The Mephisto Mark: The Redemption of Phoenix (37 page)

I didn’t think Lucifer could hear her any more than God, but I didn’t say so.
“He may take you to Hell, Viorica.”

“Wouldn’t that be better than this?”

“I don’t know. I have no concept of Hell or what it might be like.”

“I know from what Key told me that it’s not like Hell on Earth, and it’s not like
it is with Eryx. Lucifer is balance, and he’s not about inflicting evil. He would help me, I know he would. Please, Mariah, take me to Hell on Earth. That’ll get his attention. He’ll come there and talk to me.”

“
Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t take you. I can’t leave Erinýes unless I walk out.”

“You never know until you try. Maybe Hell on Earth is different.”

“Viorica, you’ve got to understand, there’s nothing I can do to help you. It’s not as if I talk to Lucifer. Why do you think he’ll hear you there any more than he will here?”

The door opened and Eryx stood there, scowling at Viorica. “You said you’d be right back. What goes on here?” He came in and closed the door, advancing toward us with a thunderous look of rage on his handsome face. “You’
re not trying to leave, are you?”

I wasn’
t sure if he was talking to me, or my sister, but all my protective instincts came screaming forward and I stepped in front of her. “What is wrong with you? Can’t you see she’s afraid?”

“Of course I see. I’m not blind. Now step aside.”

“No.”

He grasped my arms and shoved me, than grabbed Viorica and kissed her. She fought to get away, but he held her fast and pulled the neckline of her dress below her breasts,
squeezing them so hard, she cried out against his mouth.

Furious,
I launched myself at him and pushed with all my strength, gratified when he stumbled backward, clearly shocked. I didn’t wait around to see what he’d do. Taking my sister’s arm, hoping it worked, I closed my eyes and imagined I was on that narrow ledge within Hell on Earth. I knew the instant heat consumed me that we were there.

I opened my eyes and saw Viorica smiling a
t me as she tugged her dress up to cover her breasts. “You did it! You really did it! I didn’t think you would. I said you weren’t this gullible, but he knew. He’s so smart, knows exactly how to get people to do what he wants. You really fell for it and brought me here.” Her face was perspiring.

So they had tricked me. They’d used my love for her and my horror of rape to make me do what they wanted. “Why?”

“To get rid of you, of course.”

“If he wanted to be rid of me, why did he bring me back to immortality? Why didn’t he just let
me stay dead?”

“For me. He wanted you to be there for me. He didn’t realize that I couldn’t care
less, but once he understood, he knew he’d need to dispose of you, so you can’t be any help to the Mephisto. Eryx can visit here, but he can’t bring anyone with him, and he can’t take anyone out. He was delighted when you said you were brought here while you were dead. Even as a newly made immortal Mephisto, you can transport to places you’ve been. But Hell on Earth is like Erinýes, on permanent lockdown. You can come here, but you can’t leave.”

“And you can?”

“It’s part of what Eryx gave me when he kissed me. I’ll be with him always, and grow in strength as he does, and someday, we’ll own the world.”

“Why would you want to?”

“Because it’s power. Everything in the universe belongs to those with power. I realize now, all pleasure comes from power. Your whole life, you’ve been a powerless nonentity, so I don’t expect you to understand.”

I co
uldn’t breathe because of the heat and the lack of oxygen, and yet I didn’t die. Agony and no death. Hell on Earth. The shuffling crowd had stopped moving and were shouting and screaming at us. “I love you, Viorica.”

Her expression went from ecstatic to disgusted in a nanosecond. “My name is
Jordan
. I haven’t been Viorica since I was a baby, but you just can’t let go, can you? You should have gotten a life. Instead, all you’ve ever done is sit and wait for life to happen to you. You love people and hope they’ll love you back, but nobody loves an invisible girl. You hated Emilian, but it turns out, he’s the only one who ever cared anything at all about you. At least he noticed you exist.” She stepped back. “Goodbye, Mariah. Enjoy eternity here.”

“You’re a clever one,” I said with a smile. “I always knew you were the smartest of us, the brightest and prettiest. I wish you well, Viorica, and hope you find your way back to God, someday.”

That made her angry. Turning to look down at the sea of raging faces, she shouted, “Silence!” When they quieted, she said, “Meet Mariah, the newest Mephisto!”

The rage became hysteria, all of them surging forward to shake their fists and scream at me, call me filthy names and hurl threats.

I leaned close and kissed Viorica’s sweaty cheek just before she disappeared and I was alone. Again. I tried to transport and wasn’t at all surprised that I couldn’t.

