Charisma didn’t ask how he knew about her journey or her destination.
Davidov knew everything.
But she did smile awkwardly. “Not that I don’t appreciate this, Vidar. And I know you’re right; I do need fuel to continue on. But the truth is . . . I think I waited too long to take the first steps on my quest.”
He placed a restorative draft by her right hand. “What do you mean?”
She stirred her spoon around in the bowl of stew. “I’m dying.” She looked up fast, catching him frozen behind the bar, his expression rife with dismay and guilt. “You knew it, didn’t you?”
“Yes. Last time I saw you . . . Yes.” His eyes were sorrowful.
She had suspected, feared . . . but to have her apprehensions confirmed was a knife to the heart.
She wanted to scream denial, ask for a reprieve, go to Guardian and beg that he love her one more time. “I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me. Why I was so tired. And just an hour ago I was ready to make the trip into the depths to answer the earth’s call, and now I can barely lift my spoon. It’s the demon’s venom, isn’t it? Mother Catherine said I would know to do the right thing, but I’ve delayed too long. I’m too feeble and now I’m going to die.” Putting her head down on the table, she closed her eyes and began to cry, weak tears that slid down her cheeks, mournful sobs that broke her body.
She heard a commotion by the door.
Davidov murmured something.
“Have you done everything you can to reach the heart of the earth?” Davidov asked from behind the bar.
“Yes. Yes,” she said. “And now I’ll die without serving the earth, and without finishing my term as a Chosen One. Now I can never rest. I’m doomed to wander the earth forever.”
She felt the warmth of someone hovering over her. A hand tenderly brushed the hair off her forehead.
Her eyes fluttered as warmth seeped through her.
Guardian said, “But you haven’t done everything to answer the earth’s summons. You haven’t asked for my help.”
She caught her breath.
He leaned over her, awesomely beastly, beautifully hairy, fierce and frightening, dressed in his black superhero fighting suit, alive, free . . . and smiling tenderly. At her. “I’ll go with you, Charisma Fangorn, to the ends of the earth, and if you’re too weak to make it on your own two feet, I’ll carry you.”
Her heart leaped with joy, and she flung her arms around his neck. “You did escape!”
“Thanks to you, my brave and foolish darling.” He kissed her.
Her blood heated. Her cheeks flushed. For the first time since she’d left the Guardian cave, she felt truly well.
Then he asked, “When do we leave?”
“I’m not going the ends of the earth. I’m going to the depths.” She clutched her fingers in his hair. “You will have to carry me. And . . . I don’t know the way.”
“Then we’ll have a good long trip together.”
“Our first trip . . . and our last.” She watched him as she made her pronouncement.
He trembled in her arms. “I don’t believe that. I refuse to believe that.”
“You knew, too!” Did everyone know she was dying . . . except her?
“Only a few hours ago, Dr. King told me.” Guardian’s eyes narrowed until he looked rather . . . beastly.
“Oh.” Charisma put her head on his shoulder. “I shouldn’t let you even try to come with me. It’s dangerous, and it’s selfish of me when I probably won’t return, and you . . . I don’t know how you’ll find your way back on your own.”
Determinedly, he said, “I don’t know, Charisma, how you would stop me.”
She smiled. “If you’re determined to come, I am most grateful.”
“Don’t be grateful. Be well.”
“I’ll do my best. For you. For the Chosen Ones.”
On the other side of the table, Davidov cleared his throat.
When they looked around, he put another bowl of stew on the table. “Better eat, both of you. You’ve got a long journey and it’s later than you think.”
While Guardian ate, Charisma changed into Mother Catherine’s Ferragamo pumps. She stood and grimaced. “I was afraid of that. These really pinch.”
“Someone else is giving you shoes?” Guardian asked with reserve.
“The mother superior at the convent,” she told him.
His attitude changed to one of magnanimous approval. “How nice of her.”
“It was, wasn’t it?” She grinned at him. “Whenever you’re ready, I’m ready.”
Guardian rose. “Let’s go then.”
She climbed up on the bench.
He turned his back and bent.
She climbed on, wrapped her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist.
He straightened.
“Wait.” Davidov folded a napkin and came to her. He tied it over her eyes. “You don’t need your vision. Listen to your instincts. You were born to make this trip, Charisma Fangorn. You will get there if you rely on your instincts.”
Chapter 47
“We’re almost there.” Charisma’s voice sounded in Aleksandr’s ear.
“Stay with me,” he said.
“I am trying, Aleksandr. You know if I could stay, I would never leave you, don’t you?”
“Yes. I know,” he said softly.
So this was the final challenge of their trip? He had to face the fact that just as he found Charisma, he would lose her? That a few gleaming golden moments together were all they would ever have?
Now that Aleksandr’s amnesia was vanquished, he remembered every challenge he’d ever faced in his whole life.
Nothing compared to this trek into the bowels of the earth. He fought demons. He jumped a river of fire. He crossed an icy lake. Bats flooded toward him, tangled in his hair, flapped in his face. The farther they went, the more he was aware . . . that none of this was true. Or rather, it was true, but it did not exist in the real world. The challenges were picked for him, playing to his fears, past and present.
