by Alysha Ellis
It took him two goes to pull the knife from Elijah’s grasp. When he finally wrenched it free and closed his hand around the haft, a wave of weakness hit him. The weapon clattered to the floor. Nieko swung his gaze to the bathroom door but it remained shut.
He rolled to a sitting position, using his booted feet to maneuver the knife. With his hands behind him to help with propulsion, he scooted on his bottom to the door of the bathroom, kicking the knife along in front of him. He propped himself against the wall and twisted around and pulled the knife up against his chest. He wrapped his hands around it. A gray mist swam in front of his eyes, seeping into his brain, eating at his consciousness, destroying his sense of who and what he was.
With every ounce of strength he had, he fought his way through the smothering cloud and waited until he heard the sound of the lock turning.
He straightened his legs.
Hopewood took a single step out of the bathroom and tripped on Nieko’s boots. He crashed forward, falling onto the knife, flinging his arms out as he fell. The black box clattered to the floor.
But before the blade pierced him, Hopewood pushed back up, bracing himself on his locked elbows. The knife did little more than prick his skin.
“You can’t kill me,” he gasped. “Not with a human weapon.”
“Watch me,” Nieko ground out, and wrapped his arms around Hopewood, hugging him tight.
He rolled and his body weight drove the blade straight and true into Hopewood’s chest. Blood-speckled spray hit Nieko’s face.
He fought against the consuming weakness, knowing the contact with the knife was killing him. He tried to lift himself away from the rubber-covered steel protruding from Hopewood’s chest but he lacked the strength. Even breathing was becoming too hard. With a final fierce effort, he groped around until his hand rested on Hopewood’s black box. He lifted it as high as he could and smashed it onto the floor.
Immediately his twitching, tearing muscles relaxed, but it was too late.
As his consciousness faded, the last thing Nieko was aware of was silence as the harsh rasp of Hopewood’s breath stopped.
Chapter Six
Warmth and light beat against the surface of Nieko’s skin. So there was an afterlife. Who knew? A heavy weight seemed to hold his eyelids closed. He fought against it. If this was heaven, he wanted a look.
At last he managed to crack his eyes open. He promptly closed them again. He thought he might have been rewarded for his self-sacrifice but if the less than angelic face he saw was any indication he’d been sent to somewhere far less like paradise.
“I wondered if you were going to stay asleep forever,” a gruff voice said.
Nieko moaned. He knew that voice.
“Leave him alone,” another voice murmured. He knew that voice too. Eora. Had his efforts been futile after all? But why would she be in hell? She hadn’t done anything wrong.
He felt a warm hand wrap around his cold one. “You leave Nieko alone,” she repeated. “He’s a hero. He can take all the time he wants to recover.”
Hero? Recover? Nieko thought for a moment. If Eora thought he needed to recover then he couldn’t be dead. His eyes snapped open. Eora stood by his side. Next to her stood Tybor. The room he was in was white, as were the sheets that covered him.
“Where am I?’ he muttered.
“You’re in the infirmary,” Eora answered. “The doctor said you’ll be perfectly fine as soon as you’ve had some rest.”
“I’m back home?” he asked, afraid to believe it. “I’m not dead?”
“Not even close,” Tybor said.
What about Hopewood? Is he…? Did I…?”
“He’s dead,” Tybor said flatly. “You succeeded where Huon and I failed.”
Another question ate at Nieko but his throat closed on the words and he had to force them out. Grief, surprising him with its intensity, washed over him. “How did…? What happened to Elijah after…?”
“Shh,” Eora whispered. “We’ll tell you all about it when you’re feeling stronger. For now you need to sleep.” The soporific signals she radiated worked like a drug. He found himself drifting back into oblivion.
His dreams were filled with images of Eora and Elijah, suffering at the hands of Hopewood, writhing in pain. He saw Hopewood fire the gun, saw Elijah fall. Saw the blood pool around him. Yet through it all, he felt Elijah’s presence. Not as strong as when he was alive, but there, like an echo, a slow drumbeat under the constant throb of blood through his veins.
