'Tween Heaven and Hell (31 page)

Like a bolt of lightning through my benumbed brain, Emo’s
face flashed across my mental screens, drawing me out of myself with a jolt. I
felt adrenaline surge through my veins again. My gaze flew to him. With horror I
realized that the wall he’d been hanging from was crumbling away rapidly and he
was now lying on the floor, quickly being covered by flying stone, dust and
glass. I jumped to my feet and rushed toward him.

I took the space between us at a speed that shattered any
hope I might have had that I had retained my scrap of humanity after recent
events. I scooped him up with my newfound strength and fairly flew from that
room, praying that I’d be able to find my way out of that horrid cavern.

As I reached the passageway that led toward the ceremony
cave, I realized the implosion I’d started in Nerul’s office hadn’t stopped
there. Chaos reigned in that subterranean hell as rock walls and ceilings
crackled and thundered and fell about the inhabitants in varying sizes of
chunks.

Emo and I were quickly caught up in a slowly moving retreat
and I soon began to fear that we’d be crushed and trampled by the onrush. Hooded
figures swarmed around us, flinging each other down and charging toward what I
assumed was an exit out of the court. I followed as best I could and prayed I’d
make it out in time to save Emo.

After a few moments of the crushing retreat, we emerged into
sunlight and I suddenly found myself with room to move again. I carried Emo
into the dense underbrush around the face of the cave and laid him on the
ground. He groaned as I laid him down and all of the breath left me when I saw
how pale he was. His usual ruddy red skin tones had been replaced by a kind of
pinkish gray color. I could tell by his shallow and infrequent breathing that
he was a hair away from eternal life. Panic welled in my chest.

“Hang in there, partner. I haven’t given you permission to
leave yet. You’re still on the clock here. Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit!”

Although I knew I was avoiding the inevitable, I pulled
several small slivers of glass from his chest, arms and legs before turning to
the knife in his cheek. I remembered the gargoyle claw and my skin went clammy.
I knew I would have to call the power to heal him or he would die. I also knew
that what I had just done in that cave had scared the soul out of me. I was
deathly afraid that I had gone beyond the point of return and my soul was lost
to me. I had felt the devil take over in that horrible room and I was terrified
to unleash it again. I’d barely managed to pull it back in there. I was afraid
to let it out again. But I knew I’d have to. I had no choice.

Before I could chicken out, I laid one hand on the hilt of
the knife and wrapped the other one around the blade, resting it palm down on
Emo’s flesh. Closing my eyes I reached tentative mental fingers toward the core
of my power and drew it forward reluctantly.

It slid smoothly from its hiding place, rolling into my
hands enthusiastically and easily. I poured it into the knife that lay buried
in my friend and concentrated on pulling it free and closing the wound behind
it. The knife vibrated under my fingers and then slid smoothly and wetly out. I
allowed it to drop to the ground beside Emo’s head and smoothed my hand over
the wound. I felt the blood reversing its flow and moving away from the wound,
back into Emo’s body. I felt the edges of the wound knitting together from the
inside and I drove the power until it had completely closed the wound under my
hands. Then I moved my hands to his chest and repeated the process there.

Once his body was whole again, I touched his forehead and
shuddered at what I sensed there. I gently nudged my magic into Emo’s mind,
prodding his brain to heal and pull him back to life, because I perceived a
weakness there that scared me more than the knife had. It was a giving up. A
letting go of life. It was death. He was grabbing hold of death instead of
life.

After a moment I realized I’d done all I could do. I gently
withdrew the power and sat back. Hot moisture stained my cheeks and I realized
I was crying. As it had in that horror chamber inside the cave, my heart was
pelting the inside of my chest in a panicked state. I was going to lose my best
friend and there was nothing I could do about it.

He lay there barely breathing, although his color had
returned. He looked lifeless and way too still. I wanted to grab him and shake
him into consciousness but I was afraid to move him. Feeling helpless is not
one of my better things.

