by D. Fischer
Turning his head, Jaemes nods to his brothers using their own pillars as shields while waiting until our next plan can be devised.
Ire in hand, I dangerously tighten my grip around the smooth wood and pull the string to my cheek with my other hand. I gulp. Not long ago, I was chastising gossiping angels next to this pillar. Today, I contemplate which will die by my hand.
The muscles in my biceps quiver. Erma watches Ire shake unsteadily within my grip, and her lips part. She lifts her eyes to mine.
With a tender expression, she raises her arm and strokes my forearm with soft brushes of fingers. This rare touch of reassurance and affection soaks into my core, and my nervous energy dwindles under her watchful gaze. Her eyes say it all – the love, the memories, what we feel for each other despite our differences.
In a slow blink of long red lashes, she wordlessly promises to stay alive.
She gathers herself on the tips of her toes and leans forward, brushing forgiving lips against mine. It’s an affectionate kiss, and I melt into it, into her. My heart thumps a different beat, steadying the grip of my weapon, and her hair brushes my cheeks with a feather-like tickle when she reluctantly pulls away. Her sweet scent retreats with her, and the smell of dust, blood, and electricity replace it, sharper than before.
She searches my face and lowers her voice. “Are you ready?”
I swallow hard, memorizing every feature, curve, and color of Erma. I may be here to massacre those I once called brother and sister, but I’ll do anything to keep her alive, to take back what’s mine.
Nodding, I inhale a deep breath and turn from behind the pillar, releasing a materialized arrow from Ire. The string snaps beautifully, and then the arrow strikes the closest angel. It sinks into her chest, and the force causes her to sail backward, straight into a sturdy wall. With the deadly blow, she crumbles, limp, to the floor. A pool of feathers rain down over her still form.
This momentary feat causes immediate pause to the taunters, a temporary gain of the upper hand.
I take a step, aim again, and release another. And then another. Jaemes and his brothers tread behind, each step equally measured with mine while allowing me to take the lead. We pluck away at the angels as they swivel past their pillars and hallway curves, poised to aim. They never get the chance to strike and fall lifeless by our hand.
Yellow blinding lights shoot from Erma’s palms, striking her own creations with a look of pure determination and justice. I observe a ball of light quickly gliding through the common area, growing in size before colliding with an angel. It consumes the fallen guardian, wrapping around him like a blanket, and bursts the creature into tiny particles. The entire process is completely soundless, and the particles float upward, disappearing one by one as the air absorbs it.
An arrow clips my arm and I yell from the surprising sheer of pain. I stumble from the force and agony. I’ve never felt pain, nor have I ever been hit by my own species. The wound quickly heals and seals the pain in a pocket of electricity under the freshly closed flesh. Jaemes calls my name and steadies me by the shoulder with a firm grip that digs fingers into my muscles. We share a quick look - his dipped in concern and mine a steady stream of rapid blinks - and then he shoves me upward again, throwing me back into the fight.
“Stand your ground,” he yells to us.
A wave of bolts arch in our direction, intent on one deadly raid. Erma claps her hands together and spreads them wide, conjuring a small, blue shield, a barrier wall in front of us. Like a rubber band, the shield snaps into place, and the arrows pop against it.
The elves and I gaze wondrously at the transparent blue wall. This is our fighting chance.
Jaemes lifts his bow and aims, and the arrow slows as it cuts through the shield but gathers speed once on the other side. The weapon plucks an angel from her feet, and she soars into the descending mass of enemy, intent on breaking down Erma’s protection.
But the shield doesn’t last. Minutes that feel like seconds, we are given to dwindle the numbers, but some still remain. Erma’s shield wavers with her exhaustion, and an arrow hits my leg, sizzling the flesh.
A fallen angel prepares to attack me from my side with raised fists, to bring the fight to a hand-to-hand combat. He runs at full speed, flapping his wings to accelerate his pace and punch.
I turn last minute, striking him with my black wings. It knocks him off guard, and I continue the turn, kicking up my leg and connecting my heel to his jaw. The angel falls, and I quickly aim Ire, striking him in the eye.
