I know you’re up there watching this, and I know you don’t want hell to win this war. I never lived a good life, and I’ve turned my back on you more times than I can count, so there’s no reason you should listen. But this battle will kill us all without you.
Please help Charlie and Aspen so they can use their gifts to the best of their abilities. Please help the liberators remember their training. Help Oswald and the jackrabbits and the humans fight bravely, and help the sisters to heal those who are injured.
When nothing magical happens, I start to stand. Something hangs heavy in my heart though, so I take a knee once more.
Forgive me the things I have done. Help me this night. Please.
I open my eyes and search for Rector. When I locate him, one last thought blasts through my mind.
I can’t do this without you.
The legs are knocked out from beneath me, and this time I’m on both knees. A yellow mist surrounds my body and wraps me in sweet perfume. I try to see past the fog, but I’m hit a second time by an invisible force. Pain explodes behind my eyes as my body grinds against itself. Bones lengthen and muscles expand and my face is torn apart. My skin rips and my limbs elongate. The pain consumes every thought I have. Every thought except one.
Charlie.
I always imagined the color of God was blue. Blue like the seals I now use. Blue like running water and a clear summer sky. But the yellowness that surrounds me feels right. It seeps into my pores forcefully, as if reuniting with an old friend lost so many years ago. There’s a current engulfing my body and I can’t name this thing I’m becoming. I’ll try—
Dominant.
Invincible.
Terrifying.
Not for me…for others. I am not afraid.
But he should be.
I’m blinded by the power rushing through my bloodstream and I’m certain this is far above anything Kraven has ever experienced. Heat rushes through my fingers and my insides transform into gears and springs. Tick-tick-tick.
Boom.
I touch my face. Slickness coats the features there. And my body, it’s larger and covered in a thin, gray material that shines like silver. I’m a knight dressed for battle. A forest fire raging. I cannot be controlled. I cannot be intimidated.
In that moment, I realize I was wrong. God is merciful. He may not want me after this war is over, but right now he does. He’s forgiven me enough to sink his own teeth into my body. But there’s something else I sense rolling off of him.
Anger.
Fury.
He isn’t happy about what Lucifer and the collectors have done.
Neither am I.
I stand and find Rector on the back of a demon, riding it as if there’s a saddle between his legs and reins in his hands. He’s pumping his fist in the air and cheering his demons forward. He no longer has his sword. Overconfident prick.
I unfurl my wings.
The feathers are black as death. But there are new ones among the old. Yellow like the color of God and admonishment and castigation. Yellow like the color of fear. I stretch them upward and roll my shoulders back. I crack my head to the side and search the area until I find it. Leaning down, I take the sacred sword into my hand and point it straight upward.
For you.
Then I point it toward Rector and a growl begins deep in my core. It builds until my entire body becomes a rocket, flames practically shooting from my feet. I blast across the sky. Rector sees me a second before I collide into him.
The smile falls from his mouth, and in his eyes is something that fuels my rage—panic. I rip him from his demon and sail straight upward, wrapping my wings around our bodies. Darkness presses down on us, and I whisper one word to him.
“Die.”
I hit him, my fist a cannon of demolition. His blood covers my silver hand. I pull my sword back and slam him in the chest with the hilt. A snapping sound fills me up. Rector scrambles to flee, but his attempts are in vain. I’m stronger. I’m faster. I’m more everything, and he knows it.
I keep him near with the use of my wings and steady my sword in both hands. Swinging with everything I have, I slice toward his right hand. It severs in one blow and falls to the earth. I pull my wings back and grab onto him. When he sees his missing hand, he cries out in shock. Then he screams in pain as his body comprehends what’s happened. I take the sword and arc it toward his other wrist.
Down the left hand tumbles, a pink starfish against the night sky.
