04 Last

by Lynnie Purcell

  In front of him was Nguyen. Nguyen was covered in dirt and had a large gash on his arm. He was telling Marcus about our fall in to the cavern and the fight above. It was impossible to read Marcus’ expression. It was the definition of enigmatic. Nguyen stopped talking when they sensed me in the arch. He turned to face me, hatred in his eyes. I was the reason Nguyen had failed his boss. I had made his task complicated.

  Marcus’ eyes brightened when he saw me. It was a contrast to Nguyen’s expression.

  “Clare.”

  Marcus said it as if it was the measure of my soul. His lips caressed my name in a strangely intimate way.

  “Marcus,” I said. “How has insanity been treating you?”

  Marcus laughed.

  “Quite well, actually,” Marcus said.

  He shifted in his chair and picked up a sword I had not noticed. It was made of black metal. It was sharp and cold. It had a strange mixture of bulky weight and lean lines. It was also the angriest-looking sword I had ever seen. The pulse of the anger reached out and caressed my senses. My heart skipped four beats as I tried to keep my fear under control. He had found the sword. He had found the unmaker. Marcus held it in his hand. He was the second part of the unmaking. I was too late. I had failed.

  His lips parted in a feline smile at the look on my face.

  “Impressed?” Marcus asked.

  “Not the word I would have chosen,” I said.

  “You will,” he said.

  Marcus eyed Nguyen, who looked ready to start the fight we had begun in the tower. Marcus’ yellow eyes swirled with a hazy darkness that went beyond a regular Watchers’ darkness. Darkness brought on by the sword? It was impossible to tell.

  “Nguyen?” Marcus asked in his purr of a voice.

  “Yes?” Nguyen asked.

  His voice was eager. He expected Marcus to ask him to fight me.

  “You failed your task. You failed to keep Clare away while I bonded with the sword. You failed to make her attack you with Amanda’s death. I do not have room for failure.”

  Nguyen turned to Marcus. His eyes were wide with fear.

  “But you promised…”

  “Forever? A part of the world when I took it over?” Marcus asked. “I lied about that.”

  Marcus’ grip on the sword changed. It tightened in to resolve. The grip was deadly. His hand shifted again. With it, came movement. The sword slashed through the air, bringing with it a wall of darkness. It cut in to Nguyen with little resistance. Nguyen’s head went one way and his body the other.

  Marcus saw my expression.

  “Don’t worry. He was a bad man,” he assured me.

  “Like Amanda?” I asked.

  “Oh, dear, Amanda. Poor misguided girl. It was easy to convince her we had joined. She was just looking for someone to love her.”

  He misinterpreted my horrified expression.

  “Oh, don’t worry,” Marcus said. “The joining wasn’t real. It was just a tool to get her to help me, to eventually open the chamber as it turned out.”

  “You are mentally ill,” I said.

  Marcus shrugged at my words. I saw darkness swirl more complete in his eyes, however. He did not like more words.

  “People believe in what they want to believe….usually it’s the thing they want most they believe in the hardest. You believe I am ill, because it makes facing me easier. Amanda believed I was in love with her, because it made her miserable life more bearable.”

  “And what is that you believe in?” I asked.

  “Unending life,” Marcus said. “And our right to rule the world as King and Queen.”

  “Oh, I’m supposed to rule the world with you?” I asked.

  “It is our destiny,” Marcus said. “It always has been.”

  “How do you figure?” I asked.

  Marcus smiled at me. He was glad for the chance to explain. His eyes told me that he thought his explanation would bring me to his side; it would make me see things his way.

  “Do you believe in reincarnation?” he asked.

  “I believe in everything, until I have reason not to,” I replied.

  Marcus looked pleased with my answer.

  “You and I are bound together,” he confessed. “We’ve always been bound together.”

  “How?”