When he woke again, the lights had been dimmed, signaling the end of the artificial daylight that was all the Dvalinn had. Perhaps Hopewood’s death would allow the Dvalinn to return to the surface. Maybe one day he would see that as worth the loss of Elijah, but not yet. Maybe, for him, never.
“You’re awake again?” Eora’s voice came out of the darkness. He looked toward the corner, where she sat in a chair. She stood, stretched and came nearer to him, turning up the lights when she reached his side.
“How do you feel?”
He tried to speak but his voice came out in a dry croak. Eora picked up the glass of water by his bedside and offered him a drink. “I… Okay, I guess. How are you?”
“I’m fine,” she said. “I had a bit of a concussion but it went away.”
“How long have I been out of it?” he asked her.
“Five days,” she replied. “Using the knife nearly killed you. It would have killed anyone who wasn’t as strong.”
“I had to do it,” Nieko murmured. “I couldn’t let him hurt you any more.”
“Why, Nieko?” She picked up his hand and held it tight. “Why were you prepared to die to save me?”
He’d faced death to save her. He could do this. “Because I love you.” He held himself still, waiting for her to break away, but she tightened her hold on his hand.
“What did you say?”
“I said I love you.” He took a deep breath. “Elijah knew. It was what he was going to tell you that last morning.”
He waited but she said nothing. As the moment stretched on, he knew he’d lost her. She’d never understand, never accept.
“I’m sorry, Eora. You can ignore it. Forget I ever said anything. We can be friends like we’ve always been.”
At last she spoke. Her words pierced his heart. “We can’t be friends like before.”
He finally plucked up the courage to look her in the eyes. He blinked. His vision couldn’t have recovered from the trauma, because instead of anger or disgust, he saw softness and something else—something that made his heart pound.
She dropped her head until her forehead rested on his. “You’ve been my constant companion for as long as I can remember. A part of my life, a part of me.” Her breath, sweet and honeyed, washed over him. “When I saw you sacrifice yourself, when I thought I’d lost you, I knew I was never going to be right again. I love you, Nieko.”
Her lips met his, shaped them, and he licked his way into her mouth. His heart pounded and his mental barriers collapsed into sand and blew away. There was no longer any need to disguise the extent of his love. Her love reflected back, warm and golden.
But in the midst of his happiness, a shadow loomed.
“What about Elijah?” he whispered. Even through the joy, it hurt to say his name. His feelings were confused, grief and jealousy swirled into a jagged, cutting pain. Would Eora have still love him if Elijah had lived?
The smile on Eora’s face shocked him. Did she really not care?
“I guess I love Elijah too, because I don’t want to be without him.” She bit her lip but she looked nervous, not sad.
Nieko stared at her. He didn’t know what she saw in his face because she stood and began to pace. “You don’t mind, do you?” she asked. “I thought…well if you love me you might understand I love Elijah too.”
She spun back to him. “We can make this work. Tybor, Huon and Judie do it. Why shouldn’t we? After this incident the whole Dvalinn council is going to
have to reassess what they teach about Dvalinn lore.”
Maybe Nieko’s brain had been damaged, because he could not make sense of anything she said. “Make what work? What are you talking about?”
“You, me and Elijah. Living together. What else would I be talking about?”
“But Elijah’s dead.”
“No he’s not. He’s in a hospital bed down the corridor. As soon as he knows you’re awake again, he’s going to be demanding to come and see you. He’s not a good patient. He lost a lot of blood. The doctors had trouble finding a transfusion match, so he’s too weak to be up and about yet.”
“Elijah’s alive.” Nieko said it quietly, afraid if he spoke too loudly he would wake up and find the whole conversation had been a dream.
“Wait! You thought Hopewood killed Elijah?” Eora shook her head. “Elijah said he tried to stop you taking the knife from him because he knew the damage it would do to you. He said you wrestled him for it. How could you not know he was alive?”
Nieko remembered how hard it had been to take the knife. He’d thought it was because of the effect of the weapon. How could he have missed that Elijah had been holding on to it? He had to check again. “Elijah isn’t dead? He’s here? With us?”
