by Dianna Hardy
She sighed in irritation. “Don’t start on me, Mr Bipolar. He was saying something important.”
“Didn’t hand you a straw then?”
She stood up, and threw him a glare while she clasped the necklace around her neck. “What is your problem?”
Gwain stood there, still as a statue, then seemed to sag and ran a hand down his face. “Let’s just get out of here. I’m pent up is all.”
She raised her eyebrows. “For ten thousand years?”
“Just over, actually.”
She lightened her tone. “Anything a love-fuck can fix?”
He laughed then, and she found herself relieved. She didn’t want him angry at her – they had to work together. Smiling back at him, she hopped over all the blood until she was by his side.
“Hey,” she said, grabbing his arm. “Do you trust me?”
“What?”
“I can’t do this if you don’t trust me.”
Recognition lit his eyes at her words, and she couldn’t repress a lustful shiver at what they must have looked like in the prison, him pinning her against the wall, ripping her top off… Christ almighty, now that she thought about it without the wonderful (– not –) bonus of feeling like she was being sawn into pieces, it seemed kind of hot.
Down girl.
“Trust works both ways. You know, between you and the smoothie,” she gestured at Abaddon, “I’m getting the impression that angels don’t have an easy time with their emotions.”
Gwain said nothing.
She huffed. So fucking male.
“My life has changed drastically in a very short space of time. Not just changed – it’s realigned itself to some kind of cosmic order I’m not fully awakened to yet, but it’s coming in hard and fast, my eyes are being opened, and you’re a big part of that… But don’t think for one second that this Mary’s dead. I don’t know what I was before, or what I’m turning into, but that was then, and this is now. Whatever happens, I was still born when I went through that abyss thing, and I was born human, with human needs. I have human thoughts and feelings.” She took in a deep breath. “I love you.”
His eyes jumped to hers in surprise.
“Yeah, I do. And it freaks me out to say that because I’ve never been the instant-love type. But this isn’t instant, is it? This is ancient, and there isn’t a damn thing I can do about it. Well, I don’t care how ancient it is, or what amount of bonding or merging is involved. Love isn’t enough and never has been. Without trust, we’re nothing… And I trust you.”
He stared at her for what seemed like an age. As usual, she couldn’t hazard a guess as to what he was thinking.
Finally, what looked like admiration settled across his features, and he nodded once. “Me’inín tu.”
Her ancient, awakening self understood the words: I trust you.
She smiled. “Da.” Good. “Let’s go.”
Side by side, they entered the far end of the cave to find Sophia huddled in a corner looking utterly miserable. “We going yet?” she asked, sullenly.
“Yes. Sorry. I couldn’t lose this necklace.”
She nodded as she stared at her necklace, but looked pale. And who could blame her. She’d spent the last God-knows-how-long burning in a pit of Hell-fire.
Gwain hunched down beside her. “Get onto my back. Stay tight between the wings. They’ll come up around you, but shouldn’t touch you. You’ll need to hold onto my neck as your legs will have no purchase, but I’ll hold onto your arms from the front, and I won’t let go.”
She did as he asked, and then he straightened up.
“And where do you want me?” asked Mary.
His eyes told her exactly where he wanted her. Thankfully, he kept those thoughts to himself – just as well, or they’d never get out of here. “You’ll need to piggy-back me from the front. Your legs will be just under my wings. Put your arms around my neck, and lock them around Sophia if you can. I’m gonna fly fast, and it’ll get faster the closer we are to the human world. It’s hard to judge time when travelling through dimensions, but I reckon it’ll feel about fifteen minutes before we hit the top, so to speak.”
Mary nodded, then hoisted herself onto Gwain, pressed into him, and locked her arms around Sophia as best as she could.
Gwain’s breath tickled her ear. “Very nice,” he mumbled. So she squeezed her legs tighter around his arse for good measure.
He let out a little groan she hoped only she could hear. “You’re gonna pay for that later,” he whispered.
