"What are you doing?" she murmured, not struggling, not wanting to do anything but stay here in his embrace, even if this was their view for all eternity, but vaguely curious at his timing.
"You implied we have a few moments before we have to face the fire. I didn't get to hold you after being inside you. I like that part."
"I've heard merwomen say most males don't care for that."
"Well, I have to think of your feelings. I wouldn't want to die with you thinking I'm insensitive."
Mina closed her eyes, her throat working. "I wish I'd never met you."
His lips pulled in a smile against her temple. "You're getting closer and closer to shouting out your love for me. I can feel it."
She stared at the hated tower. "They're going to hurt you to test me."
"I know. It's all right. The Trumpet's return is the first priority."
Putting her temple down against his shoulder, she breathed him in. "David," she said softly. Then again, once more, pressing her face harder against him, while his hand came up and cupped her head, held her forehead to his chest, his legs tightening on either side of her.
"Yes, sweet witch."
"I didn't ask anything."
"You did. You wanted to know if I love you. I heard it every time you said my name." He nuzzled her neck. "And I do. With everything I am."
"Will you sing to me?"
When he nodded, she settled back. He hummed the song at first, then eventually sang the words. This one was about a man who was missing the time during his life he'd spent sailing the ocean, watching whales and dolphins, thinking of them as his brothers. She could almost see it, her and David in a boat, lying in each other's arms, slowly gliding with the currents of wind and water, wherever they took them.
"That's another one of those human songs, isn't it?"
"Mm-hmm. And either my singing is really good or really bad, because I think the Dark One blood was threatening to spew out my ears to get away from it. It was performed by a group called the Little River Band. I'm sure the words were inspired by one of the music angels."
"I can't do this. I just can't."
"You can." He pressed a kiss to her temple. Held his lips there, hard, as he spoke against her skin. "It's time to talk about this. I expect they have their spies, like this Dante, who have noted my apparent physical devotion to you. If I'm under your enchantment as your slave, I'd only strike out or fight at your command. I might occasionally try to fight it, but on the whole, I'd have no ability to escape it. So can you actually do that? Bind an angel with that kind of spell?"
"With the Dark One's blood in you, yes. It's likely."
"Then do it."
It startled her, and she pulled back, looked at him. "I don't need to-"
"Yes, you do. It's got to be real. You understand? We can't take the chance that they'll doubt you."
She said nothing for a while, but she held tightly to the arm he had banded across her chest. David felt the tremor in her body, knew the nerves were there. But when he knew they could delay no longer and helped her to her feet, she shrugged him away irritably. "You know I don't think a Trumpet is worth your life. Not the whole damn world, the Goddess, or any other part of it."
"How about Anna and her baby?"
"Why do you think I care? You always think I care."
Taking her hands so she couldn't draw away, he stared down at her. "I know how this will rip you apart inside. I've known from the beginning you weren't evil. You're an incredible, powerful sorceress. An absolute hellion who will stand toe-to-toe with Heaven's toughest angels and dare them to strike her down. But you're also a woman who wants a quiet place to read her books and swing on a tire swing. A child who wants to be loved. Like all of us."
As frustrated tears gathered in her eyes, he pressed his thumbs there, let her rest her face in his hands. "Maybe you're not good, but you're the antithesis of evil. You are pure will, the strongest I've ever met. I love you, Mina. No matter what happens, you don't forget that. All right? Do what you have to do."
He stepped back. "Bind me with the spell. When we arrived, when you were helping me with the blood, that had the appearance of a struggle, and that probably helped. Remember what Dante said? 'This one serves you, though he is hard to manage, isn't he?'
"So, considering we're likely being watched..." He drew his dagger, turned as if surveying the area, and then when she didn't move, he turned, rushed her.
"Rigor," she snapped, and the burst of energy focused in the single word brought him to a sliding halt on his knees before her, the dagger clutched in his hand still. While she'd reacted instinctively, she suspected he'd done it more to instigate the spell than to perform for those watching. He'd known it was going to be difficult for her to do it without provocation. David did know her too well, as she'd feared.
