A Beautiful Evil (24 page)

She advanced, pulling out the blade. Her other hand grabbed my throat. Before she could speak, I forced out, “That blade is my father’s, forged with his blood, the same blood that runs though my veins. You know what it’s designed to do. You’re so smart, you figure it out.”

I watched with satisfaction as the realization dawned on her. I’d delivered my power without ever having to touch her, and even now it was spreading out from her wound, turning the blood and armor to stone.

“You know what’s funny, Athena? You created us both, the gorgons and the Sons of Perseus. And now you’ll die by our power. You will harden from the inside out, and I hope it fucking hurts.”

The inner gleam in her green eyes didn’t dim, but instead grew brighter. Laughter bubbled to her throat and burst through her mouth with a strangled sound. “You’re so . . . naive and . . . small-minded,” she gasped through pain and humor.

“I’m not the one about to take her last breath.”

“And I could crush your windpipe right now, stupid girl.” Something shifted in her gaze, something that revealed a depth of emotion far greater than I’d ever imagined.

“But you won’t,” I said. “I know what you want from me.”

Her eyes filled with pain. She sneered. “You know nothing. And you will always be an insignificant nothing.” She shoved my father’s blade into my side. Hot pain sliced through me as her lips kissed my cheek. “This isn’t over. For either one of us. Enjoy your wound as I shall enjoy mine.”

Athena yanked the blade out. I staggered back as my power slowly worked through her system.

My hand went to my wound. My vision wavered, from the shock and pain. She shouted something to her army, the last of her words clipped as her throat hardened.

And then she blinked out.

Gone.

Most of her army disappeared with her, leaving the Novem to fend off the creatures of the ruins.

The float lurched again as one of the bulls broke from the harness and fled into the fray, jumping over the minions that were left behind and the Novem, crushing anything beneath its giant hooves.

The sounds of screams and explosions became muted by the fear thundering through me. The pain in my side soured my stomach, and a cold sweat broke out on my skin. I had to stay lucid. My survival depended on it.

The strength I found to lift my arms and start swinging the stone chains was one of those things fueled by survival adrenaline. I hit a revenant off the float and then a turnskin, but more were coming. The float rocked again. I stumbled. My father leaped onto the float, followed by Bran. They met back-to-back, fending off attacks. The hood slid off my father’s head, revealing savage, puckered scars and missing hair and skin. He was weak, still healing, and I wanted to shout at him to go, but I didn’t want to distract him and get him killed.

My arms burned as I swung the chains around and around, hitting anything that approached. Time seemed to stretch on forever. And all I could think about was getting them off the float so I could reach Sebastian before they toppled him to the hard pavement below.

I hit two more creatures. A third. I dropped my arms, and then my knees hit the floor, my lungs on fire, heart hammering. I was unable to continue. A hand slid across the surface of the float—a leathery gray hand that tossed a key toward me.

Shocked, I glanced up and saw a
, an old one. He had a scar over the corner of his eye, pulling down his eyelid. And then it hit me. It was the same one caught by the Novem heirs in the Saenger Theatre. Our eyes met for a fraction of a second before he ducked down and out of sight.

I lunged for the key, grabbing it and forcing my exhausted arm muscles to stop shaking long enough to put the key into the manacle lock at my ankle. It slid in and clicked. Thank God! The second manacle came off and I ran, scrambling onto the raised platform and pulling myself up until I was standing between Sebastian’s knees and throwing my arms around him, holding on and trying desperately to do to him what Id done to that child back in the stone garden.

Wake! Oh God! Please wake up!

Something hit me from behind and latched on with sharp claws, which dug into my hips, piercing the flesh and pushing down. I screamed as I felt the weight and bites of several creatures as they attacked me like a pack of wild dogs.

Their weight pressed me down. I couldn’t turn to fight. Claws clamped around my shoulders. I held on to Sebastian tighter. Teeth tore into my bicep, tugging back and forth in a frenzy.

