by Misty Dietz
Katherine pressed her lips together, trying to hide her disquiet. Dark Arts. A companion for Satan’s daughter. Holy Hell. Right now, she was in way over her head. And a fuzzy, mucked-up head at that. Could she believe what she’d seen? Or had Mary’s ghost been a product of the Nephilim toxin?
It’s time for you to show up, Grimm. Her eyes searched the horizon briefly before bringing her gaze back to Leviathan, who hovered calmly where the specter of Mary had been only moments before. She needed to stall until Ari could get here to help her straighten this out. “A companion of your own. What does that mean, exactly?”
“Someone with whom to share my life. Isn’t that what every human desires?”
But you’re not human, Katherine wanted to shout. Instead, she folded her hands in front of her to stop them from shaking. “And this companion…you want it to be me.”
Leviathan smiled, and the ocean calmed.
A shiver crept up Katherine’s spine. “A true companion can’t be forced. You must know that.”
Leviathan’s lips drew down, her silver eyes going gunmetal gray. “I don’t have the luxury of time to build trust with you. I thought our instinctive connection would be enough for you to take a leap of faith. I’d hoped we could help each other grow. Help one another…heal. And then find some meaning in what has been.” She brushed at her eyes, and Katherine’s heart nearly stopped.
Had a demon—much less, an archdemon—ever wept? Could a natural born demon rise above her nature and environment? Humans did it all the time.
Sure, but always with tremendous struggle, came a voice inside. You’re exhausted. Why work so hard to get what you want when there’s an easier way?
Dark Arts. Hadn’t she been riding that very line for her entire, artificially-long life already? Her stomach rolled as a new sequence of memories assaulted her in slow motion. Highlights of her selfishness, her need for control, her quest for power. All of it, defensive weaponry she’d honed to awful perfection.
Katherine’s stomach tumbled so viciously she sank to her knees and retched on the sand.
I’m sick. A hundred years of fighting to become invulnerable, all for nothing.
Ari, I need you.
“It’s time for you to choose, Guardian.”
Katherine wiped her mouth and looked up at the archdemon, whose eyes gleamed with hope. She wanted to trust. Wanted it so badly.
Leviathan held out her hand. “Will you take a leap of faith with me? Or will you continue to let others decide how our story should be written?”
Join with her. One who’d been born in evil through no choice of her own. Katherine sat back on her haunches, fighting the heaviness in her limbs. Please don’t let me chose wrong. “I am open to a journey of self-healing. I will even share that road with you, Leviathan, since God knows I need it, too.” She gasped, struggling to hold the darkness at bay. To prevent a flood of misery. “But I hope you understand that…Dark Arts…can play no part in self-healing—mine or yours.”
Leviathan stood motionless. Katherine’s world compressed into the extinguishing spark in the demon’s eyes.
“So…you reject me?”
Katherine shook her head. “No, not you. Only the dark path. There’s a difference.”
“I am born of darkness. I see no difference.”
“We are the sum of our choices,” Katherine said, and a wall came down inside her, revealing another’s presence, which pushed some of that infernal darkness back. Ari? Her heart was beating so fast. She pushed slowly to her feet and took a step toward the water, which had begun to ebb and flow once more. “Life has been difficult for both of us, but we can choose to make life-affirming choices. That’s how we can write our own stories.”
Leviathan shook her head, her eyes now dull, her skin pasty gray. “Perhaps I am not allowed to be good. Maybe I only exist for contrast. For how can there be good if there is no evil?”
“I don’t believe that. Not for a moment.” But she could see that Leviathan did. “Good and evil are products of free will. And so far you’ve demonstrated that you have the power to make good choices. All you need to do is keep making them.” She held her breath as Leviathan stared at her. Everything faded away as she felt the demon trying to touch her mind in those dark places.
“If I can’t have you, I want Ari.”
What? Katherine’s gut clenched, her skin tingling painfully. Of every possible scenario, she hadn’t expected this. She wrapped her arms around her trunk, shivering. “He’s not a doll to be fought over, Leviathan. If we long for connection, we have to work on ourselves first.”