But although he expected to see Iskra and Smith Bernhard, not even their phantoms would descend into the bowels of the earth to challenge his resolve.
No, it wasn’t Iskra and the doctor that made him wonder if he could go on . . . it was Charisma’s weight, growing ever lighter as they traveled. At first she had been a solid mass of muscle, a burden he was glad to carry, but a burden nonetheless.
Now, she was almost nonexistent, a feather on his back.
“How long have we been traveling?” she whispered. “Weeks? Months?” Time didn’t seem to exist down here.
“I don’t know.” He only knew that the farther they went into the depths, the lighter she became, as if her spirit were lifting from her body, preparing itself to soar.
“Almost there,” she promised again, her voice hoarse and drowsy. “I hate to ask . . . but can you carry me inside the cave?”
“I intend to.”
“Thank you. I had hoped to spare you the final trial . . . but I don’t have the strength to walk.”
He stumbled.
“Aleksandr.” She stroked his hair. “You have brought me so far. You can do this.”
Lose her? No. No, he couldn’t.
With Charisma on his back, he stepped through the arched entry.
The cave softly gleamed: the walls, the floor, the stalagmites and stalactites . . . the broad raised stone, smoothed into a shallow hollow.
“There,” Charisma said. “Put me there on the altar.”
When had she discarded her blindfold?
But when he placed her on the upraised stone, he saw she still wore it.
“It’s beautiful. We are in the earth’s living heart.” Her voice was worshipful.
He looked around. They were in a cavern. Vast, colorful, with lofty stone formations. A spring bubbled forth from the wall, splashed down the stones, babbled across the cave. Yet the cave was barren and, except for the fire pit in the
middle, stripped of all signs of humanity. In his opinion, the Guardian cave was larger and more impressive.
How did she know about the altar? What did she see without her eyes? What would this sacrifice demand of her?
He placed his hand on her forehead.
The heat of her fever burned like a fire. He glanced around. He needed to get her out of here, take her somewhere she could get medical attention.
“No.” As if she heard him, she caught his wrist. “It’s okay. I am dying, Aleksandr, but before you volunteered to bring me here, I thought I was going to die alone. You’re here with me, and for that, I thank you.”
“I don’t want your thanks. I want you to live!”
“I want that, too.” She shook her head. “I don’t see it happening. Now . . . go sit by the fire, and keep warm in the chill of this winter day.”
“It’s not winter.” Far above, in New York City, the sun shone for long hours of the day, and the heat penetrated even into the Guardian cave. He wanted her to remember that—to remember real life existed, that the two of them now lived in an alternate reality.
She seemed to hear his thoughts. “I know the city is there. But it’s not more real than this. Let me rest. I promise to call you before I go.”
Flames sprang to life in the pit.
He knew he had to leave her alone to do what she had to do.
He went and sat beside the pit.
Charisma lay prone on the flat, smooth stone and sighed with pleasure. The surface supported her. The rock gave her strength. Here, even with her eyes closed, even with Davidov’s blindfold in place, she could see the energy of the earth, glowing, pulsing, alive and violent, soft and warm, sharp and frigid.
Was this cave a dream? An illusion? Did it exist only in her mind, or was it a location in the earth? She didn’t know. She knew only one thing. . . . “It is a good place to die.”
Then a whisper of a promise slid through her mind. She could hear the earth’s song again.
You don’t have to die.
The earth could work its magic for her. The earth could cure her.
She almost leaped at the chance. But some caution held her back.
What’s the price?
Not a price, but a choice.
She could drink from the stream, and she would live a long life.
Or . . . she could have the second feather.
The second feather . . . The words skimmed her mind. One of the two surviving feathers from Lucifer’s wing . . .
Osgood had obtained one feather and placed it into the foundation of his building, weighing it down with tons of concrete, trapping it and putting it forever beyond the reach of the Chosen Ones . . . or so he had thought.
Foolish man. A feather that had survived the descent from heaven would not be contained. It worked down through the tons of concrete, down into the earth. It had moved, slid, glided through the ground.
Charisma had searched underground for that feather.
Now she turned her head and there it hung, pure and white, encased in a crystal-clear stalactite, waiting for the right person to free it.
Even with the blindfold on, she could see it, sense it . . .
A choice.
Charisma had a choice.
She could live.
Or she could take the feather to the Chosen Ones and save the world before her death.
I can’t take the feather to the surface. I’m too weak. I’m dying.
The earth answered her.
One taste from the stream would restore her enough to retrieve the feather, use it, and finish her time with the Chosen Ones.
To drink from the stream would give her life—and strengthen the stalactite, encasing the feather forever.
A choice. One or the other.
A weight descended on her chest. She could hardly breathe.
She remembered her dream. The mountain. The dark. The hopeless search for a way out.
She wanted to pick life. So desperately.
Again she looked at the feather.