"Bound by power, held by blood, you are slave to my will, whether for ill or good." She spat out the words like poison, for they were. The power flow for her here was so easy, too easy. She had him wrapped in tendrils of it before she barely finished the chant. For good measure, she seized his hair and tugged it so he stared up at her, the pain goading the fury in his eyes, reddened by the Dark Blood. Whether he'd learned to use the rage to mask his real thoughts that quickly, or it had come to the forefront on its own, it was still believable. "You will stop these pointless attempts to resist me. Follow me to the tower, protect me against any attack, serving my will only."
He'd been wrong. Under the reality of the spell, David had no room to resist her at all. He could still reach out and touch her mind for reassurance, but he was physically unable to deviate from following her path or keep himself from scoping the area for threats to her.
He hadn't expected her hold to be unbreakable, since as an angel he would have been able to shatter almost anything she imposed upon him. The Dark Blood apparently gave her the markers she needed. Of course, in a flash of grim humor, he thought it was a wonder she hadn't tried this kind of spell on him earlier.
I will try to be worthy of your trust, David.
There were things he'd been unable to control in his life that were difficult to accept. But he'd never experienced having his will taken from him. He tried to focus on her voice in his head, that flat tone that always implied she expected herself to be a disappointment. Somehow, he found that reassuring. As was the reminder to himself that she'd left him with the most important desire intact. To protect her. It helped him control the fear.
"THEY will kill you if you try to take it, you know."
Dante was back, weaving his body through the branches behind them, eerie, serpentine movements.
"You're annoying," Mina said, with a bare glance of contempt. "Shoo."
As the creature snarled and sprang from the tree behind them, David moved. While he was too fast for Mina's eye to follow, David caught Dante in midair, a hand clamping around his throat, and flipped him to his back. Slamming him down to earth with a heavy thud, he trapped him with one foot pressed hard on his groin. One hand held the dagger to his chest while the other remained clamped on his throat.
It was an impressive maneuver, to say the least, one that stirred the violent blood in herself. The exacerbation of primal emotions in this environment forced her to shove down the urge to bite David. Lord, he'd just had her, moments ago it seemed. Of course they seemed to have an unending hunger for it in their own world, so why should this one be different? And she was a witch, trained and intuitive in natural inclinations. Life-threatening situations made the adult body hunger for carnal connection, and she couldn't think of many situations more perilous than going hunting in the Dark Ones' world.
Using that feeling, she slowly let the illusion melt away from David's shoulders, revealing his true species, the white and brown wings now marked with red, like a blood-drenched paintbrush slashed over his wingspan. It was a dramatic effect that went well with the battle maneuver. She almost felt the energies of the world come to a momentary, stunned halt before the r
oar of the wind picked up. And the shrieking in the tower began, sending a bolt of terror through her. For David.
"No, no." Dante struggled without success against David's immovable hold, hissing. "Angel? How an angel? Not vampire. Wanted you to be vampire."
Mina's brow furrowed and she came forward, circled him. "A Dark Spawn vampire," she said slowly. "How is that possible?"
"Like you. Rare. Rare as a natural death here." He choked on a laugh, but it died as David's intent expression upon him did not alter. "My mother was brought here. Took her long time to die. Long time. Quite mad. Had her in chains when I was born. Suckled on her blood, her ankle, had to keep her chained so she wouldn't rip out my throat herself."
Dante giggled. "Nothing like a mother's love. Drained her. Died. Starved, then staked at last. I staked her." His gaze rose. "She begged. Been alone, long time now. Years and years. Eat from weaker Dark Ones. Their blood, but makes me sick. They bring me humans once in a while. Must eat fast, for they die as I eat." He nodded to himself. Looked up at David. "If she is Dark Spawn, she can feed me. Half human, right?"
