While Alex stood flabbergasted, the humans shouted their revenge and went after all the remaining guards in the room.
“Let’s go, this place is gonna blow!” Michael shouted.
Bent over Malcolm’s still body, Levine had apparently forgotten her mission to acquire Jaiden. But, her head snapped toward them when she heard Michael’s shouts and Alex saw understanding dawning on her pale, tear streaked face.
Alex took a few steps toward her but she rose and simply disappeared into the throng of humans who had surrounded her.
“Damn it! Let’s get out of here!” he yelled to Danielle over the chaos in the room.
“These people?” Deanna questioned when he saw her.
“We have to go. If they follow, then they follow, and we’ll deal with it later. If they don’t make it, there is nothing we can do. They have been freed and that should be enough for now,” he told her. “But, we need to go now.”
He ran to Isabella’s side and lifted her from her knees. “Come on, sweetheart, it’s time to get out of here.”
He lifted her into his arms because she didn’t seem to be able to move.
Chris cradled Jaiden in his arms, protectively covering her. Then, as fast as they could, with vampire speed, they ran for the exits leaving Jaiden’s screams echoing through the caves while they ran.
Chaos followed. Damion and Danielle were right behind them but Michael, Deanna and the other vampire slayers were much slower so they were stuck back with all the people who had been prisoners in the caves.
Alex felt relief when he saw the doors looming ahead of them. He knew sunlight, the enemy of his afterlife, lit the world beyond the doors and he didn’t care. Hopefully, he would live through it; after all, the serum had worked on him with artificial light.
“Isabella, you have to stand,” he whispered to her when they reached the doors.
She mumbled a sentence full of gibberish and sagged against Alex when he set her on her feet.
“I’ve got them, take her.” Chris held Jaiden out to Alex. She wore a little pink sleeper and pounded her fists against her sides while she screamed her protest at all the noise and commotion.
Chris placed both his hands on the handles so he could fling the doors wide open for everyone to get through. But, before he could turn the handles, he was thrown to the ground by an emerald green streak of lighting which landed on his back.
Levine held him in a choke hold. “I’ll kill you, you murderers, kill you!”
If it was possible, she had gone even more insane than she had been before. Alex felt sudden pain rip through his chest. White, hot, pain. He couldn’t let go of Jaiden. He couldn’t give Levine the chance to snag her again.
“Knife…” Isabella rasped.
Damion showed up just then, ripping Levine off of Chris. Danielle positioned herself as a shield in front of Alex, Jaiden and Isabella. Alex couldn’t help but think that as she hadn’t helped before, what good would she possibly be. The pain in his chest was gone. Alex knew that was not a good sign.
Chris lay still while Damion wrestled with Levine. Alex held Jaiden in one arm and supported Isabella with the other. He wanted to help, to lift Chris off the ground. Someone needed to move him or he would be trampled. The pounding of human footsteps was seconds away.
They were coming.
“Move him!” Alex called out and Danielle shot forward, took Chris into her arms and held him up.
Alex was horrified when he saw the golden hilt of a dagger protruding from Chris’s chest. From his heart. Blood bubbled up from the wound and stained his shirt.
Danielle resumed her protective post but she still held Chris.
Damion held Levine at bay with his giant demon sword and reared back for the momentum to drive it through her just when the human group arrived. Deanna saw Chris and ran toward him.
“No!” she cried and threw herself around Chris.
The doors were thrown open and light penetrated the entire opening.
“Alex, go!” Danielle shouted to him. “Get them out of here, now!”
Levine screeched at the sudden invasion of vampires’ worst enemy and backed away. Danielle peeled Deanna off of Chris, joined the pack of humans and disappeared out the door with Chris.
Sickened by the fact that he would leave this lair without killing Levine, Alex slipped into the crowd. As soon as he had passed through the doors, he secured Jaiden in his arms and threw Isabella onto his back, then leapt the rest of the way over the humans who stood in his way.
His eyes stung and his skin was hot. He dropped Isabella to the soft grass which covered the ground and fell to his knees just as the world exploded around them.
Humans scattered and flew through the air. Chunks of stone and clumps of dirt rained down around them. The people already outside threw themselves face down onto the ground.
One man stood in the center of the entire battle with his hands raised to the sky. “Thank you, Lord! Thank you! The angels have saved us. We have been set free!”
The mountain had crumbled. Literally, a mountain had become nothing, and he knew it would take days before the dust totally cleared. For the time being, he knew the rest of the world would put it off as an earthquake until it was reported by those that an entire mountain had fallen into the earth. Thankfully it hadn’t been a really big mountain but more of a hill.
He hugged Jaiden tightly to him. She seemed to have sensed her safety with him and was finally quiet and sleeping. He stepped over people and chunks of rubble and made his way to where the doors had been.
He sensed that something was happening; something drew him back to that spot instead of leading him straight home where he should be headed.
He stared at the collapsed stone and earth until his stinging eyes blurred. He thought he saw a subtle movement when the area he was staring at burst open and a pale figure swathed in glittering emerald and blood emerged.
Levine actually looked more surprised than he felt. Her eyes darted around as if she had never seen the surrounding area before. She squinted her eyes and looked to the sky.
