He had fallen to his knees, gently lifting the card to see the Seven of Swords revealed. It was such a short time since she read him this warning, and he tried to strengthen her with his faith, but still she chose to disappear. He felt the edges of the card press painfully into his palm and fingers before it was crushed in his grip. He wasn’t blameless. It was the third time he faltered, allowing his desires to give rise, and how many other countless times had his glance, his touch, spoke less of duty and more of need?
It was then Asher remembered feeling the presence of the others behind him, not staring with bewilderment into the empty room, but tensely looking to him for guidance. He held his breath, slowly rising to his feet, and then he abruptly turned and forced himself through the doorway, shoving aside the huddled bodies that blocked his path.
“Serafin!” Bruno’s voice called out behind him. “What should we do now?”
Asher kept walking. He only escaped the alarmed and plaintive sounds that followed him when the door of the winery closed at his back. Asher stood in the rain, stilled for a moment by the sensation of wet droplets stinging his cheeks, but soon he was moving again, making his way in the dark through unfamiliar streets.
“Asher! Asher, stop!” Kittie’s cry halted his steps. “What are you doing?”
His head was bowed, his hair hanging loosely around his face. “The same thing as always. Chasing after Steelryns and their ghosts.”
Kittie approached cautiously. “Yes, I know,” she whispered, gently slipping her hand between his heavy palm and stiff fingers, “but let’s return to the winery, stay together, and stick to your plan—”
“My plan?” Asher raised his red-rimmed eyes to regard Kittie and the four boys who sloshed towards them through the mud. “We’ve been running towards our deaths this entire time. Is that a plan? You want us to stay together?” He threw her hand back at her, his voice growing suddenly louder. “I never asked any of you to follow me! I didn’t want that. Either way, my failure damns you to die, but you never needed to know the reason. And I don’t want to see it.” He turned away from their shocked stares and stepped blindly forward.
“It doesn’t matter what you want!”
Asher’s balance was almost taken by a strong hand grasping his arm and yanking it back and down. He twisted around, stooped, to face Kittie, who wouldn’t release her grip.
“It doesn’t matter what you want,” she said again, her voice dropping. “We’re soldiers, both of us. I’m through standing by and watching it all happen. I can’t do that anymore. But I’m stuck in this kind of body and I can’t go alone. You’re not leaving me behind.”
Asher felt her eyes holding his still, even as she let go of his arm, and he swallowed a rising pressure in his throat. “I’m not a soldier anymore. I’m an avenger. I couldn’t fill Michael’s shoes and I couldn’t fight beneath anyone else. Under my leadership, the Resistance was slaughtered. And they were soldiers. These boys are not.”
Bruno stepped forward, tearing his eye patch from his face and flinging it into the muck. “I know I’m just a scared kid. I know I’m not strong like you or all berserker like Saros. But if life as we know it is almost over, I’d like mine to mean something.”
“We kind of have to, right? I mean, we accidentally helped Tregenne in all sorts of twisted shit, I’m sure—” Kerif gulped. “Uh, yeah, sorry about that…” He stopped fidgeting with his jewelry as he allowed his words to slow and voice to deepen. “I want to make up for it. Really.”
Fec forced his face into the most serious expression he could manage. “We’ve been protectin’ M’ss Kayla this long — we can’t aband’n ’er now! C’mon, Serafin, we don’ screw up all th’ time…”
Vic entered the circle, laying his hand on his brother’s shoulder. “We can’t just start wandering again, not now that you’ve given us purpose.”
Asher watched them silently before closing his eyes. “I wouldn’t know where to lead you,” he murmured. “I don’t know where Kayla went.”
Kittie braved taking his hand again. “But I do. I can sense Jeremy. He’s beneath the ground, in a cold, hollow place—”
“Where?” Asher asked urgently, his eyes regaining their usual composed and observant focus.
“I…I know he’s close, to the west, but it feels really weird. I can’t keep my concentration on him for very long,” Kittie said, her voice quavering.
