by Bonnie Lamer
As soon as I let my magic go, I feel Kallen’s pull back. He must have realized the same thing I did. Taz and Felix also back off. Now that it has no competition, Eliana’s power takes over and within seconds, I can feel the hot desert sun beating down on my face. I open my eyes, which is a mistake because there is still some sand on them, and wince as the particles fall onto my eyeballs. Turning to the side, I cough out as much sand as I can from my lungs and attempt to blow it out of my nose. Gross and vulgar, yes, but I’ll take breathing over being decorous any day. I use my magic to heal my ear drums and to rid my body of any stray sand granules I couldn’t cough or blow out. Including the ones that got stuck in very uncomfortable places as I was dragged through the sand. Any thoughts Kallen may have of ever making love on the beach again have been rendered moot by this experience.
By the time I am done, Kallen is by my side. He and Josh slid down the sand dune, risking a sand avalanche to get to us. I can’t be mad because I would have done the same thing if the situation was reversed. Josh makes his way to Eliana and pulls her into his arms. Since she is conversing quietly with him, I am assuming she healed her own ears and doesn’t need any help from me. So, I fall into Kallen’s open arms and let him hug me tight.
“What the hell happened in there?” he breathes into my ear through my sandy hair. I didn’t worry about getting the sand out of my hair, other places were a bit more urgent, so there’s a lot of it. I feel him using his tongues to get stray granules he came into contact with off his lips. Normally, I’d be concerned he was getting spittle in my hair, but right now I really don’t care.
“There’s a Shadow in there,” I respond into his muscular chest.
Kallen leans back so he can see my face. “What?”
“You heard me correctly. There’s a Shadow in there.” I glance up the sand dune Eliana created when excavating the temple. “We need to talk to Adriel.” I hate to break up the passionate kiss Josh is giving Eliana at the moment, but I do. Clearing my throat to get their attention, I say, “I’m going to teleport us to the top.” The two reluctantly split apart and reach out for the hand I’ve extended. Taz and Felix make sure they are touching me, as well. In a blink, we are all back where we started. This day is not going at all as we planned, I sigh to myself. Then again, can wishful thinking and ‘we’ll just have to wing it’ really be considered a plan? We really need to work on our strategy skills.
“What happened down there?” several voices demand at once. Some concerned for our safety, but most concerned for their own.
“Are your great abilities not enough?” the Sasquatch snarks. Would it be wrong to punch her? Or to shave her bald? I’m certain the latter would be a much greater punishment in her mind.
The idea is gaining momentum in my mind when Kallen steps between us. “If you believe this to be an easy task, you are welcome to try to resolve it on your own,” he drawls.
“Perhaps I shall,” the Sasquatch responds obstinately.
I roll my eyes. “Be quiet before I insist you follow through on those words.” Since her claim was only a show of bravado with no real substance behind it, the Sasquatch clamps her mouth closed. Convinced she is going to keep it that way, I hurry over to Adriel and tug on her arm until she follows me away from the prying ears of the crowd. I gesture for Eliana, Josh, Isla and Kallen to join us, as well. I feel bad leaving Ari and Jadyn out, but I don’t want to be accused of playing favorites. When we are a short distance away, I ask Adriel, “How could a Shadow have gotten here?”
“What?!” Adriel squeaks. She honestly squeaks. I didn’t even know she could make a sound like that. I don’t think she did, either. Embarrassed by her initial reaction, her voice is back to normal when she says, “You must be mistaken.”
“Since I have been up close and personal with the Shadows, I’m pretty sure I can identify one. Not to mention, it said it was a Shadow,” I insist.
“It also said it has a body,” Eliana points out. “That was not true.”
I try not to give her the sour look my face is trying hard to morph into. That was not a helpful reminder if we want the others to believe me. “Regardless, it was a Shadow,” I insist. Returning my attention to Adriel, I ask again, “How could a Shadow have gotten here?”
