Jude shot him a surprised look, almost as if he’d never expected Kyle to actually stand up to him. A half-smile curled his lips. “I guess you’re right.” He stared at the road for several minutes, the only sound the low thrum of the wheels against the pavement. Then Jude remarked softly, as if to himself, “Although it would be fun to break her.”
They drove fast and arrived in Danbury in just under two hours. Kyle hadn’t tried to push his senses out with Jude in the car. It was as if a feeling of claustrophobia enveloped him when he used his senses in close proximity to Jude. Kyle was sure it had to do with the tattoos that connected him to Jude—making him feel like a dog on a leash. He needed to distance himself a bit to get any reading.
“I’ll catch up with you later. Need to take a leak.” He rushed out of the car before Jude could say anything, making his way toward Main Street. He sat in a local diner and ordered a cup of coffee. Then he relaxed and let his senses take over. He knew that what they were looking for would no doubt be in hiding, but it would also be no match against him at this close range.
Concentrating heavily, he pushed outward slowly and methodically, feeling the hundreds of mortal energies surrounding him. He brushed past them, extending his ability as far as he could. Every cell in his brain ached, and sweat soaked his shirt from the effort. Just when he felt his mind start to waver, Kyle felt the pull of what he was looking for toward the eastern end of town—a glimmer of immortal energy, shaded but still obvious to him. Kyle released and felt his body sag as a wave of relief poured over him. He dialed Jude’s cell phone.
“You got it yet?”
“East. Come get me. I’m at the diner on Main Street. I think they’re on the move. The trail was already faint and it took me a lot longer to find it this time. There must be a portal nearby.”
“There’s more than one?”
“I think so.”
“You think so?” said Jude sarcastically.
“Dude, there were fragments, that’s all I felt,” Kyle snapped back. “That means multiple sources to me unless it’s one that somehow got cleaved into two. Look, if you don’t want to go now, no skin off my back. Your call.” There was a long pause on the other end and for a short second, Kyle wondered if he’d gone too far.
“OK. See you in five.” The phone clicked off, and Kyle breathed a shallow sigh of relief.
When Jude picked him up, they drove east following Kyle’s senses until they were close enough to pinpoint the exact location, and then Jude called Marcus and Raoul.
“Now what?” Kyle asked.
“Now we stay put until the others get here,” Jude said. “You know the drill. Your part’s done unless you want to get in on how to do a Daeva.” His tone was like saccharine, yet the suggestive venom underscoring it was obvious. “Or maybe it’s time for you to get your soul dirty.”
It was at that moment that Kyle realized that Jude hadn’t forgotten the phone exchange; he never forgot. Kyle steeled himself, reaching into his darkest depths for the monster within, and released his ironclad control of it. This was what he wanted and if he needed to prove his loyalty, then he’d do what he had to do. He felt an odd sensation of bliss as if the beast were reveling in its freedom, and although a part of him cringed away from it, another part embraced it.
“Whatever you want, Jude. You’re the boss,” he said, his voice unwavering. “Just tell me when and where.”
“Come on, then.” Jude grinned, springing from the car. He looked like a kid with a bagful of Halloween candy. He nodded to Marcus and Raoul as they pulled into the lot.
The abandoned building was the remains of a giant decaying barn. Half of its roof was falling in, and its fading red paint was chipped and peeling. Kyle focused and could sense the energy clearly. He could also sense agitation and a curious readiness.
“They know we’re here,” he said to Jude in a low voice.
“Marcus, get the back. Raoul, side window. I’ll take the top. Kyle’s playing point today. He’s got front-door duty,” Jude said winking. “We move after he gives the signal.” Marcus made a sound like a growl but did as he was told after a nasty glance at Kyle.
Kyle ignored him and walked to the front, pushing the heavy door open. It creaked noisily. In the shaded darkness, muted sunlight cut through the gloom in eerie slivers. They reminded him of golden bars like a gilded prison. He heard scuffling from the side and started moving toward it, his throat dry.
