Blackthorne (The Brotherhood of the Gate Book 1) (38 page)

The few remaining demons on the ledge were frozen in the light of the skull, which extended to surround the ledge and the wall with its protective light. But beyond the border of the protective light, masses of the damned could be seen crawling up the wall and climbing in from the side, waiting for her to drop her guard.

“Shit, it looks like California, including the crowds and traffic,” she said and turned back to her own gate. The other niche for the skull was about five feet away. She stuffed the skull into it and dropped the backpack to the molten ground. Protected by the light the skull still emitted from its niche, she flipped open the pack and set the timer on the backpack nuke Bobby Wayne had provided for her. Rising, she turned to face the gate again, determined to close it. The blast from the nuke would not penetrate the closed gate. Manius Blackthorne stood before the opened gate, smiling, his sword in his hand.

“I knew you could do it, Rhi.”

Rhi stared at him and then back at the skull. “You manipulated me into doing this, didn’t you? That’s why you let Pam and Pearl come. You had to put up a bit of a fight before letting me open the gate and empower the skull.”

“Of course,” he replied with a swish of his sword. “I don’t actually like Pearl, you know. I’ve never liked whores. Now why don’t you hand me the skull and then close the gate for me?”

“Why don’t you kill me for it?” She took the skull from the niche and tossed it from one hand to another, deliberately goading him.

“Oh no, you are too noble for that, sweetie. You know I’d never be courageous enough to close myself in here. All of the hordes of Hell will be unleashed upon the earth. But I am willing to take the skull and be on my way.” He lunged for her and she scampered out of the way.

“So, how long does the skull stay juiced up after it is used like this?” She crouched before him warily, the saber in one hand and the skull in the other. She had to make him wait until the nuke went off. Hopefully it would blast shut the gate that stood opened behind them both.

“For a lifetime, about fifty years from what I have figured out. And in those various lifetimes, the pyramids were built, the temple in Jerusalem, you name it,” he replied and rose up into the air to pounce upon her. “And each of its users had a nice dumb ass like you to close the gate behind them. Sacrifice is such a cliché, don’t you think?”

In a horrifying second, he was on top of her, trying to wrestle the skull out of her hands. His breath was fetid, what road kill probably smelled like after a few days. She channeled bolts of blue lightning out of her fingertips into his body but he had his hands on the skull, which now held the power of Hell itself. Red sparks blinded her and Rhi was thrown back several feet. She teetered wildly at the edge of the abyss for a breathtaking moment before righting herself.

Manius was running for the door, his hands filled with his sword and the skull. The protective light had gone out the moment he took the artifact, and the triumphant howls of the damned arose behind her. She could hear claws scampering over the rock but didn’t dare look back. Rhi took flight, for the first time using her demon blood powers. She plowed into Manius squarely between the shoulder blades with all of the force she could muster. The pair hit the floor in a pile. She jerked the skull out of his hands and flew to the niche once more to jam it in. She then made a beeline for the gate, slashing at the demons that had appeared on the ledge with her saber. Putting one shoulder against the opened gate she began to painfully push it shut.

“No.” Manius jerked her away from the gate and knocked her sword to the ground. He put one large hand around her throat and placed his face close to hers.

Rhi fought for words and air in the steel vise of his hand. “Why are you worried about being trapped in Hell? You’re on your way here anyway…” She was beginning to see black spots before her eyes.

“I’m Catholic. I’ll do what I want to for as long as it amuses me and then I’ll ask for forgiveness.” He leaned forward and licked her face. His tongue was as sharp as a blade and felt like sandpaper. “Yummy. You’ve always tasted so sticky sweet. It’s such a shame we don’t have much time together.”

“You are fucking crazy.” Bile rose in her throat as he forced her toward the niche again, cutting down the growing number of demons surrounding them effortlessly with his sword.

A distinctive howl rose in the air behind the pair.

Rhi’s half closed eyes popped open as a golden comet ran into the knight holding her throat in a deadlock. Ellie Mae, surrounded in a glowing blue nimbus, dove in between Manius and the skull. Darting in and out of the reach of the sword, the dog forced him back from the skull and partially fried every demon she came into close contact with.

