Hellsbane 01 - Hellsbane

by Paige Cuccaro

  “Why? So I can die with skill? No thanks.” Images of heads rolling, fires licking at my feet, and brimstone boiling under my skin filled my brain. This couldn’t be my reality. “I want to go home.”

  “Emma Jane, don’t you know how lucky you are? How special?” he said.

  Oh, he had to be on drugs. “Right. Lucky me.”

  “Come.” He held a hand to me. “I have something to show you.”

  I didn’t move. Everything inside me ached to reach out and feel his hand in mine, but I was tired, more than a little freaked, and maybe a smidge stubborn.

  “I’m outta here.” I turned, heading for my car, but only managed five steps before I smacked my nose into Eli’s chest. He’d teleported into my path.

  “Hey.” I rubbed my nose. “That’s not cool.”

  “Perhaps you’ve mistaken my statement for a request,” he said. “It wasn’t.”

  “Ah. So it’s like that, is it?”

  He snaked an arm around my waist, jerked me to him so our bodies were flush against each other. I gasped, my hands going to his chest on reflex.

  “Yes,” he said. “It’s like that.”

  A soft wind shifted through my hair, and the world around us blurred as if in motion. But our feet hadn’t moved. The overlook, the cars, the townhouses, the sky, everything raced past us.

  Then it was gone. Darkness engulfed us, with only the distant stars twinkling in the vast emptiness. My hands leached around Eli’s neck, brought us cheek to cheek.

  “You’re safe in my arms, Emma Jane. Always,” he said, his lips brushing my ear. A shudder traveled straight down to my center with the sweet sound of his words. The man had an orgasmic voice. What a waste.

  His embrace loosened, and I leaned back enough to see his face. A soft glow lightened the shadows from behind me, just enough to cast a silvery glow over his expression. Time and space suddenly rushed in on me, and my brain spun like I’d been twirling around on my toes for an hour.

  I let go of him with one hand, pressing it to my forehead to stop the spin and to keep my brain from coming out of my ears. “What was that?”

  “Your mind is struggling to match speed with your body. May I help?”

  I’d told him never to use his power to give me false rapture, but I guess it was like asking a fish not to swim. I nodded and he rested his hand over mine, the warmth of his skin heating through me. The nauseating twirling stopped.

  “I hoped moving slower would help lessen the shock, but it seems the effect allowed your vision too much time to try and compensate,” he said.

  “We moved at angelic speed?” I asked, guessing.

  “No. I am able to travel at the speed of thought. We moved an increment slower.”

  “Um, thanks.” I tried to see over his shoulder, to get my bearings, but I couldn’t push up on my toes. I moved the muscles, and nothing happened. I looked at my feet—there was nothing beneath us. No floor, no ground, no…anything, just more blackness and millions and millions of distant twinkly lights.

  An icy bolt of panic shot up my spine and I clutched at Eli. My gut twisted and a scream caught in the back of my throat. Eli hugged me tight.

  “Where are we?”

  “Look behind you,” he said.

  It took a few seconds of internal argument, but eventually my courage rallied, and I glanced over my shoulder. “Is that…”

  “Earth,” he said.

  Sheer awe loosened my grip. I shifted my feet to his—I had to stand on something—and turned, holding his hands to my hips to anchor me, my back to his chest.

  The world looked exactly the way it does in all the pictures…but so much more. More beautiful, more breathtaking than any picture could capture.

  There was a storm swirling over one of the oceans, and night was quickly approaching for half the world. A thick line of darkness crept over land and water as the planet spun. On the other side, brilliant light ate away the darkness at exactly the same pace.

  “This can’t be real. How?” I asked, my brain fighting reason and everything I knew about space and time and reality.

  His hands slipped over my belly, his embrace enveloping me. “In the arms of an angel, Emma Jane, all things are possible.”

  My eyes closed, and I leaned back into his chest. I tried not to enjoy the feel of him around me, but the heat of his body, the comforting strength of his muscles, and the sweet, summery scent of his skin decimated my willpower.

  “Behold what your birthright has brought you, Emma Jane,” he said. “No mortal human could claim as much.”

