“‘By the pricking of my thumbs . . .’” Michael muttered. He sighed and rubbed his eyes with thumb and forefinger. Beside him, Astra visibly braced herself.
Something wicked this way comes.
It approached with a confident and unhurried pace.
The dark cloud was aimed at them, and released.
Chapter Twenty-five
MARY WAS GOING to remember that damn forest path for the rest of her life. Her lives. However long any of them might last.
Her body couldn’t keep up with her adrenaline-spiked mind. Every step she took felt leaden and slow, as though she ran through waist-deep mud. In contrast, the ghost of Nicholas floated effortlessly in front of her, while her kestrel flitted at an almost leisurely pace from branch to branch.
When she heard that first staccato percussion of gunfire, she stumbled to a halt.
Nicholas swung around to face her. Don’t stop.
She shook her head at him. Terror made her leg muscles go watery.
Terror not just for Michael, but for whatever abomination might be sent after her, like Sport Coat and Spring Jacket with their dark, smudged auras. The dinginess clung to them like pollution belched from a coal-burning plant, telling a tale of spirits that had become skewed or perhaps had died. Those bizarre smiles had never left their faces even as the hawks had torn them to shreds.
One ghost and a small, fierce bird would not be able to stop a creature like those two men.
She shuddered even as she called Michael, frantic to know if he was all right. He was. His calm reply soothed and chastised her.
So she started running again. The hand that clutched the gun hung at her side. The other pressed at a stitch that gnawed just under her ribs.
Follow the path. Skirt around the lake then go north again. It was afternoon, so she should keep the sun to her left. None of this was rocket science either. Even someone who was directionally challenged couldn’t screw that up, right?
Michael probably came with an internal GPS system already installed. He would find her. She just had to have faith and follow orders. She had to trust his expertise, because, surely to God, she didn’t have a clue what to do next.
He had trained his whole life for this conflict, whereas so far she had managed to avoid bleeding to death. Not that she wasn’t glad of the result. She was, but let’s face it. She had only achieved that much by asking for someone else’s help.
She had life-altering realizations to ponder, and a powerful deadly danger to avoid, and Michael to fret about. But in her panic, she had managed to yank on her old socks, the ones she had washed in the bathroom sink and dried on the water heater. They felt stiff and rough, and blisters were forming on her heels. Soon the raw pain consumed her attention until each step felt like a jolt from an electric socket that shot up her calves.
She hated this path. She hated these woods. She hated this gun.
As soon as she could, she was going to shoot her socks.
She was so consumed with her own internal misery, the rest of the world slipped out of focus for a heartbeat.
Nicholas rushed at her. Her attention snapped to him. Even though he was not corporeal, instinctively she jerked out of his way.
Get down! he hissed at her.
Far be it from her to question him. She dropped like a stone, cheek to the ground and gun hand protectively covering the back of her head.
He rushed away. A few moments later, she felt a nearby snarl of violent energy. Still a step behind events, she switched her focus from her physical surroundings to the psychic and tried to glean details of what was happening just a few feet away.
Nicholas had tangled with a transparent darkness that seemed to have no form at all, yet it wrapped around the ghost’s brighter form and flexed, as if squeezing him like a boa constrictor. His presence blazed with a savage fury and dislodged the dark form. He took hold of it and ripped it apart.
Then he came and knelt beside her. Cautiously she lifted her head and stared at him. What the hell was that?
One of his spies, he said. A greedy little bastard. If I’d been weaker, it could have drained me completely. Watch out for creatures like that. They could drain you too, if you become injured badly enough.
Thank you, she said.
He tried to put a hand on her shoulder then seemed frustrated. Keep your senses sharp for any more of those. We can’t let any of them take word of our position back to the Dark One. Come on.
She pushed to her feet. There seemed to be a lesson every minute these days. If she could be affected by creatures in the psychic realm, like the dragon or this formless, dark creature, then she could affect them too. Maybe she could tear them apart like Nicholas did. She had to remember that, in case it ever became necessary.
Then she sensed something in the distance behind her, something so strange and wrong she stumbled over a tree root and would have shot a sock while it was still on her foot if she hadn’t kept the gun on safety.
She stopped, turned and scented the air like a bloodhound. Her kestrel flew around her, dive-bombing her head as it tried to shepherd her into moving in the right direction. She ignored it.
A massive black mass teemed and buzzed in the distance. She fumbled with her rediscovered abilities. She had none of Michael’s prowess. She swiped at her sweating forehead as if it would help her to see, but the mass wasn’t a physical one. It existed in the psychic realm, like the dragon or the dark creature, and it seemed to be coming from the direction of the gravel road.
What could it be?
She longed to be with Michael, or to at least feel able to contact him telepathically. But she didn’t dare to interrupt him a second time.
What IS that? she whispered to Nicholas.
That is a lot of creatures like the one I just killed, he said. He sounded grim. Thousands of them. Come on. We’ve got to go.
