Destined (Desolation #3) (26 page)

The Memories come fast and furious. James on his knees beneath Helena. Michael clasping me to his chest as he ran for Asgard, desperate to save me. Miri collapsing beneath the visions that tore at her mind. 

Father pushes forward and I trip and fall onto the polished granite floor of the throne room. When I realize I’ve stumbled over the dead body of a zabaniyah, I jump up, taking a step backward and smacking against Father.

And then all hell breaks loose.

Father Becomes and lunges toward Helena who rises from the throne, her long gown shimmering pink in the torchlight. I make to leave, not wanting to be any part of what’s happening here, hoping they wipe each other out of existence, when I catch a glimpse of a pale human form curled beside Father’s throne.

“James?” I whisper. Of course my words are lost in the sudden explosion of sound as Hel and Father fall on one another. I take a step forward.

Father roars and bends to dig his teeth into Hel’s neck, but then he is flying past me, smashing against the granite wall. His impact shudders the stone and he falls to the ground. Helena marches up to him, her strappy gold sandals crunching the dust on the floor.

I inch past her, willing myself to blend into the wall, to go unnoticed. I wish with all my heart that I had my weapons. Instead I feel like a dorky Halloween cast-off in a stupid Roman centurion costume.

I cover my ears and lean into a run as Father and Hel’s battle escalates. To my left I see Father’s generals slip out of the throne room.
Cowards.
But I don’t care. The fewer people I have to contend with, the better. I look forward and focus on the body curled so small you couldn’t tell who it is. But I know.

Another blast and I cringe, waiting for the fallout to lessen, willing the throne room to stand long enough for me to get to James.
Please let him be okay.
He isn’t moving and it suddenly worries me that maybe he isn’t even alive.
Please, please let him be okay.

“You won’t fool me again,” Helena screams before Father flies through the air and lands with a resounding crash on the stairs to the dais. “Do you know how long it took me to get my nails fixed? Do you know how many baths I needed to take before I felt clean again? How many conditioning treatments before my hair felt silky smooth?” She stomps toward him, somehow managing to appear elegant and lovely despite the fury burning along her skin in licks of reddest flame. 

Father climbs to his feet and roars with pure hatred. He thrusts out his hand, his fingers shaped into claws, and twists. Helena stops in her tracks and reaches for her throat. She rises off the floor, her feet kicking, her eyes bugging out. Father steps down the stairs and slowly advances toward her. 

I dart up the steps and dive for James.

“James. James.” I whisper his name over and over, touch his forehead, smooth his dirty, matted hair. 

“James,” he sighs, and relief rushes through me because I know he’s alive, even if his eyes are still tightly shut, even though his body is riddled with sores.

I rip the cape from my shoulders and lay it over him. He grabs it and pulls it around his shivering body. 

“James, it’s Desi.”

“Desi,” he repeats.

“I’m here.”

He finally opens his eyes, looking first at the stone floor against which his cheek is pressed, then slowly shifting his gaze until he finds mine.

“We’ve gotta go,” I say. I want to reach for him, to pull him to his feet but he seems so much like a wounded bird, a scared little creature—I worry he might bolt or scream if I rush him, if I force him to move. The last thing we need is to draw attention to ourselves.

Helena is hurled through the air this time, crashing  into the throne that had once been mine. I throw myself over James, trying to protect him from the explosion of bone. A skull, half of it smashed, rolls toward us and James yells, batting it away.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” I croon, not knowing if anything will ever be okay again.

I help James sit up while Helena stands and shakes herself free of debris. She growls when she sees the strap over her right shoulder is torn. When she looks up, her face is dark with fury. Before I can react she grabs the back of my tunic and pulls me to my feet. 

“Leave, or I destroy her.” Her voice rebounds off the walls, sounding as if she’s speaking through a bull horn. I cringe against the sound of it, squeezing my eyes shut.

“You will not harm her,” Father says. I hear him take a step forward and I open my eyes.

“James!” I shout. I need to warn him to get away, to run for the Door—but he isn’t there. I see a void in the debris at my feet, see where his body had lain only seconds ago. My cape lies empty—James is gone. 

Father steps nearer. I can tell from the way Hel’s hand trembles against my body that he’s doing something to make her let go of me, but whatever it is, it isn’t working.

“Stop, or I shall end her life.” And then the agony begins. 

My head feels as though it’s being squeezed in a vice. I feel my eardrums pop, feel the warm rush of blood as it drips into my ear canal. And my head isn’t the only part of me that feels compressed. It becomes harder and harder to breathe until I’m only able to gasp out tiny breaths.

“Release her!” Father thrusts out his hand, sending Hel and me flying off the dais. I land a few feet away from her, gasping and coughing, unable to even prop myself up on my elbows. 

“Aw, a little daddy-daughter love. I didn’t know you had it in you.” Helena rises to her feet, but I close my eyes and concentrate on staying alive because right at this moment I’m not sure I can.

“You know nothing of love.” Father’s voice echoes in the room as his cloven hooves clomp down the stairs.

Hel laughs and the rocks around me skitter across the floor. “And you do?”

My chin jerks up, because that’s what I want to know, too.
What does Father know of love?

“I know everything about love,” he says, his face alight with truth and earnestness. “Everything I have done has been out of love for my people. I am the only one who truly loves them—
not
Odin. I am the only one who sought to ensure that everyone returned home. And now this world is mine and I will protect it. My chosen people deserve a home of their own—and you have not earned their love.”

