I could see the ruined elevator, the broken exhibit and all the smashed rocks now being pulled back into their original positions. Could feel the water reversing course and returning to the underground lake it had poured out from, then feel the walls of rock beneath it realign into the impenetrable barrier they had been before dynamite had blasted them away.
Then, with another bone-shaking surge of power, I felt that unstoppable, unbelievable energy flare out far beyond the confines of the mine. It expanded and grew, becoming too great for my mind to measure, and through it, I felt the gaps, tears and breaks in the realm walls. Another blast of power shattered my mind, and I felt them all being repaired. But it didn’t stop. It continued to grow, surpassing comparison, until more, then all, the realm wall weaknesses were rebuilt. The gateways slammed shut and were sealed with impenetrable bonds, and though I couldn’t hear them, I felt the screams of countless demons as they realized that they were now trapped within their dark, icy worlds.
Finally, the power began to dissipate, and with its absence, that invisible grip around me loosened. My knees gave way. I would have fallen, except I still had a death grip on the staff. Then it, too, seemed to disappear and I slumped to the stone floor. The water was now gone, but the floor of the mine was wet, and that cold surface seemed to increase the chilliness that had taken residence inside me.
I’d gotten it all wrong, I thought, bemused by the irony. I hadn’t been the one wielding the staff, after all. Instead, the staff had wielded me.
“Ivy!” I heard someone shout, yet the voice sounded so far-off, I didn’t recognize it. Then it said, “Oh God, she isn’t breathing!” and I thought it might have been Jasmine, but I wasn’t sure.
“Do something, she’s dying!” I heard next, and almost smiled. Definitely Jasmine. I’d know that screech anywhere.
“I cannot.” For some reason, Zach’s voice sounded much closer, as if he were speaking right into my ear. “I have been ordered not to heal her or to raise her if she dies.”
Figures, I thought, and would’ve shaken my head if I could move anything. I couldn’t, though, and that revelation was immediately followed by another. I couldn’t feel anything, either. No pain, which was a relief, but the nothingness, the disconnect... Jasmine must be right. I was dying.
I was less depressed by that thought than I would’ve imagined. I mean, I’d spent the past several months worrying that using the staff would kill me, and now that it apparently had, I was oddly okay with it. I’d miss Jasmine, of course. Costa, too, and while my biggest regret was not having more time with Adrian, I felt so lucky, so glad, to have had one perfect, soul-sharing day with him. I love you, Adrian, I thought, slipping further away. Always...
“Bring him here,” Zach said, his voice barely audible now. I thought I heard him say, “Join their hands,” but I couldn’t be sure. I was floating away, and it wasn’t frightening at all. In fact, it felt kind of freeing...
A jolt slipped into me, tiny and yet potent, like a mild electric shock. For the briefest second, it brought the pain and the noise back, and then it was gone. I was relieved by the silence and nothingness again. It was so peaceful here. If Adrian were somehow with me, it would be perfect—
Jolt. Jolt, jolt, jolt, jolt.
Noise crashed into me, along with more pain than I could stand. I tried to run from it but I couldn’t move, even if now, I could feel in full, agonizing acuteness.
Ivy, I felt rather than heard Adrian whisper. Use my strength to heal yourself. Come back to me.
The pain was so intense, I was screaming, and at the same time, I knew I wasn’t making any sound. I was trapped in a nightmare I couldn’t wake up from, and each slow, fluttering beat of my heart sent more merciless, cascading pain through me.
Ivy, Adrian said more urgently. Stop fighting and use my strength!
I didn’t know what he meant, but when he spoke, those jolts sizzled through me with more power. Could that be him, somehow? I wondered. Was I being shocked with a defibrillator? If so, then I was technically dead, but other people had come back from that. Could I?
When the next shock went through me, I stopped trying to run from it. Instead, I braced myself and absorbed it. It brought an avalanche of pain, but beyond that, I could hear Jasmine’s voice again. And Adrian’s, though his still seemed to be whispered into my mind instead of filtered through my ears.
