“Please, don’t send us out there. They’ll kill us!” they begged me, one after the other.
I stalked toward them until I stood a foot in front of the crowd. “Isn’t that what I tried telling you? Do you really want to survive the night, because you weren’t acting like it a minute ago?”
Their heads nodded emphatically in answer.
“Because if any of you are still thinking about being one of those monsters, there’s the door.” I swept my arm toward it. “If you’re staying, then you won’t try to attack us again. I’m out of patience, so if you’re still thinking about immortality, I’ll kill you myself,” I threatened.
I wouldn’t, but they didn’t know me.
Turning away from them, I had more important things to deal with at the moment. “Holly, Max, Nick!”
“We’re good. Over here!” Max called, and I saw him standing close to Holly and Rachel, who was paler than usual but alert and on two feet.
He and Nick were busy throwing stuff into the fire. Nick smiled like a little girl when he chucked a cot into the flames. The kid should seek professional help.
“I need the rest of you to find every battery powered light in this place and turn it on.”
Moving around the room, I went to every unmoving body on the ground and found eight severely injured and eleven already deceased, including some of the original human army who had switched to our side.
I swallowed a lump of rising bile. The guilt would have to wait.
I set to work on the injured, giving them a dose of my blood and praying it could work more than one miracle tonight. Welcoming the sadness, I let it consume me. It morphed into something darker, until there was nothing left inside except my old friend anger.
When it was just the two of us again like old times, I sprinted out the door and faced the entire army sent to destroy me.
25
Out of all my bright ideas, this might have topped the list. At least top five.
God, I love fighting.
Maybe I needed to go to therapy with Nick.
Jostled in every direction, I struggled to keep my footing, but I held my ground as blades tore through my clothes, my flesh, and other vitals. When they hissed in pain at my splattered blood, they grew wary but never stopped the onslaught. I blocked or caught most of the weapons aimed at me, turning them against the vampire wielding them, but I knew without looking I was a disastrous, mangled mess of purple and blue splotches.
It was madness and it was bliss. So many months of pain and grief culminated into one giant ball of fury. The sound of Keepers sobbing and mourning the dead only fueled my rampage. I took immense joy from tossing these evil leaches inside the range of flashlights and watching them burst in midair like a Fourth of July firework display.
But they never stopped coming, and at this rate, the logical part of my brain realized they would eventually beat me down. Until then, I would keep fighting tooth and nail to kill as many as I could. A question nagged at the back of my mind as I fought.
Had my father already escaped with the Sword?
This was my one shot at him before he disappeared with it forever. I’d never be able to catch him again unless he wanted to be caught.
As if conjuring him with my thoughts, I was brutally yanked backward by my shredded jacket in the middle of winding up for a right jab. Airborne for a full three seconds, I sailed over the army, landing roughly on the edge of the peninsula, directly above the churning waves. Glancing over the edge of the cliff, I swore I saw my own death in those dark depths below. Damned depressing sea!
My father stepped into view, and it was just us out on the bluffs, his army hundreds of feet away. I liked these odds better, but there was the small detail of him holding the Sword of Michael.
“Where’s your buddy? Did you drop him like a bad habit so soon?” I asked, keeping my senses alert for any surprise attacks from Shane.
“He’s probably halfway to England by now. It’s just you and me, Lucille. Now hand it over before I lose my patience.”
As he spoke, I saw an opening and took it without considering consequences. Letting one of my throwing knives sail, it was perfectly lined up with the target. On his last breath, he sucked in a breath and looked down to find the blade sticking out of his chest.
He smiled down at it as he gripped it with his free hand and slid it out of his heart with a wince. “My poor, ignorant daughter. You should know better.”
“If you can’t be killed, what else could you possibly want from me?”
He took a slow step forward, then another, stalking me. I didn’t back up, but there were only about five feet between the edge of the cliff and myself. Limited options seemed to be tonight’s theme.