I screamed, loud and raw and from a place inside me I didn’t know existed.

I heard shouts behind me. I grasped Sebastian tighter. I was losing strength in the arm that was being torn to shreds, and the wound at my side weakened my consciousness. They were pulling me down. And it was all happening so fast. I cried against stone skin, wetting it with my tears. “Please, wake up. Sebastian . . . please . . . I’m sorry . . . wake up.”

A claw sliced my scalp. The hold on my foot grew so strong, my leg was pulled straight. Something had my hair and jerked hard. A hand grabbed mine—a revenant had crawled up the back of the throne.

No, no, no, no . . .

From a far distance I heard my father and Bran. I thought I heard Michel shouting, but it didn’t matter. It was too late for me. My arms were giving way.

A dark door opened inside me: a secret place, the place where I’d retreat to as a child when things got too overwhelming for me to handle. It was peaceful and silent. No one could reach me there. The bites and ripping flesh—that was happening to someone else now, not me. Not me.

Blackness welcomed me with open arms.

“Shh. I’ve got you,” a voice said, pulling me out of the darkness. “You don’t have to cry anymore.”

Soft hands gathered me up.

My body throbbed with extreme, pulsating pain. The scent of blood was so strong, like a mist in the air that hit the back of my throat with each inhale.

My head fell back and I opened my eyes.

Sebastian’s face came into focus. He was real and warm and beautiful. His eyes glowed like polished silver. He was standing, holding me in his arms.

“Is this real?” I whispered as he stepped off the throne’s platform.

“Yes.” One word. One menacing, volatile word. His attention was not on me, but somewhere else. He kicked something off the platform. The gold cuff went clattering. I let my head fall against his shoulder as he jumped off the float, landing easily and carrying me effortlessly through the battle.

Turnskins and revenants fell to the ground, their eyes bulging as we passed. They dropped like flies, a monstrous wave parting for Sebastian as though he was Death itself, clearing a path.
Surely a dream
, I thought, trying to stay conscious.

I saw Michel several feet away. He finished off an enemy I couldn’t see, paused, panting and bloodied, and then stared at Sebastian in shock. His face went several shades lighter.

Sebastian stopped in front of him. “Can you handle the rest?”

Michel nodded mutely, and I wondered why they hell he looked like he’d just seen a ghost. My head lolled to one side and my vision wavered.

I
WOKE IN A FAMILIAR BED
. S
UNLIGHT STREAMED IN FROM AN
open door, and in the courtyard beyond birds chirped amid voices and laughter.

I was on the ground floor of Michel’s house in the French Quarter.

There was incredible warmth at my back and the familiar scents of Sebastian’s shampoo, clean skin, and something else—a note of cologne or deodorant, I wasn’t sure. It was a good combination, and I drew it deep into my lungs.

I rolled slowly beneath the covers to rest on my other side, despite the stiff muscles and sore wounds.

Sebastian lay on top of the white duvet, one arm tucked beneath his head. He wore a faded black T-shirt and jeans. His eyes were closed. He had a nice profile—masculine, noble—and it made me think of the stone statue he’d become and how frighteningly beautiful it was.

But that was history, I decided. Ancient history.

He was here now. With me and alive.

His stomach rose and fell with each breath. I wanted to place my palm flat on his abdomen and feel him for myself, to make sure this wasn’t a dream.

Ignoring the hurt in my arm, I reached out and pressed my pointer finger into his shoulder. The skin gave; it was soft.

I did it again, still amazed.

A slow grin tugged at his red lips, making a dimple in his cheek. “Why,” he said in a sleep-deepened voice, keeping his eyes shut, “are you poking me?”

A warm glow washed over me like sunlight after a long winter; I smiled instantly.

I slid my hand under my cheek and just stared. “I’m poking you because you’re real.”

