by Peach, Hanna
“Israel has been poisoned,” Alyx said. For some reason, her tongue felt funny when she said his name. “Demon poison. Do you know how to cure demon poison?”
Mayrekk’s eyes widened. “Israel? Your bonded?”
Alyx nodded. “He doesn’t have much time.”
“Demon poison is tricky,” he gasped between breaths. “Different poisons… different types of blood… need different cures. Tricky. Israel’s blood is tricky.”
Israel was half mortal and half demon. Tricky was an understatement.
“Yes, but how do we find a cure? How?” Alyx felt the beginnings of a gnawing desperation. Come on Mayrekk.
If he dies, I die.
“What’s in… the Dark can save him.”
“What?”
“The Dark. Find the Dark.” Mayrekk’s eyes rolled back into his head and his lashes fluttered.
“What does that mean? No, please stay awake. What does that mean?” Alyx only realized that she was shaking Mayrekk’s shoulders when Jordan pulled her hands off him and gave her a warning look.
“Mayrekk,” he said, turning back to the slumped seraph, “we’re going to come rescue you. Just hold on, okay?”
Mayrekk’s eyes opened wide. “No.”
“We will, Mayrekk,” said Alyx. “We’ll find a way.”
Mayrekk shook his head weakly. “Forget me. I am but a pawn.”
He started on a coughing fit which shook his whole body. Alyx could do nothing but rub his back and try not to hit the ground in helpless frustration.
When the coughs subsided, Mayrekk slumped back against the tree trunk. When he dropped his hand from his lips Alyx could see that his palm was stained with blood. She glanced up and met Jordan’s concerned gaze. He had noticed the blood, too.
“You must solve Raphael’s riddle,” Mayrekk wheezed. “You must save the boy. That is more important than the life of this old seraph.”
Alyx felt her stomach drop as she remembered the small charm that Raphael had instructed Mayrekk to give to her before he was murdered all those centuries ago. Michael had taken that charm off her, along with Elijah’s pick, Jordan’s ring and the Saint’s bracelet when she had been captured by him. She had to get them back. She had to rescue Mayrekk. She had to save Israel. She had to save Mini. She had to stop this prophecy. Oh, God. Her head spun as the weight of all these responsibilities crushed her.
How? How would she even begin to find where Michael had hidden Mayrekk’s prisoner’s apex? Surely he wouldn’t keep it in his chambers again?
Alyx remembered what Mayrekk had said about the magical chain around his wrist.
“It’s a prisoner’s bracelet... It physically stops me from moving too far away from the cuff’s apex. The apex is the tether and is also the key to unlock the bracelet.”
The apex is the tether.
Alyx lifted her head towards Jordan. “Jordan. How much of Mayrekk’s reality filters into this DreamScape?”
“Most of it. Why? What are you thinking?”
“Mayrekk’s prisoner’s bracelet is tethered to its apex. In real life, once Mayrekk reaches the end of the magical tether he can’t physically go any further. Would that happen to him in here?”
“I dare say it would work the same. If his wounds enter this ‘Scape then why not his bonds?”
“If we take him to the ends of his tether…”
“…we can pinpoint where the apex is,” Jordan finished. “It’s worth a try.”
Jordan slipped his arms under Mayrekk’s body and pulled him to his chest as if he were carrying a baby. Mayrekk groaned.
“I’m sorry if I hurt you,” Jordan said.
Alyx followed Jordan as he moved through the forest going directly south. It was eerily quiet, with no wind to move the leaves and no distant sound of city life. Even though she knew it was a DreamScape, she couldn’t help the prickles running across her skin.
Jordan must have noticed her shudder. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know… I feel like we’re being watched.”
Jordan glanced around them. “We could very well be. Let’s keep moving.”
They kept going at a faster pace. Soon, Jordan halted. “I think we found the edge. I can’t seem to take him any further.”
“We need to find some way to mark this spot so we can see it from the air. We need…” Alyx thought for a second, “at least three separate marks along the edge of the tether to find the center.”