At a loss for anything else she could sensibly do, she turned to start running again after the ghost.
Behind her, the black cloud reached critical mass. It shot toward the cabin.
She jerked to a halt, made a noise and pressed the back of her hand against her mouth. If that many creatures attacked Michael, could they do any damage? He was whole and strong, and he shone like a tower in the backdrop of the psychic realm.
But according to Nicholas, if he were injured, those creatures could feed on him. That would weaken him further and expose him to greater injury, which would then in turn make him more vulnerable to their attack. Sometimes battles were not won in any dramatic, decisive move, but through the force of sheer numbers grinding the opposition into dust.
“Do as you’re told,” she whispered. Her voice was a ragged mess, but she was so scared and lonesome she said it out loud just to hear the sound of someone’s voice. “Don’t do something stupid. Don’t be a TV heroine and go in the basement where you know the vampires are.”
Nicholas seemed to look back at her, but he didn’t say anything.
She turned the statement into a marching rhythm and trudged, not ran, away.
Do as you’re told.
Do as you’re fucking told.
Would she know if he died? Were they attuned enough to each other so she would sense his passing? If she did, how would she bear it? They had just found each other. She’d barely had one day of feeling whole and sensual. One day of feeling the most astonishing and necessary passion.
One day of feeling real, not like a shadow of a person.
Give us a chance, he had said. But what if their chance was taken from them?
She remembered the final images from her last life. After an immeasurable endurance of pain, she had opened her eyes to find him bending over her. He had looked different, of course, but all she’d had to do was look into his gaze, and she had known him. They had only had time to
exchange those few precious sentences, their only contact in almost a thousand years. Her chest felt constricted with something hot and hurting.
Just in case there was a God, and he had some time to spare, she whispered, “Why did you do this to us? How are we supposed to bear it? Or did we do it to ourselves? Is all of this our fault? It’s not my fault and it’s never been Michael’s. We’ve only tried to help.”
A sickening, vertiginous lurch clutched at her. She felt as if she were falling, followed by a sharp shock of impact. Gasping, she went down on one knee and struggled with disorientation.
Nicholas knelt in front of her. What happened?
She held up a hand and managed to articulate one word. Hush.
The ghost fell silent, watching her.
The feelings disappeared as quickly as they had come. She whispered, “Michael’s taken a bad fall.”
Even as she said it the spray of gunfire sounded again, several staccatos at once.
That was when she gave up all pretense of trying to reach the lake. She turned around to face the direction of the cabin and sent all her desperate attention toward him. The physical world dimmed as she concentrated on what she could sense in the psychic realm.
Images slammed into her. The air was thick and black with innumerable dark spirits. They swirled and swooped on two figures that blazed with light. One of them was tall and masculine. Michael had already regained his footing from the fall. The other was smaller and feminine. Even from that distance, Mary recognized Astra in her astral form.
Astra’s figure never appeared to move, but the dark spirits that swirled to attack her sizzled away to nothing, like moths encompassed by a pure, lethal flame.
Michael’s blazing figure wielded a bright spear of light that slashed through attacking dark spirits even as, in the physical realm, he killed the men that rushed him.
Pride and fear for him locked her throat. To fight like that in multiple realms at once . . . he was incomparable. But there were too many spirits, and too many men who were suicidal with recklessness.
As she watched, Astra’s bright figure flickered. Mary thought she heard the other woman call, I cannot stay any longer.
Then Astra disappeared from the scene. She blinked out of the scene as abruptly as if she had never been present.
Her departure left Michael all alone.
They battered him to the ground by sheer force of numbers.
Approaching the battlefield at a stroll was a black diamond man. Mary wanted to vomit out this reality but she was helpless to stop what she witnessed.
Then the black diamond man bent over the radiant one, and Michael was taken.
Chapter Twenty-six
SHE LEAPED UPRIGHT. Her bleeding feet grew wings as she raced back toward the cabin. The decision was no longer based on a question of intelligence versus stupidity, or doing what she was told, or even based on some fragile hope for survival. She knew she was running back to her death, or something much worse. But she ran anyway, because she couldn’t do anything else.
The kestrel dove at her head, shrieking, and Nicholas stood in the path as if he would bar her way. She waved an arm at the bird and ran through Nicholas’s insubstantial form.
As she passed through him, for a moment she felt intense warmth. A knife flashed at the edge of her/his vision, quick as a striking snake. It sliced across her/his throat. Blood spilled down her/his front, and she/he fell to the ground.
Then she stumbled out the other side, gasping, and left both the ghost and the vision of his death behind her.
She didn’t have time to marvel at another weird experience, or mourn what had happened. Regaining her balance, she raced down the path.
Before she could make it halfway back to the clearing, the black diamond man began to emit a strange humming noise, a harsh discordant vibration that made her want to claw at her ears. The noise grew louder and intensified. It tore a rent through the psychic realm, and Michael’s vibrant, powerful energy began to keen with strain, like crystal about to shatter.
Her existence narrowed to a screaming denial.
