While she'd seen things more horrible in her dreams than the sight of those three corpses drifting through her home, there was no denying it shook her, the way those wings moved with the currents, curving around the lifeless bodies as if forming a loving shroud for the pure spirit that had inhabited the flesh. She could have just disintegrated their matter, but she didn't know what death rituals angels performed. David would need to see them, perhaps care for them in that way. She didn't want to just destroy them, as if they'd been debris.
It mattered what he thought of her. That was something she now accepted. More surprising was the fact she realized she did care about more than that. She cared enough to run a scarf around the decapitation point, tuck it in to cover it and steady the skull, touch the auburn hair on the angel's head and wish he weren't dead.
The problem is you feel too much. He was going to be right about that, too, wasn't he? Damn him. Now that he hated her, she supposed it was a moot point. It didn't matter what you felt or didn't feel, if no one cared.
She'd dissipated and lowered the water level below the ledge in the section where she kept her books so she could bring the angels to that flat surface. She'd been able to float the first one to the ledge, but once the water level was below it, getting the other two on it had been difficult work, and she was covered in blue blood that seared her skin. She didn't care much about that. She just didn't want David to get here, as she knew he would when he found her gone from the desert house, and see his men the way she'd found them. She noted the wings had started to stiffen in their curves around the angels' bodies, so rigor mortis affected those, too. She tried not to think about how David's would feel, if it were his lifeless eyes staring at her.
"I told you to stay in the Schism."
She turned then. He emerged from the water, stepped onto the ledge, water sluicing down his body, his wings gleaming with the drops. His gaze was only on her for a curt acknowledgment before it shifted to his dead. The angels beneath her touch were older than him, she knew. One of them probably well over a hundred.
"I thought it best to come back here."
He squatted and looked down into their frozen features, the staring, dark eyes. "Move back," he said quietly.
As she withdrew, he passed his hand several feet above the bodies. Silver light gathered beneath his palm in a sphere, then unfurled like a blanket that drifted down upon them, sinking into their wet, cold flesh. Slowly, the light became a pale fire that took them away with a quiet beauty, removing death from their faces, illuminating the tips of their feathers, fingers, the lengths of their limbs. When it was done, only silver ash patterns were left on the damp rock. He sang a soft chant during the process, a prayer of peace and rest, but in the roughness of his voice she could tell how responsible he felt. That he would miss them. The words of the chant revealed they were being sent back to the life force of the Mother until such time as they would be born from that energy again, centuries in the future. It reminded her that angels didn't have a guarantee on individual rebirth, a separate resting place for their souls. So he didn't know what awareness he would have in his afterlife, either. Another yin and yang comparison between them.
He was quiet for a bit afterward, then he glanced toward her. "I'm closing that portal."
"No."
He straightened. Mina shifted in front of the entrance, though she already saw it in his face as if he'd pinioned her heart with one of his daggers. No matter what he had to do to her to make it happen, he was closing that portal.
"I wasn't asking."
"You can't close it. Not until I go through it and send back the Trumpet."
HE didn't want to discuss it, probably thinking she was stalling, but with dogged persistence, she persuaded him to let her explain.
"You remember how I was able to get Jonah's sword to him in the desert, all the way from where I found it in the ocean? It's not an easy magic, particularly at this distance, but the connection is strengthened if I have a blood link to someone here, like I have with you. Once I lay hands on it, say the proper spell and offer it some of my blood, then the Trumpet could transport. The key isn't that it has to jump from one realm to another, but that the magic and mind's reach have to be sufficiently powerful. I can do it," she added resolutely, hoping she was right.
"You've never been to their world. You wouldn't get a chance to find it before they discovered you there."
"I have been there."
"A dream, no matter how vivid, isn't firsthand knowledge."
She bit back impatience. It was easier to focus on this than the flat way he was speaking to her, as if she were just a member of his platoon making a report. No, that was wrong. He loved the men in his platoon. She was far less than that to him now.
