Shadows Before the Sun (28 page)

Sachâth looked down in surprise and then its face became more animated, more humanlike. Emotion poured into its eyes as its shadows reached out and pulled the First One close. “Forgive me, sister,” it said before darkness threaded its way from the wound, wrapped around her sword, covering her hand and then scurrying up her arm, covering her like a horde of insects.

The female’s Disciple went berserk, hacking at Sachâth, attacking, trying to save her, but he was tossed like a rag doll. He landed forty feet away, the crash of his armor loud in the sudden quiet.

Ahkneri lowered her sword and began backing up.

That is why we cannot kill it. Strike a deathblow, and you become Death. It’s a fail-safe. To ensure there is only one outcome—the total annihilation of my kind. When the last one of us is dead, Sachâth will return to the Creator.

Ahkneri’s black wings shot out as she moved slowly away from Sachâth. Then she turned in my direction, and ran. Supernaturally fast. Arms pumping. Face determined and haunted. She took flight, shooting past me, the tip of her wing passing through my shoulder, heading for the Disciple who’d been thrown.

He was flat on his back, but jerked suddenly and woke swinging, as if from a nightmare, a broken cry on his lips. He struggled to his feet, jerked the helmet from his head, and flung it, roaring his pain to the sky. His golden hair was damp with sweat and blood, and his power and grief were so raw that his cry seemed to rip the air apart. And for a moment, I thought I was looking at Leander, but then Ahkneri’s wings swept in, blocking him from view. She grabbed him and flew away.

The scene retreated as though I was being pulled away along with Ahkneri and the Disciple.

I returned to the cave, swaying slightly at the sudden disorientation, and having to grab on to the sarcophagus for support. Pen’s dragon head lifted. He watched me with solemn eyes as I bent over and tried to get my wild pulse under control.

I felt like I’d been in battle myself for how shaken I was and how hard my heart pounded. Ahkneri had allowed me to see something of great significance. All
of it brutal and unbelievable. All of it needing a moment to sink in, which I took.

That was the last battle ever fought with Sachâth. You can kill the creature, Charlie, but you will take its place if you do. You will become Death. Sachâth can only be killed with a divine weapon. No one but us can wield them. And yet, you strike the blow, and you take its place. Another fail-safe.

I thought for a long moment.
What about someone else, can someone other than a First One kill Sachâth?

As you saw, the Disciple delivered a blow with a divine sword that wounded the creature. Had he held the sword, however, it would’ve killed him. There were times in battle when Disciples attempted to slay the creature with our weapons . . . suicide, they knew, but just one moment was all we’d need, just one killing blow that did not come from our hand . . . and yet that blow never came. We tried everything, coordinated attacks, launching our weapons from afar, but our weapons are an extension of us. Struck by hand or afar, the killing blow still kills the weapon’s owner and another Sachâth rises. If another were to use my sword and kill the creature, I’d still become Death, wherever I was.

What about using a sword from a First One already gone? I asked. Sachâth would die, and there’d be no First One to change into Death.

It was a thought that worked better in theory. No one can wield our swords, Charlie. And most, even if they could for a few minutes, did not have the strength to defeat Sachâth in that short period of time.

What about other races,
I went on,
their powers, can they harm it?

We fought Sachâth at a time when other races were in their infancy. There are primal powers perhaps strong enough, but Sachâth is . . . perfect.

Anything else you can tell me?

Sachâth will only attack one of my kind, unless it is provoked, then it will defend itself. But it is not programmed to seek out and kill others. Just us. That is all I know . . .

“Thank you,” I said, hand flat on the sarcophagus.

That incredible being I’d just seen fighting her heart out was lying beneath the lid. I shook my head. It wasn’t right. Ahkneri was good, not some evil being cast to Earth like in our biblical stories.

I have accepted my lot. You are . . . like us, but . . . different. You wear your weapon on the inside. You
are the weapon. But you will still become Death should you strike the blow that ends the current Sachâth. Even now, your power calls to it. You grow stronger every day. Soon it will hunt; your power will be a beacon, a lure it cannot resist. If you run now . . .

I can’t run.
I had a life. A family. A
child
. I couldn’t leave her. Just the thought of it was like a kick in the gut. Leaving Emma and running was no different than if I died trying to defeat Sachâth. Either way I was out of her life for good. Because I sure as hell wasn’t going to uproot her and drag her all over the world while Mommy slept in a fucking stone coffin.

I, too, had a child, a family . . .

Well, it’s not right. It’s not fair,
I told Ahkneri sadly.
I have to face it, or sooner or later I’m dead anyway.
And
I’d do it on my terms, and hopefully with a little help from my friends.

The emotion I got from the ancient being was patient understanding. No doubt, she’d felt the same as I did at one time. She’d been there, tried that, and look where she ended up.

I straightened, not allowing myself to think like I was defeated before the battle had even begun. If Sandra thought there was a way, then I had to think the same.

And one thing I knew for sure—the oracle was
never
wrong.

•    •    •

I sat at Pen’s kitchen table, nursing my beer as he grabbed his second one from the fridge and bit off the cap. He spit the cap into the nearby trash can, parked his hip on the edge of the counter, and then took a long, deep swig. Since he was no stranger to the truth about the First Ones, I confided in him about Sachâth, the details of my vision, and Alessandra’s prophecy. He might have embraced some of our modern ways, but Pen was old. Rumor was he’d once been worshipped as a Celtic god. He was a Druid, too. And he was intimately acquainted with the arcane and with Nwyvre.

