Fallen Angel of Mine (41 page)

But I couldn't interrupt him.
Vadaemos's story transfixed us all. Nobody said a word as he told
the tale of slaughter and how Daelissa made sure to mark those she
didn't want killed so they could report back to their people about
how they had been betrayed. House Slade believed the Templars and
House Assad to be responsible. House Assad accused the Templars and
House Slade. Thomas Borathen blamed all spawn, no matter which
house they belonged to, and his word mattered among the Templars.
How Vadaemos knew so much about Daelissa's plans or the aftermath
of the massacre, he didn't say.

My curiosity and impatience overwhelmed
my desire to listen to his monologue, and I asked the most
important question. "Who is Daelissa?"

"You'll never find her," he said, a
hysterical laugh working up his body. "Never. She's too powerful by
far. Her kind lives beyond the Alabaster Arch. They ruled this
world before even Daemos set foot on it."

"Oh god," I said, a sick feeling
working its way up my guts. "Is she one of the people in the murals
in the plaza?" There was only one female I could recall with
clarity, thanks mostly to the bizarre dream with her in it. "Blonde
hair, kind of short, scary as hell?"

His eyes widened. "Yes, yes. That is
her. The centuries have not been kind to her mind, but that hasn't
diminished her power a bit." A giggle burst from his lips. He
stifled it with a hand. "You don't even know the funniest part." He
burst into crazed laughter, doubling over. His spawn form withered
as he cackled away, thick bands of muscle retreating and his blue
skin fading to a pale hue. When his horns detached from his head
and clattered on the floor, he abruptly snapped from his bout of
hysteria.

"What's so funny?" Elyssa said, taking
a step toward him. "Tell me!"

Vadaemos looked up between gasps for
breath and said. "You're a Templar and you don't even know. But how
could you? She has played us all for fools like the mortal toys we
are to her."

Elyssa's jaw tightened. "What don't we
know?"

Beck and Fausta exchanged puzzled
looks.

Vadaemos narrowed his eyes. His lips
curled into a cruel smile. "Daelissa is the Templar
Divinity."

Elyssa's jaw dropped farther than I
thought possible for someone who wasn't in a cartoon. Fausta had to
grab Beck by the arm as he tried another foolish charge at
Vadaemos. A clammy hand closed around my arm and I looked to see
Bella, her face slightly less waxy than before.

"I think I have determined the true
path from this place," she said in a whisper. "Vadaemos hurriedly
marked each exit with an illusion, but the spell he used is of
novice quality and the images it casts flicker at times." She
nodded toward a passage diagonally behind the huge shaggy form of
Yolo, the whatchamacallit. "Watch the green mark there."

I did. A second later, the marks on the
passages to either side of it faded and flickered ever so slightly
while the mark she indicated held solid.

"You're lying," Elyssa said to
Vadaemos. "Why should we believe a thing that comes out of your
lying mouth, demon spawn?"

Beck unleashed a torrent of
profanities, all the while straining at Fausta's grip on his
arm.

I looked back to Bella. "What good does
it do to know which one it is? You look on the verge of collapse
and Vadaemos has that oversized yak to protect him."

"Let's not forget he can apparently
spawn at will," she added.

I furrowed my forehead. "Yeah, exactly.
So what does it matter if we know where the right exit is? There's
no way in hell we can all get past him."

"I have enough left in me to divert
their attention. It should give you time enough to
escape."

"You can hardly hold yourself up as it
is, Bella."

"As I said, I have enough."

A knot formed in my chest as I realized
what she was contemplating. "No. Absolutely not. I won't let you
die to save us."

"I am not offering you a choice in the
matter."

"Don't you dare." I gripped her by the
shoulders.

She smiled a sad little smile. "I've
lived a long life Justin. It wasn't an easy life at first, but I
eventually found happiness in this little corner of the world. I've
done my part. You have a very difficult time ahead of you, and I
fully intend to give you every chance to succeed."

"I don't care if you believe me or not,
you dim-witted tools," Vadaemos yelled back at Elyssa and the other
Templars.

"You must win her back, Justin," Bella
said, giving me a kiss on the cheek. "I believe the future depends
on it."

A new sound reached my ears as the
shouting between Elyssa and Vadaemos reached a lull. Feet shuffled
against stone. A whimper echoed.

"Dah nah?" called a querulous little
voice.

"Dah nah," replied a ragged infantine
voice from the opposite side.

Yolo brayed, the slits of his yellow
eyes casting about as he sniffed the air. Vadaemos went absolutely
pale.

"No. I waited too long. I should have
been—" he leapt atop the shaggy beast's back. "Go, Yolo!
Go!"

But the darkness teemed with life,
closing in fast. Yolo galloped a few feet before rearing like a
crazed horse and yowling as a horde of tiny bodies shambled into
range of his glow.

"What the hell are those things?" Beck
shouted, the whites of his eyes growing huge.

I opened my backpack and popped the
caps off several flares, tossing them into the darkness. As each
one landed and illuminated a little more of the cavern, it only
deepened my horror. Cherubs waddled everywhere, their shiny black
bodies glistening in the flare light. Some of them wailed as the
flares landed next to them but the light did absolutely nothing to
harm them.

"Why aren't they running?" Fausta
asked, drawing her swords. "Why isn't the light killing
them?"

"I don't know," I said, my voice
trembling. "I've seen them before at Thunder Rock." I glanced at
Elyssa. "You were with me when one of those things grabbed me and
hauled me away."

"I remember your story," she said. "You
made a circle and it kept them out."

"But this time, there's no way out. No
arch to go through."

"There will be," said a voice I'd heard
sparingly this entire trip. Pokito pushed himself off the ground.
He seemed a bit shaky, but otherwise okay.