She smiled against his cheek, his wings reached out far either side of them, and then the three of them were speeding upwards.
There was no denying that being wrapped around Gwain’s body was a unique kind of delightful, second only to the sensation of flying, but then maybe it was the whole ‘love’ thing. She’d always seen herself as too tough for love, too hard a nut to crack – she’d never let anyone in before; had never wanted to. Doing so would have meant explaining why she cut herself; why she woke up screaming in anguish most nights of the week; why the man she allowed into her bed could never give her pleasure. Owing to a dramatic hand of fate, none of those concerns existed with Gwain, so her barriers against love were irrelevant … he’d broken through them, whether or not she was ready for battle.
Around them, the dark seemed to fade a little as they neared the surface. There came a point when she could no longer look up, they were going so fast, so she ducked and tucked her head into the crook of his neck, swallowing hard to unblock her ears.
“Stay down!” shouted Gwain. “There’s no open gateway. I have to crash through the earth.” He held one arm out in a fist, just like Superman, as his other hand gripped Sophia’s small arms.
Mary tightened her hold on both him and the girl; willed him on as she heard him roar his body into the man-shaped rocket it had become; screamed as she felt him spear through the rock of the planet from its underbelly… But it was Abaddon’s words that played in her mind when they finally broke through the surface: when at rock bottom, there’s only one way left to go.
Chapter Seven
“Did you feel that?” asked Pueblo, clearly nervous about something she hadn’t been able to grasp at since he’d arrived half an hour ago. “It felt like a mini-earthquake.”
“I didn’t feel anything,” Amy replied.
The others shook their heads in agreement. They hadn’t felt anything either.
Pueblo frowned and leaned back in his chair, but his hand remained firmly wrapped around her thigh where she sat next to him, in a way that told her he was ready to defend or die.
Karl and Elena resumed their talk opposite them, while Katarra just looked bored out of her mind.
Amy prodded Pueblo with a finger. “Hey,” she whispered. “What’s up with you?”
“I felt something.”
“No, I’m talking about you acting all protective.”
“I’m always protective of you.”
“Yeah, but in an ‘all other guys beware’ kind of way, not in a ‘we’re about to be attacked’ kind of way.”
He shiftily looked around as if her words might trigger Armageddon, then he focused on her, concern etched in his countenance. “Amy, is everything okay? Is there something you need to tell me?”
Her breath hitched in her throat. Did Elena say something? No, she couldn’t have done. He’d only arrived a short while ago, and she’d seen Elena speak barely two words to him as they’d all busied themselves making coffees and teas for the big meeting. “Er…”
“All right,” called out Elena, “can we all start?”
“We’ll talk later,” said Pueblo, quietly to her, before turning his full attention to what Elena was saying.
Later? We’ll be disappearing into another dimension to save Elena’s mum later. When ‘later’ did he have in mind?
She couldn’t help but feel a little relieved about their looming rescue mission. She knew she needed to talk to Pueblo, but she felt torn apart
inside. She didn’t want to confide in him that she had all her old memories from an entire life involving another man until she felt a bit stronger – was that so bad?
Elena placed a small, plastic tub, with a pharmaceutical label wrapped around it, in the middle of the kitchen table.
“What’s that?” asked Pueblo, his tone shifting from anxious to not-amused-in-the-slightest.
“Zimovane.”
“Sleeping pills? I don’t take drugs.”
“You won’t be grinding it down and snorting it,” shot back Elena.
“I don’t take any drugs.”
“This is the only way we can all get into the Shanka world as a unit. I’ve magically imbued these pills. It’s the lowest strength you can get on prescription – which is why it’s Zimovane and not Temazepam – but the magic will make it more potent and it will keep us all connected when we reach the other side. It’ll ensure we fall asleep together and wake up together, so no one gets lost. And,” she added, begrudgingly, “it’s the only way I can get the demon in me to sleep at the moment. I’ve spent weeks working this out.” She stared at Pueblo, imploringly, with those big brown eyes. Amy had to hand it to her – Elena had the pleading look down to a fine art. She couldn’t figure out if came from the virgin or the succubus.