"Dream is the wrong word. I connect to it. See it, observe it. In some ways, they're aware of my presence, because there have been times they've turned toward me in the dreams, tried to speak to me. But they can't hold me there. They can't read my thoughts."
"So if you saw the Trumpet in the Citadel, there's no way they knew its location through you."
"That's what Jonah and Marcellus think, don't they?" It's what you think.
When he didn't reply, she tightened her jaw. She should never have let him matter. Should have figured a way to neutralize that blood link so he could never find her. The Trumpet might have been taken regardless. She'd be in mortal danger like everyone else in the world, but without this terrible sense of loss in her chest. "I know the landscape of their world, David," she forced herself to repeat the words. "I have their blood, so I can walk through the portal and survive there. I will locate the Trumpet. It's an item of tremendous power, so I can pick up the energy signature. I suspect they didn't take it far. They'll want to use it, as soon as they can figure out how."
"According to Gabriel, it requires a Full Submission angel or a strong, exceptionally powerful magic user to unravel the spells over it," David responded. "Has it occurred to you that they might intend you to be the one who does that? You told me that every day is a struggle not to walk through that portal, that they've always been calling to you. That they offer you the sense of belonging you lack here."
"I also told you that I know that's a lie, David. I can't belong to them. I'm not fully one of them. I'm not fully a merperson. I can't belong to anyone." She swallowed as something flickered in his eyes. "I guess you know that now, too."
She turned away, because she didn't have the courage to look at him. But she would give him truth. The bodies before her, everything he'd given her so far, had earned him that right.
"Yes," she said. "I believe they're trying to get me into their world to play the Trumpet. If so, then under the same criteria, I might be the only one who can get close enough to take it away from them."
"Why would they trust you?"
"I've got to convince them to trust me. It will be difficult, but I don't think it will be impossible." She looked toward the dark hole leading to the portal chamber. "They'll wonder about my actions at the Canyon and will probably test me on that. But one thing they understand is the nature of Dark One blood. I'm hoping they'll believe no Dark Spawn is strong enough to resist it when immersed in the energies of their world."
"What if they're right? I've seen what happened at the Citadel, Mina. Based on what I felt in that portal, it seems the balance tilts in their favor, exponentially. There will be nothing to pull you back the other way."
"I can impose some shields they can't detect to filter it." She didn't like the thoughts moving behind his eyes. Angry he might be, grieving, but damn it, his mind never stopped working. She crossed her arms, managed to bump her injured finger and bit her lip against the pain. "I don't pretend to care about the battle for good against evil the way that you do, but I do care about what's done as a result of my actions. If I had let you seal the portal when you asked, this wouldn't have happened. I intend to do what I can to make this right."
"It was my decision to keep it open.
I bear responsibility for it."
"We're both responsible, then."
"Then we should both go."
"No." She'd seen it coming, but the icy hand of fear still gripped her. "David, have you lost your mind? You can't go. You're an angel."
"You can cast an illusion spell over me so I appear like one of them. You changed my appearance in the saloon, as well as yours."
"That's not the problem. There are energies in that world... Remember how you felt, just stepping into the portal chamber? Also, Dark Ones raise that battle instinct in you. Imagine that magnified a thousand times, with an illusion spell in place where you have to react as a Dark One would to another Dark One. You can't do that."
"You know every spell there is. Dark magics as well as light ones." His gaze slid around the room, over her books, back toward the room of her stores. "There's a way around that. Isn't there?"
And when his gaze came back to her face, she knew he'd seen something in her eyes or body language. Gods, they needed to stop talking about this. He saw too much. And he was too noble, too damn self-sacrificing...
"No," she repeated stubbornly. "I won't do it. You can't make me."
"Mina, do you know what the Resurrection Trumpet does? Blow one note and that tone resonates, plunges deep into the crust of the Earth, waking layers upon layers of the dead. A second blast, and the earth shifts, folds back peacefully to uncover those bodies. On the third blast, the dead begin to walk, to live again. Their souls return to them and they are restored to life."