Hel’s laughter rattles small rocks from the walls, forces my body to sag against the floor, crushed by the sheer pressure of her will. Predictably, Father’s indignation has gotten the better of him and he lunges forward again. I feel, rather than see, the two of them fall to the ground some yards ahead of me. 

I manage to get myself onto my knees and look around once more for James. The place has been demolished. Not a single chair still stands—except for Father’s, which rises on the dais behind the dueling gods like some sort of sentinel or prize. I can’t see James anywhere. 

I hope he made it through the Door. Hope he knew to go home. He had to. Right? He had to have gone home. And that’s exactly where I plan to go, too. I crawl my way to the wall and use it to help me get to my feet. 

I slide along it, inching my way toward the Door. I’m almost there, I’m just stepping over the body of the dead zabaniyah when something slices down my back, making me arch away from the red-hot pain and stumble, falling onto the body at my feet. 

Something drips onto my leg, causing my skin to sizzle with unbelievable agony. I scream and roll over, scrambling past the dead body. Above me, towers the other zabaniyah.
Where did he come from?
But there’s no time for thought. I Become, thrusting the creature backward, and as soon as there’s room between us, I whirl, slicing diagonally through it with the tip of my wing. The demonic dragon falls to the floor with two sickening plops.

Father stumbles into me, his wings beating forward, encapsulating us both for a moment. And in that second his eyes meet mine I see—I think I see—a glimpse of who he once was. I remember when I loved him. When he loved me. Before the madness overtook him, causing him to deny Odin and steal away a third of Asgard. His Shadow recedes and I see behind him where Hel lies on the floor, her beautiful gown ripped and torn, blood splattered on it like raindrops.

 “Are you all right?” Father actually sounds sincere. I let my Halo recede and lean into him, allowing myself to believe, for just a second, that he’s the person I remember, the one who was my friend. I’d always wanted this. More than anything. For Father to choose me for a change, to think of me before himself, before his great disagreement with Odin.

Father stiffens in my arms, as if he’s been frozen in time. I feel a sharp jab in my chest, right through my ribs. Father drops his arms and his eyes go wide with disbelief. Between us, I see the blade of a sword—poking through my father and jabbed into my own chest. My breathing hitches, caught in my throat without actually delivering any lifesaving air to my lungs.

In front of me, I watch as Hel pulls the sword from Father’s back. He falls forward, crashing into me. We both go down, Father crumpled in my lap, blood gurgling out of his mouth and onto my legs. I gasp, gasp, gasp and stare wide eyed at Hel.

She drops the sword to the ground. Looks around for something to wipe her hands on, then leans forward to wipe them on Father’s shirt. She smoothes her hair. Produces a golden mirror and tube of lipstick and fixes her lips. 

“Wha—” I try to ask why she’s killing us, what she’s doing, but I can’t frame the words. I can’t seem to get anything past the junk that’s filling up my throat faster than I can swallow it down. 

Hel leans forward, her cleavage nearly equal with my eyes. “What’s that darling? I can’t hear you.” She straightens with a sigh. “It’s just as well. Bye now.” She spins around and exits the throne room, leaving me lying there with my father by the Door, our life blood seeping away along with my hope.

Maybe this time I should just die. Death’s come for me so many times—maybe I need to give in this time. I mean, it will keep coming for me, right? As it is, I can’t fathom why I keep getting second chances. I am Loki’s daughter—part Gardian. Shouldn’t I be reincarnated? Or, as Mahria’s daughter, couldn’t I go to Vanaheim? Instead I just keep coming back to life.

Unless the right answer is that I should just stay here, in Helheimer. I try to open my eyes, try to laugh at the irony. My body will die here in Hell—the perfect place for my soul to take up residence. I wonder if dying always feels like this—like a slow burn, like filling a bathtub, like waiting for the rain to stop before running outside.

You don’t have to die,
a voice, not my own, whispers inside my mind. Maybe a little craziness is part of death, of real death.

The voice is wrong, anyway. Michael, James and Miri—they’ll be all right. Won’t they?

Remember who you are.
 

That’s a laugh. Because I know exactly who I am—that’s the problem. I’m the girl who nothing works out for. I always screw everything up. What’s the point of being who I am if I never get it right?

Mahria and Odin were wrong to put their trust in me. To believe I was anything special.

But Michael believed. He’d always believed, even when everything about me shouted he was wrong. Screamed its ugly defiance of what he thought I was. When I was with him last—even I had believed.

Remember Michael.

I Remember his hand in mine. His kiss. The way it feels when he holds me close, when we Become and glory in all that we were and all that we are together. Because together we are glorious.

Michael loves me for all that I was. All that I am. I know it. It’s the one thing I know above all others. And he won’t be happy if I don’t come back. He’s perhaps the only one, but the thought of his sorrow stirs something in me. Drives me to Remember.

Remember that I’d been created to protect Midgard. Remember all the sacrifices that had been made so I could fulfill my destiny. Remember how Michael said I was unlike anyone else, that I was glorious and fierce.

My chest and throat burn, but I struggle to sit up. Struggle to clear my mind, to think only of Michael, only of the time we’d spent together in our garden. I push away the thoughts that want to convince me I’m not worthy of his love. I’d listened to that voice my whole life and look where it had gotten me.