Conspiracy Boy (Angel Academy) (20 page)

I reached a hand to Jack’s and called up our remaining bond threads. They were fewer than before, but no weaker. With the other hand, I fanned air at my face, inhaling deeply.

Dane’s eyes widened as the plan registered. “Duck and cover.”

“Ah-choo!”

Dane barely had time to hurl himself over Katie’s body before my face exploded and the atmosphere went epic. It was a good thing he’d covered her, too, because unlike last time, the rift didn’t open near the ceiling. It opened on the floor, right where Katie had been standing.

Dane and my friend scrambled to safety as the floor slashed open and the room bled darkness.

“Amelie,” Katie shouted, her hands still shielding the doors, “I thought the objective was
not
to die.”

“If you can do better, go for it.”

Granted, I’d made a concerted effort to direct the energy this time, but no way had I imagined anything this sudden. It looked like one of those underwater sinkholes, where one second the world is placid, then the next, gone.

I watched as a gaping black saw mark ripped across the floor, exploding everything in its wake. Wood splintered from the floor, dirt and furniture thrown back from the blast. Instinctively, I grabbed Luc under the arms and dragged him back a few feet before his feet could get swallowed by anything demonic.

And, wow, the demonic stuff came.

There was nothing subtle about it this time—no wings or claws or oily feathers. Those things you could at least fight with swords. What spilled out of this rift was far darker than anything I’d seen before, like frozen black mist slicked with acid.

“Jack,” I screamed over the howling vortex beneath our feet. “I can’t start shielding until after we’re through. Katie, cover us from here.”

“I’m trying.”

“
Through?
” Dane looked at me like I’d gone mental. “You’re kidding, right?”

I ignored him. It wasn’t like we had a ton of choices, and if we were going to survive this, I needed to stay focused.

“Ah-choo. Ah—”

“Quit that.” Jack clamped a hand over my mouth as the rift yawned wider.

It was creeptastic in the extreme. Just like at the dinner party, evil poured into the room, vibrating the crown molding and splintering furniture. It coated the walls until they looked like they’d been sprayed with melted tar through a pressure washer.

Katie had scooted backward into a corner and covered her head with one arm, the other still outstretched, channeling. “Are you sure this is a good idea?” she yelled.

“It’s a horrible idea,” I hollered back. “You want to come with?”

“No.”

Careful not to break any ribs, Jack tossed Luc over his shoulder and grabbed my hand. Dane unsheathed his sword just as the double doors began to open.

“Go,” he said.

The good news was that we didn’t have to do much to enter the rift. The floor had grown slick with black goo, and space kept collapsing around us. It would have taken more effort to get away from it than it did to just stand still and let the void take us.

I felt the air shift as soon as we crossed out of the mortal plane. It scraped at my body like icy sandpaper, inside and out.

“
Salve. Protorum,
” I shouted once we were through, and the shields clacked into place around us.

Just in time, too.

I’d been prepared for something more like a portal—mild sensation, but with a vague awareness of movement. Portals always left me disoriented and, usually, a bit sick. But no matter how bad I’d thought that was, I longed for it now.

The rift crushed us.

If crossing to the Nether with Lisa had been like entering a room through a door,
this
was smashing your way in through a cinder block wall. Even with the shields up, it was like being kicked to death by a flock of cyborg kangaroos.

It occurred to me briefly that I should throw a closure spell out the mouth of it, to help Katie keep the demon goo from swallowing Luc’s house. But frankly, I didn’t think I could. Atoms collapsed and the world twisted, and every inch of me shrieked in pain. I swear my skin peeled off with the sheer force of it. Then, as quickly as it started, it—

—stopped.

Everything stopped.

No sound, no light, no sensation. I can’t even say it was a feeling of floating, because that would have been something. But it wasn’t. The closest thing to it I’d ever experienced was when someone dropped a perceptual vortex on my placement test last year. Except then I had been able to sense Jack, so it wasn’t as scary.

“Hello?” I called. “Anyone?”

In answer, I felt something warm against my arm. Moments later, it firmed into a grip, and the unmistakable feel of someone’s body coalesced next to mine. The rest came online pretty quickly—dark hair, slim build, shirt coated in blood.