“This damned dog again.” Manius released his hold on Rhi near the gate to turn and raise his sword in both hands against the bloodhound.

“No!” Rhi screeched as the demons that had worked their way around the fighting dog and knight pushed her out of the gate. Desperately she tried to scratch and kick her way back in, blasting the demons directly behind her with blue fire.

Twenty more demons took the place of the ten she had destroyed. Rhi could see Ellie Mae dart in and out of the strokes of Manius Blackthorne’s sword. The huge dog leaped at him, forcing the man back hard against the opened gate. Smoothly, the golden entrance to Hell swung shut and clicked, trapping Manius, the skull, and Ellie Mae behind it.

Rhi fell to her knees in front of the gate, sobbing. She ignored the remaining demons that swarmed around her, Molay, and his men. The rest of the knights who had survived the initial fight were making their way to the steps of the gate, battling through the ranks of the damned. One of the largest of the men had Blackthorne’s limp body tossed over one shoulder. He deposited him beside Rhi in front of the closed gate, where Blackthorne lay motionless, still bleeding. The six knights continued to methodically butcher the demons in the pit, especially when they came close to the small, sobbing woman and the wounded man beside her.

Rhi looked up at the precise second the glow through the panels of the gate become as bright as the sun, temporarily blinding her and everyone who happened to be looking at the gate in that moment. Then the gate was gone, replaced by a blank wall. The 13th Gate of Hell no longer existed.

She crouched down beside Blackthorne to examine the horrific wound in his side. Pulling the torn uniform aside, she could clearly see down to the bone. The huge cut glowed with an ominous red light.

“Oh my God,” she gasped as she tried to staunch the blood. “Jack…Jack, listen to me. You have to drink my essence. You’re going to die if you don’t. Please…” She felt like she would crumble at any moment.

“I don’t want to hurt you, baby,” he whispered up to her. “You’ve had enough… I can’t take any more from you.”

Blue light poured from her eyes as she pressed her lips against him, forcing her soul into his. “I can give whatever I have to.”

In a few moments, Rhi raised her head and looked again at the wound. The red glow had faded and the wound was slowly closing up. With a sigh, she lay her head down on his chest to listen to his heartbeat. Blackthorne tried to put an arm around her shoulders. It fell back to the ground, useless.

“I love you, Rhiannon Brennan Blackthorne,” he whispered. “I’ll love you forever, however long that is.”

Rhi could not manage to work up a reply. Behind them, the knights mopped up the remnants of the damned in the cavern.

“Rhi,” he said gently as he tried once again to reach out a gloved hand to her. “I’m sorry about Ellie.”

Rhi took his hand for a moment and then leaned over to kiss his forehead. She forced herself to her feet, staggering. As weak as a newborn baby, she walked to the now blank wall. Rhi placed her face and clenched fists against it for a moment, staring down at her filthy pants. The black fabric had been ripped to shreds by demon claws and teeth. Her body was covered in bites and scratches…again.

“What in the name of all that is holy was that flash?” Molay asked incredulously from behind her.

Rhi took a deep breath. “It was a backpack nuke.”

She turned from the wall to face the group of men. The floor of the pit was littered with smoking demon corpses on top of the bones of the Brotherhood’s older victims. There were also the bodies of two of the knights. “I was counting on the gate to protect everyone. It seemed to work, except for my dog, that is. I guess y’all don’t think that was too great a sacrifice. After all, the Brotherhood got what they wanted. What’s the big deal about a dog, right? The gate’s destroyed. She was just a dog.”

Another sob hung in Rhi’s chest like a brick. She forced herself to look down at Blackthorne’s white face. He was horribly battered and covered in blood, but underneath the mess she could see the strong features that had haunted her dreams for her entire present life. Carefully, she imprinted the planes and lines of his face into her memory. His vivid blue eyes were already seared into her brain.

“I’m going to go home, if you’re going to be okay,” she stated, still looking directly into his eyes. Blackthorne nodded silently. He understood. Rhi turned to Molay. “If you don’t mind cleaning up here, filling in this gigantic hole, scooping up some smoking dead demon piles, cleaning up the remnants of the town and coming up with a good cover story for this mess. I seem to be bleeding onto the floor.”

She swayed for a moment. Molay reached out his hand.