“But Kayla is with him still?”
“I think so. He’s…afraid.”
“Then they’re in Velsmere.” He tightened his grip before he released her hand and began to hurry through the streets again.
“What about waiting until morning?” Kittie called out as she trailed him.
Bruno was quick to follow. “What about us?”
“If you insist on following me, you’ll have to accept that the strategy is unsound,” he muttered in answer to both of their questions.
The pirates shrugged, unconcerned, while Kittie trudged on, her face grim. Vic lifted her onto his shoulders as they passed her, hurrying to match Asher’s swift pace.
It was still dark when they reached the marina. There were several small boats docked and bobbing in the sludgy water, but the pirates ran to the only one that appeared to have a motor. Asher stared out into the darkness, his eyes searching the leaning watchtowers and the spaces between the warped boards of the surrounding structures.
Kerif roused him from his silent vigilance. “If there’s anyone out there, they won’t see us.”
Asher turned around to see him raise his hand towards Fec, as the scrawny pirate expelled a cloud of smoke that engulfed the row of boats. Within moments, that suspiciously dense fog diffused into a delicate haze that gently obscured the sight of anything beyond it. Asher began to walk towards the gloom, but almost immediately he was lost and disoriented in the thick air.
A hand gripped his shoulder and Kerif’s voice reached him again. “That’s how they’ll feel.” The raised lines on the pirate’s arm pulsed and the illusion faded.
Asher didn’t glance at his companion, but freed himself and ran into the spreading miasma that surrounded the now visible boat. When he was on board, he looked to Bruno. “Is there a Core? Can you get it started?”
“It’s definitely been adapted, but it looks like they must take the Core out at night.”
“Shit, we can’t take a rowboat out there! It would make more sense to wait for the ferryman,” Kerif complained.
“I’m not sure he’s still in business,” Vic said quietly, looking back at the sagging buildings near the shore.
“Do I ’ave t’do ev’rythin’?” Fec yowled out the side of his mouth. He thrust a small object into Bruno’s hand.
“Where did you get this?” the Captain breathed, lifting a fold of the stained cloth that wrapped the black mass.
“Tha’ crazy lady pulled’t off Saros. Looks like’a Core t’ me!”
There truly was power in that tangle of bone, as it soon enabled the boat to skim over the water in little upward jerks. Asher couldn’t see Velsmere in the distance, but he glanced back towards Cormina to watch the sun rise over the broken and glittering roof tiles of a sunken civilization. He let his gaze sweep over the empty horizon as he sped towards this final chance to keep his promise to Michael. His companions remained quiet and distant, barely breathing while dawn unfolded.
The tense peace the ocean’s beauty brought him was shattered by the sudden lurching of the boat, and he lost his footing, his body colliding with the gunwale. The vessel bobbed restlessly, but no longer moved forward.
“It’s dust!” Bruno cried as the pirates pressed in close around him, all protesting that they could squeeze more fuel from their power source.
“The energy his fetters contain is more intense and brief than what is expected from a Core,” Kittie whispered near Asher’s side.
“But it’s not completely extinguished,” Vic intoned. Clumps of ash and splinters of bone were cupped in his dirty hands. H
e gingerly brought his palms together, the ridges below his wrist swelling. When his hands parted again, there was a tiny, dark lump resting between the deep creases of his weathered skin. “I’ll strengthen what power is left in these remnants,” he said as Bruno dropped the nugget into the Core chamber.
The motor sputtered to life again and the boat dragged itself forward. Vic’s eyes were closed in silent concentration, his Mods flushed and throbbing. Their progress was slowed, but they were moving closer to her. Asher watched the pirates — a surreal display of quiet purpose. The Captain was confidently guiding their craft to Velsmere while his crew focused their attention on the tasks their Mods allowed them.
Kittie clasped her hands around Asher’s and urged him to sit beside her. “At this rate, it will be a few more hours before we get to shore. You might not get another opportunity to sleep.”
