Crux (The Aurora Lockette Series) (20 page)

I drifted to the portal and peered through to find the source of the hand. A strange pair of deep gray eyes looked back through. Damn it if they didn’t look just like mine.

Her eyes widened as she saw me.
“My child,” she whispered, and used her hands to caress my face.

I wanted to pull away, but I couldn’t.

She could see me?

She poked her head through the portal. Her face was strangely beautiful
. She had long black hair and deep olive skin. She looked human except for the wisps of dark matter that flowed around her body.

“
Ki!” Asag thundered behind me.

He solidified, reaching for her with one of his big, scaly hands.

I dodged out of the way before he smashed me to bits. He clearly could not see me, while she could. She smiled and grabbed his hand. He pulled her forward, and the portal started to widen.

This was my chance. I slid back into my body,
swooped towards Dennis, and took the large sword he held up to me. I flew into the top of the cavern, positioned myself above Asag, and aimed.

I dove with my sword
and plunged it deep into his neck. Dennis signaled his men, and they all fired their weapons at the same time.

Ki screamed as Asag’s hand dropped hers
, and he tumbled to the ground. He shrunk and started to disintegrate to smoke, but this time, I was ready.

I grabbed his arm, slipped into
Spirit, and took him with me.

Through the mist, I saw the portal snap shut, leaving Ki where she belonged. I distantly heard the victorious s
houts of Dennis and his team.

I saw both our bodies drop below us. Mine moved out of view, while his burned in the cavern with an unholy light.

I dragged him away from the battle, away from the cavern and deep into the rock. He was smaller now, a shadowy black form with glowing red eyes.

Instinct pushed me as I rocketed through the earth, layer after layer, deep inside where I didn’t belong, where he didn’t belong. We passed through a massive layer of hot liquid metal. The pressure and heat
were unbearable, even in Spirit.

“
Don’t do this,” he whispered. “This is our world.”

“
No, it’s not.” I dropped him. It was the center of the earth, a metal core of darkness that pushed hard in all directions. I couldn’t kill him, but I could keep him from hurting others.

I fought my way back to the surface, struggling to stay in Spirit. I didn’t know where I was. Confusion reigned as I floated through layer after layer of rock.

I was exhausted, running out of space, running out of time. I wanted my physical body back, but if I did it here, I would die in the crust of the earth. I pushed the fog away and kept moving.

I didn’t know if it was seconds, or days, or hours that I moved through layer after layer of earth.

I finally felt the air of the world above me and burst into the cavern. As soon as I was there, I called the fog and went back into my physical body.

It came to me quickly, and I was back in my skin, with a warm strong heart. My legs didn’t work so I
sank to the ground, hoping that nothing killed me while I recovered.

GAVYN

Carmen
held me back while Aurora fought Asag. “Let me go!” I shouted.

Carmen yanked my arms back.
“If she sees you right now, it will distract her. If you distract her she will die!”

I pulled my hands free from her, but stayed out of sight.
“Damn it!”

She linked her arm through mine.
“I know.”

Asag flung Aurora aside like she was a rag doll. I lunged forward, but stopped when I saw her floating
unharmed.

She
and Dennis were trying to fight him, but he’d dissolved into smoke. Aurora abruptly disappeared, and I knew she was in Spirit.

“
I need to help her!”

I moved from our nook. I
couldn’t bear to stand by anymore. Carmen grunted but fell into step with me.

Aurora was back in solid form
, diving toward Asag with a sword while Dennis and his team waited with guns. She slammed the blade into his neck and the sounds of machine fire swallowed all noise.

Asag tumbled to the ground. He was trying to change back into smoke when Aurora grabbed his arm. She disappeared and his empty carcass floated to the ground, then incinerated.

Dennis’s men whooped when they saw his destroyed carcass, but I did not. I didn’t know if he was dead, but I thought he was gone. But she was, too.

I ran to the ashes of Asag, straining my eyes all around me to find her. I didn’t see her anywhere. My heart sank down to my feet.

“She is in Spirit,” Sam said. I didn’t know where he came from, but he was standing next to me. He was holding hands with a short girl with sharp, pretty features and shoulder-length black hair.

“
Where?” I asked.

“
She took him into the earth. I cannot follow. She will find her way back,” Sam said.

He dropped the girl’s hand and ran toward the
fighting. She watched him leave, but held her firearm.

I walked away from her and toward the rock where the demons were pouring in only minutes before. The portal was gone, leaving smooth red rock. You would never know anything ever disturbed this place.

The Shyama and demons still filled the cavern and our forces were still battling them. I wondered how many creatures made it outside or were prepared for the forces we had stationed up there to meet them.

I rested my hand on the rock, then crouched down.
“Come back to me, Aurora. Come back.”

Then, she appeared before me, looking paler than I had ever seen her. She struggled to stand, wavered, and then dropped to her knees. I caught her before she hit the ground.

AURORA

The sounds
came back first: the distant clank of battle, the occasional burst of gunfire, screaming and shouting. I remembered where I was. I had to get up. I had to fight.

My eyes fluttered open, and there was Gavyn. He was cradling me in his lap,
and his amber eyes were peering into mine.

“
Can you hear me?” he asked in his thick British accent.

“
Yes,” I whispered.

“
You did it,” he said proudly. “You killed him.”

