I was also reaching the end of the lake—or the end of the open space. I faced the exit pipe ahead of me. It was bad enough being in that dark nasty-ass water near the surface, but I sure as shit wasn't going to purposefully dive into a pipe that I couldn't see the end of. I built up speed and pulled away from the bottom's edge, and then exploded upward and out of the lake—and she was right on my tail.
But at least she wasn't going to get the Eidolon.
When I turned to head back to the fight, one of her wings came at me again. I ducked it, barely, but was knocked back by another one. And then another one. The third one that struck knocked the wind out of me, and I fell. I was amazed at how weak I felt. Why was I so weak?
What the hell was wrong with me? Usually I had all kinds of power at my disposal because I could draw from the Abysmal Plane. But I was tired, just like I normally would be as a human.
I did manage to stop my descent and glide away from the Cherubim. But she was coming at me. I took in a deep breath, getting ready to Scream at her, when something grabbed me from behind and clamped a hand over my mouth. Another arm went around my arms, and something pulled my hair back.
Whatever had hold of me tumbled with me in midair until we struck solid ground. I rolled for a bit, and whatever had me rolled off of me. I tried to get back up on my feet, my wings beating furiously, but my knees were skinned all to hell, I was bruised, and it felt like my head was going to come off my neck. I hadn't taken a physical beating like this in a while.
"Zoë!" Joe called out to me.
I turned to see him inside of a pretty-good-sized blue-white dome. He had his hands out, holding the shield in place. Daniel was inside with him, and they both looked a little worse than usual. Joe, just out of the hospital, looked like he was heading right back into it, with a bloody lip, bruised face, and ripped clothing. Daniel looked just as bad. His trench coat was gone and he was holding his left arm at an odd angle. I got the feeling the only thing protecting them at that moment was Joe's magic.
They were surrounded by Powers.
I wasn't paying attention—and that was stupid of me. Something kicked me, and I flew up and then down against the stone railing of the bridge over Lake Clara Meer. I cracked my head against it and saw stars.
This shouldn't be happening!
The Cherubim stood in front of me then, no longer quite the spectacle, but still impressive. She still had my face, but her hair was completely white, as were her jeans, boots, and long suit jacket. Her eyes were crystal blue. I felt as if I'd been used as a punching bag, and she looked…radiant.
She leaned over me.
"Zoë!" Daniel called out to me.
Zoë, you have to escape. We can't fight a Cherubim.
Now they tell me.
But this one was close to my face now, nose to nose, and she reached out and took hold of the white streak in my hair. That's when I realized I wasn't Wraith anymore. I was just plain old human me. And I was in some freakin'-ass pain.
"This is all there is?" she said in that deep, graveled voice. "This is the touch of Ethereal? No…I see it now." She dropped my hair and touched my dad's coat. "Ah…so very clever, that little Virtue. To place an Ethereal mantel over you. You do realize this is what sapped your power, don't you? This is Ethereal, and if you become an Abysmal being, it works as a sieve where all your strength and power flow out. So tell me…did your father tell you about his plan?"
Oh…God…geez…no…not again.
"It seems Adiran wishes the Seraphim to win, so he made it easier for us to take you—"
That's when Daniel came out of nowhere and actually knocked the Cherubim off its booted heels. I could have cheered, if I wasn't in so much pain. She fell on her ass, and the Powers came forward to charge him. But she held up her hand, and they stopped. Joe remained behind them, inside of his shield, and I hoped like hell he stayed there.
"This Revenant is mine." She was instantly on her feet. I didn't see her get up—she was just…there, facing Daniel, who was standing in front of me.
I could hear Inanna screaming at him to get away. But he wasn't listening to her.
"Daniel…"
"No. I am not going to abandon you, Zoë. They can't always have what they want."
"Shut up," the Cherubim said as she flicked her finger. A chunk of Daniel's arm flew off and with it a splattering of blood struck my chest. Daniel grabbed his arm but didn't cry out.
I gasped. "No…"
"You think you can go up against me, Inanna? Do you recognize me? Do you?"
"Yes," Inanna said through Daniel's voice. She'd taken over. Good, maybe she'll get the fucking hell out of there. "I recognize you, Gabriel."