“Perhaps not.” His words were clipped and short, and there were too many concerns that kept his eyes from meeting hers. “Do you have a location on Saros yet? Anything you can sense about Kayla?”
“He’s still in that cave. I can feel us getting closer.”
“And Kayla?” he asked sharply.
“She…trapped him there.” Kittie nervously circled one of her braids around her finger. Her voice was quiet, her words halting. “She’s gone, and he’s…calling out to her.”
“God damn it. She went to the monastery alone, didn’t she?”
Kittie didn’t answer.
“When we get to shore, I want you to free Saros. He’ll be able to tell us more about her location, her state… And if I fall, I know he’ll—”
“What must I do to make you sleep?” Kittie interjected, her face suddenly pale and close to his.
“There are no promises that can do that.”
“Threats, then? If you refuse me now, you’ll have all five of us trailing behind you, without Jeremy’s strength. I’ll leave him there, I swear.”
Asher’s shoulders shrugged in silent laughter. “Is this how you got things done with him?”
“He’s like you. Tears and violence turn the world, but they can’t bend his will. So I have to sink lower.”
Asher felt her lips against his forehead before he was enveloped by a brief moment of bliss, followed by dreamless darkness.
*
A heavy boom and metallic screech shook Asher awake, and he fought to stand as the boat pitched and swayed beneath him.
“The Core, it ruptured. But still, this shouldn’t have happened! I don’t know if the chamber was cracked, or if it’s ’cuz it belonged to Saros, or if Vic lent it too much strength.” Bruno was pulling on his hair. “God, what am I saying? We should never have used it — it wasn’t even a Core!”
Asher noticed that his feet were wet and the sun was in the wrong place in the sky before he could acknowledge his hand gripping the boat’s railing so that he could remain upright, while the stern dipped below the surface of the water.
“As’f we never sunk’a boat b’fore,” Fec coughed.
“Yeah, we know the drill,” Kerif sighed wearily as he swung his legs over the rail and jumped down into the sea.
“We’re about a mile from shore. We’ll make it.” Vic’s words were expelled with some effort, his Modified arm visibly bruised and limp at his side.
The sun had set when they all gave up the ferry. Asher swam with Kittie on his back, slowly, so that the exhausted pirates didn’t fall too far behind. “What did you do? You took the entire day from me.”
“Do you think I didn’t notice that you haven’t allowed yourself to really rest, especially since Jeremy joined us? You can’t live like you’re not human. You can’t always be there to watch them, and you can’t will yourself to match the powers he now holds, especially not without the curse that comes with those abilities. If you want to save Kayla, you need your body to cooperate. If you were awake, you only would have weakened yourself further with anxiety. You couldn’t have made the vessel move any faster than Vic pushed it. And look at the boys now. A full day of driving their Mods to the limit. Only the Captain suffers from the weariness of ordinary men.”
Asher turned to see his companions trailing far behind him, struggling to move forward on their tired limbs. In the distance, the boat was turned on its side, sinking quickly into the darkness. He knew she was right, but that didn’t make it any easier to accept what she did. He always sensed that he was shown only the mild fringes of her abilities, but until now he felt confident that the understanding between them kept him safe from the direct effects of her power. Perhaps she was simply becoming bolder, now that the dwindling days were bringing her closer to a moment where she would have to reveal her true nature, whatever that might be.
He unclasped her hands and pulled her arms away from where they draped around his neck. “Let’s hope you have another trick up your sleeve that will keep them from drowning.” Asher swam back towards the pirates and offered his strength to his weakening companions.
When they finally collapsed against Velsmere’s sands, Asher flopped onto his back, panting, and looked to the moon as he waited for his limbs to regain their warmth. “Kittie,” he gasped, “has anything changed? Where are they?”
“He’s…gone.”
Asher turned his head to see her huddled face-first in the sand, her knees drawn up to her chin, her little fists balled close to her ears, catching handfuls of hair. He barely recognized her when she raised her head.
“They killed Jeremy,” she whispered.