Rector hollers again. He’s calling for the collectors, for Patrick and Kincaid and Zack. A quick glance down tells me they won’t answer his call for help. The yellow fog rolls across the field, swallowing the black. Our warriors seem larger than life in its midst. I spot Oswald appearing onto the field, unafraid. He lights the area with his orange bomb and demons explode into red-scaled chunks. Kraven fights with one of the collectors—Zack—and I can tell he’s winning with ease.
And Charlie and Aspen—
Seeing them, I release Rector. I can’t do anything besides stare. Aspen sends green arrows into sirens, and Charlie sucks their souls from hell and returns it into their bodies. Their eyes are glazed over and filled with a creamy white texture. And their feet, they don’t touch the ground. Every step they take is on air. They look ethereal.
They look monstrous.
Our humans race toward the demons and slash with confident blades. Rings are severed from the creatures’ hands and plucked from the ground. The Patrelli sisters are on the field now, too, healing out in the open without the use of their shield. Slowly, our troops drive the demons and sirens back, the yellow mist giving them courage.
Rector flies across the field toward the forest. More than once, he falls to the ground and appears again in the sky. I drive toward him, a snarl starting from my feet and vibrating against my tongue. I catch him from behind and snap his head backward. Then, remembering all the things he’s done, I lay the tip of my sword above his cuff.
This is the guy who kissed my mother.
Who nipped my father’s penny from my pocket.
Who forced Charlie to fulfill the contract.
Who stole her soul from me, and took Blue’s life.
The guy who tricked Aspen into staying in hell and turned Valery against us and killed Charlie Cooper. He hurt Annabelle. He hurt Max. But he won’t hurt anyone else ever again.
I spin in a circle, and my aim is true. Rector screams as his foot and cuff separate from his leg and somersault toward the earth.
“No!” he screams. “No, no, no!” He turns around and faces me, a man with one foot and no hands. “No. No. No. Nooooo!” He continues repeating himself, but the word begins to have a mocking quality to it. “No. No-wah. Nooo-wah! Ha, ha! Nooo! Don’t take my dargon, Dante. What ever would I do then?”
Rector is cut in more places than I can count, but there’s one place I haven’t thought to strike. One place I know he won’t laugh at. I pull my sword back, breathe in, and drive it straight through his chest. His mouth opens in a perfect circle of nothingness, and even though he’s grunting against the pain, he still manages to beat his wings and laugh.
“Don’t you see? You can’t kill me.” He points a bloody stump at my shirt, tight against my new larger body. “I melted one of the rings down. I melted it down and I drank it.”
My heart races upon hearing his secret. I shake him off and he plummets downward. He may still be alive, my sword speared through his chest, but he doesn’t have the strength to fly any longer. Could it be? Could Rector be truly immortal?
If I severed his head, would he simply reattach it? Or maybe he’d keep moving forward without one. I shudder and take off after him, unwilling to accept that it comes down to this. I can hear the cries of victory on the Lion’s Hand, and know that we’re coming close to winning this battle. If I can bring our enemies their leader’s lifeless body, they’ll surely surrender. No one else needs to die today, save for one.
Rector is crawling through th
e grass. I touch down and walk after him, thinking. He finds something in the field and turns to show it to me. It’s his right hand. Then again, it may not be his. He’s not the only one who was cut down today.
I stare at Rector, the smug smile on his face. He pulls the sword from his chest and falls back, laughing. Hearing his happiness, I become the embodiment of rage. I am wrath. I am light.
I am sharp eyes for hunting, broad shoulders for fighting, strong hands for gripping a weapon. I am built for this. I will protect Charlie and Aspen and all of mankind from scum like Rector. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for my girls, and I have done it all. Blood has spilled, and I spilled it without a second thought.
I am a machine.
There’s one last nuisance that must be exterminated for me to sleep easy, and he sits before me, sputtering. He drank the dargon. It’s a part of him. It races through his bloodstream and the only thing I can think to do is burn him until there’s nothing left.
But there would always be something left, wouldn’t there? Ashes. Great, sweeping piles of him carried on the wind. How long until the flakes converge and multiply? Until he rises from death like a god and walks the earth once more?
