Fallen Angel of Mine (10 page)

"He can't be gone," Elyssa said,
sobbing. "He can't be! We have to go back."

"We can't," Kassallandra said, her
voice somber and sad. "In all the times I've been in that place,
I've never seen that creature before. It killed two of my hounds."
Tears glistened in her eyes. "My poor babies."

"Screw your hounds!" Elyssa screamed.
"Justin needs our help!"

"I'm here!" I yelled. I
wondered why the arch had chosen this, of all places, to stop. I'd
expected my old house since I'd specified I wanted to go home. I
felt my face go slack as the truth hit me.
Home is where the heart is.
And my
heart was with Elyssa. In ten steps, I'd be with her.

Brilliant balls of energy shot into the
dark air, casting dark flickering shadows along the wooded
riverbank. Masked figures in black clothing similar to what Elyssa
favored for her night operations melted from the dark. In front of
them stood an unmasked man, his close-cropped salt and pepper hair
betraying his identity in a heartbeat. Thomas Borathen.

"Father?" Elyssa shouted. "What—how did
you find us?"

"I've been tracking you for some time,
daughter."

"Ryland betrayed us?"

He shook his head. "No.
Ryland was merely a decoy. I knew you might rebel, much as it
pained me to think of my precious daughter doing such a thing, so I
placed a tracker on you the night you brought that
thing
to our
home."

"Justin is not a thing."

Thomas scowled. "I can
hardly stand the shame you've brought me, Daughter. I expected so
much better from you.
Especially
from you."

"I don't expect you to understand.
You're blinded by misplaced hatred." She took in the other Templars
surrounding her and Kassallandra. "Why did you wait so long to come
for me if you've been tracking me all this time?"

"I thought you might uncover something
of interest. A visit to this unholy place certainly qualifies." He
looked around the area. "Where is Justin Slade?"

"He's not here," Elyssa said, outrage
heating her words. "And don't expect me to tell you where he
is."

I clenched my fists and stared with
disbelief at the number of Templars forming up around Elyssa,
Kassallandra, and the two remaining hellhounds who stood before
their mistress, hackles raised and thunder rumbling in their
throats.

The cherub creatures continued to wail
outside the circle but no one on the other side of the arch seemed
to hear it. Somehow, I had to get through the portal and rescue
Elyssa from her dad, although that looked impossible from where I
was standing. Maybe I could blur through, snatch her, and dash back
inside the arch. Sharing a room with these creepy little monsters
scared the crap out of me, but so long as the circle held them out,
we'd be okay. Then all I had to do was redirect the arch somewhere
a little safer than Templar central.

Thomas Borathen sighed. "Where did I go
wrong with you, girl?" He glared at Kassallandra who was calmly
pulling her clothes from the backpack and putting them on as the
hellhounds paced around her. "You really leave me no
choice."

Elyssa clenched both hands to her
sides. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"You will take the White."

"No," Elyssa said, her voice low with
horror. "You wouldn't dare. I'm your daughter for god's sake! Your
own flesh and blood!"

Thomas slammed a fist against his
chest. "And that is why I cannot allow this insubordination, child!
You will take the White, your mind wiped of the taint of Justin
Slade. You will retrain and make yourself fit for duty. You were so
close to the Cho'kai, daughter. So close to being the youngest to
have taken and passed it."

"I guess you don't get a
trophy then,
Father
." She spat the last word like a curse.

Kassallandra snatched Elyssa by the arm
and drew her close as the hellhounds tightened the protective
barrier around their mistress. "I cannot let you do such a thing,
sir. Your daughter can be a salve for the wounds that separate us,
Templaros Borathen. Together we can mend the errors of the past and
uncover the truths hidden for too long."

Thomas narrowed his eyes. "I have
enough Templars with me to kill your hellhounds, demon spawn, and
if you think I'll hesitate to end you as well, then you're sadly
mistaken."

"I had no idea you were so eager for
open war between our houses, Templaros. Surely—"

Thomas slashed his hand through the
air. "I would like nothing better than direct hostilities after
dealing with the hide-and-seek politics you creatures employ to
deny me justice. Test me, spawn, and find out."

Elyssa stepped from the protection of
the hellhounds and went toward her father. Tears sparkled down her
cheeks, caught in the bright orbs of light hovering above them. "If
that happens, our factions will plunge into a war and destroy the
Conclave. I can't let that happen, Kassallandra."

And neither could I. They might
outnumber me. They might kill me. But stealing the girl I loved by
wiping her memory was worse than death.

I stepped for the gate.

Streaks of white and black energy
lanced from the obsidian structure and arced against the silver
circle. Jagged bolts erupted in a dazzling array of light. I knew
in an instant something was wrong. Without hesitation, I flung
myself for the gate and Elyssa.

I landed stomach-first on a slab of
slippery rock with the river just to my right and the others yards
away. "Elyssa!" I yelled, scrambling to my feet and falling again
as the slick moss stole all traction from my bare feet. I'd totally
forgotten I was clad only in my boxers, my clothes still secured in
the waterproof rucksack on my back.

Elyssa spun toward my voice, eyes
glowing with hope. "Justin! Oh my god, you're alive!"

"Get her out of here," Thomas said,
drawing his silvery sword and turning for me.

"I love you!" Elyssa screamed as three
figures in black dragged her away.

"Stop!" I yelled and tried to run after
her. But the world five feet beyond me warped as if I were in a
bubble looking out. I moved my feet against the slick surface of
the rock but something else had me and drew me back like a taut
rubber band. An arc of pure white energy lanced and crackled
against the ground. Blinding bolts of black and gray shattered my
eyesight.

