“He’s not dead, Mum,” Dawn said. Cat stared at her daughter intently. “He’s not. He’s curled up tight inside his body, but he’s alive. And we’re going to go into the hall. It’s what must happen.” Dawn turned her head and kissed her mother’s fingers as they gripped her shoulder with increased force.
The power on the other side of the wall shifted, and Sam stirred at my side. His jaw tightened. “We need to go. The Guards inside the door are focused on the pulpit—Jasmine is probably being questioned.”
“When we get in, the rest of us do whatever it takes to make it possible for Sam and Grace to locate Jasmine and Elijah.” Gabriel turned to face me. “As soon as you have a grip on them, get us all back to Niamh and Aza.”
My eyes sought out Dawn’s face before I answered. She smiled at me, giving nothing away. I nodded. “Okay, Gabriel.”
Before I could gather my courage, Gabriel blasted the huge wooden doors off their hinges, scattering the Guardians who had been standing on the other side and clearing a path for us into the room. Eve threw a shield around our group as we entered the huge hallway. Rows of faces gaped at us, but I felt a trickle of unease as my glance swept over the crowd. There was something amiss.
Sam spotted Jasmine on the pulpit before I did—her eyes bulging, her mouth covered by a black gloved hand. The blade pressed against her throat gleamed in the dim light. I felt Sam’s horror like a kick to my chest as his stare focused on the familiar figure stroking Jasmine’s skin with his blade.
Peter beamed down at us from his position in the pulpit and addressed the crowd. “I called forth the little children, and unto me, they came.”
Chapter Sixteen
Grace
The vast room was utterly silent. The congregation of Angels stared from us to Peter with an air of disbelief. The High Guardian glanced down from his seat on the stage with a creased brow, and I caught sight of Pierre, the Angel who had helped us free our prisoners, watching us with a pained expression.
Eve was the first to find her voice. “Why are you here, Peter?”
Peter grinned like a shark. “Child, I am an Elder. I am always welcome in the temple of my people—am I not, High Guardian Adam?” The High Guardian eyed Peter warily, and an imperceptible shadow passed behind his eyes. Peter faced Eve again with a wide smile. “You see? These are my people, Eve, they live by the grace of my hand. The Elders and I rescued both races from the horror of the Spirit War, and the Angelic people have not forgotten the sacrifices we made for them.”
“You didn’t rescue them from anything!” My voice rang through the cavernous hall and bounced from wall to wall. “You created the Spirit Demons and engineered the Spirit War. You used fear to divide the races and make yourself too powerful to be challenged.”
A flicker passed over the crowd and rippled up toward the pulpit. Peter’s face hardened, and he pressed his blade into Jasmine’s skin, sending a trickle of crimson blood coursing down her throat. She squeezed her eyes shut. “You see, my people, how dangerous these Shadow Children have become? The girl takes the Angelic Council for fools—she believes she can use her wiles to bend you to her will, but I know you are too strong of heart and mind to be misled by the Halfblood’s treachery. We have allowed the wounds inflicted by the Shadow Children fester too long, rotting like a sore beneath our garments. The Shadow Children must be hunted down and brought before the Elders.”
A murmur of assent bubbled from the crowd and Peter raised his voice. “Yes, my people. Now is the time for the Angels to rise up once more as the mighty protectors of this world. Set aside your work and bring the full weight of your magic to bear on the scourge of our lands. These Shadow Children free the Halflings that you have contained—not out of cruelty, but out of love for this world—and they conceal them in the bosom of your communities, drawing the Spirit Plague on your people. On your children!”
“It’s your kind that is a danger to children.” Sam’s voice cut through the air like a whip. A thousand faces turned in his direction, but he didn’t flinch. His hand clenched tightly around my fingers. “You talk about being protectors of justice, but your Silent Homes run red with the blood of the innocent. Your Elders have bred a race of Halfling children, mixing their own seed with the energy of the Spirit Demons, and your Guardians raise them like animals in the Silent Homes—tormenting and torturing them until they release the strange magic within.”
“Heathen!” One of the members of the High Council shot from their chair on the stage and smashed his fists down on the table. “High Guardian Adam, if you have any respect for our people you will have this mixed blood slanderer dragged to the cells.”