Adriel shakes her head. “It’s simply not possible. Yes, you were allowed into the Shadow realm, but you are the only one other than an Angel of Death who has been granted permission in millennia. So, unless you let more than two Shadows loose when you left, it’s impossible.”
I do not hold back my sour look for her. “You were right there with me when I left,” I remind her.
Eliana stares at me in confusion. “Two? I thought you only let one out.”
I sigh. “Technically, I did. I’ve told you about Nixie, haven’t I? She’s not really a Shadow. She’s a conglomeration of goodness that was scraped away with the bad stuff. She’s currently roaming the realms and having the time of her life freaking other beings out.” Without a body, she’s limited in the ways she can entertain herself. Since she is doing no real harm, I’m not worried about it.
“Even if you and Xandra had released another Shadow, how would it have ended up in this realm?” Kallen asks. “We would have noticed it if it had followed us here on any of our journeys, right?”
Adriel nods in defeat. “Yes, and I would have felt it had it been living for any amount of time in the Fairy realm.” Her brow folds in concentration, trying to figure this out. “No Angel of Death would risk Rashnu’s wrath by setting a Shadow free intentionally.”
That I believe. Rashnu is one scary Angel when she wants to be. I open my mouth to ask her about unintentional acts that might let a Shadow free when I notice the lines of concentration on Kallen’s brow. Where Adriel’s was folded more in confusion, he is making the face he does when an idea is coming to him. I cross my fingers and hope it’s a good one. “What are you thinking?” I ask my gorgeous husband. I tamp down the urge to smooth out the lines on his forehead with kisses for fear of breaking his concentration. Not to mention, this really isn’t the time or place for it. He’s just so darn sexy when he’s concentrating. Okay, he’s always sexy.
“I do not believe it was necessary for the Shadow to escape,” he says. We all stare at him until he explains. “The Phoenix ash. What if, like in the Shadow realm, the ashes from her past rebirths somehow melded together to create a Shadow-like being?”
“Would someone mind explaining to me what a Shadow is?” Josh finally asks. Isla, who has been standing by quietly, which is odd for her, answers him. After he gets his explanation, Josh asks, “Wouldn’t the Phoenix have taken measures to prevent that from happening?”
Maybe, maybe not. I think back to the dream that Ra shared with Eliana and me. In it, the Phoenix certainly didn’t act like she had a clue that her previous bad deeds could do anything except give her bad memories and affect her love life. Was that what Ra wanted us to get out of that conversation? “What if she didn’t know it could happen?” I counter.
Adriel shakes her head. “All supernatural beings know about the Shadow realm and what happens there.”
“But, an Angel of Death doesn’t scrape the Phoenix’s soul when she is reborn, right?” I ask, letting my mind delve new possibilities.
Adriel’s brow creases. “No,” she says hesitantly, trying to figure out where I am going with this. “Like I said before, her darkness is burned away by her Cosmic Fire.”
“What if it’s not,” I counter again.
Adriel puts her hands on her hips and huffs, “Are you really going to argue that anything could survive Cosmic Fire?”
I think about it for a moment before nodding. “I am.”
Adriel may not like my idea, but Eliana is warming to it. “If the Phoenix is immune to Cosmic Fire, why would it be able to completely burn away any part of her?” she asks the Fallen Angel of Death.
Adriel opens her mouth to respond, but closes it again. After a long moment of consideratio
n, she throws her hands up in the air in defeat. “I guess I’ve never thought about it that way.”
“So, it’s possible then that her darkness may burn to ash, but it’s not destroyed,” I say.
Kallen is next to embrace the idea. “If that was the case, her ashes should have been stored in different locations, not all in one place.”
“He’s a genius, give the wanker a cookie,” Taz mutters.
I ignore him. “But, she didn’t. Now, the darkness from the ashes has found a way to join together like darkness does in the Shadow realm to form a separate sentient being.”
“Only, this darkness is all from the same person,” Adriel points out.
Her meaning hits me and I groan. “Which means it’s basically an evil twin with all of the Phoenix’s knowledge and memories dating back to the beginning of time.” At least, all the ones before her last rebirth.
