Mutely, she nodded. She pulled away from his touch, but felt his hand drift down her arm, grasp her fingers briefly before letting her go. Under the gaze of the three angels, she moved to the edge of the dry rock, stretched out her hand and called to her the item she needed. They shifted out of the way as the sealed pouch rolled over and over, like a jellyfish drifting through the waters of her storage cavern. Then it broke through the rippling wall of water into the air bell.
It was made of the skin of a Dark One to keep it viable, and sensing that, the angels drew away from it. When she untied the top, the bitter smell of Dark One blood filled the chamber quickly, causing them further uneasiness.
Turning, she found David had recovered enough to step to her side again. His warm brown eyes and sensual mouth were close, the heat and strength, the perfect beauty of his body. The magnificent wings. Her hand trembled. "I can't."
He closed his hands over hers on the pouch. "You can. How do I manage it when it's inside me? How will it feel?"
She forced her voice to be steady. "It will exacerbate the emotions you've felt at your most difficult moments. You'll feel unexpected waves of rage, fear, anxiety. Hatred will be easiest. Bloodlust is particularly strong. Be careful if we must fight, for it will come to your aid, enhancing your strength and abilities, but it's hard to bring it back under control."
"That's what you've dealt with all these years?" A ghost of a smile crossed his face. "And still you've managed to fall in love with me."
"I'm good at multiple tasks," she said. "And I've never said I love you."
"Didn't we discuss that? You didn't have to. You never have to." Raising his hand from her face, he showed her the tears she'd spilled upon it.
She swallowed, pushed the emotions away, for she simply couldn't bear them right now. "Don't," she said, and focused on the more practical matters. "The illusion spell will make you appear as one of the lower-echelon ones. They don't speak much, except with body language, grunting. The blood will give them your scent and sound, so you can pass casual scrutiny."
She did hesitate over the next part. Jonah's words were in her mind. You will take care of him. Until she threw him to the Dark Ones.
"David, I need your worst memory." It was an effort to keep her voice steady. "The one you won't tell me." The one she knew had made him unable to forgive his mother's incarnated spirit. Take care of him.
His fingers tightened on the skin of the pouch. "Why?"
"Because that's what the blood will fixate on. As it spreads throughout your system, it will view your angel blood as an enemy. It's going to be very difficult for the two to mesh. I can force them to do so, but it won't be pleasant. The entire time it's in you, it will be like a wild dog circling, looking for vulnerable points, ways to take you over completely." Her fingers were next to his, and when his touched hers, she couldn't help the jerk that went through her hand. "You're still young enough, human enough, the Dark Ones could try to make you one of them in actuality. Death is not the worst thing that can happen to you there. If I know the memory, I can help you keep control." She swallowed. "And when the time comes, I'll use it against you. To make things believable."
She wasn't sure if the muttered oath behind her came from Jonah or Marcellus, but she held David's stare until he gave a slight nod. At a murmur of sound, she turned her head to see Marcellus had gone, apparently retreating to one of the caverns closer to the cave entrance, leaving just Jonah.
"For privacy," the commander said.
"You know," she realized.
Jonah inclined his head. "We all know, Mina. But it is hard for him."
Mina turned to face her angel and saw the struggle in his face. "David," she said softly. "There's nothing you can say that will be worse than what we're going to face." Than what she was going to do to him. Gods.
He shook his head. "It sounds idiotic, but I couldn't bear it if you thought of me differently."
The idea sent shock coursing through her. He was worried about what she thought of him? But she saw it was the truth. A fierce feeling rose up in her chest, something she didn't recognize, but which spurred her to reach up, catching on to his weapons harness to give her the extra inches she needed, and kiss him. Hard, long, thoroughly, until they were both gasping. Then she rocked back onto her heels and gave him her typical irritated look. "I don't think of you at all, angel. I've told you that a hundred times now."
He couldn't conjure a smile, but he did put his hand over her wrist, holding it against his chest. "I know we don't have a lot of time. My father... he forced my mother to... Jesus, this is hard." He blinked, swallowed.
