Fierce Lessons (Ghosts & Demons Series Book 3) (20 page)

“Wil! No, wait.” I said.

Wil collapsed to the ground as soon as she handed Merlin the necklace.
 

“Wil!
Wil!
” Manny cried.

The wizard held the amulet in his hand and that was enough. He pulled the mask from his face and dropped it to the ground.

“Just as Chumele prophesied!” Merlin shouted.

The wizard’s skin smoothed and tightened as all his hideous scars faded away. Merlin stood before us, smiling. In a few moments, he was a man of about thirty with high cheekbones and a lantern jaw.

“I thank you for your prayers, friends. Your magic speeds and amplifies the amulet’s power. I feel so much better, I cannot express my gratitude!”
 

Wilmington’s shrapnel wounds were back, open and bleeding. Manny held Wil’s head in her lap. My friends looked to me.

“Merlin! What have you done?”

“Completing a bargain,” the wizard said. “There can be no deal with Chronos. He is far too dangerous to be let out of Pandora’s box. That folly would only repeat the legend of the box, would it not?”

“You and I had a deal,” I said.

“An impossible arrangement you failed to question, girl. How did you think I was going to make a demon mage bend to my will? If Chronos is even allowed to utter one word, he could kill us all. Have you learned nothing? Think of what happened to your sister-in-arms. Minneapolis, was it?”

I leapt to grab Merlin and wrench the amulet from his grasp. Instead, I found myself grabbing at fog. He wasn’t where he was supposed to be. He was as incorporeal as a ghost.

“Merlin! Stop this!”

The wizard shook his head and addressed Wilmington. “Thank you for your sacrifice, Wilmington of Vermont. I know this is not the martyrdom you pictured for yourself, but we both know you intended to die a sword singer for the Choir. You wanted to die heroically. So you shall.”

Helpless to stop Merlin, I turned to the crowd. “Can anyone stop this?”

“No,” Victor said. “This must not be stopped.” Victor stood between Pandora’s box and the Lady of the Lake. The silver case sat at his feet.

“Victor? Talk to him! This wasn’t the deal!”

“This was not the deal you made,” Victor said, “but I have a world to save, Iowa. Wilmington, your sacrifice is not in vain. The Choir Invisible thanks you. I thank you.”

“Victor!” I reached for Excelsior at my back. It felt like my sword sprang into my hand. “Stop this, or I will!”

Victor looked me up and down, coolly. “Wilmington is one sword singer. Merlin is our most powerful Magical. War is math. What lesson are you up to in your writing, Iowa?”

“Lesson 191.”

“There you are,” he said.

I suspected I hated Victor Fuentes then.

He wasn’t done, either. “Has it come down to this, Iowa, Castrator of Demons? Are you, in the end, another traitor to the cause, like your father? You would save one life and sacrifice us all? How long do you think Wilmington will live once the demons break through? She is saving your life as well as ours and you dishonor her by drawing your sword.”

I knew I hated the Choir Invisible’s conductor then. Because he was right, I guess. “You should have told us,” I said. “It should be our choice, not yours.”

“Wilmington made this choice. It is you and Manhattan who cannot accept it.”

I looked into Wil’s eyes and knew what he said was true. My friend was dying but her steady gaze and slight nod told me she had already accepted martyrdom. She had saved Victor once and now he was killing her to save the world. Wilmington was good at math. I wasn’t.

31

M
erlin ran his hands over his smooth ageless face and smiled. “The demon mage’s curse is cancelled out by the instrument of his blessing.” He laughed. “It has been so long. I have waited so long! Finally, immortality is no longer a curse. I will walk in sunshine again!”

The Lady of the Lake reached under Pandora’s box. Though it probably weighed between three and four hundred pounds, she lifted it effortlessly. She set it at Merlin’s feet. Then she retrieved the silver case and placed it atop the box.

“You have the price you asked, Merlin,” Victor said. “You have a Tree of Life amulet. It’s time to honor your end of the bargain.”

The wizard brought the amulet to his lips and kissed the small green leaf before tucking it into his robes. His smile was smug. “I pledge my fealty to the Choir Invisible. You have my word.”

Victor opened the case. I expected the glow of a deadly charm or maybe bubbling test tubes. However, inside the case was a gray sphere with what looked like a steel tube protruding from it. Victor pushed on the tube and it slid into the sphere with a loud click. Several of the attendees looked startled at the sound.

