Earthbound Wings: An Earthbound Novel (The Psychic Seasons Series Book 6)

by ReGina Welling

  The vision was for Mal’s benefit alone, but I swear I heard my brethren singing.

  In seconds, I dwarfed Malachiel and he cowered before me.

  “The powers don’t talk to me these days,” my voice fell on him like thunder. “You should ask yourself what that means.” I took another step toward him and then one more. Untapped energy fizzled and sparked in my eyes, at my fingertips. Mal looked like he might wet himself.

  So, I did what the human side of me wanted to do and, leaning toward him, said in my quietest voice, “Boo.”

  In a rush of black and cold, Malachiel was gone.

  “What a weenie.”

  Now it was my turn to nearly pee. I turned in a blur and saw that girl, what was her name? Lexi, I think. The one from Evian’s house.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I followed Evian. I wanted to help. I’m not without my own strengths, you know.” Thinking her secret was still her own made Lexi smug.

  “Go home, little witch. It’s too dangerous for you to be here.”

  “I’m staying and there’s nothing you can do to stop me—wait, did you call me a witch?”

  In my present state, I thought I probably could lay a finger on her and send her back home without even breaking a sweat.

  “I did.” A flick of my will opened her eyes to see the truth of me.

  “Aren’t your kind sworn to smite me? You know that whole thou shalt not suffer a witch to live thing?”

  Amused, I asked, “Are you a good witch or a bad witch?”

  “You’ve been watching too many movies.” Witty banter aside, I needed to get on with my mission and the best way to do that would be to send her away.

  As if she could read my mind, Lexi’s eyes narrowed, “Don’t even think about it. I may not have inherited my grandmother’s evil ways, but I’m still descended from a long line of powerful witches. Who knows what might happen if you try to hurt me.” It was sheer bravado, and yet she had a point. Plus, now that she was here, I felt duty bound to protect her. Unless…

  “Can you cast?”

  “We’re going fishing?” Lexi frowned at me.

  “Are you or are you not a witch?”

  “Oh. No, I can’t. The ability to do spells must have skipped a generation.” No chagrin colored her tone. I sensed some latent hostility in it, though.

  Not an asset, Lexi would be a liability and probably safer staying here while I moved deeper into the dark zone.

  I opened my mouth to suggest she take cover, then closed it again when her mutinous expression was ample evidence she had no plans to stay behind, and there was no time for an extended argument. Cautious voices whispered through Evian’s shell. The others were somewhere ahead, still shielding and waiting for me to catch up.

  “Come on, then. And hurry.” I plucked a feather from my left wing and handed it to her. Armed with the best protection I could provide, Lexi fell into step beside me.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Call it magic, call it chi, call it whatever you want: in those places where the world meets world, the stuff of creation rests heavy on the ground, and the laws that usually govern its use don’t always hold. Anyone with a modicum of ability can sense a nexus, but it takes more than that to tap into the power contained there.

  Intention and will were the forces that had created this particular nexus.

  Like a galloping horse tasting the wind, I bared my teeth and tuned my senses to sample the strands that made up the portal’s walls. Witch, faerie, and the last a total shock—a mythological god. Cupid, to be specific. Some epic event must have occurred to bring this particular grouping together. Then again, this nexus was reputed to be the prison for something called the heart of darkness, and if you believed the boxes of candy on Valentine’s day, hearts were Cupid’s specialty.

  I, however, knew better. In order to move product, greeting card companies had put quite a spin on the winged one’s story. After all, hearts, candy, jewelry, and flowers open wallets. I remembered meeting the trickster god once at a symposium on the emerging technological age. He sat next to me during a lecture on how the wheel would change the world, and spent an entire hour hitting on me. Hearts and flowers, my butt.

  Putting that memory aside, I returned to my inspection of the portal. Despite its original make-up, other nuances overlaid it now. I sensed the broken places where the nexus had been forced open by a demon. To get inside with any sort of stealth would take a person or persons carrying at least three of these elements in addition to a being of light and one of dark, and as far as I knew, between us we only carried two.