His wavy, dark hair blew in and out of his crimson eyes from the ocean breeze, but he zeroed in on me with bridled fury swirling in those demonic depths. “Because, Lucille, without the medallion of Constantine, I am walking around with a live grenade. The thing that gives me invincibility also happens to be my Achilles heel. But you know this already so stop stalling.”
He swung at me, and I ducked underneath it, preparing for the next attack. He retaliated with a backswing that I barely dodged, feeling it cut another piece of my jacket.
When he swiped one more time, I tucked and somersaulted backward out of his range. “I’m not giving you a damned thing,” I spat.
I climbed to my feet, which were planted only a half step away from the edge. If I leaned back just slightly, I could look straight down at the pounding waves hammering the jagged rocks.
He laughed. “I didn’t think you would. You have been very lucky up until now, Lucille. How you’ve managed to stay alive all this time still amazes me. You don’t have my strength, but you are like me in that you wouldn’t give up that coin in order to keep yourself safe from my Sword.”
There it was. My method of deception. I’d been trying to find his weakness this whole time, and it was so simple.
It wasn’t my strength or my luck that got me this far. It was my wrath. My wrath has been slaughtering evil for years, all while keeping a cold smile on my pretty little face. And he was right to assume I wouldn’t give up the coin so easily to him.
But I wasn’t like him. I may have stolen a few tricks from him, but I wouldn’t keep the only chance at salvation to save my own ass like the selfish bastard he was.
“I don’t have it.” I purposely removed all bravado from my voice, wanting him to call my bluff, and he did.
“Come on, Lucille, you can’t even lie well. Give it to me and I’ll let you live. That medallion may protect you from the Sword, but it won’t stop me from ripping your heart out with my bare hands. I wonder how it would save you from me cutting your head off with this thing. Shall we find out?” He pressed the Sword to my throat, a pinprick away from death’s grasp.
I stared into his eyes, and they reflected my destiny. It looked bleak as I witnessed the shattered pieces of my eternity messily strewn at his feet. I saw all my failures taunting me, welcoming me into those fiery pits. My hell awaited, and the gleam in his eyes told me he was more than happy to deliver me.
Father of the year nominee right here, folks.
But someone once told me prophecies could be interpreted in many ways, and I was becoming a firm believer in making my own destiny. This was where one of my father’s tricks would have to work in my favor.
“Okay, I have it. Get that thing out of slicing range,” I demanded, not batting an eyelash while lying like a true Shadowmarked. He’d be so proud if he only knew.
“See, Lucille, how easily you cave when it comes to survival. Your luck has only carried you so far. Now your self preservation must make the hard decisions, am I right?”
My eyes flicked to his grip on the Sword when he glanced at the horizon behind me. His grip remained strong, but he lowered his arm to hang loosely at his side.
“You want it? Here, it’s yours.” I pulled the spare coin I swiped from the chest out of
my pocket, and his eyes flashed crimson sparks as they widened.
I studied it more closely. What if all the coins held the same power of immunity? Or what if the one on my charm bracelet was one of the fakes, and this, or any of the others, was the real one?
No, I couldn’t afford to believe that. Cardinal Trevisani assured me the one on my bracelet held a special kind of power. He had felt it. I felt its comfort.
Glancing back at my father, I waited and watched. He leaned forward as if drawn by its power, and he was practically salivating for a taste of the ultimate supremacy it offered. That was the exact look I was hoping for.
I flipped the coin into the air, watching his eyes follow it. He stepped forward to catch it, and I drifted to the left, taking a firm hold on his sword hand. The moment his hand clasped the coin, he turned his head back to me, eyes widening in disbelief.
Time slowed, and his gloating smile turned down when he faced me, realizing the coin’s uselessness. Blood dripped from the gash on his cheek. He had twisted right into the path of his sword, the Sword of Michael. He hadn’t even registered my grip over his hand, guiding it upward, pointing it back in his direction, because his own lust for power, and his selfishness, clouded that self preservation and survival instinct he was so proud of. That was his weakness, and I was giddy with the chance to exploit it.
