to put this on my soul,” Josh said hollowly.

My mouth formed dry, raspy words. “Why? How?” I strained to see his face, but he backed away so my blurry vision could only see his dark silhouette. The cloud had dissipated in the blast and the rising sun was behind his head.

“Give me the scepter.” I swallowed painfully.

He knelt down and reached out his hand to caress my cheek again, the sun shifting so I could finally see his face.

“Oh my—” I choked, my eyes wide.

Dark red essence steamed out of his cracked shell, and I saw him truly for the first time. A jagged scar ripped through his left eye and cheek.

“I’m sorry,” he said, his face unreadable.

Dark essence unfurled from his back into wings, and he rose into the air, the scepter clutched in his hand.

In the evening, I walked down the aisles of the infirmary. It normally only had two rows of beds—now there were five.

Over a hundred steel gurneys had been pulled up from storage for all the injured—human and Patron alike.

I slid my hands across the painted white bars of each bed I passed, trying to memorize the name on the chart with the face on the pillow. Most of them were unconscious. Others could only look up at the ceiling, so my presence went unnoticed.

It was better that way. No one wanted to look at me. The ones sitting beside beds were too consumed with grief, and the teachers were too busy with important matters they’d begun the moment I finished telling them everything that happened. I assumed they were in the chapel now, talking about Josh and the artifact and the Blood Nephilim. It turned out that Morales’ research revealed little more than Meg’s vision had. Aside from the fact that there were five of them and that the Blood Nephilim referred to them as the “Keys to Creation,” we knew nothing. I tried to tell them what we believed about the vision was probably wrong too, but considering everything else, they weren’t inclined to believe anything I had to say.

Israel Mendi.
He was a third year with long scratches down his face and neck. The gauze was new but slowly turning red. Nurse Wright stood over him with her eyes closed in concentration as she extended her hands.

Rachel Gura
. She was asleep, but her breathing was labored. Half her right arm was raw with fresh skin that fire had painfully exposed.

Donnie and Ashley
. Each were part of Cheryl’s unit. They stared up at the ceiling in a trance. Damian sat between them as Freddy worked.