"No," David said curtly. "You can't touch her, unless you're ready to die."
"Out. Can you get me out?"
"I think that was just what I threatened."
As David pressed a little harder, Mina's hand wrapped over his shoulder.
Easy.
"What can you do to help us?" she asked.
"Nothing. Can't. If Dark Ones know I helped..." Dante's gaze went a deeper shade of red as he focused it on David. "Death at his hands much better, no matter what kind of death."
"Why haven't you gone through a rift?"
"Can't fly. And won't let me. Have it so I can't leave. You have to say my real name to give me exit, the one my mother gave me. My mother tell me story and when I said I'd call myself Dante, she laughed. Not pretty sound," he reflected. "Gurgle, like death rattle." He frowned. "Maybe was."
Mina straightened. Gods, if I could destroy this place, every vestige of everything within it, I would. This place was never meant to be.
With the Dark Blood surging in his own veins, so that David felt the unnaturalness of it like a hammer pounding at him, he couldn't disagree. The very existence of such a place was the explanation of evil, random pockets of chaos, spawned by who knew what energy. Was it an emotional garbage dump for some world? A repository for human nightmares? A place to drain off excess aggression, and the Dark Ones had emerged from those pools like repulsive amphibian life-forms, shrieking their hatred and misery as their birth cry?
"Let him go." Mina's hand was on him again. "I'm tired of this."
But as they continued toward the tower, David noted Dante skulking, following after them through the thick branches of the tall, dark trees. He didn't like the vampire, the way he watched Mina, hunger and desperation muddled up with an elusive, malevolent undercurrent.
Brains were not Dante's strong suit, however, for in a few moments he bounded ahead and was waiting, though safely back in a tree, to address them again. "So you here to stay? Not to take Trumpet?"
She flicked him a dismissive glance without responding and continued on. David found the magical tether she had on him had changed to an exact five paces behind her, for when he fell one extra pace, trying to keep his eye on the elusive vampire, electrical energy surged through him, driving him to his knees with a gasp. Mina threw a glance at him. "Keep up, or it will get worse."
Weakness was viewed as opportunity in this world, so David wasn't surprised that Dante made another leap, this time at him. Despite the pain, David's hand was on his throat again, holding him at arm's length as Mina barely batted an eye.
"Can't kill me with your pet," Dante gasped.
"No. But he can crush your windpipe, and that would make you far less irritating to me." Mina stared him down. "But do stay close, Dante. I may have a use for you."
David released him once more, tossing him about twenty feet away. After rolling to an ignominious halt in a puddle of mud, Dante made a show of dusting himself off and stared defiantly at her down that oddly aquiline, aristocratic nose. "I may not wish to be used."
"You will if it suits your purpose. If I ask, it will."
She proceeded onward, regal as a queen. In the prison of his body, David had to marvel over it, the way she walked over the tiled, frozen and fiery earth with the demeanor of royalty, David as her enslaved angelic bodyguard. There was no hint of the careful, furtive way he'd seen her move across the ocean floor, or her hesitation with each new experience he'd presented to her.
But then, she'd told him, hadn't she? The voices had been in her head all her life, telling her this was where she belonged. She'd told him how to control the blood, use it as a weapon, because she knew how to do it herself.
Mina?
There was no answer. Pushing aside the uneasiness, he told himself her attention was likely on what lay ahead of them, drawing closer every moment.
The tower had no doors. Only openings all the way up, jagged ones. It reminded him of a dead tree, petrified into stone after woodpeckers had gnawed deep holes into its sides. As he watched, Dark Ones began to emerge from those holes, as she predicted, and wing their way across the sky toward them. Taking an attack formation.
David glanced back to see that Dante had disappeared. The Dark Ones' scavenger and spy, but only barely tolerated by them, he'd warrant. He might still prove useful. The traitorous bastard.
As David drew two of his daggers, Mina at last looked toward him. Even with the illusion gone from her, both her eyes were blood red. "You should drop those."
