“And his wife is half-seeker. Anwyn, if you’re honest with yourself you’ve wanted to get rid of Beth since you realized just how thick her seeker blood is.”
“Don’t you start this with me again, Abigail! I’m talking about Kahtar and demons.”
“But you need to be honest with yourself. Kahtar was the only reason you didn’t get rid of Beth! How could you send your warrior chief into the mists? That was your problem. Now you have a golden opportunity!”
“I will never want to send Kahtar into the mists!”
“What about Beth?”
“This isn’t about Beth!”
“You can’t possibly separate these issues in your mind at this point. You can’t think straight about Kahtar when you’re itching for an excuse to oust Beth! You’ve allowed yourself to become completely biased against her. You knew when you accepted her into the clan she probably had plenty of seeker blood in her past. Once you knew for certain how thick it was you’ve regretted her. Admit it, Anwyn Glorianna D’Aval!”
“Would that make you happy, Abigail? Fine. I admit it. Beth was a mistake. I’ve told Kahtar that! Even Beth knows it! It’s the truth. Now may I focus on Kahtar’s issue?”
“What’s the point? He has to come to terms with this. If you’re going to spend the next hundred years shooting sidelong glances at him waiting for him to sprout horns, how’s he going to do that? And you!” Abigail turned her hostility on Kahtar. “Must have decided you’re sick of being warrior chief because once the entire clan knows about this, they’ll all be giving you that look. Do you ever think anything through?”
The Mother clasped her hands together at her chin, fingers skyward, praying. Abigail ignored her and continued, “There’s absolutely no choice now, Kahtar. You’re going to have to pass the mantle of warrior chief onto someone else in the clan. They’ll stink at it, especially our being short two Old Guard now.”
The Mother’s eyes flew open and she made a sound of protest.
“No, Anwyn! You don’t get to question the integrity of a warrior and still benefit from his being your warrior chief! You don’t trust Kahtar, then you find somebody else to do that job!”
“I never said I didn’t trust Kahtar!”
“You can’t get past a seeker father, how on heaven or earth are you going to get past a demon one? Face facts. And, Kahtar, I strongly suggest you shun the Arc too. Otherwise they’ll be eyeballing you, expecting to see you making demon tunnels or something so all of your relatives in hell can sneak inside.”
“Abigail, stop talking nonsense!”
Kahtar fought the urge to laugh out loud.
“No. I’m angry. We’re losing the best warrior chief ilu ever created because you—no, because all Covenant Keepers are prejudiced! We build these beautiful little bubbles to live inside and worry so much somebody is going to wreck them that we don’t even notice we’re wrecking them! ilu did not create us to hide from the world! He created us to help save it! You’re not doing that, Anwyn! Kahtar is!” With a dimpled hand Abigail took Kahtar’s arm and hauled him to his feet with ease. “Come on!”
Having seen Abigail stand up to a demon, Kahtar was not surprised by her unnatural strength as she hauled him out of the chamber and through the labyrinthine paths of the cave.
“If she tells all the elders you’re a daemonium I will lose all respect for her,” Abigail muttered.
“She really doesn’t have a choice does she?”
“Of course she does! All she has to do is realize it’s your personal business and not relevant to the clan!”
“My father’s a demon, how can she think that?”
Abigail stopped tugging him to glare. “You were conceived before this continent was! What are the odds, Kahtar Constantine, that you’re going to join the forces of darkness now?”
Exhaling a sharp breath he said, “Nil.”
Abigail continued tugging him along. “Exactly. She just has to come to the same conclusion.”
“She doesn’t know I’ve lived millennia in the light of ilu.”
“Oh, you left something out? I must have interrupted too soon! Did you get to the part where you can impregnate your wife with the light of your heart and will her to conceive?”
“I can?”
“Yes. I’m only mentioning it before you force a dozen babies on Beth in the next six years. You might want to give her a breather. She only has two breasts to nurse with.”
“I didn’t realize. I guess I wanted children subconsciously.”
“You think?”
“Is that a demon thing?”
