“What the hell is it?”
It was my turn to swallow. “It’s the hoard.”
***
I dialled Baal’s number for the third time only to get a busy signal. The phone lines were temperamental at best, and this madness had probably clogged our only network. Shit! This couldn’t be happening, shouldn’t be happening. The Everlight news station was going wild with reports of senseless violence breaking out all across the city.
I dialled mum’s mobile for the second time expecting a busy tone again and almost ended the call prematurely when she answered.
“Hello?!”
“Mum! Mum it’s me, Kenna. Are you okay? Is Bella okay?”
There was a rustling sound. “Kenna?” Bella said into the phone. “I feel better Kenna, but the angel said that’s bad.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “She told me everything.”
My heart stuttered. “Oh, Bella . . .”
“You have to save them, Kenna. You have to save them from the biggest monster of all. I promise, it’s okay to let me go.”
A sob caught in my throat. “I love you . . . I love you so much.”
The rustling again.
“Kenna! What did you do?” Mum asked. “Bella’s vitals started to stabilise. Honey whatever you did, whatever you think you’re doing, it’s not worth the life of every man, woman, and child in this city.” Her voice cracked. “I know you love Bella. I love her too, so very much, but this is how it needs to be. She won’t be alone. I promise you she will never be alone.” Commotion broke out in the background—a scream that seemed too close. “Oh dear god. I have to go. Kenna fix this!”
The line went dead.
I stared at the handset in my hand. My other hand went to the collar, to the laser-made crack that now marred its surface. The damage must have somehow severed my link to the flame. There was no time for speculation. Dialling Baal’s number from memory I waited. Yes! This time it rang. Pick up, pick up, pick up . . .
“Kenna.”
How did he know it was me? “Yes. I need to get back to the Evernight asap.”
“Where are you?”
“Market Borough.”
“No good. They’ve closed down the slip road and riots are breaking out in Market Borough as we speak. I’ve had to authorise the dispatch of every Fearless unit we have.”
I glanced at the T.V. and saw the list of boroughs hit scroll across the bottom of the screen.
A loud crash had both Valla and I jumping.
Valla ran out into the bar and was back a moment later. “Someone threw a brick through the window.” She wrung her hands. “There’s a panic room in the basement behind the mirror. It’s big enough for the two of us. You coming?”
“Kenna? Kenna, listen to me.” Baal’s tone was calm and steady. “Get up high. As high as you can.”
“What?”
“Just do it.” The line went dead.
Valla took my shoulders. “Are you coming?” Her eyes flashed in panic.
I shook my head. “No, you go. I have somewhere I desperately need to be.”
I watched her disappear down the spiral staircase, and then, taking a deep breath, I headed out into the chaos.
***
Screams and crashes, firebombs and makeshift weapons. An old lady battering a young man with an umbrella, her eyes black veined orbs of horror. A young woman screamed in another woman’s face, every obscenity under the sun. I hugged the buildings, keeping out of the fray, watching the black smoke wind its way through the crowd, caressing people, turning them into feral beasts. The sun had almost set and the streets were growing dark—a pulsing mass of rage and anger.
Oh god please let me be able to stop this.
Get as high as you can, he’d said. I scanned the buildings, looking for the tallest one and then I saw it—an apartment building eight stories high. It was the best I was going to get, but to reach it I would need to cut through the insanity. I would need to be touched by the hoard.
My skin crawled. My breath quickened. And then I was diving into the madness.
Someone grabbed my hair and twisted, making my scalp scream in pain and my eyes water. I spun and slammed the palm of my hand into the centre of their chest. A few more steps and I earned a kick to the shin. It knocked me off balance but I managed to stay on my feet, veering to the left a little until I was able to regain my balance. The smoke was all around me and yet it didn’t touch me. It was as if it either didn’t see me, or didn’t like me.
I could live with that.
And then someone punched me in the head.
The world exploded with stars, and I hit the ground with my knees. The world spun and my vision blurred.
“Get up bitch!” A kick to the ribs had me squealing in pain.
I couldn’t move. I couldn’t think.
I couldn’t do this. I wasn’t strong. I wasn’t special. I was just a woman with one leg and a desire to live.
I was no saviour.
And that’s when I heard them. The voices of my past: Dale, Anna, Brialla, and so many more—we died so you could live, you are the last incarnation Kenna, do not let our lives or our deaths have been in vain.
The pain ebbed and my vision cleared. My veins flooded with hot adrenaline, and as if several hands were assisting, I rose to my feet. Nothing else but mattered but getting up onto the apartment building roof. Shoving, pushing, and punching, I barrelled through the crowd. No remorse, only antipathy. They were ants in my way, and if need be I would crush them.
Breaking from the mass, I ran for the building. The door was wide open. I took the stairs: a machine, an automaton, here but not here. Eight flights of stairs and not a twinge in my leg. The rioting was background noise to the roar of blood in my ears. Shoving open the door to the roof I staggered out into the evening air. My senses came rushing back—the horror of how I’d just behaved followed closely by the burning pain in my legs. I slammed and barred the door before collapsing onto the roof.