I had expected a magical device, not technology. But then I remembered Chronos had disguised himself as a professor. At Stanford, he was Dr. Alphonso de Spina. A physicist.

“Oh, shit,” Manny said. “I just got it.”

“I thought that case was so heavy it must be made of lead,” I said. “I guess it was lined with it.”

Wilmington touched Manny’s cheek. “It’s okay, baby. Help me stand, will you?”

I rushed to help Wil, too. She smiled and leaned close to my ear. “Dying hurts, but not forever. Not forever. I almost did it once already.” She put an arm around my shoulder. “Don’t worry about me. This is what I’m meant to do.”

“It’s wrong,” I said.

“It’s my choice. I knew this is what I’d do. I’m sorry I kept the secret from you, Iowa, but I knew before we went to California. Chumele told me this day would come long before I met you. Psymon tried to talk me out of it in Palo Alto. But I’m a soldier. How could I help the cause more than this?”

Tears fell from my eyes. “We can’t change this somehow?”

“Maybe we can, but I don’t want to. This is the best thing I could do with my life. Wil falls today, but Wilmington, Vermont is safe for a long time.”

“It’s a shitty bargain,” Manny said. “What do you want me to tell your family?”

“No need,” Wil said. “I left letters for everyone under your pillow. Don’t worry, Manny. I already broke up with my fiancé back home.”

“When?”

“The day before the night you and I got together. I knew where we were going to end up. I let him down as easy as I could. No guilt. Chumele told me I’d find true love before I died. I had thought it was him. It was you.”

Manhattan sobbed, blinded by tears.

With our help, Wil walked forward and stood before Victor and Merlin. “I’m ready.”

Victor embraced Wilmington. It was half a hug and half holding her upright. I heard him whisper, “
Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends.”

“I’m a Buddhist,” she said, “but okay. That’s right.”

The Lady of the Lake took Wil in her arms, cradling her like a baby. Victor placed the sphere in Wilmington’s arms and she looked pained. “Hurry,” she said, “I can’t hold it for long.”

“You won’t have to,” Merlin said.

“You’re sure you know what to do?” Victor asked.

“Close my eyes and one twist to the right.”

“And straight on ’til morning,” Victor said. “We’ll sing for you tonight.”

Eyes blazing bright white, the Lady of the Lake placed Wil atop Pandora’s box. Merlin’s wand appeared in his hand and he pointed it at Wil while chanting an incantation. The top of the box seemed to turn to black water. For a second, I glimpsed Chronos beneath her, wide eyed and struggling against invisible bonds. Wil slowly slipped beneath the surface.

Manhattan yelled, “I love you, Angela Brown!”

Angela Brown.
Wil had been part of the ceremony that made me a member of the Choir Invisible. I’d heard her real name perhaps once before, had never used it and had almost forgotten it.
 

In a moment, she was gone and the sphere disappeared with her. The top of Pandora’s box rippled and was still again. We could hear the demon pound the wall of his tiny prison.

“Room for two in that cozy coffin,” Merlin said.

“Hurry,” Victor said. “There’s little time.”

“Time enough,” Merlin said.

The wizard nodded to his left and Paul and Polly stepped out of the shadows along the far wall. They were both crying. They put a blanket on the floor and began to chant.

In a moment, they joined hands and I watched the air shimmer as their time displacement field enveloped Pandora’s box. The demon mage still pounded on the box, but each strike came slower now. Each reverberation lasted longer and had more bass. They were giving Wilmington more time to live and more time to die.

As if Manhattan could read my thoughts, she said, “They’re giving her more time to kill.”

Slowly, the Lady of the Lake picked up Pandora’s box and began to make her way to the water’s edge.

Manhattan collapsed into my arms, sobbing long and loud. I held her close, as if I could contain her grief and make it smaller if I held her tight.

When I looked back, the Lady of the Lake was finally up to her thighs. She waded into the dark water, still in the vegan’s time displacement field. Pandora’s box floated ahead of her. Every ripple was a display of art in slow motion.

Merlin raised his arms. Everyone present gasped as bright white light burst ahead of the Lady of the Lake and a circle of fire grew as the wizard chanted his most dangerous spell. Merlin opened the rift between our dimension and that of the Darkness Visible.
 