It was then that Alex finally realized that she had had no idea she could survive in the sunlight.
Behind Levine, Corrine stood with her hands on her hips, shaking her head. Alex pressed his lips to Jaiden’s curly red hair just as Levine tilted her head enough for their eyes to meet through the dust.
“This isn’t over,” she whispered for him alone to hear. “Be watching for me.”
Then, she leapt in a flying back flip right over her sister and ran with vampire speed into the hundreds of miles of woods.
39
Deanna lay curled on the warm earth beside her dead first love. Chris was gone. She snuggled into his cold side and her hand found his cheek. She ran her fingertips from his hairline down along his jaw and then over his lips.
No one would ever know what he had helped her to become. She was a fighter, a lover, a woman. He had helped her to grow from the awkward girl she had been before into something great. No, they would never know. Only Alex, maybe, could possibly know how much he had meant to her.
She could feel tears running down her cheeks, along the side of her nose, and she could taste the salty sadness, making it even more real. Danielle and some others had come and tried to take him away but she had ordered them to leave her alone with him.
She believed in ghosts and such but she didn’t really believe that he would stick around as a spirit for any reason. He had accomplished what he had come into the world to do. He had helped to save it. The first battle of many was won because he had saved the child who would be the fate of humanity. Nothing could compare to that.
“I love you,” she whispered into an unhearing ear. “I love you so much, Christopher.”
She moved up and over him so that she could kiss his frozen, pale lips. They had always been cold when she had kissed them and she had never craved the warmth most girls wanted. His heart had been warm enough to heat her body ten tim
es over.
She reached up around her neck and took off her necklace. It was a small sun and moon. The silver sun sat on the lap of a crescent moon, somehow symbolizing them together, night and day, dark and light, vampire and human. She lifted his brown hair away from his neck and secured the necklace, centering it just right over his chest.
“Now, I will be with you forever, baby. I won’t forget you,” she whispered.
More tears spilled from the corners of her eyes and splashed down onto Chris’s stone face. She wiped them away with her fingertips. She knew that he hadn’t loved her as she had loved him. He never would have loved anyone as much as Marissa and she would never be so naive as to think that she had been able to take her place, nor had she wanted to. But, she had been happy simply being with him, even knowing he hadn’t intended to have a future with her. He never had ignored her or had given her reason to feel unimportant; he had treated her good and that had been enough for her.
Alex crouched down on the other side of Chris and took her hand in his, clasping it tightly and bringing it to his lips so he could graze a kiss across her warm skin.
“I love him too,” he told her. “He was the only family I had.”
She sniffed back a sob and shook her head. “No, that’s not true. We are your family too. Now, you have Jaiden and Isabella also. Your family is everywhere.” She flicked her gaze to where Danielle stood with Jaiden behind him. “Don’t underestimate us, Alex. It’s actually a little hurtful that you think so little of us that you wouldn’t already consider us your family.”
With her knees still planted in the dirt, she turned away from him and Chris and saw Michael watching her from within the trees. He nodded to her when their eyes met and she knew he was leaving her alone on purpose, so that she could have her time with Chris.
“I want a real funeral for him,” she told Alex, turning to face him. “I want people to come and pay their respects and to remember how good he was. There are tons of people he worked with whose lives he touched. I don’t want it to feel like he just disappeared off the face of the earth without cause.”
“Of course.” Alex nodded, his own wall of emotion dangerously close to breaking down.
“We have to get out of here now.” She grazed one final kiss over Christopher’s lips and then wiped the tears away. It was time to be strong; there would be lots of time for grieving, later.
Alex agreed with a nod and stood. He held out his hand to help her up and then picked up Chris whose body appeared light as a feather in Alex’s arms. She walked beside them through the sunlight scattered woods. Michael joined them first; he grieved for his fallen soldiers too, for he had lost far more than the Great Council. Soon, they were joined by Danielle and Jaiden, and then, Corrine fell into step beside the group, followed by Damion who carried an exhausted but conscious Isabella.
Deanna separated from the group when they reached the trucks. She noted Victoria and Jeremiah were at their stations by the hummers and the many people who had managed to escape were sedated once again and loaded up into the trucks. There was a lot of commotion happening all around her but it felt trance-like and foggy to her. It should have been a celebration with Jaiden being saved and Malcolm’s death but the sadness for the lost hung heavily in the air.
They hadn’t recovered Stewart’s body like they had wanted to; there hadn’t been time. She hated that. But, she had fought like a warrior. Her physical training had won out over her magic and that was definitely something. She knew Chris would have been proud of her.
Victoria appeared at her side. Deanna received the uncharacteristic embrace Victoria offered her. Suddenly, something crazy occurred to her. It was daytime, the freaking sun shone down and Chris’s body hadn’t blown into ashes, neither had Alex’s.
She spun around to assure herself she wasn’t dreaming. Nope, Alex was there by the trucks with Jeremiah, talking with their heads close together. It was a miracle but she wasn’t stupid, either; she was sure Jeremiah had something to do with it. Nevertheless, she was happy they would have a body to bury and view at the funeral. But, it didn’t explain how Levine had managed to run off into the bright, shiny forest.