The crystal in the cave sparkled like diamonds and jewels, but nothing could compare to the beauty of that long, slender, perfectly formed wing feather. It hung suspended, waiting to be freed. And she was the only one who could free it.
She had to do her duty. She had to free it. This was why she had been summoned down into the depths of the earth.
She strengthened her resolve.
Then another temptation whispered through her mind.
If Aleksandr drinks from the stream, he will be returned to his true form.
She looked at Aleksandr, seated beside the fire pit, staring sadly into the flames.
If you choose life, he’ll take human form again. He can live in the sunlight, at your side. You’ll be part of a family—his family, the Wilders, loving and supportive. You can have children, grandchildren.
If you die . . . he is condemned to life as a beast.
You said if he drank from the stream, he would return to his human form, Charisma thought.
Only if you drink, too. If you don’t choose life, he will remain in his current form. They’ll hunt and hurt him forever. He’ll go mad with loneliness. You will have condemned him.
The earth cajoled, Choose life.
She tried to remember what Mother Catherine had said to her about doing the right thing. She tried to remember what Davidov had said to her about listening to her instincts.
But weren’t her instincts telling her to grab life at all costs? Wasn’t life all that mattered?
Yes. Life was all that mattered.
She swallowed a sob.
Just not necessarily her life.
What mattered were the millions of lives she could save by retrieving the feather.
This wasn’t a choice. Charisma had lived her life trying not to be her mother, selfish and shallow. If she did this now, took the temptation the earth offered, every effort she had ever made, every vow she had ever spoken, every belief she had ever held . . . would be betrayed.
And with that, Charisma had made her decision.
She sat up, took off her blindfold.
She could see perfectly well, and in this reality the cave looked like a cavern, large and colorful. But not the diamond-encrusted cavern she had seen before.
It was just a cave.
The fire in the fire pit died.
Guardian looked up. He was still long-armed, long-legged, barrel-chested, and hairy, and yet . . . for her, his blue eyes lit with concern and love, and if they had a long life to live together, and he remained more beast than man, she would be the happiest woman in the world.
If they had a long life together . . .
It was possible. . . .
She slid off the altar. “We’re going to take the feather to the Chosen Ones.”
He hurried to her side. “The feather? What feather?”
“It’s here.” Slowly, with his help, she walked to a long, slender stalactite, no longer clear and glittering, but dull and gray. “It’s trapped in here.”
He stared as if he didn’t know whether she was quite sane.
“Trust me.” She tapped on the rock, then tried to fracture it with her fist. “But I can’t get it out alone.”
“Let me try.” Unwavering in his dedication to her, he tried his best to break the rock apart.
He could not.
She leaned wearily against the unyielding stone. The earth was not done testing her. “We have to take a taste from the stream.”
Clearly he didn’t understand her tragic tone. “All right. It’s not a big deal. We’ll get some water. We’ll rest for a minute. Then we’ll come and, um, free the feather.” Which he obviously could not see, and possibly didn’t believe was there.
“Yes. That’s what we’ll do.”
They went to the stream and knelt. They cupped their hands and tasted just a few drops.
That sip was better than anything Charisma had ever tasted. Of course. Her fatigue vanished like a dr
op of water on a hot griddle. Energy filled her. In a life spent in study, in researching, in working too hard and fighting too often, she had never felt so good.
She knew if she drank a little more, she would live.
And if he drank a little more, he would be Aleksandr Wilder again.
It would take only a small amount. . . .
Temptation.
If they drank, yes, they would be healthy, but they would also live in a world corrupted by such wickedness, filth, death, and degradation, they would be miserable all their days.
She caught his hand. “One taste! No more.”
Once again he wore that wary, concerned expression, as if the state of her sanity worried him. “What happens if we drink too much?”
“I’ll be condemned to a lifetime of knowing I did the wrong thing.” She shook her hands dry. “Let’s get the feather.”
They returned to the stalactite. They put their hands on it, ready to break the stone.
At their touch, the stalactite crumbled into dust.
The three-foot-long feather, pure white and faintly glittering, floated into Charisma’s arms.
It weighed almost nothing, a piece of heaven displaced to earth.
In awe, Aleksandr whispered, “I didn’t know whether I believed the feathers existed before. I didn’t know whether I believed we could win this battle. Now . . . at least I have hope.”
“Yes. This is hope given form.” Taking off her cream-colored Chanel wool jacket, Charisma wrapped the feather as tenderly as a baby and carried it out of the cave.
As she crossed the threshold into the real world, she felt a jolt of approval, a pat on the head.
You are a worthy servant, Charisma Fangorn.
And the stones on her wrist sprang to life once more.
The earth song was as beautiful as she had remembered in her dreams.
Chapter 48
The journey back from the center of the earth went all too quickly. It was as if the challenges that had assaulted them on the way down had disappeared into the mists of their minds. It probably also helped that Charisma’s strength had returned, and, with the help of a change from her Ferragamo pumps to her athletic shoes, she was able to walk next to Aleksandr all the way back.