“Right here.” The raspy voice came from the doorway. Nieko pushed himself to his elbows and watched the man in the wheelchair roll into his room.
“Elijah?”
“Of course it’s me. I felt you wake and had the nurse bring me most of the way.” Elijah pushed himself closer. “She didn’t want to but I threatened to walk on my own if she didn’t.”
He held out his hand and took Nieko’s.
“I don’t understand,” Nieko said. “Someone needs to tell me what the hell happened.”
“Eora’s the only one who knows it all,” Elijah replied. “She got us both out of the warehouse.”
“I didn’t do it alone,” Eora protested. “I had help.” She perched on the end of Nieko’s bed, one foot tucked under her, the other dangling down. Elijah rolled up closer and rested his head against her knee.
“Okay,” Eora said. “If we start from when I was immobilized by the electricity. Elijah was shot.”
Nieko winced but Elijah grinned at him. “I got better. I should be perfectly okay in another couple of days.”
“Are you going to listen or not?” Eora said. “So, Hopewood kicked me in the head. I was unconscious for a while. When I came to, Nieko was outside the bathroom door.”
“Which everyone assures me was some feat,” Elijah added. “No one is quite sure how you managed to fight against the incapacitation of the electric field, but you did it.”
“I don’t think I could have if the box had been mains-powered,” Nieko offered. “The battery-operated box didn’t seem to be as effective.”
“It felt pretty effective to me,” Eora said, running a hand over Nieko’s bare shoulder. His skin quivered in reaction. “It hurt, Elijah. I can’t begin to describe the cramping pain to you, but Nieko ignored it. When Hopewood came out of the bathroom, he stabbed him.”
“Yeah, about that,” Elijah interjected. “I thought you Dvalinn couldn’t touch human weapons.”
“We can’t,” Nieko said. “I couldn’t hold the knife properly. I had to prop it against my chest and use my body to drive it in.”
“What Nieko did took unbelievable strength. It nearly killed him.” Eora blinked rapidly. “I thought it had killed him.”
“That’s not important,” Nieko said gruffly. “Let’s get on to what happened next.”
Eora shifted her weight on the bed. Elijah reached out a hand and stroked her arm. Nieko would have liked to do the same but his limbs felt too heavy to move.
“I regained consciousness and realized the electric field was gone,” Eora continued, “so I dragged myself onto my knees and crawled to Nieko.”
“You’ll notice you were her first concern,” Elijah said, but his lips curved into a gentle smile.
“Well…I knew Nieko couldn’t be dead because he was still there.” She looked at Elijah. “Even you know Dvalinn bodies disintegrate at the moment of death. If Nieko had any chance of living I had to get him away from the knife and from Hopewood as soon as I could.”
“Hopewood was dead, wasn’t he?” Nieko asked. If that bastard had survived he was going back to finish him off no matter what it took.
“Calm down,” Elijah said. “He’s as dead as dead gets.”
“Unlike you,” Eora said, nudging him. “Once I dragged you clear of Hopewood and rolled you onto your side so you could breathe, I went to check Elijah.” Her smile faded. “I really thought Elijah was gone.” She took a deep breath and turned to Nieko. “He wasn’t in good shape. There was blood everywhere. He had a nasty hole below his right shoulder but he was breathing. I knew I had to get you back to the Underworld if you were to have any chance of survival. Without direct contact with the Earth you’d have died when you were so weak.”
“I know,” Nieko replied. “I thought I was dead.”
“But I couldn’t leave Elijah. I don’t know enough about the surface world to be able to tell what might have happened to him. Hopewood might have had more men somewhere who would have finished Elijah off. I didn’t have a clue how to get him the help he needed.”
“How did you get from there to us all being here?” Nieko asked. “You must have known what to do.”
“I panicked,” Eora admitted. “I stood in the room and lost myself in the fear.”
“Which as it turned out was exactly the right thing to do,’ said another voice from the doorway. Huon strolled into the room, followed by the burly figure of Tybor. Judie slipped in and stood between them.
