“Let them go!” I screamed, panicking.
“Only one, darling daughter. Choose, or they both die.”
This was it.
Tears sprang to my eyes at the thought of what had to be done.
“Lucy.” My eyes locked onto Gavin’s at the sound of his hoarse whisper, and I saw so much understanding. He was always so damned understanding, which made this even harder, driving another knife straight through my heart.
The well of tears flowed freely now, because I knew I had already failed Holly once. He knew it, too. I couldn’t do it again. Wouldn’t. Gavin gazed back and nodded, full of that soul-crushing understanding, and so much love. My tears fell heavily to the ground. To see that kind of selfless love shining in his eyes drove the knife deeper and tore my heart apart, but I didn’t have the luxury of falling apart.
This was so much bigger than me and him, and Holly.
I mouthed an ‘I love you’ to Gavin and uttered the words that would haunt me for the rest of my life. I would cope with all my decisions later, but I knew from this moment on, I was on my own, like old times. Except, this go around, I knew the score. I was ready for everything,
And I embraced it.
“Holly.” It came out as barely a whisper, but I cleared my throat and spoke up. “I choose Holly.”
My father’s eyes lit up before driving the Sword straight through Gavin’s stomach. A horrified screamed thundered through the vast open space, dying somewhere out at sea. I saw Holly covering her ears out of the corner of my eye before realizing the scream belonged to me.
It was Canada all over again. I watched in horror as my father slid the Sword out of Gavin’s stomach, followed by a steady stream of blood. Time slowed as Shane stepped closer to Gavin and kicked him hard where his wound still gushed crimson, sending the love of my life tumbling over the edge of the cliff into the same sea where everything else seemed to go to die.
“No!” I shouted uselessly.
“I never get bored doing that. Tell me, Lucy, does that sting just as bad as the first time?” he laughed.
I whimpered, and my breath shuttered with my quaking heart. Fresh tears gathered, and as my knees hit the ground, some were jarred free by the impact.
“You idiot! How are we supposed to know if the Sword worked on him?” My father sounded pissed, and in his fury, I watched him spin and slice a clean cut across a nearby vampire’s face to take out his anger, catching the assassin completely off guard. He observed in sick fascination as the vampire lit up like a firecracker and was absolutely thrilled with his shiny new toy.
“See, it works,” Shane replied before turning his sadistic intent toward my best friend.
He lowered himself to a crouch at eye level with Holly and took hold of her face, forcing her to look into his black eyes. “Remember that time I sliced you apart, thinking I killed you? Those were some good times, weren’t they, sweetheart? How did you manage to survive that, by the way?”
“Let her go!” I yelled.
“But this is the fun part, baby. Just think. If you die right now, you won’t be able to save your BFF. If I kill you, she’ll die a horrible death.” He leaned in to whisper the next part into her ear. “Probably screaming and crying like last time. Except this time, I’ll make it even more painful.”
I recoiled against the memory of Holly dying in my helpless arms. She went perfectly still.
“Ready to beg for your life yet?”
“I thought you knew me better than that. You have what you want. Hand her over, or I’ll make you regret ever messing with me,” I demanded.
My father cleared his throat. “Actually, Lucille, there is one more thing you have that I want. Give it to me, and I will let you walk away with your friends to see them to safety.”
My gaze shot to him, stunned like he just slapped me in the face. Reeling, my mouth hung open in surprise. I shouldn’t have been the least bit shocked, but I was done playing these games. He’s already taken everything else from me. I started to reach for my wrist but stopped myself before he noticed the movement. No. I wasn’t handing anything over to him. He wasn’t getting one more damned thing from me.
Shane straightened when he saw me coming, but with more focus and more anger than I’ve ever felt before, he didn’t stand a chance. I snaked under his arm and grabbed the sides of his head, twisting with all my strength. The snap of his neck spurred the army of assassins forward. I felt them breathing down my neck, but everything happened lightning fast.
I snuck an arm under Holly’s waist and lifted her, spinning to shield her from them. At the same time, I saw my father’s furious eyes lock onto me, and the Sword was poised in the air above me.
There was no time to escape the arc of his swing, and I prepared to toss Holly over the ridge if that was all I could do. Just as the blade descended, a blur of motion caught my attention, and I glance over my father’s shoulder to see someone familiar rushing toward us from the sidelines.
Elias!
24
Elias raised his sword, aiming for my father’s striking arm. The blade was inches from cutting clean through it when my father spun and swiped the Sword’s edge across Elias’s chest. His stunned, blackened eyes met mine briefly. In the seconds before he burst into flames, I saw the resolve in those depths. He would do it all over again, knowing his fate.
A new sort of respect blossomed in my chest for those Shadowmarked who truly wished for peace between vampires and humans. I stood, completely humbled by the fact that I had been so wrong to judge and condemn them so harshly.
Not letting his sacrifice be for nothing, I rushed Holly away from my father while he was distracted, but I still felt the assassins at my back. I wouldn’t make it over the ridge before they caught up.
Setting Holly on her feet, I turned toward the vampires. “Holly, run until you get to the light!” I shouted behind me.