“Please, Pueblo, my mum’s been in there for a month now… I need you. You’re physically strong, you’re a demon and you can shift…”
Amy could tell he didn’t want to swallow any synthetic pill. Hell, he read the back of food packages for anything artificial – her kitchen cupboards had had a major restock over the past two weeks – but she also knew he had a soft spot for mothers. He couldn’t save his own, but he could help to save Elena’s.
His jaw clenched under the weight of Elena’s watery stare. His eyes flicked over to Karl who just smiled at him, bemused, as if to say, ‘You’ve lost, mate. When she looks at you like that, you’ve lost.’
“So what’s the plan?” he muttered in defeat.
Elena beamed a hundred watts at him, then launched into her plan. “We all swallow one of these pills at the same time. It should be pretty fast acting because of the magic coating it, and we’ll all be connected through that magic. I’m practised at dreaming – lucid dreaming and astral projection, I mean. As soon as we’re all asleep, I’ll be able to enter dream state, and my doing so will pull you all into dream state too because of the connection. Then we can enter the Shanka dimension together. Once we’re there, I’ll be able to find my mum using a location spell – actually, it’s a version of the location spell—”
“The Lumen Umbra?” asked Amy.
Elena nodded.
“Good. It’s easy, quick and accurate.”
“Yep. Although, this is the part of my plan that is no longer … er … planned. Once I know where my mum is … well, I want to go in and get her, but I don’t know what happens next in terms of obstacles. There could be Shanka guarding her, or anything we’ve not allowed for. My thoughts are that Karl and I go to her, and bring her out, while Pueblo and Katarra deal with any demons that get in our way.”
Katarra yawned.
“Oh, am I boring you?” Elena directed at her.
“God, yes!” she exclaimed, as if finally thanking her for noticing. “Let’s just go to sleep already.”
“What about me?” asked Amy.
Elena fidgeted. “Well, I need someone at this end to make sure our bodies are safe, and to wake us all up if something goes wrong.”
Amy crossed her arms in indignation. That sounded an awful lot like a dismissal. “And that someone is me? Why? Because I’m not half-demon, or half-angel?”
Elena’s guilty expression said it all.
“I’ve got Pueblo’s blood in me—”
“That doesn’t make you any less human—”
“And my magic is second to none, by the way – I had a damn good teacher.”
Oh, shit. She’d just gone and flung that out there like bad diarrhoea.
Elena looked stung, and Pueblo noticeably stiffened by her side.
Great. Let’s have another think about how to tell him my little secret, shall we? “I’m sorry … but I’m pissed off. You’re all going in there, and you want me to stay here by myself while I … what? Twiddle my thumbs? Play Scrabble with my own reflection?”
Pueblo made a ‘humph’ sound, and looked even more worried than he did before. “Maybe leaving Amy alone isn’t such a good idea.”
“Hey! I’ve done okay on my own the past twenty-seven years, thank you very much!” Although given what had happened to her, that statement sounded a little ridiculous. She glared past the absurdity of it, and silently dared anyone to disagree.
Surprisingly, it was Karl who reached across the table, and took her hand in his. She was immediately reminded of the first time she’d met him when he’d turned up, very much not dead, at Mary’s flat, and took her in a grateful embrace as if she were family. The same benevolent expression that he’d worn then, lined his face now. There was something about his compassionate nature that called to her own. She instantly calmed.
“I recommend Cluedo over Scrabble, and Monopoly over thumb-twiddling.” He smiled, his eyes holding an unforced patience she lacked.
The patience of angels, she thought to herself. He really is how I’ve always imagined angels to be.
“But joking aside, you are a powerful witch, Amy. Whether you’re human or not, we need someone capable of bringing us back should things go tits up. We’ll put a protection shield around the house too, but the four of us getting trapped in the Shanka’s world is not an option. You know as many spells as Elena, and you can think straight in an emergency.”
