I continued crawling. My pruned hands suffered gashes from the stone. My fingers hurt. They were tender and bleeding. I took my shirt off and pulled my blade out to cut my elastic band—the one that hid my girly assets—and quickly made two pads to protect my hands. I was left with only a white tank top undergarment and my boy pants.
My hands and feet slid several times, almost dropping me into the rushing waters. I would’ve had to hold onto the carved stone and start the process again. This was one of those times when I wished I had some power to part the water like Moses. It would had been ultimately useful. Electricity and water were not exactly a compatible match. I could electrocute everyone, including me. Not the smartest thing, I’d say.
I lost my footing at the sudden sight of a dead body floating next to me. Drowned. Gratefully, he was facedown. I crossed my heart and prayed for his soul. I noticed this body wore silly garments. The balloon shorts and tights were from another time. Weird.
I reached the other side of the dome and crossed into the initial tunnel that took me, so I hoped. I couldn’t be exactly certain, since everything had happened so fast it was disorienting. But then I saw a light flashing. I grinned.
“I AM ALMOST THERE,” I yelled again.
“HURRY—Ouch,” Gavril yelled back.
Uh-OH.
“TAKE YOUR TIME,” Francis contradicted.
Gavril Cornelius what have you done? I used his full given name.
What do you think? Gavril told me. Crap. Not that.
Chapter 27
I hurried, and when I got close, I realized I was on the wrong side of the tunnel, directly across from them. Unless I could walk upside down defying gravity, there was no way I was crossing the current without being swept again.
Francis and Émil realized my predicament the moment they saw me across them. They stood over the top steps of the exit I had seen them take. I wondered if I could aim my power to the opposite end of the tunnel where the source of the water was coming from and cause a collapse of some sorts without killing us. Maybe I could hold the force of the underground water for a short moment. I told them my plan. Well, more like I screamed my plan.
“KEEP AWAY FROM THE WATER,” I warned. Then I aimed at one of the columns’ capital. A blue streak blared from my shaking hand, but it did not do much.
Focus, Gavril and Francis thought simultaneously.
Focus. Concentrate your energy, I coached myself. I inhaled deeply and struck the column again. The capital of the large column exploded, but nothing else happened except some dust and small rock debris falling into the water. Perhaps I had to change strategy. I sought for a weaker spot. This time around, I struck the bedrock next to the column instead. We heard a big crack sound but nothing much else. We all blew air out of our lungs in frustration and exchanged our tiresome glances with only the sound of the rushing water.
Abruptly, a thunderous and ear-splitting sound punctured the inners of the tunnels, reverberating through and through. My eyes popped open, instantly alert, as the crack became a collapsing cave, shattering any illusions I was safe.
Large crumbling rocks fell all over. I closed my eyes and held strong, praying we wouldn’t be buried alive. Fortunately, it didn’t last long.
Soon after the dust cloud had quieted, I felt the water receding. Francis had torn apart his nun outfit to make a quick rope for me to cross. He tied a small rock at the end and launched the rope in my direction for me to catch. I did. The water had muddied significantly and still reached all the way up to my chest. My feet walked across large rocks as Francis pulled me in. Once on the other side, I crawled, exhausted, on my knees up onto the stairs where they all kept safe. I was out of breath, but Francis pulled me toward him.
“You, silly girl. I thought I lost you.” Francis held me in his asphyxiating, sudden, and out-of-place fatherly embrace. I was glad he had broken his silly and permanent proper and very serious composure.
“Uh—I need to breathe. Besides, we don’t want the enemy to see you have uh—a nice human side, Francis,” I teased him. My gaze traveled and found Gavril dressed in Émil’s robes. My eyes opened wide. The shifter was officially out of the closet. I felt Francis’s arms stiffening as he released me.
Your hair is back. Gavril grinned but his features looked half-human and half-wolf. He hadn’t fully shifted into one or the other. He looked like a scraggy and wet, hairy rat with a blossoming black eye. Hilarious.
