Surrender to Dawn

by J. Kenner

  I burst into the apartment and found the book on the kitchen table. Thank goodness. I just prayed that I was right.

  The worn image of a dagger on the cover was barely visible, but to me, it was about the most beautiful thing ever. "Please," I whispered. "Please be right."

  I drew in a breath, then sliced my hand. I held it over the book and let my blood drip on the image of the dagger. At first, I thought nothing would happen. Then the image started to fill out the lines becoming solid, then the picture taking on form, bubbling up from the cover of the book.

  "The key . . ."

  Rachel's awed voice from the doorway made me jump, and I turned to frown at her. "Dammit, Rachel! I told you to stay downstairs."

  "I know," she said. "But my mother hid the dagger for my sister. I should be here."

  "Downstairs?"

  "All taken care of," she said. She took a step closer, her eyes wide with wonder, her finger reaching out as if to stroke the blade.

  "Lily!" Rose's anguished cry echoed up from downstairs.

  "Shit!" I said, immediately pushing past Rachel, who cried for me to hurry, then gave me a sharp and slightly painful shove in the direction of the door.

  But I didn't make it.

  There was something wrong. Something very wrong—and very familiar.

  Paralytic.

  I'd been hit with it before, by Deacon, actually, back when he thought we were on opposites sides. Now, apparently, Rachel had gotten me.

  "What?" I said, but that was all I got out before my mouth failed me, and I dropped to the floor, trying to fight the drug. Trying to just keep breathing.

  Rachel bent over in front of me and took the knife.

  "Stupid girl," she said, in a voice not Rachel's but which I recognized nonetheless—Lucas Johnson. "I could wait—I could risk—you having the Oris Clef. I could even encourage it. Tempt you. Tease you. Keep you from searching for the missing key. Keep you from thinking like a damned foolish martyr. So long as the portal opens there's a chance for us. The hordes cross, and we are in a new world order.

  "Even if I failed at the bridge and you claimed the throne, you'd never be strong enough to keep it. How could you be when everything you are, everything you ever will be comes from me? I'm stronger because I made you. Planned you. I fucking controlled you. And you never even had a clue."

  Disgust and self-loathing welled within me, but there was nothing I could do. Nothing except lie there and wait for him to cut me to pieces.

  "And after my coup—after I cut you up and put the bits of your body in little boxes hidden all over the earth—the world will be remade in my image and the image of him that I serve, Kokbiel, the most powerful." He smiled. "Lucky me that I don't have to wait on that part now." He held up the knife. "A key that will lock the gates? Sorry, daughter-dear, but I can't let you use this. But the blade seems sharp enough." He bent close to me. "Perhaps we'll get some use out of it before I destroy it for good."

  He squatted beside me, and I tried desperately not to let the terror I felt show in my eyes. This was it—the thing I had feared most of all since the moment I'd learned I was immortal. That I would be alive and nonfunctional. Alive, yet boxed up. Spread apart. Suffering from my injuries and with no chance of healing or restoring myself.

  And it was all over at the hands of my sick, twisted, demonic father, and I couldn't even open my mouth to scream.

  “It's almost time," he said, pressing the blade above my shoulder joint, "so I'll make this quick. You can thank me for that later."

  I didn't feel the blade as he sliced in, but I did hear the loud grunt as he fell backward, suddenly off balance. And though I couldn't turn my head, I was at the perfect angle to see why—the blade protruding from Rachel's chest. Just to the left of her heart.

  She gasped and grabbed for it, yanking it out and snarling as Rose raced forward, slowing only long enough to take my blade from my thigh holster.

  "You son of a bitch," she said, kicking out and catching Johnson under the chin. "You used me. You raped me. And Lily." She spun around, her heel knocking him solid across the face. "You've been playing with her like a damn puppet. Our whole family. Well, no more."

  She kicked, and Johnson tumbled backward, then climbed to his feet, clearly not yet comfortable enough in the body to have his fighting game down.

