by Misty Dietz
“Lay down those chains,” the ghost pleaded. “Take me home so we can start over. I forgive you. Leviathan will, too, if you only ask.”
It’s not Mary. Her sister would’ve wanted to see the Chains, not tell her to put them down. Katherine put a hand to her chest and looked around the room, searching for another way out. The screams and wailing outside the room likely meant the possessions had begun. She tried telepathy again, but couldn’t reach anyone. All she registered was water smashing large objects against AQUA’s exterior walls and…
The rush of fluid in the ghost’s body.
Odd. A shade typically had only a small percentage of water contained in its form. She focused on the respiratory process of the ghost to latch onto the water molecules in the body. Sixty point three percent. A water ratio compatible with a living human’s.
Dark Arts were being used to glamour someone.
Sick laughter in the hallway. The Chains jostled on Katherine’s shoulders, the edges of the iron slicing into her skin. Mary looked over her shoulder, her lips pulling back into a snarl.
That’s not my sister. Katherine thrust her hands in front of her and closed her fists, savagely extracting water molecules from the ghost’s membranes. Mary’s form sagged to the floor, her skin shriveling, eye sockets sinking, chest rising and falling rapidly with the instant onset of extreme dehydration.
Mary’s desiccated form shifted, lengthened, changed at the cellular level. The form congealing and curling up on the floor was…male. The lips cracked as its mouth opened into a wide maw, spewing out red colloidal smoke. The demon cloud ejected from the desiccated body and circled behind Katherine. She spun, grasping links of the Chains which hung down over her torso. The demon smoke swooped at her with a shriek so shrill her eardrums expanded and then collapsed with a rush of fluid and pain. She swung a segment of the Chains, connecting with the tail end of the red cloud. The smoke sparked brilliantly, twinkling in a kaleidoscope of reds, yellows, and blues. The demon’s pain-filled roar shook the walls, rending a crack in the door’s header as the cloud shot out of the room, gone, but not vanquished, even though it had touched the relic.
Was it Leviathan? Ordinary demons would have been destroyed on contact with the holy object much the same way as the Nephilim toxin had been when she’d expelled it. She and the others thought it would have the same effect on fallen angels and archdemons. Apparently not.
Katherine’s upper body sagged as she leaned her butt against the wall and resettled the Chains across her shoulders. Then she glanced down at the body on the floor. “Dorian, good God!” She dropped to her knees, ripped his button-down shirt open, and put her hands on his bare chest, rehydrating his body with as many water molecules as she could sift from the room.
Seconds later, her gaze shot up to meet Siolazar’s as he sauntered across the doorway.
“Bravo, Purifier. I see you pushed through your pathetic guilt tendencies to see through Leviathan’s attempt to manipulate you. Even I have to admit, glamour-possessing a Guardian as your dead sister was a rather brilliant and intimidating show of Dark Arts, was it not?” Siolazar’s cultured voice did not match his leathery, gray-striated skin and red eyes.
Katherine stood to position herself in front her dazed, but rehydrated and demon-free fellow Guardian. The Chains shook and rattled. With the mojo from the relic, she’d likely be on an even playing field with the fallen angel. The only problem was, she wasn’t sure she could stream both the relic and Dorian from the room. Either the relic would make it easy, or it would be a huge power suck. “Let me pass from here, or I’ll make sure you don’t fare as well as Leviathan just did against these Chains.”
The Rephaim crossed his arms across his powerful chest and cocked his bald head with an indulgent smile. Her heart rate climbed higher. That he wasn’t concerned about the Chains was a very bad sign.
Unless he was bluffing.
“Aren’t you curious about why I fucked with the Nephilim?”
Time for talking is over. In one swift motion, she lifted the Chains from her neck and swung one of the ends at Siolazar. The Rephaim ducked and let out a howl as his left ear melted from proximity to the iron. He thrust an arm out at Dorian, metaphysically pushing him across the floor till the young Guardian’s back slammed against the far wall. Dorian brought his hands to his neck, making choking noises. Katherine held the Chains in front of her body and sprinted to place herself in front of the energy stream suffocating Dorian. Her hair stood on end as sparks flew off the Chains, but Siolazar’s hold broke. Dorian slumped down on the tiles, coughing violently.
