“What matters is that you have no claim to Delphine!” said Beth. She took Delphine’s hand and said loudly to her, “Don’t stay with him. Even if you’re foresworn and sent into the mists for breaking your oath, you’d be better off.”
Delphine didn’t respond as she knelt before Tartarus, but her fingers clenched Beth’s.
Beth glared at Tartarus. “She didn’t give you an oath of her own free will. What right do you have to enforce something you coerced from her?”
The man bent to peer into Beth’s face. “She took a blood oath of her own free will.”
“Liar.”
Kahtar sensed the quester’s laughter, but Tartarus moved to strike her. The fist he swung toward her face hit Kahtar’s palm instead.
“Don’t you dare,” he growled. “If you ever touch her again, I will destroy you no matter the consequences.”
“You’re still here after I asked you to leave,” Tartarus growled back. “Your woman is annoying me. You will leave the quester as retribution. He can be of service to me.” The way he said service made Kahtar look at Tartarus twice, but the quester stood with his hand on his blade, unperturbed. “And the old woman, too. I’m certain I can find some way she can amuse me.”
Kahtar half expected Abigail to trounce forward and verbally rip the daemonium to shreds, but she didn’t move, her head bowed as she stood close to the tesseract. With the filthy touch of Tartarus’s heart polluting theirs he could hardly blame her.
Tartarus ran a long finger back and forth over his bearded chin. “Take too long, brother, and I will not grant you and your anchor safe passage either.”
“He’s lying, Kahtar,” said Beth.
Tartarus narrowed his eyes at her. “Kneel before me, woman,” he said, his words dripping with the sing-songy inflection Delphine often used. He grabbed Delphine’s hair and jammed her face into his crotch, grinding. Kahtar had to hold tightly to the quester.
Tartarus turned his attention again to Beth. “You will serve me as you did in the veil. My brother will not interfere as I use you again.”
Kahtar tried to move, but his body wouldn’t obey. Unlike when Delphine wrapped him into her stories for manipulation, he was fully aware of it, and this made it worse.
“How do you keep any giftings with your dishonor?” demanded Beth. “You don’t, do you? You steal shadows of other’s giftings but have none of your own. Use mine if you dare. Take a good look at what you are and know the truth of it. Your heart is a maw of sickness and you need cruelty to feel anything.”
“You will obey me! Now! Kneel!”
“No, I won’t!” Beth sneered. “Your words have no power over me, but the truth has power over you. You are an infection! You use people to try to feel, but the truth is if you felt for even a moment what you really were it would destroy you!”
“I know exactly what I am, anchor!”
“So do I,” said Beth. “Someone who chose wrong and tries to justify it! You lie to yourself!”
Furious Tartarus pushed a hand against the air in front of him. Something rippled there and the muscles in Kahtar’s legs strained as he fought to move, to protect Beth from whatever was coming for her. The air rippled with the approach of something deadly, but the quester swung his huge sword before it touched her. Something exploded like shards of black glass and fell to the sand.
Tartarus moved his hands again, tossing something flat and whirring toward the quester, but the man stopped it with his blade and threw it right back at Tartarus. He made a move as though to sidestep it, but at his feet Delphine grabbed his legs and prevented him, allowing the blast to cut into his torso like a circular saw. Delphine hung on and he shouted, yanking her hair as the thing he’d created dug into his own body, tearing his flesh and staining his robes with blood.
“Die!” he shouted at Delphine in his sing-song voice and she went limp and fell to the ground. “Die!” he bellowed at the quester, but the command seemed to ping off the quester’s blade.
“No! He lies, Delphine!” Beth raced for her friend. Tartarus used his hands to dislodge the avenging force digging into his body and he flung it free. Beth dropped into the sand at his feet beside Delphine. “You don’t have to listen to him! Fight it, don’t you dare die because he tells you to! He’s lying! Don’t listen to his lies!”
The quester swung his sword at Kahtar, slicing right across the shirt of his police uniform and making a shallow, burning flesh wound. “Feel that?” He grinned. “Thought you might need a wakeup call. How about you draw your blade and we put an end to this?”
