Lailah (The Styclar Saga) (39 page)

His lips trembled as he salivated.

I sighed deeply before replying. “You can take my life, but not right this very moment. I must ask you to wait,” I interjected swiftly. Now I had to bargain, though I had next to nothing to play with.

“Why would I do that?”

Without hesitation, he glided the sword from its sheath and pointed the tip under my chin, scraping my flesh.

“Because if you kill me now, I will just wake up. You must wait for Zherneboh, the Devil, to come and when he does, then you must strike me here.…”

I moved the blade down toward my heart, blood seeping from my neck as I did. I had killed a Vampire by plunging a jagged piece of metal through his heart. I hoped that it would work for me too.

He paused, the cruel steel resting at my chest, and I watched him take in the scent of my blood. “I told Eligio about you the night I first saw you again. He didn’t believe me. But something had thrown him back into Hell as he began to come through the rift. Something immensely powerful. And so he had to consult … with the Devil.”

I nodded, keeping my eyes fixed on his, which were starting to spark.

“I heard them talking; they said you were one of theirs. I thought it impossible. But your blood…”

He moved in a little closer, drawing in an overtly long breath. “I shall have my retribution and I shall take away the Devil’s creation. Payment for two centuries of servitude that I didn’t owe!”

The pain in my forehead hit me quickly; I reached for my temple, a terrible shadow filling my mind. It took all my will to replace it with an image of the land upon which I stood. My thoughts were released just in time for me to feel Ethan’s blade jabbing under my collarbone.

A gust of wind blew across the clearing. I let the wave of flakes collect on my eyelashes.

I was out of time.

“I am truly sorry, Ethan.”

The blade sliced my skin, making its way as far down as my hip before it left me. It bounced off the rock and fell into the snow. Ethan was falling. My eyes flew open as I stumbled to the lake’s edge. I saw that he had been knocked from his feet and wrestled to the snowy ground by Jonah.

They both stopped and flashed their amaranthine orbs as the drops of my fresh blood dripped into the white below me. Ethan rushed toward me, but Jonah was fast, throwing him high in the air and pouncing on him ferociously.

“No, Jonah! Don’t hurt him!”

The slash running down my skin stung and I toppled into the shallow gray water. It only cooled my body for a second before the fire relit. The damage was hardly life-threatening, but the slice sizzled through my flesh nonetheless.

“Let me in.” Gabriel’s voice floated, his soft words parted the fierce wind.

Scrunching my eyes shut and shaking the snow from my lashes, his figure appeared next to me.

“Y-you shouldn’t b-be here,” I stuttered.

“Where else would I be, but by your side?” Gabriel said, his expression stern.

Feeling the land shaking beneath me, I peered around the rock to witness Jonah and Ethan in the distance, still embroiled in a terrible battle.

“Gabriel, please, help them!” I couldn’t bear to be responsible for more loss.

I fell to my palms as I struggled to get to my feet. Gabriel shifted my weight from behind and swept me from the shallow beginnings of the lake, propping me up against the rock’s face, my shoes still dipping into the freezing water.

“Then will you let me help you?” he insisted.

“Yes.” I didn’t have time to argue.

Gabriel hesitated, but then in an instant he was gone from my side.

The wind and snow were brutal now. I scrambled around the rock just in time to see Jonah hit Ethan hard, knocking him into the snow. He was by far the stronger of the two.

“Ethan!” I screamed.

Panting for breath, I desperately tried to clamber past the rock across the deepening snow. A hundred feet away, none of them could hear my cries because of the wind ripping its way through the trees.

Gabriel came into view, taking up position next to Jonah. I watched helplessly as Jonah withdrew a flask from his jacket and soaked Ethan’s body in a clear liquid. His foot was on Ethan’s neck, pinning him to the snow. Gabriel forced Jonah back, and Jonah placed a cigarette to his lips defiantly. He reached in his pocket for his lighter.

As if in slow motion Ethan, now free from restraint, launched his body from off the ground, bolstering himself behind Jonah. I looked on as Jonah flicked open the metal clasp, and as the end of the cigarette glowed orange with his first puff, he flung the open flame behind his shoulder.

“No!” I screamed.

Ethan’s body erupted into flames.

It wasn’t a quick end. He circled insanely, falling, as his body melted.

