The Brightest Embers

by Jeaniene Frost

  “Brutus, no!” I shouted. “Stay away from him!” If Demetrius’s shadows could penetrate Brutus’s unnaturally thick hide enough to slice off his wing, he could take off his head.

  “Listen to Mommy, beast,” Demetrius taunted Brutus in his own smooth, accented voice. Hearing it while the demon was still in my sister’s form felt like a desecration to Jasmine, but I had bigger concerns, like getting me and Brutus out of here alive.

  “Adraten!” I told Brutus, putting all the force I could muster into the command for him to stand down.

  Brutus flinched, his wing dropping before he took a reluctant step backward. Demetrius’s low chuckle reached me like a poisonous wind.

  “Adrian taught the last Davidian the language of demons. How delightfully twisted of him.”

  “I’m still learning,” I said, trying not to panic as blood continued to flow from the hole where Brutus’s left wing used to be. I had to get Demetrius to focus on me long enough for Brutus to get away. As for how I’d get away...well, I’d worry about that afterward. “Remind me what dyaten eskanitta montubule means. Adrian always said that when he was talking about you.”

  Demetrius’s face darkened and he stalked toward me, his shadow sword dissolving into what looked like a long, thin whip with a knife attached to the end of it. He really didn’t like being called fucking demon trash. I’d have to remember to use that insult more often on him, if I survived.

  I backed away, silently praying that Brutus would do the same now that the demon’s attention wasn’t on him. From the pain shooting through me, I had busted myself up pretty good hitting that fence. Still, I was able to turn and run, and the Icehotel had a chapel right next to it. It wasn’t that far away. If I could reach it before Demetrius could overtake me—

  “Take one more step, and I won’t stop at killing Adrian’s pet,” Demetrius spat, his knife-tipped whip moving with blinding speed. A long rip appeared in Brutus’s flank, and the gargoyle stumbled, a pained howl coming from him. “I’ll kill that bitch you call a sister along with everyone else in the hotel.”

  I stopped, panicked as Brutus’s leg crumpled beneath him. Then my heart ached when he tried to use his remaining wing as a crutch in order to crawl toward me.

  “Brutus, stop,” I said urgently. “You have to leave!”

  Defiance echoed in his answering roar, and he kept crawling. Now I knew what hell no sounded like in gargoyle, and my heart broke. Oh God, he’d die like this: brave, bloody and a thousand times more loyal than I deserved. Please, I found myself thinking. Zach, if you’re still around, please help us!

  Demetrius regarded Brutus with disdainful amusement. “Foolish beast doesn’t know when he’s beaten. Then again, I shouldn’t be surprised. He was too stubborn to die like the thousand other experiments we attempted before we successfully bred him, and yet Adrian still believes he was born after hatching from an ancient, previously lost egg.” He paused to roll his eyes. “Children, right?”

  “What do you want, Demetrius?” I was pretty sure I knew, but I was stalling to give Brutus one last chance to escape. “And drop the disguise. Blond and beautiful doesn’t suit you.”

  He smiled, then Jasmine’s face melted as if it were wax under a blowtorch. Black hair seemed to bleed over blond locks and my sister’s body contorted, too, though thankfully I couldn’t see the details due to his clothes and coat. Moments later, Demetrius stood in his true form of a medium-sized man with shoulder-length black hair, pale skin, average features and a wide mouth. Only the shadows clinging to his outline and his coal-black eyes that seemed to burn with their own inner fire gave him away as nowhere near human.

  “You will come with me, or I will lay waste to the hotel your sister is in, then the village after that,” he told me.

  “How’d you know I was here?” I said, trying to stall so I could think up a way for me and Brutus to get out of this. “Come on, Demetrius, tell me. We both know you love to brag.”

  “This was one of my son’s favorite places when he began sneaking into your world,” Demetrius said, glancing around while his lip curled in contempt. “So I sent a realm crashing down on it. Adrian never knew. I evacuated the town first so that none of its sparse population would be swallowed up. That way, I could keep a constant eye on this place.” He smiled. Nastily. “Then all I needed was a mirror to travel here once I saw your sister’s face at the hotel. You were careful to avoid them, but she wasn’t as careful as she should have been. Now, enough chatting. You’re wearing out my nonexistent patience.”