What the… I mouthed at him. He shrugged his shoulders with a semi-grim grin on his face. Did Francis give him the black eye? Crap, Gavril had held Francis by showing him. Crap. Crap. Francis forced a smile, but his forehead vein ticked, and his hands clenched. He wasn’t too happy about Gavril’s revelation. I guess it didn’t help that I broke into a nervous coughing laugh.
“I don’t look like a wet rat,” Gavril complained aloud. Émil and Francis exchanged puzzled gazes.
“You”—Francis pointed at me—“And him are in big trouble.” He pointed at Gavril. Gavril and I exchanged conspiratorial gazes.
“He saved my life today—again,” I reminded Francis. Personally, I couldn’t see how much more trouble that was than almost getting killed by crazy monks or drowning. He grunted, shaking his head.
“You keep life-threatening and dangerous secrets. You are making it impossible to help you.” Francis was pissed off. “You need to trust me,” Francis pleaded, somewhat hurt that I still wasn’t evidently trusting him. Right, and he never kept big secrets. I was going to argue about this with him, but Gavril spoke first.
“It isn’t her fault. I asked her not to tell you about me,” Gavril interceded.
“I know it wasn’t her fault. I blame you only. You are dangerous to her.” He paused. “Make no mistake, the one-single reason I haven’t killed you is because of her, but don’t think I will not,” Francis told him.
“You knew he wasn’t a regular wolf before. Why didn’t you say something then?”
He inhaled to keep his cool and forced a calm demeanor over his intense exasperation.
Indeed, he has known for quite a while. Gavril exchanged glances with me.
Francis noticed the exchange with exhaling frustration. “I was trying to earn your trust. It was evident you trusted him more.” His tone was even, just betrayed by his emotional dislike for Gavril.
“How long have you known?” I asked him next, not even questioning his intelligence.
“From the very beginning. ‘Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer,’” Francis quoted his friend Sun Zi.
“He has been only protecting me,” I told him.
“I know he is your friend, Ailie. And believe me, it is the one reason why I haven’t dispatched him to an alternative world.” Francis paused, looking directly at Gavril. “Unfortunately, a werewolf is a risk you should not take. It draws too much attention to you.” Francis pointed at me without breaking his matching gaze contest with Gavril. Technically, he wasn’t a werewolf.
“Me?”
“The last thing you want is the primordials or the royals paying close attention to you. The primordials want you dead, and the royals will want you married,” Francis said. He had to tell me who the primordials were.
“Who are these primordials?” Gavril voiced my question, making Francis and I turn our heads toward him. It was almost intrusive to have him in our conversations for real. We had grown used to just having the sound of our voices without his. However, Gavril was just protecting me.
“Why are you following her?” Francis sounded extremely acerbated. His eyebrows pulled together, and his steel chilling glare was terrifying. What I didn’t realize was that Francis was really, really feeling murderous. Francis reached for Gavril’s neck, taking all of us by surprise. Gavril turned to see me as he hit the wall behind him.
“I am sworn to keep her safe from evil. My job is to deliver her to the palace,” Gavril said sheepishly.
It unnerved me when my best friend said things like that. He had been q
uite persistent to see the prince. Why? He knew it was a risk I wasn’t yet willing to take.
“Who do you work for?” Francis pressed his neck more against the wall.
Gavril pointed his index finger up to answer. Francis slammed him against the stone wall behind him again. Poor Gavril—he struggled.
“Francis—STOP.” I reached for his arm.
“Unless you plan on killing me, I need my answers now—if you don’t mind,” Francis said to me.
“Then you must plan on killing me, too, because I will not let you kill him.” I voiced my protest using his own words, but he ignored me completely.
“Do you work for a Strzyga? Start talking!” He slammed his head against the wall again.
Gavril struggled to shake his head, denying the accusation with Francis’s hand on his neck. Werewolves or newbie-shifters would never work for Strzyga. They were natural enemies. Besides, he hadn’t wanted me to leave St. Mary’s in the first place.
Gavril struggled to break away from Francis’s sudden change of personality, but nothing Gavril did was effective. I was about to throw myself between them, but Émil held my shoulder and shook his head. He had taken off his fake beard, his disguised contact lenses, and his wiry ugly hair. Instead, he had a full set of coppery medium-length hair, and his eyes were crystal clear and dark gray. The thing was, Émil was very young looking—too young, maybe younger looking than Francis was.