“Luc,” I said. “Where’s Jack?”

“He’s here,” Luc replied, his voice ragged. “Give it a minute.”

At first, I thought a minute seemed optimistic, but he was right. Every blink seemed to bring more details—gray sky, chalky dust beneath me, miles and miles of empty landscape no matter which direction I turned. I didn’t remember falling—or landing, for that matter—but I knew something painful must have happened. My whole body ached like flu season, and my hair was coated with ash. Luc knelt beside me, also shaken, but at least upright.

“You’re healed,” I said. “That’s good. Unless we’re dead. Are we dead?”

“For the moment, no.” Luc coughed. “But I’m not getting too attached to that condition.”

I took a breath and tried to sit up—definitely a mistake. The sun sat low above the horizon, which made sense since, in the mortal plane, it would have been the middle of the night. We probably had a couple of hours before night fell here.

“Luc, we need to get out of here,” I said. “Where’s Jack?”

Exhausted, Luc bobbed his head to the left somewhere, toward an empty patch of ashy ground. At first, I couldn’t see anything. It was a bit like staring at the sun then walking into a dimly lit theater. Everything started in shadows and outlines, gradually forming into shapes that were always there, even though I hadn’t seen them before. It gave the vague illusion of things appearing out of nowhere.

Within a few seconds, a Jack-shaped lump appeared in the ash field. Like me, he was coated in yuck, and a nasty bruise had already begun to form on his cheek.

“Jack.” I scrambled toward him. “Wake up. We need to go.”

He didn’t move. No matter how hard I shook him, he stayed still.

“Why isn’t he waking up?”

Luc watched me shake him for a quiet, terrifying moment. When he spoke, it, too, was quiet. “Amelie,” he said, “this is the Nether. He’s not supposed to be here. Didn’t anyone tell you?”

I kept shaking Jack, uselessly. “Tell me?”

Luc’s gaze bored into my back so powerfully I had to turn around. “Ami, Jackson is pure angelblood. He came with you as Watcher so you can drain the taint into him when you channel yourself back. But that’s all.”

He stopped there, like I was supposed to fill in the rest. Which, of course, I had no way of doing because—stop me if you’ve heard this before—
nobody tells me anything.
After a few seconds of silence, my patience snapped.

“What does that mean?” I yelled. “What are you talking about? And don’t sugarcoat it, because if you do, I swear I’ll kill and eat you. Just
tell me the truth
.”

Luc looked at the ashy ground, his eyes shadowed. The expression on his face reminded me of Jack’s a few minutes ago, when he’d talked to Lisa. It alarmed me at such a core level, my heart actually began to constrict. And, in the space of a breath, I knew with absolute certainty I didn’t want to hear what he was about to say.

“No.”

“Amelie, he’s already gone—the version of him you know, anyway. No one can survive here without some demonblood.”

“
No,
” I repeated more forcefully. The panic had already started setting in. No wonder he’d been so adamant about channeling myself home. He’d known all along he wouldn’t be coming back with me. Which was insane. I couldn’t breathe without Jack. I couldn’t live. How did he ever think I would be able to just
continue
?

“No, no, no. That’s not okay. I’ve lost my family. I’ve lost my friends. I’ve lost my future as a Guardian. I can’t lose Jack.”

“Amelie.”

“I can’t,” I insisted. “And don’t tell me there’s no hope. There has to be hope. For you. For him. I can’t lose you both—”

At the last words, my mouth clamped shut.

Prior to that moment, I hadn’t given much consideration to the first vision I’d seen in the chamber to the Book of Lies. It’s not that it was so offensive, seeing myself with Luc that way. Or that it was so unfathomable, us ending up together. In fact, there had been a time last fall when Jack had tried to convince me to just give up my relationship with him and tie myself to Luc instead. Obviously, I told him he was nutters. But still, it’s not like Luc wasn’t important to me.

He was.

Now, as I looked at a future with no Luc, no Jack, and no Guardian powers, my head got swimmy. I sank to my knees.

“I can’t do this,” I whispered.

Luc took a deep breath and sighed. “You can. Because you have to,” he said. “Amelie, you’re stronger than you think. You’re braver than you realize. And you’re capable of far more than you credit yourself.”