  But he did have a knife, and he lunged at Rose. She shifted left, evading, then lashed out with another kick. I wanted to cry out to her, to scream that she needed to finish the job, not vent her frustrations, but I was frozen, helpless, and could only watch as Rose was finally able to get her revenge against Lucas.

  And it was some nasty revenge. She was a woman on fire, fury driving her, Johnson barely even able to get in a decent thrust.

  "I hate you," she said, the simple words carrying so much meaning. "I hate you, and you are dead." And with that, she slammed my knife into his heart, then pried her own knife from his weakening hand. She thrust it in, too, and when he fell back to the ground, she shoved it the rest of the way with her foot.

  And then, as the body started to turn to goo, she pulled out the knives and spat on him.

  Honestly, I wanted to applaud.

  Rose stood gasping for breath, her expression a mixture of pride and amazement. Then she looked at me, and worry flooded her eyes. She crouched beside me. "Oh God, oh God. She died—she must have truly died—and he slid in to use her body. And then you healed him, and, oh God, he's been using her body ever since, and Rachel's been gone, and we never even knew." She licked her lips, tears spilling from her eyes. "We never even knew."

  Tears spilled down her cheeks, and as Rose lifted my hand and sliced my wrist, the world faded away, and I was gone, too.

  20

  “Come on! Come on! We have to hurry! Come on!"

  I woke up to Rose's face above mine, and the taste of blood lingering in my mouth. My blood. I blinked and sputtered and slowly, painfully, drew in a deep breath.

  "Johnson?" I managed, my voice sounding croaky and off. "He's really dead? I didn't imagine it?"

  Rose nodded, busying herself with pushing me into a sitting position, but when she looked up at me, I saw pain in her eyes. "He raped me," she said. "He tormented me and he hurt me and he raped me. But when I killed him, he was—" Her gaze darted over to the greasy stain on the floor.

  "It wasn't Rachel anymore," I said gently. "And you killed the son of a bitch who was abusing her body. Who'd abused you. I say congrats and good riddance."

  And, I thought, of all the ways that this could have turned out, having Rose actually destroy the man who'd fucked with her for so long was some serious poetic justice.

  "Are you mad?"

  I experimentally tried to move my legs and was pleased to see they were cooperating. "About what?"

  "Who he was. What he did to you. Maybe you wanted to kill him."

  I almost laughed. Because as much as that would have been a nice warm, fuzzy moment for me, the last thing in the world I wanted was to absorb the essence of Lucas Johnson. "No," I said. “I'm not mad. I am worried, though. How long was I out?"

  "Only a minute or so," Rose said. "I wasn't sure how long it would last, so I tried the blood thing since you use it to heal folks, and, oh, Lily, we really need to hurry. The demons—"

  "What about them?"

  "She only did a protection on the front. On the back of the pub, she did an invitation. Or he. At any rate they're coming in. I got a few when I was coming up the stairs but Deacon's down there all alone, and he's helpless and—"

  "What?" Deacon and helpless used together in the same sentence really didn't compute.

  "The same stuff that got you," Rose said. "Only Rachel—I mean Johnson—was aiming it at me. He said he was done with me, and that it would end me slowly, and I'd probably last just long enough to hear you scream when he took the key from you. And then he was aiming this thing at me, like a blowgun or something, and Deacon jumped, and he was in front of me, and the dart go
t him instead of me. And I guess Johnson didn't want to try again, and so he turned and ran."

  "Deacon?"

  "It was working slower on him than it did on you—I guess because he's a demon and all—but he told me to go. To help you. And so I did, and on the way all these demons were coming in—like five—and Johnson saw one grab me, and that was when he told me what he'd done. The invitation, I mean. And then he went into the apartment, and I know he figured that the demon would kill me, you know?"

  "But you nailed its ass."

  "Yes, I did," she said, with a proud lift of her chin. "That one and the other four, too."

  "What?"

  She lifted a shoulder. "They all came to help it, but I got them. I had my blade and I had two more knives in my belt that I'd taken from the kitchen, and I was wearing your sword, too, 'cause I was practicing with it." She shrugged. "That meant I had to kill one by hand, but that was okay because—"

  "Wow," I said.