That’s it, Ivy. Take more.
Another shock, and I rode it without bracing this time. Light flashed before my eyes. Not the I-see-a-tunnel kind, but with flashes of faces bent over me and a babble of voices. Then another shock, and another, and I was riding a wave of pain that swept me right into full sound, color and sensation.
“Ivy!” my sister screamed. Then louder, “Costa, she opened her eyes!”
“Stop shouting,” I tried to say, but couldn’t. That’s when I realized I had a large tube shoved down my throat. I couldn’t seem to move anything except my eyes, and when they slid to my right, I saw Adrian in a hospital bed next to me. He also had a breathing tube and multiple machines around him, but his arm was stretched out as if reaching toward me.
That’s when I looked down and saw that his hand was clasped around mine. Tears filled my eyes, overflowing onto my cheeks when I saw him blink once, slowly, and then his dark sapphire gaze met mine.
He couldn’t talk, either, but he smiled, and when he did, I knew that both of us were going to be okay.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
IT TOOK THREE doses of manna over three days before I could walk again. Funny; I thought I’d mastered walking around age two, but over a week in a coma will mess your body up, it seemed. Adrian was either taking just as long to recover or he was holding himself back to match my pace out of solidarity.
My mobility problem wasn’t the only new thing I woke up with. I also had another tattoo that ran from my neck all the way down the right side of my body, finally ending at my toes. The incredible detail of the gnarled wood staff looked as if it had taken an artist weeks to ink onto me, but I knew that it had only taken seconds as yet another hallowed weapon merged with my skin. I had no idea what this meant, but if my second tattoo was anything like the first one, it might come in handy one day.
Costa had arranged for us to recover in an abandoned church that he’d turned into a makeshift intensive care unit. How did he do all that? It turned out that months ago, Adrian had given him access to his accounts and contacts in case of an emergency. Since this had definitely qualified, Costa had made the most of both. We had an excellent doctor, two nurses and two physical therapists at our beck and call. They were wonderful people who never questioned the odd surroundings, lack of mirrors or complete confidentiality requirements. I was so grateful for all they’d done, but when it was time for them to leave, I was glad to see them go. That meant we were really recovered, and recovered meant that we could finally start our lives again.
I couldn’t wait to do that with Adrian.
That’s why, when a familiar blue hoodie appeared in the corner of my eye as I was packing so we could catch our plane back to the States, my first reaction was to tense.
“Zach,” I said without turning around. “What are you doing here?”
“You’re still angry with me,” he noted in his usual mild tone.
I shoved a shirt into my suitcase with more force than necessary. “Yep, although I owe you a thank-you for stopping the demons in the mine shaft, but then again, they wouldn’t have been there if you’d told us where the staff was in the first place.”
He came closer, forcing me to look at him unless I chose to walk away. “After everything you’ve been through, you still don’t see it?”
“See what?” I asked. “Adrian trying to kick your ass as soon as he realizes you’re here? Or see Jasmine get in line to do the same after him? You didn’t make a lot of frien
ds when you said you wouldn’t heal me or raise me, even though you could have easily done one or the other.”
“I have orders,” Zach said, his dark gaze unwavering.
“Then maybe tell me why He’s got it in for me?” I snapped, a soul-deep hurt bubbling to the surface. “I have done my best with all this, yet He specifically ordered you to let me stay dead if my best still ended up getting me killed?”
Zach sighed deeply. “You have the supernatural proof that billions of people long for, yet you have so little faith. When will you realize that nothing in your life has been left to chance? Take my not telling you about the staff.”
“Yes, let’s hear it,” I muttered. He ignored that.
“If I had told you where it was the night you first decided to go after it, you would have been killed because you weren’t ready. If I’d told you weeks ago when you left with Adrian seeking it, you both would have been killed—Adrian by the demons in the ambush, you as soon as you touched the staff because again, you weren’t ready. If I’d told you right after the campus attack, same scenario. In fact, if you’d learned at any time before you did, you, Adrian, your sister and Costa would have died as a result. So tell me, Ivy, how have I wronged you with this?”
