The Brightest Embers

  He gave me a jaded look. “Yeah, and using that kind of power is draining. It probably took both Demetrius and Blinky to pull that off. They’ll be able to do it again, but it might take them a day or so to recharge enough before they can try.”

  Even more reason why we had to keep searching the places on Adrian’s list right away, I told myself. See? It wasn’t only me trying to hold on to my paralyzing state of denial.

  “But we need to find a more private place to make the next jump,” he said, nudging me.

  Yeah, the heart of Red Square was hardly clandestine. I let Adrian lead me past the other impressive buildings while trying to ignore the tantalizing aromas that came from the restaurants and cafés interspersed between all the famous landmarks. If I ate now, I’d probably puke again. Wasn’t it called morning sickness for a reason?

  If I had that, I corrected myself at once. If.

  Adrian bought a small makeup mirror from one of the shops, then picked a narrow alley with a smelly Dumpster for our portal jump. Like before, it didn’t take long for him to do whatever prep work was necessary to make the small mirror navigable, and for that, I was thankful. If I had to smell that garbage container one more minute, I was going to spray it with puke.

  This time, when it seemed like the mirror swallowed us, I was less panicked to find myself suspended in the strange floating waiting room, which was how I thought of the bottomless expanse containing countless live-action mirror feeds against a backdrop of pure darkness. But my relative calm didn’t last.

  “Davidian,” a familiar voice hissed, sounding oddly echoing and disembodied. Then every alarm bell in my body went off as I saw a dark form streak by the screens, heading right toward us.

  Demetrius.

  “Fuck,” Adrian muttered, and dived us through the nearest mirror.

  We landed with the same painful thud as last time, and Adrian immediately leapt up and smashed the mirror we’d come through with a roundhouse kick. Glass rained down on both of us, yet Adrian didn’t pause to brush any of it off. Instead, he began jumping up and down on the larger shards.

  I got why he was doing that, and I set the pilum down to start stomping on them, too. Demetrius shouldn’t be able to get through these pieces, since breaking a mirror somehow negated its use as a portal, but Demetrius had surprised us before. No point in taking any chances now.

  The pilum, oddly, spun around for a second, then seemed to hop toward the wall, the floor no doubt vibrating from the impact of Adrian and me both jumping up and down on the mirror pieces. Good thing I was wearing sneakers instead of sandals or heels. Even still, it didn’t take long before red drops splattered the broken pieces. Whether it was my blood or Adrian’s, I wasn’t sure, but we had manna in the satchel, so I didn’t stop. Whichever one of us had gotten cut, we’d heal ourselves once we made sure that Demetrius wouldn’t be following us through to here.

  “I think we’re good,” Adrian said, then cursed when he got his first good look around. “Damn. This is someone’s home.”

  It was, and an expensive one, too, from the looks of the sumptuous furnishings, artwork and other high-end items. We were in a bedroom, and we’d broken the large, lovely mahogany dresser we’d landed on after we came through the mirror that it had been positioned behind.

  “It probably has a bathroom mirror, too,” I said, gesturing at the partially open door that I was betting led to an en suite master bath. Adrian went inside, and moments later, I heard the sound of more glass breaking. Guess I’d been right.

  He came out, and both of us froze when we heard mutterings in a different language downstairs, followed by the unmistakable sound of a shotgun being cocked. Someone was at home in this fancy house, and that someone was armed.

  “This way,” Adrian whispered, and strode over to the bedroom window. It had a sweeping view of a large lake in the distance, but what really claimed my attention after I hurried over was the drop below. It had to be three stories.

  “We don’t have a choice,” Adrian whispered grimly.

