Exalted (29 page)

The Adversary pumped his arm like an athlete after a big
play. He took Lille out next, with another brutal shot to the face, and The
Adversary laughed as the Authority dropped like a ton of bricks. Cayne, flying
crooked and bleeding from his nose and mouth, dove after him.
 

 
“Give me my wings
back! Please,” she begged Noelle. “Let me help! They need me!”

“Still too soon,”
Noelle said firmly.
“The
Adversary is more like a mortal in this realm, and he will tire. Patience.”

Julia bit back the urge to blast Noelle back to where he
came from. Without her wings she wouldn't be able to help Cayne, free or not.
"Please!"
she begged as Lille
bombed The Adversary with a few potent bursts of Authority fire, distracting
him enough so Cayne could sneak up behind him. Julia held her breath as Cayne
brandished his blood dagger, aiming again for The Adversary's neck as he flew,
faster and faster with each flap of his beautiful wings.

The next second, she saw a strange flash of red, and her
eyes snapped to the huge, glowing red sword that had materialized in The
Adversary's hands.

Cayne was flying too fast. He couldn’t slow down. Julia
watched, oddly distant, as The Adversary lunged toward Cayne. Cayne's eyes
widened, the wicked sword pierced his chest, and sparks flew everywhere.

Cayne's wings crumpled.

He fell.

It wasn't a clean fall; his body spiraled through the
trees, until Julia lost sight of him. She was screaming as she threw herself
out of Noelle's arms. He had to rush to catch her, and as soon as he grabbed
her, she felt her wings pop back out. He tried to restrain her—
“Let Lille
try something first! Lille is coming! You must focus on The Adversary, not
Cayne!”
—but Julia's mind was deaf to everything but Cayne's body, landing
on the ground with an awful thump.

She had the split second thought that it was so much like
before. Cayne, falling, wounded; her rushing to heal him. Things had come full
circle, she thought.

All of a sudden a Demon streaked through the yard toward
Cayne, and Julia couldn't take it anymore: She kicked Noelle hard and dove,
blasting the demon back to Hell on her way down.

Don't let him be dead, please don't let him be dead,
she
begged as the ground rose up to meet her. She opened her Sight and found his
aura waning; Cayne was limp, blood staining his entire torso. She saw ribbons
of his aura floating off before she realized what it was: confirmation that the
link
did
still exist. The Adversary was using it again; he was pulling
Cayne's energy with him as he flew up above the roofline, toward the net.

"Lille!"
she screamed, and the Authority was beside her in a second.
"Go
to Cayne now!"

She didn't wait for him to reply. She didn't have any time
if she wanted Cayne to live. Mustering all her courage, she flew up, up, up, so
high the cold air hurt her lungs. So high, it was only The Adversary, the net,
the perfect stars, and her.

This close, he reminded her of a blond vampire: flawless
and frightening, and as she approached, he turned to face her. He held onto the
net, which he had twisted into a funnel shape.

“Daughter-in-law, what are you doing here?”

Julia grabbed him by the shoulders and jerked down, hard,
separating him from the net, the force of it making them both spiral in the freezing
air. She saw the corner of his mansion and made a fast decision, diving and
dragging him along until she slammed his body into the side of it. Brick exploded
out from the force, and The Adversary moaned as he tumbled to the ground.

Holy shit! He really
is weak!

The feeling of power was intoxicating, but Julia didn't
have time to enjoy it. A flaming arrow burst toward her like a missile,
followed by another. She summersaulted out of the way of the first and easily
caught the second, throwing it back at him as fast as he sent it.

She didn't wait to see if it hit him. She had an idea, a
burst of inspiration, and she took off for the net. If The Adversary could
place it over Heaven, sealing Heaven off, why couldn't she pull the net off and
let Heaven in?

The wind was cold as it whistled past her ears. The glowing
strands of the barrier were as thick as fire hoses. Not knowing what else to
do, she grabbed one with both hands, and gasped as the skin of her palm
sizzled. She felt her consciousness expand, stretching to follow the massive barrier,
but a brutal force snapped her back to reality. She whirled, clinging tight
with one hand, and The Adversary shot fire in her face.