Mina laid her other hand on his face again, tilted his head so they were looking at each other eye to eye. "Tell me," she whispered. "Trust me, just this one moment. Remember?"
He swallowed again, nodded, and his grip tightened, his expression becoming fierce, as if he were preparing for battle.
"He forced my mother to... have sex with me. It was when she found out what he was doing to my sister. He'd hurt my sister for all those years, while she-my sister-made me promise not to tell, to protect my mother... to protect me. Our mother tried to take us out of the house. My father held us there with a gun, made her... do that with me, said it was to make her no better than him. He was just so... He was insane, out of his mind."
With or without the blood link, she could feel Jonah's pain on behalf of the young man he loved as a son. She felt it herself. She'd experienced horror like this, so hearing it was like reliving her own.
"After... he left the house. My mother got dressed, took my sister and me to a building, and we all three jumped. She said..." He stopped, the tears in his eyes reflecting the harsh anguish in his voice. If, after all these years, it was this difficult to say, how must he have been when he first came to the gates of Heaven? And she understood a little better the bond between Jonah and David.
"She said that we were going to learn to fly with the angels. In a voice that said it would all be okay. So we jumped with her. For a minute, we did fly. I remember that, remember thinking we were where he'd never touch us again. And then I found out it wouldn't be that easy. As it shouldn't be, for I did nothing to save either of them. I was the man of the house. It was my job. I had a debt to pay."
"That was why you couldn't touch a woman for so long."
Nodding, he looked at the container of blood she'd drawn from the dead Dark One. "So whatever darkness that will put in me, I've been there, Mina. When something like that happens, you know there's a dark side to this world that's so vile, it makes not only life but existence itself not worth a damn. You wish nothing had ever been created, that the universe had remained a void and you were never aware of yourself, never existed at all.
"Then, when you get past that, you realize you have to fight that darkness." The expression he raised to Jonah was glittering, fierce. His attention shifted back to Mina. "I know why you fight it. I always have, even when everyone around you wonders why you do. Because you fight, that's why I know you're worth saving. Worth loving."
It was also why the two of them had fit, she realized. So many confusing things about the day at the diner now made sense. As if reading her mind, he said, "If it wasn't for seeing her... Diane... I don't think I could have told you, could have handled the darkness of it. So I guess the Schism knew what we would need for today. A good omen, right?" Now he did attempt a smile, though there was a track on his face where at least one tear had escaped. Now she put her thumb on it and he turned his face, kissed her palm as she feathered her fingers over his fine brow, the straight nose, high cheekbone.
"Aren't you afraid?" she whispered.
His eyes opened, looked down at her. "Scared shitless. But Mina"-now his hands were on her face, holding her, his fingers tunneling in her hair, his intense eyes so close that there was nothing else-"there's nothing, absolutely nothing worse you or any Dark One could do than deny me the right to do everything within my power to protect you. Stand by you. So fo
r the love of the Goddess, don't do that to me. Don't leave me behind."
Mina closed her eyes. And there was nothing worse he could do to her than make her agree to this. "Okay," she said, when she could trust herself to talk. "So we do this."
SHE found a conch shell, poured the vile liquid into it. While Jonah watched, she helped David lift the shell to his lips, keeping her hands over his, for his thumbs had slipped over her fingers, holding her there while he drank, his eyes closing against the taste and odor. His body began to shake after the third swallow, sweat breaking out on his arms and across his bare chest.
As she started the chant that would build the magic she'd need for the blood integration, thoughts slid through her mind. She'd endured a lot of things. Fought for her own life, and control of her actions. Learned early what hatred and evil were. Maybe it was the buildup of all that which made this so hard, the final straw. But she thought she'd happily, joyously jump into the torments of Hell Jonah had described, rather than change David one bit.