  I explained the situation to the group. “Lexi, you can represent witch.” I guess it was a lucky thing she had followed us here. “Evian can stand in for faerie.” I thought I saw her eyes flicker toward Terra, but there was no time to dwell on anything but getting this door open.

  “Now, I think our chances of getting Cupid to show up here are about the same as winning fifteen lotteries at the same time without ever buying a ticket, so I’m hoping that given the duality of human nature, the five of us put together” I indicated Julie and the rest, “carry enough darkness. Estelle will bring the light, and it should be enough to pull the trigger.” That time I was sure I heard a sigh of relief from Evian, and made a mental note to ask her about it later. If there was a later, anyway.

  Lexi stepped up to lay hands on the warded wall. Only the mildest tremor of fingers betrayed her show of bravery. I nodded to Evian to go next, but she was busy wiping something out of her eye and gestured for the rest of us to go ahead. We all laid hands upon the invisible door. I’m sure from the outside, we looked like a mime convention. Eye finally clear, Evian slapped a hand into place and the wall fell away.

  We surged through the doorway like weaponless cops. Some ducking low, others staying high. My team split right or left while I walked straight ahead into the field of battle. Lexi remained behind to hold open the nexus until Leith made his way through—as long as one hand stayed on the portal, it would remain open. Having followed his marks this far, I knew he would not be long behind.

  If not for the massive prison enclosure and the unnatural lighting, the inside of the nexus looked pretty much like the outside. Before encroaching darkness had driven away all the people, this area would have been indistinguishable from the rest of the city. The prison took up most of the courtyard of a U-shaped building that had once been home to an insurance company, according to the sign spanning its half-a-block-long face.

  I heard Julius seconds before I saw him. Hoarse cries broke from his lips as he struggled against a dark-robed figure. It was hard to see exactly what was happening behind the neon bonds of a prison made from layers of greasy light that pulsed and writhed up amid a cloud of acrid smoke.

  A second, adjoining cell was shuttered by a slithering curtain of liquid shadow. Try as I might, I could not see through to what was contained inside.

  The full moon glowed like a pearl in the afternoon sky, a vivid reminder that our time was running out. It was now or never.

  “Your friends are going to die, Galmadriel.” Malachiel’s voice mocked me from somewhere ahead and to my left. The choking smoke that swirled around the prison walls hid him from view. “And when they do, you’ll spend the rest of your life knowing you could have saved them.”

  “Hey Mal, why don’t you come out where I can see you and say that? Oh, right, I know why, because you’re nothing but a puppet and the hand that’s planted up your backside belongs to a coward.” Taunting him was the fastest way to get him to tip his hand. Mal’s hot temper often goaded him into acting first and thinking later. That lack of levelheaded thinking had probably been the biggest contributing factor to his downfall, and I knew it would serve me well now.

  Silence.

  My ploy had failed.

  Then a muttered word of power wafted from where Malachiel had hidden himself. Not ten yards ahead of me, the air tore with a thundering sound. Fire painted the da
rkness inside the rift with fingers of flickering red, and the putrid odor of ghoul burned my eyes as the first of a horde shambled through. I allowed myself the tiniest of smiles. Once again, Mal had lived up—or maybe down--to my expectations.

  At least six, by my hurried count, made up the first wave through the shifting slit like some kind of bizarre birthing process. Another half dozen ghouls followed behind the first group as a promise of more to come. As subtly as I could, I channeled energy toward slowing the ghouls until my people had time to take their places.

  “Ew, that’s nasty.” I heard Gustavia’s dry understatement and wholeheartedly agreed.

  There was no sign of Leith, but the return of Lexi assured me he was in position. Now it was time to fight.