  I opened my eyes and felt that rush of awe all over again at the view. “It’s amazing, Eli. Thank you.”

  “This is only the beginning. You have been chosen to battle creatures far more powerful than mere mortals. You are not like other humans; you cannot be. Your task requires much of you, and for it, much has been given. Time and space unravel for you to traverse with the same intrinsic understanding as those you hunt. The world is quite literally at your feet.”

  Before I could take a breath, I found myself staring out over a large valley and an ocean beyond. Gone was the great global marble spinning in the endless black of space. Suddenly, I was blinking at a waking cityscape miles below with large water inlets and busy harbors. There was blue sky above me and green land below. We were back on Earth.

  Hard, unrelenting wind whipped my hair, making it difficult to see. But I could make out the white sand-lined shores and the short mountain ranges that blocked sections of the city from the ocean.

  “Where are we?” I yelled, but my voice was lost on the roaring wind.

  Eli tucked me under his arm, and silence descended over us like he’d closed a door. My hair floated back against my head and I could stand on my own. I shoved at the strands over my face and tried to clue in my brain. “Brazil.” Eli pointed at the city. “Rio de Janeiro.”

  “It’s beautiful.” My gaze followed the landscape below to the base of the mountain, then to the long winding staircase tracing up the side until they disappeared far below the edge of the outcropping we stood on. It’d been nearly six a.m. in Pittsburgh by the time Eli and I left Earth, which made it nearly seven a.m. in Rio, and the city was already bustling.

  What are we standing on? I fisted my hand around Eli’s jacket and leaned over for a better look. “No way. Christ the Redeemer? Seriously?” We were on his arm and I looked to the left at the huge, white, carved face of Jesus.

  “Remarkable, isn’t it?” Eli said. “And yet it pales in comparison to the miracle that is you and those like you.”

  He smiled wide, so pleased with himself, and I could almost forgive him for not warning me one wrong step could send me tumbling over a hundred feet to the very, very hard landing below.

  I looked to the growing crowds and the endless line of pilgrims still climbing the mountain. “They don’t see us?”

  Eli shook his head. “As in everything, humans only see what they wish to see, what is easily explainable—what is normal.”

  With Eli, I was outside everything normal. And I was starting to like it.

  “You could reach this spot on your own,” he said. “It’s within your abilities.”

  “Really? How?”

  “Speed of movement is the key. If not for the physiology of humans, illorum could travel from place to place instantaneously like their fathers,” he said. “But even moving faster than light, there are few places in the world you cannot reach.”

  “Sweet.” My mind shifted through the possibilities. “What do I do? Is there a magic word or something?”

  “Put the image of where you would like to go in your mind,” he said. “Allow your desire to stand in that exact spot fill you. Then take a step.”

  I really wanted to be off the nearly two-hundred-foot statue. Not that I’m afraid of heights, but I figured it’d be better to aim small for my first run at teleportation.

  I’d seen the wide landing at the base of the statue when I leaned ove
r, and the stone railing that circled it. I closed my eyes and brought the image of what I’d been looking at seconds before to mind. Wanting to be at the railing was the easy part. Yeah, I wanted to be there, on the ground, safe, before I fell to a horribly painful death. The desire swelled up in me, like turning on a faucet. I took a step.

  My second step stumbled me into the stone railing, cracking my knees, scraping my hands when I reached out to stop myself. Eli popped in beside me and scooped an arm around my waist, steadying me.

  Tourists already milling about the base threw curious glances my way. It took a second, but I realized they weren’t freaking out, pointing at me in frightened astonishment because I’d suddenly appeared out of nowhere. It was like they hadn’t even noticed.

  I forced a smile, nodded, and turned to find a seat on the wall next to Eli. He leaned toward me, bumping shoulders. “Don’t aim into solid objects; you’ll hit them.”

  “Thanks for the warning.”

  “I thought it went without saying.”

  “You thought wrong.”

  “Obviously.” He rocked forward onto his feet. “Would you like to try again?”

  I rubbed my knee then brushed off my hands. “Where to? Some place soft?”

  “The choice is yours,” Eli said. “I will know it when the image enters your mind.”

