Desolate (Desolation) (14 page)

Just go away,
I said to Knowles with a mental shove backward.

He stumbled, but righted himself and stepped forward again.

You won’t let them down like this. You will do as you promised.

A glimmer of warmth flopped in my core like a dying butterfly. Ephemeral, intangible, but I stood up, nonetheless.

I think this is the last time,
I told him.

He nodded and turned on his heel. I watched him walk away before I stepped out of the firelight and into the dark trees.

“Hey, where you going?” Taige jumped to her feet and hurried to follow me.

“There’s some place I’ve gotta be.”

“Well, can I go with you?”

I stopped and glared at her. While I watched her face, I Became until I towered above her. “No.”

She opened her mouth, but I didn’t wait around to hear what she might say. I threw myself into the sky and flew away from Eleon and his vamp-pets and toward the last promise I planned to keep.

chapter twenty

When I approached the bridge, the waters above the Door churned like a whirlpool. I had made it in time, but barely. Alighting on the bridge, I forced myself to take several deep, calming breaths.

Knowles had overstepped, talking to me like that. He had no right.

Breathe.

But . . .
She’s gonna need more than just me Des. She’s gonna need you. Believe it or not, you’re her best friend.

Breathe.

I couldn’t even remember why I left. Why I thought hanging out with Eleon was better than being with friends.

Breathe.

Then again, I’d never been that girl—that hugging and comforting girl.

Breathe.

I flexed my fingers then curled them tightly around the spear.

Breathe.

I spread my wings, startled when a spark of golden light caught my eye. A ribbon of gold snaked up my right arm and into my wing—but even as the gold tried to claim me, I felt the icy burn start in my wrist. I watched while black Hellfire ate away at my Halo and swallowed it up. I felt . . . Relieved. Like I could stop fighting my shadow-self. Like I’d been right all along—I’d never had a choice in what I would Become.

Breathe.

And then I saw him.

The horse pushed through the waves to the beach, its rider low along its neck. I dove off the bridge and reached them as they struck the sand, water pouring off them in great troughs, leaving both horse and rider thoroughly dry. From each hoof print, black insects rolled away like a tidal wave.

With the spear held along my side, I narrowed my approach and aimed right for the rider. I hoped to knock him off his mount. Maybe the horse would either dematerialize without its rider or it would take off—preferably back to the Door.

I needed to avoid its vicious teeth if I could. And, if the spear flew true—which I felt confident it would—I’d pierce the horseman from above and I’d be out of the way of any blood that might seep from his wounds, in case there was truth in Miri’s warning. The horseman seemed unaware of my approach; intent on reaching the city. I had him.

But in the moment I flew above him, he turned and raised his hand, slicing his scimitar through the air and cutting deep into my right wing. I fell to the sand, screaming in pain and frustration, my mind consumed by blinding pain that seared like a white hot brand through my consciousness.

The horseman wheeled his horse and faced me as I climbed to my feet. Hot embarrassment and fear squeezed out all rational thought. I stumbled forward, struggling to raise the spear as the horseman approached, circling his scimitar in the air. The horse’s red eyes glared, calculating, anticipating.

I felt a million bugs climb over my boots and up my legs, but I refused to look at them.  I raised my staff, my muscles trembling with the effort. Pumping my arm, I prepared to throw the spear. The horseman urged his mount into a constant dance, keeping his body from facing mine directly, avoiding my weapon with every move.

The spark had left me. Abandoned me. Maybe I should give up. Maybe I didn’t want to stop the horseman, after all. But for Miri, I would pay this debt. Set things to right and then . . . Well, then I’d leave. I’d tried. Tried to be what Michael thought I should be, but he’d been wrong. This was who I was.

Who I’d been all along. 

The spearhead is deadly to any Gardian, Shadow or Halo.
I heard Longinus’ voice in my mind, and I realized—I didn’t need the horseman’s chest to kill him—he probably didn’t have a heart, anyway. I only needed to pierce his skin.

I dropped the spear to the sand, feigning fatigue. I watched him from the corner of my eye, but his hood still hung so far over his face I wondered if he had a face at all. Like I knew he would, the horseman dove, his blade poised to plunge into my chest. I forced myself to breathe, to wait for the moment when the horseman’s arms tensed in preparation for the blow.