Lesson 192: Time runs slow and Time runs fast. It’s always a terrible surprise when we take our last few breaths and Time runs out.
 

32

P
eter Smythe, my father, stood in the pool up to his knees. The Lady of the Lake looked back, white eyes blazing brighter now, her hands on Pandora’s box and waiting for some signal I did not know.

“Hello, Victor,” Peter said. “You’re looking well.”

“I’m looking old. You haven’t aged a day. Is that how Ba’al rewards you for your service to the Darkness Visible?”

“I’m not here to revisit old arguments, my friend.”

“We’re going to continue to have that argument whenever we meet.”

Peter Smythe passed a hand over his face and I saw his horns, his fangs and his wide, yellow eyes for a moment. Then he passed his hand over his face and he appeared human again. “I am not human, Victor. You can’t call me a traitor.”

“A traitor to the Choir then. And to me.”

“The cause was always peace. We have two ways of trying to get there. There are many ways up the mountain. Mine would succeed and yours is doomed to fail. I first came to Earth as a lowly scout. Then an infiltrator. Today, I am an envoy of Ba’al himself.”

“Ba’al’s terms are not acceptable. You know that.”

“Then you are committed to war.”

“The Ra breed soldiers for war and nothing else,” Victor said. “What would Ba’al do with them? I don’t think they’d integrate well. Would he suggest we try to get his battle demons jobs as Walmart greeters?”

Peter Smythe laughed. “They are soldiers sworn to die for the Ra. We could leave them behind to die in the dimension they were born in. That would leave the elite to come to Earth. Think of the possibilities, Victor. Instead of plotting to kill each other, we could work on extending the lives of every human being.”

Victor sighed. “We established the Choir Invisible to defend Earth so it would not be ruined. The Ra have ruined their dimension. If they come here, they will repeat their mistakes. The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. Ba’al is not interested in a seat at the UN. He is a conqueror. Acceptance is enslavement and death to Earth.”

“You’re brave enough to fight and to sacrifice. Are you brave enough to try again for peace, Victor?” My father looked the conductor up and down. “Come back. You infantilize the humans. If you respected them more, you’d give them a chance to do the right thing.”

Victor looked to Merlin, then me and finally his eyes came to rest on Pandora’s box. “Humans always do the right thing, Peter. But they try everything else first.”

Peter followed the conductor’s gaze. My father’s eyes found mine. He smiled. “Daughter.”

“Mr. Smythe,” I said.

“So formal!” He admired my horns. “I see your true colors are showing. Are the humans treating you badly?”

“Sometimes, but it’s the demons I meet who want to kill me.”

“Yes. I’m sorry, Tammy.”

“Nobody calls me Tammy, anymore.”

“Well, I want you to know the attempt to rescue Chronos from your clutches was a tactical error. I wasn’t made aware of that mission until it was too late to stop it. I have always tried to protect you and your mother. I’m confident that one day, perhaps after Victor is dead and there’s room for new ideas, you will live to see a new world with two races united.”

I strode forward, Excelsior in my hand and ready. “I have a message from Mama.”

“Oh, is Ellen here?”

“She’s in the Keep, safe from your plots and plans. I wouldn’t want her to see this.”

Victor screamed, “Iowa! No!”

My first stroke nearly took his head but he threw himself backward to safety.

I waded into the pool.

“Iowa!” Victor screamed again. “Stop!”

Peter Smythe, his robes soaked, walked toward me. “It’s alright, Victor. If my daughter is so desperate to kill me, let her. I won’t fight you. I can see you’re in pain and that is the last thing I want. If you think killing me will assuage your pain, please, do what you will.” His gaze was steady and his speech unhurried. He was willing to die and I was willing to kill him.

Excelsior’s razor tip found his throat and a thin trickle of black blood slipped down his neck. He didn’t even grimace.

“You killed my first love,” I said. “Why did you kill Brad?”

“To set you on this path.”

“You cut off my boyfriend’s arms and let him bleed to death!”

“I know. That must have been difficult. But I did it for you. Look at you now. You had to be prepared for what’s coming. The Ra will come to Earth and your life will be easier when Ba’al rules here.”

“Ba’al thinks he will rule, huh?”

“I know him and I know his heart. It would please him to no end if a race of battle demons weren’t necessary to save his kingdom. He needs a new realm, but when he comes, there will be peace.”