“Don’t be so dramatic, Luce!” a familiar voice called from behind me, definitely not Holly’s.
I spun to see Max and Nick standing at the top of the ridge, holding giant flashlights and sporting matching shit-eating grins.
“Smile for the cameras, bitches!” Nick shouted.
I turned in time to see the look on the vampires’ faces transform from savagery to fear. My father was the first to react, darting into the center of the army. He held the Sword of Michael, which would allow him to walk in sunlight, but I was betting he didn’t want to take that big of a risk. He would test it with a tiny ray of UV on his pinky knowing how far his love for himself went.
As the beams of light reached the front line of their defense, a brilliant burst of flames arced in a perfect semicircle where they had been standing a second ago, and it trickled backward as the second and third lines caught fire, until the rest of them were safely tucked into the shadows outside the boundary of light.
I lost my father among the floating ashes. They swirled between where I stood on the hillside and where the new front line of the assassin army cowered below, creating a veil between us like a thick layer of black smoke.
Seeing their indignation and hearing their growls, I knew this would never be over unless I did something about it. I didn’t come here for a stalemate. I came here to end this.
I glanced back at Nick and Max but noticed that Holly still stood on swaying legs five feet behind me.
“Hol, what the hell are you doing? Go with Max and Nick. They’ll take you back to the abbey where it’s safe.”
“Lucy,” she whispered, and I recognized the look in her eyes. It was the look you gave someone you know you’ll never see again, and you don’t want the moment to end.
“Shit, Hol. I’m so sorry for not being there for—”
“Stop, Lucy. I still don’t blame you, biotch. I love you like a sister, and you just sacrificed the love of your life for me, and I know you would have done everything you could have if you’d known. Hell, you saved my life. They kept telling me I should have died and wanted to know ho
w I lived. I never said a word, but deep down, I know exactly how.”
She looked directly into my eyes, making sure I understood she knew what I did, giving her my blood that night. It had saved her. What else was it capable of?
She held my gaze with her steely one, and I was in awe of her bravery and how strong and sure she was after what she had been through the past several months.
“Hol, I love you, but you have to go with the guys. And before you argue, do not let Gavin’s death be for nothing. I need you to stay alive.”
She had opened her mouth, but my words stopped her. I felt a twinge of remorse for using that against her, but I needed her to be safe.
“Max, get her out of here. Now!”
Without hesitation, he ran down to where we stood and stopped in front of Holly. “Hey, I’m Max, at your rescue.”
“Holly, and my best friend already beat you to it, so don’t get a hero complex.”
He cast her a second look after first writing her off as a mere damsel. This one was filled with a few more emotions ranging from amusement to the same awe I had for her.
I cleared my throat at the same time Nick did. “Any day now, Max.”
“Seriously, dude, you can get your game on later,” Nick called from the crest of the ridge.
Max shook himself and swooped down to gather Holly in his arms, still holding his flashlight in his hand.
“What the hell? I can walk,” she complained.
“But we need to be running, so this is the best way.” He turned to me and said, “Good luck, Luce. Don’t die.”
Then, he was running up the hill and was out of sight seconds later. Once the rays from their flashlights faded, I reached into my pockets and felt the cool metal, tracing my thumbs over the heart-shaped engravings. Memories of Gavin giving me the knives rolled through me, as well as him giving me bedding and a home and everything I never knew I wanted. And now he wasn’t here.
The army charged forward, the noise of their battle cries rising, but I released my own. It topped any of theirs both in fury and hatred.
Deciding to keep my love knives safely tucked away for later use, I reached for my others. Pulling them free, I became a Tasmanian devil, plunging my blades into anything that brushed against me. I held my own for several minutes before something odd happened. Surrounded by black-eyed, alien-faced vampires, the darkness grew even darker. Literally, it was as if the moon had been switched off, but the sky was filled with clouds, and there was no moonlight.
That could only mean…
Oh, shit!
I bolted for the top of the ridge, dodging and ducking around swinging fists and leg sweeps until I put a small amount of distance between myself and my pursuers.
Reaching the crest, I sucked in a sharp breath. The entire valley and hillside leading up to the abbey was black. The spotlights had been turned off, and I could now here the uproar inside.
Fighting erupted and I could just make out yelling between the Keepers about disarming the captives. They broke free. The stone wall must not have held them like I thought. Max, Holly, and Nick were approaching the door cautiously.
Gun shots rang out from inside, and I jerked but didn’t slow my strides. Were the Keepers shooting at the captives or was it the other way around? A second later, I ushered my friends inside but shielded them behind me.
The scene unfolded before me like a bad dream. A few of the Keepers writhed on the ground, putting pressure on bullet wounds, while the others fought the captives in hand to hand combat. They must have gone straight for the guns once they were freed. Max and Nick rushed in to join the fight.
“Donavan!” I shouted.
“Over here,” he called from the middle of the chaos.
“Get the spotlights back on!”
“These feckers destroyed the main switch. It’s fried!”
No!
Weapons and flashlights were strewn across the floor and over the cots, forgotten and dropped in a hurry to fend off the sudden indoor threat. Skirting the still blazing bonfire, I wrapped an arm around Holly’s waist and moved her to the back of the room. As we passed the door where the captives had escaped from, I saw a body lying underneath a pile of rubble and recognized the black skinny jeans.