Leviathan raised her arms to the sky. The waves lengthened, and the sky filled with gauzy, charcoal clouds that pulsed with a deep red light. “I could’ve made you happy with my powers.”
Katherine staggered back from the furious water, thunder ricocheting through her chest, filling her with dread. There was no way she could defeat Leviathan. The toxin was dulling her senses, worming its way into her Guardian life force.
Katherine looked down at her hands once more, this time envisioning Ari’s strong fingers engulfing her own. No matter what, there was always a choice to be made. Always a choice to love. To forgive. To do the right thing.
Until you were dead, you had a choice.
Her gaze wrenched back to the demon. “Leviathan, stop! Please! You can choose to be good. I know you can! You hear me? I believe in you!”
Leviathan lowered her arms, her eyes alert, her body calm. Katherine swallowed, taking a step toward the demon, her heart bumping against her ribcage.
Suddenly, the air molecules shifted as Ari and two other Guardians soared through the sky. Leviathan shouted an Enochian curse as three ancient Guardians landed on the beach. Raj and Alexios flanked Ari, whose face was a mask of anger, his body covered in blood and sweat. “Katherine must learn—like the rest of us—how to make herself happy. You are no one’s path to joy, demon.” He opened his arms, marshalling high humidity and competing air masses to wind together with enough force to develop a low pressure center.
Katherine raced to the edge of the ocean. “Wait! She’s not entirely evil like the others.”
Raj and Alexios raised their hands, thrusting power into Ari’s typhoon before Leviathan’s water shield was at full strength. The tearing winds ripped through her wall of water, enveloping her in a twirling, twisting mass of air and sea water.
“No! Please, give her a chance!” Katherine screamed. Ari grabbed her arm, adrenaline and violence pumping through him. Leviathan was wailing, but whether in fear, pain, or rage, Katherine couldn’t tell. She tried to wrench from Ari’s grasp, her gut somersaulting to feel the water swell over her ankles. “Give her time to make the right decision. She was on the cusp of it!”
Alexios’s features seemed carved from stone as he turned to pin her with a fierce glare. “This has all been an elaborate ruse, Katherine. You are under the influence of Nephilim toxin. Stand down. Now.”
Ari’s gaze was nearly as aggressive as their Guardian leader’s. “This will be over soon.”
Her hands covered her mouth, her shoulders quaking with her sobs. “But, this is wrong.”
Wasn’t it?
Or was she wrong? Was she being deceived? The noise! She pressed her palms against her temples to quell the static, wanting to crawl in a cave to escape her fractured thoughts and the horrible sounds of battle. She watched, helpless, as it took three of the oldest Guardians in existence working together to control the archdemon. How was she so strong?
Katherine back-pedaled from the turbulent water as Leviathan rose up in the tsunami and battled back the waves. The three Guardians were pushed back, blood beginning to drip from their ears and noses. Katherine tested the mental pathway to the men’s power chain until the razor-sharp pushback from the archdemon made her double over in pain. Raj bellowed ferociously, his black hair lighting on fire, as he launched himself toward Leviathan.
But the archdemon disappeared with a shriek that
felt as despondent as it was ominous. Suddenly the sea and skies calmed. Raj fell limply into the ocean as Alexios, Ari, and Katherine collapsed on the beach.
Katherine stared up at the still-swirling clouds, matted pieces of her hair whipping in her face. Pain rode every muscle and fiber in her being. Still, it wasn’t nearly as sharp as the stabbing in her soul.
The lines had been drawn in the sand, and now she’d never know if she’d been right about the demon.
There could be no Mary.
No more choice.
And no more hope.
Chapter 21
Ari lay unmoving on the beach, catching his breath. The sun emerged from all those ominous clouds, baking his blood crusty all over his body. He’d been inside Kat’s head as she’d relived her near-drowning while trying to save her sister. Horrific.
He’d known about the tragedy, but never the particulars. It had been the one thing Kat had never shared with him.