Gabriel?
Wait… the Gabriel?
Yes. Zoë, you must shift to Wraith and vanish. Please. I'm expendable. You are not.
Like hell I'll just vanish and leave them all like this. Instead, I started the painful and tortuous act of removing my dad's coat, cursing him…again. He played me…he played me! He'd lured me into a false sense of trust so he could do this to me!
Gabriel flicked her fingers again. And another chunk of flesh flew off of Daniel's neck. It landed on the concrete beside me with a splat. The chunk was the size of my fist. "It is better if you just run along, Inanna. And take your little Witch with you. We have a more serious problem on our hands—"
The wound began a slow process of healing—but I knew if Daniel didn't drink soon, the hunger that came with that kind of regeneration was going to drive Inanna back. But at the moment she was in control—so why didn't she make him run? "You mean the Dominion who took the Guardian. You want the Eidolons before they can find them so they can't manipulate the book."
The Cherubim looked angry. I made a mental note not to make that face, 'cause it looked evil. "How did you know that?"
"Because we have friends in the Ethereal Plane, Gabriel," Inanna/Daniel said. "The Seraphim is panicking, isn't he? He needs that book to stop her from taking back what was stolen!"
"Silence!" Gabriel made a much larger gesture, and this time Daniel's head snapped to the right, and then the left, and then the right, and then his whole body flew into the railing at my left.
That's when I saw someone climbing over the railing a few feet away, coming in from the lake. As he ambled over to us, his face caught my attention, and I froze.
OH DEAR GOD.
The man coming toward us was Karl Gibbons. In the flesh.
He didn't stop when he saw me. Instead, he went straight to Gabriel. She held her hand out while she stared at Daniel. Gibbons put an all-too-familiar blue stone in her hand.
The Cherubim couldn't go in the water, but a dead man could.
He'd gone in and retrieved it while she kept us busy. Sonofafuckingbitch. But if Gabriel, not Zacharel, controlled Karl, did that mean a Cherubim was responsible for the orphaned Powers, rather than the Dominion?
Gabriel had ordered Karl to kill and rape?
Daniel struggled to get up, but he'd lost a lot of blood from those wounds. His face was swollen where she'd struck him, but he gave me a smile. "Please…try and survive…no matter what happens."
What did he mean by that?
Gabriel moved past me to Daniel and knelt down in front of him. Before I, or Joe, or even Daniel could react, she'd slipped the Eidolon over his neck. "I banish you, Inanna. Leave this body, never to return."
Joe yelled and dropped his shield. Immediately the others were on him, swinging swords, and he was fighting back, a mixture of gunfire and flashing magic.
Daniel's body shuddered, and I could hear Inanna screaming inside of his head. She was fighting the power of the stone, fighting it with everything she had. Daniel held on with the little strength that remained, but when it was over, she was gone, and Daniel lay on his back, his chest heaving up and down, his eyes staring up at the sky.
"That's much better." Gabriel looked at me. "Now…I could do two things. I could let Gibbons finish what he started th
at night, or I could just let Daniel continue on his natural course."
I didn't understand. I looked from Gibbons to Daniel. Hell, I'd rather take Daniel.
And then I remembered what Daniel's course had been before Inanna had claimed him.
Daniel sat up slowly and lowered his head. I pushed myself up against the concrete. I was so damn tired when I finally got Dad's coat off of me. Once it was gone my strength returned….but I couldn't shift. I tried again to unfurl my wings, but…nothing.
"Residual effects," Gabriel said as she stood and watched me for a few minutes. "That, and we've successfully cut the Phantasm off from the Physical Plane."
What? I reached out with that other part of me, and she was right. I couldn't sense him. I looked down at my arm, and his mark was gray, like a faded tattoo. What…how had she done that?
"Zoë…" Daniel said as he pushed himself up onto his feet. Blood from his wounds covered his chest, neck and dripped from the fingers of his damaged arm. "It's so very nice to see you again. Now…where were we? Oh…yes…you were next on my list to kill." He looked at Gabriel, who gave him a gun. He loaded a bullet in the chamber. "May I?"
