Gateway (The Gateway Trilogy, Book 1) (24 page)

The grounds of the Institute roiled—Guardians and Keepers alike raced toward battle, the students split between fleeing for safety and going on the attack.

The instant we crossed the boundary, my whole body became wracked with spasms. I fell to the ground, my back arching to the brink of snapping.

“Ember, get back—”

“No,” I said through gritted teeth.

The Gateway was collapsing. That much was evident. I reached out, clutching for the void. I had to find a way to mute the pain or I wouldn't be able to move even an inch closer. I had to get to the Gate.

Taren leaned over my contorted figure, casting a long shadow. I hurtled in, no time left for delicacy. The moment I crossed the threshold, the pain receded to mere agony. With Taren's help I regained my footing. He opened his mouth to speak, but I cut him off.

“Don't tell me to get back, I know what I need to do.”

I let go of his arm and lurched toward the main house. Demons streamed through the doorways, battle spilling onto the lawn. A tiny creature looking more like a howler monkey than anything else sprang at me with astonishing speed. It screeched, exposing razor-sharp fangs. I opened my mouth to scream, but Taren was there, flinging it aside just before it made purchase. The demon landed inside the sanctuary, its howl piercing through the sounds of battle. It leapt back across the boundary and darted out of sight.

We raced forward, Taren hacking and slashing to make a path. A giant slug-like creature oozed its way down the steps until a burly Guardian wielding a cudgel bludgeoned it. A moment later, the same Guardian was disemboweled by the claws of a beast half his size. Innards exposed, he rolled down the steps, dead before he reached the bottom. I wanted to shrink back at the horror of it but we pushed on.

We scrambled up the stairs and fought our way through the cavernous doorway. Splattered in blood, the entry way reeked of death, the demon corpses especially pungent. The stink filled my nostrils and I struggled to keep from heaving. Flame-red hair caught my eye and I saw Kat, making mincemeat of a Dahrak. Black pus splashed her as it fell. She let out a battle cry and turned to take on another. Annys joined the fray, racing in from another hallway. Dressed in battle gear, brandishing a sword and shield, she was every inch a Guardian. With one stroke, two demons fell, decapitated.

“Stay back,” Taren shouted, his knife slicing into the heart of a foe.

I pressed against the wall as he took on two more. I noticed a set of double doors off to the left and recognized them as the ones I'd seen through Gretchen's eyes. After one last look at Taren, still occupied with fighting, I shoved my way inside.

The fighting was densest here, the demons with the upper hand on sheer numbers alone. For every one that fell, three more streamed through the gaping hole in the floor. The center of the Gateway wasn't broken—it was dust. The eight other tiles remained intact, but deep fissures ran their length. With the center tile destroyed, the Gateway would never be whole again. Left like this, the demons would have free access to this world. The world where my mother had always been free to be crazy in relative safety, where Kat, Taren and the like would fight to their last breath, where I had taken living for granted enough to resent it. And now there was no stopping it. The Demon had kept me alive to finish it.

Yes, Ember, finish it. Finish it so I can come forth. Do this and I promise safety for you and those you love.

What had this world given me? What did I really owe it, beyond safety for my small patch of it?

Even muted, sensation overwhelmed me. Every painful memory, every wrong committed against me fused with a physical sensation and I fell to my knees, struggling not to black out.

That's right, just focus.

I did as It instructed. There was no other way to save the people I cared about, not really.

I was one with the Gateway. I felt the Keepers through the link, pulling, pushing with all of their strength, willing the cracks to heal. Couldn't they see there was nothing left to save? There was only one thing left to do. One by one I severed the tenuous threads they held onto. With each cut I knew the damage I was doing—to the Keeper who held the link, to the Gate—but I was ruthless.

Yes, yes…

Its urging made me stronger. With the last link severed I was aware that new Keepers rushed to replace those that had fallen unconscious. I pushed against them, forcing them out. In the bedlam, the Keepers screamed, shouting orders to each other on how to proceed. Had they known it was me, I'm sure I would have been cut down, but a Keeper-in-training huddled on the floor hardly posed a threat. If they only knew.

“We must be stronger! Push harder.” Master Dogan's voice sliced through the din. I crouched lower, knowing he would stop at nothing to protect what remained. He didn't realize the time for fighting was over.

I stared into the gaping hole in the center of the Gateway, allowing it to pull me deeper.

I was no longer one with the Gateway. I was the Gateway. I vibrated with an energy, a power too big to be contained. I felt every heartbeat as it pulsed through my veins; felt the interchange of blood in my capillaries as they cycled carbon dioxide back into the oxygen I needed to survive. All of life was like that, cycling over and over again in a never-ending exchange of good and bad, poison and medicine.

It never has to be like that again.

Its words firmed my resolve. I braced myself for the onslaught. I gathered as much of the power as I could hold and used it to blow the remains of the Gateway apart.

A deafening sound reverberated around the hall; dust and gravel showered the room. For a moment, battle was suspended as all turned to look at the twelve-foot gash. Keepers screamed, collapsed, teared at their hair. Through the debris, Master Dogan locked eyes with me.

“What have you done?”

His face twisted in anguish and I almost succumbed to his grief. He was a broken man, weeping openly.

With the Gateway destroyed, I was no longer linked to it, and the feeling of being ripped apart ceased. I stood, knowing what would come next through the giant hole in the floor.

Taren skidded into the room, halting at the scene. I looked him square in the eye and he knew.

“Ember, no!”

In his shock, Taren dropped his weapon. Now unarmed, one of the monkey creatures flew at him, fangs tearing flesh from his shoulder. A second later, Kat was there, pulling the beast from Taren and smashing its skull.