“Leviathan is going to rip you apart, piece by piece, you stupid bitch. And after I consume your friend, I’m going to pick chunks of him from my teeth with slivers of your bones.”
Time for Plan B.
Katherine focused her energy and tapped into the power of the Chains to initiate an epic demolecularization process required to stream her, Dorian, and the relic. Please, please, please work! Siolazar raised his arms in classic Rephaim pre-attack mode.
Light fixtures fell, more plaster and wood paneling detached from the wall and ceiling as competing power sources swirled and exploded through the room. With no windows, the room plunged into darkness except for the mood lighting filtering from the hall. Backlit in the doorway, Siolazar suddenly dropped his arms and spun away from her. Then he demolecularized and vanished.
She heard it milliseconds later.
Water.
Hundreds of thousands of gallons of water.
Katherine cried out and clawed in the dark for Dorian, pulling his body into her arms as she made for the doorway. The water roared down the hall, bouncing foreign objects against the walls as it careened toward them.
Don’t want to drown!
Shhh. No, no, no. It wasn’t going to end like this. It couldn’t.
Katherine struggled to hold Dorian and herself upright against the rush of water, taking huge gulps of air to forestall the panic that threatened to make her curl into a ball and just give up.
Ari, please answer me!
Where was he? Shouldn’t their mind connection be stronger now that they’d bonded? She grasped Dorian tighter as the water rose to her hips. Find the thread of power. Command the element. She said it over and over in her mind. She’d done it earlier with Ari. She could do it again.
Had to.
But she couldn’t ignore the pull and suck of the salt water, up to her neck now. She tilted her neck back to keep her mouth and nose above it. She couldn’t shut out the screams of the humans beyond the hallway. The horrible sounds rushed over her as furiously as the water. She tried to swim, but with Dorian and the Chains, it was too much weight to let her stay afloat for long. And streaming them was out of the question now because demolecularization required a quiet, focused mind.
Her feet slipped as a dead body barreled into them. Her arms tightened reflexively around Dorian as they plunged beneath the surface. Opening her eyes, the water was cold and murky with pollution from the tide rushing unnaturally over the wave breakers and city streets. She swam in a circle, blowing out the last of her air, suppressing her body’s natural urge to inhale for life-sustaining oxygen.
A dead woman’s hair caressed her face, and Katherine’s mouth opened in a scream as her feet pushed off something soft. She broke the surface of the churning water, gasping. She kept one hand on Dorian, grabbing on to a sconce in the hallway with the other. She caught her breath, lungs on fire, arms and legs trembling.
Why wasn’t Dorian coming around? She closed her eyes and clenched her teeth, begging the water to part. It vibrated and separated in a bizarre two-foot-long crevasse in front of her before crashing back together. Caught in the water’s backflow, her fingers slipped off the sconce, and she and Dorian were flushed backwards and underwater, careening them toward the floor by the weight of the Chains.
North!
Her knees scraped on something sharp. Dorian’s body floated up. Dead? Her fingers stra
ined through the dirty water trying to recapture him.
Head foggy.
Need…air…
Hang on, North! It’s coming.
It? The water was frigid, but her whole body burned with the need to inhale.
She clawed up toward the ceiling, seeking the narrow strip of open air when a bubble slammed into her, encircling her head. Her mouth opened on an aggressive inhale, bringing oxygen to her vital organs. Panting, her fingers curled under the ceiling tile seams as she moved forward, searching for Dorian.
There. She grabbed him, bringing his head into the large, artificial air bubble Ari had created. Then she concentrated on flushing the water from all the wrong places in his body. “Come on, breathe!” She pushed him up against the wall and compressed his chest. Dorian’s body seized furiously, then he coughed until Katherine thought he’d spew out the lining of his esophagus.