As the flames reached deeper than his flesh and bone, he seemed to explode, becoming nothing more than swirling ash, dispersing in the blizzard.

I crumpled in a ball. Ethan was gone and I was to blame.

“Lai.” Gabriel was immediately at my side.

“Why did you come? You sought my end, and I was giving it to you. But instead Ethan’s gone and he didn’t have to be!” I cried, clutching my aching chest with my hand, blood trickling through my fingers. “I owed him.… He was the only one.… It’s all my fault!” I gasped, bent double, trying to take the deepest of breaths.

Gabriel turned my chin up to meet his eyes. “Breathe, Lailah, calm down.”

His pretense of concern for my well-being only filled me with resentment.

I responded by flinging my body toward him, smacking his chest with my fists, but it was hopeless.

Everything seemed so hopeless now.

I sank back into the snow, my hands covering my face. Gabriel sat down beside me. “The Arch Angels sent me to take your life; I don’t deny it, and I didn’t question why. Not until I met you. I thought you were mortal, Lai, and still I fell in love with you. And so I rejected them. We were going to run and I would have protected you.…”

I wrapped my arms around my knees, squeezing them in to my body. “You told Ruadhan that you killed me…?” I whimpered.

“I blamed myself. I took too long.…”

“You didn’t influence Ethan.…” I stuttered, finally looking up to meet his eyes.

“No. I came to take you away, but instead I found you lifeless. I thought they’d discovered my plan and had sent another to claim your soul. I spent a hundred years searching the in-between—a prison—thinking they had hidden your essence there. I nearly lost myself seeking you out; I started to hear your voice echoing in my mind. I returned to Styclar-Plena and they told me that you were alive, that I had to find you again and complete the task they had passed to me. I refused. I didn’t believe you were still alive. I was tormented.… I hadn’t been able to save you.…” he rushed on.

“You didn’t fall?” I asked. “Even after you rejected them, they let you keep your immorality, along with your abilities?” It seemed illogical.

“I didn’t understand why either, not until these last weeks. Then it became clear; I was the only being from our dimension who could find you. That’s why they would not grant my request, they wouldn’t allow me to fall.” Cautiously he stroked my cheek with the back of his hand. “And I am so glad that they didn’t.”

“Perhaps they thought that when you did find me, you would understand and you would change your mind.” My thoughts crept back to Azrael and his revelation that I was harboring some terrible evil inside of me. And that I had the potential to end all the worlds.

“Never.” His jaw locked, entirely certain.

Gabriel’s eyes found their way to the slice running down my body, and his eyes became wide as he pleaded silently, begging me to let him help.

I didn’t have to ask him again—I knew he was telling the truth, and I opened myself to him. As soon as I did I was filled with such love that it sped through every part of me.

“Hate to break this up, but we need to move.” Jonah didn’t stand too close. I realized my blood, still flowing from my skin, must have been causing him a lot of distress, so I nodded to Gabriel, accepting his assistance.

Gabriel kneeled over me and I arched my body backward, letting my long curls tickle the snow below. Steadying my back with his open palm, I felt the tenderness of his breath spread over my skin.

I didn’t close my eyes as the snow cascaded on top of a backdrop of glowing gold and silver, flowing through my skin and spreading through my veins.

It was incredible.

He breathed his energy across the wound, and my skin magically glued back together. The pain was gone in an instant, the burning replaced by a cool tingling sensation that rippled down my skin. Every inch of me absorbed his light and I felt my cheeks glow as the last of his efforts wrapped itself around me.

I pulled my body up to meet his face and I nestled my cheek next to his, threading my fingers through his golden locks, sewing myself back into him.

I was pulled out of the moment when, from over Gabriel’s shoulder, I saw a black mark creeping in the distance of the sleeping lake, expanding and growing larger, incongruous in the snowy setting.

Jonah saw it at the same second and shouted, “Gabriel! He’s coming!”

TWENTY-EIGHT

G
ABRIEL PARTED FROM ME
and ushered Jonah behind him, racing forward before I had a chance to stop him. Now Jonah was at my side, helping me back to my feet. As Gabriel sped across the snow, drawing an invisible battle line, a harrowing figure, cloaked totally in darkness, flew through the expanding gateway.

It had to be Zherneboh.

