Luna knew she should be jumping to action like Logan and Aurora, who both looked like hunting dogs standing at attention, eyes lit with burning fire. She envied them. She was supposed to be a fearless warrior. A Power Halo. But, right now, fear was her dominant emotion, causing tremors to run through her body, and she wished Gray hadn’t dropped her hand to draw his crux.
“I need two of you to come with us to the tower,” Keva said urgently. “We must lock the souls of the city.”
Aurora and Logan volunteered simultaneously.
Keva nodded, and Luna tried very hard to ignore Gray’s face snapping to Aurora’s, looking apprehensive about her leaving their group.
“Here. Take this.” Keva tossed her sword to Aurora, and the other Dominion Halos did the same with their weapons, handing them over to each of the Powers. The girl named Jolie pitched her sword to Luna, who barely caught it by the handle, nearly dropping it.
“What about you?” Luna asked Jolie, trying and failing to keep the panic out of her voice. “What will you fight with?”
Jolie’s bright blue eyes lit up with a confident smile. “This.” She tapped her staff against the ground. The glowing orb at the top blazed to life, creating a circle of light around her.
The six other Dominions followed suit, and Luna noticed the beasts in the distance falter slightly at this. They paused only a moment before continuing forward, ever so slowly closing the gap between the light and the dark.
The girl in yellow screamed again and ran past the Dominion and Power Halos.
“Come. We must hurry,” Keva said to Logan and Aurora. “Before more make an appearance.”
The Dominions charged then with Aurora and Logan on either side. Luna watched with a fusion of feelings—fear for her sister, relief Aurora was going, guilt for worrying more about trivial things than the battle before them.
The Powers stood in a line, watching as the Dominions, flanked by the two fiercest fighters, ran across the expansive, Westminster Bridge towards the clump of beasts.
As they neared the hooded figures, the light at the top of the Dominions’ staffs grew brighter, and the beasts flung up their arms to shield themselves, recoiling as if it burned them.
Aurora and Logan pulled forward, cruxes and swords in hand, lashing out at the dark creatures who ducked to avoid the girls' blades. They split down the middle, carving a path for the light bearers. Aurora, Logan, and the Dominions charged past the hooded figures in the direction of Big Ben.
Maybe the beasts aren’t so powerful and dangerous, after all, Luna thought. But her optimistic hope came too soon. The demented, human-like creatures turned back towards the line of Powers and recommenced their heavy-footed walk in their direction.
It felt like it took hours for them to approach. Granted, it was a sizable bridge, and the beasts were walking at a snail’s pace. Luna’s heart pounded against her sternum. The Halos beside her shifted restlessly, ready to fight. But they weren’t about to close the gap between them and the beasts. The longer it took the beasts to reach the Powers, the more time the others had to meet with the soul keeper.
The silence was thicker than ever, and the wind over the bridge bit at Luna’s cheeks like mosquitos. The sword in her hand felt heavier than she thought it should. When the beasts were within ten feet, they stopped, the Powers holding their weapons up, ready to fight.
Each of the dark figures before them reached up, grasped the edges of their dark hoods, and dragged them slowly back to reveal the horror beneath.
Luna flinched at the sight of them. They looked like they could have been ordinary people once upon a time. But then she took in their beetle-black eyes with bruised crescent-moon shadows beneath them. Thick wires laced their mouths shut like a poorly sewn rag-doll. And to top off the demented look, blackened horns protruded sickly from their temples.
Luna wondered who was responsible for this mutilation. Who had injected these once-whole beings with demon blood? Who had stitched their mouths closed? The gravity of the evil they were facing made her skin crawl like it was covered in scorpions.
Chord let out a low, “Holy shit,” from beside her. Brielle gasped. Gray and Sev stood still as trees. If Luna could scream, she probably would have, but her voice was stuck in her throat. Or maybe that was bile.
The two lines of good and evil stood at the ready. Neither opened attack. The Power Halos stared, wild-eyed, from the beasts to each other, waiting for someone to make a move.