“Nwyvre is a primal power source,” he said, picking up where our conversation left off. “The Creator didn’t create Earth, or Elysia and Charbydon for that matter. They were already there; they exist outside
of divine influence. The Creator simply made the First Ones and then seeded the worlds with their offspring. The Adonai, the nobles, and humans all descended from the Creator’s divine children, but the rest of us, we rose directly from our home; we evolved on our own, albeit much later. Interesting thing,” he said, eyes going narrow and thoughtful, “you have the power of all three noble races within you, which makes you divine, but . . .”

“Yeah?” I prompted when he fell into silence.

Pen smiled wryly and pulled out a chair, flipped it around, and sat down. “Well, think of it this way . . . Even the noble races have evolved since they were first given life. They’ve acclimated and changed. The Adonai, for instance, they learned to utilize the power of Elysia with utter precision, they wield it, heal from it, draw it into themselves . . . You don’t think that has changed them over the course of millennia? It has. You weren’t given the genes of those early ones who seeded the worlds; you were given the genes from those who had evolved over thousands and thousands of years.”

“True,” I said. “It makes sense, but how is that going to help me?”

Pen shrugged. “Not only are you divine, but you have ties to each world. You don’t rely solely on divine power. You’ve used Charbydon and Elysian power in the past, yes?”

I nodded.

He took another drink. “Sachâth’s power is divine.
The Creator is also a primal power. How do you fight primal power?”

“With another primal power,” I answered. “We fight Sachâth with Elysian or Charbydon. Or both.”

Pen smiled. “Or we hit him with all three.”

I knew there was a reason I liked the Druid. A very tiny spark of hope lit in my mind.

“I can pull insane amounts of Nwyvre through the henge, so I’ve got Earth covered. You come with Elysian and Charbydon power and we strike it with all we got . . .” He shrugged and drank. “Then we
might
have a shot.”

“That’s drawing the creature right into your territory, using the henge,” I pointed out.

“If it only attacks other races when provoked, I don’t see a problem. I’ll make sure my Kinfolk won’t attack. The bigger problem is getting a primal energy source, raw, arcane stuff, from both Elysia and Charbydon. Good luck with that.”

“Thanks.” I stood up and set my half empty beer on the counter before turning toward Pen and giving him a long, curious look. “Why would you help me? There’s nothing in it for you.”

He went still as he studied me and the hairs on the back of my neck lifted. Then the sensation was gone as quickly as it came. “If Sachâth is gone, Ahkneri will be safe.”

Oh, I had a feeling I knew where he was going with this. Not good. Not good at all. “She can never rise, Pen. You know that. No one even knows how to
awaken her, except maybe a Disciple. And the tablet about them was destroyed by the Circe. And even if she could rise, her existence would start a three-world war. You can’t seriously be thinking this.”

He drained the last of the beer, watching me as the liquid slid down his throat. He set the bottle on the table. “She rises. We reveal the sarcophagus. Let the jinn, the Sons of Dawn, and any other cult out there see that it was empty all along, then she can live in peace. That’s all she ever wanted, Charlie.”

“And her weapon? Her power. You can’t hide that.”

“Sure I can. I’m the Druid King.” A small smile played on his lips. “Tell me you don’t want to see her free, too.”

“Of course I do,” I answered immediately. “Christ, Pen . . . Let’s just take this one step at a time, okay? We get rid of Sachâth and then we’ll work out a plan. But we have to agree, have to cover all our bases, before we even seriously consider what you’re thinking.”

“Done.”

That was too easy. “I want a
geis
. Your vow.”

His expression went shrewd and that eerie color washed over his irises again. His chair screeched along the floor as he unfolded himself. He held out his left hand, palm up. “Place your palm flat over mine.”

Having never actually demanded a binding vow like this, I was a little hesitant as I stepped forward and placed my palm over Pen’s. A tingling energy wrapped around my hand and the winding tattoo
that covered his left side moved, or at the very least shuddered, awakened . . . Along his wrist and hand, a shadow of it climbed over my skin like vines, threading together and making a knot over our hands. A bond. As it did this, Pen vowed that Ahkneri would not be awakened until we agreed upon terms.

And then he dropped his hand and it was done.

I rubbed my hand. “So what happens if you break the vow?”

“I can’t even if I wanted to. I won’t be able to move beyond an intention to break the vow, so it’s a moot point.” I slid my hand into my jacket. It felt prickly, like it had fallen asleep. “The henge is yours. You let me know when you figure things out.”

“Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it. You’ll be taking over Killian’s case, now that you’re back, I presume?” It was phrased as a question, but sounded more like a demand, a very subtle one, but still.

“Yeah, let me get Death off my back, and I’m all yours.” Pen’s eyebrow arched, a raven’s wing that didn’t seem to appreciate my sarcasm at all. “I’ll get an update from Ashton and Liz, look over the labs and paperwork. I’ll let you know the status as soon as I can.”

I returned home with pizza and breadsticks, helped Emma with her vocabulary, and then settled in for the night. I’d never made it to the station, but I planned on being there first thing in the morning.

My dreams that night were a rehashing of Ahkneri’s battle, Alessandra’s eerie head spouting off prophecies, and random bits of me and Hank, his torture, and the fight against the Circe.

By the time I woke, I felt like I’d relived a couple lifetimes in just a few hours. I took a cool shower to wake me up, ate breakfast with Emma and Rex, and then dropped Em off at the League of Mages school before continuing to the station.

“Well done, Madigan.” The chief clapped me on the shoulder as I entered our work space. He must’ve decided that wasn’t enough because he pulled me into
a bear hug. “Well done.” He set me back, the look in his eyes warm and fatherly. Then he winked at me and went right back to work mode. “You’re going to have one hell of a report to file, so better hop to it. And don’t forget to file a report on the oracle as well. Sian will send a copy over to the folks in Ithonia. Glad to have you back.”