“Most likely,” Adriel agrees.
“Why now?” Josh asks and we all turn to him.
“Why now what?” I ask.
“Why are you just learning about the existence of this darkness now? Those ashes have been here for thousands of this realm’s years. Do you believe that it took that long for them to mix together?”
Excellent question. Since darkness doesn’t really need a physical body, it doesn’t matter if the ashes were mixed together. The essence of the darkness is what would bond. Which means, the process had probably been occurring since the second time the Phoenix died and left ashes behind. So, Josh is right. Why now? I glance at Kallen and find him deep in thought.
“Perhaps they needed to build strength?” Isla says more to herself than any of us.
Adriel nods. “That could be. It takes a long time for the darkness in the Shadow realm to form sentient beings.”
Even I started this ball rolling, something is still not adding up here. “Wouldn’t the Phoenix have noticed the darkness Shadow thing when she visited the temple?” I certainly was able to feel the presence of the Shadows in the Shadow realm. A shiver goes down my spine just thinking about it. I glance down at the small temple and rule out the idea that it was able to hide anywhere in there to avoid detection.
“I think she did, but she may not have known what it was,” Eliana says thoughtfully. Lowering her voice just in case the Shadow has excellent hearing, she continues, “In our dream, she talked about the overwhelming feelings of darkness she experienced sometimes.” Her eyes light up. “And I doubt she was the only one to sense it. Remember the passage Jenna found? The one that made her believe that the Phoenix was her own worst enemy?”
Before any of us can respond, a collective gasp from the crowd behind us has us all whipping around. My eyes follow theirs and I can’t hold in my own gasp. “Is that…?”
“I think it is,” Kallen nods.
Wow. I have never seen anything so beautiful in all my life. Nor any anything so sad.
31 Chapter
Above the temple, giant swaths of color are swirling. Reds, oranges, and yellows dance together in perfect rhythm, all brighter than any I have ever seen before. I don’t even think these color shades are on the normal color spectrum. Even the desert sun beating down cannot dim them. It looks like the sky is on fire, but the image is so beautiful, so inviting, it makes you want to twirl and dance your way toward it. And in the center of the dancing colors there is an image. A Phoenix. Not the person, the bird. This Phoenix is similar to the images I have seen in books. It is the image that popped into my mind when Isla burst into our room and started us on this journey.
What makes the image so sad is that the Phoenix is crying and thrashing about as if being tortured. Amongst all the beauty of its surroundings, it is experiencing pain and desperation. The feelings are tangible. They touch my skin in faint whispers, in almost silent pleas. Pleas for help.
Eliana and I turn to each other at the same time. “We need to go back,” we say in unison. I hold my hand out to Eliana, ready to teleport back to the temple and save the Phoenix from the darkness that is torturing her.
A hand on my shoulder stops me. “We need a plan this time,” Kallen insists. “This could be a trap. The way it is trying to lure us down there, I’m almost certain it’s a trap. Either way, if you are going up against darkness that has the knowledge, and at least some of the power of an immortal being, you cannot ‘just wing it’, as you like to say.”
The tug on my heart drawing me to help the Phoenix immediately is strong, but I know Kallen is right. We need a plan. “Suggestions?” I ask impatiently.
He glances over his shoulder at the beings behind us. “There is something significant about having all of these beings in one place. I think we need to spend a bit more time figuring out what that is. I believe it is key to stopping the darkness.”
I frown as a thought hits me. “Eliana couldn’t feel the presence of the Phoenix when we were in the temple, and neither could I. So, doesn’t it make sense that the Shadow insisted we bring them here?” I certainly don’t want to do anything to help that entity’s evil plans along.
Eliana shakes her head. “It must have been the Phoenix. Otherwise, Ra would have alerted me.”
Good point. “You don’t believe he was doing that last night?” I push, not mentioning the dream outright again. We technically aren’t supposed to have any help from other immortal beings.
