Iron Inheritance (38 page)

I looked around, no one else seeing that detail. My whole body became energized by the fact that only I knew, the fact that would be my last resort if it came down to it.

“We use the hell mouth,” Duke said suddenly, his gray eyes flashing, blond hair glowing golden from the lights above. “If he gets close enough, he should be sucked down and trapped.”

“Very good, Mr. Harding.” Denisov nodded without smiling. “If we can’t kill him, we’ll lock him up for a while.”

“Won’t he like it down there?” said Ria.

“No one likes it down there,” Josh said darkly and stood. “That’s the point.”

Denisov nodded and spoke crisply. “There will be three phases to the attack. The first teams will summit just before sunrise. The rest will evacuate as many humans as possible. Then a final push will be led up the mountain to force the Fallen into the hell mouth.” She paused. “There will be losses to our ranks—”

My body tensed, and Nate shifted his shoulders uncomfortably.

“Unless we can show an advantage early,” Denisov finished and locked her hawk eyes on to mine. “Brooks will spearhead the first phase of the attack. I don’t care if you’re the daughter of Uriel, a Blood Nephilim, or Christ himself. The Fallen wants you too badly to hurt you,” she said when a stray noise escaped Nate’s throat. “And with your new talents.” She paused again, her jaw rigid. “You can withstand the effects of the hell mouth unlike anyone else here. The Tercets and the other more-experienced members of the Defense will follow.”

“No way.” Nate stepped between us. “We can’t just—”

“I’ll do it,” I said, his red hair barely obstructing my view.

Denisov nodded and turned to leave. “Sunrise is in one hour. Suit up and meet in the courtyard in twenty.”

“You can’t be serious.” Nate followed her out, his shouts heard even as the door closed.

Ria raised her eyebrows. “At least we know Denisov isn’t going soft in her old age.”

“That’s for sure.” Josh turned and left as well.

My eyes followed his black shirt all the way out. Was he mad at me for not taking his advice? Maybe he was right about Patrons not accepting me—not all of them at least—but this Blood Nephilim thing could be used to our advantage for now. For some reason, Procel wanted me with him. I had a chance to stop people from being killed, and I couldn’t let that pass me by. Whatever came tomorrow—the slow decay of my body, the madness—I’d handle it then.

“Come on.” Ria rubbed my arm, her eyes on mine as I watched Josh leave. “Boys are stupid and overprotective ninety-eight percent of the time. It’s a bad mix.”

“I resent that,” Freddy said.

“Except for you, sweetie pie.” Ria glanced back with a smile but turned back to me and shook her head. “Come on, I need to show you your locker.”

“
My
locker? You know where
my
locker is?”

“Well mine’s inside yours, so it’s pretty easy.” She paused before opening the wood door so I could see my name etched in the gold plaque. Inside, several built-in compartments were stacked on top of one another, each holding its own neatly-placed item.

The side door to the locker room flapped open again, and a horde of people came in, each going to a pre-assigned locker—boys and girls in the same row. I tried not to pay attention to the pinprick feeling their eyes made on my back.

“And this is the Ria drawer.” Ria reached into the bottom and pulled a handle. Inside, a pair of shoes, sunglasses, and a large bowie knife were stowed. “They don’t think Pesahs can fight all that well.” She reached in and unsheathed the knife. The blade glinted in the overhead light menacingly. “I beg to differ.”

How did she always know more about this place than I did? And how did she keep getting these knives?

I reached into the first compartment. Arm guards. The leather was supple with blue stones in the center that almost matched the ones on the two halves of my necklace. Near each one, a slender drawing of a dagger was carved into the leather.

“At least they know my style.” I slipped them over my arms and felt a jolt of energy vibrate through my skin and settle into my bones.

Miranda was staring at me when I looked up, her locker right next to mine.

“What?”

“Yours must not have been used in a while.” She inspected the leather. “It’s very beautiful, hardly any burn marks.”

“Mm-hm.” I nodded, no room left in my brain to listen. How was this going to protect me from one of Procel’s lightning bolts?

Miranda continued. “All Patron armor, it’s been worn before. Some armor’s been passed down for millennia.”

