Destined (Desolation #3) (13 page)

A bomb explodes.

I don’t hear it, but I feel it. See it.

A blast of wind blows over us, knocking the woman off of me, making the rock things let go. I feel like I’ll never see again, the light’s so blinding. It erases everything from my vision, the rocks, the woman, Horonius—everything. All I see is burning white light whether my eyes are open or not.

When I can finally take the brightness, I slowly open my eyes, finding myself curled up on the rocky ground in the fetal position, my forehead tucked against my knees. I uncurl and look around. The light’s faded some, but it still fills the corridor like noon at the beach. Horonius–the-dog faces me, dozens of rock creatures littering the floor around him. His eyes shine bright red in the light.

He walks toward me and as he does, he becomes human again. He reaches down and I see his skin riddled with cuts and bruises, yet his grip on my arm is strong when he pulls me to my feet.

“Are you well?” he asks.

I look myself over and see I have plenty of my own cuts. “Yeah. You?”

He nods. “I believe the young mistress has been found.”

“Whadd’ya mean?” I look behind me, to peer in the direction that holds Horonius’ attention. The end of the corridor—the end that had seemed like a steep drop into black nothingness—is ablaze with light. I walk toward it, feeling like I’m walking toward the light at the end of the tunnel, except I know I won’t find Heaven. But I hope I’ll find a little piece of it. 

The light is so bright I have to shield my eyes, but I step up to the ledge and look down toward its source.

 “James?” Her voice is small, broken. A rough and poor imitation of the voice I know so well. 

“Des!” 

I still can’t see her and the bright beacon of light is blinding. She begins to cry and panic shoves at my insides.
Where the hell is she?

Horonius puts his hand on my shoulder, pressing down in an effort to calm me. When I can I look at him, he gestures downward. I follow the line of where he’s pointing and then I see her. 

“Des, can you dial it back? I can barely see you.”

The light recedes some until I can see that she’s hanging beneath the cliff—I imagine her wrists are shackled to the underside. She’s hanging over complete black nothingness. I understood from Michael’s description that this is the bottom of everything. That this isn’t even true space, not in the way I understand it. This is nothing. Just . . . nothing. The place where all creation stops.

“James,” Desi whispers. “James.” 

“Follow me,” Horonius says. He leaps from one barely-visible ledge to another and I follow without thought because to think about it would mean looking down and looking down would mean freaking out and freaking out would mean plummeting to my death. Or floating around for forever, I don’t know. Either way, I am not looking down. 

I jump onto the same little ledges Horonius does until I stand beside him on the rock to which Desi is shackled.

I lay down on my stomach and look over the ledge. And there she is.

She smiles and laughs, tears catching in her lashes then slipping down her cheeks. “Thank you,” she repeats over and over again. “Thank you.”

I reach out and touch her cheek. She leans against me, presses her face into my palm. 

“I can’t believe you’re here,” she says in her rough voice.

“I can’t believe you’re here,” I say. I feel like a smiling freak and my cheeks hurt.

“Thank you,” she says again.

“Well, don’t thank me yet. We’ve still gotta get you out of here and, according to your doggy, I promised something to the Ferryman that has him kind of freaked out. Tell him to chill, okay? I’ve got it covered.”

I roll onto my side and look up at the dog-dude. “So how do we do this?”

“I cannot,” he says. “But you should be able to release the pin and set her free.

“Release the pin,” I say, rolling back onto my stomach. “Got it.

“So Des. I’m gonna get you unlatched. Can you, um, fly or something so you don’t, you know, go falling to your death?”

She laughs and my chest constricts with how good it sounds.
Desi’s alive!
I can’t wait to get her back to Michael. And Miri. Best damn gift I could ever give her. 

I watch as Desi closes her eyes and mutters some words under her breath. I can’t hear what they are and it takes her a really long time but she bursts into tears again and says, “Hurry. Hurry.”

So I hurry.

I scoot to her right side and reach out for the shackle. I think it’ll be easy, just reach over, find the pin, pull it out and
ta-da
the cuff will come unlatched. But it doesn’t. I get to the pin okay, but either I’m not pulling it out far enough or there’s something wrong with it.

“Hurry James,” Desi cries, sounding like she’s in a boatload of pain. “I can’t—” she gasps. “I can’t hold on for much longer.”

I don’t know what she means, but I understand enough.

“Horonius! Help me!”

“I am unable—”

“Just get the hell over here!” I don’t care what he can or can’t do. Don’t care.
Don’t care.
When he kneels on the stone beside me I scoot forward. “Grab my feet.”

I tip over the ledge at the waist before he even grabs me. Yeah, I’m full of faith like that.

With the dog-dude holding onto my legs, I lean as far into the blackness as I can to get a better view of the shackle. I see Desi more clearly—her tear-stained face, her body trembling with effort, though I don’t know what she’s struggling against. And anyway, I can’t think about how horrible she looks or what may or may not be wrong. I need to concentrate on the damn shackle.

Immediately I see the problem—the pin has rusted in places so it’s wider than the hole it’s in. I have to shove it up and down and yank it really hard to knock the rust off in order to pull it out of its hole.

I grit my teeth and take a hold of the pin, shimmying it up and down. “Come on, come on, come on.” Finally it gives a little and the pin slips upward. “I think I have it!”

I drive it up and down some more. I can feel the pin warming beneath the layers of ice. “Almost have it!”

I feel Horonius’ hands on my ankles. Feel them shaking. And ignore it. Ignore the tears that fall anew on Desi’s cheeks.