  Marcus finally stood. I gripped the hilt of my sword tightly as he moved. I expected him to attack, but he didn’t. He merely moved to the wall behind the chair. He grabbed one of the torches lighting the space as he walked. The torch illuminated the wall and I saw a chamber – perhaps the chamber where the sword had been hidden all these years. Marcus went to the left of the door to the chamber and touched one of the drawings that decorated the room. I focused on the drawing and felt a strange sense of connection. The drawing was the most detailed I had seen yet.

  There were two people in the drawing – a man and a woman. Both faces were familiar. The woman’s face was as close to my face as a drawing on an ancient wall would ever get, and the man’s face was Marcus’ without the alien grace and cold features. Our faces had been put together centuries before I had even been born. We were linked across time. The connection I had always felt to him made sense.

  Marcus touched my face on the wall with a loving caress.

  “Farrah,” he named the woman.

  His hand moved to point at his face. His smile was stronger.

  “Her human lover, Jacob,” he explained. “Their love story was tragic. Lorian and Darian took from them their family. But Jacob was a human…he was weak. This time, our story can work. We are the two most powerful Watchers in the history of the world. We will rule the world with grace, ability and compassion. We will be the father and mother of a new generation of beings; Watchers who have evolved beyond the limitations of limited life and a single ability. We will usher in a time of peace.”

  His words were passionate. My heart told me he wasn’t lying. Perhaps in another life we had really been bound by love, if such a thing as reincarnation existed. It made sense that historian would have seen Marcus and would have recognized the similarities between him and Farrah’s human lover. It was the historian who had helped Jacob flee to modern-day France, after all. The connection was why the historian had told Marcus more than she should have. She had trusted in the memory of Jacob, without knowing that Marcus was a completely different sort of man. The historian had also known about the connection between Marcus and me. She had known what I would face. It was probably the reason she had displayed my tears for Daniel so prominently on my armor, to remind me of what I had. I saw the connection too, but it did not sway me to his side. I was bound to Daniel. He was the person I had chosen. Not Marcus. I didn’t care what the wall said. I didn’t care if a thousand walls all said the same thing. I wanted Daniel.

  All the time he had spent trying to seduce me to his plans were for nothing. I had made my choice.

  “Peace with an iron fist is not peace,” I said. “It’s fear and suffering.”

  “So…you will guide them…and me,” Marcus said. “You can take the world in your gentle hands and sculpt it. Together, we can finally have the world our kind deserves.”

  “That’s just it,” I said. “I don’t know what the world deserves any more than you do. I would make a mess of it. People have a right to choose and a right to choose wrong. Taking away that choice is evil. Unending life isn’t worth ruining the world. Neither is pride or fear, which seems to guide you more than anything.”

  Marcus’ expression hardened. He did not like my words.

  “You cannot deny our connection or our destiny. You will not deny it.”

  “I can. I will,” I said.

  My words had broken a sacred trust between us. I could see Marcus lose all affection for me at my words.

  “You will not change your mind?” he asked.

  “No,” I said.

  “So be it,” Marcus said.

  I felt him preparing. I felt the fight looming. The darkness of his swo
rd reached out to brush against my senses again. It was an exploratory thing. It was assessing my limitations. I felt the brighter darkness of my own sword working to combat that. My darkness was a different darkness. It was based in necessity. His was based in hate. I could feel the months of training and the circumstances of the past pulling together to help me in this moment. I had been training for this my entire life. I was finally ready. I no longer feared the expanse of my mind – it would help me in the coming fight. I embraced all the things that made me different, unique. It was exactly those things which would help me win.

  Marcus eyed me. His yellow eyes glinted dangerously; his white hair was warm in the light of the torches. His expression changed with the anger. He was no longer strictly Marcus. Something else had taken him over. A darker resolve surrounded him. I knew he would not stop until I killed him or he killed me. The moment hung between us for a long second. It was a second that separated us from a different kind of forever.