As he made the last swallow with a groan of effort, she knocked the conch away and grabbed his face hard. When she kissed him this time, it was openmouthed, insistent. She poured her energy in on top of the blood, sending the molecules scattering, punching out of his intestines and into his bloodstream, making them spin through his system so rapidly, his angel immune system couldn't latch on to reject them before they were flying along the same arteries and veins, tangling together.
He was helping, giving her some of his energy to direct it, to quell the instinct of the angel's blood to reject the interloping fetid cells.
When she drew back at last, she looked into brown eyes glinting with red and felt the tremor in his body beneath her hands.
"Jesus." The word was scraped out of a raw throat. "I hope to the Goddess this isn't how you feel every day." He shook his head, backing up, dropped to one knee as if a lower point of gravity would help steady the roller coaster going on inside of him.
"I was born with it. It's different. I don't have angel blood to integrate with it. Human blood is far more accepting of the Dark One blood." She couldn't help hoping something would go terribly wrong and he'd have to stay here. While she couldn't fix what she'd just done, at least he'd have a life here, and certainly it would be much easier to have a normal life balancing angel and Dark One blood than what her circumstances had been.
"No." She snapped the warning as Jonah stepped toward him. David was bent over, breathing hard, his wings quivering with the violent tremors of his body. "You can't touch him now. They'd see your touch on his skin like a beacon. And he won't be able to bear it, not with what he's dealing with right now." She squatted next to David, placed a hand on his shoulder, didn't flinch as his head jerked up, his eyes wild.
"David. David." When he shook himself out of wherever he was, she made her voice hard, sharp, drawing his attention. "Everything you learned about focus and concentration, you're going to have to use it, harder than you've ever had to use it before. The smallest feelings, harmless in this world, a moment of jealousy or anger, will magnify and spike and easily take you over. If we get challenged, fighting is a last resort. Tell me you understand."
"Lieutenant." Jonah's tone made her sharpness sound like a mother's absent cooing. David's head jerked toward him. "Pay attention to her. Did you hear what she said?"
"Yes. Yes, Commander."
Mina stood, backing away. The strength she relied on in herself wavered as she turned her back on the wreck she'd just made of him and faced Jonah. "He can't do this. I can't do this to him."
"He can, and you already have." Jonah's tone was equally stern with her, though lower. "You knew this was necessary. So did he. Distance yourself. Think, and help him."
Never one to respond to authority, still she was grateful for the snap in that voice that had her back stiffening, her chin coming up. Turning, she dropped back down before David, seizing his hands to draw his attention to her.
"David, I need you to choose a good memory now, something that forms a picture in your mind. You'll use it to bring you back to yourself, every time the blood tries to take control. The thing that most reminds you of who you are."
It struck her in the gut when he didn't even hesitate. "You. The way you ate the orange." A trace of a strained curve of his lips, even as blood seeped from between them, where he'd bitten himself. The hair was damp at his temple as she ran her fingers along it. "Unless the... lust... is a problem. It was the way you took it from my fingers."
He closed his eyes, visibly struggling. A snarl burst from his lips, quickly cut off as his fingers clenched into the rock of the ledge, digging in. Then he opened them again, looked at her. "It was as if you might one day consider trusting me. I knew that was the most important thing I could ever do. Win your trust, so you'd let me love and protect you. That's who I am. Your champion."
Slowly, breathing deep, he straightened. There'd been a disconcerting hissing to his words, but when he faced Jonah, she saw the angel holding the reins over the blood. For the moment. "Commander. I'll fix what I screwed up, with Mina's help. With the Goddess's help, we won't let you down."
"You never have," Jonah said. Then he glanced at Mina. "You should have told me before you changed him. I would have liked to-" He stopped.
"It's okay." David coughed. "Better this way. No unmanly good-byes. Luc would approve."
"Lucifer will miss you as much as I will," Jonah said roughly.
David swallowed. "If she makes it back out, please give me your word you'll protect her. Help her."
"David-" she protested.
"You don't have a say in this," he said quietly. "Be still."
Jonah studied him. She suspected, in the arrogant way of overly protective men, they were saying something to each other without her being able to hear it. She quelled an urge to zap both of them.