Focused on his demon eyes, I leaned in and whispered, “At least my weaknesses give me strength to overcome. What have yours given you, father dearest?”
“Where is it?” he hissed. He meant the real coin, the one thing that would have ensured my survival.
“Come on. You still haven’t figured it out?” I gave him the same look Sophie gives me when trying to explain tech related things. “I gave my only lifeline to the one person I couldn’t live without. Right, honey?”
I turned my head to see Gavin approaching, walking along the edge of the cliff, dripping wet from his swim, his eyes boring into me while shaking his head in disbelief.
“Apparently so, gorgeous.” A resigned kind of annoyance dripped from those words.
I was so attuned to him, I knew where he was the whole time, and I played through each of his emotions after he was stabbed, sensing his confusion until he landed on understanding and a bit of hurt. I knew he was pissed I hadn’t told him, but he was mostly relieved.
Glancing back at my father’s open-mouthed expression, I chuckled. “Don’t know how you missed that. Enjoy hell.”
I watched the slow build of heat under his skin. Blackened cracks formed just beneath the surface like his insides were charring. Pieces of his skin turned into ash and flaked away, floating up toward the sky.
In one powerful kick, I sent him flying over the cliff side just as he burst into flames in a great blast of sparks. Good riddance. There was no love lost for the demon who took hold of my father. I mourned my family for a long time, in my own way, but I found a new family who filled that emptiness inside me and allowed me to move on from the grief.
I turned toward Gavin, committing every detail to memory again. I loved staring at this man. Despite what I put him through, a soft smile played on his lips, and those blue eyes were fathomless, offering me everything I could ever want. When I looked into Gavin’s eyes, I saw a different existence than the one I saw in my father’s, one he protected and cherished, keeping my eternity close to his heart, where nothing could corrupt or destroy its beauty.
His shrugged out of his water-logged coat and his smile shifted, turning down. He held up his wrist, rolling his drenched shirt sleeve back, revealing my black shoelace wrapped several times around that masculine wrist and interlaced with the charm bracelet I fastened around it while in Italy. Right there in the middle of it was the coin that saved his life. He shot me a stern look, scolding me with another shake of his head for not telling him. I had a lot of explaining to do, but right now that wasn’t what I needed.
Launching myself at him, he caught me in his arms and squeezed with all his muscle. I lifted my legs and locked them securely around his waist, not caring that his wet clothes were soaking my thermal and jeans.
“You did it, Lucy.”
I released a long awaited sigh of relief. “I can’t believe my plan actually worked.”
We were finally free of my father, the Ghost of St. Louis who haunted me for months and turned out to be a ghost from my past I never confronted. He was the root of my torment, even when I didn’t know him.
I hated myself for so long for what I thought I was, or would become. But in the end, he gave me a shining example of what I wasn’t, and never would be. He showed me what a real monster looked like. I guess I owed him thanks for redirecting my hate, but staying true to who I always was, that was all my doing. He may have given me a push into my journey of self discovery, but it was my humanity that kept me good. And that, I owed to my friends, my family, my home.
My palms found his face and held on as I brought my mouth to his waiting lips in a searing kiss that I almost lost myself in, but before it progressed into something more, screams sounded from the abbey.
Among others, I heard Holly’s raw, scratched voice crying out in panic or pain. I couldn’t tell, but that sound would never cease to plague my nightmares. Jumping out of Gavin’s arms, I grabbed the forgotten Sword and flashed to my friends with him right behind me.
The abbey came into view, and I slammed to a halt, tearing up the grass under my boots as I skidded ten feet. Shane stood ahead of the army, which had advanced to about twenty paces from the abbey walls where the miniscule lights kept them at bay.
In the corner of my eye, I saw them scanning for any weak spots in the Keepers’ defenses, but my focus was on Shane and the knife he held to Holly’s throat. Would this ever end?