Rhi turned to the sky so she would not have to see Blackthorne’s face. “I’m outta here.”

∙
•
∙

Jack Blackthorne watched as Rhi gracefully rose into the air, borne on the wings of her own powers. Powers that should have been drained from her to the point of death at this juncture but weren’t. His wife had a power stronger than any previous member of the Brotherhood had ever possessed. The heaviest of the snow was over and only a few flakes obscured his line of sight as she flew away from him, into the night, her black hair fanned out like a cape behind her. Mutely, he looked down at his empty hand and once again tried to reach toward her retreating form. Then there were only the moon, stars, and black velvet sky of a Colorado winter’s night.

Molay sat down beside him to place one callused hand on his shoulder. “Brother. We have the cleanup of the century to get on here. You have to heal. Let her rest and forget. Then go to her.” The head of the order looked thoughtful for a moment before adding, “Preferably on your knees because we need that little girl, Blackthorne. And so do you.”

»»•««

Six Months later

Rhi stood at the lower end of Bennett Avenue, examining the business end of the donkey in front of her.

“Pam, are you sure that feeding this thing an apple is going to make it follow me?” She arched one eyebrow over the top of her Ray-Bans. The sun might not burn her to a crisp now that she was a Changeling, but its rays weren’t exactly kind to Rhi’s now overly sensitive eyes and skin. A ball cap covered her head and her long black hair was caught up in a jaunty ponytail. She had slathered on a sunblock with a rating of fifty and was dressed in lightweight jeans and a long sleeved T-shirt in spite of the heat.

Cripple Creek’s Donkey Derby Days festival was in full swing and the highlight of the festivities was about to begin. Teams from each casino and various local organizations had each gone to the temporary corral in the middle of the blocked off street to choose their “racehorse” and make friends with it. The little semi-wild burros of the town had been easygoing about their capture, most knowing it was only temporary. The ridiculous humans would lead the animals up the main street of town in a race to the top. Then the donkeys would be fed treats and released to roam the town again at their discretion. The pampered animals were fed very well at the cost of the town on a regular basis, but they were greedy for the food offered by tourists and outrageously spoiled.

Pam was dressed in a shockingly small halter-top and Daisy Duke cut offs. She firmly held the loop she had tossed over the animal’s head as she inspected their catch.

“Stick one of the other apples in your back pocket and it’ll follow you anywhere,” she replied. Pam glanced over her shoulder at the gathered crowd on the sidewalks. “Look at them, anxious to see our blood aren’t they?”

“Isn’t that cheating?”

“Mommy, that donkey is stinky,” Katie complained. The tiny girl was perched atop Nick Boyd’s broad shoulders. She waved her cotton candy at the street. Several other teams were gathered around their donkeys, sweet-talking the wild little animals and bribing them with everything from apples to Alpo. “Are you going to make them all run, Mommy?”

“Those critters are so fat, you’ll be lucky to get a good trot out of them,” ex-Sheriff Boyd said with a good-natured laugh.

Nick had given up his job voluntarily after refusing to elaborate to state investigators about the Great Cripple Creek Riot of last winter. A huge motorcycle gang had torn the town and cemetery apart in a drunken frenzy.

One of the odder parts of the devastation was a section in the back of the historical graveyard with what appeared to be a perfect fifty-foot circle of flattened earth. The coffins and tombstones that had been buried in the vicinity were tossed several yards away from the spot in either direction. Several large men were in the graveyard at the same time the inspectors showed. They were effectively destroying one of the crime scenes by mending and replacing tombstones and reburying coffins. Their presence had a strange effect on the state investigators, who turned away from the cemetery and forgot they ever saw it or them.

The mob had burned down two casinos and three houses, killed four local citizens and wounded dozens, including several hysterical tourists who insisted that the bikers were monsters.

The locals who witnessed the incident swore by all that was holy that the culprits were bikers and nothing more, even in the face of the fact that a group of fifty men in a caravan of four-wheel drives and Harleys had escaped without notice into a snowy Colorado night. The combination of snow and motorcycles itself was a virtual impossibility. But the sheriff’s tardiness in sending for outside help during the storm, no matter how cut off communications were, was inexcusable.