She cried and covered her burning eyes, and The Adversary
grabbed her ankles. "You don't belong here, little Chosen," he said,
and he threw her toward the ground.

She spun wildly, unable to see, unable to stop herself as
she toppled through a tree and hit the ground hard. Her entire body exploded in
pain, even her wings. She managed to stumble to her feet, dazed, and that's
when she saw Cayne.

He was by himself, no Lille in sight, and his breaths were
shallow and ragged. She checked his aura automatically, and her heart forgot to
beat when she saw that it was
gone
.
She looked up, and was able to see the last strand floating toward The
Adversary.

It was the Raysons' backyard times a billion. She saw white
as she leapt at it, grasping Cayne's soul like a rope and jerking hard. She
could see all the way down the silver strand, straight to The Adversary; she
could see his face twist in fury as her mighty tug on Cayne's aura ripped him
off the net.

She blasted him with white light, smiled when he shrieked
in pain. She tugged again, snapping Cayne's aura free and severing The
Adversary's link. She watched Cayne's energy rush back to his body, and then
she jetted up, knocking The Adversary out of the sky. She blasted him with
white light as he fell, and when he hit the ground, it exploded around him,
leaving a crater three feet deep.

Then Julia grabbed the net once more and tugged as hard as
she could. But she was totally unprepared for what came next: The Adversary was
already back, and not with a show of tricks, but raw strength. His hand went
around her neck, and as he squeezed, her lungs emptied of air.

"I told you to stay away! How would you like to die
and go to Hell? It's currently lacking a CEO, but Michael Abiss visits
sometimes to dole out discipline." He chuckled, but Julia kept a firm grip
on the barrier, refusing to let go. "I like the hard way," the devil
snarled, and Julia's vision started to waver. She knew she couldn't let go. The
wild white power had left her, spent when she'd ripped into the net, and if she
let go now she'd never make it back. But if she held on… He was killing her.

She thought of Cayne, lying there on the ground with no one
to heal him. She tried her best to hold on to her awareness, to her view of the
beautiful stars, telling herself, as her lungs pumped futilely, that one was
Mer, and one Suzanne, one Harry…

Which was sad, because they all went black.

This is it
, she
thought, but then she heard a familiar voice. It was clearly angry, leering,
and after a second, laughing in a way that could only be described as menacing.
Yet somehow also sexy.

She took a deep, cold breath, surprised that she could
breathe again. Moaning, Julia wrapped her arms around the net, holding on
because she was too weak to flap her wings. She looked down, and was shocked to
find The Adversary wrestling in mid-air with…Edan?

He was on The Adversary's back, his arms locked around the
devil's neck, and Julia had only a second to notice his grin and his sparkly,
pink wings before she took her shot. The rip she had made was just under her
hands, the glowing fibers halfway torn; summoning the last of her strength, she
pulled at either side.

Somewhere up there in the sky, a bright, bright, bright
light shone down, just a tiny pinpoint. She could feel the energy of the net
flow into her, shimmy into her veins and arteries, surge through every part of
her. She screamed as she pulled, and then there was a loud clap, followed by a
great ripple across the whole sky.

And then the net was gone, and in a single instant, there
were Authorities everywhere, hundreds of them.

They rushed the Demons on the ground, shot made quick work
of the ones in the sky, and surrounded The Adversary. He impaled two, but it
didn't matter: the white light was growing brighter, and Julia knew deep in her
soul that the gates of Heaven were open. The net was gone, The Adversary
defeated, and her thoughts turned immediately to Cayne.

He was on the ground, and she could see his aura, stronger
and growing more so. She thought about how much she wanted to touch him, how
badly she wanted to heal him. She extended her wings, too tired to fly, content
to drift to him, and then like a horror villain The Adversary was flying toward
her.

"I'll kill you," he screamed, and Julia was too
weak to stop him. He ran her through with his sharp, sharp sword, and she was
falling, tumbling, plummeting hundreds of feet toward Cayne.

