Destined (Desolation #3)

by Ali Cross

  My mind goes blank.

  I’m partially aware of my rational brain telling me to kick it, scream, raise a royal ruckus. But the bigger part of my brain has slowed down, taking a leisurely walk through the moment, through my life.

  I see the creature’s wide black eyes and I see myself reflected in their depths. I see the gray, wrinkly skin that looks like it’s wearing a flesh-suit ten times too big, drooping all around its eyes and cheeks. I see its elf-like ears, the tendons in its neck as it screams and hisses at me. I see the black, rotted mess of its gums and teeth and think how funny/horrible it will be to be killed by a vampire with only one tooth.

  Thinking that makes me laugh out loud. To laugh and laugh. I think of Miri and how funny she’d find this. Think of the things she’d say, the jokes we’d tell each other.

  The creature freezes.

  It stares at me, tilting its head to the side. Which only makes me laugh louder and harder.

  And then something lands on the creature and it’s screaming and something else is growling and they’re rolling off of me and down the hall. I inch away, pressing myself against a pile of rocks out of the way of the fight going on a few feet in front of me.

  In seconds flat, Horonius has his jaw wrapped around the bat-dragon’s throat. They stay like that for what seems like minutes, but is probably only seconds, until the creature stops struggling. Horonius gives one last shake of his head before dropping the creature to the floor. He looks at me and a cold shiver wraps itself around my spine. Horonius looks far more deadly and terrifying than the creature ever had.

  But when he takes off down the corridor, I don’t hesitate even a second before hurrying to follow.

  Lucy moves closer and reaches out, but stops short of touching me. We love you. You know that, right?

  I nod because I know that’s what she expects of me. But do they really? Can anyone? Love me?

  I roll the question around in my mind. Taste it.

  And I realize.

  They do love me.

  And I know it.

  I know it.

  And so I say, “I love you, too.”

  And then,

  “Thank you.”

  My whole being flares with warmth. I feel it slip through me like liquid honey until every part of me feels impossibly warm in this wasteland of cold nothingness.

  Keep shining, baby, Lucy says, drifting away from me. I’ll send Michael. He’ll come for you. But you have to keep shining, okay? Let your Halo become a part of you—of every part of you. Can you do that, baby?

  I look at Aaron. Can I do that?

  But his eyes are closed again. The light Lucy shared with him is already gone—already found its way into me. Panic rises inside me. Aaron’s going to die. He’s going to burn himself out for me.

  Aaron opens his eyes. It’s my right, D. My gift to give.

  I hear his unspoken question between the words he says.

  Will you take it?

  I watch Lucy fade to a tiny prick of light.

  “Yes,” I say to Aaron.

  And Lucy’s light blinks out.

  While I let Aaron’s light fill me, fill me, fill me, I watch his own light fade.

  I don’t know how long we stay there, his hand on my forehead, his light everywhere.

  But I am changing.

  I try to ignore how he is changing, too.

  We talk some. Laugh over the little guilts and sorrows I’ve kept hidden in my soul. Because he sees all of me now. There are no secrets from him.

  Really? You remember that? Even his voice in my mind sounds like it wheezes. He’s found regret number three million and thirty two.

  I’m sitting in a stall in the girls’ bathroom between classes one day. Jasmine Michaels—I know because she always wears this hideous perfume—comes into the bathroom.

  “Did you see Freakazoid this morning? He got his lip pierced. What an a-hole. What a freak! I mean, piercings are one thing, but a big ol’ pipe or something like that in your lip? I could hear him flicking it against his teeth all during math and it made me sick. I actually had to tell Mr. Johnson I was having female troubles so I could get out of class.” She made a puking sound and the girls she was with laughed as they left.

  You didn’t do anything wrong, Aaron says.

  I feel his light—my light with the help of his—slip over that memory and smooth it out, buffing out all the sharp parts until I can look at it for what it is: the mistake of a child, nothing more. Now I know I can say,

  “I wish I’d said something to them. Wish I’d told them to be kinder to you.”