Suddenly the light of the moon was blackened out. Luna peered skyward to see why, and a sinking feeling grew heavy in her stomach. The air was now infested with demons—the flying bat-like ones—hovering hundreds of feet above them, as if they wanted to attack but couldn’t.
Luna remembered what Verity had said about the Throne Halos pulsing energy through the city to ward off the demons.
But, with the echoing sound of a distant explosion, something seemed to break in the Throne Halo’s hold, and the demons were siphoned through an invisible hole in the sky. Instead of opening attack on the bridge, though, they began pelting the clock tower where Aurora and Logan had long since disappeared with the Dominion Halos.
Luna brought her terror-filled gaze back to the beasts. She could have sworn, on either side of their stitched mouths, they were smiling.
AURORA
Aurora and Logan attempted to keep up as they sprinted to the clock tower. Though, they looked rather like two Chihuahuas running next to a group of Labradors. The long legs of the modelesque Dominions were able to cover much more distance at a time. When they reached the entry to the ancient building, Aurora’s chest heaved, muscles throbbed. She shot a glance over her shoulder to see if the beasts had opened attack on the Power Halos yet. From this distance, it was difficult to discern, but the silence was thick enough that she thought the fighting had yet to begin.
Aurora and Logan followed after Keva and the other Dominion Halos, who had ducked into a door leading into the huge building attached to Elizabeth Tower. She thought she'd heard Sev call it the Palace of Westminster.
They kept a quick pace, passing tiled walls and stone statues of lions. Aurora peered up at the gilded ceiling as she attempted to keep up with Keva and the other marathoners. They emerged from the building and were outside again. Aurora tried to take in her surroundings but had to choose between the task of looking or running. She chose to run.
“The entry is just up there.” Keva led them into the vast base of the tower to a hidden wooden door inlaid with four tiny, barred glass windows. Beneath the windows, written in simple, white lettering, were the words Clock Tower.
Aurora charged ahead of the Dominions to reach for the handle, jiggling it left, then right. “It’s locked.”
Logan came pounding over. “Break it down!”
“This is a historical landmark,” Aurora said, reminding herself rather strongly of Sevastion. “We can’t just break it down.”
Keva was by their side in a matter of seconds, holding out a small golden key. “No need.” The key slid easily into the lock, and Aurora wondered how Keva had come to access it, then decided it was probably better she didn’t know. Letting Aurora enter the stairwell before her, Keva moved to follow but was stopped by the sound of the shuffling of feet and a startled gasp.
Aurora heard Logan shout, “Beasts!”
The sound of the scuffle grew louder, and Aurora tried to get past Keva, back out into the entrance to help the others, but the towering Dominion pushed her back.
“No.” Keva pulled the door closed, locking the others out. “We have to complete our task. The others can handle them.”
“But—”
“There isn’t time, Aurora.” With this, Keva moved past her up the staircase, taking the dark stone steps two at a time.
Aurora looked up at the dizzying view of the white underside of the squared, spiraling staircase rimmed by black iron. She could see all the way to the top—wherever the top was—and the gut-turning thought of what it woul
d be like to fall down the center flashed violently across her morbid brain.
“Aurora!” Keva’s voice echoed down from above.
“Coming!”
Big Ben, or the Elizabeth Tower, or whatever the hell it was called, had a lot of stairs. A lot. And, for the benefit or torture of those walking up them, numbers had been carved into a step every so often to inform them of just how many they’d climbed. The next time Aurora dared look down at her feet, they had reached stair 182.
Aurora may have gone through two intensive months of Halo training, but none of these days had included stair-climbing endurance. So her breathing was slightly labored to say the very least. Okay, she was dying.
“Where—is—the—soul—keeper?”
“Not sure.” Keva’s voice came out clear and calm, as if she’d hardly been exerting any energy. It was probably those damned giraffe legs of hers.
“You’re not sure?”
“We were informed only that the soul keeper would be in the Elizabeth Tower. We were told to travel to Big Ben. I’m assuming they will be somewhere up by the bell.”