Eliana shakes her head again. “No. The Phoenix was definitely in that temple the first time we were here. She wrote that riddle for us.”
Her words do not erase the frown on my face. “Okay, then where is she now?”
“Considering the fireworks down there, I would say she’s still there,” Josh says.
“I didn’t sense her,” Eliana reminds him.
“Maybe the Shadow is somehow preventing you from sensing her,” Isla suggests.
“That’s possible,” Eliana nods uncertainly. “It was strong enough to send us both flying from the temple.”
“Good thing Sam wasn’t here to see that. Neither of you would ever live it down,” Josh teases. Eliana gives him a sour look and he does a good job of wiping the smile from his face. Now is not the time for teasing.
As the others have been talking, I’ve been staring over their shoulders at the assembly of beings standing in the sand. What could be the significance of having them all here? A terrible thought hits me. If the Shadow wants them, is it for some sort of weird blood ritual or something? A spell that requires the blood of each race? Did we bring them here to be slaughtered? I shake my head to loosen the idea’s grasp on my mind. If that was the case, the Shadow would have been pleased that we brought them all, not disbelieving.
As that thought slips from the forefront, another one takes its place. One that makes more sense. Slapping my forehead, I announce, “I know why the Phoenix refuses to die.”
All eyes turn to me. Kallen is the first to speak. “Why?”
“Because of the Shadow. My guess is that if she dies and leaves more ashes, the Shadow will become more powerful than the Phoenix is and would wreak havoc on the realms.”
Kallen’s scowl is not the response I expected. “More havoc than blowing up the entire universe?”
Oh, right. Let the universe be taken over by evil or destroy it altogether. Either way, the Phoenix would not be much of a protector. Not yet ready to give up on the idea, though, I shrug. “Maybe she sees it as the lesser of two evils.”
“Do you really believe she would make that choice for the entire universe?” Eliana asks.
I shrug again. “I don’t know. I mean, she didn’t seem like the most compassionate being the last time we met her.” When she almost burned us alive and then shoved us through a wall.
“True,” Eliana admits.
“Maybe after all the lives she has lived in different realms, she feels like she knows what’s best for all of us,” Josh adds with distaste pouring from his words. The idea that someone could be that egotistical is disturbing.
“Wait, if that’s true
, she is majorly affecting our freewill.” I turn to Adriel. “Can’t the Angels do something to stop her because of that?”
Adriel shakes her head. “One, the Angels asked for your help because they could not even find the Phoenix. Two, the Phoenix exists outside of the scope of our authority.”
Interesting. If we live through this, I am going to have a lot of questions for the Angels about why they can’t do anything against the one being who holds the power to destroy everything. Well, everything except the Angels. Do they have a treaty or something?
“Xandra,” Kallen says, drawing my attention back to the problem at hand. “What about light? You said you fought off Shadows with your Angel light when you were in the Shadow realm.”
Before I can respond, I see something out of the corner of my eye and I turn my head back toward the temple. “Um, I don’t think this Shadow has issues with light.”
The others follow my line of sight until they see it, too. Adriel sucks in a breath. On her exhale, she exclaims, “Impossible.”
“You know, out of all the words in the English language, I am beginning to think that one is the one most people don’t understand its true definition. It seems every time someone says it to me, it never turns out to be true,” I point out. As I speak, my eyes never leave the dark patch that has oozed from the temple and is slowly inching its way up the sand dune. “Do you think we should get out of here?” I ask.
“And go where?” Isla asks. “There is no place to run, and we certainly cannot teleport away and leave the others behind.”
I don’t know, the latter doesn’t sound half-bad at the moment. At least, I wouldn’t feel too guilty leaving a few of them behind. With a sigh, I let that fleeting thought go. I could not live with myself if I left any innocent beings to deal with this kind of evil, even if I don’t like half of them. Not to mention the entire realm of Cowans who wouldn’t stand a chance against it. “Then we fight.” I turn to the only one with any real knowledge of Shadows. “Can anything else destroy them besides light?”