I mean, I had wanted to end this tonight, but why was it taking so long? Seriously, it felt like tonight had already lasted a month.
“Lucy, we really need to stop meeting like this. It’s getting kind of old, don’t you think?” His voice sounded bored and a bit too confident. In his mind, he already won.
Holly mashed her lips together to keep from whimpering, and her silver eyes pierced me with her acquiescence. I hated seeing sacrifice where it shouldn’t be. She shouldn’t be going through this again and again. We’d been through too much, and she should know I’d never let her die when I had the power to do something about it.
I glanced back at Shane, calculating. Unlike my father, Shane’s weakness was more basic. His weakness was his stupidity, and I was fairly certain it would take minimal effort on my part to exploit it.
“Hand over the Sword and I might not kill your friend.”
“If you kill her, do you really see yourself getting out of here alive? You’d be giving up your only bargaining chip.”
“I have an army that says I will.”
“You have an army? Tell me Shane, do you trust them to have your back? I think you might just be scared of losing to me in a fight. You’ve been all talk since I met you but haven’t had the balls to face me.”
“What about when I almost killed you in St. Louis? You needed Loverboy to save you.”
“I had just turned vampire and was a little slow to come into my power. That was hardly a fair fight. You couldn’t take me in a fair fight.”
“It’s hardly a fair fight when you have that sword.”
Right you are, douchebag.
Holly gasped when the knife jerked in Shane’s hand, cutting a thin scratch at her throat.
Life was funny sometimes. One minute you’re at the mercy of some wannabe sociopath, only to realize in the next moment, the so-called chains he holds you captive with are made of wet paper towels. This asshole had no control over my fears, my guilt, my humanity… over me. He was just a puppet guided by my father’s strings. By himself, he didn’t stand a chance. And that made me all kinds of warm and glowy inside.
I tossed the Sword into the empty patch of grass between us, where it landed thirty feet in front of him. His eyes
stayed glued to it, and he was practically drooling. I flicked my eyes to Gavin, who stood just behind me, gesturing toward Shane. When he looked, he was seeing what I saw and glance back at me to nod in recognition. He had my back and knew the score.
“I don’t want it. I like my odds just the way they are. The way they always have been.”
Shane’s eyes shot to me when I spoke, searching for a trick, but he wouldn’t find one. I deliberately took a step back and began a painfully slow walk in a circle around him. Gavin edged toward the other side of him, but Shane watched me with hawk eyes. As I moved to his other side, I became intensely aware of the snarling assassin army that was now at my back. This put Shane in between me and the Sword, which lay in a shadowy spot of grass close to the abbey.
I could only assume the army at my back wasn’t attacking because they were equally riveted by the spectacle, or they were still wary of my acidic blood. Either way, they wouldn’t wait much longer to pounce.
Shane’s eyebrows arched high before he flashed me a cocky grin. “You have got to be the stupidest person on the planet.”
Just take the bait, asshole.
I gripped the cool metal in my pocket, running my thumb up and down the carved hearts.
He backed Holly up until he stood over the Sword, and when he glanced at Gavin to his side, I mouthed for Holly to get down. Her eyes widened before narrowing in acknowledgement and newfound courage. As soon as he released her to stoop down for the Sword, she dropped to the ground and rolled away.
With his exposed back to me, I made my move. He jerked and stopped bending toward the Sword. I slowly lowered my arm. Gavin flashed to him in the brief moment of pause and drove a fist into Shane’s chest cavity, or at least that was what I assumed was happening. With his back still to me, I could only go off of Shane’s involuntary twitches and gurgling sounds.
“She’s not stupid. You’re predictable. And you lost, motherfucker.” So eloquent, yet so simplistic. Not bad. The menacing gravel in his voice was a nice touch, too. A man after my own heart.
Beautiful Eternity (The Bloodmarked Trilogy Book 3) Page 30
