“Malachi.” I breathed. “Malachi. Mal...”
A flash of light appeared above us both. It blinded me but also created a distraction for the necromancer. He stopped his assault on my soul, so he could turn to see what was happening.
As he looked up a flaming sword crashed down on his head.
The flaming sword. I knew that sword. It was the one placed in the Garden of Eden to protect it.
My eyes widened when I saw the wielder of the sword was Malachi.
My brother.
He held the necromancer in place with the blade. It paralyzed him, but he was breaking free.
“Dante, use your powers now!” Malachi roared.
I didn’t need to think. With everything and all that was left inside I latched on to my angelic and demonic powers and blasted the necromancer.
The impact from the sword, Malachi’s power, and mine caused him to scream. Then he exploded into sparks of light that were quickly swallowed by the shadows.
Malachi stepped back, and the sword sparked. All the creatures Balmora summoned went back to the earth, freeing Neo, too.
Malachi held the sword up and in an instant, it shot up into the shadowy sky and disappeared through a portal.
“You came.” I breathed still on the ground, gazing up at my brother.
“You idiot, of course I came. Don’t I always?” His face faded before me and flickered back into my view.
“Malachi no!” I cried rushing to his side as he fell to his knees.
“Looks like this is it brother.”
“No.” I shook my head.
He straightened back up and cupped my face. “Go, save her. Maybe you can still have a life with your soul mate.”
I opened my mouth to answer him, but he disappeared right before my eyes.
My heart crushed within my chest. My heart. My poor heart.
Malachi was gone, and...
A scream I heard inside my head just finished me off.
Alyssa.
She was dying.
Chapter 11
Dante
I ran inside the cave and immediately my powers left me, but not my strength.
I ran until I saw them. Balmora on top of Alyssa beating her to death.
She reached behind her and pulled out a knife.
I reached for my own double bladed knife and launched it at her, lightning fast.
It welded itself in her back, seeming to kill her in an instant.
She fell into a crumpled heap right next to Alyssa.
I rushed over and winced when I saw the mess she made of my Alyssa.
She was unconscious and her face was beaten beyond recognition.
I scooped her up into my arms and willed her to wake up.
I felt for her heartbeat. Her heart that beat so wildly against me when she was with me. But there was none. No heartbeat.
I felt for her pulse but that too was none existent.
In panic I set her back on the ground and started giving her CPR. I pumped on her chest so hard I heard a rib crack.
And still there was nothing. She was gone.
“God, no, please. No. Not her.” I cried. “Bring her back. Bring her back.”
I didn’t want to give up, I couldn’t let this day be the day that I gave up. So, I tried again. I counted and pumped on her chest and listened, but still there was nothing.
Then I did the next best thing. I picked her up and ran for all I was worth back outside. Outside the cave where she could hopefully get her powers back.
I set her down on the ground to assess her but still she looked the same. Battered, bloody and ... dead.
No. Why didn’t that work?
I thought her powers would return, but ...maybe it was because she died without them.
She died without her power so now they were coming back to a soulless body. I was too late. After all of that I couldn’t save her.
My insides crumbled and squeezed. The darkness of despair filled my being and I screamed out to the heavens.
“I’d give anything, anything. Please bring her back.”
I cupped her face and stroked her cheek. “Alyssa wake up. Please. I never got to tell you that you are my soul mate. I didn’t want to freak you out. I just thought maybe with time you’d be able to accept it. But we didn’t need time. We didn’t need time. We just needed each other. Please, wake up. Please.”
More tears spilled down my cheeks dropping onto her face.
A shard of light twinkled over by the corner near the jagged rocks. It grabbed my attention. It twinkled and I thought an angel would appear.
The light expanded and glowed filling out the area surrounding me, surrounding us.
The figure of an elderly man came into view as the expansion of light continued. A man with a white hooded robe.
He looked at me with deep interest.
“Wow. I was starting to wonder if you were ever going to make it here.” He commented looking me over. “I am Lord Argon, guardian of the entrance to Kolai.”
His eyes landed on the still form of my Alyssa, then sadness washed over his features.
“You know me?” I could barely talk. My heart ached all the more when Alyssa started to feel cold.
“I do know you, Dante. I’m always prepped when there’s a prospective visitor. Doesn’t matter how long they take. Weeks, months, years, centuries.”
“I was too late.” I said more to her than to him. “I was too late. Please save her.”
“Son, I’m afraid only you have the power to do that.”
“Please. Tell me what to do.” I couldn’t think straight and even if I could I wouldn’t have known anyway. All I wanted was to have her back.
“Well, first I must ask about your former desire to go back to the way you were. I know that’s been your desire for a long time. I’m required as a matter of formality to clarify.”
“I just want to do whatever I can to have her back. Teleport to a time that I can save her.”