Dorian took a raspy breath. By now there were only weak rays of dirty light slicing through the cold, swirling currents. Before long, the water would be too deep to escape, and Ari’s artificial air bubble might not be enough to save them.
“She’s going to kill everyone on the island.” Dorian’s thready voice made Katherine’s heart stutter.
“Calm down, you’re not helping.”
“She was inside me, Lady K. We ain’t gonna make it. She’s too strong.”
Katherine shook him once more. “If I want your opinion, I’ll give it to you. Do you see these Chains around my neck? They are a holy weapon. We’re as strong as she is. Do you understand?”
She released him when he nodded, then swiveled in the water toward the dance floor, still hanging on to the ceiling tiles. Swimming against the current would wear her powers down faster than she could recharge them, which would leave her seriously underpowered for her confrontation with Leviathan. I need to think.
First, she needed to part the water and get the hell out of here.
Yeah, right. She’d already tried that.
I’m almost there, North. Calm your mind and use your element.
Katherine exhaled heavily, relieved to hear Ari come back online. Hurry. I don’t know how.
Yes, you do. More innocent people are going to drown—right now—if we don’t get this water under control. Focus. I’ll keep feeding you fresh oxygen. You can do this.
She gritted her teeth and looked at Dorian. “When I let go of you, hang on to me so I can focus on getting us out of here.”
He swam around behind her and placed his hands on her hips.
The air bubble around them quivered. Beware my wrath, rookie.
Dorian’s hands released her immediately, but Katherine replaced them. Survival mode here, she pushed on the frequency Ari used between the three of them.
She felt Ari move faster.
The water continued to surge into the hall, the powerful rush of the ocean consuming the entire building. Katherine grabbed onto a ceiling light, praying it would be enough to anchor her against the tremendous force of the water push-pulling against her, banking off the walls, and surging into any available space. Then she closed her eyes, trusting Ari’s air bubble to keep her safe. She focused on the warmth of the ancient iron around her neck. Warm, it was surprisingly warm, in spite of water so cold it made her teeth clack and clatter.
Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle…
The Chains began to burn and hum. Behind her closed eyelids, a soft blue light expanded. The sound of crows. Hundreds—thousands?—of them, cawing. The rough vibrations wrapped around her, energizing, comforting, and mysterious. The blue light faded with the sound of wings taking flight. A moment of silence. Then,
A sky ablaze with the vivid poetry of twilight. Two men standing on the edge of a craggy cliff beyond a city’s high, shadowy stone walls. The details were extraordinarily clear even though she stood below the men on a dusty plain halfway between the cliff and the city walls. One of the men—a bent, bearded man of advanced age—wore a long tunic, his feet in sandals, his ankles and wrists bloody, the lines of his face indicating struggle and exhaustion, but his eyes were filled with an unmistakable hope.
The taller one, young, unsmiling, dangerous. He, too, wore sandals, but a warrior’s scarred greaves girded his shins. Something dark dangled from his grasp. He raised a powerful arm and opened his hand. Iron chains dropped from his fist, falling from their great height and shaking the ground far more than they ought when they hit, stirring up choking clouds of dust.
When the debris finally settled, an old set of iron chains covered in blood and dust were at her feet. She shivered, glancing back up at the cliff. The soldier gave her a cold look before unfurling midnight black wings.
She fell to her knees beside the holy shackles that had imprisoned the Apostle.
Rise, Guardian, and fight.
Katherine’s eyelids flew open as the deep voice flowed around and through her consciousness. Michael. She beheld the archangel before her, lit by the glowing Chains around her neck.
You are humanity’s first line of defense. Do not fail.
Michael’s body filled the hallway, yet seemingly untouched by either the water or detritus. His blue eyes burned like the hottest part of a flame, his lips a cruel slash on his hard features. In his hand, he held the deceptively simple sword she imagined he’d used in his most epic task at the beginning of time.
He’d escorted Lucifer to Hell. And he’d released the Apostle from these chains.