I licked my lips
and struggled to sit up. He gently guided me into a sitting position. I felt weak again, and I hated it. “I couldn’t kill him. I don’t think he can be killed, at least not by me, but I put him somewhere where he’ll be stuck for eternity.”

“
Good,” he said. “Let’s get you out of here. You’ve done enough for one day.”

His eyes were filled with concern. He smiled at me, watching me closely while I tried to get up.

I stood with him slowly. My legs were rubbery, but they still worked. A quick glance around the cave revealed many demons and Shyama were still there, but their numbers were dwindling rapidly. The portal was gone.

“
I can walk.” I gently pushed him away, smiling as I did. I stood tall, then stretched my arms above me. I could feel my strength slowly returning.

“
Take it easy, my love.” He let me go, but kept his arm out, ready to help me if I needed it.

A loud scream echoed through the cavern like a banshee wail
. It was Carmen’s voice. I spun in a tight circle to check the space around me, but it was too late. A Shyama flashed behind Gavyn, then stabbed him through the chest from behind, pushing the blade all the way through. Blood bloomed on the front of his shirt, poured down his clothes and dripped onto the floor.

“
No!” I screamed hysterically. Roaring noises filled my ears and my heart beat in crazy, ragged thumps. I reached for him.

His eyes went wide for a second then rolled into the back of his head. He collapsed to the floor.

I went with him, pulling him onto my lap.

His warm blood flowed over my hands and soaked my pants. It was too much blood. It was so much blood that I
knew nothing could be done to bring him back. No one could bring him back.

“
No, baby. No!” I screamed. I saw a flurry of activity in the corner of my eye. Konstantin killing the Shyama that just stabbed Gavyn. Carmen sprinting towards me.

My heart compressed into a fragment of its former self. I pushed my hand against the gaping wound on his chest
, but the blood squirted through my fingers. Gavyn’s chest heaved two more times, then stilled.

I pressed my fingers into his neck, but there was no pulse, just a terrible stillness I couldn’t undo.

“Oh, God. No, no, no.” I couldn’t. I couldn’t think, I couldn’t stand. I couldn’t do anything but explode from the inside out while I watched my fiancé die. My chest hurt. I pressed my hands to it but the pain didn’t lessen.

“
No, baby, please,” I whispered, but it was futile, because he was gone.

GAVYN

One second, she was standing in front of me with a big smile on her face, insisting she
could walk alone. The next, a horrified look crossed her face.

I hated seeing that look on her face. I wanted to know what was making her sad, but I couldn’t, because a fire was burning my back.

Pain shot through me like a torpedo through my back and chest. I heard the strange clicking noises behind me, and I knew it was a Shyama. I looked down at my chest, and saw a blade sticking through the front.

Screams echoed around me, but I didn’t know who they belonged to.

It felt like hours had passed, but I knew it couldn’t have been more than a second. The blade disappeared as the Shyama pulled it back out, and there was a river of blood pouring down my body. It ran down my shirt and pants. It felt like hot lava against my skin. It sprayed on the floor like a waterfall, and I couldn’t believe it was all coming from my body.

I’d been stabbed all the way through my chest cavity.

My heart raced madly, then sputtered. I knew, with certainly, that I was going to die, very, very soon.

My legs started to crumble. I didn’t have control over them
anymore. I had seconds left to live, maybe less.

Aurora.

I tried to lift my arms, but they wouldn’t listen. My body was giving out as my heart stopped beating. I desperately lifted my eyes, straining with every ounce of strength I had left to just look up.

And I did.

I saw Aurora. I saw her panicked, tear filled eyes as she reached for me. She was alive, she was okay. Since she was Spirit, she probably didn’t need me anymore as her handler. She would be fine. That was enough for my peace, though I hated to leave her like this.

White light filled the spaces around her. I took one last look at her face before the light swallowed everything around me.

The memories started, one-by-one. My parents teaching me how to ride a bicycle in front of my childhood row-house in London. The first time I visited my family in Mumbai as a ten-year-old, my senses overwhelmed with the beautiful bright clothing and the many languages that were around me. My shock at the crush of humanity in the streets.

Finishing secondary school. My first stage production where I vomited
from nerves between every scene change. My parents holding hands at their thirty-five year wedding anniversary as they blew out the candle on the cake.

Most clear is Aurora. I remember her stumbling out of her car and into me, on the day we met, looking up at me with a tangle of long dark hair and
haunted grey eyes. I remember not long after when we were having a casual dinner and she said my name, I realized I needed to hear that voice every day for the rest of my life because I’d fallen hard for her.

The moment she flew to save a little girl, the complete shock of seeing something so unreal become real.

The sparkle in her eyes when I slipped the engagement ring on her finger, and knew she would be mine forever.

Then I
saw the most torturous, beautiful thing. A day that was almost ours but would never be: her in a white dress, veil in her hair, walking toward me beneath a canopy of bright golden sunshine and blue sky. She holds her hand out to me as the white light is coming back. “Come,” she whispers.

I am happy. I came from a happy home, was blessed with great fortunes, and I had Aurora, even if for a too short time.

The images stopped, and the white light started to fade. The stillness set in. My life was done.

Goodbye, Aurora
.

AURORA

He’s
gone.

I couldn’t believe it. My mind was running in crazy circles inside my head
, trying to get a handle on the horror of it all.