Before he could take two steps, a woman and a young boy of about fourteen stepped out from behind a pile of crates. They looked normal, clad in jeans and long-sleeved shirts. Kyle frowned. Knowing what they were, they seemed so young and so human. But it was just a shade, he knew. The woman spoke in a soft voice.
“He’s not Ifrit.”
“He’s the one who brought them here,” the boy told her, “the ones waiting outside.” He was beautiful to look at with dark curling hair and the same clear eyes as his companion. “But you’re right, he’s not like them.”
“What is your name, child?” the woman asked.
Child?
“Kyle,” he responded without thinking.
“Why are you with them?” the boy said. “You’re not like them. You are not what they are. Surely you must know that your humanity gives you a choice.”
Someone outside the barn howled. Jude was getting impatient. Kyle felt the beast inside him flexing obediently in response, shoving against him, and for a moment, he wanted to scream with the force of it. Kyle shook his head, forcing the monster back as sour bile rose into his mouth. “You’re wrong, I don’t have a choice. You don’t know what they’re capable of, what I’m capable of.”
“There’s always a choice.” Kyle’s heart and conscience twisted into knots as the woman spoke, her voice soft, musical. “Will you let one of us go, then?”
Her companion turned to her, his expression concerned. “No,” the boy said forcefully.
“Yes,” she argued. “You have a job to do, Micah. Find him. You must, or we will be lost.” They shared a brief wordless exchange, but her gaze fluttered back to Kyle. It was heavy, compassionate, and sad, and he felt it to his bones. His eyes watered, and he brushed at them blindly, furious at this unexpected display of emotion.
“It’s not weakness, you know,” the woman said, gently reading his thoughts. “It’s empathy. Man has always held such a great capacity for it.”
Kyle felt her words wash over him, for a moment clearing away the demon that hounded him. “Trust yourself, Kyle. All is never lost, not when there’s love in your heart.”
“I’m not human. You’re wrong about me. I don’t know how to love.”
“Am I?” she said gently, and Sera’s face clouded his vision.
“Yes.” His gaze dropped from her eyes to the floor. “Go then,” he said to the boy urgently, indicating the eastern side of the building. “They’re coming, but not from that side so you’ll have a chance. There’s a portal near the lake. I felt it before.” The boy stared at him. “Go now, before I change my mind.”
“Thank you.” The boy bowed. “Your kindness will not be forgotten.” Then he was gone, slipping into the shadows of the side of the building.
“You’re not afraid?” Kyle asked the woman, his skull aching from the pressure of Jude’s impatience and the insistent tug of the beast within him. A part of him was angry that he’d let the boy go, turning his voice into little more than a growl. “They’ll show you no mercy.”
“No.” Her smile was radiant. “You’re not like them, Kyle. Hold on to that when the light is at its dimmest. They’re coming now.”
And then the roof caved in as Jude burst through it, landing on his feet. Marcus and Raoul circled from the back and the west, just as they’d been told.
“I thought you said there were two?” Jude snarled.
“I’m sorry. I was wrong.” Kyle was unprepared for the backhand across the face, almost dislocating his jaw and hurling his body halfway across the room. And then
Jude was on top of him, his face black with rage.
Kyle watched Jude’s skin undulate, the demon within possessing its host, and he braced himself. Jude must never know that there’d been two. “It’s not my fault. She’s strong, stronger than I’ve seen.”
As if on cue, Kyle’s gaze was drawn to a bright white light exploding from the center of the room. The woman dropped all pretense of a shade and was holding a flaming sword in her hand. She was almost too beautiful to look upon, with incandescent silver flames rushing around her body in a gilded, shimmering waterfall. Gold designs crested her shoulders and brow, a red dot in the center. She stood in battle stance, her sword high.
A Yoddha. A warrior goddess.
Distracted by the windfall, Jude’s face distorted into a greedy grin—Lord Azrath would be pleased. The Yoddha was far more powerful than lower level Daeva. But before Jude could flex a muscle, Raoul dissipated into a cloud of blackened embers as the warrior twisted, her golden sword tracing a blazing path across his chest. Jude howled and dove toward her.
