The demon lord stepped in front of me and poised its hands, ready to rip my soul from my body. The soul Emma had seen all along, even when I couldn’t.
I closed my eyes. It wasn’t his. My soul was hers and nothing would ever change that.
“Run,” Phillip yelled out.
When I opened my eyes, I realized he wasn’t talking to me, he was talking to those who remained. I looked down and my whole body burned with incredible white light, and I couldn’t help but squeeze out a few more tears with a small smile. Emma would have loved to see this. I’d be with her soon.
A blistering, icy heat fell on my skin then sank deeper inside. The demon. It was like a feverish sickness sank into me, sure to kill me any moment. Yet, I was still encased in the bright tingling of my own powers. The demon’s long spindly finger poised in the air before me, touching my soul. Its finger flicked upward. I felt something at the root of my being yanked at, except nothing pulled free. My soul hadn’t budged from my body. I was unmoved as it tried a second time.
“Calan, do it.” I heard Emma’s soft but reassuring words. I imagined her right behind me.
I squeezed my fists tight letting the unprecedented ocean of power crest. My heart beat wildly in my throat as I took my last breath. Opening my hands, I let it all go. It felt as though I was dropping from the sky, plummeting toward the ground. Wind rushing my back, I was certain if I opened my eyes I would find myself flying, but I didn’t. I kept them closed, holding the image of Emma in my mind. The day she accidently met my eyes over the colorful book she’d kept her nose in, her glasses slightly askew on her face.
I’m coming, my love.
With my powers, went all my energy. Then, like someone blowing out the candle of my consciousness, everything went dark.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Emma’s face hovered over mine when I opened my eyes. It took a lot of blinking to beat back the blurriness of my vision. Though I hadn’t moved, my body was wracked with aches and pains which were set aflame with each breath I took. The world shook around my body as if I was in a continuous earthquake. Each bump and shake made it harder to think.
“Are we in heaven?” My voice was low and hoarse. “Is there pizza?” Despite the flare of pain, I reached out to grab the angel’s wrist.
Emma took my hand and held it between both of hers, dropping kisses on my knuckles. Tears swam in her smiling eyes. “No doofus, this isn’t heaven, but you were superman so I’ll see about getting you a pizza.”
It was then I noticed the tape holding the corners of her glasses together and the warmth of her hands on mine. I moved to sit up but was hit by a wave of dizziness. Greasy nausea welled up my throat, so I stayed lying down.
“Where are we?” I asked. With that, another bump caused my body to jerk hard. I heard rushing wind over my head and Emma’s hair was tied back but the little flyaways were flapping wildly in the wind.
“It’s not Emma’s jeep, but it’s got wheels.” Travis’s faint, disembodied voice came from over my head.
Looking around, I realized I was lying down in a truck bed and Emma sat next to me, hovering like a mother hen. Travis was driving and he had yelled over his shoulder out the small open window that led to the truck bed.
“Travis,” I growled and tried again to get onto my elbows, determined to tear him into pieces.
“Whoa there, Terminator.” Emma stopped me with a hand on my chest, firmly pushing me back down. Weakened as I was, it didn’t take much force on her part to push me down. “Travis also helped save the day.”
“He’s a part of the Order,” I growled again.
Emma tucked a flyaway piece of hair behind her ear and again I noticed the freshly burned imprint of her pendant under her left collarbone. “He’s redeemed himself just fine. Sure, he was a big ole douche-nozzle who joined an Order that wanted to sacrifice me King Kong style.” She shot a dirty look at the back of Travis’s head.
“I heard that,” Travis yelled from inside the truck cab.
“But,” she added with distinction. “After you melted that demon down like a hunk of tar, releasing a bunch of scary screaming ghosts into the night--”
“Nightmares for the rest of my life,” Travis mumbled.
“You collapsed. The order of Veritas high-tailed it but your mother and father rushed back.” She looked down. “They were coming for me.”
“But, but you died,” I said, still not sure I wasn’t dead. The details of her story were too much when I still hadn’t yet processed the fact she’d survived.
She shook her head and cupped the side of my face. The feel of her thumb caressing my cheek, made my eyes flutter close and I wanted her to never stop.
“That evil sonofabitch was draining me. Sipping me like a damned fine cognac. When you knocked me out of its path it took me a while to recover. My soul, or whatever it was drinking from me, returned since the demon didn’t finished the job. I’m sure if it had fed on me for any longer, I’d be stuck inside its creepy distended stomach.”
I opened my eyes to catch a shudder ripple through Emma. “When I woke up, you were glowing, like an archangel.” She smiled softly.
I wanted to kiss the corners of her soft pink lips. The way she looked at me, with such reverence, I had always shied away from it feeling undeserving. But now, I knew I deserved her love. I could allow it to enter me, accept it with all my heart.
“It was you then,” I said in wonder. “I thought it was the ghost of you speaking to me, but it was really you.”
Her smile broke into a full grin. “Yeah baby, that was me.”
“Baby? Yech,” said Travis.
“Shut up, Trav, I’m trying it out, okay?” Emma snapped. There was no real annoyance in her words, but she blushed.