Fuck.
Fuck, fuck, fucking, fuck.
She’d been a little girl. In the long history of the world, what sibling hadn’t engaged in silly taunts? Kat hadn’t wanted any real harm to come to her sister. And then for her parents to blame her for her sister’s death…
And then their deaths. To carry that weight all her life was inconceivable.
A knot worked its way into his throat as he sat up and crawled over to Kat. When a broken sob choked out of her, he gathered her in his arms, pulling them both back onto the warming sand. He held her body on top of his as she feebly fought against him, the Nephilim toxin in her body continuing to confuse and weaken her.
“What if I was right? Now I’ll never know. Damn you, Grimm.”
There was no heat to her accusation and no use arguing with her in this state. Until they found a way to clear the poison inside her, she wouldn’t be able to see things for what they were. He squeezed her in his arms and willed love and healing energy into her soul. “I’ve got you, North. I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere.”
She laid her head on his clavicle, her fingers loosening on his shirt. “We should have given her more time. She might have chosen the right path,” she whispered. Her submissive tone and behaviors increased his urgency to find a cure for this goddamn Nephilim toxin.
Ari sat up, pulling his compar with him as Alexios and Raj approached, battered and bloody. They looked as battle-weary as he felt. “Thank you. I never could’ve managed Leviathan on my own.”
Raj nodded, running a hand down his body, replacing his wet clothes with dry ones. “We got lucky. When she shows up again, we won’t have an ambush advantage. I will watch over the Chains of St. Peter until you return to AQUA.”
Alexios frowned at Kat. “Your compar will fill you in on what we’ve learned. For now, take comfort in each other.” When his gaze returned to Ari, the Viking could see his concern. “I’ll see if Nate can spare Dorian to stand guard with Raj at the club. Make haste.”
The two Guardians vanished in a geyser of sand that would’ve rained down on Ari and Kat if not for Ari’s air manipulation. He lifted Kat to her feet. Her hands came around his midsection, sliding up his back, her palms cool and healing against his wounds.
I don’t know if I’m right about the demon…or if I’m losing my mind. I don’t want to be like my father.
She’d reopened the gate to their telepathy. Relief poured through him that she was communicating with him, and that she was having moments of clarity. He leaned back, his hands grasping her upper arms. “You are nothing like your father, elskan. You are under the influence of Nephilim toxin, that is all. You will overcome. And I’ll be by your side the whole way.”
Storming in and controlling the situation was how he’d always done things. And how he’d always messed up with her. And then, when he didn’t know how to fix it, or things got serious, he’d run. He’d run, and say he had responsibilities to fulfill elsewhere.
But it always left him empty.
No more. He was more tired of that emptiness than the fear of their timeless connection.
He stared into her aqua-blue eyes. “Do you trust me?” She nodded, thank the gods. He exhaled heavily, the pressure in his chest easing.
“I do trust you. More than I trust myself at the moment. But I’m still angry. Angry about a lot of things.”
He kissed her forehead, then took her cold hands in his own. “I know. That’s fair. I’ve done many things I regret. I’m sorry for hurting you most of all. Before I was summoned at IGNIS, I went to the ruins of my old village. There is really nothing there along the coast anymore, except crumbling blocks of stone and the voices of ghosts. I had to go back to my beginning to leave something there.”
Her eyebrows furrowed. “I’m not following. What are you trying to say?”
“I buried my shield next to the bones of my baby sister who died when she was six. My father gave me that shield on my tenth birthday. With it, he said, ‘A cowardly man thinks he will ever live, if warfare he avoids; but old age will give him no peace, though spears may spare him.’ All these centuries, I thought I knew what he meant—never stop exploring, fighting, conquering. That was the Viking way. The path to honor. Anyone could see that those who never went raiding would perhaps live longer, but they would be haunted by their cowardice.” He looked down at her hands resting in his own. “Now, I believe I’ve been thinking too narrowly.” He smiled as he brought his gaze back to hers. “I think my father was trying to tell me that everything worthwhile is worth fighting for. The bigger the risk, the greater the reward. And so today I buried my shield to lay to rest my old ideas. I want a life with you, North. More than anything—no matter how long we have together. I love you.”