Was I?

It certainly didn’t feel like it. I
felt
like a teenage girl—overwhelmed, overstressed, and completely out of her league. Maybe everyone else saw so much more in me, but if I didn’t see it or feel it myself, how could I know it was real?

Luc stepped closer, his hands linking with mine. Soft snakes of light coiled around my wrists and twined back to his. His forehead was pressed to mine, and his lips hovered about an inch away. If Jack had been awake, I’m pretty sure he would have throttled Luc.

“We never would have worked out,” he whispered, smiling. “I’m selfish and shallow and far too vain. I would have driven you crazy in the first five years.”

“First five minutes,” I whispered, trying not to cry. “Luc, I can’t do this alone.”

“Have a little faith,” he said, releasing my hand for a second. I barely registered what he was doing until he had plucked out the letter opener I’d stashed earlier in my belt loop and pressed it into my fingers. “Anyway, love—what makes you think you’re alone?”

With that, he wrapped his hand tightly around mine, forcing me to grip the letter opener, and shoved it into his solar plexus.

And it was done.

The end of the world happened quicker than I’d expected. Rohm after rohm of Crossworlds taint flowed into me as the cracks started to seal, pieces of sky fragmenting into cut-glass shapes around me. I barely had time to breathe, let alone speak. My bones began to dissolve, and my skin flaked off like being washed in an acid storm. At least, that’s what it felt like.

No, no, no.
I pulled back on the drain, my head fogging with poison. This wasn’t how it was supposed to end.

Tyrannus’s voice slid through my head.
Pax paritur bello… Don’t forget who you are.

Yes.

Without thinking too hard about consequences, I checked that Jack’s soul was still connected to his body and then switched the flow into Luc, now hunched on the ground. The drain kicked up again.

Not nearly enough.

It was like trying to climb out of a mile-deep well while the sides caved in like an avalanche. At this rate, Jack and I would be dead in about fifteen seconds—buried alive under the collapse—and I’d never draw enough power to get us out. No way would we make it to a portal exit.

Jack’s grip tightened around me as the taint hit him again, and his arms began to stiffen and shake. His body wasn’t built for this.

For a second, it paralyzed me—his body in my arms, the thought of his soul fading. It sent an ache so powerful through me, I actually began to shake. Since he’d been in my life, it had never occurred to me that he wouldn’t always be there. He’d become such a deep part of my narrative, I couldn’t extricate myself from him. I didn’t want to. It was like trying to imagine life without water or air. Completely unfathomable. The drive against it was violent and intense.

I had to save him.

My eyes fell shut and every sense inside me opened, searching—not for Crossworlds energy, but for souls. Above me, angels and demons scurried and flew, desperate for a haven. There was none. In the distance, I could feel the edge of something familiar. Several somethings, actually—orange and soft, green and glowy, purple and pearly.

Yes.

I grabbed on to them, draining the Crossworlds taint, pulling myself and Jack out of the deluge. My body wrapped around him as the channel took over, tugging us into a portal. It was so odd, this feeling of floating and falling simultaneously—how I imagine riding a hot air balloon into the eye of a tornado might be. All around me, reality cracked and exploded.

“Pax paritur bello!”

It was too soon for the exit command.

Unfortunately, the channel shifted around us, angry and vengeful.

Already, my head swam with black spots and my bones ached. If Jack made it through this, he would be human. So would I, assuming I survived.

The prophecy had been activated. Which meant the Crossworlds links were shutting down. Arianna would lose her immortality. Akira would be stripped of her power. The world would be safe.

Well, for a while, at least—until humanity screwed it up.

I held on to that thought as I shoved Jack through the opening, his soul fully intact, and kicked another shielding spell after him. Then I let the chill take me.

Let me just say, I’m not one of those people who wanders through life assuming everything is going to be okay. If anything, those people annoy me. More often than not, I find myself assuming that if something can go wrong, it probably will. This is partly because life is like that, and mostly because God hates me.

This is why, when I found myself falling into oblivion with my bond ties to Jack completely severed and my channeling powers utterly depleted, I wasn’t surprised at all. The cracks had sealed—my job was done. What
did
surprise me, however, was when I stopped falling.