Another angel charges, and I jump into the air, flapping my wings to propel me higher. Pulling back my free fist, I punch her in the cheek. Her head snaps back, but she grabs my ankle and rips me from the air. My shoulder hits the ground first, and she raises her Ire before I have a chance to recuperate.
My muscles tense as I prepare for the final blow that’ll end my life, but her chest bows forward, eyes wide. She turns to the side, intent on discovering who struck her between the wings with an arrow. Before she can make a full turn, she falls to the ground beside me, her white feathers blanketing her dead frame. I look up and see Jaemes poised with his bow still hovering.
I prop myself up on an elbow. We lock eyes, and he puckers his lips before flicking his gaze back up to the fight. He grabs another arrow from his quiver, aims, and releases in a swift motion. The arrow flies overtop my head and thuds into a new chest, sickly-wet sounding. Another fallen angel replaces that one.
Growling, I lay flat to my back, kick my legs, and propel myself to my feet.
An angel swings at me with a closed fist. I bring my arm up last minute, blocking the blow.
For a split second, all the time I’m allowed, I frown as I take in the face of the fallen angel who had pursued me. Black blood tears spill from her eyes and the corners of her lips. Her cheeks are sunken, and dried blood is smeared across her neck as though she had been bleeding before we had arrived.
She swings her other arm, and again, I block it. Her movements are sluggish, and huffy breath splutters past her sickly pale lips.
Lifting my thigh, I kick forward, my foot connecting to her stomach. Blood sprays from her mouth as the wind is knocked from her lungs. She falls to her back, landing on tangled wings. Distracted and concerned, I stab her heart with an electric arrow while sweeping her body with my eyes. Her blood seeps from every opening, and my scowl deepens.
I look around, curious as to what’s happening and why. Each fallen angel has the same symptoms – blood oozing from their eyes and mouths and a sickly pale body. I recognize it for what it is, having seen this in the witches when Kat was my charge.
“They’re infected,” I mumble. “They’re infected!”
KATRIANE DUPONT
GUARDIAN REALM
Two ally angel’s flank me, their aim swift and accurate from a lifetime of skill. We have something the enemy does not. I have something they do not. I have the blood of fee. I have the power of the first born and a dark conscience that walks hand in hand with my light. I have those I love whom I fight for.
With these convictions determining every swift move I make, and my immediate imposing threat, I’ve become the primary target.
What do they fight for? What fuels their desire to win that’s more so than mine?
Nothing, the darkness growls inside.
We raise ourselves to the clouds, gathering more warriors as we dip. Our formation reminds me of geese, my dragon at the front of a triangular tip.
The dive grants us speed, and the gathering winds tickle my scales. I tuck my wings against its forceful caress and angle for the pack of wolves being overtaken.
It’s easy to tell who is the enemy and who isn’t. The enemy delivered The Red Death to this realm and, in doing so, infected themselves. The effects of the illness are already showing, and it’s weakening them more than our efforts to destroy them.
My roar is deafening as we grow nearer, stunning a few enemies long enough for the wolves to steal the advan
tage. Electric arrows fly past my head, and a wicked gleam brightens my eyes, the battle exhilarating, the fall from the sky just the same.
Fire puffs black smoke from every corner of the scorched clearing. At the last moment, I open my mouth and snatch two enemy angels off the ground. I glide a few feet, and chomp my jaw around their middles, severing them in two. Blood gushes, slithers between my gums, and sprays the blades of grass I sail over.
I swoop around, and as I do, the angels who were flanking my sides drop to the blackened grass and engage in battle next to their elf alliances.
The wolves form a line, and before they close ranks, I land on all fours between their Alpha Female and Alpha Male. Their fur is soaked in their own blood and the enemies, but each is still alive.