“Marcus, ifricaius!” he snarled, releasing what looked like a long black whip in his hands. Marcus whipped out a similar weapon and they circled the woman. Marcus flung his whip and the barbed tip of it curled toward her. She danced out of the way, but not before it clipped the edge of one of the shimmering tendrils surrounding her like a shroud. She screamed and blood spurted from the severed edges.
“Careful, you idiot!” Jude shouted. “What do you think we’re here for?”
Kyle blinked. For a second, it’d seemed like the fallen bits had turned to blackened char, but it must have been a trick of the shadows in the barn. He watched the woman move like a silver blur. She was strong, yet she’d chosen to stay and let the boy escape. Kyle couldn’t fathom something stronger than she was, but the boy must have been. It made Kyle wonder what or who it was they’d actually been looking for.
Still, even with her considerable strength, the woman was tiring quickly from her wound. The edge of the laceration was darkening and spreading up her body. It looked like the vines of energy were dying, poisoned along the edges from the sting of Marcus’s whip.
“Move!” Jude said. “We don’t have much time.”
They circled her again, Jude lunging toward her just as she swung the sword toward Marcus. Off-balance, she stumbled right into a second swing of Marcus’s whip, and its end wrapped around her arm, the clawed barbs twisting into the flesh of her skin. At the same time, Jude flung his whip toward her. At the last second, it split into duplicate chains, weaving themselves around her legs and burrowing into her flesh like steel maggots.
The woman fell, the sword in her right hand thumping to the floor. Its shimmery flame died as Jude stood over her, leering. His booted foot kicked into her side, flipping her to her stomach.
“You can’t win, you know,” she gasped as Marcus wrapped a second chain around her free arm, pinning it to the other above her head.
“Shut up, or I’ll make this even more painful than it’s already going to be.”
“Azrath doesn’t know what he is doing. He will be stopped.”
Jude smiled. “I’m only telling you this because you’re going to die,” he said matter-of-factly. “Lord Azrath will summon a rakshasa demon far more powerful than Ravinah this time to usher in the KaliYura, and when he is its ruler, I will be his right hand. You and your kind cannot stop us.”
“Hell on Earth?” Her voice was weak, the black chains injecting her with dark demonic poison.
“That’s the plan,” Jude responded cheerfully. Her eyes were wide, but lucid.
“He has already failed once. You have no idea … this time … Azrath will … ” Her voice grew faint with the effort it cost her to speak. “Total destruction … you must … not … ”
Jude ignored her, turning toward Kyle. “Get over here. It’s time to redeem yourself. You were right, she is strong, taking far longer than the others to shut up. Hold her down!”
“What?” Kyle said.
“Afraid?” he jeered. “Don’t worry, touching her won’t hurt you. Not yet, anyway.” He paused. “Not while you’re human.”
“What happens if you touch her?”
“See what happened to Raoul? Pretty much the same, I expect.” He jerked his head toward the dull sword. “Remember the glow?” Jude pulled on a pair of thick rank-smelling gloves. “That’s what their energy is, deifyre.”
Despite Jude’s biting sarcasm, Kyle couldn’t help himself. “I don’t understand. Why can’t she just escape by dying? Go back to where she came from?” Jude didn’t answer, stuffing a dirty-looking gag into the warrior’s mouth. It was Marcus who answered, staring at Kyle with a disgusted look on his face.
“Don’t you know anything?” Marcus hissed. “Our ifricaius weapons bind them to the earth.”
“Bring the tools,” Jude said to Marcus and then glanced at Kyle. “They trap humans to the earth, too,” he said in an oily voice. “So do as I told you. Hold her the hell down.”
Kyle slammed his hand across the woman’s back, an odd sense of pleasure consuming him. His dark nature soared. The skin above her shoulder blades felt soft and warm, like velvet fuzz. He squinted at the silver flames that danced across her skin. Their light was almost blinding, like looking directly into the sun. At first glance, they seemed like wings, but they weren’t exactly. They were more like a blazing aura surrounding her entire body. Kyle realized that they weren’t like anything he’d ever seen, probably because he’d never seen a Yoddha this close.
He blinked, frowning as a thought occurred to him. “What exactly is deifyre?”
