Crown of Ash (Blood Skies, Book 4) (58 page)

Pulses of black and red energy peel away from the shadow like waves of rolling water. 
T
he Shadow Lords are crushed and eviscerated by storms of black sound. 

The
creature
doesn’t stop. 
Its
howl shakes the cavern.  His ears bleed.
 

Its dark hands conjure
a vitriolic ball of acid shadow, a sphere the size of
a human
heart. 
The missile flies at
Cross.  It s
plits
reality like a
razored wedge
pushed
through an icy floe
.  He twists
out of the way
. 

The
sphere barrels past the Obelisk and
knock
s it aside
.  The artifact
teeters at the edge of the cliff face
.  It
dangles
over
the
precipice,
nearly
fall
s
into
the Rift
. 

The
sphere of dread
matter
shatters
the barrier
between worlds
and tears into th
e Sor
n vehicles
on the other side
. 
The vessels explode. 
Charred metal
falls
in
to the Rift’s hellish depths.

The Shadow
moves towards him
.  What’
s left o
f its disguise melts away.  It’
s
just
darkness now
.  C
rumbling bits of bone and flesh
dangle
from its ebon body
like
shreds of paper
.  The ground melts
beneath
it.  Glowing eyes capture
Cross
and freeze
his heart.

A blast of fire
strikes
the Shadow
from behind.  The attack does
no
harm, but the flames
distract it
. 

Danica stands in the distance
, the source of the roiling flames.  She
has
changed, somehow – the sense of her spirit is muted, the
pulse of her life force has been altered and
shifted, but
there is no question
it’
s her
, in the flesh, adrift in the Whisperlands the same as he
is
.  S
he
hammers
the minion of The Black with as much power as he
’
s ever seen her channel at once.  He feels
the
pain
as it
roll
s
through
her body
,
and
he
senses her fatigue.

The Shadow turns
toward
her.  In that fraction of a second,
Cross’s
hand closes
around the hilt of
his blade
,
and
he
lifts it from
the ground
.  H
e rises and strikes
with every last reserve of his strength
.

He pushes
Soulrazor/Avenger
into
the Shadow’s back. 
The creature’s
howl blasts the ceiling apart.  Stone rain falls around them. 
Frozen
vapors blast
against Cross
.  His lungs crystallize
,
and his fingers go black. 

H
e manages to hold on
.  T
he gale shoves
against
him.  He clings to the hilt
even
as his feet slide back
ward
s
al
on
g
the ground.  He smells
the creature’s
void heart
.  M
eteor blood drip
s
like silver from
its
wounded
shadow flesh
.

He g
rip
s
the hilt of his b
lade and
throws his body forward
.  He pushes the
sword
all of the way through the Shadow with a cry of pain and rage
.

The Shadow explodes. 
Cross is
thrown
back
. 
He loses direction
. 
Everything
twist
s
around him.

He sees Snow and Graves.  He sees Dillon and St
one and Cristena.  He sees Mom and D
ad
.  All of them
stand
together at the edge of a forest glade. 
He wants to
run to
them,
to
be with them.

Mold darkness fills his vision.  He smells brimstone and hex fumes, forest rot and burning coal.  He smells fresh cut wood and acrid smoke. 

He smells the train.

Backwards.  I’m fading backwards.

He sees
the train
fal
l
up through the air
.  I
ts bladed crenellations fuse together.  Thick cars bound with blade
s
and wire
s
collapse inward.  Stones and
rubble
ascend along the cliff face, an inverted waterfall.

For the briefest of moments, he feels
himself
drawn into the past.

A face pulls him back.  It hangs right over him. 
Green eyes like smoothed emeralds bleed into view.  Hair turned
pale blonde
falls around
his face.  He feels her warm breath and
her
moist lips.  He kisses her back.

His body knits itself together. 
Blood
seeps out of wounds
as they
seal from within
.  His b
ones realign and pull
themselves
into place
.  Sharp cuts hiss closed as if cauterized
.  Tears of pa
i
n roll down his face.  He grips
the earth with one hand
,
and
holds
her
hand
with the other.

Danica
Black’s spirit heals him. 
S
he mends the warlock’s broken body.  Veins fuse closed.  Muscles twist and
right themselves
.  Internal organs
that had been
bruised and gashed pump o
ut hostile fluids and
eject them from the
rents in his flesh before
his
injuries
seal
shut.

The process is
agonizing
.  He feels every muscle
shift
, every ventricle fall back
into place, every bone re-
set
and
every inch o
f broken skin pull
back together.  He screams.

His eyes open.  He can’t be su
re how long it’
s been. 

Danica
looks down at him
.  She is so beautiful.  Her eyes glimmer in the half light.  Her hair is paler, faded, but it feels like silk in his fingers. 
One arm is encased in armor, and
it
feels cold against him, but the rest of h
er smooth skin
feels so warm
.
  She hovers just inches over his face.

He wants to tell her how he feels, but he can’t find the strength. 

Something looms over her shoulder,
something
pale and monstrous.  Glittering onyx eyes
hold
the
reflection of
he and Danica
, many versions of the
two mages as they rest there on the ground
.  They are
happy and
together in some
reflections
, and
they
lie dead in others.  In the largest eye, the one he can
best
see
as the massive spider silently twists in the air behind
Danica
, the
image
is
clear
.  H
e is alone.

The spider
snatches
Danica Black
and rips her backwards into darkness.  Ice tendrils and
webs of iron wrap around her body.  She doesn’t
even
have time to release a scream.  The spider falls away
and
fades into the shadows.

It was
her
, he realizes
.  All this time, all of these events it manipul
ated…it wanted Danica all along.
B
ut
not just Danica…
the
transformed
Danica.  Whatever happened to her
, whatever was done to her, it
had to happen before the spider would take her.

He tries to rise, but
he can’t.  He’
s
still
far too weak.
  Tears pour down his face, and his heart
pounds
with loss.  Wracking sobs overtake the warlock as he lies there, alone in the dark.

He looks out from the void.

He is nothing.  A ghost presence.  A phantom. 

He has been
t
here for so very long.

He can’t be sure how
long
it’
s been since Azradayne
took
Danica.  He can’t begin to imagine what the spider
wants with her, or how Black was
changed.  He
remembers her
armor arm
, and
he somehow knows
that
her spirit
is
bound
to it.  He
’d felt the change in her, the shift in her life force
. 
S
he’d been prepared for some dread purpose of the spider’s design, even if
whoever had altered her
had
n’t
been aware of
what that design was
.

And it’
s his fault.

H
e stands at the edge of worlds, finally
given
a way home.  To
get there
he will pass through the Carrion Rift, a place
where
no human
or vampire
has ever returned
from
.  He doesn’t doubt
that the place
will likely be his end, but he has to try. 

He can’t return to the Whisperlands. 
He knows the spider is no longer
there.  It has plans for Danica, and he
has to
find out what
they are
.

If I have to
search for
you
for
the rest of my life,
I
will
.

He stands next to the Obelisk.  The wavering shadow curtain marks the final bound
ary, the tapestry between realities
.  Everything is uncertain behind him, fading shadow
s and
repeating moments, tangents of himself folded one over the other.
Everything ahead is solid.

The Obelisk isn’
t safe
there
. 
Not anymore.

H
e
throws
his body against it. 
M
uscles strain
.  His
calves and shoulders ache, and he fears
he isn’t strong enough
, but finally the stone shifts, the dirt cracks and parts, and the Obelisk

pitched
forward
into open air.  The atmosphere was toxi
c
.  Cross gagged on the scent of burning bodies and hex rot, and he fell against the canyon wall to catch his breath.