Eve raised her hands above her head, and the energy around our group hissed like an electric fence. The High Guardian pointed his finger at the Councilors vacated chair and kept his lips sealed until the man returned to his seat. The crowd was entirely silent, every eye riveted to the High Guardian Adam’s face. “Why have you come here today, Shadow Children. You know that I can’t allow you to leave—your people have broken into our prison, charmed our best Guardians, and slandered the keepers of our Silent Homes.”
A gasp cut through the room as Sam ripped his shirt over his head and exposed his mangled skin to the Angelic Council. He righted an upturned pedestal and pulled himself to standing on top of it, turning in a slow circle so that all could see his scarred torso.
“This is what your precious Elders order the Guardians in your Silent Homes to do to the children they have bred. This is how they rip the magic from our bones—with whips and wires and blades heated in fire.” Sam raised his arms, so the ruined skin on his back twisted and pulled painfully over his sculpted muscles. A woman in the row closest to us began to weep silent tears. “Take a look, Angels. You call the Shadow Children liars and monsters—take a look at what your great leaders do the children they have created, and tell me that you are the merciful race.”
The hall erupted into a chorus of voices. Peter spread his arms wide, releasing Jasmine from his grip. In an instant, Sam had Reaped her to his side. Gabriel grabbed her and pulled her from the pedestal, wrapping his arms around her body tightly and whispering into her ear. Sam gave me a flash of his dimples as he slithered onto the floor beside me once more, but Peter’s voice cut through the momentary triumph.
“Who would trust this boy’s words over those who have protected the Angelic people for more than two thousand years? The Shadow Children grow ever more devious in their lies and bolder in their deeds. Releasing the Halfblood from the Silent Homes and murdering the Guardians that were merely doing their duties, releasing prisoners sentenced to face the Angelic Council, slandering the good name of the Angelic people—who will these Shadow Children target next? Your families? Your children?” Peter licked his lips in greedy satisfaction as the crowd's mumble of agreement raised to a crescendo.
My chest tightened. I searched the hall desperately with my energy, trying to locate Elijah. A shiver ran down my spine as I drew my attention back to the group, realizing that it was no longer complete. Dawn. My heart hammered inside my chest as I traced her energy and found her standing beside the glass case containing the Halfborn Elder.
“The Elders will kill your children.” Dawn’s voice rose above the roar of the rabble, silencing the room instantly. Peter narrowed his eyes on her slight form. “You love your children. You want them to be safe. The Spirit Demons are the nightmare that wakes you to check your baby’s crib and the Halfborn are the scourge that draws these monsters into your world. But that’s not true—”
Cat shrieked as Peter hurled a blast of energy at Dawn. Ozzie held Cat in a vice-like grip, refusing to let her break free from Eve’s protective barrier. Dawn dropped to the floor to avoid the wave of power, and it shattered the glass case covering the Halfborn Elder. In a flash, Dawn flipped to her feet and pressed her fingers against the sleeping Elder’s eyelids. The sound of her humming reverberated against my eardrums. Peter gave a guttural cry of fury, but it was
too late—the world around us spun as every person in the hall was dragged into Dawn’s vision.
When Niamh had shared her mind with us, the images had the quality of an old home video—slightly faded and blurred around the edges—but entering Dawn’s vision was like stepping in front of a freight train. I held my breath as the scenes unfolded around me—snatches of Dawn’s life plucked from moments past. My chest pounded as I recognized myself, facing Peter in the old chapel at Shadow Hall. His eyes were thin slits that revealed the hatred burning inside him as Eve spat into his face.
The world tilted, and images flickered past with increasing speed, hurtling backward through the years. I saw Eve training Cat and me on the wet sand, watching us run and spar until our feet bled. The moment slipped away, and I saw Cat lying in the garden at Hidden Cottage while Eve’s voice buzzed in Dawn’s ear about the significance of the Oxford comma. I was standing on the flattest part of the lawn, practicing Aurora’s solo from Sleeping Beauty. Seeing myself through Dawn’s eyes, I suddenly saw Eve’s likeness in the tilt of my chin and the curve of my back. I swallowed hard.