  I feel Aaron’s love caress me, feel his warmth flare where it feeds into my mind. Thank you, D. And then he closes his eyes as his light fades a little more.

  I am awake more often than he is, now. I shine so bright I can see all around me and far out into space. I see the empty places in the rock walls, the hollowed-out places. Places where the genii once lived but live no more. They’ve all followed Ophelia and I wonder what she’s going to do with them. I wonder if I can stop whatever it is, and save more of them from dying at her thoughtless hands. My light grows brighter.

  Aaron still has his palm on my forehead, but his head now rests against my shoulder. I can’t tell if he has any of his own light left, because all I see around us is my own.

  I am watching out in space, wondering if Lucy will come back. Wondering how Michael will find me. Wondering if a rescue is even possible. This far beneath Ygdrasyll isn’t exactly Odin’s territory. And who else is there?

  As I watch, a shape takes form. It’s black as black, but it moves in the darkness and so I can distinguish it. It moves silently toward me and glides upward—revealing its triangular shape. A soul eater.

  I’d seen them fly out of the River Styx and devour the damned who wandered too close to its shores. I’d heard about the ones that live in space; black, where its river relatives were red. Their wants are the same though—to devour souls. To bring death. Complete death. This is the first time I’ve seen one here, at the bottom of everything. I wonder if I wasn’t good enough even for one of them. But that was before.

  “Aaron,” I say, trying to rouse him. I bend my head down, kiss his cheek. “Aaron! A soul eater!”

  Tell me what to do, I ask in my mind, but I can’t feel his. His mind is closed to me.

  Finally he moves and looks at me. “What?” he mumbles out loud and I can barely hear him.

  “A soul eater! Tell me what to do!”

  He looks at his hands, discovering what I have known for some time—he is no longer feeding me his light. He has no more to give. For a while now I have been trying to send some back into him, to warm him as he has grown progressively cold, but I’ve been unable to do for him what he has done for me.

  The soul eater glides toward us. Up, down, as fluid as a ribbon. Fear clutches my heart. I push out my light, try to throw it around Aaron, to protect him.

  I know that soul eaters can’t take Ascended Ones unless they fail to protect themselves. I can only guess that their light is what saves them—nothing as dark as a soul eater can exist where there is so much light. So I push mine outward and it slams against the soul eater. It screeches and moves upward, revealing a wide mouth littered with sharp tooth points.

  I try to shove it backward with the force of my Halo, and while I do, Aaron is buffeted to the side. The slightest amount, but one hand—one hand!—reaches beyond the grasp of my light.

  The soul eater pounces and latches on.

  “Aaron!” I scream. The soul eater pulls him away from me, tugging more and more of him beyond my influence.

  “Shine Aaron! Shine!” He isn’t watching the monster on his arm, so he doesn’t see when his arm fades and the creature moves to his shoulder, to his neck.

  Shine for me, D. And—will you remember one thing?

  I feel his touch in my mind, feel his breath as if it’s on my cheek. His hand against mine. Remember I always loved you. And . . .
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  The soul eater jerks him backward, but Aaron’s eyes never leave mine.

  And I always wanted to save you, D. Save you from Daniel. From James. From your Father. You are meant to be glorious, Des. Meant to shine bright enough to save the whole world. Let me be a part of that. Let me save you, so you can save everyone.

  He is fading.

  His precious face, the face of my friend, is fading.

  Shine, D. Shine.

  The last thing I see is his smile before he vanishes into tiny particles of dust in an endless nothing sky.

  I can’t breathe. I can’t think, can’t cry, can’t . . . anything.

  The soul eater screeches and lunges forward.

  All I can do is the one thing he asked of me.

  All I can do is honor the gift he gave me.

  And so with a scream, I answer the soul eater.

  My Halo bursts around me as brilliant as the sun.

  And I shine.

  I slip and skid along icy paths, following the damn dog down and down. If it hadn’t been for the sweat I broke to keep up with him I wouldn’t have frozen my ass off. As it was, I have the wonderful experience of feeling my sweat bead into icicles on my skin. So pleasant.