WAIT! She hurled the word with the full force of her terror.
It was a horror. It was a miracle. The black diamond man hesitated before destroying Michael utterly.
There you are, Mary. The man’s voice was creamy with satisfaction. Didn’t I say you might have been happier to leave all of this alone?
Demented with fear, she said, You wanted me once. Do you still want me?
The black diamond man laughed. How do you know I won’t have you after Michael’s been destroyed?
You won’t get me again that easily, you son of a bitch, she said. Let him go and I’ll walk back. I swear it.
And if I don’t?
Panic had her scrambling for scraps of supposition and guesswork that were so insubstantial it felt like she tried to clutch at dust motes dancing in the air. Make no mistake, together Astra and I are more than strong enough to bring you down.
That’s assuming you can get free to join her.
She lifted her gun and clawed at the safety catch, transmitting everything she did down the telepathic link. Then she put the muzzle to her mouth. I can stay free of you, one way or another. I’m going to count to three. Then I’m pulling the trigger, and you know I’ll be back.
Years from now? His chuckle was a darkness that crawled around in her brain. I think I’ll concern myself with that when it happens. Right now I’m going to enjoy destroying your twin. He’s been such a pain in my ass. This is the first time I have EVER had him pinned to the mat. I’ll deal with you after he’s gone.
She flung everything she had into one insane bluff. I’m healed, and I have all my memories back. And I remember how much I loathe you. Destroying you will be the only reason for me to continue existing.
Funny, he said. We haven’t answered one vital question. Are you sure you CAN exist when Michael’s gone?
He and I have existed without each other for nine centuries, remember? Bitterness burned at the back of her throat.
No, Mary. You and he haven’t SEEN each other in nine centuries. Existing in the universe without his energy to complement and balance yours is something I don’t think you’ve learned how to do. Ariel and Uriel hadn’t learned it. Neither had Gabriel and Raphael. I would destroy one twin, and the other just . . . unraveled. Both times it was kind of like pulling a snag in a knitted sweater.
Destroying Michael won’t unravel me. You saw to that. She projected as much conviction as she could. You altered my spirit. You changed me.
I didn’t change you enough, he said slowly. I didn’t have enough time to completely break your spirit and reform you. If I had, you would have been totally bent to my will.
She shuddered. Was that a touch of doubt she heard in his mental voice? No, you failed at that. I may not be what I once was, but I am stronger than I’ve ever been. I’m starting to count. One.
Okay, I won’t destroy him, he said. Not yet. I’ll hold on to him until you walk into the clearing.
Her laugh was raw and animalistic, more like a snarl. The gun’s metallic muzzle rattled against her teeth. Let him go or it’s no deal. Two.
Slow down. You’re counting too fast. There are things to consider here. How do I know you’ll keep your word? His mental voice was a silken obscenity. After all, right now I do have such a pretty bird in the hand.
Can he walk on his own if you let him go? Her shaking legs wouldn’t support her any longer, and she sank to her knees.
There was a thoughtful pause. I don’t think so. I’m not sure. I don’t want to loosen my hold on him to find out until you and I have a deal.
Her eyes stung with sweat. She pulled the muzzle away from her mouth and mopped at them. Have two of your men help him. I’ll walk in as they walk him out. When
you see me, you’ll tell them to leave him and come back to you. I’ll know if you do.
Hmm, he murmured. Thinking, thinking.
Despair threatened to drown her. What was she doing, buying them minutes at most?
If Michael couldn’t walk, the Deceiver would only take her and then take him again. She wouldn’t even have the brief peace of death.
But she knew that, even if all she gained were minutes, she would do anything to keep from hearing that strained-crystal keening from Michael’s spirit again. Anything.
Her mental voice had turned to rags. Make up your mind. Yes or no.
Silence, both psychic and physical.
She waited another heartbeat then put the muzzle to her mouth again. Michael was right. It did have a kick. She bent over until she was in a ball, bracing both her hands and the butt of the gun against her knees, and angled the gun with care. If she pulled the trigger, she wanted to suicide successfully, not end up brain damaged and trapped in her body.
When the bullet tore through her head, would she know? The brain has no pain receptors, but all around the brain were nerve endings located in the head.
Her breath shook. She said, Three.
All right, the black diamond man said. Congratulations, you have a deal. He showed her a mental image of Michael’s body sagging between two men. She could see both the psychic and the fleshly wounds that scored him. His face was covered in blood. The two men carried him away. She caught sight of his legs moving weakly before the image cut off. They’re leaving with him now, so start walking back.
She pulled the gun out of her mouth and retched. All she brought up was bile. She shuddered and spat, wiping her mouth with the back of a trembling hand.
There, there, cookie, the black diamond man told her. He sounded cheerful. Pull yourself together and get moving, or I’ll tell my men to bring him back.
“I’m coming,” she said out loud, her voice hoarse. She climbed to her feet stiffly, like an old woman. “Keep your goddamn shirt on.”