Breathe.

With sudden ferocity the demon thrust his blade downward. I matched his speed, grabbed my spear and spun. The spearhead sunk into the horseman below his right shoulder blade, his scimitar, no more than a breath away from my flesh, dropped from his grasp.

The demon made no sound as I pushed the spear deeper, shoving him backward off his mount. The horse reared, and I crouched, angling my good wing over me to avoid being swallowed up in a shower of sand and bugs. Its razor-sharp hooves clawed my wing, bruising, tearing. The horse screamed and I felt my eardrums pop and my ears fill with hot liquid. When the barrage of blows stopped, I risked a glance and found the horse gone—the demon laying a few yards away.

He lay on the sand, his arms outstretched as if pinned to an invisible cross, his chest rising with jagged breaths. Black, viscous fluid seeped from his back, the sand transforming into pebbles of glass wherever his blood ran.

I crawled forward with care, trying to ignore the burning that dug deep deep deep into my soul. My spear lay beside him—he must have pulled it out, but it didn’t matter. The damage had been done. This demon would die.

With trembling fingers I dialed Cornelius.

“It’s done,” I told him.

“Is he dead?” he asked.

“No, but he’s about to be.”

There was a pause and a low rumble of voices in the background.

“Reginald says to not kill him. He wishes to interrogate the rider, if possible. We are on our way.” He hung up before I had a chance to argue.

With a sigh I crouched at the demon’s feet. I felt relieved they would be coming for me—I couldn’t have made the flight home, injured as I was. The creature before me did not stir, his breathing so erratic and slow I felt certain he would die before Knowles arrived to ask his questions. But I had one question of my own. I leaned forward, intent on the shadowy hood that still hid his face from view.

The demon moved so suddenly I had no time to react. Sharp pain radiated from a single, burning spot in my chest where the spear—
my
spear—had been buried deep.

But that pain faded away as another, deeper hurt took hold of my heart.

The horseman’s hood had fallen back. His black eyes pinning me more effectively than the spear had.

Because oh.

Oh
.

His was the face I dreamed about. A face I kissed and touched and loved every night in my dreams.

But not like this. Never like this—cold and hollow in the guise of a demon.

His lips curved into a vicious sneer as he pushed the spear deeper. I couldn’t scream, couldn’t fight back.

“Michael,” I choked before the tears swallowed me and I lost myself to oblivion.

chapter twenty-one

The breath of Hell, cold and biting, skiffed off the ocean.

The water rushed in, threatening to drag me into the deep. 

I tried to jump to my feet, panic washing over me with the tide, but agony gripped me and I fell forward, swallowing bitter water. With one hand braced against the shifting sand I looked up. Through the curtain of my hair I saw him, close enough I could crawl to him. Touch him. The wave caught his robes and tugged him closer to me as it rushed back to the sea. One hand drifted in a tide pool and when his face fell toward me I cried out in a different sort of pain.

A burst of fire lit my heart—not enough to fill me, but it cleared my mind a little. Grounded me. I took a deep breath and rocked back onto my heels. I gripped the slippery wood of the staff with numb fingers and braced myself for what I was about to do. I took another breath.

And another.

On the last I held my breath and yanked on the staff with all my might. My vision burst with black.

“Can you do that? Will it . . . break it or something?” James’ voice arrived in my mind like a fallen leaf. I didn’t know where it came from or what it was doing there. It just was.

“It matters not—it is the only way,” Longinus said.

Hands on my shoulders pushed me upward and I felt myself fall forward onto someone’s shoulder, but everything sucked into the darkness of my mind as the movement seared every crevice of my being with pain.

“Stay with me, Des. Stay with me.” James placed his hand behind my head, pressing my face to his chest. “Oh God. Let her be okay.”

“Hold her tightly. Tightly.”

James tightened his grip on my head and shoulders, his arms wrapped like a vice grip around me.

A sharp jerk, a fresh wave of pain and then, “That’s the spearhead—now move aside, I need to get the staff.”

I worked my eyes open, only a flutter, a quick glimpse. Longinus knelt in front of me, both hands wrapped around the staff that protruded from my chest. His eyes met mine for half a breath. Then he pulled.