Her eyes darkened as he linked in with her emotion. Deep, beautiful, combative. There was also a touch of something dark he didn’t recognize. The toxin. It reminded him of their most pressing concerns. Preparing for the coming conflict with the archdemon.
He picked Kat up and carried her toward her lanai, then upstairs into her modern kitchen. He set her on a stool, then turned to her fridge.
After a moment, her fingernails started drumming on the quartz countertop. “We just had a near-death experience with an archdemon, I told you I think I’m going crazy, then you bared your heart, confessing your love, and now we’re sitting in my damn kitchen?”
When he turned back, she was wiping her eyes. “Are you laughing or crying?”
She picked up a decorative orb and threw it at him. He ducked with a smile as it bounced off the cupboard, then he brought out all the ingredients for steak sandwiches. He was almost too amped to eat, but they had arduous hours ahead, for which they needed replenishment of all sorts. “You expected me to take you to bed right away? I know you can’t get enough of my body, but we actually have to eat sometimes.”
She leaned her elbows on the counter, rubbing circles on her temples with her fingers. “What was Alexios talking about? What news do you have?”
He set a sandwich in front of her. “Does your head hurt?”
He could tell she was deciding if she should tell him or not. That meant it did.
“It’s not bad. It’s just…static. Makes it hard to concentrate.”
Ari pressed his palms on the countertop to mitigate a rush of agitation. “Let me take you to bed for real now. Maybe that will help.”
She raised an eyebrow. “No.”
“Fine, then eat. We need to get back to AQUA as soon as possible to relieve Raj and Dorian.”
She took a bite, and then another. He finished his sandwich in half the time she did, then went behind her to rub her shoulders. “You remember Pepper Jackson, one of Spencer’s trusted humans at IGNIS?” he asked.
“She’s a strong psychic who can remotely view things, or something on that order.”
“Yes. She can project herself anywhere in the world as long as she envisions a specific location or has the coordinates.”
“What about her?”
“Spencer
tracked down one of Baal’s lairs and sent the coordinates to Pepper. She was then able to project herself to the archdemon’s location. She learned that the Nephilim are working with Baal to come after Leviathan after they take Spencer’s relic and IGNIS falls.”
“Well, I suppose that’s somehow helpful for Spencer to know, but I don’t see how it helps us. Or how it means Leviathan is lying to me. I believe she was being honest with me about her feelings of abandonment. I mean…” she fiddled with a fork, “she knew what I was feeling because she’d felt it herself.”
“I hardly think you can compare your situation with that of the Devil’s daughter.”
“But how do you know? Demons have souls, too, which means they can feel everything we do.”
“Their souls are black, North. They may be able to feel emotion, but they have no remorse. They’re not sorry, and they feel no guilt for their wrongdoing. That’s why they’re in Hell. I don’t get why you’re so conflicted about this. It’s not complicated.”
“But she didn’t make the choice to go to Hell. She was born there. There’s no free will in that.”
“Maybe not, but now that she’s been unleashed, she has the power to make good choices, but she’s not making them.”
Katherine threw up her hands. “I disagree! The only things I’ve seen her do are positive actions. She saved us from Siolazar, cast out a demon from a possessed man in the club, and several times now has turned the other cheek when we’ve been the aggressors.”
He’d need to proceed slowly here as he wasn’t entirely sure how the toxin was affecting her judgment. “All Guardians know the Nephilim and the Rephaim don’t like each other, but they stay out of each other’s way because their method of terrorizing humans differs. They have no reason to go to war with each other when there are so many humans ripe for the picking. So think about it. Why would the Nephilim help Baal take down the Rephaim, who are in league with Leviathan?”
She shrugged. “Maybe the Rephaim pissed the Nephilim off after all these years? I don’t know, though, it seems unlikely since the Nephilim are so solitary.”