Flicker
.

A void surrounded me and I floated in
freezing nothingness. Moisture on my scantily clad body flash-froze
to ice, stiffening along my arms and burning my lungs with frost. I
couldn't breathe. I couldn't move. I couldn't see.

Flicker
.

I lay on polished black stone similar
to the material I'd seen around the other arches. The air still
felt freezing cold but not absolute zero like before. Ice shattered
and cracked off of my skin as I sat up. Beings with human features
but an unearthly, soft white luminescence to their bodies gathered
at the edges of the polished stone, apparently unable to cross the
circle. Their ethereal beauty caused my heart to ache for the
simple touch of their hands.

One of them shouted in a hauntingly
familiar tongue and held his arms high, his face
jubilant.

Flicker
.

I sat on another black slab. Twin moons
hung above a landscape of purple sky dusted with stars. A hot wind
grazed my skin, drying it and my hair within seconds. Babbling
noises echoed from the darkness around me. Beneath the cone of
yellow light streaming from somewhere above the black arch, tiny
black figures emerged, each one wobbling and screeching.

Horror burst from my lungs in a
panicked shout. My guts clenched and ice-cold fear left me
shivering with sweat. I scrambled to my feet, shrinking back
against the arch as the circle of pitch-black cherubs tottered for
me with outstretched hands. They had no better luck crossing the
edge of the polished stone than the beings in the last place,
bouncing off and landing on their backs, terrible screams ripping
from their throats. I clamped my hands over my ears, willing the
horrible racket to stop.

Flicker
.

I fell several feet and landed hard on
a crushed jumble of black stone. Half an arch stood a few feet
away, pale white and black strands of energy flickering in it
before dying out and leaving me night blind for a brief moment.
Once my eyes cleared, I looked up at the sky, found a familiar
white moon, and prayed I was back on my own plane of existence. I
ran from the circle, threw myself onto the hard-packed earth
beyond, and lay there for a moment, breathing heavily as
bowel-clenching dread eased slowly from my body.

After a few minutes, I pushed myself up
and brushed the dust off my skin before pulling the clothes from
the waterproof backpack and putting them on. I dug my phone out of
the front pocket. No signal. The area around me buzzed with life.
Birds called to one another, insects chirped and hummed, and I even
heard something sounding suspiciously like a monkey.

I took further stock of my surroundings
and saw what appeared to be the ruins of an ancient city. I walked
a few feet and found a placard near the corner of a huge stone
structure reminding me of something out of an Indiana Jones movie.
The writing was in a language I couldn't speak, but knew enough of
to identify thanks to my Spanish teacher. That's when it hit me. I
had some idea where I was—the same place Underborn had ended up
after the massacre at Thunder Rock. Part of me felt relief. Another
part filled with dismay.

I was on Earth. More specifically, I
was in Colombia.

The love of my life was about to have
her mind-wiped. Thomas Borathen was ready to start a war with the
spawn. Nobody knew where I was, nor could I contact
anyone.

And it was a long walk home.

The first sign of trouble was a whisper on the
wind. The calls of wild animals filled the warm, Colombian night.
Crickets chirped, a bird made a funny whooping noise, and another
answered with a screech. But the whispers made me stop dead in my
tracks, heart pounding with fear and thudding against my chest so
hard I thought it might blow a hole through the bone and scamper
away to join the native birds and monkeys in a tree
somewhere.

I was thousands of miles from Atlanta, stuck in
a jungle somewhere in southern Colombia after a freakish ride
through an ancient arch, which hopped across god only knew how many
planes of reality. The crumbling remains of that arch stood
adjacent to the massive moss-covered structure before me now, and I
knew of no way to activate it and get back home.

I had never felt more alone in my
life.

Another whisper drifted into my
ears. I listened hard, trying to make sense of the words. Was it
saying
that's nice
,
or
you die
? I
decided the words didn't matter. The mere fact a creepy whisper was
emanating from somewhere in the pitch black beyond my blue-tinged
night vision sent another chill creeping down my back and panicked
my already racing heart.

Animals, as far as I knew, couldn't
whisper. By default, that meant it had to be a
someone
and not a
something
whispering. Though an
occasional breeze rustled leaves and combed through my
sweat-dampened hair, I could tell it had nothing to do with the
whispers.

"You're imagining things, you nitwit," I said
aloud, hoping the sound of my own voice would somehow make me feel
a bit braver. It didn't work.

I pulled out my cell phone and checked the
signal meter for the tenth time. Still nothing. Even if there were
people whispering in the dark, I could outrun them. Provided they
were normal humans, I could whip them in a fight, no problem. There
was absolutely no reason for me to stand here ready to poop in my
pants all because some bored native wanted to scare a tourist by
whispering.

A lone whisper sounded from ahead. Another
responded from behind. Yet another and another hissed from all
sides until it was a constant susurrus.

"Who's there?" I yelled into the black of
night.

Something shimmered in my night vision.
Something humanoid and hunched. It shuffled from the dark and into
the range of my night sight. Clouds of oily black smoke drifted
from it, but it wasn't on fire. It was almost as if the thing
leaked shadows from its skin, its eyes, and any other visible
orifice. A twig snapped behind me and I spun to find another of the
things encroaching. It didn't take my brain long to calculate the
possible existence of similar creatures to all sides.

I stared in fascinated horror at the sickly
pale flesh of the nearest of the beings. He, she, or it wore ragged
clothes barely hanging by rotted threads. Beneath the mop of filthy
matted hair, darkness oozed from the eyes, two smoking craters of
malevolence.