“So you would sacrifice your one chance to be rid of your wraith impurities to save her?”
“Yes.” That wasn’t even a question. It required no thought whatsoever. I would do it in a heartbeat. “It’s better this way. I will find some other way to fix myself, or just accept it.”
“As you wish. I should let you know that if you did choose that path, it would have led to the destruction of all realms. You wouldn’t have left Dominus and this recent incident would happen. Then you would be as affected by the curse as all the other sentinels. No one would have been able to get to this point. No one would have defeated both Balmora and the necromancer.”
“Malachi could have.” Malachi used everything he had left to come and help me.
Lord Argon shook his head. “No, he came for you. Together, at that point you were both strong. Strong enough to defeat the necromancer. On his own he would never have made it.”
“How do I fix this?”
“See past your pain and embrace logic and reasoning. You’re in Kolai. The only place in any existence where time is controlled, and you have the permission to go back to any moment in time, past, or present to change it, without consequence.”
“I want to take time back to before Balmora killed her.”
He tilted his head to the side and gave me a tentative look.
“You could do that, but, may I offer some advice?”
I nodded, although I wanted this to be done.
“I think,” he began and removed his robe revealing his head which had a halo. The sort you’d see depicted on some pictures of angels in the human realm. “I think you have to think of strategy. Cause and effect. Given recent circumstances, what point in history could you go back to, to truly fix things, everything?”
I really couldn’t think and this required thinking.
“The answer is closer than you think.” He waved his hand and conjured up an image of Balmora. Two images of her; her as a human woman, and her as the demonic sorceress.
Rage filled me at the sight of her.
She killed Alyssa. Beat her to death, just like that. Alyssa would never have stood a chance.
“What of her? She’s vile and evil.”
“But she was not always like that.”
“You mean before she awakened the necromancer?” I could go back to that and try to kill her then. “If I stopped her from doing that none of this would have ever happened.”
“True, very true. But, have a look at this.”
He waved his hand and one of the crystal shards before us turned into a blob of water. Within the water I could see Balmora. A human Balmora in Greece, Sparta.
She had children and a husband.
The water flickered and I saw that the husband cheated on her every chance he got. Then he deceived her and went in league with the Persians. The vision changed to a house burning, her children were inside.
The husband’s deception caused that to happen. Her last act as a human was to trade her soul to the necromancer. That was before the mages bound him.
Giving her soul to him gave him power.
I understood what the guardian meant for me to do.
“I could go back there, and truly none of this would ever have happened. I could...” I thought about it long and hard. “I could maybe save more people than I intended.”
Her children.
It wasn’t her husband’s deception that made Balmora turn to evil, it was the loss of her children.
“That is definitely true.”
This was the part of me that I hadn’t tapped into for years. The being I was when I was a sentinel. The being who had to have compassion for all people good or bad, and make decisions based on what was right.
That was how I was before I was cast out. Being cast out, didn’t mean I didn’t have the ability to be like that again.
“Will it work? What if she finds another way to be evil?”
“No. I can assure you that will not happen.”
“And Alyssa. She will come back.”
He nodded. “As to whether she will remember you, I don’t know. She is a syphon and their paths are difficult to predict.”
“Will she still be my soul mate?”
“That will never change.”
I was happy to hear that. If that was still true then maybe things would still work out. I had the benefit of knowing now. So I could find her myself. Wherever she was when things changed I would find her.
At least she would be alive. And so would Malachi. He’d be alive too. The sentinels would all be alright.
I would make sure I saw him more. As much as was allowed.
“Okay. Please send me to that time, to Sparta.”
The guardian smiled at me. “As you wish, and because your decision will save more than one soul I will slow the dark essence of the wraith in your being. I will slow it for another thousand years. We will need the teleportation stone you possess now, but you get to keep the five items you originally collected.”
I was truly grateful for that. “Thank you so much.”
“You are most welcome. I do believe the Order have another teleportation stone.” He raised a curious white brow.
Yes they did. God, through all the crazy events of the last few days I’d forgotten the mission the guys and I were going to take up for the Order.
“Thank you.”
I looked back at Alyssa, at her beautiful form and prayed all this would all work, and that somehow she would still love me.
Lord Argon waved his hand and the teleportation stone in my pocket moved to him, but stopped in between us.
With another wave of his hand everything turned a luminous red and I felt myself move through time.
Chapter 12
Dante
Lord Argon sent me back to the day before Balmora’s village was attacked by the Persians. I appeared to her as an angel.
The minute I told her of her husband’s deception and the need for her to get her children as far away as possible that same blast of power I felt with the guardian occurred again.
Everything turned a luminous red and then I was back in my office in Picchus.
I was back and everything looked the same.
