The COMPLETE Witching Pen Series, Boxed Set (91 page)

Annoyed, she stared at her beautiful half-demon through half-closed eyes. “Hey … I want to sleep.”

She heard him curse.

Whatever. Sod him. He wasn’t trying to push baby Godzilla out of his vagina.

“Godzilla?”

Great – there she went saying things aloud again.

A cool, wet towel was swabbed over her forehead. “Mmmmm…”

“She needs blood,” came Zaynolita’s voice.

Hell, she was
such
a nice female. What a granny – Godzilla’s great granny … a Godzilla granny – Great Granny Godzilla. She chuckled to herself.

“She’s delirious.”

Well, duh! You try giving birth to a dragon!
 

“Amy, it’s not a dragon, it’s just a boy.”

“No,” she yawned, “it’s the Dragon. Don’t you get it?” Wow, she was sleepy… “The Dragon is rising, and our son is the new God … Godzilla.”

Her head swam, and her eyes closed. Who needed gas and air anyway … endorphins worked great.

She screamed awake and lurched in Pueblo’s arms, her body rippling uncontrollably.

Fucking contractions!
All she wanted to do was sleep, was that too much to ask?

A rich, metallic scent, totally different than that of her body's own fluids, tickled her nose, and then she was breathing it in greedily.

“Here.”

She automatically opened her mouth, drooling, all her senses suddenly sharpening as a small, mewling sound left her. It would have embarrassed her, but she was already butt-naked and splayed out for all the world to see, so a little impromptu mewling was hardly an issue.

“That’s my girl,” said Pueblo, and she could hear the smile in his voice.

Her lips closed around his wrist, and his wound wept into her mouth.

Divine!

She sucked at it with need, and the need went straight to her stomach. When was the last meal she’d eaten? Hell, she couldn’t remember.

Grabbing his arm with both hands, she reached deeper for his blood, the shifter in her purring, her teeth elongating and sinking in to his flesh so he couldn’t get away.

She heard a hiss, and then a moan, and then nothing else as his pulse beat in her ears, rushing that liquid life into her body.

“Good!” exclaimed his grandmother. “Good – I can see the head. She is ready. Amy, you can push now. Push,
K’landouter
… push!”

Her body was ready before she was. Another contraction hit, and, now nourished with her bonded’s blood, she followed the movement of her womb bearing down.

“Again!”

The contractions were back full force, one after the other, no gap between them. She rode them – a surfer on waves.

She arched her back and bent her knees further, pushing downwards, following nothing but the primal urge of her body.

“Again!”

She braced herself on Pueblo’s shoulders, leaning forwards on her arms.

He took her weight without faltering, a fierce pride in his eyes. “You can do this.”

She blinked her concurrence as she rode out another flood of pain, and yes, she could do this. Because
not
doing it, was not an option.

~*~

His knees bent and he collapsed, Elena’s shout preceding his contact with the ground.

How had she not sensed this? He’d been swaying and pale…

Fuck. She’d been so thrown back by that vision; so immersed in his story; so fearful of the sword and how he might have harmed the Dragon…

“No!” She fell down beside him. Her hands went to his chest, and she immediately pulled them back, her eyes welling …
Oh, no
. They had literally
sunk
into his skin, the skin itself slick; the blood loss making it both soft and doughy. His entire torso was a river. “No, no, no … Karl…”

There was commotion around her, but she couldn’t lift her head to take any of it in.

“He’s gone,” God rasped out.

“No.”

“I’m sorry.”

“What have you done, what have you
done
…”

“Elena!” Her mother grasped her chin and turned her face towards her.

Elena barely saw her, although she could make out that her lips were moving.

“Did you hear me? The eggs are cracking. We need to go.”

“No.” That was out of the question. “I’m staying.”

“Not a bloody chance.”

“I’m not leaving him!”

“Elena, you’ve done this before…”

“And he lived – he
lived.
What if he can again? I can heal him.”

“You would be healing God, not Karl.”

She stared at her mum, aghast.

“Elena, he
fused
with Karl. You cannot separate them.”