“Let them solve this. I’ve known Francis to be a fair man,” Émil whispered.
My eyes focused on Francis choking Gavril. I wanted to believe him, but it didn’t look like it.
“Swear to Christmas—aghr—I don’t like—aghr—to drink tea with fruitbat Twilighters.” Gavril getting choked didn’t stop him from making a dumb joke.
I held myself from snickering and shook my head, watching Francis’s confused stare. Then he opened his eyes wide, fully understanding. Uh—oh, I had an inkling that Francis had read those books. He had spent time at the academy with girls swooning over the shared books Simone had brought.
Unfortunately, Francis didn’t get the funny joke. He inhaled deep, tightened his jaw, adjusted his shoulder plates, and twitched his left eye before he slammed Gavril’s head. Francis knew how to hold on to his prey. It was a scary thing to see. Crap. He was taking it as a personal insult. Gavril’s wolf facial hair, lower jaw, and hand-claws shifted back and forth as he struggled for air.
Mocking the Strzyga isn’t helping, you moony idiot.
“So who do you, flea-bitten, runt-of-a-poodle, fido-wanna-be work for?” Francis asked again, now striking Gavril’s head against the floor.
Gavril flinched in pain. At this point, I knew Gavril wasn’t in a position to hurt Francis, not even in self-defense. However, he was struggling to survive Francis’s interrogation. I wasn’t going to let him hurt Gavril much more.
“Even if I could—I cannot tell you, Methuselah.” Gavril was seriously asking for trouble, mocking Francis’s age. I sighed. Gavril looked at me, as if trying to convey something without telling me. I couldn’t read his mind. He couldn’t tell me, whether telepathically or with words. Crap. He kept pointing his index finger up as a signal for something. But what?
UP? The ceiling? The roof? The cave? The sky? Gavril grinned, I was getting hot. He continued pointing up—higher up.
Oh my… the heavens. No way…
“Are you freaking serious? You work for God?” I shouted, using his rich vernacular for the first time.
All three—Émil, Francis, and Gavril—turned to see me. Gavril’s bright grin confirmed my discovery. Francis pushed him back against the wall, slamming Gavril again with brute force, making him lose his grin. Ash was evil, and Gavril worked for the good guy. It sounded crazy but plausible.
“Enough.” I squeezed between them and outmaneuvered Francis from his stance. “He is my best friend. Please, stop this, Francis. Now.” I held his arm firmly, speaking as if I were talking to a child.
“What?” Francis’s dark green eyes were transfixed as if in a trance. I slowly and gently pulled his arm away. His hands softened and released Gavril’s neck. He blinked and inhaled deeply. A positive sign of control. Francis was like Mr. Hyde and Doctor Jekyll.
Gavril slid down the wall and onto the stone floor, rubbing his head and neck. I slid down, too, next to him. My hands and legs shook endlessly from being wet and cold but mostly from the shock of being swept under the water. Also, I was exhausted.
Francis slid to the floor next to me, just as exhausted as I was. It made me wonder sometimes. Gavril was right, he needed psychological evaluation.
I told you. Wacko, Gavril said, adding extra ingredients to my thoughts.
I suspected Francis had been dying to have this confrontation since the day we left St. Mary’s. For a long moment, we all sat in the most uncomfortable silence ever. Émil spoke, ignoring Francis being upset.
“Now, my friend, why don’t you start by telling us the interesting part I want to hear. How come you didn’t go poof, ashes to ashes when you stepped onto consecrated grounds?” His hands demonstrated the poof part.
Émil had been wearing a pair of jeans and a T-shirt underneath his robes, the robes now in use by Gavril. Gavril grinned at his question, feeling an ally in him. He fearlessly directed his gaze toward Francis, yet he was uncomfortable saying anything openly.
