by Misty Dietz
Leviathan made a rude noise. “He wants to do nothing but control you, Katherine. He’s doing it telepathically right now. I can feel it. He’s coming between us, saying he wants what’s best for you. Why are you letting him make that decision? He pillaged villages and captured thralls. He’s a human trafficker. That is everything you and Susan B. Anthony worked so tirelessly to overcome.”
Katherine clamped her hands over her ears. “Shut up! You know nothing of love or selflessness.”
“I really wanted to befriend you, Guardian. But I’ve come to see you don’t know the meaning of the word.” Leviathan’s eyes glimmered with unspent tears, her cheeks and neck blotchy red. Katherine shook her head to forestall a wave of compassion. She’d known her own face had worn that stamp of despair many times when she’d shut herself up in her room. But now she understood that she’d been the only one responsible for her loneliness. She had pushed people away because it was safer that way. “You long for connection. I understand that. But your way of going about it is wrong. Leave this island and never come back.”
“Believe it or not, I regret to say I can’t do that.” Leviathan took a step toward her, her eyes on the Chains of St. Peter.
The hum of power inside Katherine dimmed a notch. Her fingers singed as they wrapped around the iron, her hair lifting from the twin cyclones that Ari moved closer to Leviathan.
Leviathan raised her hands, sucking water from far out in the ocean, then pushed it in one enormous rush at the cyclones, dragging them and the demons within them out to sea. Ari groaned as he tried to build new cyclones, but the air only swirled sluggishly. Kat tried to pull the archdemon’s waves off Ari’s slow twisting air mass, but she wasn’t strong enough.
Leviathan strode toward them across the roof. Ari stepped in front of Kat, but she could feel his strength beginning to flag. Her heart knocked against her rib cage. More black-eyed demons had begun to swarm up the sides of the buildings again, clinging to the cracked and pock-marked cement like insects. Screams from people inside AQUA were fewer and far in between now. Katherine’s gut turned to jelly.
Into the water, Kat. Now or never.
She knew. It was where her power was the strongest, and it was their only chance to defeat Leviathan.
Katherine didn’t even take a breath before she attempted to demolecularlize again. This time it worked. She stopped at the bar and stuffed several vials in her pockets before reforming on top of the waves. She gagged as a rush of nausea ripped through her. Ari!
Here. Above you.
She looked up. Air element Guardians didn’t often levitate because it required a lot of energy, but there he was above her.
You are right where you belong. You are of the water, North. Remember that.
Leviathan jumped off the building, her mass of fuzzy, brown hair quivering, her white shift flapping violently in the wicked winds. She landed on top of a pile of rubble with a loud thud that rocked the buildings and made the water roil and foam. Then she strode down the devastated beach, the water parting in front of her as she moved toward the Guardians.
Katherine breathed rapidly—in through her nose, out through her mouth—in an effort to remain calm as she found her balance on the waves. She concentrated on the thread of her power, feeling it warm and wrap more tightly around the power of the Chains. Can you lower the pressure of the atmosphere, Grimm? I want to heat the water, but I need less air pressure.
You got it. I can even do pockets of different pressures, just let me know where you want them.
Leviathan’s eyes turned black, her hair lifting, writhing around her head like serpents. As she stalked closer, the water at Katherine’s feet bucked harder though she tried to calm it. Clouds built, lightning threading through the darkened skies. Goosebumps broke out along Katherine’s arms. Ari?
It’s me. Lightning will energize the water. I’ll protect you from it. Don’t lose your focus. You do your part, I’ll do mine. I’ve also sent out a call for Alexios and any available Guardians to help, but so far I haven’t had any response.
Katherine sent out an SOS on the main Guardian frequency with the same net-zero results. No response. The pathway felt completely vacant. Had to be Leviathan.
She’s isolating us, isn’t she?
I think so. But we can do this on our own, North. We can, and we will.
Would you stop with the positive affirmations? God. She didn’t want a freakin’ pep rally. She wanted other pissed off, fighting Guardians to help them kick demon ass. But no. Their comrades had no idea this was going down right now.