“How much love and light do you think they have? It’s a Kahtar thing. Don’t spend your time worrying about what you inherited from Morning Star. Like everyone, he originally came from a place of light. It’s our choices that make us—something The Mother of this clan should know.”
“The Mother has to protect the clan, Abigail. You can’t expect her to understand what I really am.”
“The Mother has a brain and a heart and I can so expect her to know what you really are! Your father is ilu and she knows that; your ancient history is irrelevant. I knew what your heart could be when you were a naked little boy in a hut trying to console the woman Morning Star had begotten you on.”
“I wish I remembered her.”
They reached the cave entrance and walked out into the late afternoon light. Abigail dropped his hand and crossed her arms as they took to the path side by side.
“Well, the pain of a collapsing tesseract can erase everything. That’s why I had to do it. Morning Star couldn’t find you as you repeated. After a while he made Tartarus. The Old Guard and I have watched you and kept you from their paths, but with every repeat your path neared theirs. It was inevitable they’d find you eventually.”
“Will he find me again?”
“No. He knows you now belong to ilu. He’ll wait and hope that will change. If he had a heart he’d understand it won’t, but his misplaced hope keeps you and yours safe.”
“So he won’t be able to find Tartarus as he repeats either, will he?”
“No, he won’t. Tartarus has never repeated before. It will take him millennia to gain his bearings and it is possible he never will, but that might just be me hoping futilely for evil to die.”
“Perhaps we should call our women into the Arc from the outside world? Will Morning Star seek to create another daemonium?”
Abigail snorted. “No. He’s only gotten more selfish and greedy with time. He has to give a part of himself to create a life. He’d never be able to bear being so close with a Covenant Keeper again.”
Thinking of all the women in Willowyth, Kahtar frowned. “What about seeker women?”
Abigail chuckled and he glanced at her sharply. She shook her head at him. “Never. The process is still the same, if not more difficult. The fact that you’re with Beth should reassure The Mother that evil won’t find purchase in your heart. The Fallen Ones detest seekers. They’d never use one like that. Couldn’t you tell how much Tartarus and Morning Star particularly disliked Beth? ilu has gifted seekers grace the Fallen Ones will never have. They’re jealous creatures. They’d have crushed Beth if her heart weren’t so entwined with yours. You about gave me convulsions when you took so long to join with her last year. If they had ever stumbled across her they would have obliterated her. Of course her parents dragged her all over the world with her big mouth yapping truth. It was a logistical nightmare keeping her safe.”
“You’re certain she’s safe?”
“Positive.” Abigail smiled. “I’ve followed the women in Beth’s family for a long time waiting for her. You were meant to be with her.”
“I agree, and again, thank you for making sure I found her, and I assume for protecting her family until I did.”
Waddling along the path beside him, Abigail froze.
“What? What’s wrong?”
“We need to get to Beth’s parents!”
“What? Why? Beth’s
with them! Old Guard!” Kahtar bellowed.
Abigail’s green eyes were wide. “Morning Star! He can’t touch Beth because of you, but he can destroy what is hers!”
BLOODY SACRIFICE—THE DEVIL YOU KNOW
CURLED ONTO THE sofa nursing Dianta, Beth thought about Delphine. By now Delphine’s requested night with the quester would be over. What then for her? Despite the storyteller’s cavalier attitude, she was sacrificing a great deal to protect them. Beth had every intention of going back to Aberdyfi and speaking to that quester sometime soon.
At Beth’s breast Dianta dug her fingernails in and grunted, burrowing closer, and from upstairs Beth heard another faint grunt and almost rolled her eyes.
How many people’s parents sneak off in the afternoon to be together? Beth grinned, uncomfortably proud that hers did. But really do I have to hear it? Do I have to know?
Tipping her head back, she shouted, “Hey, Dad! I’d like some halo-halo ice-cream if you’re not busy!”
Dianta growled at her, opening her eyes to slits and Beth felt a tug of remorse. “That was rude and you’re going to do that to Daddy and me someday, aren’t you?” Do Covenant Keepers believe in karma? I think it’s a thing.