Why did you let me see you and Peter on the cliff?
He stared at her for another endless moment while she became conscious of every biological process in her body. Individual cells regenerating, electrical currents racing along her nerves, the rush of her blood through every chamber of her heart. Was the Archangel creating this awareness? He was a strange, frightening being. Did he ever feel—authentically feel—anything?
She glared when he remained silent. Well, are you going to help us, or stand there and watch us flounder?
Michael raised his chin, bringing the sword in his fist to rest against his chest as though he were offering a pledge. I let you see because love and hope are powers which darkness always underestimates. Unleash them, and you will overcome.
Then he was gone, and everything—the amplified underwater sounds, the push-drag of the frigid currents, the dead bodies floating grotesquely through the water, even the city’s emergency sirens—everything came back online, louder and scarier than ever.
Katherine wanted to scream. Talk about vague. How was she supposed to ‘unleash love and hope’? Makes no damn sense, Michael! When she didn’t get a reply from the Archangel, she took a deep breath in Ari’s bubble, trying to regroup. At least now she wasn’t in the dark anymore, since the Chains shone as brightly as spotlights.
When Michael spoke of not failing, did he mean he knew that she wouldn’t fail, as in a pre-knowing sort of thing? Or did it mean, she’d better not fail…or else?
All Guardians knew what the ‘or else’ meant.
If they botched things up, the archangels would have to get involved. If that happened, Lucifer would be automatically released from his cage, and those horrific trumpets would blare, indicating the start of Armageddon. And as much as they despised their existence at times, none of the Guardians wanted to be responsible for the End of the World. They had way too much pride to let that happen.
Well, that, and they knew what fate awaited them if they were unsuccessful.
A tug at her waist. “Boss, lady, can we get the fuck outta here?”
Clearly Michael hadn’t let Dorian see him, otherwise the young Guardian would’ve been a hot mess. “Shush, Dorian, I’m concentrating.” She continued pulling them along the ceiling tiles until she’d wedged herself and Dorian in the nook between the kitchen and the storage room. Then she shut everything down—the fear, the uncertainty, the guilt—to turn inward, touching the hot metal links around her neck.
Heat and a popping sensation—like little bubbles at the bott
om of a pot right before it began to boil—started to simmer in her solar plexus. She summoned that energy, pulling it through her vital organs, streaming up her spinal cord, wrapping around her heart, waving across her shoulders. Heat licked around the edges of her power, growing into a fiery dance that brought together points of conflagration that built inside her, more potent than anything she’d ever experienced. Katherine pushed away from the wall and jerked her hands in front of her, commanding the water to retreat before her.
A giant sucking sound erupted as the water frothed, barreling backwards, out of the hall, beyond the dance floor, and out into the poolside terrace as though in a movie rewind.
North, whoa! Ari’s strangled gasp told her exactly was happening.
She pushed her hands apart to force a channel through the water where Ari was making his way toward her. Dorian released her and abruptly sat down on the wood floor. She’d pushed all the water from the building by the time Ari ran the rest of the way to her, his black T shirt and jeans plastered to his body. His eyes widened, his body tensing when his gaze fastened to the Chains. “What the hell?” He quickly looked into her eyes, assessing. “I should paddle your ass for this risk. You’re okay?”
She nodded as he curled down around her, his wet hair dripping on her face and neck. “The greater the risk, the greater the reward,” she whispered.
“Touché,” he whispered back. The Chains hummed between them—a low, comforting ring like from a Tibetan singing bowl. He pulled back to assess her one more time before his muscles finally relaxed, and one side of his lips curled up. He stared at the still-humming relic. “I think it likes me.”
She slapped his hands away. “Of course you do.” But she was likewise pleased by the Chains’ response to her compar. When she turned to survey her devastated club, her stomach dropped. She hurried to the first group of bodies lying in unnatural positions over the short wall that separated the first-tier seating from the second. Three young women and two men, their whole lives before them.
I couldn’t save them. Families would grieve.