Stupid, damn, telepathy-blocking Leviathan! Katherine created a small rippling wall of water in front of her to hide her actions from the Devil’s daughter. She slipped a vial out of her pocket and pulled out the stopper. Old words spilled quietly from her lips as she closed her eyes and slid one end of the Chains into the water beneath her feet to build heat. As the last of the words were spoken, she poured the vial of Chrism oil into the ocean. Now. Ari shot lightning into the stream of oil. As the blessed liquid hit the water, it sizzled at her feet, the temperature soaring.
North, you need to move away from the heat.
The Chains will protect me. If they don’t melt me alive first. Wait for my next signal.
I’m always waiting for you.
His chuckle warmed her, but she still felt sick.
She’s closer than I want her to be to you, he sent.
Just wait.
The water began to boil, steam rising so profusely she was forced to create a dry molecular field in front of her so she could see.
Leviathan paused and narrowed her eyes. “You think you’re so smart. Two elementals with a holy relic working against me? You’re still no match.”
As much pressure as you can possibly muster! Now, Grimm!
Katherine bore down on the Chains and her element, bringing the walls of boiling, holy water crashing down on Leviathan. The archdemon shot out of the water like a rocket, her screams merging with the booms of thunder from Ari’s storm, the glow of her melting skin blending with the lightning until, even with her super vision, Katherine couldn’t see her. Then the archdemon plunged down out of the sky into the water, blasting a dry crater in the ocean, which quickly filled in with a swirling backwash of red water.
The water under Katherine shook and rippled as though something were rising…
Kat!
In a single heartbeat, Ari poured images of himself as a child into her mind. Sitting around a fire, listening to old maritime warriors speak of Jörmungandr, the Midgard Serpent. The most grizzled of the Vikings warned young Ari that when the Serpent released its tail, Gods would die.
No.
Ari grabbed her armpits and streamed toward the low-slung clouds as a giant mouth filled with three layers of razor sharp teeth breached the surface where Katherine had stood. The monster’s brown leathery tongue shot up, wrapping around Katherine’s ankle. She screamed, sweat running down her face, her shoulder sockets rending apart between Ari and Leviathan’s tug of war. Ari shifted his hold, wrapping one arm around her trunk while he hacked at the monster’s tongue with his sword. The pain in Katherine’s ankle made her vision blur. She gasped and tried to look down. Jesus, was the monster dangling above the water, hanging by her tongue, too? “You must let go. You can’t hold us both like this!”
“I’ll never let you go!” Ari yelled hoarsely as his sword slammed into Leviathan’s tongue. It bounced off as though it were a toy weapon. Lightning forked down, slamming into Leviathan’s massive, gray, dragon-like body. The monster shrieked, her four webbed feet pawing the air. He hacked and hacked, but Ari’s sword didn’t so much as nick the beast’s tongue. And his power was draining at a rapid rate.
A sudden crush of pain made her glance down again. Streaks of black climbed up her ankle. She looked ashore to AQUA. Demons were beating at the wooden shutters with broken pieces of patio furniture.
God, no. No! She was not losing to this demon.
/> “Cut me, Ari. Cut off my lower leg. You have to do it!”
“Not happening!” He bellowed, veins standing out in his forehead as his sword came down so hard on the tongue that Katherine screamed at the piercing reverb. All three of them began slipping toward the water. Leviathan thrashed harder.
“I’ll heal! Do it!” Katherine pleaded.
The clouds swirled and clashed, translating Ari’s fury. Rain and hail pelted them. “I can’t, North. I can’t hurt you.”
“She’s killing me. You have to, it’s the only way. Hurry, before your power runs out!”
Fuck, I’m so sorry, elskan. I’m—
Her body seized.
PAIN.
White hot and breath-robbing, it seared up her body like she was dropped feet first into a fully-stoked cremation furnace.
Heavy. Dark. Nauseous. Can’t escape the pain.
Then…
Blessed cool.
Her eyes closed. Then snapped open. Another shriek from Leviathan, a colossal splash below.
