Exalted (26 page)

Carlin shrugged, biting her lip as she climbed back in the
SUV, and Drew stepped out, hugging Julia gently. Into her ear he whispered:
“We'll come back before tonight.”

“Okay. Thank you, Drew.”

To Julia's surprise, Nathan stepped out, too. He hesitated
only for a moment before wrapping his arms around Julia. “I won't see you again,”
he told her. “Got to coordinate our bus trip.” He pulled away, sticking his
hands in his pockets as his eyes held hers. “We're leaving a lot earlier than
you are.”

Julia nodded. She had the weirdest feeling in the pit of
her stomach, like she was saying goodbye for a longer time than just one
day—and if she was honest with herself, she knew maybe she was.

"And Julia," Nathan said quietly, "I'm sorry
for what I did…to you and to—" He clamped his lips together as his eyes
glistened, and Julia hugged his neck again.

"Nathan," she said, "it's no one's fault.
Not ours, anyway." And she actually meant it. More softly, she said, "Mer
knew you cared about her."

He nodded once, and that was their goodbye.

“Julia,” Carlin said next, and as they hugged, Julia saw
tears in her friend's eyes. “Be careful, promise?”

Julia nodded, and she said, “Same thing for you.” And, more
softly: “Maybe we can see each other before tonight...somehow. Drew mentioned
it."

Carlin gave her a conspiratorial nod, and a few minutes
later, Julia, Cayne, and Lille were standing outside the cellar.

Lille nodded at them, like he'd picked up on her mood. Which
he probably had. Sometimes he reminded Julia of Meredith. “You guys want a few
minutes? I'll go on in.” He waved and ambled up the stairs to a little side
door, without waiting for their answer.

Moving quickly, with surprising vehemence, Cayne wrapped
his arm around Julia, pressing her face into his chest.

“I love you,” he said fiercely.

“I love you, too.”

He was squeezing her hard, and she could hear the emotion
in his voice. Despite that, and how much she loved him back, it was a horrible
moment, because all Julia could think about was how this could be one of their
last times saying so.

Earlier that morning, Lille had told them that he had
'sensed' that something might be going down over at The Adversary's mansion
sometime in the next twenty-four hours. His best guess was that they would
attack later that night, during one of Michael Abiss's raucous parties.

The hope was that The Adversary would be at least somewhat
distracted, giving Cayne and Lille a better chance of executing their part of
the plan. How likely that was to work depended on whether The Adversary was
expecting them.

One of Cayne's more recent theories was that he hadn't
pointed his crystal ball their way, because he'd rather anticipate the surprise
of an attack. According to Lille, The Adversary couldn't use all of his
abilities on Earth; it wasn't his realm, after all.

Julia's mind was whirring when a blond-haired, green-eyed
Authority appeared to open the cellar door for them. Cayne took her hand, and
together they stepped inside a warehouse about a third the size of a school
gymnasium. It was filled with barrels—and Authorities.

Julia's stomach hurt just looking at them, because she knew
they were there mostly for her. The energy inside her pulsed in anticipation of
what was to come.

Then one of them whipped out a bow, and a glowing, golden
arrow came whooshing toward her.

Chapter Thirty-Six

It happened too fast for her to be sure, but Julia thought
Cayne was snatched away by Blondie McGreeneyes.

The Authorities in front of her moved like dancers in a
music video: perfectly in sync, with hard, concise motions. Shock dulled her
reaction until the arrow was there, just inches from her nose. Blue flame
flared around it, and Julia watched the pointy tip grind to a halt, like it had
been suspended in thick gel.
 

She tried to snatch it from the air, but it poof'd.

She didn't even see the next one until it was inches from
her left eye—but she stopped it, too, and this time, she was fast enough to
grab it. She plucked it from the air and hurled it at Lille, who was standing
right in front of her. He waved his hand, and that arrow went poof, too.

Julia thought of their conversations, she thought of how
comfortable she'd felt with him, she thought about how ridiculous it was for him
to attack her this way. Was he trying to test her? Was he really some kind of
double agent?

