Faith (Soul Savers Book 7) (40 page)

I knew I couldn’t
have killed him so easily, but I didn’t waste time wondering
where he went. Maybe we got lucky, and Satan decided to eat him
instead of possess him. I could only hope for such an outcome while I
aimed for Dorian again as his body quickly plunged toward the lake of
fire. I pushed myself harder than ever, swooped down at the last
possible second, and grabbed him by the wrist right before a flame
swirled around his foot. With another hard thrash of my wings, I
turned us back upward and flew with all my power.

Earth’s surface
could not be seen above. Not even the flames of the tunnel and pit.
There was only blackness for as far as I could see. For all I knew,
the opening had closed already, and I was zooming us toward a head-on
collision with some kind of ceiling. But that was better than either
of us plummeting back downward.

Dorian’s mind
remained blank, but I could hear and feel a faint heartbeat. The
wound in his neck must have healed up quickly before he could bleed
out. The faintest trace of relief slid through me, and my little bit
of hope blossomed further when I sensed the mind signature soaring
toward us.

“
Alexis,
”
Tristan yelled. “
Go! Get to the surface!
You
carry
the blood of their enemy’s youngest.
”

My heart stuttered.
Shit. Stupid me for not realizing that sooner. But it didn’t
matter.

I have Dorian
, I
told him.
He’s alive. Don’t worry—we’re
getting out of here before Lucas comes back.

I’d no more than
thought the words when a searing pain wrapped around my ankle and
spiraled upward to my bare thigh. I glanced down as a fiery tentacle,
reaching from the depths of the lake of fire, tightened around my
leg. Tiny needles of ice pierced through my skin and wiggled their
way deeper into my flesh. Another thin finger rose from the lake,
stretching upward toward Dorian and me. My wings beat frantically
against the air as I tried to pull my way free. With a snap, the
tentacle pitched us to the side.

I slammed into a hard
surface, and then was wrenched the other way. The force loosened my
grip on my son, and he slipped from my hold.

“Dorian!” I
screamed. “Tristan, help!”

The other tentacle
wrapped around Dorian’s waist and pulled him away, out of my
view. The one on my leg whipped me again, smashing me into another
wall. One more time, and then everything disappeared.

I was pretty sure I
stayed conscious, but all of my senses went blank. The lake of fire
and the glow it put off had vanished, plunking me back into that
black state of mind. My leg no longer burned from the cold or the
fire. I could neither smell nor hear anything, and Tristan’s
mind signature had disappeared. I couldn’t even decide if I was
flying upward, falling back down, or remaining completely still.

Satan mind-fucked me
again.

“And I enjoy it
so much.” He didn’t so much as speak the words. More like
he licked them down my back as they slithered over me, serpentine and
slimy, making me shudder.

But if I’d really
heard or felt them, they dissipated, leaving me in complete
nothingness again. No senses. No feeling. Nothing. Except …

Excruciating agony tore
across my upper back. A scream flew out of me and didn’t stop
as tears filled my eyes and streaked down my face. I bucked and
thrashed, trying to stop the attack, but unable to. I was pinned in
place by some kind of force as pain like I’d never felt before
sliced into my shoulders and down my back. My torso arched in and out
and twisted side to side, but found no escape. Bones broke and my
skin and flesh were shredded, drawing out scream after scream until
my throat turned to sandpaper and my voice faded into silent cries.

“Can’t have
you flying away again, now can we?” a snaky voice asked before
I blacked out from the agony.

The
relief of seeing my wife carrying my son up and away from the depths
of Hell had barely washed over me when ropes of fire whipped out of
the blazing lake below. Like tentacles, they looped around Alexis and
Dorian and snatched them back downward. And I was still too far away
to reach them. I flew as fast and as hard as I could, but by the time
I emerged from the darkness, Alexis was gone.

My muscles clenched,
and an inhuman roar ripped from my stomach as I looked around wildly.
Dorian
. The cord of magma carried his flaccid body across the
lake of fire. I flew farther down and across, after him.

“Dorian!” I
shouted, hoping to rouse him, but he didn’t respond.

The tentacle whipped
him to the far side of the lake and then uncoiled from his body,
releasing him. He fell to the shore of black lava rock with a thud. I
soared for him.

“Dorian, wake
up.” I landed next to him and bent down to check for vitals.

He couldn’t die
body and soul down here. Alexis would never forgive me. I’d
never forgive myself. The second I felt a faint pulse, I sensed the
other presence and sprang upward and around.

A falchion blazing with
Hellfire swung toward me.

I bent backwards just
in time for it to miss me and shot a ball of fire from my palm as I
came back up. Lucas wielded the weapon with both hands, and with a
jerk of his head, the flaming ball made a sharp turn and flew into
the lake. He twisted the wide sword in the air and arced it back
toward me again. I jumped out of the way and thrust my hands out to
give him a hard shove of power. It had no effect on him.

“
I
have
the power now.” His mouth widened in a grin. “All of it
is mine for the taking.
You
, as you’ve come to prove,
are worthless.”

He spun around and
swung the sword. My feathers hardened into steel right before the
blade carved into my left wing, and my whole body jolted as pain shot
through every nerve. But my wing held. Lucas’s eyes narrowed,
and his lip lifted in a snarl. Although it didn’t exactly feel
good, he’d obviously hoped for more damage.