Dawn’s memories of her childhood sped by until there was nothing more than the sensation of being held in loving arms. With a wrench, I felt myself torn from Dawn’s mind and slipping inside the memories of the Half-Born Elder.
Cold and dread wound itself around my heart as I recognized the faces of Peter and the Elder Circle surrounding the Halfling. When he spoke, I felt as though the words were being pulled from my mouth. “Please, I beg of you, do not do this. There is still time.”
Peter tilted his head to one side, and the light filtering in through a crude, glassless window danced over his features. “You speak nonsense, boy. This cannot be undone, anymore than we can breathe life into the people whose life-blood gives us strength. There has been no turning back from the moment we created the Spirit Demons—the moment you created the Spirit Demons.”
“No!” My stomach contracted as the Half-Born Elder cried out. “No, I didn’t understand what was being asked of me. I didn’t want this—any of this. We are being lied to, I implore you! Listen to reason and end this now.”
“We will end it, Abel. We should have ended it the moment you started to crumble—you’ll expose us all with your sniveling.” The owner of the voice stepped into the light, and I recoiled in horror as I stared at eyes so green they shone like gemstones. “The Veil has fallen, the Humans will live in ignorance as fodder for our needs, and the Angels will be our desperate servants, groveling at the feet of those that protect them from the wicked Spirit Demons.”
The Half-Born Elder squirmed on the stone plinth, and I realized that he was bound with ropes. He turned his face away. “I will not do it. I will no longer create the Spirit Demons. You cannot make me.”
“We do not need to.” The smooth female voice slithered from the shadows, and I froze, half-expecting Lizzie to slide into view, but when the bronzed beauty emerged, she was a stranger to my eyes. “We have more than enough Spirit Demons for our needs now that the war has ended and power is ours. We have given the darkness what it asked for, and in return, we shall rule this world unto eternity. From now on the Spirit Demons will be merely . . . a useful weapon.”
The Halfling struggled as the Elders joined hands in a circle around him and began to chant. Peter’s eyes were the last thing I saw as the Elders spun out of sight and time shifted backward.
The Half-Born Elder now stood inside a small, cozy room. Shelves filled with glass vials and potion bottles of every color lined each wall. A white haired woman was bent over in one corner with her hands pressed against her face. The Halfling brushed his fingers against her shoulder. “Mother?”
“Stop!” My heart ached with sudden recognition as Anna lifted her bloodshot eyes to meet her son’s. Although millennia had passed between this image and when I had seen her with Jonah in the Shadow City, she looked not a day older. Anna pushed the Halfling away with an open palm, and yet her fingertips kept a desperate hold on the end of his sleeve. “Don’t tell me anything more, Abel, I cannot bear it.”
Abel fell to his knees in front of his mother, and Anna wept into his hands. “I am so sorry, Mother. I was weak. I believed what the darkness told us at first, but it was all a lie. It preyed on our weaknesses and twisted us to its own wants. None of what it did was for the good of our world—all the darkness craves is the Veil. A million souls to feed on for the rest of eternity. I think the others know this too, Julius for sure—”
“And your father.” Anna’s lips twisted. “I begged you, son. I begged you not to follow in his path. I told you the Elder Council was rotten. I saw it consume any goodness that had once been in your father’s heart.”
Abel squeezed his mother’s hands between his own. “That’s why you have to help me mother—there is no other way to stop them. If we can weaken the Elder Circle before they close the Veil between the races, the Angelic people and the Humans can unite with the remaining Halflings to overcome the Elders and the darkness. I can call the Spirit Demons to me and undo the magic that gives them life, but you must finish me at that moment to weaken the Elders’ hold on the power they have harnessed.”
Anna stared down at the blade in Abel’s hands with wide eyes. She slithered off her chair and backed against the shelf, sending a glass bottle to the floor in a shower of pink glass. “No. I cannot, Abel. I have not the strength.”
“Mother, there is no other way. They have bound my power to the Elder Circle, I cannot even spill my own blood.” He lifted the blade and slashed it toward his neck. Anna screamed out in horror, but before the dagger could even graze his skin, it rebounded as if it had hit an iron shield and skittered across the tiled floor. Abel roared in frustration.