I’d made it. With their help I’d made it. They hovered in the back of my mind—my alter egos—the people I’d once been. They knew the hidden parts of me.
Baal, where are you?
Get up high he’d said. My good leg throbbed with a dull ache, and a quick examination showed a laceration roughly thirty centimetres long. My hands trembled as I tried to staunch the blood.
How hadn’t I felt it?
What if it got infected What if I lost this leg too?
The roof door reverberated with a clang that came from within. The crazy people were trying to get onto the roof! My alters buzzed and bustled inside my mind, but I knew they had exceeded themselves for today. They were tapped out.
The door clanged again and a dent formed in the metal.
Adrenaline gave people immense strength, and the hoard was affecting people’s minds. Gearing up their fight or flight response. It was turning them into monsters. The dent grew with another clang. Soon the bolt would snap and they’d come for me. A fist of fear closed itself around my heart.
You’re Fearless remember? Be Fearless.
But I wasn’t, not really. It had always been a lie, and there wasn’t enough oxygen in the world to release the band around my palpitating heart.
It’s okay, Kenna. Breathe. Just breathe.
I knew that melodious voice. “Sabriel?”
I’m here, and I won’t leave you.
Get me out of here, please.
There was a long beat of silence and then the whisper of a sigh. I can’t. You know I can’t.
Anger was my closest companion and he reared his head now, roaring into the night. “Then fuck off! Just fuck off. What good are you anyway?”
Silence followed, and I hoped he was gone. I hoped I’d hurt him.
As the door continued to bow, and the bolt continued to weaken, I looked up into the night sky—an inky blanket dotted with twinkling stars. I focused on the beauty and blocked out the cacophony of horrific sounds that drifted up from below and th
e demolishing of the roof door, much too close for comfort.
I closed my eyes.
A great gust of wind whipped my hair back off my shoulders and warm solid arms lifted me up into the air. Sabriel? No not Sabriel . . .
“Baal . . .”
His pulled me toward his unyielding chest and wrapped his arms around me. The air surrounding us was a cyclone that held us cocooned at its centre, and the world melted away. The soft whoosh and buzz of air pressed us closer together until there was no room for modesty.
“How are you doing this?”
His chest vibrated with a low guttural sound, and his lips grazed my ear. “I am the air, and the air is me.”
My stomach dropped. we were ascending.
His grip tightened. “Don’t let go.”
Hardly. I wrapped myself around him and closed my eyes, allowing myself to drift in the sweet intoxicating scent that was all Baal.
“I will take you to the fortress. You must find a way to reconnect with the flame or we are all doomed.”
I nodded into the hollow of his neck. He had no idea who or what I was, and I couldn’t risk revealing my hand now. I’d spent too many lives hiding from those that meant me harm, and Baal was a contender for the throne that was rightfully mine.
I tilted my head back and looked up into his face, all angles and symmetry. “I know what I have to do.”
CHAPTER43
T he world re-emerged as we landed on my balcony. I unwound my arms from about his neck but he held onto me a moment longer than he needed. Pulling away, I stumbled into the fortress. There was no time for thank you or goodbye. If the hoard got free it would annihilate not only the human realm but the Twilight realm, and eventually the fifth dimension.
I had to get to the flame.
Please, please take me to the flame. Please! The enchanted brick and mortar had to deliver me where I needed to be. I yanked open my chamber door and stepped onto the bridge leading to the flame, except . . . there was no flame. An ember glowed weakly in its place, so frail that if I moved too quickly it might blow out. I limped across the bridge, gritting my teeth around the pain in both my legs. The wound in my good leg was still bleeding and my prosthetic was rubbing my stump raw. The flame ebbed and rose a little. Placing my hand to the glass did nothing.
The connection was broken.
Below me, dried-up husks floated in the dream pool.
“You need to be with the flame,” Mum had said.
The flame, which was the final essence of Ibris.
Ibris, my father.
My father.
My flame.
There was only one thing left to do.
My eyes grew hot and my bottom lip trembled. “I’m sorry, so sorry Bella.”
Opening the glass door, I reached for the ember. It rolled over my hand and up my arm, lapping at my fingers until my whole arm was alight. There was no pain, just an eerie sensation of being consumed. “I love you Bella. I love you so much.” I closed my eyes and exhaled, letting the flame do its thing.
This was right.
I was killing my little sister. Allowing the flame to feast on her soul.
It felt right.
How could I live with myself?
This. Is. Right.
Pain exploded in my chest—sharp and sudden—tearing the breath from my lungs and leaving me unable to scream or whimper. I was an empty husk like the ones in the pool. I was darkness.
But the darkness slowly filled with amber light. It surrounded me in a never-ending haze. The scent of sulphur attacked my nostrils and scraped at my throat. Where the heck was I? I’d figured becoming one with the flame would reactivate the bond. Power it up and give Erebus and his ceaseless army enough juice to push back the hoard and minimise the damage to the human realm, but for the first time it seemed my instincts had been wrong. I’d killed Bella . . . I’d sacrificed her life for nothing.
No! This wasn’t fair. This wasn’t supposed to happen.