I’ve barely thrown the pin free and whipped open the latch when I’m scooting over to work on the next one. Desi swings out into space, her wings beating so slowly I wonder if they’ll do any good keeping her afloat at all. I bite back a hiss when a sharp edge on the next pin cuts into my finger. I stick it in my mouth for half a second then get back to work.

“Almost there,” I whisper. My stomach muscles quiver from the exertion and Horonius has taken to sitting on my calves, which have long since gone numb, to keep me from falling over the ledge. 

Desi swings upward and puts one hand on the ledge. I don’t stop working on the pin, not even for a second.

At last I say, “I’ve got it. It’s coming out. Get ready!” I shimmy some more, feel the pop as the last of the rust shucks off the side, and yank the pin free.

For a second Desi hangs there, one hand still in the shackle, the other holding onto the ledge. I look at her face; see the momentary elation when she knows she’s free. Then see her start to fall. Down and down.

I shout for her. Her right hand slips out of my reach, but I scoot forward again, ignoring Horonius’ cries of . . . whatever. Desi wheels her arms as she slowly falls—and I catch two fingers on her left hand. Two fingers, then three.

Three fingers, then four. 

I’ve already started scooting backward. Horonius groans and hollers as he pulls me by my ankles. I ignore the ice and stone digging into my belly and chest as he pulls me, my shirt and jacket riding up. 

What I pay attention to are the fingers in my hand. The way her other arm comes up to wrap around my wrist. The weak beat of her wings as she tries, nearly fails, to push herself onto the ledge. 

And then she’s here. She collapses beside me, and Horonius falls to the stone. We lie there for I don’t know how long while we all fight to catch our breath, to stop our tears, to deal with the fact that we’ve done it.

Desi is free.

“Are you all right, Mistress?” 

I feel a warm and gentle hand on my cheek. Not James. The Hound. I swallow the bitter bile that filled my throat when I thought I was going to die—for real this time—and try to roll onto my side. I have little strength to do even that, so the Hound helps me.

“A Hound?” 

“Yes, Mistress,” he says. 

“You look different.” I squint at him.

“James?” With the Hound’s support, I sit up and look toward my friend who’s lying on the ground, not moving. “James!”

He groans and I sigh with relief. 

“I’m alive. I think.” He rolls over, grinning like a village idiot. He flings out a hand and I grasp it gratefully, joyfully.

He’s alive. I’m alive. I hold his cold, cold hand between mine. I don’t ever want to let go. I don’t want to see my friends on the brink of death ever again. 

I’ve done a lot of thinking during my long imprisonment. I know what side I want to stand on. I know what I need to do to make sure I never fall so low again. But I know something else now too. Something even bigger than myself.

“Thank you,” I say. I lighten my grip on his hand and pull back enough so only my fingertips trace the back of his. “Thank you for saving me.”

“It wasn’t just me. I couldn’t have done it without your dog-dude here.” James smiles up at the Hound who rises to his feet and who, impossibly, smiles back.

“The dog-dude, eh?” My face cracks a smile—like putting on an old pair of jeans that feel stiff at first but soon fit like a glove. The Hound bows his head as if in apology. He reaches down and takes my hand, and I let him help me to my feet.

“And you got a makeover. How very ironic of you—a Grateful Dead shirt and all.”

The Hound looks at me with confusion at first, but when I gesture to his clothing, his face morphs into a surprisingly soft expression. “Yes. James was kind enough to dress me with his clothes.”

“Well, I didn’t dress him. Sheesh.” James laughs, the sound hollow and muted in the strange acoustics of Hell, but it’s good to hear, even like this. He climbs to his feet and puts his hand on my waist. “We’d better get moving. This isn’t exactly Club Med here, princess.”

Desi walks in front of both of us, radiating like a beacon of hope through the dark tunnels of Hell. I watch the way she moves, the way she knows where she’s going, the way she shines, and I wonder just how many ways she’s changed.

Once she got over the initial tears—she’d been all kisses and hugs, even for Horonius—she seemed to know, without even asking, that he’s alone now and that he’s sad. 

 I guess
alone
is something Desi knows too well. But this kind-hearted, thinking-of-others Desi? I knew she’d existed—beneath all the yuck she covered herself with—but it’s something else to see it, to see
her
, like this.

With every step my heart leaps to think how happy she’s going to be pretty much right away—when she sees Miri again. And Cornelius and Longinus. Especially when she sees Michael.

That’ll have Miri crying for days, I figure. She’ll be all giddy over the two of them back together. And when Miri gets a load of this new Desi? Well, it’ll pretty much push out the last of the shadows clinging to her soul. Miri loves her friends, way more than anyone else I know. She wouldn’t ever be truly happy if the ones she loved weren’t. I feel my smile stretch from ear to ear as I think about that. About Miri and her happiness. Because everything is going to be okay now.

Desi looks like an angel. An angel with black stringy hair and a cat burglar getup, but still an angel. If I squint I can see the outline of one bright and one dark wing shimmering in the golden glow of her light. She is truly a sight to behold.

When we pass the pile of rubble that had once been a bunch of rock creatures, she stops. She kneels beside them and places her hand on one of them. She closes her eyes and stays like that for a minute. Then she stands and keeps on walking as if nothing happened.

We don’t see that crazy woman—who Desi tells me is Ophelia, like the Ophelia Shakespeare created his character after—or anymore of those bat-dragons or rock creatures. Things are eerily quiet.