"That doesn't sound terrible," she said, though she knew he wasn't done.
"That's what happens if an agent of the Goddess blows it. If the one with the Trumpet is evil, those who rise are not given their souls, or free will. Mountains crumble, and the shifting of the earth becomes earthquakes. They're the walking dead only, obeying only hunger and impulse. In short, they will be an army for the Dark Ones, creating the chaos they need to turn this world into a reflection of their own."
She had an overwhelming urge to put her hands over her ears, tell him she didn't care, but even she wasn't that brave. Noble and self-sacrificing suggested gentle traits, but when he became determined like this, the intensity of his presence, his resolve, crashed against the cave walls like sound echoes, creating a din inside of her almost as hard to bear as when the skeletons had fallen into piles in the freighter. The power of an angel's will was nothing that a mortal could hope to resist, and the energy of it was pressing her up against the wall, making her want to escape, the Dark One blood roiling within her. He was losing patience with her. The thing he'd once thought he cared about, until she'd lost him his men.
"You know the connection between humans and Dark Ones." He persisted, ignoring her distress. "Humans fight the darkness in themselves as well. This will be the ultimate act of chaos, of evil, tipping that scale, so the Dark Ones could use it not just to tear open a rift, but the whole damn sky, claim Earth and the humans as their own at last. So if there's a way for me to go, I need to go."
"You'd be a liability to me," she insisted.
"If that happens, abandon me," he said brutally. "But it's possible I can help."
"For the ten seconds before they tear you to pieces."
"I can help," he retorted, an edge to his voice. He met her gaze. The knowledge there lanced through her. "Not only for balance. An offering to prove they can let you get close to the Trumpet."
"No." She lifted her head. How had he known? "Don't use my mind like that. I haven't given you any right-"
"So you've already thought of it." He stepped forward, even as she slid along the wall, trying to get away from him. "In the dark shadows of that brilliant mind of yours."
"And discarded it." She hated him for knowing her as well as she knew herself, maybe better, because everything in the past two days was shattering, becoming a lie. He'd never look back on it fondly, for he knew the extent of the evil, how deeply it reached into her now.
"Tell me."
"No. No. No." She said each word more vehemently than the last, and when he put his hands on her shoulders, she struck at him. Not with her considerable defensive abilities, but in despair, slapping at his face, his chest, trying to shove him away even as he brought her in to his body, wrapped himself around her, his wings, cocooning her. "Don't touch me when you..." When you don't want me anymore. When everything has changed. Had to change, not only because of those three angels, but because of what dark things he'd just picked from her mind.
"Stop it, Mina. Stop. Tell me."
"I hate you."
"You don't have to say it. Just say it to me in your mind. Let me see it."
She couldn't resist his compulsion, but he couldn't make her do what she wouldn't. "I'll let you see it, but we're not doing it. I won't. I will convince them alone."
He was silent as she relayed the idea to him, and she expected him to stiffen in shock, or move away from her. He did neither. Which meant, to her terror, he accepted it. Accepted such a terrible thing could come from her mind, such a horrible idea, and he'd still hold her like this.
She couldn't let herself go down that road again. Breaking free of him, she slid under his arm and backed away. "I will convince them alone," she repeated.
"Mina, we need to go in with our very best plan, because there's only one shot at something like this."
Had she thought she liked the term we? Now she despised it.
"You want me to go. You need me to go. You think I don't know what it will cost you to step into that portal? That you're using that indomitable will of yours to squelch the terror of what it will do to you?"
She couldn't bear the softening of his tone, what it did to her insides, making her believe everything hadn't been destroyed. Things she hadn't even known she wanted and now, suddenly, two sunrises and sunsets later, she felt like she couldn't do without. But since when was anything like that a choice for her?