The cracking of Jonah’s fangs as they broke through his gums caused my body to shudder. With eyes blazing the brightest I had ever seen them, Jonah snatched my wrist, yanking me through the deep snow.

“What are you doing? I won’t leave him!” I chucked my body away from Jonah, escaping his grasp. His eyes shot to me, his body rigid and firm. I had never seen him so terrified.

“He will end us. There’s no fight here, only a massacre!”

This time he wrapped his firm arms around my waist and hoisted me into the air.

I turned to see that Gabriel had produced a sheet of light, keeping the Pureblood from crossing over to where we were. Jonah started to run. I couldn’t see Zherneboh; the silvers and golds twirling and sparkling behind were too bright, his darkness remained pinned to the other side. Gabriel couldn’t hold him there forever, and my mind raced as to what would happen to him when he finally let the sheet fall.

I struggled, kicking and flapping my arms. Jonah was picking up speed when a fierce hissing split its way through the quiet, piercing my eardrums.

It was like a siren calling to me.

The sensation of Gabriel’s gift receded, giving way to a rising heat in my chest. I felt my eyes begin to burn and I pawed them, feeling the thin skin around my sockets cracking. My nails started to ooze blood. Jonah stopped suddenly. As he did, I broke free, landing with a thud in the snow.

The shrill noise had dissolved the sheet of light and I turned in time to see Gabriel stumble to the ground.

Jonah shouted at me, “You can’t help him. Go! Now!” He paused for a split second, regarding me the same way he had when the Hedgerley house was under siege—as though it was the last time he might ever get to do so—and with one last look he sprinted in Gabriel’s direction.

I hauled myself up from the snow. The clouds’ spilled shapes seemed to part briefly, which allowed me to see Zherneboh clearly in the distance. He was immense and towering, and my eye was drawn away from the swollen scar on his forehead, down to his clenched fist, where long bladed talons sliced their way through his knuckles, prominently pointing in Gabriel’s direction as he strode toward him. He was the Pureblood that invaded my visions, and he was going to kill Gabriel, before he claimed what was his: me.

Grappling to my feet, I let out a violent scream and ran—no, flew—over the snow toward him. As I neared, I felt my blood boil as he held Gabriel suspended in the air several feet away from him.

Zherneboh flashed his black orbs toward me, returning my glare. I couldn’t move. Gabriel fell to the snow. It was me who was now suspended in midair. I took in his horrific features; his tattooed markings grew up his neck as if displaying themselves for my benefit. His mouth was vile; every one of his teeth pointed and jagged. His lizardlike tongue, split at the end, ran in and out of the cracks.

Lailah, run!

Gabriel’s words found my thoughts, but they flickered, dipping in and out, like he was a radio station that was out of my range.

Zherneboh let a roar bellow from his throat; it bounced off the sides of the mountains and I was sure that the forest stood still for him, shuddering.

Suddenly Jonah flung himself onto the creature’s back, but Zherneboh no longer seemed to care for distractions, keeping his stare glued to me.

I was helpless to stop Zherneboh’s razor claws penetrating and ripping through Jonah’s cheek and down his neck. He flung him aside as if he weighed no more than a matchstick, sending him hurtling into a distant cluster of rocks, all the while keeping his eyes locked with mine.

My attention flashed to Gabriel, who lay prone in the snow, manufacturing a ball of light in his palm, concentrating intently. Flashes of lightning struck within the mini typhoon, but as Gabriel sat up to expel the light, Zherneboh opened his mouth and released a thick wave of black smoke. It raged toward Gabriel, dispersing his ball of light and knocking him over. Then it wrapped around his throat, the smoke seeping in between his perfect lips, slowly choking him as it invaded his insides.

The anger inside me bubbled and spilled into the center of my consciousness, and I smashed through the snow.

As I caught my breath, I stared up at the sky; a few inches ahead, she hovered. I covered my ears, but the sound of her fangs breaking into place made my skin crawl.

It was the girl in shadow. She had come.

I tried to reach for her hand, but withdrew as I watched blades shooting from her knuckles and blackened blood smearing her white skin as they burst through. I witnessed something crawling under her skin, running from her wrists up to her elbow. I stayed still, mesmerized by the lines that inked her skin, staining her. The shapes formed, creating the outline of hundreds of quills overlapping one another. I tried to stand and fought to grasp her long, flowing black curls that drifted down just above her hip.