“That’s some good leather conditioner.” Ria nodded, impressed. “But why?” she said, taking out the chest and back pieces and helping me cinch up the sides. It was like a stiff tank top with more blue stones and markings all over it.

“It holds on to bits of essence from previous owners. Look at mine.” She twirled around and around for thirty seconds without stopping.

“How are you not getting dizzy?” Ria’s eyes followed her, her eyelids drooping.

“What am I supposed to be seeing?”

“Essence.” Miranda stopped spinning. “The guy who wore this one died in World War I.” She smiled.

“What?” I said, thinking I’d misheard her.

“Told you they’re old.”

I sighed and looked at my own armor. How was I still not able to see essence like everybody else? I was a Blood Nephilim—supposedly—and I couldn’t even see the spiritual world where all this power came from?

“I personally think sweat is the overriding thing left over.” Freddy ambled around the corner with his armor strapped over his Hawaiian shirt and denim shorts. The leather stuck out six inches beyond his shoulders and gut. “It was my dad’s,” he said, trying to adjust it and waving his hand in front of his nose. “He didn’t believe in deodorant.”

I looked in the mirror at the finished look of my armor. It fit every curve like a glove. I punched forward. It felt good, almost as if nothing was there. A marking on the underside of my arm guard caught my eye—faded cursive initials branded into the center of a flower.

A.L.B.

“This was my mom’s,” I whispered.

“What? Let me see.” Ria grabbed my arm and traced her fingers over the letters.

On the back of every one of her pictures I’d seen those initials in Grandpa’s cursive script—Ava Lily Brooks. This was the same
.

Had Grandpa given it to her?

I ran my palms up and down my arm and shoulder guards. She’d been my size; maybe she’d even had the same blue essence as these stones—as my essence. I brought the two halves of my necklace out of my pocket and hung them around my neck.

“If Nate’d been wearing his armor when we went into that movie studio, that black goop wouldn’t have affected him as much, maybe even slid off if there was enough essence in the armor,” said Miranda.

“I call that a Healer’s delight—less work for me.” Freddy winked.

Ria sighed and looked at my armor longingly.

I narrowed my eyes. She’d better not think she was coming with me. Neither were Miranda or Freddy. They were definitely not the “more-experienced” members of the Defense Denisov was talking about.

“Listen, guys, I don’t think—”

“Ready, Eve?” Nate’s voice echoed from the doorway leading back into the chapel. He had armor on now, his khaki shirt barely visible beneath the leather. He looked different, somehow. The rigid posture, the clenched jaw, the sharp green eyes were all the same, but his skin—something about his skin seemed to glow more brightly. It was like a light shining through a thick lampshade.

“Almost.” My voice responded shakily before I could stop it. I glanced at Ria and Miranda and Freddy. Duke was in the distance, Cheryl already clad in her armor beside him. The whole room bustled with a few hundred people dressing with grim faces, narrowed eyes glancing at me every few seconds.

My mouth went dry as I tried to swallow. How many of them would die because of this? Because of me? What if the hell mouth didn’t work? Procel would kill every one of them just because I wouldn’t go with him. How could I live knowing that I could have stopped it all with a simple
yes
?

Or a simple punch to his chest to make his angel heart stop dead.

I chewed my tongue and looked to the other side of the locker room. “Bathroom first,” I called to Nate without looking back at him or Ria.

I slinked through the other side door and found the bathroom but turned left, hoping the path would take me out of the maze. One hallway led to another, one room to a smaller passage, one passage to the stairwell.

My feet pounded the metal and concrete steps all the way up to the roof. I ran to the ledge and saw an empty street below, the sound of ranks and files of willing Patrons in leather armor assembling in the courtyard just behind me. If I was going to do something, I had to do it now, before Nate or someone else found me.

“All right there?” Josh appeared at my side with a sad smile, his fingers almost touching mine.

A sharp burst of excitement and fear launched my stomach into my chest. Part of me had hoped to see him one last time, to feel his gently firm touch on the small of my back. Yet having him here would only complicate things, especially if he tried to stop me.

His hand remained stretched out slightly, not quite touching mine, seeming to wait for my lead.

