The COMPLETE Witching Pen Series, Boxed Set (92 page)

Michael was the first one up, using his wings to get there. Katherine strained to hear what he said to Abaddon. “So, this is how it ends for us.”

“There are worse ways to go, my friend. I should know – I’ve been the cause of quite a few endings … nothing quite like this…”

Lucifer stood next to Katherine. “I’ll fly you and Paul up.”

She looked at him, trying to gauge what he might be thinking after witnessing God’s recounting and learning Eve’s place in it all. He’d become impenetrable again. “Thanks.”

Something small and cool was pressed into her hand.

Startled, she looked down to find her father closing her hand around Mary’s necklace. “What the hell is this?” she started angrily.

“Use it to get out if you need to.”

“Don’t you
dare
—”

“I think Elena will succeed. In fact, I know she will. I taught her; I know her capabilities, and unless I’m mistaken, she’s consumed Brujii magic on top of her own abilities. She’ll succeed, and she’s going to need me.”

“
I’ll
stay.”

“No.”

“You have a son!”

“I have a granddaughter.” She was brought into an embrace and kissed, just as she had kissed Elena on the forehead. “I have a daughter – the best one I could have asked for.”

“Dad…”

 He glanced at Lucifer. “Take her.”

“No!”
Not enough time!
 

Lucifer complied, and she was whisked upwards until she was seated on warm scales, his arms keeping her in place.

She looked down to say goodbye, to say she loved him, to say anything that meant she’d get to speak to him again, but he had already gone.

“He knows,” whispered Lucifer. “He knows you love him, and he loves you more than you know.”

Her tears were silent as the Dragon turned to prepare for its flight. She leaned back against the angel, but all of a sudden felt him tense behind her.

Spinning round, she took in his face and then followed his gaze to the far side of the cavern. There was nothing there but blackness and shadows, and…

She caught her breath.

A flicker of gold hair; blue eyes, stark against a pale complexion… It was so blindingly fast, she wasn’t sure she’d seen it at all, but she must have done because that blurred face imprinted itself into her mind.

Waves of need rolled off Lucifer, matching the despair in his voice. “Eve…”

She grabbed him just as he shifted his weight to get off. “You don’t have to go to her, you don’t! It might not even have been her. Lucifer, you’ve been chasing a memory your entire existence; not even your memory –
God’s
memory. It’s time to let it go.”

He looked at her, uncertain, and all that was indecipherable fell away from him. If she thought she couldn’t penetrate him before, now, he was an unguarded beacon that shone his vulnerability into every corner … and yet, beacons could burn; become wild if untempered.

“The clawing desperation you feel right now, is part of your addiction.
Beat it.
You’re stronger than this.”

He still stared at the spot, unable to look away.

“Lucifer … your light is so bright. Meet the end riding a Dragon through the skies of the future, not following history into the dark of the Earth.”

Finally, he looked at her, defeated. “You’re extraordinary, you know that?” He ran his forefinger down her throat; over her heart… “Everything you’ve overcome… You’re stronger than your addiction; mine still feeds me.”

In one movement, he was over the Dragon’s side, already in snake form, slithering down its leg.

She followed his passage into the shadows, until she could see him no more.

Everything rocked backwards and she yelped.

Michael’s hand found her arm, and he pulled her in tight behind him. “Hold on!”

She did, tightly clutching the necklace her father had given her.

Out of the corner of her eye, she spied seven small figures scurry in from the tunnel.
The baby dragons!
 

Her heart constricted as she thought of Elena and her father, and she sent out a prayer, although she had no idea who might hear it – God wasn’t an option.

The Dragon leapt from its hind legs, Abaddon whooped into the open darkness above them, and then they were speeding upwards, to greet the dawn of a new day.

Chapter Twenty-Six

To watch true magic at play was something else.

She didn’t think anything would compare to seeing those seven eggs hatch; those dragons stagger out in search of their parent…
Dragons – I’ve seen dragons
!

But Elena, at full potency, swept everything else under the carpet.

The Brujii had always had a great love and passion for magic, and not just because it was the ‘gift’ forced upon them. Magic was a thing beautiful to behold when it flowed with grace and power.

Katarra tried to sit up a bit and winced. Her body was failing, her life force barely there. At least death’s door offered one hell of a view.

Elena lay, as if frozen, on top of Lilith’s stone form. A faint, green glow emanated from her skin, but that was just the natural colour of her craft. What Katarra fixated on was the shifting air surrounding her, so much so, that Elena seemed to be a mirage, or encased in a heat wave…

An earth-shaking roar sounded from beyond the tunnels.

Elena didn’t seem to notice, even though Katarra, herself, jumped out of her skin.

The shimmering haze that enveloped the witch and the tomb, thickened without warning, until neither could be seen. Pouring mist took up the centre of the cave.

Katarra risked a glance at God. He remained in the bubble she’d placed around him, looking like a scared rabbit. The bubble wouldn’t last very long – the minute she died, so would that dome cage.

Something fluttered in front of her face and she swiped at it, both annoyed and startled, and then became very still as she understood what she was witnessing: butterflies.

Another flittered past her, and she gasped as hundreds upon hundreds became visible, resting on all walls of the cavern; some of them in flight, and freakin’ hell! A swarm of butterflies crazy-flying around you as you instinctively ducked to avoid getting wings in your eyes and mouth, was scary as shit. She didn’t need to be told they were a manifestation of the witch’s magic.

“Elena?” she called out, her voice frighteningly weak. “Elena…”

A shadow stood in the coiling mist. It moved towards her until the contrast between dark and light grew, and physical form became clearer – Elena’s form, although … something was different. The way she carried herself? Yes, it was the way she walked, and the reality hit Katarra as surely as her imminent death.