  On one particularly sharp corner I catch myself before I face-plant into some wicked jagged rocks. I push away from them, ignoring the way the sharp stones cut into the bite Horonius gave me. But as I shove off from the wall it feels like it moves beneath my hand. It must be the ice melting from the warmth of my skin or something. Not that I’m very warm at this point.

  I feel like we’ve been running forever until I plow into Horonius, as his human self, standing at the end of the hallway. He is about my height, but way prettier, and with his arms folded I have to admit he pretty much rocks my Grateful Dead shirt.

  “You are unwieldy,” he says.

  “Hey, now.” I brace my hands against my thighs and to catch my breath. “I’m a little out of my element, ya know.”

  I look up, but he doesn’t reply.

  “Are we there?”

  He stares at me for a moment more before nodding his head almost reluctantly. His eyes regard me warily.

  “Well then get the hell out of my way—let’s get her out of here!” I make to shove past him, but he stops me. He holds my arm with a force that would put any heavyweight boxer to shame. There’d be no getting out of that guy’s vice grip unless he wanted me to.

  “Before you . . . get her out of there . . . I must warn you.”

  I shrug, hoping he’ll take the hint and let go, but he doesn’t.

  “You made a promise to the Ferryman, and that is a price you will have to pay alone. Do you understand?”

  I don’t, but I nod my head anyway. I don’t even remember it, but whatever it is can’t be that bad.

  “We will try to wait, but will not be able to wait long—we will need to get the young mistress out of here as quickly as possible. We cannot delay.”

  “I get it” My voice rises with a distinctly I’m pissed off tenor. “So I’ll do what the old Ferryman dude wants me to do and we’ll hightail it on outta here. Got it.”

  Horonius quirks his head, like he can’t make sense of what I’ve said. “The . . . dude?” He shakes his head. “If you take too long, we will have to leave without you.”

  “Geez I get it already. Now let’s get our girl.”

  He considers me, weighing me, sizing me up, and I don’t like it. In fact, now I really am pissed. Finally he lets go and I can’t resist giving my jacket a snap and rolling my shoulders in a show of bravado.

  Horonius steps aside and gestures right this way.

  I step forward only to discover myself standing on the edge of a very steep cliff. I look across from me, left and right. No Desi.

  “She’s not here, dude. Are you messing with me?”

  “She is there.”

  “And I’m telling you she isn’t. Look for yourself.” I step to the side and imitate his earlier take a look for yourself mojo. I’m tired and scared out of my mind and I so don’t have patience for the dog-dude’s games.

  And then:

  What if we can’t find her?

  Horonius jumps from narrow ledge to narrow ledge, faster and faster, peering into every crevice, every nook and cranny. “She has to be here.” His voice slips out of his normal zen-like detachment, rising with a panic I can totally relate to. He even kneels and looks beneath the ledge.

  “Well, do you see her?”

  He finally stops and stands, pressing himself to the rock wall. “I do not.” Now I’m even more scared than before because . . . we’re going to fail. Desi isn’t here. Maybe she’s dead after all. And if this place can kill someone like Desi—what the hell is it going to do to me?

  Horonius pushes away from the wall, jumps to the ledge beside me and brushes past in a hurry. “Perhaps I misstepped. We must have already passed where she is imprisoned.” He strides away and I hurry to follow.

  He disappears around a corner so I move into a jog to catch up, and plow into his back again. It’s like running into a brick wall. “What the hell?”

  Horonius holds his hands out to his sides, keeping me back, keeping me behind him. But I can see in front of him—and I see the strangest sight. A woman stands in the corridor, holding a lantern up high.

  “Ohhh goodie!” she says. She’s as pale as the bat-dragon that attacked me, with hair that splays out around her face like a halo. And she looks crazy. Crazy as all get out. She wears some sort of Victorian gown with a corset and the whole bit, but she is not beautiful. She looks like a vampire. She looks like death.

  “You’re not dead,” she says in this weird snake-like voice. She slithers toward Horonius, sliding around to the side so she’s pressed against his arm. She peers at me. Licks her lips. “You’re not dead,” she says again, this time stretching the words out twice as long as normal and adding a little tune to them.