  The house on the other side of the fence I’d wrecked began to shake and crumble. Then it flattened completely as if stomped on by a giant’s foot. I stared at it, my mind trying to cope with how it had been a two-story structure a minute ago, yet now the only thing that rose more than a few feet from the ground was all the dust from its sudden demise.

  I wasn’t aware that I’d spoken, but Demetrius said, “How?” as if repeating me, then laughed. “I can use gravity to smash pieces of this world into their dimensional mirror images to form new realms, and you ask me how I could use that same gravity to force one tiny wooden structure to crumble?” He laughed again, with far more cruelty this time. “The answer is easily. Now, if you don’t want me to do the same with this entire village, you will come with me.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  I’D KNOWN THAT Demetrius could make realms. I’d had the misfortune of being in a place when Demetrius had used his powers to essentially swallow it up. But I hadn’t known he could use gravity in this world to smash buildings into smithereens.

  It also shook me that I was now in the almost same predicament my birth mother had been in. I could give myself up to save this village, or watch Demetrius kill its inhabitants one by one, starting with my sister. The only difference was, he’d bargained with my bio mom because he’d been unable to get to her any other way. He didn’t have that problem with me. I wasn’t standing on hallowed ground. So why was he bargaining with me? Why didn’t he just grab me and drag me back with him?

  “You want to use me to find the spearhead,” I said, trying to figure out the answer to my questions. I had to be missing something important. After all, demons didn’t ask for something that they could take.

  Demetrius showed me his teeth the way a shark showed a seal right before the bloodletting began. “You’re stalling, Davidian. Come with me now, or the next structure I level will be the ice hotel your sister is in.”

  What was I missing? What? “You’re saying you’ll let Brutus go free along with everyone else in this town?” I said, trying to eke out a few more seconds, and afraid that it wouldn’t be enough. Where are you, Zach? I thought desperately. Why had he bothered to come here at all, if he had no intention of putting in an appearance when he was actually needed?

  Demetrius inhaled as if he could smell my growing anxiety. Then, as if lifted by invisible strings, a mirror rose up behind him. His entrance into this place, and obviously, the way he intended for both of us to leave.

  “They can all live, if you come now without a fight.”

  What sort of fight was he worrying about me putting up? I had no more hallowed weapons!

  Wait. He didn’t know that. That had to be why he wanted my compliance instead of trying to force me to come with him. He must’ve taken my silence as acquiescence, because he took another step toward me. It was weird; the closer he got, the more my body burned. The pain was so intense, I almost doubled over.

  I fought not to focus on the pain, but each step he took made it worse. Why? If anything, I should hurt less now, since I no longer had the slingshot or the staff embedded in my skin. Tons of pain had made sense when Obsidiana attacked me at the hotel, because hallowed objects responded to demons like the spiritual version of a terrible allergic reaction. But if I didn’t have any hallowed objects anymore, why did my entire body—espe
cially my right side—hurt as if I did?

  “Get away from her,” a familiar voice suddenly snarled.

  I swung around in disbelief. It wasn’t Zach, who I’d been hoping would show up. It was Adrian, and I had no idea how he’d gotten here, let alone known I was in trouble.

  Like Demetrius, Adrian wasn’t dressed for the icy temperatures. He had on only a long-sleeved sweater, jeans and gloves. Brutus whined when he saw him, crawling faster despite the wide, bloody trail he was leaving in his wake.

  Adrian glanced at Brutus, his mouth tightening, before the demon claimed his attention again. “Get away from her,” Adrian repeated. “Now.”

  The look Demetrius gave Adrian was half-annoyed parent, half-enraged monster. “If you’d do as you’re told for once in your life, I would be king, you’d be a prince and we’d both rule the realms. You could even keep this worthless excuse for a Davidian as your plaything. Just don’t interfere now, and I’ll return her to you once I’m finished with her.”