I didn’t hate her for this. She was like him now, without a conscience, without compassion.

I began to pray, even though I felt certain God couldn’t hear me. This was Lucifer’s domain, a place to keep Eryx’s followers from recruiting others. God didn’t live here in any way.

I began to pray to Lucifer. I prayed to Mephistopheles. I prayed to Mary Michael.

Time passed and nothing happened.

The Skia were insa
ne with fury, trying to climb the stone wall to the ledge where I stood. They’d find a way, eventually, and take me down and tear me to bits. They’d rape and torture me and I’d owe it all to my baby sister, who loved me until Eryx poisoned her soul.

I
’d taken off my jacket, had lost my scarf, and now I pulled off my sweater, then my jeans, until all I wore was a bra and panties. I sat on my jacket and labored to breathe while I watched my skin turn red and blister. I wondered what Phoenix was doing, if he’d discovered I was missing yet? Would he be able to mentally search for me and find me here?

I closed my
eyes and thought of him, trying to do my own mental search, but I came up with nothing and didn’t know if it was because I didn’t know how, or if a mental search wouldn’t work in Hell on Earth.

What difference did it make anyway? He couldn’t come here to get me for the same reason I couldn’t leave.
I was stuck here and no amount of wishing and praying and hoping would make a damn bit of difference.

I had no concept of time, but eventually I grew hungry. I pulled one of the energy bars from my jacket pocket and turned to face the wall while I ate it. There were three more, hardly enough to last forever. I was destined to be hungry, skeletal and desperate. Would I look forward to a lost soul landing in this cave because it would mean food?

Unable to help it, I threw up the energy bar all over my sweater.

That’s when I noticed the Skia were louder, closer, more enraged. They knew I had food. I saw a hand on the ledge just before one of them, a man, slid up beside me, then another, and another. They were climbing on top of one another to reach me. I tried to kick them away, but the weight on the ledge was too much and it gave way, sending me hurtling into the middle of the mob.

Chapter 19

~~ Phoenix ~~

For maximum energy, in a long-standing pre
-takedown ritual, we ate as much as possible, and today, as fast as possible, then convened around the onyx
M
in the front hall. Each of us held a box of plastic explosives, and Jax held the detonators. He grimly looked around the circle. “Is everyone completely clear on what you’re to do?”

We
all nodded, except Zee, who said, “I still think it’s dicey to blow up Erinýes. There’s no reason to do it other than revenge, and it’s going to take time, which means more opportunities to be discovered by Eryx’s Skia. If he realizes we’re there before we’re ready for him to know, he’ll take Jordan somewhere else and we’ll have to start all over.” He looked at Key. “Time is all important, and what you plan to do won’t make any difference if she’s already crossed the line. No way she’s getting into Heaven if she’s helped him take a soul.”

“She’s been with him ten hours, at the most,” Sasha said, “and they haven’t left Erinýes, I know, because I’ve been holding on to my mental search ever since I found out what happened. It’s not like he’s going to go hunt down a convert when he just got her there.”

Zee said, “There’s also the possibility he’ll try to mark her, which may or may not be possible, but once she’s taken that step, getting her back to God might be a lost cause.”

Hands gripping
his box, Key looked close to losing it again. “This will work, Zee, and it’s not just about revenge. You saw the text he sent me. He’s so pleased with himself for having the ability to trick an Anabo, comparing it to Lucifer’s temptation of Eve, he’s certain he’s close to being powerful enough to confront Lucifer. He has to know that he’s not. We have to show him he’s nowhere close, because if he openly declares war, it’ll be chaos and anarchy of Biblical magnitude. Humanity will suffer because he’s still tied to the world, and the only way he can draw Lucifer out is by trying to destroy it.”

“And you think blowing up his castle is the way to show him he’s not ready to take on Lucifer?”

“It’s that we
can
, Zee. You went there and saw for yourself that he’s allowing everyone in the castle to slack off. He’s so cocky right now, he thinks we can’t touch him. He thinks we’re
afraid
of him. We have to make it real clear that he’s not as powerful as he believes, and he won’t win if he calls Lucifer out. Stealing Jordan and blowing up Erinýes will do that.”

Zee shifted the box he held and said, “I wish to God what she tried to do had worked.”

“We all do,” Ty said, his voice hard. “But it didn’t, and we owe it to her to get her out of there, to save her from what she’s become.”

Jax began a count.