Jordan flexed one of his palms out away from Mayrekk’s body. From nothing, in his palm was a flash of light, then a blue globe appeared. He dropped it on the ground and it cracked open, letting out blue smoke that trailed to the air like a climbing vine.
“How did you do that?” gasped Alyx.
“This is a DreamScape, remember? If you can create a door, you can create anything in here. You just have to believe you can.”
They began to move through the trees again, this time going northeast. They kept going until Jordan came to a stop again. Again Jordan marked the spot with blue smoke. Mayrekk was moaning softly, begging Jordan to let him down and to not carry him any further.
“I’m sorry, Mayrekk, but it’ll only be a few more minutes.”
Alyx thought that she heard a distant rumbling. “Jordan, did you—”
“Yes, I heard it, too. We have to move.”
They sped through the forest, moving northwest. Once again Jordan stopped when he couldn’t carry Mayrekk any further. Jordan let off a final marker, and the soft blue smoke lifted up to the sky.
A sudden thunder of movement through the trees caused Alyx to snap her head around. In the background, leaves and bushes began to part as something large and angry made its way through the forest towards them. They had been discovered.
“We have to split up,” Jordan said. “You find the apex’s location. I’ll try and keep them following me as long as I can.”
Alyx nodded. “Mayrekk, I’ll see you soon, I promise.”
Mayrekk moaned, but he didn’t reply. Alyx let her eyes meet Jordan’s once more before she shot up toward the sky. As she rose she could see Jordan speeding away through the trees.
Alyx broke through the canopy of leaves and felt the crispness of the air above rush past her skin. She climbed higher and higher in the air until she could see the city of Michaelea and its surroundings below like a map. She could see where the three columns of smoke marked the edges of Mayrekk’s tether.
She imagined the circle arcing around to join these three points together. In the middle of this invisible circle was the location of the apex. Alyx frowned. From where she hovered, the apex was supposedly in a forested part of the unoccupied side of the mountain. This couldn’t be right. She quickly recalculated it in her head again, conscious that every second counted.
Confident that she hadn’t miscalculated, yet still confused at the outcome, Alyx aimed for the green section of the mountain that supposedly held the key to Mayrekk’s freedom, diving back down under the canopy. She hovered just under the cover of the leaves, frowning as she stared at this unremarkable piece of forest floor. There was nothing here, or at least nothing that Mayrekk’s subconscious was showing.
Chapter 6
Back in the cathedral Alyx woke, still curled in Jordan’s lap, her hands gripped in fists on his shirt. Jordan was already awake.
He stared past her to the wall. “I didn’t realize they would… Jesus. I always thought he was safe because of his gift. God, why didn’t we check up on him before?”
Alyx shook her head, silently agreeing with him. They had been so focused on the Black Stone and Samyara that they had all but forgotten about Mayrekk… and Michael. Michael was the invisible threat, his intentions not yet as clear as Samyara’s, an iceberg that they were only seeing a small part of.
Suddenly, this scared Alyx more than anything.
Alyx and Jordan slipped out the side door of the cathedral and Jordan locked the door behind him. They were just about to lift up i
nto the night when Alyx felt a crackle in the air and smelled a hint of sourness. The Darkened were near. Here? Now?
Her body tensed and she grabbed Jordan’s arm. “Jordan.”
“I can feel it, too.”
Alyx was grateful for the weight of her blade at her side. A familiar adrenaline buzzed under her skin and her fingers started to flutter against the handle of her blade. Yes. A kill would help ease the tension from the last few days. A kill… or three. She felt herself grow so light that she was standing just on the balls of her feet.
“Are you armed?” she asked Jordan.
Even in the dim night she could see the whites of his teeth as he flashed her a grin. “Unless I’m naked I am always armed, beauty.”
Before she could stop it, the thought of an unarmed Jordan invaded her mind. She dropped her gaze as she felt a flush of heat rising to her cheeks, adding to the electricity building up under her skin. Thank God she was hidden by the dark shadows of this overgrown side garden.