He held her gaze, waiting for the answer that he hadn’t actually asked for.
Damn, he’s good. “You’re lucky I brought a book with me.”
His grin was one hundred percent charming, and his eyes were one hundred percent grateful. He squeezed her hand in silent thanks, and she found herself smiling back.
If she was being honest with herself, she was exhausted – she had been for the last week. Heading off into a dangerous shadow world was not in the least bit appealing to her bone-tired body and mind.
“Thanks, Amy,” offered Elena, quietly.
She sighed, but nodded. “Seriously though, are you sure you don’t just want to write your mother back here with the Pen?”
“Oh, I’ve thought about it, believe me. But the last time I wrote with it, I was controlled by a Shanka and killed a plane full of people. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if something like that happened again … and imagine how my mum would feel if she was the reason I used that Pen and something bad happened…” she trailed off.
Karl took her hand.
She cleared her throat and looked up. “Besides, I think Gwain’s got it. He carries it around in his pocket.”
“You’re joking!” Amy exclaimed.
“He reckons that’s the last place anyone would look.”
“Reckless,” mumbled Karl, under his breath.
Elena shrugged. “So … is everyone okay with the plan?”
“In so much as we can be,” said Pueblo. “How do we bring your mum back from that side?”
“She needs to be asleep. She needs to take one of these pills at her end when I find her, then when we all come back, she’ll automatically be pulled back with us.”
He nodded. “We going in tonight?”
“Yes. In a couple of hours I hope.”
Katarra groaned. “Two hours? Why are we waiting? What are we going to do for two hours?”
“I’m so glad you asked,” quipped Karl, as he reached down for a pile of what looked like research papers, on the floor by his chair, and hauled them up. He let them fall heavily onto the table. “We’re going to talk about prophecies…”
Everyone looked at the papers in trepidation.
“…And the end of the world.”
~*~
Mary had assu
med they would reappear in the human dimension in the same place she had disappeared – back at the prison. Instead, they hurtled through the road directly under Wellington Arch, in Hyde Park, not too far from where they’d all closed Elena’s portal. Atop the arch loomed the angel of peace statue, descending upon the chariot of war.
How very fitting.
Gwain half flew and half fell against the wall of the arch, coming to a halt as his body slumped forwards. To his credit, he didn’t drop either Sophia or herself.
It was night time, although judging by the still dying tinge of traffic fumes in the air, Mary guessed it wasn’t too late – perhaps around 10 p.m. It was hard to know – London never slept. At least the arch was closed off to the public now, which meant that most people were on the other side of the park. Still, they’d literally broken through the crust of the planet, and somebody nearby was bound to have heard or felt that. They should probably get out of here quick before anyone saw them in the state they were in … and because it was bloody freezing. Puffs of mist left her mouth with her every breath – it couldn’t be much above zero degrees. She could also smell the onset of rain.
“Gwain,” said Mary, disentangling herself from him. She searched his body for any injury, not that it was easy to tell new injuries from old ones at the moment – on either of them. “You okay?”
He managed a nod, although it seemed the ascent had taken it out of him, and his right hand was a bloody mess.
She went to help Sophia off him. The demon was rigid, and her eyes were squeezed shut.
“Hey,” said Mary, gently. “We’re back.”
“We are?” she whispered, her eyes still closed. “We made it?”
“Yeah, we did.” She took hold of the girl’s arms and prised them off Gwain’s neck, then carried her to the ground.
She cautiously lifted her lids, took in her surroundings, then stood up straight. “I have to get back to my tribe, but I’ll be back soon.”
Before either of them could say a word, she’d dematerialised.
“Not even a fucking thank you,” muttered Gwain.
“Handy trick that. I could do with that ability right now, what with us looking the way we do and my skin about to turn blue from hypothermia.” She clenched her jaw to stop her teeth from chattering.