  “Okay. We’ve been to Christ the Redeemer,” I said. “Let’s not play favorites. Ready?”

  Eli raised a brow and dipped his chin in acquiescence.

  This time the trip took a half second or so longer. I wasn’t traveling across the globe, but Sri Lanka wasn’t exactly a step away…at least not for most people.

  The greater distance allowed me to learn more about this lightning-fast mode of travel. This time I felt myself move. Wind rustled through my hair, pressed at my body as I sliced through space and time.

  I could see the world blurring by. There were no shapes, nothing I could identify, only a wash of colors gushing from a pinpoint ahead of me, like traveling down a tunnel with a sudden, very abrupt stop at the end. With my next step, I stumbled across the uneven lap of the giant Buddha and into the arms of Eli. My hands latched around his hard biceps, and his hands caught my waist.

  “You beat me here,” I said, finding my footing before stepping back from him.

  His hands slipped from my body and he rubbed them together, nervous and empty. A moment later he cupped them behind his back.

  “My angelic speed is faster,” he said. “The Fallen travel an increment slower, but still faster than any illorum I’ve known. Most demons move slower than light, but far faster than anything humans can visibly track.”

  I nodded, letting him know I understood. My gaze tripped out over the city of Kurunegala. Standing in the folded lap of the eighty-eight-foot Buddha statue atop Elephant Rock was a view worth a moment of awed amazement.

  It wasn’t as windy here as it’d been in Brazil. At about three thirty, the day was well underway, and the air was warm, the gentle breeze welcome.

  “This time,” Eli said from behind me, “you follow me.”

  I turned. “Where are you going?”

  “See it in my thoughts.”

  “Of course. Um, how?”

  He clasped his hands in front of him and smiled. “I’m not shielding. Simply find me in your mind and my thoughts will open to you.”

  “Right.” I sighed and closed my eyes, reaching out to him with my mind, the same as I’d done a million times when I performed my readings. I found him, and the invisible door inside me opened.

  My heart squeezed; a powerful swell of love and peace stole my breath. Electricity tingled down my arms, all over my body, heating my blood through my veins. Ghostly warmth tingled my palms. I rubbed my hands, trying to ignore the feeling, to forget it. But I wanted to experience it again, the sensation of flesh against flesh.

  These were emotions I was feeling, Eli’s emotions, same as I’d ever been able to read from anyone. I was in his mind. I focused, pressed beyond the cloud of energy, the aura that surrounded every intelligent mind. I didn’t know if I could; another person’s emotions swamping through me had always been enough to make me want to pull back. I ignored my recoil this time and punched through.

  Follow me to the Shiva. Bangalore. The thought suddenly rippled through my brain as easily as my own.

  “India?” I opened my eyes, but Eli was already gone. The image of yet another giant statue flashed through my head. I’d never seen this one before. Not in pictures, not on TV, yet it was clear in my thoughts. I closed my eyes again and imagined my gaze traveling up the statue. Thoughts, buried beneath the image I’d read from Eli, now emerged.

  So beautiful. The details, the colors, the marvelous ingenuity of humans.

  These were his thoughts. I was seeing the statue through his eyes, through his memories. It was enough. I wanted to go there and I took a step. My next step and the ones after that moved me across the black stone floor to Eli. He leaned an elbow against the guardrail at the base of the statue of the Hindu deity.

  It wasn’t as big as the Buddha, but it was still scary big. The four-armed man sat with his legs folded, one set of arms resting in his lap, the other set bent upward at his sides. The right hand gripped a giant trident; in the other he held a small drum, shaped like an hourglass. He wore a cobra around his neck like jewelry and two more on each bicep. His bent knee was at least six feet over my head. Scary big.

  “Remarkable, isn’t it?” Eli said, staring up at the statue’s meditating face.

  I followed his gaze. “Pretty sweet. A little effeminate. Whatever. Could do without the snakes.” I looked back to Eli. “So how’d you like the entrance? No slamming into things or stumbling. Smoooooth as glass. Pretty slick, huh?”