"There will be?" Beck said. "What, you
can make one out of thin air?"

"We need to bring Vadaemos with us,"
Pokito said, his voice low and determined. "It is part of the
plan."

"The plan?" I asked. "Whose blasted
plan?"

Vadaemos screamed as another wave of
cherubs closed in from his right. The air shimmered azure blue
around him as they pressed against his invisible barrier. He
strained, both hands held out in front of him until with a loud
crackle and blue flash, the barrier collapsed. The concentrated
scent of ozone permeated the musty air. Yolo brayed and ran
straight for us. We yelled and dove to the sides as the lion-sized
beast lumbered into our midst and cowered like a frightened
dog.

"Oh my, the poor thing is scared to
death," Fausta said, patting Yolo's shaggy head.

He made a tiny little donkey whimper
and pressed his shaggy head against her shoulder.

I felt like face-palming in the midst
of the pandemonium. We'd run like frightened sheep from a beast
with the temperament of a golden retriever.

Vadaemos backed into our tightening
circle, stumbling as he approached. The strain of keeping his
barrier up had obviously weakened him. The empty space around us
was quickly vanishing. What had moments ago been twenty yards of
open ground was now down to fifteen. We had no time to lose. I dug
in my backpack and tossed a piece of chalk to Elyssa. "Make a
circle with me, fast!"

She caught on immediately. We blurred
around the group, completing a circle maybe ten yards in diameter.
Pokito cut his thumb with a knife and dripped blood on the chalk.
Trapped magical energy slammed against my senses the moment the
circle snapped shut. Good god, there was a lot of power down
here.

I rushed to the small man. "What next?
Where's the arch you were talking about?"

"Where's my pack?" he said, fumbling at
his waist. "My black pack?"

I looked to Curtis who was groggily
coming to and going wide-eyed at the horrors closing in.

"Do you know where Pokito's pack is?" I
asked him.

He looked confused for a moment. Shook
his head. "Huh? What pack?"

"I don't remember seeing it either,"
Alejandro said. "I didn't pay attention."

"What kind of pack?" I asked. "A
backpack?"

"No, a fanny pack," Beck said. He drew
in a breath between clenched teeth. "It was on him when we got to
this room. I remember, because it was digging into my shoulder. But
it snagged on a chunk of fallen rock and broke the strap." He
pointed toward the shadowy outline of a boulder, caught in the
flicker of one of the flares I'd thrown.

"Oh no," Pokito said, his eyes
widening. "The arch is in my pack."

"An arch?" I asked. "How did you—" I
remembered Kassallandra's miniature arch. "You have a portable one,
don't you?"

He nodded. "It was part of the
plan."

"Whose freaking plan?" I asked,
resisting the urge to shake him by the shoulders since he looked
ready to hurl his lunch.

"We need my pack."

I stared hopelessly at the mass of
cherubs. The first of them reached the circle and pressed against
it, their ungainly bodies and huge heads causing them to bounce off
and topple backwards screaming and wailing. Fausta covered her
ears. Yolo brayed long and mournful.

I gripped Vadaemos. He shoved me off
with surprising strength, considering how wimpy his arms looked.
"Don't touch me!"

"What are these things?" I asked. "Why
are they after us?"

"They crave the light." His eyes were
transfixed on the little horrors. "They want what was taken from
them so long ago."

"Who took what from them?"

"They were once just like the others
until the Nexus was destroyed. Most caught in the wave of
destruction were absolutely annihilated. The others were drained
and malformed into these—these husks."

"You're talking about Daelissa's
people?"

He nodded. "And if they drain you,
you'll end up just like the shades."

"The shadow people? That's what
happened to them?"

His lip curled into a snarl. "We're all
dead. All of us, do you hear!" He gripped me by the collar and
stared madly into my eyes. His breath smelled awful, like burnt
onions and rotten cabbage. I had a feeling brushing regularly
hadn't been one of his fugitive-related activities.

I didn't resist his hold. Instead, I
looked him in the eye and said, "You deserve to die. Becoming a
shade is fitting punishment, as far as I'm concerned." The problem
was, I most definitely didn't think the rest of us deserved it. He
dropped me and sank glumly to the ground. Yolo licked him and I
caught a whiff of the big animal's breath. It wasn't quite as bad
as Vadaemos's.

A hand tugged on my elbow. "What're we
going to do?"

I turned to find Elyssa and Pokito
looking at me. If only I had an idea. The cherubs, or husks, were
clumsy, uncoordinated. How the one had been able to shift into that
tentacle underwater, I didn't know. What I did know was they hadn't
done it on dry land, so I might be able to lead them away long
enough for someone to get the pack. By now, the little monsters
were packed against the circle's barrier so tight, I didn't know
how to bypass them, much less lead them away.

"What exactly do they want from us,
Vadaemos? Life force? Karma?"

"Life force?" He chuckled
without mirth. "That's far too general a term for what
these…
things
want
from us.

"How about you explain?" Maybe there
was some way to bait the terrifying toddlers away from us. A
magical lure we could use.

"Explain? I may as well explain physics
to Yolo." The left side of his mouth curled into a sneer. "Every
being's well is filled with good and bad life force, bright energy
and dark. It is the way of balance."

"Yours must be overflowing with the
blackest, nastiest stuff," I said, unable to hold my
tongue.

"Your assumption highlights your
ignorance, you puny speck. Dark and light no more equal good or bad
than being tall means one is intelligent, as evidenced by you. They
are only different parts of a whole. As Daemos, I can siphon such
energy. But I can't break it down into anything more elemental than
the combination. Daelissa's kind can." He waved a hand across the
swarming husks. "These miserable creatures are empty vessels, eager
to be filled."