I stood and started to pace. I suddenly realized that it had
grown quiet in the cave. Dark worlders no longer spewed from its face and the
ground beneath my feet no longer rumbled and shook. Other than a thick dust
that hung in the air just inside the opening, the cataclysmic event might not
even have happened.

Suddenly I remembered Nille and Dialle and Nerul and I
wondered what had happened to everybody. I thought of the static I’d pushed
away as I’d fought to drive off Rayanne and I felt a new level of panic rising
in me. Dialle had been calling to me. I was sure of it now. And Nille. I’d
pushed them away in there and now I didn’t know what had become of them. I
suddenly knew what I had to do. I’d done all I could for Emo. I had to go back
into that cave.

With a final glance at my friend I said a quick prayer, only
momentarily wondering if my prayers would even be heard anymore after what I’d
done and forced myself to turn my back on my dying friend. I moved toward that
cave with a feeling of such dread that I wondered at my ability to keep my feet
moving forward. I knew suddenly with an incredible clarity that I was about to
face my greatest foe. And that one of us would need to die. I had a cold knot
in my gut that told me I was afraid it was gonna be me.

Chapter
Twenty-Seven

A Battle Due

Into that cave our lady did go, to face the evil core,

And though she knew she’d meet her end, she’d waver
nevermore.

The dust hanging in the air as I reentered the cave gathered
in my throat and nostrils and clogged them, stifling my ability to take in the
great gulping breaths I needed to set my fear aside. I pulled the rough
material of the demon robe I was still wearing over my nose and mouth and tried
breathing through it. After a minute I was able to take enough deep, calming
breaths so that I could move forward into the thick air without coughing my
guts up through my mouth.

The light, which had been dim before, was now almost
completely obscured by the dust in the air. As I moved more deeply into the
cave and lost the light that was filtering in through the entrance, I found
that I had to rely more and more on touch. I walked close to the wall on my
left side so that my right hand, which was clutched around the knife I’d found
on the dirt floor just inside the entrance, could work if I needed it. A few
yards into the passageway, I became aware of a strange whirring noise. I
followed the sound and soon found myself emerging into the cavern. What I saw
there was stranger than anything I’d ever experienced before.

The air at the top of the cavern was alive with something
silvered and shimmery. I tucked myself back into the shadows and squinted
upward. Although the shapes that floated above my head had a familiar feel,
they were indistinct and moved much too quickly for me to recognize them. Like
fireflies around a bright white light, they flitted here and there and shot
away from the occasional fire bolt that flew at them from somewhere among the
mass of bodies that littered the cavern floor.

The whirring sound I’d heard appeared to be coming from the
fireflies in the sky. Now that I was in the cavern, I began to notice another
sound. It was pitched low in both tone and volume, so that it almost blended
into the background of my mind and ran unnoticed through my thoughts. But once
identified, the sound brought my stomach into my throat. It was one of those
entrancing chants that had left me helpless and as immobile as cement in my own
home. It was the sound of evil and it wasn’t coming from those things above my
head. It was coming from the center of the cavern.

As if touched by a fresh current of swiftly moving air, the
murk at the center of the cavern cleared suddenly and I saw a tall naked figure
standing upon the altar. His arms were raised high above his head and, although
his back was to me, I suspected that the chants were emanating from him. As I
squinted to see who it was, the figure turned toward me and I gasped.

Pale blue eyes pierced the dusty air and locked onto me in
my hidden niche. The piercing gaze glowed through the murk like blue coals, pulling
at me. It was like a siren song of old, drawing unexpected travelers to crash
against a rocky shore. It sent a chill of cold apprehension down my spine.

Prince Nille’s voice carried through the dead atmosphere of
that underground horror land and stabbed at my ears like needles made of ice. I
wrapped my hands around my arms, momentarily forgetting the knife I clutched in
one of them.

“So you return, lovely Astra. A pity your young Prince is
dead. And even sadder that he called to you as he died. But alas, it appears
that you were too preoccupied to answer him.”

Since it did me no good to hide in the shadows I stepped out
and faced him across hundreds of slaughtered corpses. I stiffened my spine and
dropped my knife hand to my side, but I didn’t drop the knife. I lifted my chin
in defiance.

