“You can’t kill me,” I said weakly. “Kafka wants to do the honor.”
“I know,” she answered. I could sense the bared-teeth smile in her voice. “I’ll keep you alive, even though you’ll beg me to kill you. You think you’re so special, but you’re not. At one time, Kafka thought you were Zachariah, which was really Nicholae’s only chance.”
“How do you know I’m not?”
“It’s become apparent. I know it. Kafka knows it. Nicholae knows it. You’re nothing.”
Grunting, yelling, and screaming came from the brawl of Lornes. Erik was thrown to the ground by Malakye, but sprang back to his feet with the agility of a cat. Cassandra flipped one of the blonde twins over her shoulder and backhanded the other in the throat, only to have her knees taken out from under her by the man with the pencil-thin beard.
The blue flames retracted back into the water as Kafka stepped onto dry land to face Nicholae. Both men approached, circling each other like two schoolyard foes.
Nicholae suddenly grabbed his throat as his fighting body lifted into the air.
“No!” I yelled.
Alexandria’s nails dug deeper into my arms as I tried to struggle for freedom. She began to draw blood.
I whipped my head back and cracked her square in the nose. She howled and let one arm go, but remained firm with the other, preventing me from escaping. I struggled and tried to pry her grip with my free hand, but it held iron tight.
After a moment, Alexandria spun me around to face her, clamping back down on my arms with both hands. Blood had poured from her nose, over her lips, and down her chin, but the flow had already stopped. There were splotches of red in her long white hair. She grinned, more blood glistening off her teeth.
“You want to play?” she asked, and head-butted me in the nose. “Fine, let’s play.”
My eyes welled up immediately from the pain. I could taste blood on my lips. Silver stars danced before my eyes and I couldn’t tell if they were the same stars that were raining over the water. I fell back, my world spinning. Alexandria had already healed herself—twice now—and I was fighting just to stay conscious from one mighty blow.
“You can dish it out, but you can’t take it,” she said, hovering over me.
Water from my eyes flowed as much as the blood from my nose. When I tilted my head back to lessen the flow, I tasted the metallic liquid as it oozed down my throat. I coughed and spit blood and phlegm. My nose throbbed and felt three times its normal size.
Alexandria extended a hand—her wolf-head hand—to help me up. I shook my head, but she persisted with the offer. I hesitantly took her hand and she pulled me up with a reasonable amount of force, like she was sincerely offering help.
Once on my feet, she let me go. My legs wobbled. My head pulsed painfully with my increased heartbeat. I looked her in the eyes and she was smiling again.
This time her right fist connected with my nose and my entire face exploded with pain. My head hit the rocky ground before I even knew I’d fallen. She was saying something, maybe to me, but I could no longer hear her. I couldn’t feel anything but the agony spreading all over my face like ink in water. My eyesight was shot. I looked through a waterfall with sparkling motes bursting all around my field of vision.
“I’m taking you home with me,” a sweet voice whispered in my ear. It wasn’t Nero; he was dead. It wasn’t Desiree because the sensual words had a sinister connotation. A delicate hand with long nails cupped my chin and turned my crippled face. Alexandria’s face appeared as if from a dream. “And it won’t be fun like before. I’ll see to it personally.”
I thought of everyone left in my life. Of Jeremy and Anna whom I guessed I’d be seeing soon. I was glad I’d sent Desiree away, but I wanted nothing more than to see her one more time. I knew in that moment I’d never see her again.
“I’m so sorry, Desiree,” I said, choking on the blood in my mouth, spraying Alexandria’s face with crimson droplets.
“How sweet,” she said, wiping her face with the palm of one hand. The motion spread the droplets into streaks. “Wasn’t she the girl you were looking for when you fell into my office? How deliciously heartbreaking.”
As much as I wanted Mr. Gordon beside me, I was thankful he was the one to take Desiree back to the camp or home or wherever they went, so he wasn’t trapped in this slaughter.