On three, we transported to Romania, to Erinýes. I materialized in the main bedroom corridor, the one with modern bathrooms, the one with Eryx’s at the end. I went in the first room and quickly set the plastic, affixed the charge, then moved across the hall to the next bedroom and set another one. Most of the Skia were in the great hall, dancing to hip-hop tunes and getting crazy drunk, but one occasionally came my way and I remained inside a bedroom as they passed. I stealthily worked my way down the hall, avoiding rooms with Skia, and set the last charge in the room closest to Eryx’s, this one with the most plastic to ensure his room was destroyed.

Back in the hall, I saw a couple leaving a bedroom I’d skipped, so I went back to set a charge in there. When I opened the door, I caught the faint scent of heather. I worked the plastic, thinking of Mariah, of how difficult it would
be for her to get past losing Jordan. She hadn’t come downstairs to the war room, I assumed because it was too much for her. How could she plan her own sister’s death?

I’d essentially p
lanned my brother’s, but for me, it wasn’t quite the same. Mariah had given up so much for Jordan. To see it all end like this had to be worse than devastating.

I couldn’t think about that. Not now
. Not yet. We did this for Jordan, and for Kyros, because he loved her. So much, he would die for her.

I noticed a scarf on the chair and thought it looked familiar, but there was no time to look and see if it was Mariah’s, if she’d maybe left it here when Eryx brought her.

I could hear gunfire. We had started.

I slipped a
mask across my face, reached into my pocket to retrieve a switchblade, then swung the assault rifle around from where it’d been riding my back.

In the hall,
I moved through quickly; any Skia who wasn’t already passed out from inhaling the canister gas Zee and Sasha were dropping across the castle I shot. If one came at me before I could get off a shot, I stabbed them. Some of them rallied enough to get pistols and rifles, but I made it to the other side of the castle without wounds.

My objective was the wing of rooms where Eryx’s resident Skia worked, where they had computer banks and records similar to ours. Zee would have already taken hard drives and flash drives, but we wanted to make sure when Eryx came back, there was nothing left of his operation. He would have to start from scratch.

I found the hall, set the charges without incident because the Skia were all unconscious, then ran back to the front of the castle, leaping over the bodies littering the floor, running through the open doors and down the steps to the grocery truck Ty had commandeered from the village ten miles away. I was last, and as soon as I leapt for the truck, Ty sped away.

Fifty yards from the castle,
he stopped and we all jumped to the ground. Jordan was unconscious. Key laid her across a stack of boxes inside the truck, then joined the rest of us.

Jax handed each of
us a detonator. “On three.
”

We
punched the remotes and felt the ground shake while we watched Eryx’s castle explode, blasting everyone inside to bits. They were immortal, so they’d be back, but it would be a while. It took several weeks to come back from being blown to pieces. And it would take months, even years, for Eryx to rebuild and replace what he’d lost. When he came back, he’d know the Mephisto had won this round. He’d know he wasn’t ready to take on Lucifer.

We
climbed into the back of the truck, and Key sat on a cabbage crate, settling Jordan in his lap, holding her against his chest. I watched him and wished with all my heart and soul this could be different. I’d alternately hated and loved him, all of my life, but no matter what, he was always there, always solid and strong. I would miss him like I’d miss my arm or my leg. I’d survive, but I’d always feel handicapped, a part of me gone forever.

Another five minutes and the truck passed through the gates that marked the edge of Eryx’s land, freeing
us to transport again. As we slowed, Key looked across at me and I solemnly looked back at him. I didn’t say anything. He believed if I’d had the choice with Jane that he now had with Jordan, I’d have done it. But would I? It was a question I didn’t think I’d ever have an answer for. All I’d felt for Jane had been bastardized over a century, until it was so wrapped up in guilt and shame, it bore no resemblance to reality.

Key
looked at Sasha, who was crying, then at Denys, who said, “I’m glad you’re my brother.” His gaze moved to Zee, who lunged across the space between them to hold Key’s face in his hands and kiss his forehead. “I love you,” he whispered before he disappeared.

He looked to where Ty was standing behind the truck.
Our tallest brother swallowed hard and said, simply, “Good-bye, Kyros.”

Finally, he looked at Jax. “You’ll make sure Mariah is safe?”

I wasn’t angry that he said it. I understood. Nothing I’d done about Mariah had been right – none of it had been in her best interests. Key was asking Jax to make sure I didn’t screw it up worse than I had already. Even now, he was looking out for the Mephisto.

Jax nodded, and Key said,
“You’ll be oldest now. You’ll be the one who leads. Keep these filthy animals in line, understand?”

Jax gave up trying not to cry. “I’ll miss you all the rest of my life.”