This was apparently it. I had been chosen for this moment. And
although I hadn’t the foggiest what I was supposed to do against a creature as
powerful as this very scary young devil prince, I knew it would be unveiled to
me in due course. So, for the moment, I stood, if not tall then at least
resolute before him. “I guess it’s just you and me then, Nille. Pity you don’t
have more help.”

He laughed and with the sound the chanting dropped off and
the air was silent. And very cold, I suddenly noticed. And it smelled like a
butcher shop. “You are very small to be so cocky, Astra. And I am very big.”

“Yeah, yeah. And you have such big teeth gramma. I’m sure
you’re gonna kill me, Nille, but I plan to take a chunk outta you before I go
down.”

His smile stayed in place as he hopped lightly down from the
altar. Watching him move toward me, I suddenly realized that the shimmery
figures had all fluttered over to perch on the ledge above our heads, where Emo
and I had first observed the goings on in that disgusting cavern. My eyes were
immediately drawn to the figure at the center and narrowed on the golden-haired
angel whose scowling countenance was all the body language I had to go on as a
clue to her feelings.
Take care, Astra
.

Help me.

I felt rather than saw Myra shake her head.
We are not
allowed to affect the course of things that will be. Know only that, once that
course has been determined, we will stand for you.

Gee…thanks a bunch.

Trust me when I tell you my heart is splitting in two.

Let’s just hope that’s all that gets split in two here.

Amen.

My eyes had never left Nille as Myra and I shuffled mental
drawers. He was moving across the cavern on long, elegant legs. As his feet
slid forward, bodies flew away from them to clear his path. He still carried
the golden aura I’d noticed earlier, only this time I wasn’t nearly so taken by
it. I recognized it for what it was now. This was one powerful and evil
sonofabitch and he was coming for me.
Shit
.

I cast my eyes around the cavern for some ideas. Nothing
came to me but I did notice a few dead royals I recognized. Dialle’s people. My
heart did a quick jump that left behind a wave of nausea and I forced myself
not to examine that reaction too closely right at that moment. Dialle. He’d
called out to me and I’d blown him off. Now he was dead.
Shit. Could I live
with that?

Where was he? Was he lying somewhere on that cavern floor? My
eyes scoured the cavern of cadavers, looking for survivors. The dead royals and
many of the dead around them, appeared to have been sucked dry somehow. Their
bodies, hunched and pale, had collapsed inward under gray, ashy looking skin.

A fire bolt hit the doorway just inches from my face and I
realized I’d have to explore my psyche later. Much later.

Run!
The thought wasn’t mine and I didn’t have time
to figure out whose it was. The singed feeling on my cheek and the explosion in
my ear jolted me out of my daze. I ran in the direction that would carry me
away from Nille, but since the cavern was circular I really couldn’t get out of
view.

He simply changed direction, still walking at a normal pace,
though I knew he could probably cover the distance between us in a fraction of
a second. He was secure, confidant, not at all worried about me. I hate that in
an enemy. It always encourages me to excel.

As I ran around the edge of the cavern, jumping over the
dead husks of bad guys from the various courts as I went, I probed the core of
my power and tested it. Gone was my earlier reluctance to pull it out again. I
was fighting for my life and even more than that. For all I knew I was fighting
for the whole of humankind. It sure seemed like a lot of shit to dump on one,
pissed off little Tweener.
Hades, life just wasn’t fair
.

I stopped when I’d put the length of the cavern between us
and stood panting as my eyes sought Nille’s. He had stopped and was smiling at
me. Apparently he’d tired of the cat and rodent game and was ready to nibble on
my poor, rodent-sized body. I wasn’t going to let him have that nibble if I
could stop it.

Although I wanted to run like hell from that place, retrieve
Emo and return to my relatively quiet and marginally uneventful prior
existence, I knew that option wasn’t open to me. But if I was gonna fight I
needed to pick the right place. Something was drawing me back to that altar. While
emotionally it was the last place I wanted to go, I figured there must be some
reason I was being drawn to it so I gave in to the pull.