“She’s right…”

Elena looked down at the man who had created an entire planet and two races – ruthlessly, desperately – all because he’d wanted to go home; all because he had pined for his family; for the one he loved…

“She’s right,” he repeated. “He and I are one. He will end with me.”

‘You're my whole world, Elena...’
 

Her skin pricked with an odd sensation.

‘There's darkness in you, I can feel it.’
 

Calm stole over her, as a thought form, not within her mind, but deep within her soul, emerged. It felt like a cocoon unfurling.

Her mum frowned at her, then tugged at her arm again. “Elena, please.”

Behind her, she heard the sound of shells cracking.

“It’s a big issue of yours isn’t it?” she asked him. “Darkness.”

“You saw how it swallowed up my home,” his voice quavered, and he coughed. “Some kind of blackness with an agenda; my very first apocalypse.”

“And this same blackness, you later found in Lilith.”

Pain flashed across his eyes, and after a beat, he nodded. “It’s … uncontrollable.”

She nodded, slowly, in understanding, and put her hands back on God’s chest, ignoring the way they squelched and slid across him. No words were needed. Her natural, healing magic flowed through her, and bathed him in green light.

“Elena, no!”

But her mother wouldn’t be able to stop her and they both knew it.

“Katherine, we need to go.”

Her mother shrugged Paul off.

God’s skin repaired itself, new blood flowed through his veins as his cells replicated under Elena’s command. Colour returned to his cheeks and he sat up, completely healed, and stared at her in shock.

Her mother’s voice echoed his expression. “What the hell are you doing? This
isn’t
Karl.”

“They’re fused together.”

“Exactly. He’s—”

“I’ll take them both.”

The hatching of the eggs seemed ten times louder in the stunned silence.

“You’ll … Elena—”

“I’ll take them both. I’m not giving up on Karl. If they come as a package, so be it.”

“Elena—”

“Leave – while you can.”

An almighty crash sounded through the tunnels, rock falling, and then a deafening roar. Everyone had cleared out of the cave, except for her mother, Katarra, Ri Tian, and her grandfather.

“Mum, look at me. This is my wish. I have a clear head –
this is my wish.
Do this for me.”

Her mother’s eyes gleamed in the dim light.

“Katherine,” said her granddad, “if we don’t leave now, we don’t leave at all.”

“I’ll stay with her,” said Katarra, and then looked at Elena for confirmation. The demon looked positively green, her pallor already the colour of the dead.

Elena nodded.

Her mother took in a shuddering breath. “Okay, sweetie,” and then grasped her face and held her close, placing a kiss on her forehead. “Okay.”

“I love you, Mum.”

“I love you, too.”

Her grandfather squeezed her arm. “Take care.”

“Wait!” She reached into her pocket, pulled out Mary’s necklace and placed it in his hand. “I thought this was meant for me. Clearly not. Use it to get out of here if you need to.”

He took in a breath. “Thank you.” And then he all but dragged her mother out of there and back through the tunnel.

Elena turned to Ri Tian.

He nodded once, placed his hand upon his duplicate necklace, mumbled something in a language foreign to Elena, and then disappeared.

She returned her attention to the man she had just healed.

God leaned forward until he was kneeling, testing his weight as he did so. “I don’t know if I want to—”

“
You
stole an innocent man’s body for your own need. You only get one more choice, and be grateful I’m giving you one, because I’m not in a very giving mood right now.” She glanced from him to Lilith’s tomb.

‘You’re my whole world, Elena.’
 

“Would you give up
everything
to be with her again?”

He didn’t even hesitate. His eyes grew steady as he followed her gaze. “I would. Of course I would.”

She stood and made her way to the carving on the plinth. “
Libero.
”

A gasp sounded from behind her, as Lilith’s statue split and cracked right along with the eggs. “How … what’s going on? What are you doing?”

She didn’t answer, but climbed onto the statue and sat astride it. She turned back and looked him in the eye. “Tell me again, who I remind you of.”

He rose to his feet.

“It was Lilith you were talking about back at the house when you said that, wasn’t it?”