“Tybor and I had already decided you guys might need a bit of backup,” Huon continued. “We didn’t feel confident you could pull it off without help, so we were hanging around the vicinity of Stonehenge. When Eora sent out her alarm signal, we located it and teleported in.”
“Alarm signal. That sounds so much better than hit the panic button,” Eora said.
“So, okay. We had Eora, Tybor and Huon. Still doesn’t explain how you got Elijah and me back here,” Nieko said. “We were both unconscious. Elijah’s human half would have made the teleport even harder. Way too much for the three of you to manage.”
“Once we got to you to Stonehenge, the natural power of the ley lines supplemented our power, so that part of it was actually easy,” Eora said.
“Getting back to Stonehenge was the trick,” Tybor added, and to Nieko’s total surprise, the habitually grim look on Tybor’s face lifted and he, Huon and Eora broke out into laughter. If it hadn’t been totally ludicrous, Nieko would have said Tybor giggled!
“We, um, commandeered a car…” Huon said. The three of them bent over, chortling and gasping.
“You should have seen it, Nieko,” Eora sputtered.
“Last time we were on the surface, Tybor and I spent a lot of time in a car,” Huon said, wiping at the tears streaming down his cheeks. “I don’t remember because I was mostly unconscious, but Tybor felt he’d seen enough to have a shot at driving,”
“And I can’t go back to the surface at all,” Judie said, “so I was no help, but I wish I’d seen it.”
“It’s funny now,” Tybor said sobering up, “but it was fairly tense at the time. First we had to…ah…acquire a vehicle.”
“You stole a car?” Elijah gasped.
“We didn’t have much choice,” Tybor continued. “We couldn’t buy one. None of us knew how to hire one, even if we’d had the foresight to bring human money, which we didn’t. Anyway, it turns out cars start by using power from a battery. The same susceptibility to electricity Hopewood used against us as a weapon can be used by us in non-aggressive situations to direct the flow of power.”
“I knew cars use power to start,” Eora said, tapping her chest. “I told you all that time studying human behaviors and artifacts wasn’t wasted.”
“Yes, you kn
ew,” Tybor agreed. “It took me a while to figure out how to do it. The whole time Huon and Eora were keeping watch to make sure no one was coming to investigate what was going on, but eventually we got the car running. We carried you and Elijah to the car and shoved you into the backseat. You probably have a few bruises but we didn’t have time to be gentle. A bump or two was nothing compared to what you faced if we didn’t get you out of there.”
Eora snickered. “Most of the bruises and bumps probably came about during the journey. It wasn’t pretty.”
“Driving is harder than it looks,” Tybor said belligerently. “There are bends everywhere. And other cars. And trees. And dogs.”
“And cows,” Huon said, breaking out into mirth again. “Don’t forget the cow.” Tybor’s lips thinned and Huon laughed even harder. “I bet the cow never forgets you!”
“Anyway,” said Tybor, with some attempt at dignity, “we made it to Stonehenge.”
“Really, it won’t take much to repair the fence, and no one will ever miss that chunk out of the standing stone,” put in the irrepressible Huon. “But as long as I live I will be grateful British police do not routinely carry guns.”
“Three carloads of them, there were. Running across the field toward us.” Eora grinned. “I would have loved to be able to see their faces when we disappeared right in front of their eyes.”
“And here you are.” Judie gestured around the room.
“The big problem is, what do we do next?” Nieko looked from Eora to Elijah.
“I can predict some of it,” Tybor said. “The council will interview you and make a report. The medicos have held them off so far, but now you’re all awake and reasonably fit you might as well get it over with.”
“What do you think they’ll do with us?” Eora asked.
“Congratulate you and thank you, I hope,” Huon said. “You’ve removed the biggest threat the Dvalinn have ever faced. You should be heroes.”
“Once I get back home, I won’t be a hero,” Elijah said. “I’ll be a convicted murderer.”
“You didn’t kill Hopewood,” Nieko said. “I did.”