  I grabbed the pilum, surprised when it felt resistant, as if it had suddenly become sentient and didn’t like the idea of jumping out a three-story window, either. I didn’t have time to wonder about that, so I wrestled it between my body and the satchel straps, then put my arms around Adrian’s neck. He hissed when the hallowed object came into contact with him from our tight proximity, but he clamped his lips shut and tightened one arm around me. With his free hand, he opened the window. It was a slide-up, thankfully, and large enough that we both fit through. Right as I heard the sound of running footsteps coming up the stairs, Adrian jumped.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  WE HIT THE ground with even more force than the mirror landing. Adrian rolled to lessen the painful impact, and I was shocked and grateful that the pilum didn’t snap under the combined weight of our bodies rolling over on it. Then he pulled me up and we ran, spurred on by the boom of a shotgun blast and the explosion of grass right next to us.

  It didn’t take long for the angry shouts of the shotgun-toting homeowner to fade. Not with how fast we were running. We headed toward the lake, away from the lines of very expensive-looking houses and condominiums that we passed. I was so focused on getting away, I’d stopped wondering about the odd thing the pilum had done before. But when Adrian grabbed my hand and tried to pull me away from the exposed lake’s banks, the pilum suddenly yanked itself back toward the water. Since it was still between my body and the satchel strap around my neck, it ended up yanking me, too.

  “What’s wrong?” Adrian said when he felt my resistance.

  “I don’t know,” I said, stunned by what was happening with the pilum. “Stop for a second.”

  He did after giving a wary look behind us, but we weren’t being chased, and we hadn’t seemed to attract anyone else’s attention, either. It was a sunny afternoon here, wherever “here” was, and lots of people were out walking, riding bikes and generally seeming to mind their own business.

  Testing a theory, I took the pilum out from between the satchel straps around me—and nearly had it tear from my hands with its sudden lurch once it was free. I grabbed it just in time, then tightened my grip as it kept pulling me in the direction of the water. I followed its pull until I was up to my knees in the lake, yet still, that pull didn’t decrease.

  “What are you doing?” Adrian sounded impatient as he waded in and took my arm.

  I pulled my arm free because it felt like I would need both hands to keep holding onto the pilum. “Something’s up,” I said, which was a huge understatement. “The pilum’s suddenly acting like a missile seeking its target. I can feel it trying to pull itself farther into the lake, but my hallowed sensors aren’t picking up on anything that would be drawing it.”

  Adrian looked at it, and his expression turned grim. “You might not sense anything, but it’s one half of the most hallowed weapon in existence. Its power is much greater than yours.”

  That was what I’d been thinking, and I was torn between excitement and a near-overwhelming urge to let the pilum go so that it could slip out of my hands, my life and my destiny. If we were right, if something was drawing the pilum to it...well, it was obvious what that something had to be. The spearhead.

  If so, then today I would die trying to wield the reassembled hallowed weapon. I’d thought I was done being scared by that, yet a sliver of fear wormed its way into me regardless. It was quickly followed by a wave of grief that I tried to push back as I stared at Adrian. If I was dying today, I wanted to make sure I had his face memorized so I could take its image with me.

  But despite my own fears, grief, certain death and the daunting odds against my being able to wield the spearhead long enough to save all the people trapped in the demon realms, I’d come too far to give up now.

  “Then we need to follow it to find out where it
’s leading us to,” I said in a steady voice.

  Adrian looked away, muttering a string of words so softly, I wasn’t sure if they were prayers or curses. “We don’t even know where we are yet, Ivy,” he finished with.

  He was stalling. I understood the knee-jerk, emotional reasons behind it, but I couldn’t let that stop us.

  “Wherever we are, we’re here for a reason.”

  I didn’t risk letting go of the pilum with both hands for fear that it would pull from my grip and disappear into the lake, so I leaned against Adrian in order to touch him.

  “You picked the closest mirror to jump through when Demetrius came at us. That mirror led us to a place that has the pilum suddenly acting like a compass and a tractor beam combined. It can’t be coincidence, Adrian. You know that.”

  He inhaled sharply through his nose. “I know. I also know that I hate it.”