  Then he moved. He was grace and power – a strict combination of the two deadliest ways of moving. The sword had brought him more than just fighting ability. It had brought him talent. The connection between the two had made them both strong. Marcus was no longer bound by his gift of sending people dreams. He could move as I could move. He had control over the world around us. He held mastery over abilities he should not have held mastery over. He threw the torch he was holding at my face in a swift movement. I dodged the torch, but it was nothing more than a distraction.

  As he moved toward me, daggers appeared out of nowhere and flew at my face. I focused on them with my mind, and they dropped to the ground. He used the torch near me – he pulled the flames up and sent them in my direction. I did not stop the fire from reaching me. I stepped in to it and allowed it to surround me. The fire warm around my senses, but not painful, I moved to meet Marcus. I swung my sword at his head. Our swords met in midair. As our swords connected, I pushed the flames away from my body and on to his. For a moment, he was consumed by the flames. Had I done it? Was that all it took? The flames disappeared and Marcus appeared out of the fire. His hair was a bit singed, but he was unharmed. His face was angry that the flames had affected him at all.

  “Haven’t quite got that one mastered, yet?” I teased.

  “How about this one?” he asked back.

  He stepped up the speed of his physical attack. My arm twisted and bent as I worked to keep his sword from cutting in to my flesh. Around the attack, he raised a hand and a wave of darkness surrounded me. It covered my body like a dark plague. I felt my senses weaken at its dark touch. My hand threatened to drop the sword. I struggled to find Marcus through the veil of darkness. I could feel movement in front of me. I raised my sword just in time to meet his sword, but his attack sent me backward. I stumbled ungracefully. I was weakening. I worked to control the darkness, to remove it from my senses. I met another blow of Marcus’. This one sent me to the ground. The stone cracked under me as I fell.

  My necklace glowed dully against my skin as I rolled and fell. It was a reminder that it was there. The glow was enough. I took control of the light and pushed against the dark. The darkness cracked and shattered around me. I instantly felt strength return to my body. I could finally see the room again. Marcus was moving in for a sharp stab. I rolled out of the way and kicked him in the knee. He didn’t seem to even feel the kick. He was oblivious to the pain.

  I could sense the sword strengthening its connection with him. It was the same connection I felt with my own sword. Only, with my sword, I maintained control. Marcus, the man, was slipping away. In that moment, I realized my task. It wasn’t about killing Marcus – not entirely – it was about separating Marcus from the sword. That was the only way to win. I had to make him drop the sword.

  I stepped up my attack. Every talent I had ever witnessed came through my body. I moved through the place in between. I pushed fire, water, darkness in his face, any talent I could think of I pushed in his direction, all while fighting a physical battle to make him drop the sword. Marcus met talent with talent, sword with sword. He was not easily tricked. The longer it took me to beat him, the less chance I had at winning. Each second with the sword made him stronger. I started to have trouble keeping up with him. I had my talents, but the sword had millennia of power behind it. Time was the enemy.

  We circled around and around as we fought. His sword kept coming dangerously close to my face and limbs. As we fought, I felt a crawling darkness descend on the world outside. It was a darkness that made Margaret’s dark storm look sunny. The darkness threatened to swallow my friends – it threatened to end us all. Marcus was winning. I could feel it. Yet, I maintained the fight. I would not give up until I was dead. There was no other option. My necklace kept the darkness from surrounding me again. It was as if I was fighting with a second person. I was not as alone as I appeared. The feeling gave me hope.

  I slashed at Marcus’ hand, at his sword – I tried everything in my arsenal to make him let go of the dark sword. It was useless. The only thing I managed to do was to keep Marcus from killing me. We were locked in a battle that could go on for centuries…or until the sword claimed total possession of Marcus. I had no idea how long that would take. I had no doubt the sword contained more power than I did. That it had given Marcus abilities he was not supposed to have was proof enough of its power. The sword was just getting warmed up.

  Finally, the sword proved to me how correct I was.

  Marcus overpowered me. He swiped my sword out of his way and grabbed me by the neck. He flung me back like a rag-doll. I hit the ground and skid to a stop against the opposite wall. A long track of broken rock marked the violence of the hit. Marcus flashed in front of me, using the dragon-girl’s talent of movement. His sword was already raised. The intimacy that had connected us was gone. There was only a man possessed by a sword. There was no connection to the past. He would kill me without regret.