“What—”

More arrows flew at her as the other Authorities made a
circle around her and fired from every direction. A few arrows got near enough
that Julia could hear the whoosh of their flames extinguishing a few seconds
before they would have pierced her skin.

"What the hell are you doing!" she cried.

Fire came next.
 

It wasn't hellfire, and it wasn't blue fire. It seemed
'thicker' than regular Earth fire—heartier and more yellow, and when it curled
and snapped around her, her heart recoiled in memory of Suzanne and Harry. She
yelled, and her own fire appeared, devouring the Authorities' flames in a puff
of smoke.

She recognized the nearest Authority, with spiky hair and
sparkling blue eyes, from the resort at St. Moritz. He gave her a forceful
shove, and Julia sent a bolt of blue fire cracking in his direction. She aimed
for the spot between his eyebrows and hit his left eye—but at least she hit
him; he went down on one knee, moaning.

Another Authority jumped over his head. For the first time
since the attack began, she heard Cayne cry out—the sound was muffled—and when
she glanced up to see if she could spot him, the Authority socked her in the
jaw. Julia stuck her hand out and sprayed him with blue fire, but she was so
angry, the fire consumed more than just him.

Dozens of barrels stacked on tall, wide, wood shelves
erupted, wine shot everywhere, and all the Authorities who hadn't been hit by
Julia's fire scattered.

She stood there with her palm out for a second, then
whirled, and when she spotted Cayne on the ground, under an Authority who was
beating his face bloody, she saw white.

Her hands curled into fists, her chest felt warm and hot,
and she could feel it coming before it did: from the top of her head, bridging
the distance between she and Cayne like a ball of ribbon, unrolling. It knocked
the Authority off his feet and hit Cayne square in the chest. He jumped up, and
his aura was flaring from silver to brilliant white; he was enveloped in a
healing circle she had never seen before, and every knot he'd ever had was gone
in a second.

Consumed by anger, Julia turned toward the rest of the
Authorities. She was holding out her arms, waiting for the furious energy to
build until she couldn't hold it inside anymore, when Lille's voice came into
her head.
“Julia. I'm sorry, but we had to know. We had to know your
capabilities.”

The energy continued to roil inside of her. Her entire body
buzzed. Her head and chest felt good for once—not overfull, but perfect. So she
did
have Methuselah's power. Not all of it, but enough. Enough to
challenge The Adversary. Enough to take out all the Authorities in this room.

When her watering eyes met Lille's, her heart was pounding.
His dark gaze soothed, and second by second, she felt her body unknot, her
anger diffuse.

“I think you can do this, Julia. Do you want to move on
to the next phase of our plan?”

Julia glanced at Cayne, standing a few feet from her with
his hand out, like he wanted to touch her; his face was still covered in blood.

“Julia? Do you still want to take on The Adversary?”

At that moment, Cayne stepped over to her. He wrapped an
arm around her from behind, and Julia felt so secure there, pressed against
him, she let go of some of her anger, some of her apprehension about what the
next phase would entail, and she found herself saying,
“Yes.”

“I'm sorry,”
Lille said inside her head.
“This
won't take long.”

Lille was on her before she could blink, snatching her from
Cayne's arms with superhuman strength, slamming her to the ground. Cayne jumped
on Lille's back, stabbing the Authority in the neck with his blood dagger.
Lille threw him off, and Julia heard him screaming at full-volume, livid...

Other Authorities were on her now, flawless faces hovering
above hers, their eyebrows drawn, square jaws set as they tried to kill her.

That was what they were doing, wasn't it?

Punching her face, bashing her head, kicking her sides
until she felt her ribs crack. She screamed as someone jabbed an arrow between
her breasts.

The pain was unreal.

Julia heard screaming and realized it was hers; she could
hear Cayne's voice somewhere, even louder than before, and Lille inside her
head, saying,
“Not much longer.”

Why were they killing her? Could Authorities be turned?
Must not be...on The Alpha's team.

There might have been fire. That beautiful, pure-looking
Heaven fire. She knew for sure there were broken bones: her arm, her shin, her
ribs. From a painful fog, one thought emerged:
This is why they didn't tell
me much about this part of the plan.
About how they would see if they could
find a way to 'enrich' the power she already had.