"Let's give her a few minutes," Gabriel looked at me. "I'm sorry, Zoë, but you're just going to have to…run!"
Chapter Twenty-Seven
I ran. I ran as fast as I could given the state I was in. I ducked past a couple walking hand-in-hand and then dove into a cluster of trees. I had to get Daniel as far away from people as possible. He was insane again. And he would kill if he believed someone was going to get in his way.
I stumbled once and landed on my left knee. My leg went numb from the knee down, but I managed to pull myself up by grabbing onto a skinny birch. I was still by the lake, running in the woods there as fast as I could. I called out to Geist, to TC, to anyone I trusted.
But I did not call out to my father.
He was the reason I was in this shape. Offering me his coat as a means of making me feel there was a nice guy in there…and then pretending to care about Mom. Asshole. I planned on killing him myself. I didn't know how, but at that moment I vowed he would die by my hand. And Mom would just have to hate me for the rest of her life.
I heard him charging after me, crashing through the brush. I could lead him out into Atlanta traffic and hope someone ran him over, but I didn't really want to hurt him. I wanted Inanna to get back in him.
Inanna…oh damn. I really didn't know if First Borns could live for long outside of a host. Could they? Had Jason ever told me? I thought as soon as their host died, they…
Wait… Daniel wasn't dead. Did that mean there was some tenuous strand of hope there? That maybe she was holding on by a thread of hope? I got this crazy picture in my head of Inanna as a balloon tethered to Daniel's wrist as he ran through the woods, batting the balloon all over the place.
The ground disappeared out from under me, and I tumbled forward. I'd found a ditch that filtered water from the road into the lake, and I wasn't ready for it. I felt and heard the crack when my ankle twisted, and I went down hard. But I didn't have time to sit and feel that pain. I tried again to shift…and luckily I got my bunny slippers. They growled and took care of the pain in my ankle as I got back up and ran through the woods again—
Gibbons appeared in front of me. When I stopped, a pile of dead leaves kicked up in front of me. He was smiling at me, grinning. "Need to finish this, Zoëtrope."
I was breathing really, really hard. "You….can't call….me that…"
He pointed to his face. "Your Dad said I could. See?"
"No…you didn't have….that when ….you attacked…you changed it…"
"Are you sure, little Zoëtrope? It was a long time ago…and you'd always told me you were bad with memory. You were pretty sure you had ADD, talked about it at dinner after the play."
ADD? Play? Dinner? What the fuck was he talking about? I'd never done any of those things with Karl Gibbons.
He started laughing as he moved with me, mirroring me with the trees between us. I could hear Daniel getting closer and closer. "Aw….you don't get it, do you?"
I licked my lips and finally calmed my breathing. "What, that you're a freak that needs to be put down?"
"Oh, I've already been put down. My maker saw to that when he found out I'd failed. See…you need to come and talk to me. Find out the truth. You want the truth, don't you? The truth about Barry Stephens?"
Barry? "You killed Barry!"
He laughed again. "No…I was Barry!"
I heard the crack of the branch a split second before Daniel grabbed me. I managed to kick back with my foot, and my slipper grew teeth and latched onto Daniel's shin. He yelled and let go, and I would have gotten away if the damn slipper hadn't have found him so tasty.
"Let…go!" I told it, and it did, but it was too late. Gibbons was in my way again and Daniel was getting to his feet.
Zoë…
"Now, little girl, you just come to me and old Danny boy here, and we'll take care of you—"
Daniel looked at Karl, pointed his gun, and shot Karl Gibbons dead in the face. The man dropped like a stone, dead—again. "He was on my list, too," Daniel said, and redirected his attention on me.
Joe had told me that Daniel had become a bit obsessed with finding Karl Gibbons after he'd learned of my rape. It made sense that no matter how insane he was now, he was not going to pair up with Karl. But that also shot down any chance I had at finding out what the hell Karl had meant when he said he was Barry Stephens.
Zoë…please…
Daniel held gun out and then pointed it at me. "Well, well…this is where we were nine months ago, isn't it? Only Cooper was too stupid to stay out of the way."
Please, Zoë…let me in.