“Rachel!”
Releasing Holly, I fell to my knees in front of the rock pile. I brushed the debris off of Rachel and noticed a large gash on her head from where the wall must have fallen on top of her, knocking her out. Her leg was sticking out at an odd angle when I removed the piece of rock smashing it. I couldn’t tell what kind of internal damage was done, but she moaned at the sound of her name.
Her eyes fluttered and met mine before her eyelids sank shut again. “No, come on Rachel, stay awake.”
A hand touched my shoulder and I peered up to meet Holly’s gaze. “Maybe you should try that thing you did for me, Luce.”
I looked back down at Rachel, who moaned again, and realized I had a small window before she was out cold. I didn’t know much about concussions but heard it was bad to fall asleep.
Remembering what I did for Holly and Max, I repeated the process with Rachel and moved her to a nearby cot to heal. “Stay with her, Hol.”
She sat on the adjacent cot and nodded without argument. Shrieks sounded across the room, close to the door we just came through. Assassins poured in, staying far from the fire in the center of the room, but before I could get to them, I watched in terror as they grabbed the nearest Keepers and either snapped their necks or tore into them. There were fifteen of them who dared to come inside, while I was sure the others waited their chance to kill me outside.
I saw red.
Normally, I’d try to push the fury down before I lost control, but I knew from experience that denying those feelings turned them against me, making them stronger until they controlled my body. Ignoring them was the root of my self control issues. So I set that raging fire free, because when it came down to which of us was dying tonight, it wasn’t going to be me who would burn.
“Donavan! Feed the bonfire! Throw everything we have into it. Cots, sleeping bags, I don’t care. Just keep it alive!” I shouted as I rushed forward.
“”I’m on it!” I heard him grunting in his struggle against the two human captives he fought.
“Everyone else, find a goddamned weapon and start shooting it!”
A torch lay burning on the floor beside the fire, and I reached for it as I sprinted across the room. Approaching a female assassin who was in the middle of feeding off one of the German Keepers, I pressed the hot end of the torch to her hair and watched in merciless joy as she went up in a burst of flames. The other assassins took notice and stopped snacking on their victims to focus on me.
“Come and get me. I dare you,” I taunted.
They slowly surrounded me, and when one of them with broad, linebacker shoulders came at me from the front, I swung the torch at him, but the slice of a knife tore through the skin and some of the nerves in my arm, forcing me to drop the torch.
I spun, holding a readied blade in my good hand, and I lodged it deep into the approaching assassin’s chest before pulling it free. He lit up, but by the time I turned back to face my first attacker, I felt a searing pain across my cheek and recoiled.
At a safer distance from the source of pain, I saw the linebacker standing in front of me, holding the same torch I had dropped like a cobra that would strike him any second.
The epic fit of laughter that followed couldn’t be stopped. I braced my hands on my knees for support as it continued to pour out of me. When it died down enough for me to speak, I asked, “Did you just burn me?”
I already felt the melted skin healing and knew it would be reddened instead of scarred by now. “I’m not as flammable as you, douchebag. I’m fucking made of fire. Here’s a little demonstration.”
I bit my wrist and tore a line across my arm, getting a mouthful of hot blood. Lunging forward, I spit it in his face and was stunned when it began to burn him
like holy water. I honestly didn’t expect a reaction simply from contact with skin. I just wanted to spit in his face for fun, but I continued the actual demonstration by gripping one of my knives and running it across the bleeding wound before it closed.
When it was soaked in my blood, I closed the gap between us and shoved it into the linebacker’s neck, watching as he instantly burned to a crisp.
While the other vampires were distracted by my performance, the Keepers gained the upper hand, and I heard an arrow whiz by me, striking an assassin in the arm and ending her. More gunshots were fired. Some went wide, while two other assassins bit the dust.
The remaining vampires looked frantically between each other before they landed their fearful gazes on me.
“What is this?” the one sporting an awful bowl cut sneered. Not that there was such a thing as a good bowl cut.
“I told you my blood is like fire. And each and every bullet, blade, and arrow is covered in it. All it takes is one shot for you tools to go night-night. Who needs an angelic sword when you have angelic blood, right? Now, get the hell out. You weren’t invited to this party.”
They sized me up and calculated their odds but ultimately decided they were too cowardly to stick around. Rushing out the door, they fell back with the rest of the army, who waited outside at a good distance down the hill.
When I turned back, I noticed the fighting among Keepers and captives ceased. The captives stood staring at the wounded, wondering if they were still making the right decision.
This could have been avoided, and I didn’t have it in me to cast blame right this second, but I had to be sure where they stood. “All right, let’s get these captives rounded up and outside with their buddies.”
No one moved.
“Now!”
Keepers started aiming their guns at the vampire wannabes, and I watched and listened as they transformed. They went from hardened inmates inciting a riot to tortured prisoners of war divulging their darkest secrets under the slightest hint of duress.
Beautiful Eternity (The Bloodmarked Trilogy Book 3) Page 29