  I let out a choppy breath. “I do, too, because of what it means for us, but we have to stop looking at it through such a narrow lens. This could be liberation day for thousands of people who’ve suffered for too long. That means it could also be Demon Payback Day, and it’s been too damn long for that, too.”

  Adrian looked at me, a range of emotions skipping across his features. Longing, love, anger, frustration, admiration, pain...they kept repeating like a recording stuck on a loop. I took in another deep breath, trying to smile despite feeling all those same things. No turning back now. No matter what.

  “This day was always going to come, Adrian. Now that it’s here, let’s not allow it to break us. Instead, let’s show it what we’re made of.”

  A harsh laugh escaped him. “You don’t want me to show you or anything else what I’m made of, Ivy. Especially now.”

  “Yes,” I said softly, holding his gaze. “I do. I know you, Adrian. All of you—light and dark, good and evil, human and demon, heroic and selfish, savior and betrayer. You’re amazing. You are, and you’ll beat the worst of what you’re feeling now. I know you will, because there is nothing you can’t do.”

  He let out another ragged laugh. “I guess we’ll find out. Until then, we need to rent a boat. Whatever the pilum is leading us to, we sure as hell can’t swim our way there.”

  * * *

  IT TURNED OUT that we were in Bahir Dar, Ethiopia, which wasn’t on Adrian’s list of favorite places at all. In fact, he said he’d hated Ethiopia from the first time he’d realm-gateway hopped into this country decades ago. Apparently, he’d never been back since. It sounded all too similar to what had happened with the Aula Palatina. Granted, it could have been because Ethiopia had had a horrible famine back then, which wouldn’t have made it anyone’s favorite place. However, I thought there was more to it than that.

  The pilum in the Aula Palatina had subconsciously set Adrian off enough to attempt burning the whole building down. Now something here had caused Adrian to never come back despite his easy access to every place in the world through the demon realm gateways. Like I’d told him before, I doubted that anything happening was coincidence.

  Yes, Adrian had been subconsciously drawn to the places where the slingshot and the staff had been, so much that he’d made his homes in both of them. That was why Zach had referred to Adrian as “the map.” But this final hallowed weapon was showing us how different it was. With it, both parts appeared to repel Adrian on some level. It was as if it were saying, All bets are off with me.

  At least it wasn’t hard to charter a boat from the local Maritime Transport Authority to take us in the direction the pilum was pulling itself toward. As it turned out, boat trips on Ethiopia’s Lake Tana were very popular due to the lake’s scenic beauty, its various islands and, more significantly, its historical churches and monasteries.

  Yeah, no coincidence with that, either.

  After paying the fare, Adrian helped me onto the boat, since I was still holding the stick with two hands. If Gelila, our charter boat captain, thought it was unusual that I was clutching a long stick as if it were a lifeline, she didn’t comment on it.

  “Is the boat to your liking?” she asked us.

  “It’s great,” I said. And it was. Adrian and I sat in the open section in the back that had two benches and an attached cooler that doubled as a third bench once the lid was closed. The rest of the boat was covered, offering protection against the intense sunlight or the rain, if the day turned stormy.

  “Please help yourself to refreshments in the cooler,” Gelila said, swinging the boat around to head out into the horizon of the lake. “People can dehydrate quickly out here.”

  I requested a chilled water bottle from the cooler, which Adrian handed me. Then I ended up clenching the pilum between my knees and keeping one hand on it while I used the other one to drink. Adrian chose a beer, and it looked so much better than my plain water that I almost asked for a sip. Then I stopped myself with a stern rebuke.

  Are you crazy? You can’t have alcohol. You’re pregnant!

  A rush of emotions immediately followed my unexpected inner scolding. I’d been denying my condition all day, busying myself by coming up with reasons for why my symptoms had to be something—anything!—else, yet I knew the truth. Admitting those two small words to myself had only confirmed it.

  You’re pregnant.

  Such a simple sentence for something so life-altering. I tried them out again in my mind, and this time, I felt a swell of nearly overwhelming wonder.