There was so much pressure building up in my head, I thought it would simply pop. I brought a hand up and gently touched my broken nose, causing a lightning bolt of pain to shoot up into my skull. I closed my eyes to push back more tears.
“Do you want to see how your family’s faring?” Alexandria asked.
I shook my head. I could picture the scene in my head, and didn’t want to see it firsthand. I couldn’t handle seeing the end of the Lorne rebellion. The excruciating pain made it impossible to focus on anything else.
“This is pathetic,” she said.
I screamed and bucked my entire body as she squeezed my nose between two fingers. But after a few seconds, I noticed the pain subsiding. I was dumbfounded. Alexandria Lorne was healing my nose—not in the most gentle of ways—but healing it nevertheless. The copper taste lingered, but the faucet of bleeding had been reduced to a trickle.
“Now, I expect you to behave when I help you up,” she said after releasing my nose and giving my cheek a playful slap.
Alexandria extended her hand again—and again I took it, but this time my arm shot up reflexively to protect my face. She laughed at my paranoid response.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “I’ll let you breathe awhile. And besides, I want you to see this.”
Erik and Cassandra were not faring well at all. The muscular male Lorne I didn’t know held Cassandra, trapping her arms behind her back. Her expression was seething, but she seemed to have given up fighting. Erik had been reduced to lying in a fetal position while the blonde twins and Malakye repeatedly kicked him all over. Since we all seemed to be under control, Lazarus stood by, hands on his hips, looking confident and relaxed.
Nicholae lay on the ground, him and Kafka in an intense battle of unseen forces. Both of them looked like they were grappling with ghosts, their bodies contorting and limbs flailing at their invisible attackers. It was hard to see them when they approached the center of the island, the raining silver sparks turning them into dueling shadows.
“Nicholae’s strong,” Alexandria said. “But not strong enough. Kafka has more strength, stamina, patience, and control. Nicholae’s been here before and he knows the only way out.”
Then I noticed another figure appear on the island, but instead of a shadow, it looked like pure light—like a cluster of sparks taking form. It stood taller than both Kafka and Nicholae, but its form didn’t remain the same. It seemed to be pure energy and moved like lightning, grabbing the closest shadow and lifting him by the neck with fully extended arms. The shadow’s feet dangled and kicked several feet above the ground. The other shadow rushed the energy figure, but seemed to run right through the both of them, hitting the invisible wall at the edge of the island and collapsing.
Nicholae had to be the one in the grasp of the light figure—the Guardian of the Great In-Between—and Kafka the one attacking. Then Nicholae’s body came soaring through the air, through the invisible wall, and through the surface of the water. Blue flames burst up, but quickly descended with the sinking mass.
“Nicholae!” I yelled.
Bubbles popped at the surface where Nicholae had hit the water, creating ripples that extended outward in rings. After a few moments, the water was once again still as glass.
Kafka sprang to his feet, instantly back to sparring with the guardian. The blade of his dagger with the ornately decorated hilt glistened in his hand, the shine of a million silver raindrops reflecting off it in all directions.
“Be on the lookout for Nicholae,” Alexandria said to Lazarus.
“I’ll take a look below just to be safe,” he said and disappeared.
> “Tomarah, start dumping the bodies.”
One of the blonde twins left her assaulting position by Erik and approached our unconscious group members propped against the rock wall. One by one she carried someone to the edge of the water, swung the heavy load in a semi-circle to gain momentum, and tossed the unsuspecting body into the pond. Each body erupted in blue flames at the spot of impact and was gone without a trace after several seconds.
“You can’t do this!” I yelled. I tried to push my body forward, but found myself quickly restrained by Alexandria.
“There’s nothing you can do for them, so stop fighting. If you don’t, I will snap both of your knees like twigs. Do you understand?” Alexandria loosened her grip to see if I’d run. I didn’t. “I suggest you behave.”
The last body Tomarah carried and tossed into the water was Logan’s. I couldn’t watch another brother die, but I couldn’t help anyone—let alone myself—with two broken knees or worse.