The suspended reality stretched as more and more Guardians spilled into the room and learned the condition of the Gateway. Dozens of demons escaped unimpeded. The ground rumbled.

Finally free after all of these centuries, I assumed the Demon would shoot forth like a laser. But real power doesn't require speed. Like the schoolteacher that whispers, “sshh,” to calm a room of children, it is within the intent, not the action that power lies.

The Demon came through sinuously, slowly, taking pleasure in Its ascent. It was as wide as the Gateway itself, and once stretched to Its full height, would extend past the balcony. There were no eyes in Its sockets, Its mouth ringed with fangs. It had the appearance of having been bathed in acid, oily black flesh burned and hanging off in strips.

As It had seen life through my eyes for all those years, our link was complete and I could see us through It. We were so small, so unimportant, valuable only if useful. Slime dripped from Its limbs, too many to count. They reached out, heedless of the Guardians cutting them, severing some completely. Its mouth, as large as the domed skylight overhead, opened in a cruel rictus.

Leave now if you wish to be safe.

Without warning, the Guardians closest to the Demon flew backward through the air, crashing to the floor. Dozens more rushed forward, only to meet the same fate.

Though no longer connected to the Gateway, I was still connected to the power that had created it. I hurdled it at the Demon.

It swayed, but sustained no injury. It swung Its head in my direction.

I offer safety for you and your—

I sent another bolt of power, this one concentrated at Its chest, now emerging from the opening. The flames that erupted were quickly snuffed out.

You know you're not strong enough to defeat me, I can hear it in your thoughts, yet you fight on like a pitiful human. Like the half-breed dog you are.

It was right. I knew I would never be strong enough to defeat It, had known before I'd blown the Gateway apart.

With every scrap of strength I had left, I threw again, this time straight at the Demon's skull. When It opened Its mouth to let out a snarl, I was already racing toward it.

I dove headlong into the mouth of the Beast. Sometimes you cannot drop in, you must careen headlong into destiny. Darkness closed around me. Acid stung my whole being. I hadn't started this, but it was mine to end.

Visions flashed before me and I knew that I was dying. My mother, looking years younger, having a fit about something and me running to my room in tears. Taking out a journal and sketching, being soothed by the repetition of drawing a series of lines that I would later realize belonged on the bottom left corner. Of feeling alienated at school, and scribbling designs on a math test—the bottom right. One by one the visions came, showing me each time I’d received another segment of the Gateway.

With each vision came clarity, and each shined brighter than the one before it. I had spent my life looking to be shielded from the pain of my existence, the pain of being so alone. But I wasn't alone, and never had been. With each segment I had been given I was being protected, given what I needed to keep going.

The Demon was wrong, there was no ending the cycle of good and bad, wrong and right, poison to oxygen. The Daemons had tried it and both sides had paid dearly. The Daemons on this side falling to madness and suicide, those on the other turning in on themselves until they became nothing but a horrifying shadow of their former greatness.

I was being digested, my skin dissolving one layer at a time, and as it did, I felt one thing—regret. Regret for all of my years spent railing against life. What did I owe the world? I wasn't sure, but I knew what it owed me. Nothing. It owed me nothing and yet had given me so much and I'd squandered it. As the scenes of my life continued to flash I knew one thing with a certainty stronger than I'd ever known.

I wanted to live.

Even if my mother never took her meds again. Even if Taren and I didn’t work out. Even if I were drummed out of the Institute. I wanted to be around to see it.

For the first time, a ball of light blazed in my mind’s eye.

The light was a combination of silver and gold, molten lava that burned so pure that no ash was left behind. I was no longer channeling it. I had become it. I stopped feeling the burning pain, the fire inside me burned hotter than the acid that engulfed me. I surrendered myself completely, willing to follow where it led.

“She’s awake! Nurse—she’s awake! Ember, honey, you’re ok. You had an accident and…”

I stopped hearing her. So, Hades did exist. I was Sisyphus and this was my boulder. After all of my years spent resenting life, I couldn’t think of a more fitting way for me to spend eternity.

“She's definitely awake, look at her smiling.” Taren’s voice was a shock.

If I could register shock, I had a nervous system. If I had a nervous system…

My eyes flew open and tears welled in them when I saw Taren and my mother leaning over me.

“Kat? Is she—” My voice came out in a raspy croak, as though I had spent an evening upwind of a bonfire.

“She’s fine,” Taren said, “we’ve been sleeping in shifts. She’ll be back soon, I promise.”

I’d heard it said that there are moments, perfect moments when the stars align and all is right with the world. I’d heard about them, but I’d never actually had one. Until this one.

My eyes took in my surroundings. Smaller than a hospital room, it reminded me of the nurse’s office at school.

“The infirmary?” I said.

“We would have taken you to the E.R., but Dr. Meade swore she had a salve that would work on your burns better than anything they would have there.”

Dr. Meade entered holding a jar filled with a sticky green paste. “It's true. Nothing in a hospital can treat demon burns as good as this can.”

My eyes bulged and darted to my mother.

“Mom, what she means is…” I groped for an excuse.

“It’s alright, she knows,” Taren said.

“She knows… what exactly?”

“About the Gateway. And the demons. And the demons coming through the Gateway,” my mother replied, as though she were discussing the weather.

“What?” I said and tried to sit up.

My head swam and I sank back into the pillows. The change in pressure set my back on fire. Covered in bandages as I was, it wasn’t enough to dull the pain.

“We thought it best to tell her the truth, under the circumstances. You’ll be convalescing for awhile and we had to explain your injuries somehow,” Taren said. “She took it very well…”

“To be honest, it sort of fits with some theories I had anyway,” Mom said. “I mean, you can’t live in Los Angeles as long as I have and not believe there are a few demons running around.”