“Are you certain? There was another time that you couldn’t sense his presence—”
“Serafin!” Kerif screamed as the waves pushed him to shore on his hands and knees.
Asher twisted his body up to see the pirate collapse in the sand, his jeweled fingers weakly reaching for the needle protruding from his neck.
Kittie didn’t notice. “Swear to me that you’ll make them pay…”
Fec was the next to fall as he rushed to his comrade’s side, and when Asher rose to his knees he noticed a dart in the sand where he once lay.
Bruno was sending his coins out into the surrounding rock formations while Vic stumbled towards his fallen brother.
“I’ll bet it was just as much Tregenne as Za’in. I’ll kill them both myself…I’ll find a way!” she screamed. Her skin sparked, setting the air around her ablaze. Three needles shot out from the darkness and pierced her chest, but she only glowed brighter before they dropped down into the sand at her feet. Two men, dressed in the armor of Za’in’s soldiers, emerged from the cliffs and ran towards them, weapons drawn. Kittie shuddered at the sight of their dark uniforms and cried out again, a wordless expression of grief and wrath.
Asher fell down onto his elbows, blinded by an explosion of her brilliance, his ears ringing. He kept his head lowered as he crawled towards her, waiting for the darkness to return, but when his hands found her soft form nestled in the sand, his vision began to clear. The two soldiers had collapsed just a few feet away, while more were now issuing forth from their hiding places. Asher turned his head back to the shore and watched Vic dragging his fallen friends towards the shelter of the towering rocks, protected by Bruno’s projectiles. Gold and silver sliced beneath masks, severed straps, and opened red streams at points of articulation. But there were too many soldiers. As they closed in, Asher tried to draw his kukris and stand, but something held him still.
“Serafin!” Bruno shook his head, his panicked eyes searching for his leader, but even as he looked towards Asher, there was no recognition in his stare before he was chained and gagged.
Asher struggled to move, to speak, as his friends were taken, but he was helpless. He looked to Kittie, and the world dissolved.
“They can’t see us,” she said quietly. “No one can.”
“You’re Nephilim? Why did you wait so long to—”
“No, I’m not. I had to hide the truth from Za’in, but there is no way he missed feeling me now…”
“What are yo
u, Kittie?”
Her smile threatened to tear her face in two. “Powerless, unnecessary, extinct…”
“You’re an Angel.”
She flinched, her mouth forming soundless words before her defeated voice reached his ears. “I’m nothing. Promise me…just promise me you’ll kill them.”
“Kittie…”
“I wanted to save Creation, because that’s what my God wanted. I never thought about what I wanted before. I had no desires that weren’t His. This was why I first protected Jeremy — he would grow to be a crucial player, so I had to ensure his survival. I became this,” she motioned to her small frame, “so that he might trust me, but I lost something along the way. Without God, without my natural form, soon it was no longer about saving the humans’ world. There had to be a world left, simply so that Jeremy could live in it. That was all. I loved him. I loved him more than anything,” she sobbed. Her light flared and her form flickered. She was a lion, an armored warrior, a golden woman, a pillar of fire. “I know you want to stop the darkness from forever descending. I know you want to save Kayla. These are my goals too. But there is one thing I can’t do. Without His command, I can’t end human life, no matter how tainted it has become.”
“You told me that you did take a life once.”
“An Angel. I killed an Angel. And I became the last.” Kittie didn’t avoid Asher’s wide stare. “Humans weren’t the only ones that feared Saros children. And although we can take very little direct action, my Brother in Fire was influencing humans to murder Jeremy. He was just a child. No, he wasn’t innocent, he never was innocent, but I saw hope in him, and beauty. I took him and ran. I tried to save him every way I knew how until there was no other way. It changed me. I must have looked like a monster to Jeremy then, but he was unshaken. He nursed me back to health and never asked questions. So you see, Asher, I am truly helpless. What can I do alone?”
Dominion of the Star (Descendants of the Fallen Book 1) Page 38