  Fae have a reputation for being bloodthirsty, and while ghouls don’t exactly bleed I sensed a thirst in the three sisters for battle. When Evian turned back to give me a feral smile, her eyes had gone from the color of whitecaps to the deep blue of an angry sea, and were lit with fierce light. Every movement, from the sinuous turn of her head to the sure beat of her feet became more refined, more aggressive, and was mirrored by both sisters. They moved together with impressive purpose.

  Arms linked, Evian and Terra worked as a team. A flick of Terra’s right hand turned solid concrete to a crumbling mass, and then it was Evian’s turn. Twirling her finger in a stirring motion, she pulled water from the air and up from below the surface to concentrate it in the holes Terra had just made. Instant quicksand—and not the painfully slow type. Magic sped up the process and claimed a number of Mal’s minions in mere seconds.

  One foul-smelling wraith who was a little smarter than the rest used the head of a sinking comrade as a springboard and made it past the sinkholes. Old lucky made a beeline for the two sisters, his bony finger sliding from a dark sleeve to rake Evian’s cheek with careless precision. A line of angry red slashed and dripped below her slitted eye almost instantly.

  Seeing her sister take the blow, Terra pointed to the ghoul and screamed an ancient word with the force of a battle cry. The evil thing exploded in a shower of dirt and worms.

  Evian turned to take on another ghoul while, satisfied her sister was not mortally wounded, Terra linked arms with Soleil next. Soleil provided the heat while Terra directed it to chosen areas in the paved roads. Soon, heat shimmers appeared at various locations and more minions were swallowed up by fiery sinkholes that sealed over them when Soleil reversed her magic to pull the heat back.

  While the pair worked their charms together, Evian, shooting off gouts of water behind her, moved to my side.

  “Do you trust me?” The fire in her eyes bored into me. It was a loaded question and one I didn’t have time to think too deeply about if we were going to keep Mal’s attention focused on the fight and away from the five women who were moving into place to set up a circle of power well within the outer rim of the nexus.

  “I guess so.”

  “Your confidence is overwhelming.” Nicks and cuts on her arms had joined the one on her cheek to mark the fight and, despite the injuries, I knew she was enjoying herself immensely. “Spread your wings and I’ll do the rest.”

  The rest of what?

  Before I could come up with a guess, she shoved another seashell into my pocket, enclosed my body in what looked like a giant teardrop that left my only my wings outside of it, and set the whole thing to spinning like a giant top. With my wings outstretched, I blasted through ghouls leaving a trail of destruction in my wake. Motes of ash drifted in a storm of swirling air currents. And still they poured into the street. Malachiel had vast numbers on his side, and no conscience to bother him over whether or not his minions stayed alive. It was both an advantage and a disadvantage because ghouls aren’t known for being resourceful, and with his attention focused on us, their leader failed to turn them aside from the pitfalls we threw in their way.

  In the center of it all, Julius, confined behind bars of light, appeared to be battling against the Earthwalker who was attempting to take him by force. There was no need for Estelle, hovering over the cage and protected from Mal’s perception by a complicated faerie charm, to tell me it was all smoke and mirrors. I knew Julius was the bait, while I was meant to become the vessel.

  I see him. He’s okay for the moment. Estelle spoke directly into my mind.

  Then go see to the others. Tell Leith to keep to the plan. We’ve got this.

  We played Mal like a Stradivarius. Blood dripped from a few shallow cuts made by ghouls brave or stupid enough to try and force their way past the instant oblivion promised by the feathers now filthy and darkened from their ash.

  “The circle is ready,” I heard Kat’s voice through the shell network. “Waiting on you for the go-ahead.”

  We had this in the bag. I opened my mouth to give the signal and my moment of gloating came to an abrupt end.

  “You lose,” Malachiel shouted as he dived through his own doorway and disappeared. Without their leader present, the ghouls lost focus and tried to follow him back through the portal.

  “Adriel.” The last thing I heard before darkness settled over us like a cloud blocking the sun was Leith’s voice. I had almost forgotten he was here, and in the next minute, I forgot again.