The reality of the pain released Kahtar from whatever hold Tartarus held him in. He tugged his sword free and followed the quester, who went after the wobbling circle of darkness and cracked his blade against it like a baseball bat, redirecting it back at Tartarus. “Keep your heads down, ladies!”
Clutching his wound, Tartarus dodged the oncoming whirl. Kahtar pressed the tip of his blade into Tartarus’s chest to hold him in place. “Be still or I’ll cut you all the way through myself.”
“You don’t dare!” Tartarus said. “You have no power over me!”
Kahtar suspected it was true, knew if he rammed his blade through the man’s heart he’d not die or something equally strange would occur. He did not want to run a man through only to have him regenerate. “Maybe not,” he said, “But I think the quester has something for you.”
The circle of dark light now whirred on the tip of the quester’s sword like a giant pinwheel. “You dropped this,” he said conversationally, shoving the undulating bit of darkness into the front of Tartarus’s bloodied robes.
Tartarus laughed as it bit into him again, his steely eyes meeting Kahtar’s. “You will heal me of this and kill the quester.”
Kahtar’s heart sank as the words took hold of him like poison, sliding through his veins. Once more the quester’s blade poked into him, this time right across his cheek, cleaning the command from his blood like an infection.
“Sorry,” the quester said, smiling. “I don’t want to have to kill both of you, although I suspect my clan will vote to kill you for trespass after we finish up here anyway.”
“My own tesseracts cannot kill me,” said Tartarus and his evil grin looked nothing like the quester’s easygoing smile. The whirling pinwheel now appeared to be healing the earlier damage. His shredded, bloodstained robes shone with a silvery light. “Delphine! Protect me,” he whispered.
The tiny woman moved from beneath Beth’s desperately slapping hands, suddenly resurrected. Kahtar kept his sword pointed at Tartarus and one eye on Delphine.
“As you wish,” Delphine said, reaching for the quester’s blade as though to obey. He tried to yank it from her grasp, but Delphine stretched her fingers to the blade and touched it. Something that looked like a small tesseract stretched from her hand and ran the length of the quester’s blade, joining with the whirring tesseract of Tartarus’s own making.
Tartarus watched until a bubble of light shot from the blade and right into him. His victorious smile vanished. “Betrayer,” he whispered.
“I’m protecting you—or your soul—from yourself,” said Delphine. “Goodbye.”
That quickly, the man seemed to go supernova like a sun. Something exploded in his middle, scorching Kahtar’s vision with the blast of light and knocking everyone off their feet. For a brief moment Tartarus seemed to vanish from the force of the detonation, and then bloody gore and flesh rained down from the skies.
“OH, GROSS! NO!” said Beth as hunks of meat splattered her from above.
Kahtar and the others seemed to think nothing more of it than if it were rain. Even the plebes were grinning from ear to ear. “This is a person! This was a person!” Beth tried to shake it off her hands. Kahtar’s huge smile told her he didn’t care.
Delphine didn’t smile as she knelt beside Beth in the sand. “It’s all right. He had to die. I’ve had plenty of time to come to terms with that. Hold your heart from this part of death. You
can do it.” Her voice had the familiar sing-song tone, and Beth allowed herself to slip into it and believe Delphine’s words. They were the truth.
Kahtar and the quester were patting each other on the back and exchanging introductions like old friends. Delphine tugged her to stand and Beth allowed Kahtar to introduce her to Augustus Votadini. She tried not to look at the hunks of gore in his long hair as she pressed her wrists politely to his. Forgoing social niceties, Delphine went straight for the quester’s lips. Kahtar bent to Beth’s, but his blood-splattered face prevented her from cooperating with him. She apologized with her heart.
“Is he completely dead?” she whispered.
Kahtar shook his head. “It isn’t likely, but repeating takes time. Even if he is born in the next nine months or so it will be at least a couple decades before he returns. By then Delphine’s heart will belong safely with another and she won’t be able to anchor him, as he calls it. She’ll be safe from him.”
“What of us? I don’t think you were allowed to kill each other. Did you sense how much he wanted to hurt you? Something stopped him.”