The two of them continued to travel upwards, past various chambers Aurora only had time to scan. They looked like typical museum style rooms with plaques and artifacts on the walls. Keva slowed her climb as they came to a solid wooden door.
“Is that where the bell is?” Aurora asked in a whisper, though she wasn’t exactly sure why she was being quiet.
“No.” Keva opened the door to reveal a spacious room, dimly lit by lamps and moonbeams streaming in through cathedral windows. “It’s the clock mechanism. I’ve just always been curious to see it.”
Aurora wanted to point out that they were kind of on a deadline. You know, to lock the souls of the city to protect them from Caducus and all. But, as she opened her mouth to speak, she took in the comprehensive mechanism and was struck dumb by the brilliance of it.
For such a huge clock—okay that was an understatement—the gears were moderately quiet, only clicking and whirring as loudly as a gentle hum.
Though still in good condition, the age of the apparatus was apparent, if only because of the smell of it. Since arriving in London, Aurora’d realized old buildings had a scent to them, a whisper indicating they held secrets no living human knew. It was mysterious…and also kind of creepy.
Keva knelt beside a pendulum in constant motion, swinging mesmerizingly back and forth. “Look at this.”
Aurora approached, remaining upright, as she expected a winged demon to burst through one of the windows at any moment.
“See those coins?” Keva pointed to a small stack of copper disks atop the weight at the top of the pendulum. “If you add or remove one, it changes the time by a fraction of a second.”
“Interesting… Aren’t we supposed to be, you know, meeting with the soul keeper?”
Keva sighed. “I apologize. My husband was a clockmaker. He would have loved to see this.”
“Did he…?”
Die?
The unspoken word hung clearly in the air.
Keva’s teeth clenched, the smooth dark skin of her jawline tightened with the act. Her enviable green eyes cut sideways to Aurora. “My family was one of those attacked by the Horns.”
Aurora felt her mouth fall open in surprise. “Oh. I’m sorry. I thought only the Power Halos’ families were—”
“In a war such as this, all souls are targets…not just the soldiers.”
Aurora ducked her head in acknowledgment, and Keva moved past her, back out onto the stairwell.
They traveled up to the next, and inarguably the brightest, section of the tower: the inside of the clock faces. There was only a narrow walkway leading around the core of the tower. Concealing the center was a tall white wall inlaid with blinding lights illuminating the glass faces of the clock.
Aurora approached one of the faces and climbed on the outcropping of metal to look out a small window. This particular clock face oversaw the River Thames. London was lit up like a fairyland. Aurora imagined this was the quietest it had ever been. No traffic, no people, not even the slightest whisper. “Strange place for a window, don’t you think?”
“It was where men would scare away the birds to keep them from landing on the hands of the clock.”
Aurora pulled her eyes away from the scene of the noiseless city to look over her shoulder at Keva. “How do you know so much about this tower?”
“I told you, my husband was a clockmaker. He always said he’d take me here.” Her voice was despondent, removed.
Aurora hated uncomfortable moments where she felt she was expected to comfort someone. She was terrible at it. And there was always a lot of awkward back patting—the physical equivalent of saying, There, there.
So she did none of these things and looked back out the window, this time down at the Westminster Bridge. Squinting, she made out two lines of Halos and beasts now standing within a few feet of each other, neither having opened attack.
Just as she turned away, not wanting to witness the impending carnage, the light of the moon blacked out, and she looked up to see an undulating mass of demons circling in the air.
Aurora hopped down from the clock face. “We had better hurry.”
The two of them returned to the stairwell, closing the door to the clock faces behind them. Suddenly, the tower shook from the force of an impact below them, the sound of shattering glass resonating in their ears, followed by the smell of sulfur and the telltale snarling of demons.
Twenty-Three
GRAY
As the demons pelted the Elizabeth Tower, breaking through windows and crawling inside like roaches, the beasts snapped into action. The line of hooded beings pulled out crooked daggers, lunging forward.