Frustration bubbled up in me. If he was telling the truth, then he hadn’t. In fact, then I owed him another thank-you, and a big one, but it still felt wrong.
“All those people at the campus and back at the desert house,” I whispered. “You’re saying they died and got trapped in demon realms all so I could get tough enough to wield the staff? And that’s supposed to, what, be an acceptable trade? Why didn’t you help them? If you knew everything that was going to happen, you knew that, too, yet you did nothing. Why is that? Because you didn’t care, or because your boss didn’t?”
Zach’s dark gaze glowed with specks of light. “You believe you would do better if the power of life and death was yours?”
I let out a harsh laugh, thinking of my parents, who’d been killed by demons because they were stirring up trouble over Jasmine’s disappearance. Adrian’s mother, slaughtered by Demetrius while she was trying to protect him. Father Louis, a good man, killed by Blinky. Edgar, a loyal Guardian, either drowned or killed outright in the mine ambush. Tomas, Costa and Adrian’s friend, killed by minions in the desert. All the people demons and minions had pulled into the realm during the campus attack, and all the hopeless, abused ones I’d seen when I was searching the realms looking for the slingshot.
“I don’t know if I’d do better, but some days, it looks hard to do worse,” I said, meeting Zach’s gaze.
“Prove it,” Zach said, startling me. “All the dark realms are now sealed off. This keeps most demons off the earth, but also dooms the humans trapped in them. You, Ivy, and you alone have the ability to do something about that.”
“How?” I asked, but deep down, I already knew.
“The final weapon,” he replied, confirming it. “The spearhead of Longinus.”
I was the last Davidian, so I should know this, but it didn’t ring any bells. “Who was Longinus and why is his spearhead so important?”
“Longinus was the Roman solider who thrust his spear through the side of Jesus of Nazareth as he hung on the cross,” Zach replied. Oh, right. That. “The spearhead is all that remains of the weapon,” Zach continued, “but one thrust of it through the appointed gateway can create a door in all the realms that only humans can cross through. If you find it and use it, you will save all who manage to come out, but the spearhead is the strongest, most hallowed weapon of them all.”
I’d just relearned how to walk after spending over a week in a coma because of the staff, so I don’t know why I said what I did next. Maybe, I just had to hear it out loud.
“I have less than a million-to-one chance of surviving if I use it, right?”
“Yes,” Zach said, and the single word was cruelly spoken. “And as you know, I will not raise you up if, or when, it kills you. So, Ivy, you who believe that you can do better by people, I say again—prove it. Be willing to almost assuredly sacrifice your life for theirs. Or—” his dark gaze became even more intense “—do not. No one can make you do this. Your fate, and theirs, is in your hands alone. By your will, hundreds of thousands of humans will either perish or get the chance to live. As you wished, the choice is yours.”
A sob tore from my throat. This wasn’t what I’d wished for! How could it be? I didn’t want to die, especially now, when I had so much to live for. Why should all of this be dumped on me? I hadn’t asked for this destiny, and I sure as hell wasn’t the one who’d stood by while those people were enslaved by demons in the first place. So why were my options only limited to live, and doom many, or die, and save some?
“What about Adrian?” I asked, struck by an even more awful thought. “We’re soul-tethered now. If I die, does that mean he dies, too?”
Zach’s expression became shuttered. “Adrian is half-demon as well as the most powerful Judian ever. Your death would mortally wound him if he were only human, but his humanity is the smallest part of him. His Judian lineage plus his father’s blood will ensure that he survives.”
So I was the only one who had to die, if those people were to get a chance to live. I let out a short, despairing laugh. For months, I’d complained that I wanted my destiny in my own hands, and now it was. Worse, just minutes ago, I’d sworn that I could do a better job at playing God than the real God could. Now, as Zach had so bluntly pointed out, it was time to put my money where my mouth was—or my life where my convictions were. Talk about being careful what you wished for.