Wrapping his arm around her Kahtar smiled into her face. “ilu lives strongly in my heart, Beth. I think he will forgive me this death. Anyone else’s judgment doesn’t matter to me.”
“It ought to,” snapped Abigail Adit from her spot near the ruined tesseract. “You’re about to have your memory jogged rather unpleasantly. Try to keep a grip on who you really are, and in case you need that spelled out to you, that would be the man you’ve chosen to be over the millennia.”
Abigail’s words got the full attention of Delphine and Augustus, and the quester mumbled, “Millennia?”
“You know about me?” Kahtar’s tone conveyed incredulity. Beth wondered why she hadn’t suspected all along. She had every reason to believe Abigail had manipulated and arranged her relationship with Kahtar from the beginning.
The ground beneath their feet trembled with an echoing bang as though something from Jurassic Park had taken a step nearby. Beth’s heartbeat tripled with fear. Kahtar and the quester raised their blades, both searching the horizon for whatever approached.
“You best sheathe your blade, warrior,” said Abigail to Kahtar. “Not you,” she said to the quester. “Delphine, Beth, it’s probably best if neither of you speak—not that you’ll be able to.”
A sound echoed across the desert like the roar of a beast, part animal and part monster, and the ground trembled again with another massive footstep.
“What’s coming?” asked Kahtar.
“I suppose for all intents and purposes, you could say it’s your father,” said Abigail.
The quester eyed Kahtar. “Is there something I should know?”
“There’s a demon coming,” said Abigail, “and he’s pissed off.”
DESPITE THE HORRORS Kahtar had faced over the ages, real terror seldom infected him before a battle. Pain and suffering were familiar trials to be endured sooner or later; that fact was inescapable. He’d known when he first loved Beth that someday one of them would end. Only weeks ago it had come to pass for him, but ilu had been gracious, had blessed him with more time, even if it had only been days. Now, however, he realized it was likely Beth would lose him this time. The pain that would cause her frightened him and he tried to shove away the reassuring thought that perhaps they’d both die today, together.
Don’t find solace in giving up before you’ve even faced this.
Another echoing footstep sounded. The quester grasped his sword with both hands and Kahtar took a deep breath and sheathed his as Abigail had demanded.
That’s my father approaching.
No. My father is ilu. The thought slipped through him, as comforting as rain in a drought. He glanced at Beth, standing wide-eyed and terrified beside him, and smiled with the ease of the quester. She drew a shaky breath and nodded.
“I love you, Kahtar. So much.” Her second voice moved through his mind like a kiss.
“And I love you, my sweet Beth.”
Another footstep sounded so close it seemed whatever it was would have stepped on them. A man emerged from the courtyard and Kahtar blinked to shield himself from the light. Whatever this man was, he looked nothing like the demon Kahtar had expected. He was as beautiful as light in darkness, his hair golden and his movement like a dancer. Smaller than Kahtar, he moved across the desert as though winged, his fine leather shoes barely leaving footprints in the soft sand. He wore a well-cut black suit fitting each plane and angle to perfection.
Beth had once told Kahtar Old Guard were angels, but at that moment he almost forgot his wife always spoke the truth. This was what angels should look like. The touch of the approaching heart matched the body and it nearly brought tears to Kahtar’s eyes. Beautiful. Perfect. A light bringer. Kahtar smiled and looked at his wife.
Beth appeared to be watching something else. She trembled, her eyes wide and terrified. Kahtar wondered how she could fear anyone so right. The sun in the heavens and the planets dancing in the galaxy were a prelude to this glory. This man alone was surely ilu’s idea of perfection.
Beth can’t lie.
And she can see through lies.
Kahtar blinked again, trying to spot the deception. The cold fear in Beth’s heart, always partially encased by his own, told him what she saw.
Nothingness. Hollow emptiness. Hell.
The feelings from Beth’s heart made goose bumps prickle over Kahtar’s scalp.
That is how she perceives his heart. That is the truth.