Hot blood pulses through me and I breathe hard. I’m remembering something. Rector is talking to me about winning, but I’m remembering. I’m remembering the first time I saw the strange words on the scroll. I understood them even though I shouldn’t have. I searched the library and found others, and every last one of them my mind relished like a pleasant memory. I remember what Oswald said about the words having other uses we don’t yet know.
I remember something else, too.
Aspen with spiders crawling the length of her hair. Aspen with holes in her head where her eyes once were. Aspen with legs that rooted into a lonesome island. We spoke to each other in our dreams. I close my eyes, not caring about Rector’s threats. Not caring that he’s rising to his feet and that my sword is clutched precariously between his dripping wrists.
Tell me what to do.
But He doesn’t have to. I know. The dots connect in a glorious constellation of understanding.
Unconscious words spoken on an unpracticed tongue will drive the beast down.
It’s the final message on the scroll I never comprehended, until now. My tongue is unpracticed. And the beast lies before me. It’s only a matter of translating the correct words to end his reign.
I open my eyes. I jerk the sword away from Rector. And I press the tip of it against the existing wound in his chest. Rector smiles again. He thinks I’ve come to the same conclusion: he can’t be killed. But anything that lives can expire. And tonight, as the snow falls over his shoulders, Rector will die.
I pull the sword back and, thinking of all the dreams I’ve shared with Aspen, I repeat her words, “You’re already dead. Go back to sleep.”
And then, my soul vibrating within my body, I repeat the words in a language only I can understand:
Vu frade darta. Ja paik ta sal.
I drive the sword home, and yellow light erupts from Rector’s body. It shoots from his open mouth and his ears and nose. It eats his insides like a thousand ravenous maggots. His body begins to collapse like a slowly deflating balloon. The black scales encasing his body fold over on one another and he screams.
And he screams.
He screams so loudly that those on the battlefield turn and gawk. They watch as their leader, their foe, implodes. Somewhere in the distance, I hear Kraven ordering our troops to attack with force. The sound of cries and colliding weapons reach my ears, but I can’t tear my eyes away from Rector’s body. Organ by organ, cell by cell, the yellow light eats away at him. In the end, all that’s left is the shadow of his face, lying in a pool of black liquid. His mouth moves in a silent plea. And then his features are swallowed by black.
There’s one final burst of yellow light and then he’s gone. Nothing remains. As the snow falls on the place Rector once was, I feel as if a part of myself has died as well. Rector was the embodiment of everything I hated about my past, and by killing him, it’s as though I ended that piece of me, too. It feels good, liberating. But it’s also mystifying. Without that side of me, what remains?
I’m eager to find out.
I turn back to the battle and storm toward the first demon I see.
54
Goodbye
Once Rector has fallen, the remaining troops are unstoppable. They overcome the demons with hundreds of sirens fighting alongside them. Some of the remaining sirens flee, while others seem to linger, awaiting their turn to regain their soul. Easton, Charlie’s old neighbor and the siren who wielded a powerful black cloud, and his brother, Salem, are among the sirens who ask for redemption.
As my body returns to its natural shape, Blue rushes over and tells me that both Annabelle and Max are in bad sorts, but that both are alive and are with the Patrelli sisters. I breathe a sigh of relief even though I shouldn’t. Max won’t survive much longer without a cuff. The only reason he’s still alive is because his injuries aren’t as severe as Neco’s were when his own cuff was removed. And Annabelle lost so much blood, and she couldn’t have been more than a few weeks along.
Kraven strides over as well and says Zack and Kincaid have fallen, and that only Patrick remains.
He asks if I would like to do the honors, but I shake my head.
“Ask him whether he wants be absolved of his sins and work for us. If he scoffs, sever his dargon.” Patrick will never agree to it, and even if he said he’d changed, I’m not sure we have liberator dargon to give him and I’m certain I wouldn’t believe his sudden change of heart. But it seems like a slap in Big Guy’s face not to offer a second chance after I was given one.