No way … it can’t be.
And yet, it could – only Elena could have done it. To bring back the dead was one thing. To bring back those dead for too many millennia to count, was something else entirely.

Lilith emerged.

Her skin still carried a green hue that radiated, just as God’s clothes had glowed golden. The telling difference was in her eyes, her gaze simply ancient.

Fuck me, she did it!

Katarra fell back, slumping against half a shell of a dragon’s egg, no longer able to hold herself up. Her eyes closed as remembered words tumbled from her lips… “As Shanka fall, old love will wake eternal sleep … the final quake.”

Elena had fused with Lilith.

The last thing Katarra knew, was that the core of the Earth began to shake.

~*~

It took a while for her eyes to focus, and even when they did, all she could see was the last thing she had ever seen: his face.

The pain of the memory was almost too much to bear.

There had not been much of anything after that: a sense of peace, and then an eternity of unease as the light of peace was ripped from her. But what was eternity, when that final memory had branded her mind? Eternity was a second, that was all – a second gone wrong, resting in the flux of a decision made that defined forever.

She saw a red-haired woman lying dead on the ground. Or maybe she was sleeping. Either way, she hoped that eternity would be kinder to her.

The ground began to shake under her feet and all around her.

A strangled noise sounded from her left.

She turned and saw a man, and her first thought was that the dead woman must have meant something to him … but he was staring at
her
, not the red-head, shock in his gaze.
 

He blinked, and then blinked again… “Lilith?”

Maybe it was the way he’d said her name, or the fact that she hadn’t heard it uttered for an age, but in that moment, she saw the man that lay within the stranger’s body: she saw her God.

Dumbfounded, she opened her mouth, expecting nothing. Her fluent mother tongue poured out. “My God … husband mine…” And then a flood of tears.

He stumbled towards her. When his fingers touched her skin, she might have burst into a million pieces.

“Lilith … Goddess…” His voice broke, his tears matching hers, falling onto her hair as his arms held her – unfamiliar arms, but a familiar embrace. So familiar…
 

Small, loose rocks fell from the high walls.

“What’s happening?” she asked.
 

He cupped her face, love shining brightly, and for a minute, she thought he glowed. “The end.”

“The end?”
 

“Yes.”
 

“Here, with you?”
 

He nodded, eyes shimmering… “Yes.”

The end.

She’d seen him again for all of one minute, but eternity was doing its strange thing again. When his lips met hers, one second grew to encompass all of time itself. And he didn’t just glow … he beamed.

~*~

Love could build walls that scraped the skies. That same love could knock them down with one strike.

That was something Elena had learned all her life, but especially in the past three months.

She couldn’t reach Karl because God was in the way, so she had to reach God instead, and she’d known how to do it the minute she’d understood Eve’s memory.

What she didn’t know, was if she could.

To take Lilith’s life force into her body, not knowing if she would survive with her identity intact, was a risk. But obliterating God’s defences was the only way she would know if Karl was still in there or not. Lilith was the key – Elena knew all about losing the one you love.

Now, God was defenceless, and Karl was glowing
through
God.

“Do it!”
she called to her succubus, and, as one, Elena and the succubus, from deep within Lilith, latched onto Karl and his glow. She sucked it into her, for once not afraid of taking too much – his glow could never be depleted by her demon, why hadn’t she seen that before? She’d been so afraid in the past to unleash the full aspect of her demon on him – to consume him, all holds barred, lest she kill him again – now, it was the only chance she had of bringing him back.

The kiss deepened.

Karl moaned.

“More! Take more … bring him out…”
 

The demon did as instructed, taking Karl into her, bringing him up to the forefront of his own body.

He muttered her name as if in a deep sleep, and she almost jumped for joy.

Lilith and God didn’t protest – they were far too wrapped up in each other, unwilling to surface; after all, what was there to surface for now they were finally united again?

Lilith’s voice in her head grew faint. Her thoughts and memories faded.

Elena grew more conscious of her own body and mind. She knew Lilith was in here to stay for good in the same way that God could not be removed from Karl, but she was gambling her trust that God and Lilith would forever hold their peace as long as they remained together, ‘together’ meaning fused with Karl and herself.

“Elena…” Karl mumbled, and his fingers found their way into her hair, tilting her head, opening her further to him. It also opened him to her, and Elena unleashed the last of her demon’s power.

The entire cave was lit to the brim with his glow, and so was she, for the succubus had taken everything he had to give; everything she could…

He moaned again, this time a loud, wanting sound, and they stumbled backwards, slamming into one of the rocky walls.

Elena ignored the scrape of her skin against it, ignored the crumbling of the cave around her, and held him to her.

He pulled her up from under her thighs and she locked her legs around his waist. The feel of him, hard and hot,
and completely him
,
between her thighs, sent her head reeling and her heart swelling.

The demon, the witch, and her, and she supposed Lilith, too – everything and everyone inside her, seemed to coalesce into one unstoppable force. She threw all her magic, all her hunger, all her will and all her desire into getting Karl back, and back he was.

Consumed by all that made up who they were, she rocked against him, their clothes unnoticed.

His kiss possessed her. He thrust himself against her, piling her into the wall, her jeans burning her deliciously where he rubbed, his glow permeating her, and then she cried out as her orgasm consumed her, his climax just a second behind, as dust and stone fell around them.

“Karl…”

“Karl…”

He raised his head from the crook of her shoulder, where he had rested it. Tears stained his face, but a deep peace lay within him that shone through his blue eyes. His nose touched hers, “I thought I’d lost you … I thought I’d lost you…”

“Never.” She kissed those lips that had made her smile a thousand times every year. “Never.”

He sighed, a contended sound, and let his head fall again, not willing to break their embrace.

“Karl…”

A small rock smashed behind him as the whole planet shook. And then another.