In my expanded peripheral vision, blue hues descend from above, spiking fear in my heart. At the last second, I inflate my wings, almost a moment too late. The stream of electric bolts pummel from the sky. My wings take the hit, blocking the blows from their wolf targets.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
AIDEN VANDER
DEMON REALM
Inhuman sounds gurgle up my throat, gasping agonized rumbles. Chao tilts his head to the side but leaves his expression blank. Yet, there’s a certain curious twinkle catching in his eyes. I can almost see his thoughts churning. I managed to hold out, and he wants to know how and why.
How do I survive? How do I not give in and heed to their desires?
That answer is simple: love.
Chao, Umbra, Timore – they’d know nothing of it. They don’t know the strength love has against fear. They could pull the fear from me until the end of time, but the love I have for Eliza, the pure strength and torment I’m willing to go through to keep her safe… it’ll be their undoing. Not mine.
I want to be everything Eliza hasn’t dreamed of yet, everything she thinks is impossible. I want to be her home in whichever realm we seek refuge. I won’t give up on her, nor would she for me. She’s trusting me to keep her safe.
“Tell me what I want to know!” the child screams, infuriated.
“Go. To. Hell.” I pant each word. Perhaps he doesn’t know we’re already there.
I shift in my chair and bite back a groan. Each muscle is on fire, and though the wounds had instantly healed, every inch of skin is hypersensitive. I can feel every nerve within my body as though they’re exposed to the open air.
The child demon’s hands fist into tiny balls at his side, and he sneers. “You will die, Demon. I will kill you if you do not answer, orders be damned. Is that what you want?”
I raise a shaky eyebrow, and a trail of sweat dribbles over, stinging when it spills into my eye. “If that’s what it takes.”
Chao’s head tilts back, and he roars with rage. It echoes and vibrates against the walls, and I wince.
Inch by inch, quick excelling wounds open upon every pressure point and every soft expanse of skin. I scream, the action uncontrollable. The pain is too great, the wounds too deep.
Eliza, my thoughts scream as the wave continues.
An internal click switches inside me. Anger floods every vein, every pore, my very soul. It drives through each nerve, each bone and lymph node held within the shell of a human body.
But I’m not human.
I’m the Thrice Born. I’m the impossible, born for the third time in the depths of black lava. I was yanked from a void, a place of utter black and nothingness, a home of cries to those undeserving.
Closing my eyes, I hang my head and shake it, chuckling to myself as my wrath unleashes like the floodgates of a broken dam, hot and heavy. The invisible bands of restraint are willed away with a simple thought. Everything I am, everything Corbin made me to be, comes forward. He has no idea what he created, no sense of the doom that’ll be brought upon him.
I’m ready to own what I am.
Snapping my head up, I smile so wickedly it could melt the wax of a candle. I bring my arms forward, held out at my sides. The child’s eyes widen as each muscle ripples and contorts under the skin of my pale white flesh. Hot tears of lava travel down my cheeks, spilling from the depths of my eyes.
Like the melting of butter in a hot pan, my skin disintegrates, replaced by a pitch-black, rock-solid shell which sparkles, a milky way on a clear night.
“You’re wrong, you know,” I begin. My voice is an overlapping of many tones as though several dwell inside me. And they do. I can feel them just like I could in the void. With this transformation, this empowering sense of what I truly am, I’ve taken pieces of them for strength, their fear and sorrow my food, willingly given by the souls lost there. “Fear isn’t the kiss of death. Fear is a gift by the grace of love. Those who don’t fear have nothing to lose.”
I stand with grace, the hems of my clothes ripping at the seams as my torn muscles rebuild into solid rock. Hot red tears fall from my chin and splat against the floor, sizzling with steam.
“Let me ask you something, Timore,” I add. “What do you believe to happen next?”
With one step in my new, morphed body, I reach and grasp the child by the neck, lifting him from his rooted spot. Fear wafts from him, a delicious taste coating my larger, more sensitive tongue.
He thought the three would destroy me. He believed to be victorious by day’s end. Oh, how wrong he was.
I bring him to my face and chuckle once more, the laugh reflecting a wrath he’ll soon experience. My jaw opens wide, and I roar in his face, unleashing the fury he built inside me, the conviction due. It sounds like a thousand wails of agonized victims, high-pitched and eerie.