  Eli straightened. “Indeed. With each flex of your angelic abilities, your control sharpens.” He turned and walked toward a canvas awning, where a crowd of tourists stood in line. “Shall we go again? Follow me, Emma Jane.”

  I had three strides to open my mind to his, to pluck the words and images I needed from the top of his thoughts. And then he vanished. “Rush much?”

  No one noticed us arrive, and I was confident they wouldn’t care that we vanished. Eli was simply there, then not. I assumed that when I disappeared, they’d see no more than a gust of wind, like I’d seen when Tommy had disappeared from the overlook on Mount Washington.

  My vision tunneled, colors whizzed past me, and I stepped to the edge of the rocky cliff next to Eli.

  “Wow. How far down is it?” I asked.

  We both leaned forward; the mist from Angel Falls beaded along strands of my hair, moistened my face.

  “Over nine hundred meters,” Eli said. “More than three thousand feet.”

  “Cool. Angel Falls. Venezuela, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Nice they named it after you guys.”

  “Fitting, I think.” The sun was just lighting the sky, pushing at the horizon to break the dawn. The bottom of the falls was hidden in the dark shadows of the early morning, the roar of falling water nearly deafening. The sky was still rich with deep purples and blues, the horizon a breathtaking canvas of reds and yellows from the rising sun. Eli straightened, smiled, and I recognized the look on his face as he pictured another destination in his mind.

  I thrust open my thoughts to him and only managed to pluck out the word “Sphinx” before he vanished. Crap. I knew enough about the human-headed cat to get me there. But that was about it.

  My desire rose and I took a step. With the next, I walked across the wide head of the Sphinx and stopped next to Eli. He stood at the edge, inches from where it rounded down over the forehead. He clasped his hands in front of him, the wind flapping the edges of his black jacket against his knees, fluttering through his dark hair. He blinked up at the sky and the afternoon sun.

  My mind was already open to him, feathering over the top of his thoughts, reading whatever he offered. Fool me once, shame on me; fool
me three times, and I’m just not trying.

  You must move faster, Emma Jane. Reason quicker; open your mind to your prey on reflex. I could hear his thoughts echoing through my head.

  “I’m trying,” I said.

  Eli lowered his head, his gaze fixing on mine. “There’s one more thing I wish to show you.”

  “Lucky me,” I said, frustrated he wasn’t as blown away by what I’d learned as I was. “What is it?”

  “Only this,” he said, but his lips didn’t move. I blinked. It wasn’t like I’d been staring at his mouth, but I was sure it didn’t move. And then I heard his voice in my head again. Capri, Italy. Walk with me in Augusto’s gardens. He vanished.

  A shudder rocked across my shoulders, the sound of his voice smoothing through my body like a physical touch. This was different than me opening my mind to his and listening in on his thoughts. This was closer to what it was like feeling another’s emotions. Except I didn’t do it.

  He’d reached out and placed his thoughts in my head. He’d touched me with his mind, and the sensation left my knees weak. I sucked in a deep breath, trying to center myself again, to cool the flood of heat he’d ignited in my core. Concentrate.

  My mind raced. I’d never been to Italy, let alone in some garden in Capri. I’d gotten a brochure once from a tour company in Rome. I knew Rome. I could picture the Coliseum. An instant later I was there, the city noisily racing before me. Tiny cars and humming Vespas whizzed by, enormous tour buses rumbled along, the smaller vehicles buzzing around them like gnats on a dog. People pushed past on their way to somewhere else. No one noticed me.

  “Great. Now what?” I still didn’t know a thing about the gardens Eli had mentioned or how on earth to get to Capri. Desperation pushed me to stop a woman hurrying by, tugging a little boy by the hand behind her. The kid, maybe seven years old, seemed to be trying his level best to slow their progress, literally dragging his feet.

  “Excuse me,” I said, reaching out to touch her before she blew past. She jumped to a stop as though she’d only then noticed me standing inches away.

  “Good heavens, you scared me half to death,” she said, hand to her chest. “What is it?” She glanced at the kid, yanked his arm so he’d stop fidgeting. “Marco, stop it.” Then to me she said, “I’m sorry. I’m in a hurry. I don’t mean to be rude.”