  “Liar,” Adrian growled. “You’d kill her the second you no longer needed her.”

  At that, Demetrius laughed. “Probably. I can’t remember when I’ve hated one of these meat bags more.”

  “You’re not taking her anywhere,” Adrian said, walking past me without looking at me.

  Demetrius took another step forward, his shadow whip writhing around as if hungry to sink into flesh. “And how do you think you’ll stop me, my son?”

  Adrian pulled something small and white out of his pocket. “With this Archon grenade.”

  Demetrius jumped back as if stung. He must remember as well as I did what an Archon grenade had done to him. I would’ve enjoyed his reaction more, except my right hand was throbbing as if something beneath my skin were fighting to be free. At the same time, agony shot from my neck to my toes. It certainly felt like the hallowed weapons! A wild hope rose in me. Was that what Zach had really come here for? To give them back to me without my realizing it?

  I didn’t take my glove off to see if my right hand now had a braided rope around it. Or unzip my jacket to see if I could glimpse a gnarled wooden tattoo running down my body. What if I looked, yet saw only my own normal skin?

  “Fine,” Demetrius spat. “Keep your little whore for now, but it will cost you. From this night on, I will tell every demon in this world about the spearhead’s possible locations. When all of them are chasing after her, a deal with me will be far preferable.”

  I was horrified for lots of reasons about that, but there was only one he might care about enough not to do it. “If another demon claims the spearhead, they’ll round up the others and kill Adrian. You’d risk your own son’s life out of spite?”

  Demetrius didn’t look away from Adrian when he said, “If he won’t help me get the spearhead, he deserves what will happen if another demon finds it.” Then he raised his hands and stared straight at me. “And I warned you what would happen if you didn’t come with me. Say goodbye to your sister, Davidian.”

  Time seemed to freeze when I heard a mighty crashing sound behind me. My mind replayed the memory of watching the nearby house crumble in mere seconds, replacing it with the ice hotel. As if I were there, I could imagine Jasmine’s and Costa’s panic as the beautiful, crystal-clear blocks of ice that formed the roof came tumbling onto them. Their pain as the rest of the structure followed suit, crushing them and the dozens of other people in the hotel under the pitiless force of Demetrius’s weaponized swat of gravity.

  I didn’t pause to doubt. Didn’t even think about what I was going to do. I just took the entirety of the pain burning its way through my body and shot it toward the hotel. Demetrius flew backward as if he’d been hit by a car. Adrian fell to his knees, and the rumbling beneath my feet abruptly stopped. The crashing sounds stopped, too, replaced with something far softer that I couldn’t put a name to.

  A dazed moment later, I realized I was on the ground, though I didn’t remember falling. I didn’t remember taking my right glove off, either, but it was now several feet away from me, its edges blackened as if it had been burned. My jacket smelled like smoke, too, and when I glanced down, I saw that a thin line of fire went from it all the way down to my pants.

  I attempted to roll to stop the flames, but my next realization was that I couldn’t move. Adrian staggered to his feet, grabbed me up and used his body to smother them, then threw me over his shoulder, yelling, “Larastra!” at Brutus.

  As Adrian ran us away, I saw Brutus use his remaining good leg and wing to hop after us. His increased exertions sent blood flowing more freely from his wounds, yet I was more afraid of what would happen if he stayed close to Demetrius. The demon was still knocked out for the moment, but any second, he could get up.

  The moment we crossed onto the grounds of the chapel that was adjacent to the ice hotel, I felt a little better. Adrian set me down well away from the edge of the hallowed ground, then yanked my still-smoldering jacket and pants off. I helped as much as I could, and as soon as I had them off, I tried to run to the hotel, but I stumbled after only one step. What was wrong with me? My entire body felt drained.

