Infernal Revelation : Collected Episodes 1-4 (9781311980007) (8 page)

He blushed. "Don't you start."

"I mean it. You didn't have to help me."

"Yeah well. Look what it got me."

Her stomach churned. "I'm sorry, I didn't
mean to--"

Gideon sat up. "I didn't mean--"

Lily stood and stepped to the door, pulling
the curtain over its window aside. All she could see was the town's
quiet streets. She felt so ragged, so run-down, so emotionally
exhausted by what she'd done and seen... she'd have to watch what
she said with Gideon. He was probably just as wiped out.

When she turned back, Gideon was leaning
back again, staring at the ceiling.

That figure. The dark one. She remembered
it, remembered the accident.She sat in the desk chair once more,
trying to put her thoughts in order.

"Gideon."

He looked at her. "Look, I didn't
mean--"

"That thing. I've seen it before."

He sat up straight. "What?"

She sat at the desk, hands folded between
her knees. "It... when I saw it, I remembered. The accident. We hit
it."

"You what?"

"When I saw it, when I saw its eyes, I
suddenly remembered that that's what happened," Lily said, staring
into the redhead's eyes. "It's after us, because we hit it, and oh
God, I didn't want to get you wrapped up in this."

"Hold up, what happened? Exactly?"

Lily dropped her eyes to her hands. "I
remember we were leaving the Spot. Lauren was driving. None of us
had had more than a sip or two to drink, but that didn't
matter."

Ashley was in the back, and Lily'd been in
the passenger seat, preoccupied with the fight she'd had with
Derek. She remembered, quite suddenly, that she was going to break
up with him, to let him loose, to cut him free to go to school in
Boston or wherever else he wanted. She loved him, yes, but enough
that her desire to possess him was overshadowed by her need to see
him follow his own dreams.

"Ashley hit him. He was just... there
suddenly. No, wait... he jumped out in front of us, stopping just
long enough for us to hit him. I have this... this image of him in
front of us, burned into my memory. Those eyes. When I saw them
again, that's when I remembered."

Gideon's voice was scarcely audible. "And
now it's after you."

Lily locked eyes with him. "Yes."

A rattle broke the silence, and Gideon was
half-out the couch before Lily could even turn her head. The
basement doorknob turned, the door opened, and there was
Delilah.

"Hey," she said, dropping her pack next to
the door. "How'd it go?"

A blackness seemed to flow past her, around
her, into the living-room, a dark shadow made of inky darkness. It
flowed past her, half-liquid, and coalesced into a roughly
human-shaped pillar in the middle of the living room. Electric blue
eyes winked into existence at human-head height.

"It's here!" Lily heard the words coming
from her mouth as if someone else was speaking them, the world
receding as Gideon tried to pull her away. "It's found us!"

EPISODE 2

CHAPTER ONE

Lily's limbs felt
leaden as the shadow poured itself through the door into Delilah's
basement, liquid in its movements as it swept past the younger girl
to coalesce into a pillar in the center of the room. Lily could
hear Gideon scrabble to his feet behind her, but the sound was
tinny and distant, drowned out by the thunderous pounding of her
heartbeat.

"It's here!" She could barely make out her
own voice. "It's found us!"

And then someone, Gideon, pulled her away,
dragged her from the thing manifesting in their midst. She couldn't
get her limbs to cooperate, couldn't find her balance, couldn't
stand on her own. All she could do was stare at this thing as it
molded into something not quite human, but bone-white pale, cloaked
in shadow, with brilliant magnesium-blue sparks for eyes.

The thing that had followed her from the
hospital.

The thing that had leapt in front of the car
weeks ago, killing her best friend Lauren, critically injuring
Ashley, and putting Lily in a coma.

The thing that had ruined her life.

It said something, but in Lily's terror she
heard only meaningless garble.

Gideon had pulled her to the foot of the
stairs and, lifting her by the armpits, trying to get her to her
feet. She found purchase and balance, turning desperately from the
horror in the basement.