"Your spell gives me the mandate of protecting you. They're not going to touch you, if I can prevent it. Protect yourself however you need to do it."
"All right," she said. And blasted him with a current so strong it somersaulted him backward.
David hit the ground hard, just as she lifted her arm and a sizzling green and purple dome of energy crackled around them, causing the Dark Ones to sheer upward, then turn, shrieking and snarling. She responded in the same language, shrieking and keening in that shrill voice.
After a few dizzying moments, he was able to sit up, shake himself and retrieve his daggers. She let him move back to her, close enough to protect. If she'd let him. In the meantime, she'd snarled, hissed and apparently threatened her way to a satisfying conclusion in their peculiar communication form. The Dark Ones now adjusted their flight formation, giving more of an impression of an advance guard preceding her toward the tower. But they were hovering, staring at him. Waiting.
As she turned and looked at him, the command exploded in his head, like shrapnel striking nerve centers, driving him to his knees.
Strip. All of it. Leave it all.
He fought her, fought himself, and yet couldn't stop his fingers from unbuckling the harness, letting it drop. Unbuckling the belt on the tunic, unwrapping it, dropping it so he was entirely naked. Weaponless. She had complete, ruthless control of him.
His father, with a gun. Ordering him to strip. Mina, doing the same. He fought to keep it separate in his mind.
I will use it against you...
But then on top of that, he couldn't rise, was kept on his hands and knees from the force of her spell. The Dark Ones shrieked in startled amazement, swooped in, but couldn't come inside that dome of energy. They grazed it, risking the crackle of electric energy along their eager talons, the singeing of their wings.
Some had landed, and while he'd been distracted by the ones in the air, there were Dark Ones on foot who'd also come out to meet them. Gathering around, closing in, their presence making his head pound, even with the Dark One blood.
Crawl, angel.
As she issued the mental command, she turned and began to walk toward the tower. David felt the fire searing his skin, the ice freezing it. The purple and green energy faded away, leaving him facing a nightmare come to life.
He hadn't permitted himself to feel fear, made himself view everything up to this
point as steps to prepare for battle. Now he would face it weaponless, to honor the Legion, the Lady and himself. And most importantly, to protect Mina. This was how he would serve her best.
The Dark Ones closed in on him, their shrieks filling his ears, rupturing them as talons and teeth began to tear at his wings.
Twenty-three
MINA didn't look back, just kept walking. A tile of ice, a tile of fire, the stench of sulfur, Dark One decay and waste. The wriggling, grotesque life-forms they fed upon.
This life was the part of her she couldn't deny. The part she likely understood better than the human, merperson or seawitch.
When she'd been locked in chains against the Abyss wall, there were times, at the very first, when the pain and horror of it had been so overwhelming that she'd broken and screamed. Screamed until she had no voice. Pulled against the chains, both the magical and physical, until her blood attracted even more predators. Then, after a while, there was no sense of the passage of time. There was just now. Getting through the next minute. No past, no future, just an existence to which her body kept clinging for whatever reason, when anything seemed better than this.
But knowing all that, remembering it, she knew this was worse. What was about to happen was too horrid to contemplate, to handle, so she simply shut down. She knew she was evil now, because even if it was the only way the Trumpet could be recovered, no one with a scrap of good inside their souls would have come up with this idea. There were some things that the universe should be sacrificed to preserve.
Perhaps it was a blessing they weren't going to survive. He might call it love now, but what would it be after this?
She didn't let her steps falter when they wrenched the first scream from him. Drawing on the Dark One blood within her fiercely, just as she'd told him to do, she immersed herself in it. She could go so deep her conscience would drown. She'd feel the same thrill as they did when he cried out. That deep, she might forget why they were here, but it was unbearably tempting. She couldn't do this if she felt his agony as well as heard it, knowing she was trading his torment and life for this.
I will love you no matter what.