Skin, cold. Head woozy. Body lighter.
Less pain.
She tried to focus her blurry vison. Above the clouds?
They were rising.
Ari groaned low, the sound lighting an urgency inside her.
She twisted in his hold, blinking, squinting. His face was contorted in agony. She put her hands on his cheeks, feeling the echoes of pain he’d taken from her.
Damn you, Viking!
His eyes cracked open to reveal crimson irises. She sent her healing element inside him to pull some of the pain back into her body. She gasped, but it was manageable now since he’d mitigated most of it, and she’d already started to heal. He peeled her hands from his face. Don’t.
“Stop the heroics. We’ll share it. We both need to be functional. Take me down. I can’t concentrate very well when I’m this high up.” She swallowed. “Let’s fuse our elements. We have to do this, Grimm. This is ground zero. We cannot lose to her.”
Ari’s thunder rumbled inside her chest.
“There’s no going back from this, North. If it works this time, once you share your element with me, a little piece of me will always be inside you.”
She looking into his haggard face and saw the love and acceptance she’d always craved. “I want that.”
Her arms jolted out to the side as the full, euphoric impact of Ari’s elemental force joined with her own. An exploding kaleidoscope of colors that was there, then gone, leaving behind a new level of dynamism in the Chains that still hung around her neck.
Below them, Leviathan’s scaly gray body swam in a rapid circle just beneath the surface of the churning water. The current began to swirl, a huge dimple growing in its center.
A massive whirlpool.
Ari thrust a hand into her hair at the nape of her neck and brushed a rough kiss against her lips before she slipped from his warm embrace and dove. She plunged into the whirlpool’s center, the screaming and howling of the wind deadening as she sank through the murky water. Instead, she heard the archdemon’s piercing underwater vocalizations.
Katherine blinked, resisting the urge to wrap her arms around herself and cry. Her remaining foot touched the sandy ocean bottom, using her love and trust in Ari to close the door on the fear that beat in the back of her brain. So dark.
Her vision shifted, brightening. Objects came into focus. Shadows lightened and swayed from the rush of water pulling at her.
I am of Water.
The Aqua element surged in Katherine’s chest, more powerful this time as it was knit with Ari’s corresponding Air element. Her heart pounded. She opened her mouth.
No water entered.
North. She senses you. At my signal, clear the water and make haste to safety.
Leviathan was building a watery grave for her. But she could do this. For Mary. For Ari.
For the human lives she guarded.
The boiling holy water hadn’t worked. One last chance. I am of Water. Her hands curled into fists, her foot shooting with phantom pains as it began to regrow. She inhaled and exhaled. Again and again before she allowed herself to believe she could actually breathe underwater.
Now North!
Katherine spun supernaturally fast, forcing the waves to reel back at her command. The water retreated in a booming, frothing roll, leaving three hundred and sixty degrees of dry sand a quarter mile diameter wide. Leviathan’s monstrous form surged through the edge of the retreating water, landing in a mighty thud against the dry sea floor where crabs scurried and colorful fish flopped amid coral and waterlogged seaweed. Katherine streamed back to the safety of the water and sent every last thread her remaining power pouring into the archdemon’s form and found…
Sadness. Loneliness.
Despair.
An echoing eternity of it. All of the things the Archangel had seen inside her own soul.
Tears swelled in Katherine’s eyes, then blended with the ocean. Leviathan rolled and crouched on her hindquarters, her black eyes intent, everything about her seeming to wait for annihilation at Katherine’s hand.
Then she shifted back to her human form and hung her head, her long frizzy hair a halo concealing her face.
What. The Hell?
The archdemon’s form flickered in and out.
Don’t let her leave! Ari’s voice barreled through her mind.
How do I make her stay?
Use the Chains!
Katherine reached up to wrap her hands around the Chains that had bound St Peter, but before her fingers could grasp the ancient iron, Mary stood beside Leviathan on the dry sand.
“Mary?” Katherine gasped, blinking back more tears.