Tendrils of shadow wrapped around her waist,
translucent but solid enough to yank her back off of her feet. She
screamed as it dragged her back to the center of the room where the
figure stood, fists clenched.

"Wait." This time its voice cut through the
fear, a strange bass resonance that sounded clear even though
nothing else did. "Please."

To her left she could see Gideon struggling
against the shadow tendril pinning his arms to his sides. Delilah
was held as well, standing rigid, only her eyes moving to follow
the monster.

"I don't want to hurt you," it said.

Lily stared at it.

The creature's gaze flickered from her face
to Gideon's, and its posture sagged.

She felt herself lifted into the air,
deposited next to Gideon on the couch. Tendrils lifted Delilah over
the creature's head and deposited alongside her. The creature
pulled the chair over from the basement desk and sat in it,
regarding them.

It watched them, silent, unmoving, and over
the course of minutes the manic edge gradually bled from Lily's
fear. It was a monster, strange and unknowable, but it wasn't
hurting them, and she didn't see any way to escape from its
grasp.

"What do you want?" she asked.

When it spoke, its voice was calmer, almost
human. "I just want to talk. It... this wasn't supposed to be like
this."

Delilah's hand, her arm still bound to her
side, reached out and brushed Lily's. She held it tight.

"I never meant to hurt you. Or your friends.
It was an accident."

"An accident?" Lily felt dizzy. She risked a
quick glance at Gideon. He was staring at the creature, wide-eyed,
stupefied.

"That's why I was there, in the hospital. To
apologize to your friend. And then you showed up, and you
ran..."

"You chased me!"

"Because you ran."

"You're blaming me?" Heat flashed through
Lily's cheeks and she struggled to sit up on the couch. "You crash
into my friends, kill Lauren, put me in a coma, leave me thinking
like this is all my fault, and now you're blaming me for running
away from you?"

"No, it's not like that."

The creature's denials only stoked the
flames of Lily's anger.

She stood, the shadow tentacles stretching
to hold her. "Of course I ran. You're... you're terrifying! What's
wrong with you!"

It shrunk back. "I'm sorry, I've just been
on the run for so long... I don't know when the last time I slept
was."

"You think that excuses you?"

"No!"

Lily flinched back as the resonance returned
to its voice.

"No." Its tone softened. "No, there's no
excuse. If I could take it back I would, but I'm not here to beg
for forgiveness."

"Then why are you here?" Lily asked.

Delilah's voice sounded oddly calm and
quiet. "What are you?"

"Look, I..." It sat back into the chair.
"I'll explain, if I can let go of you. It's a long story."

Lily nodded, and the tendrils shrank back
into the creature, along with its dark aura, until the long coat
and black jeans he'd been wearing in the hospital were visible.

It glanced towards Gideon and Delilah. "You
can go, if you want. I won't stop you."

Gideon looked at Lily, then shook his
head.

"I want to hear this," Delilah said. "What's
your... what do we call you?"

"You can call me Mel."

"Mel?" Lily said. "Really? Mel? Your name is
Mel?"

"My name is Melchizedek," he said. "It's
Biblical. Mel is easier."

"Okay," Lily said. "What are you?"

Mel slipped his hands into his coat pockets,
flapping them idly as he answered. "I'm your brother."

***

Barny's return to
consciousness was slow, painful, and confusing.

Confusing because of the dream or whatever.
It put him off, unsettled him, and had seemed so real.

Painful because that bitch Lily Baker had
clocked him hard enough to send him reeling into a brier patch.Tiny
thorns had pierced and scratched his skin when he'd landed.

When he remembered that part, it pissed him
the fuck off.

What the fuck? She
hit
him?

Besides the scratches, his jaw was sore.
Like she'd popped it when she hit him. And his neck ached, like
he'd been lying with it at a weird angle. His head was turned to
face the school.

Had he broken his neck in the fall? Fuck if
that wouldn't be a joke. Baker gets one of her friends killed in a
crash, then paralyzes a guy with a single punch. He could see the
humor in that, if he wasn't the poor bastard with a broken
neck.

No, wait. He could feel his toes wiggle. Not
so bad, then. Still, better safe than sorry.

