Destined (Desolation #3)

by Ali Cross

  He walks toward me and as he does, he becomes human again. He reaches down and I see his skin riddled with cuts and bruises, yet his grip on my arm is strong when he pulls me to my feet.

  “Are you well?” he asks.

  I look myself over and see I have plenty of my own cuts. “Yeah. You?”

  He nods. “I believe the young mistress has been found.”

  “Whadd’ya mean?” I look behind me, to peer in the direction that holds Horonius’ attention. The end of the corridor—the end that had seemed like a steep drop into black nothingness—is ablaze with light. I walk toward it, feeling like I’m walking toward the light at the end of the tunnel, except I know I won’t find Heaven. But I hope I’ll find a little piece of it.

  The light is so bright I have to shield my eyes, but I step up to the ledge and look down toward its source.

  “James?” Her voice is small, broken. A rough and poor imitation of the voice I know so well.

  “Des!”

  I still can’t see her and the bright beacon of light is blinding. She begins to cry and panic shoves at my insides. Where the hell is she?

  Horonius puts his hand on my shoulder, pressing down in an effort to calm me. When I can I look at him, he gestures downward. I follow the line of where he’s pointing and then I see her.

  “Des, can you dial it back? I can barely see you.”

  The light recedes some until I can see that she’s hanging beneath the cliff—I imagine her wrists are shackled to the underside. She’s hanging over complete black nothingness. I understood from Michael’s description that this is the bottom of everything. That this isn’t even true space, not in the way I understand it. This is nothing. Just . . . nothing. The place where all creation stops.

  “James,” Desi whispers. “James.”

  “Follow me,” Horonius says. He leaps from one barely-visible ledge to another and I follow without thought because to think about it would mean looking down and looking down would mean freaking out and freaking out would mean plummeting to my death. Or floating around for forever, I don’t know. Either way, I am not looking down.

  I jump onto the same little ledges Horonius does until I stand beside him on the rock to which Desi is shackled.

  I lay down on my stomach and look over the ledge. And there she is.

  She smiles and laughs, tears catching in her lashes then slipping down her cheeks. “Thank you,” she repeats over and over again. “Thank you.”

  I reach out and touch her cheek. She leans against me, presses her face into my palm.

  “I can’t believe you’re here,” she says in her rough voice.

  “I can’t believe you’re here,” I say. I feel like a smiling freak and my cheeks hurt.

  “Thank you,” she says again.

  “Well, don’t thank me yet. We’ve still gotta get you out of here and, according to your doggy, I promised something to the Ferryman that has him kind of freaked out. Tell him to chill, okay? I’ve got it covered.”

  I roll onto my side and look up at the dog-dude. “So how do we do this?”

  “I cannot,” he says. “But you should be able to release the pin and set her free.

  “Release the pin,” I say, rolling back onto my stomach. “Got it.

  “So Des. I’m gonna get you unlatched. Can you, um, fly or something so you don’t, you know, go falling to your death?”

  She laughs and my chest constricts with how good it sounds. Desi’s alive! I can’t wait to get her back to Michael. And Miri. Best damn gift I could ever give her.

  I watch as Desi closes her eyes and mutters some words under her breath. I can’t hear what they are and it takes her a really long time but she bursts into tears again and says, “Hurry. Hurry.”

  So I hurry.

  I scoot to her right side and reach out for the shackle. I think it’ll be easy, just reach over, find the pin, pull it out and ta-da the cuff will come unlatched. But it doesn’t. I get to the pin okay, but either I’m not pulling it out far enough or there’s something wrong with it.

  “Hurry James,” Desi cries, sounding like she’s in a boatload of pain. “I can’t—” she gasps. “I can’t hold on for much longer.”

  I don’t know what she means, but I understand enough.

  “Horonius! Help me!”

  “I am unable—”

  “Just get the hell over here!” I don’t care what he can or can’t do. Don’t care. Don’t care. When he kneels on the stone beside me I scoot forward. “Grab my feet.”

  I tip over the ledge at the waist before he even grabs me. Yeah, I’m full of faith like that.