Emma continued to explain my parents had returned to end me in my weakened state before grabbing her and running. Before they could get to me, Travis emerged from his hiding place – he hid once the demon had arrived, not a shock - torch still in his hand. He set fire to the robe he’d been wearing and threw it at Regina. In the time it took Phillip and Regina to get the burning cloth that engulfed her off, Emma and Travis had dragged me to the truck he’d brought around, then we tore off like banshees from hell. My animosity toward Travis drained in lieu of his readiness to keep Emma and myself safe.
When Emma finished telling me everything, I felt I had enough strength to sit up. Once repositioned, I pulled her onto my body. Emma instantly molded herself against me and I sighed, trying to process everything.
“So, the Luxis’s interpretation of the prophecy was wrong,” I said at last. Wanting it validated outside of my own head. It would finish all this for me. I could walk away from my life with the Orders without looking back.
Emma tilted her head up at me, worry filled her eyes and her mouth was set in a serious line. “I don’t think so anymore.”
Before I could ask how she could say such a thing, her hands squeezed me as if needing an anchor. “It was so close,” she said quietly, her words almost lost to the rushing wind sweeping by the truck. “When the demon was feeding off me, I felt it weaken. As if something in me was like a delicious poison it couldn’t stop drinking.”
I remembered how the demon lord had stumbled after I pushed Emma away. Perhaps she was right. My head started to hurt.
“But you destroyed it, Calan,” she rushed to say. “So I don’t think they were wrong, but they weren’t right either.”
Travis yelled back to us. “Except with Calan’s way, the portal to hell is still open.”
Emma’s lids lowered. “Yeah, there is that.” She licked her lips, again, something she did when she was anxious. I wanted to kiss her but I had more questions.
“The tear in the planes is still open?” I asked, alarm trying to flood me with adrenaline, but I was all tapped out.
Emma slowly nodded. “We saw it still open as we left. Your parents still believe I am the key and they want me to go through that crazy ritual thing.”
Abruptly, I pulled away. “We have to stop it, you know. Who knows what is escaping the Stygian and entering our world every moment it is open?”
“I know,” she said, sounding as grim as I felt.
“I don’t know how,” I confessed.
“We’ll wing it,” Emma gave me a crooked smile.
“Wing it?”
“You know, improvise, make it up as we go.”
I leaned back against the truck cab, exhausted from our passionate kiss. I pushed back the flyaways behind Emma’s ear. “But first, I need something,”
Emma’s face became very serious. “Anything. Are you okay? What do you need, big fella?”
“Alright, I need two things. One, don’t call me big fella ever again.”
A smile threatened to crack her serious façade but she nodded.
“And second,” I said, closing my eyes, pulling her in close me again. “We need to go on a picnic.” Ease flooded through me with Emma curled against my chest as I finally remembered the word which had evaded me for so long.
“A picnic?” she asked, not comprehending. “Is that like code for some secret order, Chevalier, magic powers business?”
I opened one eye to look at her, “I thought it was that thing where you ate on a blanket outside together.” I closed it again, my voice becoming wistful. “I’ve never been on a picnic. Since the first time I laid eyes on you, it became my fantasy.”
Emma’s mouth brushed up against my ear. “Oh, we are going to level up your fantasies real fast, but sure, we can start with some food on a blanket.” Her hot breath caused my skin to prickle in delighted excitement. I had a feeling I was going to be harboring many more fantasies than I could handle soon enough.
Here’s an excerpt from the next exciting installment of the Five Orders Series, coming June 2019.
By Holly Roberds
CHAPTER ONE
I don’t know if I screamed when Travis slammed on the brakes to avoid hitting the man who appeared in the middle of the road from out of thin air. I’m not even sure if I made a sound when the truck flipped. Time slowed down as every cell in my mind and body dilated to take in each individual second. My stomach zinged up like the carnival game where you smash a mallet into a landing to make the ball go as high as possible. I reached for Calan who sat next to me, but then time sped up as the truck crashed back into the road. We rolled, bone crunching sounds exploded all around me. The momentum of the vehicle threw my body and arms any which way it pleased, and away from Calan.
Blinking, I realized I must have blacked out because the truck was now right side up again except I was staring into the ditch and the roof of the cab brushed against my hair. My hands were braced against the dashboard and it took another moment to register the trails hot tears on my face. If Calan and I had still been in the truck bed, we would have been instantly killed.
“Emma,” Calan murmured next to me. His large hand closed around mine.
Despite the tear trails, and the ringing in my ears, I felt eerily alert. “I’m okay. Are you?” I turned to see blood trickling down his temple from his dark curly hair, but other than that, his ridiculously handsome face was unmarred. His deep blue eyes anxiously searched me too, looking for any harm. His eyes slid past me, and alarm tensed his features. “Travis.”
Travis was slumped over, but I could see his face had smashed into the steering wheel. He must have broken his nose because blood poured from his nostrils, dripping onto his pants. I put my hand on his back, panic constricting my throat. It took a second but then I felt the rise and fall of his ribs. He was still breathing. Relief was brief as I was hit in the face with the cloying stench of gasoline.