Anna reached out and lifted the knife with limp fingers. Abel slumped down onto his knees. “Thank you. Thank you, Mother.”
I watched Anna’s face as she lifted the dagger, reading her eyes as she steeled herself to plunge the knife into her son’s heart. The blade flashed through the air and struck the dry wood of her worktable with an explosion of dust. Abel reached out imploringly as Anna backed away from him. “Mother, please, you must!”
Anna’s face was a portrait of agony as she turned to flee. “My boy, I could do anything for you, but this—I cannot.”
The slamming door bounced against my mind and knocked me free of Dawn and Abel’s memories, planting me firmly back in the present. Sam grabbed my hand and raised his arm to strengthen Eve’s barrier as the Angelic Council were set free from the vision. Ozzie broke away from the group and threw his arms out to catch Dawn’s limp body as she tumbled to the floor. Peter raised his arms to strike them with magical energy, but a blow to his shoulder sent him sprawling against the side of the podium.
The High Guardian glared at Peter with undisguised fury. “Is it true, what the girl has shown us?”
Sam’s fingers crushed my hand as we drew Dawn and Ozzie into the safety of Eve’s barrier once more, but I couldn’t tear my eyes away from Peter’s face. I watched him straighten his shirt and waited for the lies to roll off his oily tongue, but what he said hit us with such force that Eve’s barrier wavered and almost fell.
Peter looked from the High Guardian to the stupefied Angelic Council with a sweep of his hand. “Is it true? Yes. Yes, it is.”
Chapter Seventeen
Grace
“That’s our cue to leave, people.” Gabriel’s whisper reached the ears of everyone in our small group as we knotted together at the side of the hall. The sound of panicked debate beat against the brickwork as the entire Angelic Council left their seats and surged toward the raised platform where Peter and the High Guardian stood nose to nose.
High Guardian Adam’s voice rose above the clamor. “The Elders must explain themselves. The Angelic Council has been deceived—the blood of the innocent is on our hands because of the lies you told us!”
“Lies you ate greedily and without question, my boy. The Elders have
doted on the Angels. You have been the chosen race. We have given you everything, Angels. Power, wealth, glory—all you have, you received by our grace. Two thousand years ago, a higher power showed us the light, and the Elders chose to protect the Angelic race. Now we reach a crossroads once more.” Peter’s voice lowered, and the din in the hall faded to the whisper of bated breath. “Only one race can remain. Do the Angels wish to offer themselves as a sacrifice in place of the Human people? Is that how the Elders should perceive this attack on our honor?”
The High Guardian squared his shoulders. “Are you threatening our people, Elder Peter?”
A thousand voices spoke at once, each bleating with greater urgency than the last. My stomach churned as I watched the crowd beginning to argue amongst themselves. I caught Jasmine’s hand in mine and pressed it gently. “Jas, where’s Eli? Do you know where they put him?” My teeth pinched the corner of my lip. “I can’t sense him when I Seek.”
Dawn pulled free from Ozzie’s grip and used my arm to steady herself. “Eli’s beside the Half-Born Elder.”
“What?” I scanned the center of the courtroom again, raising myself onto my tiptoes in an attempt to examine Abel’s casket.
Jasmine nodded, and the movement caused the gash on her neck to gape. “Dawn is right. They laid him in a box beside that Elder guy—Abel.”
I flinched as Gabriel pressed his hand against Jasmine’s skin to staunch the flow of blood, but she barely seemed to notice. Eve frowned and met Sam’s eye. “Samuel, can you Reap him? We need to leave here while the Angels are preoccupied.”
The roar of voices from the stage drew our attention as the High Guardian and the rest of the High Council argued with Peter. Sam winced and crushed his fists against his temples. His voice was strained. “I can’t draw Eli to me. His energy—it’s too weak.”
Jasmine’s face paled and lines of pain formed around her eyes. Cat grabbed Jasmine’s hand and glanced around at the rest of our ragtag team. “Sam, Grace—if we have physical contact with Eli, will you be able to use your power to bring him back with us?”
The Demon-Born Trilogy: (Complete Paranormal Fantasy Series) Page 57