He turned his head, eyes opening. They were different, his eyes—stranger, more intense, a more brilliant silvery gray. And not only his eyes but everything about him was a little more vivid.

We stared at each other for a long moment.

“I am the same,” he said quietly. “In my head and heart, I’m the same.”

Regret came rushing in, for all that had happened to him. The torture, the fact that I’d taken his choice away from him and now he was something he never wanted to be. My eyes stung.

“Don’t do that to yourself, Ari. You did what I would’ve done.” He turned his body toward me. “There’s no way in hell I’d sit there and watch you die, not when I had the means to save you.”

My throat grew so thick I couldn’t talk, couldn’t say I was sorry. He reached over and grabbed my hand, linking his fingers with mine. Seeing them joined, our hands together, resting on his stomach, gave me a deep sense of belonging.

“I’m sorry for a lot of things too,” he said. “That I lost my way, didn’t help you after . . .”

I couldn’t meet his gaze just then. “Why did you . . . why were you there like that in Athena’s garden?”

“I was still . . . changing. If I wasn’t sick, I was blood-drunk. When you saw me, I was probably high as a kite. In the hall when Athena tried to curse me, I was so out of it, hearing things from outside, seeing the smallest details, a million things coming at me at once. It was hard to pay attention.” Red crept up his neck and into his face. “I needed blood constantly,” he said uncomfortably, “and she—”

“Say no more.” Zaria’s servant had provided it, and I didn’t want to hear him say it, or picture it either.

Those moments I wish I could erase forever, but the memories were as clear as day. Zaria biting him. Them together in the garden, Sebastian plucking the guitar, looking straight through me. He probably still needed blood, would forever now. But right then I didn’t want to ask him the details.

“Who’s outside?” I asked, changing the subject.

“Crank, Dub, Henri . . .”

“Violet?”

“Violet. And Pascal, too.”

Thank God. “You know, I’m not sure Violet ever really needed rescuing. There’s something strange about her.” At his arched eyebrow, I laughed. “I mean more so than normal.” I laughed again at the word “normal.” “You know what I mean.”

He thought about that for a moment. “Yeah, I do.”

“And my father?”

I was almost afraid of the answer. As one of Athena’s hunters, he had always been an enemy to the Novem, and a small part of me worried the Novem would toss him in prison, or maybe they already had.

“He’s in the garden.”

Relief washed over me. “How did he get here?”

“He followed when I brought you here and then refused to leave.”

I winced. “How did Michel handle that?”

“After your dad camped in the garden the first two nights, my father finally relented and offered him a room. Theron refused, though he has been making use of the kitchen and shower and our family’s healer. . . . Violet and the kids like him.”

“How long have I been here?”

“Four days.”

I rose up, propelled by that shocker, the blade wound in my side reacting badly to the movement. “Four days,” I repeated as pain made me sway.

“Yeah. Our healer has been caring for you. The first two days she kept you in a state of sleep. The last two she has taken care of you. You don’t remember?”

I frowned. Now that I thought about it, I did seem to remember being bandaged, soup running down my chin, being helped to the bathroom. “It’s all blurry,” I finally said.

“Here.” Sebastian piled the pillows behind me. “Sit back.”

I sank against the pillows, waiting for the pain to lessen.

Crank’s face appeared in the open doorway, then disappeared. “Guys! She’s up!”

She was back again, hurrying across the room and crawling onto the bed to hug me tightly. “I knew you’d find Vi. You’re like a legend now.” I laughed, grabbed her cabbie hat, and pulled it over her eyes. She settled on the foot of the bed, sitting cross-legged.

Dub and Henri came in, followed by Violet, who pulled my father along by the hand. He hesitated at the threshold. “It’s okay,” I said. “You can come in.”

Violet released him, and Crank helped her onto the bed. “Where’s Pascal?” I asked.

“In the garden.”

My father hadn’t moved from his spot by the door, and I suspected he was just as nervous as I was.