"Hey!" Barny's voice sounded weak.
"Somebody!"

He waited, but nobody answered.

Shit.

You weren't supposed to
move in situations like this -- when you might have hurt your neck
or your back. But fuck if he was going to lie here in this bramble
patch until the birds took an interest. Barny's hands crept up to
his jaw... definitely felt like it'd been popped out of socket. He
grabbed the crown of his skull with one hand, cheekbones with the
other, and
twisted.

"Fuck!" A blinding spasm of pain erupted
from Barny's neck as he righted himself.

He blacked out for a few seconds.

When the sparks faded from his eyes, he
found himself staring into cloudless early evening sky, arms
splayed out at his sides. His neck felt fine, aside from the ghost
of remembered agony. He rolled his head to either side and worked
his mouth. No stiffness, and he must have popped his jaw back into
place. Good.

His pleasure at 'fixing' himself faded
fairly quickly, replaced with a slowly boiling anger at the girl
who'd put him in this situation. Who the fuck did she think she
was, going off and smacking him like that? Stupid bitch. Just
because she couldn't bear to face the truth about how she'd gotten
her friend killed. It took a weak person to shift that guilt into
anger at a bystander.

Lily fucking Baker. He really shouldn't be
surprised. She had everything handed to her, her whole life. No
wonder she didn't have any sense of responsibility. Of
accountability.

Well, this was one fucking action she'd have
to face the consequences for. Nobody laid out Barny Carter. Didn't
she know who he was? Did she think herself immune? Untouchable? He
could ruin her life a thousand different ways, and she'd never see
it coming.

His fists clenched, and he turned his head
to see that his left hand was lying in a small fire.

"Fuck!" Barny scrambled to his feet as fast
as he could, heedless of the thorns.

Correction. His left hand
was
on
fire.

He shook it, slapping his palm against his
jeans. The flames stuttered out.

He marveled at his hand, at the fact that it
didn't hurt, at the fact that his skin wasn't burnt.

Well. That was an interesting twist.

CHAPTER TWO

"You're my what?" Lily
asked.

"Brother," Mel said. "Half-brother."

"I don't have a brother. And if I did, it
wouldn't be... whatever you are."

"I know how it sounds--"

Lily folded her arms. "I don't think you
do."

Melchizedek stood. "I can prove it."

Gideon narrowed his eyes. "What are you
going to do?"

"Have you been having the dreams?"

Lily felt Gideon flinch next to her. She
glanced at him, then back at the demon, feeling a strange flutter
in her belly.

"What dreams?" The words came out slowly,
reluctantly, the question to an answer she wished she didn't
already know.

"Dreams of a great city, of celestial
pillars and rings of stardust. Dreams of being light, without form,
pure energy. Dreams of a starless abyss bigger than infinity, filed
with sparks of pure emotion. Dreams of mainlining pure love, of
music so beautiful that it's like a full body orgasm. Dreams of
belonging."

"Of family," Gideon said. "Of being part of
something greater."

Melchizedek's blue eyes widened. "You've had
them too?"

Gideon nodded.

"So have I," Delilah said.

"Oh," Melchizedek said. "Oh wow. That's...
that makes sense, actually."

"What?" Lily said. "I don't understand."

"Have you been having the dreams?"

She looked from Gideon's awed face to
Delilah's blank expression.

"Yeah. Since the coma. Maybe during it, I
don't remember."

"That's about when mine started, too,"
Gideon said.

"What do they mean?" Delilah asked.

Something seemed to have excited
Melchizedek. He was shifting his weight from foot to foot, and
snapping his fingers as he spoke.

"No, it makes sense. Let me start from the
beginning."

"Okay," Lily said.

"Do you have," he pointed from Lily to
Gideon before settling on Delilah. "Do you have anything to drink?
My throat's a little dry."

"What," the youngest said. "Like water?
Soda?"

"Soda's fine. Or whatever."

The girl rose and walked over to the stairs,
where a few boxes of soft drinks were stacked.

"Can I get a coke?" Gideon called.

"No," Delilah said.