The light bringer stopped moving less than ten feet away. Dark eyes swept over them and came to rest on Beth. For a moment the only sound in the desert came from the faintest whisper of wind occasionally stirring a patch of sand. It seemed no one dared breathe, and Kahtar didn’t know if it was because of the brilliant being of light standing before them or if the others perceived him as Beth did. The eyes moved to his own face, and golden light glowed in their depths.
“What have you done?” The second voice echoed through Kahtar’s very bones and moved through him like late afternoon shadows, blocking the light of this being. The distress of causing even the faintest waning of this brilliant light bringer caused Kahtar’s heart to burn.
I’ve failed him.
“You will atone for diminishing Artarus.” Each word dipped Kahtar’s heart in shadow, further blocking light. “You will serve me, yes?”
Words of acquiescence formed on Kahtar’s lips. I will was on the tip of his tongue, but the feeling of grief emanating from Beth’s heart slowed him from giving his oath to this angel of light.
In the profound quiet, the faintest whisper slipped from Beth. “No.”
Flames seemed to flicker in the depths of the glowing eyes as they turned toward Beth.
“Morning Star,” Abigail interrupted. She pushed between Beth and Kahtar to stand in front of them, all four feet ten inches of her, a ball of aged little old lady before the universe’s golden perfection. “Your lies have no power here.” Her words were defiant.
“You,” he replied. “What have you done to mine?”
“I’ve done nothing but allow him real choices. He will not be yours.” Strands of hair in the back of Abigail’s bun seemed to snap and glow with light.
“You are the one who took Attar from me!” The flames in Morning Star’s eyes brightened, their light dancing across his face. His gaze locked on Kahtar’s. “She killed you when you were a child. This doorway, this woman she pretends to be, is why you have repeated through time, unable to find purchase. She kept you from me!”
Kahtar didn’t need to look at Beth to know the words were true.
Abigail twisted to look at him. Her plump, wrinkled face smoothed and thinned, but the sharp eyes didn’t change. “I gave you a choice, Kahtar. I did destroy you in a tesseract long ago. Your eons of suffering are my fault, but it is nothing compared to what you’d suffer if you were his. You have a choice to make, and now you can make it knowing the truth
of what he is.”
For a moment the memory of that pain crowded out all else. How long had he been trapped inside that tesseract, each cell imploding so slowly? It had seemed forever. His first death. Images of other deaths flitted through his mind. Torture. Hanging. Drowning. Drawn and quartered. There were so many he couldn’t remember them all, but the pain of them had stayed in his psyche. Above all, loneliness had taken root inside him like the pain of that crushing tesseract, pressing into each cell of his being. Never belonging, never knowing why.
And now he knew why. Now he knew where he belonged. This creature of light was his legacy. This is what he’d been created to do. To serve this being. He’d been made to live forever, to never suffer death. What would it be to never die?
It would be like Artarus. Hell.
Kahtar looked down at Beth and felt Morning Star’s maw of nothing emanating through her heart. The truth was he’d died many times, but it had only been a slight taste of hell.
Death ends. It’s finite. Hell isn’t. It never ends.
Kahtar took Beth’s icy hand in his warm one and threaded his fingers through it. This is where he’d belong now, and when he ended, even if it happened in mere seconds, he’d search for the truth there too. I belong to ilu now.
“Thank you, Abigail,” he said. “I think I made my choice long ago.”
Abigail smiled and turned to face Morning Star. “He’s not yours.”
Morning Star’s glow grew brighter as though the sun rose behind him. “I made him.”
“And who made you?” said Abigail. “Kahtar does not belong to you. Go back from where you came from, or I’ll send you back to the one who made you.”
“Do you think you can?” said Morning Star, appearing to increase in size, the flames in his eyes now bright red.
Abigail shifted, growing wider. “Oh, I think we can leave a mark.” With a faint popping sound, hundreds of women appeared in the desert, forming a defensive line between Kahtar and Morning Star. Kahtar looked left and right. There were young and old women, of all races and ages. Some looked familiar, and a slim redhead quite a way down the line leaned back to wave at him. The nun next to her rammed an elbow into her side and the young woman turned her attention back to Morning Star.
FOREVER The Constantines' Secret: A Covenant Keeper Novel Page 24