“You don’t
matter anyway,” he growled, and he turned toward Dorian’s
prone body and swept the sword down.

I sprang in front of
him and caught the width of the blade in my hands. Hellfire burned
heat and ice into my palms and fingers as I gripped the falchion and
yanked it free from Lucas’s grip. Before the Hellfire could do
permanent damage, I flipped it in the air and caught it by its grip.
I swung the weapon toward Lucas.

He only laughed.

And then disappeared.

“Coward,” I
yelled.

He reappeared several
feet away. I sprang at him, sword swinging. He jumped back another
few yards. His chuckles echoed off the lava and nearby cliff walls,
the sound like an aluminum can rolling over rocks.

“Come on, Seth,”
he taunted. “Surely you can do better. Show me you still have
it. Maybe I can find a place here for you after all.”

“
Never
,”
I growled as I flew at him, the broad end of the sword aimed for his
heart.

At the moment I thought
it would plunge in, something large and looming crashed to the
ground. Thick, iron bars suddenly surrounded me. Knocked the falchion
out of my hands. I launched upwards but slammed into an iron ceiling.
Lucas laughed as I dropped back to the ground. I charged at the bars
between us. His whole body shook as his blue eyes lit up like lasers.

“A caged animal,”
he mused. “So fitting. Isn’t that what you like, to be
imprisoned under others’ control? And you could have had it
all. You could have had
this
.”

He pounded his fist
against his chest.

“As if I ever
wanted to,” I growled.

He snorted. “Instead,
you prefer to be a caged bird with your pretty little wings.”

I threw my hardened
wing out at him, but he caught the released feathers in his hand.
“That won’t work twice.”

At the same time, the
razor edges of my feathers cut partially through the bars.

Lucas’s eyes
blazed bright red, and his head jerked as his smile dropped away. “We
can’t have that now.”

He lifted his hand
toward me, and blinding pain pierced into my head. A siren’s
scream accompanied it, and my hands grasped at my scalp. An invisible
weight pressed onto my shoulders, forcing me downward. My knees
buckled, and I groaned as I went down, all the way to my stomach. I
could hear nothing. See nothing. Only feel the rough edges of lava
rock scoring into my chest and the blaring pain in my head.

But even that was
incomparable to the agony that ripped across my shoulder. Down my
back. A blistering slice through my flesh. Throbbing pain into my
shoulder blades and spine. The feeling of raw nerves exposed to the
air.

Blackness overtaking
me.

I came to gasping for a
breath. I felt as though I hadn’t breathed in days. The acrid
air of Hell burned my throat and lungs, but I couldn’t help
gulping it in. I still couldn’t see. Couldn’t hear.

The ground under me
quaked. I struggled to push myself up to my hands and knees. The
sensation of being lifted in an elevator followed. I scrabbled to my
feet and lunged forward. Iron bars caught me. I felt my way around
the circle of bars, none of them damaged anymore from my wings. I was
still entrapped, rising into the air in some realm of Hell.

And my wings—my
shield, my weapon—were gone.

The ground stopped
moving. I remained in total blackness. Total silence.

Until the screams
began.

A familiar voice.

A sound I couldn’t
live with.

The agonized shrieks of
my wife somewhere in the far distance rose into a crescendo and
swirled around me.

Engulfed me.

Wails
filled my mind and ears when I regained consciousness. My own, I
thought at first, but as I became more aware, I realized mine mixed
with other voices. Cries of intense pain and grief assaulted me from
all sides before I could even open my eyes. But peeling them apart
against the seal of dried tears made no difference. I could see
nothing, smell nothing, and taste nothing. I could only hear and feel
the unending torment.

I’d thought the
pain of my wings breaking out for the first time had been bad, but
that didn’t compare to the feeling in my back now. Curled into
a ball over my thighs, in the same position I’d awoken, I tried
to move my wings, but only felt air against raw flesh. I reached
behind me with my hands, pulling my sore skin too tight to bear, and
found nothing.

My wings had been
severed. Removed. Amputated.

Only jagged, filleted
flesh remained. My throat tightened, and tears brimmed and fell. I
might have hated them at first, but they’d become a part of me.
A very special part of me. A gift from the Angels. And now my
beautiful, powerful wings were gone.

My quiet cries turned
into sobs. The other voices joined in, making me quickly forget my
own pain as theirs flooded over me, into me. The misery of lost and
damned souls here in Hell combined with the eternal misery inside of
me from all the people I’d disappointed, hurt, even
killed—Lilith, Kali, Rina, Mom, Solomon, the soldiers in the
warehouse, and the children on the train. My team. Everyone at The
Loft. Everyone on the battlefield above. Dorian and Tristan. Their
screams drilled through my soul, perforating it. And then came
Stacey’s and Bree’s and the voices of countless other
faeries who I hadn’t been able to save.

After a moment, I
realized not all of those voices were in my head. They were in my
ears. I opened my mind, searching for signatures. No Dorian or Lucas.
Tristan’s was gone, too, and I momentarily became distracted as
I worried about what happened to him and Dorian. Had Tristan escaped?
Had he been able to take Dorian with him? Or had Lucas or Satan
captured them both?