After a pause, he nodded.

“Eve created this tomb, not just from her fractured memory, but from the essence of Lilith herself which she pulled from the nucleus of Tír na nÓg.”

Understanding filled his features.

“This is your lucky day.” Her words strained as her eyes welled up. “I’m going to give you your happy ending, because it’s the only way I’m going to get mine.”

She nodded to Katarra. “Make sure he doesn’t run away.”

She smiled a weak smile, muttered some words in her Brujii tongue, and a dome-like shield encased him.

He looked startled, but didn’t move.

Elena turned back to the stone statue. Cracked and broken, it looked so much like a Shanka.

Are you still with me on this?
Elena asked the demon inside her.

The succubus tilted her head in what seemed like contemplation to Elena’s mind.
He loves her, doesn’t he? Uncontrollably so, which is why he’s tried so hard to control everything.
 

Yes, he does. As much as Karl loves me, and his angel loves you.

Then I think this will work. But it doesn’t matter – this is the end. It’s all or nothing. Let’s do it.

Elena lay herself, face down, along the length of the statue, placed her hands on either side of the cold stone, and called forth the power she wielded over life and death … just as the eggs hatched, and the screech of seven baby dragons filled the air.

~*~

Katherine raced through the tunnel with her father. She knew what Elena had in mind, because she’d seen it in a vision earlier that night. She had recounted her vision to her father after calling him in panic from her own house. She’d had to go back there; had had to revisit a thousand memories that lived in that home: Elena being born; at age two and grumpily teething; at age four and crying over not having enough fingers to count to twenty; at age five and beaming with pride as the stabilizers came off her bicycle; at age ten, twelve, fifteen… Her whole life she had shut her daughter out – what a lie. Elena had never left; she’d always been in her heart.

And this was hard – much harder than sacrificing herself for her daughter. It was everything she could do not to turn around and race back the other way, to take her baby in her arms one last time… She hadn’t been able to see the outcome in her vision.

The faint light at the end of the tunnel blurred behind her tears.

Finally, they came out the other side, back into the first chamber, and she collided into the back of her father who had stopped dead in his tracks.

And now, she could see why.

The Dragon stood before them, from ground to ceiling – not that there was really a ceiling. It must have been about fifty feet tall.

Her heart clambered up into her throat, stifling any scream that might have been trying to get out.

Around the beast’s neck was a thick, industrial-strength chain, and on the other end of the chain was Abaddon. He sat atop the animal, with a wide, proud grin on his face, as if he was going to take it to some Jurassic version of Crufts. “Always wanted to chain her up and ride her,” he bellowed.

The Dragon roared and threw its head back, smoke hurtling out of its nose.

Abaddon laughed. “Relax, you grumpy sod – you won. She’s all yours. But this is my final moment, so I get to say what I want.”

A loud, dangerous huff was his reply.

The Dragon changed tactic and lowered his head down to the ground towards herself and her father.

He pushed her behind him, but she refused to move, intrigued by the animal’s intelligence. Now that it was close enough, she could easily see that its left eye was grey as steel, and its right eye was a tropical blue.

Christ!

Morgana had told them about Mary and Gwain’s blood infiltrating the Dragon and creating the consciousness for the reptile, but … wow.

It moved its gigantic head to the left and right, and then above them as if looking for something.

“Karl’s not coming,” voiced Abaddon, and Katherine spotted some object on his chest glowing as he spoke – Mary’s tear. She’d heard of it, but had never seen it. Until now. Was that how he was able to communicate with the Dragon?

Its next roar practically deafened her for a good thirty seconds.

“Whoa!” Abaddon pulled on the chain. “Elena’s with him.”

That seemed to calm the Dragon – almost instantaneously, actually, and strangely, Katherine also felt calmer witnessing the beast’s reaction.

From behind the Dragon stepped Lucifer and Michael, both of them looking warily at the creature.

“Right,” Abaddon addressed his audience. “I’m taking this baby up. This is the final act – mine, anyway. All passengers for the Fat Lady, hop on board now, and grab a chain-link.”