  She grinned, and any shadow of the pain from killing Johnson faded. "You're impressed. You're, like, really impressed."

  I couldn't deny it. "Come on." I was still a little wobbly, but I was moving, and at the moment I couldn't ask for much better than that.

  On the stairs, I saw the corpse of one of the demons she'd killed—not with her blade, though. This one had his neck broken. Apparently my little sister really had graduated to Über-chick rank.

  "Let's make sure he stays dead, shall we?" I asked, and before the words were even out of my mouth, Rose pulled her blade and shoved it smack into the demon's heart.

  "Better?"

  "Hell, yes," I said, referring to both the kill and my little sister's confidence. A whole new persona to go with her new body. I had a partner again, a woman who'd survived and thrived. And even though a part of me mourned the loss of the little sister I'd worked so hard to take care of, another part of me rejoiced at having a sister who was confident and whole and didn't need to be coddled.

  I'd told my mom I'd look after her, and I think that maybe—just maybe—despite all the weirdness, my mom would be pleased with the way Rose turned out. Somehow, someway, despite all my ramblings, I really had managed to save my baby sister.

  I stepped over another demon carcass and peered around the corner. Nothing.

  "I think we may be safe."

  "Why would they stop coming in?" Rose asked.

  I didn't have an answer to that. "Maybe they realized what a badass you are."

  She rolled her eyes. "Or maybe there's someplace else they want to be."

  "Or there's some reason to avoid here," I said, as the ground started to shake beneath my feet. "Run." And with Rose at my heels, we raced through the stone corridor, through the kitchen, and into the pub's public area, the floor behind us bursting up as the demon below raced after us, ripping up the wooden floor as he traveled.

  Deacon lay sprawled on the ground near the bar, and my chest constricted with fear. An owned blade was the only thing that could truly kill a demon and prevent its essence from coming back in another form, but a mortal wound could kill the body, and I was terrified that if Deacon had died, this was the end of the man I needed. That I loved.

  "Is he?"

  "I don't know," I said, racing forward. "You said it worked slower on him?"

  "I don't know how much," she said, then looked behind her at the rising, rippling floorboards. "It's getting closer. Lily, Lily, it's getting closer!"

  "Grab him," I said, grabbing him under one arm while Rose got the other. We hauled him toward the front door, and while we did, I held my free hand out for Rose. "Cut."

  She didn't hesitate, just sliced at the pad of my thumb. Blood oozed out, and I shoved my hand toward his mouth as we dragged his body toward the door. So far, he hadn't moved, but I refused to give up hope.

  "Get the door," I shouted, as a giant tentacle lashed up through the ground.

  Penemue, I thought. Either that or he and Kokbiel looked an awful lot alike. Then again, what did I know?

  While Rose held the door open, I yanked Deacon through and into the street.

  The street, I saw, where at least half a dozen demons were clustered, their weapons drawn, their faces dark with anticipation.

  Fuck.

  And then, Deacon stirred.

  I exhaled, so relieved I wanted to cry. Unfortunately, I really didn't have the time. This definitely qualified as one bright spot in an otherwise completely fucked-up situation. "Drink more," I said, keeping my wound to his mouth. He sucked, the sensation curling through me like a hot wire, and as I knelt beside him, I held on to his shoulder for strength.

  "Here's the situation. I've got the dagger, but we've got six demons on the street behind us. Penemue's about to burst through that door any minute. And we're an hour away from the convergence. We need to get out of here and get to the bridge. Can you fight?"

  "Fight now; recover later," he said, climbing to his feet. And, I noticed, he didn't look nearly as shaky as I had. I might have special healing powers, but a bit of demon constitution was apparently a good thing, too.

  "That way," I said, nodding toward the six, who had now grown to eight. "We get past them, we get a car, and we get the hell out of here."

  I might be our general, but that was as specific as I had the time or the inclination to be. And it turned out my little speech was just the right length, too, because right as I finished it—right as we were racing forward, weapons drawn, ready to hack away at the growing mob—Penemue emerged.