  He started to lower the sword, to cut me in two. As he did, time slowed down then stopped. My necklace no longer burned on the edge of my awareness. It was something I could not ignore. The light grew brighter. Then, while I looked at the frozen form of Marcus, his sword inches from my face, a figure stepped out of the light.

  The man was young, with grey eyes and a familiar face. It was the face of the Hobo I had met in New Orleans, the man who had helped in Lorian’s prison. Only he was younger, with no beard. There was no hidden beauty. And he was beautiful – perhaps the most beautiful being I had ever seen. It was beauty that went beyond physicality. There was also power in the man; I had no doubt in my mind that he was an angel – a real one. The only other being I had ever encountered with that sort aura was Nemesis.

  “I see the fight is not going well,” the man said.

  I eyed Marcus’ sword, which was only inches in front of me.

  “No, it’s not,” I replied.

  “What are you going to do about it?” he asked.

  “Well, I didn’t really have a plan,” I admitted. “He kind of got the better of me.”

  “That’s no way to talk,” he said.

  “You have a better idea?” I asked.

  “Nemesis,” he said with a strange reluctance. “She is the only way to stop him.”

  “I don’t trust her,” I said.

  “Then you are wise,” he replied.

  “Who are you?” I asked. “Really?”

  “I am Farris,” he said.

  “Farris…” I repeated.

  The truth hit me. I had never known my father’s name. Ellen had never even thought it around me. But I knew who he was. I knew the sound of his voice and the way his grey eyes buried in to my soul. I could no longer deny the truth.

  “You are my father, aren’t you?” I asked.

  “Yes…” Farris replied. “Call Nemesis. And…be prepared for what is next.”

  “What is that?” I asked.

  He smiled at me and disappeared. Before the light had even faded, time was moving again
. Marcus continued the downward path he had begun before the light had taken over the world. The sword did not have far to go. Though time had sped up, I felt the seconds stretch out. I had time. There was always time. I felt the black sword touch me just under the chin. Blood formed. The darkness of the sword swam through my veins. I rolled and the sword moved beyond my neck to the ground on the other side. Marcus, frustrated it was taking me so long to die, kicked out at me. I blocked the kick, but it was only a distraction. He raised the sword and pushed it in to my armor. I looked down at the sword in shock. I was not harmed. The sword had not gone all the way through to my heart. One of Farrah’s rose petals had stopped it. The roses were stronger than they looked. I took a deep breath and rolled again. Marcus grabbed the sword from my armor as I rolled. He raised the sword again, this time at my head. Before it could connect, I walked in to the place in-between. I reappeared on the opposite side of the room, near one of the arches. Before Marcus could turn to face me, I called out.

  “Nemesis!” I called.

  There was a startled pause in which Marcus tried to figure out why I would call such a name in the middle of our battle. The sword had a different reaction. I felt the fear and anger combine. It knew my reason. It tried to urge Marcus to move, to kill me quickly. Marcus’ confusion stopped him from obeying right away.

  Then there was the sound of large wings against the stagnant air. The roof of our room was torn away. Nemesis appeared in its place. She was unchanged. Her black wings took up much of the space where the roof had disappeared, and her eyes were covered by a black cloth. Her black hair circled her dress to the point that it was impossible to figure out where the dress ended and the hair began. She moved away from the roof and landed in front of me. She was taller, taller than any being I had ever seen. She folded her wings up and looked down at me.

  “Why have you called my name?” Nemesis asked in her choral voice.

  “A favor for a favor…” I said. “Destroy the sword.”

  “I cannot,” Nemesis said.

  “I thought…”

  “Unmaking the sword has always been the task of those who are in-between the world of angels and the world of man,” Nemesis added. “They have long failed at this task set before them. I can, however, take the life of the man.”