  Holy crap, she really is crazy.

  And crazy is a million shades of scary.

  “Back away,” Horonius growls. “I do not wish to harm you.”

  The woman doesn’t even bother to look at him. She just smiles, all scary teeth and freaky eyes. “Shhhh,” she says, whether to me or Horonius I don’t know. Without any warning, everything changes.

  The rocks fly off the walls and throw themselves at Horonius. He’s forced to spin away, morphing into his razor-backed dog-self. I have a flash of memory and recognize the rock-like creatures that had fought against us that day eight months ago when Desi tried to start the Apocalypse. Genies or something like that. They doggy-pile on Horonius but I lose track of him because I have my own problem to deal with.

  The woman presses herself against me, her body waving up and down mine like some ghetto whore at a dance club. She pulls up the cuff of my jacket and licks my wrist.

  I thrust outward, “What the hell?” I try to scrabble out of the way, but the rock wall has come alive, wrapping stone fingers around my arms, my legs. She grabs me harder, her nails digging into me. I swear she’s drawn blood. And licked it off.

  “Get off me, you crazy bitch!” I try to shove and push with what movement I’ve got, but she won’t budge. She puts her hands all over me, and I mean all over me. “Screw this,” I finally say.

  When she leans in toward my neck, a holy-this-place-will-stop-at-nothing-to-turn-me-into-a-vampire fear drives into me and I head-butt her so hard pops of light flash before my eyes. She spins back and hits the wall.

  She falls into a heap, her skirts billowing up around her. The rocks let me go and I jump away from them. Standing in the middle of the hall I rake my hands through my hair. A few yards away I spot a dark, shifting mass that has to be Horonius and his attackers.

  “Horonius?” I take a few steps forward. I can’t tell whose winning and my feet become lead slippers as fear takes hold of me again. What if he’s already dead? There’s no way I can stop those blasted things.

  But I take another step f
orward anyway. “Horonius!” I hear a growl that has to be his. I take two or three more steps when I feel a sharp pinprick of pain in my side and look down to find the woman’s hand wrapped around my waist, her fingernails digging through my shirt and into my skin. I whirl around, trying to pry her hand off of me, but the crazy chick only laughs and wraps herself around me more tightly.

  “What are you doing?” I screech-yell.

  “Oh, you have no idea pretty boy. But I will show you. You want me to show you, don’t you?” She pushes me backward until I crash against the wall again, making me hiss with pain as the sharp points cut into my skin. I hear whispered scrapings as the cold rocky hands take hold of me.

  Then I really start to panic. I freak out. I don’t know what I say, don’t know what I do, but I know I can’t stop moving, can’t stop screaming until my body is covered in sweat again despite the frigid temperature and my voice can only manage a whisper, it’s so hoarse.

  And when I don’t have anything left, the bitch opens her mouth wide. Wide and wide until it’s half her face and I can see every one of her way-too-many sharp-as-needles teeth. For the second time since I’ve been in this hell-on-crack place, someone wants to eat me.

  She drags a razor sharp nail down my neck, whispering weird things like, “Oh so pretty,” and, “Tastes so good,” and, “So alive, so fresh.”

  And I just give up.

  I will myself to think of Miri. Her laugh. Her kiss. Her bright, beautiful eyes.

  When the woman’s teeth touch my neck, I close my eyes and let my memories take me somewhere else. Anywhere else.

  A bomb explodes.

  I don’t hear it, but I feel it. See it.

  A blast of wind blows over us, knocking the woman off of me, making the rock things let go. I feel like I’ll never see again, the light’s so blinding. It erases everything from my vision, the rocks, the woman, Horonius—everything. All I see is burning white light whether my eyes are open or not.

  When I can finally take the brightness, I slowly open my eyes, finding myself curled up on the rocky ground in the fetal position, my forehead tucked against my knees. I uncurl and look around. The light’s faded some, but it still fills the corridor like noon at the beach. Horonius–the-dog faces me, dozens of rock creatures littering the floor around him. His eyes shine bright red in the light.