She chanced a glance at Jordan and found he was staring at her, a sly smile playing on his lips. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were enjoying the little thought you just had.”
“I wasn’t thinking about you.”
“Oh no? What were you thinking that made your cheeks such a pretty pink?”
Alyx scrambled for a reasonable cover. One came to her, causing another flood of adrenaline, masking, if just for the moment, the darkness of the past few days. The adrenaline also brought on a rush of playfulness that she hadn’t remembered having since… it seemed like since before she became a Rogue.
She returned his sly smile and added an air of challenge to her voice. “I was just thinking that we could make this fight a little more interesting?”
His smile widened. “You want to fight naked?”
“No,” Alyx growled as another flush heated her body. “Get your mind out of the bedroom.”
“Okay. But it won’t be that interesting.”
“A wager on the highest kill count.”
Even in the dim Alyx could see the surprise on his face. “I think I just fell in love,” he said under his breath.
Alyx hid her smile. Why she was at all pleased that Jordan was impressed with her, she didn’t have an answer.
“It’s no big deal. I used to do it all the time with my flock mates.” When Symon wasn’t with them, of course.
Alyx watched a grin spread on Jordan’s face. Even though Jordan had been a Castus he would have made a brilliant warrior. One she would be happy to have as her flock mate, she realized.
“And the winner?”
“The winner gets bragging rights.”
“Not interesting enough.”
“What would you wager for, then?”
“Eternal obedience.”
Alyx raised a stern eyebrow at him.
Jordan smiled in what was sure to be a faked innocence. “I just meant that the loser would clean the other’s weapons, de-blood their clothes, polish their boots and such.”
“That’s so not what you meant,” Alyx muttered under her breath.
He just grinned wider. “Do we have a wager or not?”
She heard a low pained grunt in the alleyway beyond. A mortal at the wrong place at the wrong time, no doubt.
“Deal. I just hope you can keep up.” She smirked at him, before pushing up off the ground.
She vaulted over the tall fence noting that he did so, too. Her dagger and sword being unsheathed made a harmonizing sound with his as they both dropped into the alley. They landed in the middle of the pitted concrete street, their boots tapping to the ground in unison.
The one street lamp post that hung like a skeleton’s arm over this street had long burned out with no one coming to replace it, causing the alleyway to sink in its shadows. Heavy metal music coming from a basement bar, partly under street level, created a head-aching soundtrack. The haze of smoke seeping from the seams of the door made the sign – “Hell’s Fire” decorated in tacky fluorescent flames – seem like it really was on fire. Was this bar really standing opposite a church?
Sinners aside saints, Alyx thought.
There were a group of three Darkened who looked like they had tumbled out of the Hell’s Fire bar. A mortal man lay discarded on the ground at their feet.
Under the distinct smell of cigarette smoke she could smell sweat and oil. Motorbikes were parked further up the thin lane like a row of chrome and black beasts. Alyx frowned as a disjointed memory of her and Israel riding on a motorbike flashed across her mind like a discarded flyer thrown about the wind. A curious sensation coiled in her belly.
“Only three? That’s barely enough to make it interesting,” Jordan said in a disappointed voice, jolting her out of her thoughts.
At this, the three Darkened looked up. For a split second, it seemed that a silence descended upon the world.
Then a terrified shriek came from the door of the bar as a mortal woman tumbled out, shoeless, bloody, dress torn off one shoulder, scrambling in panic up the steps to the road level. Behind her were another two Darkened. The woman swayed at the top of the steps as she caught sight of Alyx and Jordan, swords at the ready. She let out another shriek, but this time the end of her wail was lost to the wind as the tip of a Darkened blade skewered her from behind. “Shut up, bitch.” The flash of silver retreated and she hit the ground.
The two newcomers caught sight of Alyx and Jordan.
“Five… that’s a little better,” Jordan said.
The Darkened closest to the bar turned his head towards the building and yelled out something incomprehensible to Alyx. Then the door swung again and a few more Darkened spilled from the bar out into the street.