David, the crazy prisoner, appeared before her in the clouds of dust.
“Hello, David.” Exhausted, she pointed toward the trucks. “They can help you over there. They are helping the others.”
David nodded. “I know. I wanted to introduce myself properly and thank you again.”
Deanna marveled at how David didn’t seem so crazy anymore. “Well, I’m Deanna, and it is you we should be thanking. You probably saved all of us.”
He shook his head. “Nah, all that matters is we are free now.” He extended his hand to shake. “My full name is David Fuller. I’m a professor of paranormal psychology and wanted you to know my name, just in case you ever need anything. I don’t teach anymore but I still practice.”
Deanna almost laughed. “Good grief, did Malcolm and Levine hand-pick you, or what.”
He smiled. “No, they took me off the street randomly. It was pure bad luck.”
“Well, David, same goes for you. If you need anything, look us up. That guy right there,” she pointed at Alex, “is Alexander Lucas; he should be the easiest of us to find.”
He took Deanna’s hand and kissed it.
“Thank you, brave lady.” He turned to go but glanced back briefly. “By the way, I’ve always been a little crazy. It’s not just the trauma.” And then, he was gone.
Shaking her head, she also turned away.
The fog didn’t appear to lift from inside her head. All she could handle was not to fall down and take a nap right there. She found her way to a hummer, opened the door and reclined the seat all the way back. Hopefully, they would be on the road soon because emergency vehicles were coming. They had to be. Smoke and dust would cover them on their way out of there so the helicopters that were on their way wouldn’t see them.
Damion slid into the seat next to her. “Looks like everything is secure. You want to go home?”
She almost laughed. “Are you kidding?”
She closed her eyes and found the love and laughter of the past in her dreams.
40
Alex found the funeral for Chris emotionally exhausting. The next day, there would be a funeral for Stewart. His would obviously be a memorial service and filled with far fewer people but that part didn’t matter. Stewart was as much a hero as Chris or any of them for that matter.
And the day after that, they would attend the funeral for Jackie and the other slayers who had died that day. Alex didn’t favor being around so many slayers but he owed Jackie his presence since she had probably saved his life more than once in Malcolm’s lair.
He had chosen to have Chris buried on his own grounds in the small cemetery which already contained the graves and memorial stones for the fallen members of previous councils. He had no family to lay to rest inside what should have been a family cemetery so it seemed fitting to give each and every member of the Great Council a special place for their bodies to spend eternity.
His only regret was that they hadn’t been able to bring home Stewart’s body. Even if they had been able to get him out, his body wouldn’t have preserved like Chris’s vampire body. Chris would remain a perfect porcelain shell forever.
Sunlight filtered through the few clouds littering the watery blue sky above. The service was over, the prayers had been said and they were giving Chris back to the earth and God. As Chris was lowered into the ground, ‘Amazing Grace’ was played on a little CD player and Deanna, who had chosen to wear white in celebration of his life and thereafter, threw a red rose down onto his casket. She did not cry, nor did he.
Michael attended the funeral with a few of his slayers at his side. Alex noticed Michael hadn’t simply come to pay his respects to Chris but seemed to be grieving more for Deanna’s loss than his own.
Isabella stood elegantly by his side with Jaiden asleep in her pretty pink stroller. Her w
rists were wrapped with white bandages which stood out against her simple black dress. Without the two of them, he most certainly would have crumpled under the weight of losing Chris but Isabella had stood the test of all she had been through and had come out stronger than ever. She stayed strong for him too.
Everyone gathered at Alex’s house for the wake part of the funeral. He felt the sadness which still hung thick in the air while everyone ate snack cakes and crock pot chili. Suddenly, it occurred to him that if Chris was attending the party, it would be far from sad.
He found the little box of Chris’s belongings which he had put on a shelf in the den and found Chris’s MP3 player. He hooked it up to the stereo system he had wired throughout the house and pushed play. With a bang, Guns N’ Roses filled the house, demanding to be taken to the Paradise City. Alex laughed out loud. It was totally appropriate.
He stood back and watched everyone’s reactions. Most who knew Chris only from work wore shocked expressions but those who knew him well were smiling appreciatively. He hoped Chris was smiling too.
Deanna found Alex and pulled him out into the middle of the floor.
“Dance with me,” she ordered him.
“I can never turn down a pretty redhead.”
Deanna smiled slyly. “Sure, but what about pretty blonds?”
She eyed Isabella while they danced.
“Yeah, I think you spent too much time with Chris; now, you know all my secrets.”
“Oh please, Alex.” She rolled her eyes. “It’s hardly a secret. You love her and everyone can see it, except her, maybe.”
They were no longer alone on the makeshift dance floor. Many others had joined them as the song progressed.
“Well, if you must know…I don’t really have a plan on where to go with that. It would only leave me with two difficult decisions.”
Deanna nodded with understanding and then changed the subject. “I’m going to study healing,” she told him. “I’m not sure why but the protection spell I put on you and Chris didn’t work. I am seeing it as a sign that I need to study more and focus on something important. If the spell had worked, Chris would still be here.”
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