Key looked down at Jordan’s beautiful face, clutched her a little tighter to his chest, and disappeared from Romania. From our lives.

We stayed in the truck while Ty drove it back to the village, and didn’t transport away until he’d parked and killed the engine. We materialized back in Colorado and everyone split up to grieve in their own way.
All the Luminas had gathered in the living room and I could hear their murmurs, no doubt praying for Key. There was no one on Mephisto Mountain whose life wouldn’t be affected by Key’s absence. He was respected and loved.

I popped upstairs to Mariah’s room, hoping she’d be there, disappointed when she wasn’t. I almost made a mental search, then didn’t because that was a bad habit to fall into.
Everyone deserved their privacy, and unless it was called for because of a very good reason, we had an unwritten rule not to search for each other.

I wandered back down her hall, and saw a marble on the third to last step of the stairway leading up t
o the attic. I bent to pick it up and saw other odd items on the stairs, like a game piece from an old Monopoly set and a pipe Zee used to smoke over a hundred years ago. I continued climbing, continued finding random items until I reached the fourth floor and went into the attic. I was stunned. What had once been total organization was now mass chaos, a giant heap of broken boards, torn boxes, and things long forgotten that Mathilda packed and stored because she was so sure someone would want it again.

I didn’t have to think hard to know Mariah had done this. I felt so bad for her, and
understood her need to deal with her anger and grief. I was in a state of confusion and shock that my brother was gone. Jordan had been everything to Mariah for so long, how much greater must her pain be? I wanted Mariah. I needed to be with her, to offer comfort, and maybe in return, I wouldn’t have this horrible urge to cry like a little girl. I couldn’t stop thinking of Key, all through the years, always with his long hair, his stern face, his absolute dedication to the rest of us. Most boys aspire to be like their father. I always aspired to be like Key.

My hatred of Eryx ramped up yet again. Someday I’d have the joy of killing him. I didn’t know how it would happen, but it would, and I’d show no mercy, just as he’d never shown us an inch of compassion.

He would know when he returned to the living that Key’s soul had disappeared from Earth, but despite how close they’d once been, Eryx wouldn’t grieve in any way. He’d be glad.

I turned to make my way back downstairs, a little surprised
by how long I’d lingered to stare at the mess in the attic, and was halfway to the third floor when I heard Sasha shouting, “They’re here! Oh my God, Key and Jordan!
They’re back!
They’re in her room!”

Like a thundering herd, the Luminas and Purgatories and Mephisto flowed up the stairs to the third floor and burst into Jordan’s room. They wouldn’t all fit, and those in the hall were crying, hugging one another, slapping high fives.

I waited my turn and went inside the room and saw Key practically breaking Jax’s back, he hugged him so hard. I saw his eyes and, just like Jax’s, they were no longer black. Almost, but not quite. They were dark gray. He was smiling so wide, his face had a shine to it, a little like the Anabo glow. Divinity. He still had the lingering traces of divinity. Had he gone to the gates of Heaven as Jax had, and pleaded for God to take Jordan? Had they told him his love and ultimate sacrifice meant he’d fulfilled the Mephisto Covenant, and he was now redeemed before God?

I hoped so. I’d n
ot seen anyone look this happy since the day Jax walked out of that church in St. Petersburg, holding Sasha’s hand.

When it was
my turn, I hugged Key and slapped his back and told him I was more glad than he’d ever know that he was with us again.

He said, “I love you,” and I said, “I love you, too,” and then we parted and someone else was hugging him. I was on my way to Jordan when she looked around and asked, “Where’s Mariah?”

“You just hugged her, goof,” Key said. “I saw you.” He glanced around and frowned. “No, I suppose that was Mercy.” He looked at me. “Do you know where she is?”

I shook my head, my memory flying back to Erin
ýes and the scarf in that bedroom, where I caught the faintest scent of heather. Then I remembered she could transport. But she didn’t know how. Did she? A terrible thought began to take hold. Had she been at Erinýes when we blew it?

Jordan looked at Kyros and said, “I was
certain Mary Michael would rescue her, but she should be back by now.”

Sasha said from where she stood at the window, “I’m mentally searching and she isn’t anywhere. I
t’s as if she disappeared.”

My heart hammering, I did my own search, and just as Sasha said, there was
nothing. No sense of her, anywhere.

I looked at Jordan. “What do you mean, Mary Michael would have rescued her? Where is she?”

She instantly began to cry, became hysterical, close to hyperventilating, and kept repeating,
“Oh my God,”
over and over until I wanted to shout at her to stop, to tell me.