“Kitty.” Mary’s sweet voice, as clear as the sunny morning when their world had fallen apart. “People hurt others because their own souls weep.”
“I know, sister.” For decades Katherine had cultivated an icy façade to keep people at a distance. If she had no close attachments, there would be no guilt, no chance of pain.
But oh, the loneliness.
She’d even kept Jade at arm’s length as hard as she’d had tried to worm her way in.
But Katherine had ended up hurting herself most of all because she’d missed out on so much.
I can’t destroy her, Grimm.
Ari’s warmth stroked through her mind. Mary’s not really here. She’s beyond the reach of demons. You know that, North. Leviathan’s reflecting your feelings to create sympathy. She’s using your humanity to try to defeat you because she finally realizes she underestimated you.
Her heart was beating so fast in her chest. What if you’re wrong?
Look inside yourself and see if what she’s projecting is more about you than it is her.
Katherine stared into Mary’s dark eyes, so like their mother’s, waiting for a spark of connection.
Waited as the water around her pulsed with a dark energy.
Waited for warmth, humanity, anything.
Nothing.
The moment Katherine’s hands curled around the Chains, Mary’s form winked out. Leviathan shifted into the scaled monster once more. Her long forked tail twitched, sending a volley of sand hurtling through the wall of water, pelting Katherine like stinging buckshot.
Katherine pulled energy from the Chains, sending out her element to bind with the liquid molecules in Leviathan’s form. Katherine’s body shook, the rattling of the Chains magnified underwater as her power worked to dehydrate every last ounce of moisture in the archdemon’s body. Leviathan bucked and screamed as Ari drove away the clouds so the sun’s potent rays could wreak more devastation. The archdemon’s body began to smoke, her skin to desiccate. Her claws gouged giant furrows in the sand as she snorted and pawed her way to the boundary between sand and water where Katherine stood.
I can’t hold the water off of her for much longer.
Okay. Raise your protection shield, Ari replied.
I don’t know if I have enough energy. I can’t divert it from Le
viathan.
You have to. Do it now!
Suddenly, the pressure changed. The water condensed around her, leaden, cold, and unimaginably heavy as though she were two miles below the surface instead of thirty feet. Hard to breathe. She dropped to her hands and knees. She ground her teeth together and diverted a portion of her element to insulate herself, and the crushing pressure lifted. She looked up, gaping as a russet-colored powder puffed out of Leviathan’s scaled nose holes and mouth. She was lying on her side on the sand, jerking unnaturally, the once-shiny scales of her body now shriveled and dull.
But in her defeat…a thread of humanity. The archdemon’s eyes, sorrowful.
Katherine raised a hand toward her, but the creature didn’t even have the strength to cry out as Ari continued to apply a massive amount of pressure to her form, crushing her desiccated internal organs into dust.
Soon there was nothing left but a pile of coppery soot. A great rumble shook the earth as a crevasse opened in the ocean floor, swallowing the archdemon’s detritus whole. When the sea floor closed, the Rod of Moses’s smooth, dark wood gleamed richly on the sand.
Katherine pushed up slowly, shakily, and stepped from the water onto the dry patch she’d created. She sank to her knees and looked up to see Ari falling like an angel from the sky.
Chapter 27
Ari shot out of bed, his beloved Ulfbehrt sword already in hand by the time the footsteps halted outside Kat’s door. He strode naked across Kat’s AQUA bedroom as three powerful raps shook the wood doorframe. He glanced back to see Kat scoot up, her blonde hair tousled, her sea-green eyes soft, and those lips…
He sucked in a rough breath and put a finger to his lips with a look he hoped was one part don’t worry and twelve parts don’t you dare leave that bed.
BAM BAM BAM.
“I hear you two breathing in there, mate. The sooner you open the bloody door, the sooner you can resume your celebratory, demon-ass-kicking fuck-fest. Come on now, don’t make me pull a Spencer and go the full Monty on this fine door.”
Nate Temple, Guardian owner of TERRA.
Ari almost laughed out loud when he heard a slap, then a muffled ‘oww’ from the other side of the door.