  With the dog-dude holding onto my legs, I lean as far into the blackness as I can to get a better view of the shackle. I see Desi more clearly—her tear-stained face, her body trembling with effort, though I don’t know what she’s struggling against. And anyway, I can’t think about how horrible she looks or what may or may not be wrong. I need to concentrate on the damn shackle.

  Immediately I see the problem—the pin has rusted in places so it’s wider than the hole it’s in. I have to shove it up and down and yank it really hard to knock the rust off in order to pull it out of its hole.

  I grit my teeth and take a hold of the pin, shimmying it up and down. “Come on, come on, come on.” Finally it gives a little and the pin slips upward. “I think I have it!”

  I drive it up and down some more. I can feel the pin warming beneath the layers of ice. “Almost have it!”

  I feel Horonius’ hands on my ankles. Feel them shaking. And ignore it. Ignore the tears that fall anew on Desi’s cheeks.

  I’ve barely thrown the pin free and whipped open the latch when I’m scooting over to work on the next one. Desi swings out into space, her wings beating so slowly I wonder if they’ll do any good keeping her afloat at all. I bite back a hiss when a sharp edge on the next pin cuts into my finger. I stick it in my mouth for half a second then get back to work.

  “Almost there,” I whisper. My stomach muscles quiver from the exertion and Horonius has taken to sitting on my calves, which have long since gone numb, to keep me from falling over the ledge.

  Desi swings upward and puts one hand on the ledge. I don’t stop working on the pin, not even for a second.

  At last I say, “I’ve got it. It’s coming out. Get ready!” I shimmy some more, feel the pop as the last of the rust shucks off the side, and yank the pin free.

  For a second Desi hangs there, one hand still in the shackle, the other holding onto the ledge. I look at her face; see the momentary elation when she knows she’s free. Then see her start to fall. Down and down.

  I shout for her. Her right hand slips out of my reach, but I scoot forward again, ignoring Horonius’ cries of . . . whatever. Desi wheels her arms as she slowly falls—and I catch two fingers on her left hand. Two fingers, then three.

  Three fingers, then four.

  I’ve already started scooting backward. Horonius groans and hollers as he pulls me by my ankles. I ignore the ice and stone digging into my belly and chest as he pulls me, my shirt and jacket riding up.

  What I pay attention to are the fingers in my hand. The way her other arm comes up to wrap around my wrist. The weak beat of her wings as she tries, nearly fails, to push herself onto the ledge.

  And then she’s here. She collapses beside me, and Horonius falls to the stone. We lie there for I don’t know how long while we all fight to catch our breath, to stop our tears, to deal with the fact that we’ve done it.

  Desi is free.

  “Are you all right, Mistress?”

  I feel a warm and gentle hand on my cheek. Not James. The Hound. I swallow the bitter bile that filled my throat when I thought I was going to die—for real this time—and try to roll onto my side. I have little strength to do even that, so the Hound helps me.

  “A Hound?”

  “Yes, Mistress,” he says.

  “You look different.” I squint at him.

  “James?” With the Hound
’s support, I sit up and look toward my friend who’s lying on the ground, not moving. “James!”

  He groans and I sigh with relief.

  “I’m alive. I think.” He rolls over, grinning like a village idiot. He flings out a hand and I grasp it gratefully, joyfully.

  He’s alive. I’m alive. I hold his cold, cold hand between mine. I don’t ever want to let go. I don’t want to see my friends on the brink of death ever again.

  I’ve done a lot of thinking during my long imprisonment. I know what side I want to stand on. I know what I need to do to make sure I never fall so low again. But I know something else now too. Something even bigger than myself.

  “Thank you,” I say. I lighten my grip on his hand and pull back enough so only my fingertips trace the back of his. “Thank you for saving me.”

  “It wasn’t just me. I couldn’t have done it without your dog-dude here.” James smiles up at the Hound who rises to his feet and who, impossibly, smiles back.