Tears spilled from her eyes, because she had come so close.
The stars were back, spinning above her, and one of them flared. Julia heard a
familiar voice say, “
Good job, bestie.”

All of a sudden, everything was loud, like a football game,
and the fans were cheering for her. She opened her eyes wider and searched the
crowd, and somehow she knew she would see Meredith there, waving beside Suzanne
and Harry. And Shea was there, smiling, beside the little boy who'd been
holding the balloon in St. Moritz that day. Nathan was there, too, right there
on the front row, and he smiled a gentle kind of smile, like he knew something
good that she didn't.

Julia wanted to wave at them, but she couldn't lift her
arm. Couldn't even hold open her eyelids anymore.

She shut her eyes, and Cayne was holding her. He felt like
a dream, and they were both bathed in golden light. He kissed her mouth, and
they twirled into the sky, into the clouds, into the light. Julia clutched
Cayne close to her, and a booming voice laughed—this time gently.
  

“Good job, Julia
.” She knew that voice! It was her
old neighbor, suspender-wearing Mr. Jenkins. He sounded proud of her, the same
way he always had before, when he said,
“I knew you could do it.”

A feeling of wellness spread all through her, like pure
sunlight.

As she and Cayne sailed back down toward the Earth, she
thought she saw a ball of red fire, but when she looked closely, she realized
it was feathers—tons of feathers, falling off people who were climbing into
clouds, molting off others who were running down the street. Two of the
feathers were sparkling and pink.

She hugged Cayne close and he hugged her, and by the time they
landed, in the impeccable yard of a beautiful white mansion, the grass was
green, the sun was shining, and the sky was blue.
 

Cayne's mouth closed over hers, and when he'd kissed her
soundly, he looked down on her and smiled. “My Julia. I missed you.”

She kissed him back, a lot, so she could hardly breathe
when she said, “I missed you more.”

Chapter Thirty-Nine

They woke up in a waterfront cottage, in a small blue
bedroom with doors that opened to a deck that led down to the beach. Cayne was
wrapped in white, silk sheets, and he was sleeping so peacefully, Julia didn't
want to wake him, so she tip-toed from the room and through the den and foyer
to the walk, where she somehow knew she would find the morning paper.

The top headline was a story about Abiss Enterprises, and
its merger with a little-known weapons manufacturer, X Enterprises—which had turned
out to be worth billions.

Julia smiled when she read who had recently been named CEO.
Andrew Reed. Somehow, she wasn't surprised to see the names of the new board
members. Carlin Elgada and her own name, and Cayne's. When she didn't see
Meredith's, or Nathan's, she closed the paper and went to get a hot shower,
where she cried for longer than seemed reasonable.

But when she got out, she took her time on her makeup. She
put on sweet-scented lotion and tried to take pleasure in her favorite pair of
earrings. She put on her most comfortable sundress dress and woke Cayne with a
cup of coffee. And as they headed outside, to the beach, hand and hand, she
finally felt that things would be okay.

Epilogue

The barbecue picnic was a
summer tradition, and Julia and Cayne always made it into a road trip. Usually
they left on a Wednesday afternoon, after Julia boarded Aero and Oscar, and
Cayne stopped by Heaven & The Bun, their beach-front cafe. Cayne would
drive their silver BMW Z4 from La Jolla, where they lived in a two-story
cottage by the ocean. They would take the senic route, along the coast, and
listen to loud classic rock and sometimes cheesy '80s bands Cayne could never
quite appreciate; he was still kind of pop culture illiterate, no matter how
many times Julia forced him to sit down and watch the Grammys or any of VH1's
"I Love the (Insert Decade)" shows.

It was a long drive, so after
the initial release—hair loose in the wind, singing in the sun—they'd hold
hands and talk about something. Anything, as long as it would pass the time. As
long as they were together.

If they left the house in
time, they could make it to Goleta around lunch, and Cayne could get his
favorite breakfast quiche from his favorite little hole-in-the-wall. Julia
would get some coffee and a bagel with fruit on top, and it was back into the
car.