Oh. Crap. Alyx took a long hard swallow as she surveyed the group of Darkened in front of them. She took in their black jackets, leather vests and studded pants. Some of them were swinging chains. Now it was eleven against two.
She could see Jordan out of the corner of her eye. His grin was just getting wider as he twirled his blades around him. “Now this… this just got interesting.”
Great. She was fighting alongside a maniac.
With a yell, one of the Darkened raised his chains and the group swarmed towards them. Alyx focused on the first two coming for her. She met both their swords with her dagger and her blade. Flicking her wrists, she twirled her weapons around the Darkened’s blades loosening them from their owner’s hands.
Alyx jumped, a split kick in the air and knocked them both aside, their swords clattering across concrete. Mid-air she tumbled forward to meet the next two Darkened. Her blades sliced down through the air across and over her head in a lethal X. One of the Darkened was quick enough to block her strike with his chain. The other was not so lucky. Her dagger sliced at his chest and she felt her blade grate against bone. He cried out, grabbing at his wound as he fell to his knees.
Alyx felt herself being jerked through the air as the Darkened pulled at the chain that had wrapped around her blade. She saw the wall coming for her and had just enough time to force her body to relax. A tense body meant broken bones. Broken bones were a bitch to fight with and a bitch to heal.
She hit the wall with her side, her breath expelling from her lungs in an audible grunt. She fell to the ground, temporarily stunned from the shock.
“Alyx!” she heard Jordan yell. She looked up in time to see the Darkened swinging his chain back ready to lash down at her. She dove forward, knowing that she didn’t have time to clear it completely. She braced for a lash of pain across her legs.
But it never came. Alyx rolled and sprung up onto her feet, turning her head to the Darkened. His eyes bulged and the chain fell from his shaking fingers, clinking harmlessly to the ground. He fell, Jordan’s dagger sticking out of his back. Jordan was left wrestling with the crossed blades of two Darkened with only his sword.
“Kinda… need... my blade back, Alyx,” he grunted over his shoulder as he struggled against the swords pressing down tow
ards his face. Jordan’s back was facing her, his body between her and the two Darkened.
Alyx pressed her lips together. Neither of the Darkened were clear targets. Good thing she had wicked aim. She snatched Jordan’s dagger from the back of the fallen Darkened and threw it. It flew through the air and struck flesh, making a soft sucking sound. Alyx grinned. It had flown just over Jordan’s shoulder and struck one of the Darkened in the eye.
Jordan kicked at the other Darkened and grabbed his dagger back from the eye socket of the falling Darkened. He glanced over his shoulder and held up the bloody dagger as a thanks, before turning back to his other attackers.
The sound of feet against gravel alerted Alyx to the approach of the two Darkened that she had initially disarmed. They had collected their weapons and their courage again and were charging for her, swords aimed for her chest. Alyx kicked her feet up onto the wall to sprint sideways around their attack. She flipped off the wall and twisted over their heads to land back-to-back with Jordan.
“I do believe I am in the lead,” Jordan said from behind her.
“Not for long.” Alyx grinned at him over her shoulder.
The last four Darkened circled them. Two of the Darkened surged towards her. Alyx leaned back, evading the blade of one of them, then swooped her torso around and carved her sword across his exposed side.
As the second Darkened’s blade came for her, she countered it with her dagger. Then she swept her legs up, wrapping them like a vine along his arm, trapping his hand and rendering his weapon useless. She turned sharply in the air and heard a loud pop which caused her to grin. His blade fell from his fingers. She unwrapped her legs and flew back a little so that she could admire her work.
The Darkened cried in pain as he clutched at his useless arm now hanging limply out of its socket. Alyx delivered a merciful slice to his throat and he was silenced.
She turned to see one of Jordan’s Darkened fall to his blade. The last Darkened stood shifting his weight from foot to foot, glancing at his fallen brothers and sisters, littering the ground like sacks.