“Watch. You’ll see.”
“Kyle … ” The voice was weak and Kyle tightened his fingers across the woman’s neck. He heard it again and then realized her lips hadn’t moved around the gag in her mouth. He’d heard her voice in his head!
Kyle.
His palm against her skin warmed, and Kyle realized that the direct skin-to-skin contact had somehow made him able to hear her voice in his thoughts. He closed his eyes and tuned in to the connection between them. Her voice came again, more clearly.
You must … stop … them.
Why? he thought back to her.
Azrath must not be allowed to succeed. He plans to open a reverse portal from the Dark Realms to the Mortal Realm. You must find Micah …
Where? How?
But their connection was sliced apart as Kyle felt a horrendous spasm of pain ricochet through his body. The Yoddha’s screams of anguish stunned his senses and he rocked back onto his heels, his eyes snapping open.
In horror, he watched Jude methodically stripping the surface of the goddess’ skin with a black-and-red serrated blade. It was an ugly weapon, a double-edged curved sword that twisted into an inverted V at the top. Its inner blade was indented with sharp, tiny teeth, which scraped along the shimmering bands of her deifyre, a fine drizzle of shimmering powder floating into a silver chalice that Marcus held just below.
Her body lurched. “Hold her down, Kyle!” Jude snarled as a spray of blood spurted from the lower part of the rachis he’d been scraping.
Jude hissed through his teeth. “Damn it. Now we’ve lost most of this. Marcus, give him the chalice and put the gloves on. You hold her down.”
“No, I’ve got it,” Kyle said. “It’s just that she’s still alive. Maybe we should wait.”
“Of course she’s alive,” Jude snarled. “If she dies, the deifyre dies. And we’ve got nothing but ash.”
Tell … Mi … cah … beg … you …
Each word was like a welt of agony slicing deep into his subconscious. Kyle couldn’t even begin to fathom how she was able to endure it. He could already see her light waning. It wouldn’t be long now.
How do I find him? he thought urgently. Jude gave a grunt of approval, piercing his fog of concentration, and Kyle realized how hard he was digging his nails into her back. He pulled his fingers away, gaping at the four red crescents marring her
perfect, smooth skin. Something dark inside of him swelled with pride.
“Don’t worry, she’s almost gone. We got most of it though. Lord Azrath will be happy,” Jude said, leaning back on his haunches, flushed with exertion. “Watch this.”
Jude flipped the knife to its non-serrated edge and grasped the tops of where the silver flames began at the base of her neck. In a smooth movement, as if he were scalping someone, he cut the whole thing off. It crumbled to nothing but specks of white ash into his gloves. To her credit, she didn’t make a sound, even though Kyle felt her pain as acutely as if it were his own.
Kyle kept his face carefully composed, knowing Jude would find any excuse to belittle him. “What’s the point of that?”
Jude shot him a look. “She’s mortal now. Shred a Daeva of deifyre and they’re killable.” He wiped the blade clean on a white cloth and put it back into a black case with silver markings. He looked at Kyle, his stare disconcerting, his voice quiet like a snake’s hiss. “So, what did she say to you?”
“What?” Kyle’s stomach plummeted.
“When we came in, I heard her talking. What was she saying?” Jude’s voice was nonchalant, but Kyle knew that he was carefully listening for his response. He weighed his answer carefully in his head. Jude had just given him exactly the opening he needed.
“She … she said I didn’t belong with you.”
Jude’s eyes narrowed, his gaze snapping to Kyle’s. “And then what?”
“Then nothing. You came through the roof.” Kyle paused and eyed Jude. “So, do I?”
“Do you what?” Jude growled.
“Belong.”
Jude shot him another assessing look, but Kyle kept his face blank.
“I suppose now that Raoul ate the big one, you can take his spot. Don’t get excited yet, though. I’ll need to clear it with Lord Azrath.” Jude smiled. “And then there’s the first order of business.”
“What’s that?”
“Prove yourself. Kill her.” He nodded at the body on the ground. “She’s still alive. Take care of it, and meet me out front.”
Alpha Goddess Page 7