  “The dog-dude, eh?” My face cracks a smile—like putting on an old pair of jeans that feel stiff at first but soon fit like a glove. The Hound bows his head as if in apology. He reaches down and takes my hand, and I let him help me to my feet.

  “And you got a makeover. How very ironic of you—a Grateful Dead shirt and all.”

  The Hound looks at me with confusion at first, but when I gesture to his clothing, his face morphs into a surprisingly soft expression. “Yes. James was kind enough to dress me with his clothes.”

  “Well, I didn’t dress him. Sheesh.” James laughs, the sound hollow and muted in the strange acoustics of Hell, but it’s good to hear, even like this. He climbs to his feet and puts his hand on my waist. “We’d better get moving. This isn’t exactly Club Med here, princess.”

  Desi walks in front of both of us, radiating like a beacon of hope through the dark tunnels of Hell. I watch the way she moves, the way she knows where she’s going, the way she shines, and I wonder just how many ways she’s changed.

  Once she got over the initial tears—she’d been all kisses and hugs, even for Horonius—she seemed to know, without even asking, that he’s alone now and that he’s sad.

  I guess alone is something Desi knows too well. But this kind-hearted, thinking-of-others Desi? I knew she’d existed—beneath all the yuck she covered herself with—but it’s something else to see it, to see her, like this.

  With every step my heart leaps to think how happy she’s going to be pretty much right away—when she sees Miri again. And Cornelius and Longinus. Especially when she sees Michael.

  That’ll have Miri crying for days, I figure. She’ll be all giddy over the two of them back together. And when Miri gets a load of this new Desi? Well, it’ll pretty much push out the last of the shadows clinging to her soul. Miri loves her friends, way more than anyone else I know. She wouldn’t ever be truly happy if the ones she loved weren’t. I feel my smile stretch from ear to ear as I think about that. About Miri and her happiness. Because everything is going to be okay now.

  Desi looks like an angel. An angel with black stringy hair and a cat burglar getup, but still an angel. If I squint I can see the outline of one bright and one dark wing shimmering in the golden glow of her light. She is truly a sight to behold.

  When we pass the pile of rubble that had once been a bunch of rock creatures, she stops. She kneels beside them and places her hand on one of them. She closes her eyes and stays like that for a minute. Then she stands and keeps on walking as if nothing happened.

  We don’t see that crazy woman—who Desi tells me is Ophelia, like the Ophelia Shakespeare created his character after—or anymore of those bat-dragons or rock creatures. Things are eerily quiet.

  We step out of the labyrinth of tunnels and onto the wide field of gravel that leads to the river. There are dozens more piles of rocks scattered all around, but it doesn’t seem that important, so I don’t mention it. It’s weird, though. Someone must be doing a little renovating, I think with a smirk.

  As we near the water, my steps slow and a heavy sense of dread falls over me.

  “What’s wrong?” Desi asks when she notices I’m not following close behind anymore.

  “I—I don’t know.”

  She walks back to me and puts her hand on my wrist. “Are you sure?”

  I look to Horonius, but he’s busy counting the gravel at his feet or something.

  “What is it?” Desi asks the dog-dude, but he won’t look at her either. Desi sighs. “Look, just spit it out, okay?”

  I open my mouth to say something, but I have no idea what. Thankfully, Horonius beats me to it.

  “It is the Ferryman. She extracted a promise from him in order to take us across. I warned him not to do it, as what she asks is always far too great, but James didn’t listen.” He looks at me with a totally uncalled-for amount of anger.

  “He does not remember yet, but I imagine he is beginning to.”

  Desi regards me with an expression that’s full of both horror and fear. “Is this true?”

  I stare at her. I mean, she’s an angel or a god or something, right? Shouldn’t she just know? Do I really have to spell out my shortcomings?

  I shrug. “I guess.”

  “You guess.”

  I shrug again.

  She looks around, all around, spinning and searching in every possible direction. Then she closes her eyes, her fists clench and she seems to concentrate for a minute. I want to ask what she’s up to, but I pretty much feel like I’m in the dog house and I don’t have the right to interrupt her.