“I’ll be right down!” Ted White called, his voice amused.
Oh, man, he knows I’m messing with him! He is going to embarrass the crap out of me.
Bending to press her lips against Dianta’s curls, she whispered, “Mama’s inner brat is feeling a bit humiliated.” The fact was, seeing Tartarus again had brought back what had happened in the veil, and Beth found she wanted to sit next to her dad for a few hours and forget. Seeing the one Abigail called Morning Star—though she thought Death Star was more fitting—had left her feeling more than a little bit shaky. Nothing and no one could make her forget it.
Beth wondered if somewhere deep in everyone’s heart they really knew at a visceral level there were dark and terrifying things in the universe. It was a fact Beth had always been aware of as truth. Yet even as a child she’d known God sat higher, ruling all, and when her schoolmates had shivered over scary games and movies she’d smiled, secure in the knowledge fear was only an emotion and evil merely an illness to be eradicated.
Smiling now, Beth lifted her eyes to the couch opposite and looked directly into the golden gaze of Morning Star.
Sitting opposite her like an invited guest, one leg across a knee and both arms stretched over the back of the sofa, he looked like a beautiful James Bond devil. For a moment they looked at each other and the emptiness of him pressed against Beth’s heart as if it could push her and the couch right through the wall and into the front yard.
A door slammed upstairs and Ted White crossed the landing, whistling a Rod Stewart song. Tonight’s the Night. My dad, the joker. Huge tears blurred Beth’s vision. Morning Star lifted a single finger and held it to his lips, demanding her silence. Beth felt as if she were falling, the arms holding Dianta liquefying with her fear. Sensing her heart Dianta whimpered. An invisible hand seemed to wrap around Beth’s neck and squeeze off her air, demanding compliance.
No.
Beth shot to her feet and screamed at the top of her lungs, “MOM! DAD! RUN!”
Morning Star rose as though liquid, morphing into a standing position with the back of his head facing Beth, looking up the staircase where her dad stood on the tiny landing.
“Get away from my daughter, you!” Ted shouted, running for the steps.
“No! Go, Dad!”
The bedroom door slammed open and Carole shot across the short space wearing only one of Ted’s huge t-shirts. Grabbing the railing, she propelled herself over it and landed on the floor not ten feet from Morning Star before Ted had made it to the bend in the stairwell.
In one smooth move Carole swept a standing lamp from the floor and swung it forward like a weapon. The cord yanked from the wall and the base swung off and shot directly at Morning Star. It passed right through him as though he were a ghost and smashed into the wall, just missing Beth.
Spinning in place Carole flicked the Tiffany lampshade at Morning Star’s head, and it also passed right through, hitting the window and crashing through a pane of glass into the front yard.
Morning Star spread his arms like Moses parting the Red Sea and a line of flames lit the carpeting on fire. Carole cut the air with the lamp pole, feigning left and right as she approached Morning Star. He shoved his hands forward and an invisible force lifted Carole into the air and shot her across the room and into the wall. Her body left an imprint in the drywall and she slid limply to the floor. In full charge toward Morning Star, Ted changed direction and raced for his wife.
Morning Star’s blond hair shone in the afternoon sun, and his fingers moved, controlling the dancing flames. Dispassionately he watched Ted tend to his wife.
Behind him, Beth could only think of one defense. Clutching Dianta to her breast, she whispered, “I love you.”
The demon turned slowly and faced her, locking eyes.
“I mean it. I can’t lie. I love you because you brought Kahtar into this world. I can only assume he comes from the part of you that ilu created with love, the good part, the part that loved when your heart worked.”
Morning Star cricked his neck in a gesture that Beth had seen the bad Terminator do in the second movie. “I hope this causes you undo pain,” he whispered.
Behind him Carole still lay on the floor, her low voice encouraging Ted to protect Beth between groans of pain. Beth knew she wasn’t the one who needed protection even as her dad thundered in her direction.
Morning Star changed, half-morphing his body to face Ted and Carole, but before he’d completed the transformation Ted crossed the short distance and jumped, grabbing the now solid demon in a choke hold. “Don’t you threaten my daughter! You’re not welcome in my house! Get out!”