Wait…was that Inanna's voice? It sounded so different than before. Not as strong or commanding, but more of a soft sigh.
Let me in. Invite me in and I can help you. If he shoots you, he'll kill you.
"Why don't you just get back into him?" Yeah, I was talking out loud, and it made Daniel hesitate.
Not while he's wearing the Eidolon. Let me in and we can take it off of him, then I can return.
"You sure?"
"Who are you talking to?" Daniel was looking around him. "Is that witch here? Is she? That demon possessor? That Horror you infected me with. You're are all demons. Devils. And it's up to me to bring down the righteousness of the Lord!"
Please…let me in so I can stop the madness.
Let her in. I was one of her Rights. But a First Born inside of a Revenant?
Right now, I didn't have a lot of choice. I could hear voices somewhere. The Powers and Gabriel were coming. They could grab the Eidolon after he killed me. And if they found Dags? What would happen to him if they banished the Familiars the way they'd banished Inanna?
Well…I don't think so.
"I invite you in, Inanna." It sounded lame out loud. But damn…it sure packed a wallop.
My body had been overshadowed before…when I wasn't in it. And there were a few times during this wild adventure of mine when a Daemon or a Symbiont had hitched a ride. But nothing…nothing compared to this.
Voices, inside of my head. A cacophony of voices and opinions, suggestions, knowledge, understanding, disbelief…. I was overwhelmed with the sheer magnitude of what comprised the being known as Inanna. And just there, to the right of my mind, was Daniel. The man I'd loved. The cop that knew right from wrong. And he was smiling at me.
May I take control this once?
Her voice was changed again. It wasn't as if I were hearing her from outside, but from inside. And the voice—though it had her pitch and tone—had a little of mine as well. "Yes." I was too messed up from the crazy in my head. It was as if my mind had gone from a broom closet to the size of an entire planet. There were vast rooms, staircases, observatories, fields, castles…so many memories. So many things to see….
And in the center was a book. It wasn't Dags's book. It as much smaller. Thi
nner. And the symbol on the front cover made no sense to me. Not at first.
Inanna took over my body and shifted me into Wraith, and I kicked the gun out of Daniel's hand. He was stunned for maybe a split second before he came at me, and he wrestled with me. He struck me, I struck him, and then we were tumbling back down that damn ditch and into the trees there.
We landed with me on top, and in a final move Inanna reached down and grabbed the Eidolon and ripped it from his neck.
She left me at that moment and I was alone back inside of little me. I collapsed on the ground and Daniel fell on all fours beside me. I sensed she was back with him, and then he straightened up on his knees, held up his hand, and yelled out for someone to stop.
Six shots echoed in the air over me. I wasn't sure where they came from at first, and I was so very, very tired. I wanted to stay where I was and just sleep.
Until I saw a dark hole in the center of Daniel' forehead. Another one at the base of his neck, and several more spread over his chest as blood pooled from all of them.
He fell forward next to me.
Dead.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
It was one of those moments of instant replay again. The kind where you see the events happen slowly and there's nothing you can do about it. Like being in a car accident and you can't make it stop. I looked to my right, into Daniel's dead eyes, and watched as his soul rose out of his body.
Detective George Mastiff and Constable Alfred Carter came into my line of sight, towering just past Daniel's body. Both of them had their guns drawn. Constable Mae Theotokos hovered above me and put her hand to my neck. "She iz alive."
In slow motion, I watched as Joe appeared and slid into home as he grabbed for his best friend and former partner. But Daniel wasn't going to move anymore. Joe's face was a mirror of the agony I was feeling inside, but I was just too tired to move. Too tired to blink or to speak or to even think. I felt my eyes burn and knew I was leaking over my cheeks.
Zoë, I am so…very sorry….
Inanna's agony was as palpable as my own as she reseated herself inside of me. The second joining, only minutes past the first, was nothing more than the return of an old friend. She made the aching go away. And she cried inside with me. I knew then that Inanna really had been in love with Daniel. And for now, she would carry a part of him with her, as she'd carried her previous hosts.
Dominion: Zoë Martinique Investigation, Book 6 Page 18