Was this death?
Yes, my spawn, this is death.
Spawn?
This is the pit from which we rise. This is the pit into which we fall. This is where we slumber.
Who the hell were we?
But for you, peace is a long time coming. For you, there will be only death and heartache on a path that is yet undetermined. You will feel pain and sorrow, but there will also be joy, so choose now spawn. Would you remain in the pit or would you walk the path for us all?
The disembodied voice hardly made going back sound appealing, and I was tired, soul-achingly tired. The voices inside me pressed against the veil in my mind that kept them in check. No time to sit, Kenna, they said. No time to rest. Of course I agreed. Bella had given her soul so that the world could live. There was no turning back. Not now. Not ever.
Someone whispered in my ear. Urgent words that I couldn’t catch.
“I will walk the path.” My alter egos pushed harder, wanting out. Wanting in.
‘It’s time,’ Anna whispered.
‘Time for us to be one,’ Dale said.
My instincts urged me to let them in. And yet a tiny voice inside screamed at me to hold fast to Kenna, to hold fast to my humanity, because if I let them in I would be one small lifetime in a sea of many longer ones.
Kenna would be lost.
I wasn’t ready to die.
Not today.
I summoned Bella’s face and held it in my mind’s eye—a burning reminder of who I was and what I stood for. Their intentions, their killer instinct and their political savvy was a palpable force exerting a counteractive influence on my mind. I could be that person; ruthless and unforgiving, a manipulator of epic standards, but then I would no longer be the girl who loved her baby sister. I would no longer be the woman who did something for nothing.
I would no longer be human.
The alters faltered.
I’m sorry. I’m sorry but I can’t be you. I need to do this my way. I need to walk the path as Kenna.
Molten heat filled my veins. Burning and searing it forced me to arch my back, throw back my head and scream. The desperate sound echoed in my head, shook my bones, and rattled my teeth. The heat grew to a point where it was no longer heat but burning ice. I couldn’t take any more . . . No more. The agony ebbed, simmering down to a dull and not unpleasant buzz. I came to on the bridge by the glass enclosure.
The flame was gone.
My whole body crackled and fizzed with a strange energy. My scalp prickled where static raised my hair into a halo. Every ache and pain was gone.
“It can’t be . . .”
My head whipped up to lock on Baal. He was standing on the other side of the bridge, staring at me with huge green eyes. He backed up, faltered and then took two steps toward me.
He was shaken.
Of course he was shaken. I was shaken.
“How did I not notice . . .? You have his eyes.”
I reached up to touch the spot under my eyes.
Baal took a step toward me, but he was no longer the focus of my attention because they were calling me.
My ceaseless army.
I held out my arms to Baal. “Take me to the gate.”
***
The ground below me heaved and writhed. The hoard was a lethal mass of viscous smoke. Up this close I could see the purple and crimson, the laces of mustard yellow—all the negative emotions spawned by the inhabitants of the fifth dimension.
Baal’s grip around my waist was unrelenting, giving me a sense of security I’d soon have to abandon; because to do what was needed I’d have to jump into the furious fray.
We flew closer, weaving, rising, and falling to avoid the surge of the hoard, and then I spotted him.
Erebus.
Our training sessions had only given me a tiny glimpse of the grace and speed with which he was capable of moving. Down here, in the midst of all the chaos, Erebus was an unstoppable force. The ceaseless army surrounded him.—djinn made of obsidian wreathed in
flame. Their faces blank masks of purpose, they cut through the hoard with razor speed.
I felt the tug in my solar plexus, and saw Erebus falter. He looked up and locked onto me. The connection grew, reaching out to wrap itself around the ceaseless and push into Erebus’s chest.
The world slowed to a crawl. The hoard lay beneath me, frozen in the moment.
I was connected to it all.
I blinked.
The hoard surged.
And Erebus threw back his head and roared.
“Let go.” I said.
Baal didn’t question, he simply released me into the eye of the storm.
CHAPTER44
T he hoard reached up to swallow me; its inky fingers winding themselves around me, eager to infect me with their senseless wrath. I sank into the primitive smoke, ancient and powerful. My anger rose at its touch—desperate to be free—and then the fingers retreated abruptly. I was falling down, down, passing through the darkness at incredible speed. I turned my body, angling it, ready to meet the ground.
I landed lightly, surrounded by the hoard. Viscous claws raked at the air, stopping inches from my face. Distorted faces reared out of the collective, their yawning mouths threatening to engulf me, and yet I was untouchable.
Erebus’s roar echoed around me. I could still sense them beyond, on the edge of the hoard, fighting for the innocent souls beyond the gate.
This was the first battle, the first challenge, and there was no way I was failing. The alter egos within writhed and pressed and jabbed.
Use the flame, use the light.
My arms glowed and fizzed, and the light spread over me until my whole body was silver fire. Blood roared in my ears, lungs aching as the power built until it was a rolling tsunami ready to engulf and devour.
It’s too strong, we’re too late—Erebus’s voice filled my head.
Beyond Everlight: an Urban Fantasy Novel (Fearless Destiny Book 1) Page 25