The beat her until all her thoughts were gone, until she
was back inside the pyramid, and when her aura was waning, she
took
,
just like she'd seen Cayne do so what felt like ages before. She drained five
of them before she was on her feet again, and then she gladly drained the one
that had Cayne pinned to the floor.

Reality returned in a burst of horror. She felt a heaviness
inside her arms and legs, a horrible, horrible ache inside her head.

More power.

Her own Methuselah-given energy was rapidly rebuilding, but
now she had the energy of five Authorities, too. Looking down at herself, she
saw that her forearms glowed like she'd swallowed something radioactive.

Oh, shit. They'd really done it. Lille had talked back in
Egypt about giving her more power, and she'd been leery—considering what
Methuselah had done to her with the same goal in mind, how could she not?—so
she hadn't really thought about it. Hadn't really, truly trusted it would
happen.

She could do it now.

Now she could maybe really kill him.

She turned a slow circle; she'd lost track of Cayne, but
her eyes were blurry with her own blood, and she couldn't see anything. Aura
vision snapped into focus, and frantically she scanned the bodies on the
ground. Of the Authorities she'd drained, three were...

“Oh, God. NO!” She couldn't find their auras—not at all!

She put her hand over her mouth, and just like that, Lille
and Cayne were there.

Cayne wrapped his arms around her, and he was saying
something, but blood rushed in her ears; energy pushed on her head from the
inside out.

Lille stepped in front of her, speaking aloud and very
clearly, like he knew she was freaking out. “Julia, please accept our sincere
apologies. And don't worry about those Authorities. You sent them home the only
way they can get there.”

Cayne's hand was wiping blood from her forehead when her
vision got a little clearer, her thoughts a little less crazed. “They went to
Heaven?”

Lille nodded.

“Does that mean Meredith did, too?”

“Don't worry about that, okay?”

Julia was breathing hard. She tried to slow her breathing,
craning her head back to look at Cayne, still standing behind her with his arms
around her waist.

“Are you okay,” she half-sobbed.

“I'm fine,” he gritted; his aura was rage. “Are you?”

Julia didn't know, so she started crying. She let herself
heave two huge sobs before she pulled herself together, taking a deep breath
and steadying herself in front of Lille, who looked concerned.

 
At least she thought
he looked concerned. Then Cayne stepped around her and smashed his fist into
Lille's face—not once, not twice, but three times, until blood as red as
Julia's was pouring from Lille's mouth and nose, and Cayne was bouncing on his
feet, like he wanted to keep going.

“HOW DO YOU LIKE IT?” He grabbed Lille by the throat and
shoved him back into a stack of barrels; several fell and rolled. Other
Authorities were there in seconds, but Julia saw Lille raise a hand at them. He
kept still while Cayne said something low that sounded almost like a growl.
Then Lille nodded, and over the next few seconds, Julia watched Cayne's aura
cool down some.

From where he stood with his back to the barrels, a few
steps away, Lille said,
“Julia. I hope you do accept my apology. If there
was any other way...”

“I know.”
She nodded, and despite how very much the
experience had sucked, she really felt that Lille was being sincere.

It took a little longer for Cayne to feel the same way.

When he did, things seemed more or less okay between the
two of them. He returned to Julia, kissing her on the cheek and wiping her face
with his sleeve before Lille joined them, and together they led her down into a
bedroom below the wine-slick main floor. Her drenched All-Stars squished as she
walked, and she felt overheated, the way she'd felt sometimes in the pyramid,
when... She bit her lip, telling herself not to think of that.

The room below was the opposite of a home office. It was
like a work bedroom; she noted with disappointment its narrow twin bed—too
small for Cayne, too—but when Lille finished talking about
later today
and
what she might be able to do
, Cayne pulled the quilts back and urged
her in. He climbed in behind her and together they slept. The last thought
Julia had before slipping under was that things must be super crazy if what
she'd just endured upstairs didn't even warrant a lengthy discussion.