  Finally she looks up, and I see tears in her eyes. “I can’t cross the river without the Ferryman. Not without risking our lives to the soul eaters and—” Her voice catches when she says that and her eyes glisten. “And we can’t do that. We need the Ferryman.”

  “I know.” I didn’t think it could be any other way.

  “You don’t get it,” she says, the tears overflowing now. “I can’t help you here. I—I don’t have any more Shadow or, if I do, I don’t know where it is and . . .”

  I reach out and take her hand. Step nearer. “Des. It’s okay.”

  “I can’t help you,” she says in the smallest, saddest voice ever.

  Still holding her hand, I lead her toward the shore, with Horonius following behind.

  By the time we stop at the water’s edge, Horonius has changed into his dog form and has begun to bark like he did before. Bark, bark, bark-bark-bark. Over and over until I see the edge of the gold-trimmed boat.

  It moves silently toward us, operating under no engine or oars, leaving no ripples in its wake. The girl comes into view, and all at once I know. I promised her something. Promised I’d do anything she wanted. Her eyes flick to Desi, then settle on me. And when they do . . . I know I’ll do anything for her.

  The boat bumps against the shore and I find myself wading into the water to pull it further in.

  “Hel,” Desi says, her voice dripping with ice.

  “Desolation.”

  “You’re the Ferryman?”

  Hel smiles and gives a half-shrug. “When it suits me.”

  “And it suited you now—with them?”

  Hel glances at Horonius, but dismisses him. “For him,” she says. My heart expands three times with pride. For me. She loves me.

  “I love him,” she says.

  Desi snorts. I used to think it was cute when she did that, but right now it pisses me off.

  “Look, you don’t have to like her, okay? But I love her, so show some respect.”

  Desi spins toward me. “You love her?”

  I touch Hel’s shoulder and she puts her hand over mine, caressing it. I think I might die of happiness right there. Desi gets an ugly look on her face that kind of undoes all the shining glory of her light. Why does she have to be all high and mighty anyway? What gives her the right to judge?

  “Well, let’s get this over with,” Hel says. “Come on then.”

  For a long time Desi sta
res at me and Hel without moving. Like she’s seriously considering not getting in the boat. I feel a sting on my leg and looked down, but I can’t see my leg beneath the red lava water.

  Desi strides forward, a look of pure anger on her face, and shoves her hand down into the water. My leg burns like a son-of-a-bitch when she pulls her hand out, a red stingray thing in her hand. She throws it onto the beach where it quivers, sizzles, then bursts into flame, leaving nothing behind.

  “Let’s go.” She’s about to jump into the boat when a rock goes flying over her head and hits my lady in the shoulder.

  “Hey!” The crazy woman—Ophelia—shouts from further down the beach. She has an armful of rocks and she lobs another one at us.

  “Hey you stupid bitch!” I snatch a rock from the air before it can hit my red-haired lady on the head.

  I climb into the boat, pulling Helena down so I can protect her with my body. “Ophelia,” Desi says, striding toward the crazy chick. She holds her hands out, placating, but when she gets too close, Ophelia throws a rock as big as her fist at Desi’s face.

  My lady traces a nail down my neck and over my shoulder. I shiver with pleasure and sink back against her. “Shall we go?” she whispers against my cheek. Her breath smells sweet and I imagine what it would be like to kiss her. I press myself to her, anxious to discover her taste, her feel.

  The boat rocks as Horonius yanks it up the beach and stomps off toward a row of rock-creatures who race toward us. I don’t care about the genii, or Desi or the dog-dude. But I want to get away from anything that could endanger my woman.

  “Son of a bitch.” I move away from Helena and jump out of the boat. I’m going to push it back onto the water so we can get out of here. I place my hands on the boat and start to push. When I drag my eyes up to Helena’s she smiles and all I can see are her lips, her red, glistening lips.

  Something sharp rips across the back of my knee and I fall to the beach, grabbing at the pain, trying to shove it away. A genii climbs on top of me, baring two rows of razor-sharp teeth as it brings its face close to mine.