“Thanks to Ailie’s healing, now I have a soul. That is why I didn’t combust inside the tunnels of Saint Émilion.” Gavril paused and sighed. “Her healing didn’t change my DNA or my path or my purpose, but technically I became a shifter—”
“And now you keep her safe,” Émil said, looking at me. “Good, she will need all the help possible—a fair trade.” Émil sighed. We all remained quiet, resting for a minute, listening in the dark to the gushing waters underneath what was left of the stairs.
“Why were you there in the forest?” Francis asked Gavril. So far so good, the two of them were still behaving. Yet I could see sparks of fire waiting to be lashed between them.
“Asmodeus, the Fallen Angel, was personally waiting for her for more than ten days before she jumped off the wagon at St. Mary’s—”
“Fallen?” Francis had the same reaction as I had.
“Don’t you people ever read the Bible or the Torah?” Gavril blurted.
Francis slammed Gavril’s head again against the wall behind him in less than 0.1 seconds.
Ouch, Gavril’s mind complained. I sighed. I hated violence.
“Don’t be a smart ass with me.” Francis’s face was getting red.
I knew Francis and Gavril were quite capable of inflicting great harm, but they weren’t killing each other—at least not yet. Neither Émil or I felt the immediate need to stop Francis. Gavril had a lot to tell us. Like what kind of job I was or why he insisted on taking me to the palace so much after he hadn’t wanted me to come. It was confusing to say least.
“O-K, okay. Fallen as in outcast angels,” Gavril said. Francis withdrew his attack and let go of Gavril’s neck. Gavril coughed, relieving his windpipe. The gaze from his very swollen black eye said, he is crazy.
“What was a Fallen doing after Ailie?” he asked Gavril, learning about this news for the first time. He looked a little pale and worried.
“Same thing the primordials and royals want. She is the legend and our future queen,” Émil said. Francis’s freckled nose scrunched under his mud-grimed face.
“She is just a child.” Francis combed his hair with his fingers in clear frustration. I was glad I was not the only one discombobulated after learning I was—the—legend.
“Just the right age for marriage,” Émil said.
I definitely wasn’t queen or marriage material. I was sixteen. But I looked at Francis, feeling grateful for his understanding. I was after all just a girl—a child in his eyes.
“It is impossible to fight a Fallen. They are supernal and invincible. Unlike your Twilighter kind, they are the true immortals,” Gavril explai
ned.
Francis’s dark glare got intense. I shook my head, realizing Gavril was asking for trouble. Émil’s blank stare at the insult made me pick into his thoughts. Neither him or I had read the books or seen the movies, but I got to hear all about the actors in it, day in and day out. Apparently, Tricia had a crush on one of the actors.
“No pun intended—I swear,” he told Francis, who was the one with the volatile mood swings and the dark glare.
“But something has thrown the Fallen off a bit. Otherwise, we couldn’t have prevented him or his minions from taking Ailie,” Gavril explained.
Francis nodded back in agreement, observing me thoughtfully. I could see images inside his head as he recalled the ghouls touching me and burning into ashes.
“I knew something was not right when I fought those demons,” he confessed. It was Gavril’s turn to nod in agreement.
“Wait, you have already been chased by demons?” Émil asked, crossing his heart. I nodded back at him with one quick glance at him.
“Ghouls, monsters, it doesn’t make much difference except that in demonology they are just minions to real demons,” Gavril explained. It was the very first time I had seen Francis grant a rare gaze of respect for Gavril’s knowledge of the netherworld.
“Are you saying that the Fallen have control of the Unseelie?” I recalled reading something about fairies somewhere on the internet, considering plausible explanations for my existence, but I discarded it as nonsensical fiction. . . until now.
“Not of all Unseelie. It wasn’t like that always,” Émil said, staring at Gavril. Oh—crap, Gavril was part of the Unseelie Court as a werewolf, yet he worked for the power of good? Once again, the dreadful feeling that this was getting to be so very-very complicated, loomed over me.
“The legend says that all ancestral creatures had learned to coexist in the human world, but from the moment the medallion opened the place of darkness, the spread of evil in the world had been devastating to all. All kingdoms broke ties with the Unseelie, including the Strzyga,” Francis said.
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