  The shadow grew deeper, denser yet, and brought with it a sense of hopeless futility. I fell to my knees, my wings fouling when there wasn’t time to pull them back. At that moment, all I wanted to do was crawl into the dirt and die. All thought of Julius and my mission to save him faded away. My life had no purpose or meaning. Despair hollowed me out to an empty shell.

  The ghouls that had retreated back toward the portal surged toward us again and I couldn’t muster up an ounce of worry for anyone’s safety. Nothing mattered, all was lost. Time slowed to a crawl and I knew what it must feel like to live in the underworld.

  More, I knew that there were those who made their home in the bowels of hell who no longer cared about balance. Who no longer feared, but welcomed the vacuum of nothingness.

  Fulcrum.

  The word boomed in my head. It filled me. It stripped me of everything, redefined and rebuilt me from the inside out.

  It named me.

  Fulcrum.

  The point on which everything rested.

  Some people see their life flash before them in the moments when death looms near. Instead of my past, I saw my future. Every choice, every possible outcome laid out before me. Some ending in utter darkness, some in light. Still others in the nothing that could come, and with one choice to start them all. I could die right here at the hands of this demon and let the onus pass from me to the one other person now on the face of the earth that could carry it.

  Life or death. Hundreds of times that decision would lay before me, and each time the choice would mean as much as it did right now.

  Life or death. Yes or no. Help someone or turn away.

  We all make choices like this every single day, only for me, each one would carry the fate of all.

  When the red-eyed demon formed in front of me like something built from bits of a child’s building blocks, I stared at it in silence. My ears buzzed, and I recognized the lesser demon standing over me. How did one so powerless as this have the ability to cause an angel to cower on the ground in quiet desperation.

  That one moment of questioning pulled me back out of the depths enough to trigger the return of sight and sound, and I heard Estelle screaming my name just before a pair of booted feet landed in my field of vision. A hand wavered in front of my face and I remembered him again, not by looks but by something deeper than that—a knowing as deeply embedded as the bones of my body.

  Leith. Having thrown off the effects of the demon’s influence once, this second attempt had failed to capture his mind the way it had mine.

  It took a superhuman effort to choose, to put my hand in his; but with each tiny movement, I felt myself pulling away from the sucking whirlpool of hate. In the end, I dropped my hand from his and surged to
my feet unaided.

  I am the angel Galmadriel it was about time I acted like it.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  My moment of triumph was cut short by a battle cry from Leith, who stood before the flickering dark form like David in front of Goliath. Unlike David, though, Leith carried no weapon other than the one he had formed from his own source of power—a seething ball of red energy turned and burned between his hands while he waited for the right moment to use it.

  Meanwhile, the demon did nothing but stand there and wait. It was eerie in its stillness, like the calm that lay gentle on the land ahead of a storm, or that moment just before a baby makes that first cry. It left me feeling poised on the edge and waiting for a push.

  Leith looked at me. No, into me—and what I saw in his eyes was so much more than I could have predicted. He might be juvenile in his wit, and too quick with his scorn, but the core of him, the heart, was good and noble and light—albeit with a dark, chewy center. So many contrasts. And they say women are complicated.

  There was something else there as well. Leith wasn’t planning to walk away from this fight. He would sacrifice himself if need be. I knew what that looked like in a person because it is easy for like to recognize like. Giving my life had become part of my own plan since the moment I realized that I was the fulcrum. The point of balance upon which the darkness and the light now rested. It had all been there in the rainbow paper pattern fluttering against a white wall.

  All the way back to the moment when Malachiel had chosen to fall. When Julius had been urged to turn from the light. When Billy’s cold finger had touched upon Logan Ellis’ soul. Every moment until now, every step had been meant to lead me here. To the place where I was supposed to give in to darkness and cement the shift.

  Even the sticky notes had been a ploy to lead me here. The demon before me had known how I would react to the news that upon my choice rested the balance of all the worlds, and he had played on that knowledge to set the ring firmly in my nose and lead me here.