“We need to get out of the truck, now,” I said, feeling the blood rush away from my face.
Already depleted from using the entirety of his powers to kill the demon lord who had tried to eat my soul, it took Calan several long moments to get steady enough to exit the vehicle. He held out a hand to me to help me out. As I was about to take his hand, Calan retracted it, his head snapping toward the road.
Perhaps it was the car accident that left me woozy, but with his profile in view all I could think of was how this man was my own personal superman. Clark Kent had nothing on Calan's chiseled jaw, cerulean blue eyes, and sculpted warrior body. Since I’d met him, it had been nothing but a series of dashing heroics, defending me from evil spirits and demons. I almost forgot I needed to get away from the gasoline leaking car. Yep, probably slightly concussed.
“Stay here,” he said before stalking off to the road.
Ignoring his warning, I pushed myself out of the open passenger door, following him, though I stumbled several times. It took another minute before my vision stopped spinning and then I saw the serious shit we were in.
“Did you really think you could run, dark one?” Master Ylang’s voice was even, but the knuckles wrapped around his staff were white with rage. The ends of his thin, waterfall whiskers brushed the golden rope that cinched the middle of his black, velvet robe. He reminded me of an evil wizard from a fantasy book I’d once read.
“Pretty much. That was basically our plan,” I supplied, peeking over Calan’s broad, muscled shoulder, even though the question wasn’t directed at me.
Calan shot an exasperated look back at me, but he should have known better to think I’d let him go into any fight alone.
“Emma,” Calan’s low voice cautioned before he moved to further put himself between me and his former Masters from the Order of Luxis. “You failed,” Calan announced to them. “Emma is of no use to you now. Leave us be.”
Though I’d only spent two months with the Order of Luxis, I knew enough about Master Ylang to see that the dude was seriously pissed. His bald, knobby head looked likely to start pulsating any minute, and his strange, foggy blue eyes pinned us like needles. The two Masters behind him shared the same sour-faced displeasure. They also wore ornate black robes and carried the same staff as the one Ylang held; a long, twisting, ancient piece of wood topped with a murky, green gemstone.
A muscle in Master Ylang’s jaw jumped as his eyes narrowed at Calan. “You failed us. If the demon lord had feasted on the soul of the Propheros, the demon would have perished and the gate between dimensions would have closed with her sacrifice. You have defied your Order and the Light. With the gate open between our dimensions, and dark creatures from the Stygian are escaping onto our plane. You’ve unleashed hell on Earth.”
“Who knows if sacrificing my soul to that demon would have worked anyway!” I shot back, still trying to meet Ylang’s eyes over Calan’s shoulder, but I was too short. I brushed my fingers against Calan’s lower back, taking comfort and strength from the contact.
To be fair, after the demon lord sucked out a generous swath of my soul, he seemed a bit wobbly on his feet. Maybe if he’d finished the job, gobbling up the rest of my soul, he would have died and the tear between dimensions would have closed back up. But I sure as hell wasn’t about to admit that to these douche nozzles.
“Besides, chuckles,” I added. Ylang’s foggy eyes still managed to flash dangerously with ire. “You guys lie about ninety percent of everything else. You snatched Calan from his crib, lied to him about not having a soul to make him your slave. You didn’t teach him to read, then filled his head with whatever convenient fictions best served you. Who knows what you people really want? Maybe the Order of Luxis wanted the gate of hell open.”
It was then I noticed another man off to the side. He had been the one who had appeared in the middle of the road by
using a portal, sending us flying off into the ditch. If he could make a portal, it meant one thing. He was a Chevalier, a Knight of the Light, basically a lap dog for the Order of Luxis, just like Calan had been before I came along.
This Chevalier was as tall, broad, and herculean as Calan. This one’s pale, almost translucent green eyes bore a striking contrast against his cocoa skin. Those near colorless eyes made him appear cold, calculating, and as indifferent as a brainwashed soldier. Even when Calan had been playing the obedient son, I saw desire, warmth, and nobility in those soulful eyes. Which I found ironic, since the Chevalier were told they were soulless beings so they were more easily controlled by their Masters.
Master Violetta’s black and grey-streaked hair was pulled back into a tight bun, giving her hawk-like features a makeshift facelift. “We seek to serve the light. That is our only purpose.”
Calan squared his shoulders. “You wanted to sacrifice the Propheros to save the world, but if you knew this woman for any amount of time, truly knew her,” his deep, soulful blue eyes slid over to me and my breath hitched under his intensity. “You’d know there is no possible way this world could be saved by her demise.”
It was strange to hear these guys talk as if they were in ye olden day, but as Calan described it, they lived in a world between worlds. I had to explain to him that a hidden temple in Tajikistan didn’t exactly count when there are literally other dimensions.
I glanced back to where Travis was still unconscious in the truck. At least he wasn’t awake and
dissolved into horror-movie proportion hysterics. Then again, he’d grown a lot since fighting off a number of demons. Then when the world split and the gate to hell opened up, he swooped in to help me get Calan in the truck and slammed on the gas to get us out of there.
Prophecy Girl (The Five Orders Book 1) Page 22