The black, shiny hair atop the child’s head waves in the breeze of my breath, and the pupils of his black irises grow. I lower my jaw more like a snake before he consumes his meal. Inhaling, I drink the cloud of fear and then take more, demanding his body to give me everything it has. He struggles, pulling at my massive black, sparkling hand circling his neck, and his feet kick the air.
I give no mercy. I continue to consume him. I drink him in as though he’s mine with which to do so.
The hollows of his cheeks swallow what was once plump skin, and his flesh wraps his bones tightly while I suck every fear this demon contains. It belongs to me, willingly killing its host to give me what I desire. His body quivers in my grip, each bone exposed under a thin layer of grey-ish skin.
He kicks. He pries. His lips twist. And then, his shifting eyes still. Slowly, the lids come to a final close.
Hinging my jaw, I grunt, staring at the dead demon within my grip. He’s mummified, a hollowed husk, dead from existence. Uncurling my fingers, one by one, I drop the tiny demon with a thud to the glass floor. As soon as the carcass hits, it breaks into pieces, scattering like shards of ice. The floor sucks it in, pulling it into the solid glass, and the lava takes it away as soon as it’s through.
The shadow demon speeds forward faster than any shadow should be able to travel. I smile and hold out my massive arms to my sides, conjuring the only thing I know to kill a shadow: a light.
Bright white, blinding light gleams from the white sparkles along my black skin, illuminating the room. The shadow screeches like a tortured pig, forced to halt its advance. The glow around my body brightens, and his shadowing wisps twitch, my light consuming every inch.
Without warning, Chao punches me in the jaw with the back of his elbow. I stagger. The light continues to glow as I turn, slow, deliberate. Ready.
This demon causes me pain. He is the finale to this entourage, thinking to drive me insane by a thousand painful slices across human flesh. He doesn’t know pain, but he’s about to.
The last screech of the shadow disappears, and I know I’ve killed the host. I drop the light and scream the thousand voices once more.
Chao holds his ground, delivering a slice against my abdomen with thought alone. The new wound is meant to be deep and deadly . . . if I were human.
I glance at my stomach, lava dripping from the gaping flesh before it heals. The goop knits the ro
ck back together.
Smiling, I close my fists at my side, my body obeying my command and lighting with a blazing fire. The sparkles along my black skin heat and detach, floating forward and circling around Chao. He bats at them, swatting the tiny, flaming specks to no avail.
As each individual ember touches his skin, it lights that area on fire, consuming the demon until the sparkles have all attached. Chao opens his mouth to scream, but no sound comes out. He falls to his knees as the blaze continues, consuming from the outside, in.
When he thumps to the floor, a heap of death, the floor consumes him, too. I slowly extinguish my flames. The specks return to my body and reattach to my black skin.
TEMBER
GUARDIAN REALM
Placing his foot on the chest of a dead angel, Jaemes yanks his arrow free. Throughout the large room, each of us examine the dead. Every angel has the infection: the trails of black blood seeping from their unseeing eyes, slack mouths, and sickly emaciated bodies. I bend to my knees and finger the withered feathers attached to an angel’s wings.
“What is this?” Jaemes asks Erma who stands behind me.
“The Red Death,” I answer.
“The Red Death?” Kai says.
“It circulated through Erline’s witches about a year ago,” Erma claims. “It’s what Katriane made a deal for. She asked for a cure.”
Standing, I rub my hands together, desperate to dust the disease off. “It’s only contagious by red dust if I remember correctly.”
Erma nods, nostrils flared.
I bend and pick Ire from the black marble flooring as Jaemes continues peppering questions. “And what’s the cure?”
“The tears of a dragon,” she claims.
“Of course, it is,” Jaemes disapproves a little too loudly.
With careful balance, he steps over a few bodies, a limp in his gait. He slightly slips on a bundle of feathers on his way to stand beside me. His brothers hover next to each entrance of the room, poised and ready in case there’s another attack.