Cassandra and Erik were in the same situation I was in, helpless to escape their attackers. Nicholae never came back to the surface. The rest of our group now lay on the bottom of the pond, probably cooking as well as drowning. Kafka remained faced off with the guardian, taking swings and taking punches.
Also, Lazarus hadn’t returned.
I was suddenly thrust backwards with incredible force, my feet lifting off the ground, and my body tumbling through the air. After an extended flight, I hit rock, tucked my head, and rolled to a skidding, crunching stop. I was out of Alexandria’s hands and momentarily out of her reach, so I clambered to my feet as fast as I could.
Alexandria lay on her back, pinned on top of Nicholae, who had one arm pulled tight around her neck. The muscles and veins in his arm bulged as he cut off oxygen to her brain. She thrashed violently, trying to break his hold on her. His other hand held a pistol, and when he brought it around, she batted it away. The gun flew from his hand and slid across the rocks, landing a few feet away from me.
I didn’t hesitate and leapt for the gun.
Tomarah had returned to help her sister and Malakye with keeping Erik down. She saw me go for the gun and signaled to her sister, who turned and charged me. I took a shot at her, but she kept coming.
With my entire body shaking, I pulled the trigger again—and again the bullet sailed right through her without leaving a hole in its wake.
She was almost on me when I heard the deafening crack of another gunshot.
I tried to brace myself for the incoming charge, but I was frozen like a spied animal. Tomarah’s twin crashed into me with full force, knocking the gun out of my hand, and collapsing onto me. My head first bounced painfully off the rocky ground and ricocheted into her forehead.
Her forehead had instantly become a bloody mess, pouring down onto me. She wasn’t fighting anymore. I was lying under a limp body. I didn’t have time for the spinning in my head to subside and pushed her body to the side, which rolled off me like a cold slab of beef. Once I got a better look at her, I noticed that the blood wasn’t pouring out of her head because of me head-butting her, but from a centered hole near her scalp line. Then I saw Matilda standing ten feet away with a down-pointed semi-automatic pistol in her hand, a thin tendril of smoke still wafting from the barrel.
“Thank you,” I said between heavy breaths. “I didn’t know what I was gonna do.”
“I noticed.”
“Did Desiree and Mr. Gordon go back to the camp?”
“Don’t worry, your girlfriend’s safe.” She gave me a slight smile, spun around, and jumped back into the fight.
My stomach felt sick sitting beside the dead Lorne body, so I scrambled to my feet before the lightheadedness completely went away. The back of my head was bleeding and I already felt a bump forming. I couldn’t tell if my forehead was bleeding because I had so much of Tomarah’s sister’s blood on me.
I located the dropped pistol and surveyed my surroundings. Our side had won. Matilda, Cassandra, and Erik were standing together—Erik still being nursed back to health—and Nicholae walking over to me.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said, wiping my bloody face with the black sleeve of the Elliott Smith sweat shirt. “What happened?”
“They retreated. Vivienne’s death was enough for today.”
“So we won?”
“Depends on your definition of success,” Nicholae said and pointed to the island.
Kafka continued to slice at the guardian, the radiant figure of pure energy. The guardian kicked him to the ground, but he never stayed down for more than a second. He jumped to his feet like the wolf he really was and attacked again.
“What can we do?” I asked, approaching the shore.
Nicholae stayed at my side. “Wait…and hope the guardian prevails.”
“And if he doesn’t?”
“You already know the answer to that,” he said somberly.
The rest of our group gathered by the shore, watching the epic battle for the fate of an entire plane of existence. If Kafka won, this plane would collapse completely and cease to exist. If the guardian won, then he would have held his post, allowing the plane to survive in its critical state. And Kafka would be dead again—but for how long?
Kafka charged again, dodged a swing, and stopped inside of the energetic being. The figure froze. Kafka stabbed upward, through its head from the inside, and twisted. He kept his dagger positioned above his head like it was lodged into something physical while the silver sparks that made up the figures body cascaded down like all the other silver raindrops.