Morning Star jerked, a move surely meant to dislodge Ted, but Beth’s father held on, wrapping his thick legs around the much thinner being and snaking his arms tighter around his neck. “YOU GET OUT!” Ted roared directly into the demon’s ear.
Desperate to help, Beth shouted at her father, “I love you, Dad!”
“I love you too, Bethy!” Again Ted shouted for the demon to get out of his house and the tears in Beth’s eyes slid down her cheeks.
“I love Mom! I love Dianta! I love Kahtar!”
“Me too, Bethy!” said Ted.
Beneath him Morning Star seemed to shrink and hope lit inside Beth. A burning smell filled her nostrils, something wrong but familiar, something remembered from the darkest of shades. It wasn’t carpet.
“Dad! Let go of him!” Clutching Dianta to her side, Beth grabbed her father’s shoulder and pulled. Tendrils of smoke drifted from between him and Morning Star.
“Never! I love you, Bethy, and your baby girls, and your mother. God, Carole, how I love you! Always have!”
In Beth’s arms Dianta began to scream.
“Ted!” Carole crawled across the room using only one arm. “Let go!”
The smoke emanating from Ted’s clothes caught flame. A sound somewhere between a groan of pain and a growl escaped him. Carole reached Morning Star’s feet and she wrapped her good arm around them and bit fiercely.
“Mom, don’t! It won’t help!”
Chuckling, Morning Star kicked Carole and sent her flying across the floor.
“I love—I love—!” Beth tried to say it to Morning Star again but she couldn’t. The words wouldn’t come out, not with her dad’s burning flesh searing her nostrils. “OLD GUARD!”
The room lit with the shimmer of countless Old Guard and Morning Star instantly liquefied into a ball of fire and smoke, shooting upward and vanishing in a split second. Ted White ricocheted backward, consumed in fire, and sailed across the room to land next to Carole.
Suddenly Kahtar was there and his hands were all over Beth, feeling for injury. An Old Guard snatched Dianta from her. Beth shook them off and ran over the burning carpet to her parents.
Ted’s body arched and shivered. Most of the clothing had been burned off his front and white ribs showed through blackened flesh. His weak screams echoed in the small house. The bile in Beth’s throat seemed to clog her heart.
“No!” she shouted, trying to drown out the sound. “Kahtar! Help him!”
Kahtar was there, kneeling beside her mother and pressing his fingers against Carole’s back while she heaved herself onto Ted’s cooked chest, tears streaming down her face. “Ted? Ted! Please! It won’t matter now if I take it all.”
Ted’s eyes were wide but he turned them in Carole’s direction, even as a hoarse scream ripped from his throat.
“Please, Ted? Before you go? Give me all of your heart?” she sobbed.
Kneeling beside her father Beth screamed at Kahtar, “You help him! I don’t care what the rules are! You make him better, Kahtar! You fix my daddy!” Kahtar tried to hug her, to gather her against his shoulder and she slapped him away. “I’ll go into the mists, Kahtar! I don’t care! I’ll do anything! Please!”
Tears streaming down his face, Kahtar shook his head, and grief consumed her.
An Old Guard reached for Carole, but she shot to her knees and put her hands over Ted’s chest, right into the charred mess as his whispery scream stopped. A hole opened inside Beth where her daddy had always been, and she knew he was gone. Beth collapsed, a silent scream tearing her throat.
Carole’s scream picked up where Ted’s had ended. It seemed to go on forever.
SHOVING HER FACE against Ted White’s neck, Beth inhaled, trying to find his sunscreen, cotton shirt, stolen cookies smell, but burnt flesh filled her nostrils. Carole continued to scream, an anguished howl of agony. Beth couldn’t bring herself to look again at her mother’s hand sliding around through burned skin, charred clothing and congealed blood.
Kahtar’s hoarse voice sounded in her ear. “He’s gone, Bethy. Let your mother have time with him alone.”
FOREVER The Constantines' Secret: A Covenant Keeper Novel Page 26