Zeek came inside the room in that awful reptile demon form I hated.
He shifted back to his normal self and smiled at me.
“Boss I am so pumped about this stash. Holy shit are we gonna make the best weapons.” He set the bag he’d been carrying down on the desk and took out a handful of blood diamonds.
I gasped. I was literally right back to a few days ago. At the start.
“Yeah. That will be good.” I replied looking around.
“We’ll be so ready for that mission.” He nodded with excitement.
The other door burst open and Neo came through looking edgy.
I tensed. This was the part where he was going to tell me that some guy was looking for me. It would be Malachi.
But why would he come?
I hoped like hell it would be for another reason. I hoped like hell I hadn’t just messed things up even more. The guardian assured me Balmora wouldn’t become evil, but what if someone else did? Someone else could have and then set off a chain reaction that would propel us right back to square one.
“Someone’s looking for me?” I offered up.
“Yeah, how did you know?” Neo narrowed his eyes at me and smirked.
“Is it a man with golden eyes?”
“Nah, boss it’s a super-hot girl. Where do you get these women from? This one was too nice to be like your usual, so I had to be certain and she said she was sure she had the right address because you said all she had to do was think of you to find you.”
I was out that door before he could even finish.
Alyssa.
My Alyssa.
I’d only ever said that to one person, I just never told her she was the one and only special person who’d have access to me.
I ran into the waiting area and could have cried when I saw her standing by the window.
That long brown hair looked like liquid chocolate, flowing down her back in loose waves.
Her golden skin glistened in the bright Picchus sunlight.
My knees wobbled and my heart soared within my chest.
My girl was alive and she found me.
“Alyssa,” I cried.
She turned quickly to see me and rushed over with a brilliant smile on her face.
“Dante, is it really you?” She threw herself into my arms, wrapping hers tightly around my neck.
“It’s me, Princess. It’s me.” I hugged her hard to me, promising myself I would never let her go. Not ever.
“I love you.” She said into my ear and pulled back so she could look at me.
“I love you too, and I’m so glad you remember me.”
“I remember everything. Everything.” A wicked little smile crossed over her face and she smacked my chest playfully. “Why didn’t you tell me we were soul mates? That’s a pretty big thing to leave out don’t you think?”
I smiled loving this part of her. “Alyssa, we are soul mates.”
“Noted.” She giggled.
I was about to say something else when something caught my eye through the window.
Not something. Someone. Someone else that was dear to me.
The man hovering in the air with solid gold wings.
Malachi. He was okay. He was alive and looked on top form.
He smiled at me and nodded.
“I don’t care how many times you need me little brother, call me.” He spoke to my mind.
“Thank you... brother.” I replied with a heartfelt nod.
Alyssa turned to look at what I was staring at and saw him, her eyes widened and then he disappeared.
“Who was that?”
“My guardian angel, my brother.”
“Wow.”
“Guess what?”
“What?”
“We’re talking way too much.”
When she nodded I captured her delicious mouth for a kiss I was dying for.
Epilogue
Alyssa
Two years later...
I had the best of both worlds.
Admittedly, sometimes it was difficult to basically live two lives but I did it
It felt liberating to do so, although for most it would probably be restricting. I only felt that way when I had to keep my secret life from my friends.
However, having Dante in my world, in the human realm made it easier.
They knew I was with him, always with him.
He had both worlds too.
He said now that he had someone he cared for in the human realm it was an easy thing to decide.
Two years ago when we found each other my life changed.
Grandma was right. My world changed in ways I couldn’t imagine.
There was bad, but there was more good.
Definitely a lot more good.
I embraced my path as a mage and spent time learning their ways, and enhancing my powers and abilities. It didn’t take long because of my own natural abilities as a syphon.
Two years had passed and I still didn’t know the extent of what I could do, although I felt satisfied that what I was doing now was exactly what I should be doing.
Dante and I bounced between Picchus and our home on Ithaca, one of its moons.
Ithaca was perfect for me because it looked like living in a dream. Like a fantasy fairytale painting with its colors of violets ,blues and pinks.
Today was my birthday again.
I was thirty years old.
Last year’s birthday was as special as I wanted it to be. My advertising company brought me unimaginable success and it was amazing to see my dreams unfold.
I was happy with that and Dante and I went to the Seychelles.
He’d taken me to Brazil for Valentines day.
Today, we lay arm in arm on the beach of Ithaca on crystal pink sand with the waves of the baby pink sea gracing the shore line.
This was just outside our house, but we loved it. I loved it.
“Happy birthday Alyssa,” Dante whispered into my ear.
“Thank you.” I kissed the edge of his jaw, loving the feel of his skin on my lips.
“I have one more present to give you.” He smiled and shuffled to sit up.
Wings of The Wraith Page 10