Kraven stares at me. So does Blue.
“What?” I ask.
“You killed Rector,” Blue says, “even after he turned into that thing.”
I glance around at the dying battle. “We all did. Besides, I kind of turned into a thing, too.”
Keeping an eye on Charlie, I call Lincoln over and instruct him to make a pass over the field with his jackrabbits. He tells me he’s lost two more of his friends, and I’m stung by the news. When we return to the Hive, our mourning will be long. The worst part is that the jackrabbits who fell have family and friends who will never know where they went. They’ll never know how bravely they fought or that they helped prevent the balance between heaven and hell from tipping in hell’s favor. The demons they helped kill here aren’t a hundredth of what waited in the shadows.
What would have happened if they’d won?
What would happen if demons had been able to walk the earth without the use of dargon?
I head toward Charlie, my legs moving as if on their own accord. She sees me coming and stops her work on a siren.
She throws her arms around me.
We kiss.
We kiss and all is right in the world and everything will be okay.
I’d fight a thousand battles to rewind the fact that Charlie died, but I don’t believe she’d change a single thing. Not when she kisses me like this.
Charlie sees that I’m hurt and panic lights her face.
“I’ll heal.” I hold up my arm to show her how the wound has stopped bleeding. “The same will happen to you if you’re ever harmed.”
Her face falls. When I lift her chin she says only, “Annabelle and Max, and all the others. Will they be okay?”
I don’t know what to say to ease her grief, and I don’t know the answer to her question, so I don’t say anything at all.
Aspen fires off two more arrows and then turns toward me. “The demons have fallen. All of them.”
I nod. “We need to get our wounded back to the Hive where the sisters have more supplies. Ask the remaining sirens who wish to be changed to follow us. Two days’ journey in the snow. It’ll do them good to wonder whether we’ll still be forgiving when we arrive.”
“And the sirens that fled?” Aspen asks.
Charlie answers her. “Let them go. Their leader is gone. If they don’t want forgiveness, it’s not our place to force it on them.”
Aspen grimaces and mutters, “I was asking if we should kill them.”
Charlie nudges her and tries to smile, but she’s too exhausted and too afraid for our wounded friends. We all are. I don’t know how the humans are standing upright. I wave Kraven over and tell him that we should get moving. We’ll carry the injured if we have to. For the first time, I see fatigue on his face, but he agrees we must push onward.
It won’t be as hard to march when we know we’re going someplace safe, the idea of victory fresh on our minds.
…
It takes less time to reach the Hive than it did when we traveled to the Lion’s Hand. Blue and I carry a platform, and Max groans softly the whole way. The Patrelli sisters keep snow packed on Annabelle’s wound and have applied what small bit of salve they brought to the battlefield, but it’s anyone’s guess as to whether she’ll survive.
We are much fewer in number when we reach our odd charismatic estate, but there’s also visible relief as we step through the three sets of doorways and land inside the great room. Much of the place has been ransacked, but Laura, the woman who wears the gold shawl, appears from the kitchen with a quick step. “There’s food and tea. I’ll need help making both.” She’s addressing the other humans, and they seem glad for the mirage of normalcy.
The Patrelli sisters order us through narrow hallways, and Blue and I navigate the board we carry Max on between the walls. Finally, we set him down on the floor and then lift him onto the bed. As we do this, my eyes travel down Max’s leg to his missing foot. My stomach rolls. He’s my best friend. If we don’t do something, he’ll die a final death. No hell, no heaven. Just an eternity of nothingness.
Kraven says he must pray through the night and hope Big Guy provides direction. Charlie was always meant to be a liberator, he says, but he can’t make Max one without instruction to do so. I consider saying screw that and giving Max a piece of my dargon anyway. But I’m learning to trust something bigger than myself, so when one of the sisters shoos us out, insistent that she needs space to work, I exit the chambers.