David could tell it was irritating her. It was oddly reassuring, just like the glint of understanding humor in Jonah's eye, followed by a more serious look.
You have my word.
And you have my gratitude. As Marcellus returned, David acknowledged him with a nod of his own, then turned and extended a hand to his prickly witch. "Let's go."
She took it. As they turned toward the defile that would lead to the portal, the darkness that had so repelled him when he'd first touched the Dark One skin holding the blood now had an enticing moan to it. He surged forward.
"Fight it," Mina snapped. Her fingers dug into his arm, slowing him down. Mild irritation became a flash of anger shooting through him, and he'd clamped down on her hand before he thought. Emitted a low growl that startled him but she'd apparently expected, for she didn't back away or try to remove her hand from his grip.
"That's the direction we're going," he grated.
She nodded. "But make it your choice, not your desire. Your desires and intuition are no good to you now. Use only your mind. The decision you feel most strongly about in this state is likely the wrong one."
"South is north," he muttered. Slowly, he loosened his grip. As they passed into the narrow tunnel, her cavern disappearing behind him, he felt the portal's approach and forced himself to slow down, just as she'd advised. It was like digging in his heels against the force of a gale shoving behind him. Jonah and Marcellus seemed leagues away now, instead of just a few feet.
"I liked the house, in the Schism," she said abruptly.
Through the odd buzzing in his head, the waves of red heat that waxed and waned inside his system, he felt the incursion of a different kind of warmth that helped steady him. He looked toward her. Her profile was the unscarred side, and when she glanced at him, the blue eye was momentarily unguarded.
She would have learned to love him. He was sure of it.
He forced himself to extend a hand again, opening up his fingers, surprised how difficult that open-palmed gesture was. A simple act of affection, and it weighted down his arm, making it hard to lift. If nothing else, this blood was helping him un
derstand more and more why Mina had put so many physical obstacles in her life. Anything that would give herself something to hold out against it. And he knew if she did ever decide she loved him, he wouldn't deserve her. No man could.
"So you would have liked staying there, with me," he said.
She sniffed. "I didn't say that. But I might have let you come around, now and again."
He fought for the smile, won it and knew it was worth the effort when her gaze riveted on his mouth, lifted to his face. "Mina, it wasn't... when we... it didn't feel like this with me, did it?" Please Goddess, I hope every moment of pleasure wasn't stolen from a moment of darkness.
"Yes and no." As she turned her head, her blue eye and crimson one met his fully. "Always a balance. A perfect one, I think."
Then she looked back at the portal where they now stood. She spoke in a language he didn't know, telling him the blood was interfering with his automatic translation abilities. His heart began to race as Dark One energy gathered and the door misted, became a vortex of black smoke that drifted out toward them with eager fingers.
Lacing her fingers with his, she looked up into his face once more. "The best moments of my life were spent with you," she said.
They stepped forward together.
Twenty-two
IT reminded David of the sci-fi movies he'd watched as a boy, the nauseating spinning and tumbling through a wormhole, where gravity and speed pulled cells apart like gum, leaving the body a distorted, stretched mess on the other side.
Which was why it was surprising, after what had seemed like an endless passage, to find himself standing next to Mina on a landscape that was the Hell of evangelical imaginings.
Far worse than that, really, for it wasn't Hell. Lucifer ruled over an ordered Hades, structured for justice and redemption, followed by eventual rebirth. This was a place without meaning or purpose. But the images of fire and ice, monstrous shadows wheeling in the sky, creatures dragging themselves through the mud with red staring eyes, were only a flash of impressions before pure chaos and disorder struck his mind, driving him to his knees.
As he fell, his hands hit the frozen ground, while his knees landed in what felt like a bed of embers. He rolled to his side, found himself in sucking mud. Images drilled into his brain. Horrifying vignettes, as if he'd fallen into a theater of endless stages, a parade through every nightmare that had inflicted itself on a dreaming mind.