  Adrian picked me up again, holding me in his arms instead of slinging me over his shoulder. He turned around to make sure Brutus had cleared Demetrius’s immediate reach, although Brutus was nowhere near the hallowed ground we were on. At least Demetrius still hadn’t moved. I watched with a mixture of fear and relief as Brutus continued to limp away from the demon’s prone form. Then he collapsed about thirty yards from Demetrius. I wanted to go to Brutus, but first, I had to see if Jasmine was alive. I’d done something to the hotel—I’d felt that, and whatever it was had been strong enough to knock Demetrius out—but I had no idea if it had saved anyone.

  During the short amount of time it took for Adrian to run us there, I looked at my right hand. Tears blurred my vision, but that single glance was enough. The sling was embedded in my skin as if it had never left, the ancient rope darkening from bright gold to brown the farther we got away from Demetrius. I couldn’t pull the collar of my turtleneck down enough to see my chest, but I didn’t need to. I knew the staff was back, too.

  Adrian stopped when he rounded the side of the last building in our way and the Icehotel was finally in view. Or, more accurately, what was left of it. The electricity had shorted out, yet with the lights from the nearby structures and my improved night vision, I could see. Adrian stiffened in disbelief and I gasped.

  The ice that had made up the majority of the hotel was now gone. Instead, water poured out, draining into the nearby river as if being sucked in by an invisible wet vac. Without the ice making up the walls, ceilings and other structures, we had a clear view of soaked patrons splashing through knee-deep water as they made their way out of what used to be the stunningly carved Icehotel. The patrons I saw looked understandably confused and alarmed, but so far, no one looked like they’d been seriously hurt or killed.

  “You melted the ice.”

  Adrian sounded awed. I was pretty stunned by what I’d done, too. I hadn’t planned to. I’d been overwhelmed with panic at the thought of those heavy blocks of ice crushing everyone to death, so either the staff had somehow decided that instantaneously melting all the ice was the best way to prevent that, or my subconscious had. Either way, I couldn’t take the credit.

  My momentary daze cleared up when I caught a glimpse of a bedraggled blonde being helped out of the waterlogged mess by a tall guy with dripping black hair, and relief swamped me.

  “Jasmine, Costa, over here!” I shouted.

  Jasmine heard me and elbowed Costa, pointing at us. They made their way over, and I scoured her appearance for any sign of injury. The long underwear Jasmine wore was soaked, she had a cut on her forehead and she looked like a drowned rat, but she was all right. Costa was just as soaked and both his arms were bleeding from superficial wounds, yet he, too, was okay.
I could have cried from joy.

  Jasmine stopped when she saw whose arms I was in, then recovered and quickened her pace. “What the hell happened?” she asked when she reached us. “We were sleeping, then a horrible noise woke us and we saw the roof caving in. Right before it hit us, it and everything else turned into water. We almost had to swim our way out before it started draining away!”

  “You grab any manna before you got out?” Adrian asked, not answering her question about how this had happened. I didn’t, either. There were too many other ears around.

  “Here,” Costa said, holding up a dripping wet satchel.

  Adrian took it, then he handed me off to Costa like I was a football. “I’ll be back,” he muttered, and ran back toward the direction we’d come from.

  “Why was he carrying you? Are you hurt?” Jasmine asked in a worried tone.

  “No. Just drained. I’ll be fine.” Using the staff in such a powerful way had sucked all the energy out of me, but I’d recover. I hoped the same could be said for Brutus. “Costa, think you can carry me about a hundred yards?”

  He snorted and started walking briskly in the same direction Adrian had disappeared to. Jasmine kept pace and continued to cast worried looks at me. “Why’d he run off with the manna? Who else is hurt?”

  “Brutus,” I said, fighting to keep my voice from breaking. “He’s...he’s really bad.”

  “What happened?” Jasmine demanded. Then she grabbed my right hand, staring at it in shock. “It’s back!” she said, immediately followed by, “Oh my God, if it is...then you did it. You melted all the ice! Why would you do that?”

  “Demetrius ambushed me,” I said, not wanting to say how. I didn’t want Jasmine feeling any unnecessary guilt over him using her appearance to fool me. “Take a right here, Costa. Brutus tried to kill him, but Demetrius cut his wing off and crippled his leg. That’s why Adrian ran off with the manna—”