My leg muscles twitched for the jump. If I told him what I was doing, he’d just try to come with me.

No. He’d try to beat me there.

I shook my head and inhaled. I had to make it up that mountain myself before more people got hurt, before anyone else sacrificed themselves because of me.

I swallowed with an effort to find the right words, to keep his lips from uttering the guess his blue eyes had already made. He knew where I was headed, and yet, he wouldn’t say anything. His silent stare promised that he’d be at my side the whole way up, to the end when our last breaths left us and our hands reached for one another like they were now.

I swallowed and turned one last time to interlock his fingers in mine. The moment our skin touched, a thousand tingles of calm swept through me, and I took my foot down from the ledge. He leaned forward, and I pushed my lips into his. He wrapped his arms around my back and pressed my waist to his. My other hand pressed into his hard chest and clutched his shirt, my only lifeline left in the world. Time ceased with my eyes closed, my body melting into his.

He pulled back first and set his forehead against mine. “We have to go now if we want any chance of beating the first wave there.”

Lead weights strapped themselves to my shoulders as if the world had bought more gravity while I was in the circle of Josh’s arms. I understood now why he’d been so unemotional when I told them—he knew what it would lead to, he knew what I’d decide before I did.

But he can’t come with me. He can’t.

“Eve?”

I’d kept my eyes closed, but his voice called them open so sweetly that they couldn’t resist. I looked up, and his face swam into view. It was chiseled and tough and caring and funny and a million other descriptors that could never capture him, who he was becoming to me.

That’s why you have to do this now. If you care about him—if you care about Ria and Nate and any of them—you have to.

The little air left in me sighed out. I slung my hands over his neck and pulled him in for one last kiss. His lips were meant for mine, as were his arms, his hands gripping my hips.

Then I stepped back and wrapped my hands around his wrist and elbow, feeling the joints and sighting the pressure point I’d need to hit below his ear.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered and struck all three points before I could stop myself.

He drew a sharp breath as his eyes found me in that instant before he blacked out, surprise and betrayal flashing out of them and burrowing into mine.

My stomach knotted as I laid him down. My tongue dried and took any words of comfort or reason I could utter—even though I had none.

I stepped to the edge of the roof again. No one else was going to die because of me. No more leading my friends places I knew were traps.

Procel wanted me, and he was going to get me—my fists, my knees, my elbows.

I jumped down onto the sidewalk. Nate’s Jeep started right up with the spare key he kept attached to the underside of the frame. The slightly chilled, pre-dawn air whipped through my hair as I got on the freeway.

I blinked away a tear and wiped it off my cheek roughly. “It’s better this way.” I looked up to see if the sky was showing any signs of light on the horizon.

Instead, a shadow passed over me—a flurry of black wings a thousand feet above.

He was starting early.

Any hint of the rising sun smoldered black by the time the tires kicked up dirt and rocks on the road past the observatory. I skidded to a stop just before the fallen tree that had halted us hours ago. A plume of dust enveloped the Jeep.

I stepped out and looked at the clouded sky above the mountain, straight above the hell mouth. It was a slowly churning gyre of electric bubbling tar. Black flurries oscillated like a school of fish as the center of the ominous cloud pumped more and more energy into its edges. Each full revolution added to its area. It wouldn’t be long until the darkness covered the whole city.

I ran as fast as I could up the mountainside toward the hell mouth. That’s what seemed to be powering the cloud somehow. That’s where Procel would be.

Scrub brush and stout trees snagged at my armor the farther up I went, and a high-pitched screech rattled through the air above.

My heart beat my eardrums mercilessly. I stopped and searched all around for something to swoop down on me.

It happened slowly.

A warm, gray mist slipped down through the trees as three funnel clouds spun out of the mother-cloud and reached toward the ground. The wind picked up—sand hit the back of my legs as it was sucked into the tornado.

I set my jaw and clenched my fists, inhaling deeply as adrenaline coursed into my fingertips and eyes. My vision doubled into both worlds. I still saw the cloud, the funnels, and the mist. But there was more. Darkness dripped down the center of the funnels. A pair of yellow eyes leered at me from afar—distant stars in the ever-reaching cloud pulsating through the sky.