“Don’t listen to him, Ivy,” Adrian said, appearing in the room. He ran over to me and then gripped me by the arms. “Archons might not lie, but whatever he told you, it’s an exaggeration and a trap. Don’t you see? He wants you to die because that’s what destiny says you’re supposed to do. Screw destiny, you deserve to live! You’ve done enough.”
Oh, I wanted to believe that! I wanted so, so badly to think that I’d given all I could, and to spend the next fifty or so years living happily with Adrian. But even as I considered that, those same reels of faces seared across my mind.
My parents. Father Louis, Edgar, Tomas, the people I’d pleaded with in the desert house, the ones I hadn’t been able to save during the campus attack and every single, suffering person I’d seen in the demon realms. If I turned away now, I’d be saying their lives weren’t worth saving, and all of them had wanted to live just as much as I did. How could I consider my life worth more than hundreds of thousands of lives just like theirs? And what kind of life would I even have, if that’s the person I chose to become?
Zach said he’d given me a choice. No. No, he really hadn’t. “Adrian...” I began.
He dropped his hands and spun away, lunging violently toward Zach. As soon as his hands closed over the Archon’s throat, Zach simply disappeared.
He reappeared behind me. I turned around, and a flash of near-blinding light made me throw up my arm in front of my eyes. That light also stopped Adrian from charging at Zach again, and he, too, used his arm as a shield against the beams of light shooting out of Zach with the brightness of several nuclear detonations.
Even with my eyes closed and my arm shielding my face, it still felt as if the light was burning its way into the back of my skull. Then the painful light dimmed enough for me to risk opening my eyes. When I did, I gasped again, and lowered my arm.
Zach’s trademark blue hoodie and jeans were in a heap on the floor. So was his human body, which looked like a crumpled-up flesh suit that someone had tried on and discarded at an elaborate costume shop. The being in front of me had no skin. No distinct form, either. Instead, amid that halo of incredible light, I saw what looked like wings made of lightning surrounding a shape that I guessed was humanoid only because I thought I saw arms and legs.
&
nbsp; Then, just as abruptly as it had appeared, all the dazzling light was gone and a young man stared back at me with ordinary brown eyes and a mocha-colored face that was partially shielded by a low-hung hoodie.
“Why did you do that?” I managed to gasp out, blinking to get the hot spots out of my vision.
“Now that you have chosen to see your destiny through to its conclusion, I wanted you to see my true form,” Zach said, his deep voice sounding slightly husky. “You have often wondered what I felt for humanity. I used to love it, but after many millennia watching your kind tear each other apart, I began to long for humanity to reap its well-earned judgment. Once it does, the last war between Archons and demons will be fought, and I will finally be able to avenge the blood of my fallen brothers and sisters.”
I’d often wished that Zach would drop his cryptic way of speaking and just tell me what he was thinking, but now that he finally had, it hurt me to the core. “So, you’ve always wanted me to fail?” I said, fighting against the burn in my throat that threatened tears at this confirmation of one of my darkest fears.
“At first, yes,” he admitted, a hard smile ghosting across his lips. “Yet my ‘boss’ forced me to watch over you. Witnessing your struggles, your pain and even your recklessness reminded me why I loved humanity to begin with. It wasn’t because your race was ever good, or even better than it is now. Your race has always been fatally flawed, yet they are also ever hopeful. They might be cruel, yet they are also capable of great love, and while each of you is inherently selfish, you are also able to sacrifice, when the time comes.” He shook his head slowly. “I am very powerful, yet I have never had to struggle against myself the way that your race does every day of your lives. Now that I am reminded of that, I no longer wish for humanity’s end to hasten. My fallen brothers and sisters can wait a little longer for their vengeance.”
Then Zach reached out, brushing my cheek in a gesture that I would’ve called affectionate, if he were anyone else. I was as stunned by that as I was by his many revelations. He hadn’t painted a pretty picture of humanity, but we weren’t pretty. Still, most of us tried. I didn’t have much to say for myself aside from that, and according to him, it was enough.