He came to her again, stood before her. Round and round. They'd circled that silver ash so many times it could be a casting, a building of power. There was nowhere to retreat as she stood on the ledge where it met the water, could feel it lapping at her human heels, for she'd shifted to human to lay out the bodies. His broad chest was before her gaze, so capable and strong, and yet so fragile, as all life was fragile. Raising her lashes, she stared at him. "No," she said.
His hands closed on her upper arms as she quivered at the heat of his touch, the way his face tilted over hers. A lock of his damp hair had fallen loose from where he'd slicked it back. "You won't ask me to sacrifice myself, even if it takes the chance of success from zero to the slimmest of possibilities? Even if you'll be lost to eternal torment and damnation without my help?"
His gaze seemed to reach down inside her, pick up her heart, for it felt like it was beating in the inescapable grip of his eyes. "I told you that you would eventually say it back to me," he murmured. "You're saying it now."
Mina stared up at him. "I thought..." She swallowed it back, but he had the courage to say it.
"You thought I hated you." His hands were becoming more gentle. Gods, stroking her skin. "Mina, I hate that I lost three of my angels. That I didn't realize I needed to trust Jonah with the knowledge of the portal and have faith in my ability to figure out another way to keep your trust. I hate what the Dark Ones do to you. But hate you?" She saw a glimmer of white, the rich brown warmth of his irises for just a moment in the flickering lights of her cave. "You won't get rid of me so easily, sweet witch. You know, in the deepest part of your soul, that you need me in order to do this."
When he slid his fingers over her hand, somehow now resting on his chest, she closed her eyes. "I'm so afraid, David."
"I know that."
"I don't want to do it. Not if I'm going to lose you. I don't want to risk you."
"Get over it," he said. "It's the plan that makes the most sense. And even if it didn't, I'm not letting you go into that rift alone. I made an oath to serve the Lady, and to serve yo
u. I'm going to do both. We're going to go together, and we'll figure it out."
As he cupped the side of her face, Mina let out a soft sob, despite herself, and his touch tightened, holding her closer, fingers digging into her hair. He'd left her in anger and violent urgency, come back with guilt and pain. Now, in figuring out what needed to be done to fix mistakes, protect her and serve his Lady, he showed her why he was an angel. Beneath the passion and humor, tenderness, affinity for Rolling Stones' songs and chocolate chip cookies, the uncertainty that could attend making mistakes and learning from them, there was an old soul who understood what things mattered, endured. It pervaded that soothing touch.
She looked up at him then, her heart in her throat. "I really didn't want to care about you at all."
Now he did smile. "I know that."
With a rueful look, David stepped back, though he held on to her hand. "Jonah's on his way. He can be your transport point. You need a strong mind to connect to, one with enough power for a great distance. He's the one to do it."
"No." Mina shook her head, new resolve on her face. "It has to be you. You have to stay here. I don't want him connected to my mind."
"Mina, that's been decided. I'm going."
"You decided. And you can decide all you want, but it's up to me."
Ignoring her, he continued, "Have faith in Jonah. He may see the evil you fight, but he'll see the good in you that keeps you fighting it. I should have trusted him about the portal. Let's not make the same mistake again."
"What will he think when he sees the visions I've had of cutting her throat, tasting her blood on my hands?" She pulled back from him.
David closed the space between them again. "Why are you about to face the greatest fear you have, of the Darkness taking you over, Mina? Why does it matter what Jonah thinks of you? Or even me?"
"Because I'm the only one who has the ability to get back the Trumpet," she snapped.
"That's not it."
Her lip curled back in a feral snarl, her crimson and blue eyes firing as she locked them on his intent face. "Because I'm going to walk in there, be surrounded by them, their energy, their persuasion, and take something from them, damn it. The way they took everything from my mother, so she could give me nothing of herself but my life before she gave up and died. I'm tired of being afraid of it. Tired of fighting who I am, when I don't really know who that is. It's time to find out. And maybe if I can do that, I can believe that I do deserve something else. That I can find out about happiness and laughter. And kiss you just once, without being afraid."