He slowly lowered his hands, gazing around at the rest of the silver sparks flowing vertically around him as they were extinguished one at a time—millions of gray fireflies steadily disappearing.
Kafka sheathed his dagger and leered at us standing by the shore. He soon realized that he was alone.
“Don’t dwell on the loss. Celebrate your win today,” Kafka said.
“And what would that be?” Nicholae asked angrily.
“You and your boy are still alive. I couldn’t kill the last of the guardians and squash the rebellion in the same day. That’s my loss. But I won’t dwell on it. I’ve taken a giant step today, making all of the hard work and patience of the last ten years worthwhile. Momentum’s on my side and this is just the beginning. And now it’s time to go before the boom.”
I threw up my hand without even losing a second to aim and fired at Kafka. Once. Twice. Three shots before the gun was ripped from my hand and soared through the air, somersaulting over the water. As it somersaulted, it continued to fire, but with each new shot, the bullets sailed back toward me. Each time the barrel faced me, the pistol fired again—the clip empty by the time the gun reached Kafka’s outstretched hand.
It all happened so fast, I didn’t have time to react. I didn’t have time to flinch, duck, or even fall.
And I didn’t fall—I remained standing. I placed my hands over my chest and stomach and looked down. There wasn’t a single hole in my vest. No limbs sprouted new injuries. My head throbbed from my earlier fall, but nothing like what I would imagine having a bullet rip through my skull to feel like.
The cavern grew dimmer as more silver sparks fizzled out.
“Very impressive,” Kafka said. “Killing you could prove to be satisfying after all.” He tossed the emptied gun into the water. “Until next time.” Kafka gave us an exaggerated salute before disappearing.
Nicholae looked over at me, his eyes wide and wet.
“I thought I might lose you,” he said.
Everything had happened too fast for me to feel nervous; I’d just acted. I didn’t feel the full weight of the situation until I saw the concern etched across Nicholae’s grave face.
“You taught me well,” I said.
“At least I had the chance to teach you something.”
There were only a few sporadic sparks left in the cave. They reflected off the water, doubling the light they omitted, but even so, o
ur light faded fast. I could still see Nicholae standing beside me, but the others had almost completely disappeared into the darkness.
I began counting down in my head, anticipating what would happen when the light truly went out.
I felt Nicholae take my hand in his.
We were down to just a few silver fireflies left.
Ten...nine...eight...seven...six...five...four...three...two...
one...
The final spark flickered and went out.
I could no longer see an inch in front of my face, the blackness all consuming. Just when I thought that we might be standing too close to the water, the crash came.
The plane collapsed.
Thrown off balance, I stumbled forward. My foot hit the edge of the water and I tumbled forward, belly flopping into the underground pond. I expected the blue flames to erupt, and tried to brace myself for the searing pain, but they didn’t. I expected the water to be hot, but it wasn’t. The water’s temperature rivaled that of my unheated swimming pool back in Southern California.
I fought to get back to the surface, seeing a white light flickering above the water. Luckily, the fear was no longer paralyzing, and I managed to swim toward the glow.
A hand reached into the water. I grabbed it and let my rescuer hoist me to shore. Once my head broke the surface of the water, I saw that it was Mr. Gordon pulling me to dry land. Several small orbs floated above his head.
“You’re here,” I said. I seemed to have been the only one to fall into the water.
“I’m here,” he answered. “We need to move fast and close the door.”
The other Lornes made their way for the door ahead of me, Nicholae glancing back a moment to see me with Mr. Gordon.
Once I stepped through the door, I saw we were all back at the clearing in front of the cathedral—a cathedral that no longer sat at an unnatural, crooked angle. It still had trees jutting through its vaulted roof, but its whole foundation sat on the ground like any normal building.
I saw Colton, Gulliver, and Yvette standing around. They were alive! I scanned the clearing and found Logan exiting the cathedral.
Doria Falls Page 23