The Power Halos were ready.
Gray held his crux and sword tightly in callused hands, blocking the blow of one of the beasts. There was no denying they were strong, but that was about the extent of their fighting skills. It took the Halos all of five minutes to conquer the line of beasts.
Chord wiped off the bright red blood dripping from the tip of his sword on the dark fabric of a beast lying facedown on the bridge. “Well, that was easy.”
Brielle hugged her arms around her torso, blood-soaked sword still in hand. “I feel like I just did something really wrong.” Her horror-filled eyes scanned the scene of dead beasts. “Like I just killed a bunch of people.”
“Beasts aren’t people, Brielle,” Chord said dismissively. “They’re monsters created by Horns. Like zombies. Only worse.”
Her light green eyes looked hollow and haunted. “But they used to be humans.”
No one disputed this. But they weren’t given long to reflect on the morality of their actions. A new wave of malevolence was now crashing its way down the streets of London—demons and beasts together on the other side of the bridge, all making their way to the Elizabeth Tower.
The Halos took this in for 2.5 seconds before they were all charging in the direction of the tower. Gray cursed himself. He shouldn’t have let Aurora follow after the Dominions without him.
They were more powerful together than apart, yet they kept allowing themselves to become separated as a result of her fierce independence and his need to let her distance herself from him. And maybe a little bit because of Luna. But in times such as these…they were all just going to have to deal with it.
“I’m going to find Aurora!” Gray called to the others as they neared the writhing mass of creatures. His voice could barely be heard over their snarling.
Luna grabbed his arm, pulling him back. “No. I need you here.”
Gray’s gaze, which had been laser-focused on the clock tower before them, moved to the delicate blonde clutching onto him with a vice grip. Luna’s grey-blue eyes were wide and pleading. He hated to disappoint her, to make her feel abandoned. But they were both Halos—Power Halos—and she had to understand he was doing what was best for everyone.
“Luna, I have to—”
<
br /> “Gray. Please.”
To his horror, her eyes were now shining with tears, and for a split second, he resented her for asking him to make a choice.
“Luna.” His voice was firm, and he was impressed with himself for not giving into her tears. “I have to do this. You know it’s the only way. I’m sorry.”
Luna’s jaw set in a stubborn line, and her eyes turned down in rejection. Gray knew, if he lived through this, he’d have a very unhappy girlfriend to return to. And when he would ask what was wrong, she’d say the worst of the F words and go back to weaving her guilt-trip-quilt before smothering him with it.
But he also knew, if he didn’t do this, he might not even have a girlfriend to return to because they’d all be goners. So, he kissed her on the forehead, disregarding her look of betrayal, and charged into the thick horde of demons and beasts.
The dark creatures didn’t seem to register his presence. Either that or they had a more pressing order to follow—an order to destroy whoever was in charge of locking the souls of the city.
Whatever the reason, Gray was glad he didn’t have to exert much more effort than holding out both his crux and sword, slicing through the sides of all he encountered, leaving behind a trail of black and red blood and flames.
CHORD
As terrifying and overwhelming as it was fighting a mass of Caducus’s minions, it was better than sitting on that damned little boat, playing cards with Aurora and pretending he wasn’t thinking of his explosive sex session with Sev.
Every. Single. Mother. Effing. Second.
Chord knew he’d probably, maybe, just a wee bit taken advantage of the gloomy Brit’s unfortunate circumstances…
But, no. Screw that.
Sev hadn’t been drunk. He hadn’t been under the influence of anything other than grief. He’d needed a release. He had an emptiness that needed to be filled. And Chord had been more than happy to accommodate him. But now Chord was the one who felt emptier than ever.
The only smidgen of hope in his mind came from the briefest moment earlier in the pub where Chord apparently almost died. His eyes had fluttered open to take in the disarray before him: food strewn across the floor, dark beer mixing with dark blood, making both liquids indiscernible from the other.
Echo (The Halo Series Book 2) Page 13