  You’re pregnant. Would it be a boy or a girl? Would it have Adrian’s dazzling, sapphire-colored eyes, or my chocolate-mint hazel ones? His blond hair, or my dark brown? His features? Mine? A combination of both? Or something wonderfully, beautifully individual?

  Just as quickly, anguish gripped me, so pitiless and intense, I had to bend over and let my hair fall around my face so Adrian didn’t notice my instant spurt of tears. I would never know any of these things about my baby. I would never feel it grow, be awakened by its kicks or experience the unsurpassed joy of holding it in my arms.

  I was all out of time in my life, and that meant my unborn child was, too. One way or another, I wouldn’t make it. Even if I gave up on every single one of the thousands of people trapped in the realms, it still wouldn’t be enough. Demetrius was too close on our tails. Blinky had confirmed they had some way to track us. They’d keep coming, and if not them, then all the others like them. We could keep running, but we’d get caught eventually. My baby was as doomed as I was.

  The thought made me ache in a way that nothing had before it, and that was saying something considering the carousel of pain I’d been on this past year. I forced back the sob building in my throat and tried to steady my breathing that had become ragged with grief. I couldn’t let Adrian see me this way. He’d insist I tell him what was wrong.

  Yet how could I tell Adrian that I was pregnant? It would only hurt him on what would already be the worst—if not the last—day of his life. Doing that would make me a monster. Or was it more monstrous to keep something this momentous to myself? No, I decided. I might not be able to do anything to ease the pain I was feeling, but I could spare Adrian from feeling that same pain, too. I wouldn’t wish this agony on anyone, let alone the person I loved most.

  “Which of the islands are you wanting to visit, then?”

  Gelila’s accent sounded faintly British. I continued to take in deep breaths while I tried to concentrate on that and not the agony clawing at my heart. Fortunately for me, I’d had lots of practice at pushing back unbearable pain. Within a few minutes, I was breathing normally, and I’d surreptitiously splashed a couple handfuls of the icy bottled water onto my face to lessen the redness from my tears.

  When I picked my head up, Adrian was staring out at the water, obviously lost in his own thoughts. Gelila had to ask her question again to get his attention. When he looked up, I busied myself with studying her so I didn’t do som
ething reckless when I stared into his eyes, like blurt out the truth.

  Gelila looked to be in her early fifties, with wide shoulders, lovely deep brown skin, shoulder-length black hair and a cheery smile that couldn’t be more opposite from what I was feeling.

  “We’re not sure which island we want to visit yet,” Adrian said distractedly, then added, “We’ll tell you when one of them interests us after we see what sights the lake has to offer.”

  She nodded. “Lots of sights on Lake Tana. It’s the source of the famed Blue Nile, you know. Bit late in the day to see the hippos, but you’ll catch sight of more than a few crocs before we’re done, I expect.”

  Hippopotamuses and crocodiles? I shuddered. To think that I had waded into this lake earlier! It would have been just my luck to get eaten by the local wildlife before the spearhead could kill me. I could just imagine demons and minions laughing their evil asses off at that.

  As if it could sense that I’d been thinking about the spearhead, the pilum felt like it began to thrum with slowly building energy. Of course, that could also be the vibration from the boat’s motor, but I didn’t think so. It was leading us to its other half, and once I found it, well, I had to try to look on the bright side of my death. If I was able to hold on to the reassembled spearhead long enough, it would blast that humans-only escape route into every demon realm in existence. I might not be able to save my life or my baby’s life, but I could save so many other lives. I might not have much left, but one way or another, I’d make sure that I—and they—had that.

  “Beautiful day for a boat ride,” Gelila commented.

  “Uh-huh,” I replied with as much politeness as I could muster.

  “I love being a captain,” Gelila said, continuing to make small talk. “It’s what I always wanted to do. That’s why, when I finally got my own ship, I named it Eddel.”

  “Eddel? What’s that mean?” Adrian asked, his tone telling me that he wasn’t really interested in the answer.