  No, strike that. He didn't emerge. He exploded. He ripped his way out of the bowels of the earth, sending asphalt and glass and all sorts of debris raining down on us.

  The size of a semitruck, Penemue filled the street, his bulbous, tentacled body spreading out like a disease over the earth. Maggots crawled over his rotted flesh, and the stench that rose from him was enough to make me puke. Four squidlike tentacles curled around him, ready to lash out, just waiting for a victim to make a false move. The soulless eyes, black and beady, focused on me, and vomit yellow slime dripped from an orifice that might or might not be a nose.

  He was horrible and huge and desperately dangerous.

  He was evil.

  And he wanted me.

  "Playtime is over," he said, his voice filling the street, probably filling the whole damn town. "You will give back what is mine or suffer."

  Since I really didn't see an upside to cooperating with the beast, I didn't stop what I was doing. Which happened to be whaling on a pasty-faced demon brandishing a mace. Nasty business, a mace, but the sword Deacon tossed me courtesy of the demon he'd just beheaded was nasty too, and I thrust up and twisted, capturing the flail and ripping the medieval weapon right out of his hands. I didn't waste time recovering the mace; I just let go, grabbed my own blade, and lunged forward, catching the demon hard and fast in the gut.

  His eyes widened, as if he was really astounded I'd done that, then he fell forward and started melting away.

  One down, an entire mob of apocalyptic demons to go.

  At least it was a start.

  "Lily! Behind you!"

  I turned to find a demon racing toward me, his knife outstretched. I started to dive left, but the demon's voice—"SHE IS MINE"—rushed over both of us, and my attacking demon dropped his knife, bowed, and turned tail to race in the other direction.

  I thought that running thing was a damn fine idea, and decided to try it myself, but didn't have nearly the same success as my now-absent attacker. Because instead of running forward, I was being sucked backward.

  "Lily!" Deacon yelled as I was dragged through the air as if I were being sucked into a black hole. "Vortex!"

  I grabbed the first thing I passed—a lamppost—and clutched my fingers tight around it. In front of me, Deacon lunged in my direction, only to be brought back into the fight by two demons intent on not letting him get to me. Rose had similar problems, but at least she was holding her own. I hoped she could keep it up.

  A
t the moment, there wasn't a damn thing I could do but hold on.

  I tightened my grip and looked over my shoulder, then immediately wished I hadn't. Because what I saw was damn scary.

  What I saw was like a huge black hole. A portal to somewhere far, far away.

  "You possess what you do not own," Penemue said. "Return what is mine, and I will spare you."

  I was really not buying that. And even if I did, I wasn't about to hand over the damn thing.

  I expected him to rush forward and rip it from my neck, and when he didn't, it took a moment for me to realize why—he hadn't yet fully emerged into this dimension. He was stuck in one place. Which, normally, would make me happy. But considering he seemed more than capable of making me come to him, I have to say the situation was hardly ideal.

  "It is mine," he boomed. "I created it. I imbued it with the power you would exploit. You know this," he said. "And the Oris Clef knows it as well."

  For the first time I realized that the necklace was not simply stretched straight out toward the vortex like I was. Instead, it was twisting. Slowly. Subtly. But soon it would twist tight enough to choke me. Tight enough, possibly, to cut through the flesh in my neck.

  And since the chain was demon-forged, I had to assume it could slice through bone, muscle, and tendons, too.

  "It will be mine again," Penemue said. "One way or the other."

  I called out for Deacon again, only to realize that the horde had increased at least twofold, and more demons were on their way. He and Rose were back-to-back and fighting for all they were worth. They were holding their own, but they couldn't be any help to me.

  I was trapped. And if I didn't figure out what to do soon, Penemue would be the new king of the world.

  Really not my idea of a sympathetic monarch.

  The tug on my body increased, and I realized that the vortex was becoming more powerful. A trash can beside me tumbled and rolled, then leaped into the air and flew backward, and I twisted my head to watch, the muscles in my arms straining as I held tight to my lamppost. It rocketed toward the maw and never even slowed. Just got sucked in like something out of a fifties sci-fi flick featuring the black hole that ate Cincinnati.