Renegade (57 page)

A ripple tore through the air so forcefully I was knocked off my feet. My hair blew backward and ash from the ground stirred up around us. I watched as the powers—so great—fought for control, and I planted my feet once more, standing behind my best defense.

I thought of hope. Of love.

The power before me seemed to split Beelzebub’s in two, shattering it, and it fell like rain among us. And then my power—the power that came from within and fueled by the souls—barreled forward, knocking him over, slamming him into the ground where he lay motionless among the beings he dared to call batteries.

The souls quivered around him, rising up and almost blocking him completely from view. They seemed to look to me for approval, and I nodded, granting them whatever permission they sought.

Beelzebub was swarmed instantly. He began to scream; he began to choke and fight.

I backed away carefully. The sounds of whatever they were doing to him made my stomach churn. When I got toward the edge, my foot caught on a chain and I fell backward, but my momentary panic was cut short when warm, strong arms encircled me from behind. I glanced up and over my shoulder at Sam as he towed me gently against him.

“I got you,” he said, smiling.

I reached up to touch his cheek, my finger leaving a smudge of ash against his perfectly golden skin.

“This isn’t the Hallmark Channel.” Riley cut in. “And there’s a Prince over there being… eaten or something by an angry mob.” He pinned me with a stare. “What the hell did you just do?”

Sam’s arms tightened around me, giving me a little squeeze, and I knew he understood as well as I did.

“I used the power I always had and ended this war.”

We all looked back to Beelzebub, whose voice had grown hoarse from yelling and the sounds he made became more mottled and gurgling. He was completely besieged under the souls that could reach him. They were angry, angrier than I, and they finally had the chance to exact some kind of revenge.

I don’t really know what they did to him. I don’t understand how those without bodies could kill a man, but as I watched him die, I understood the power within us was the most potent kind.

Soon, his body went still, and the souls began to absorb it. As it disappeared, the spirits doing the absorbing grew a little brighter.

Beelzebub’s colorless soul drifted out of the melee and floated up, fumbling a bit like he was in a stupor.

“Quick!” I cried, yanking the backpack off my shoulders and dumping everything out onto the ground. “Put him in here!”

“Uh, yeah right,” Riley said with a dramatic eye roll.

I shot him a look. “In here,” I demanded.

Sam and Riley shot forward, each grasping at the soul and it slipping right through their fingers. He began to float higher, out of their reach, and I pinned him with a stare.

I wasn’t called the
Soul Reaper
for nothing.

I held up the backpack, pulling it open wide, and I stared at the soul, my gaze penetrating its empty depths until I found the core of its essence. It was dark and twisty, so perverse in nature that I actually lost my grip on it for a moment and had to take a breath and renew my concentration. But I did and then I pushed inside once more with my mind and took control, ignoring the attempts it made to force me out.

Come to me,
I demanded.
Come to me.

Against its struggles, it did as I instructed. It floated toward me until it hovered just over the opening of the bag.

Inside,
I commanded.

It dropped inside and I quickly zipped up the bag, gripping it in both hands.

Sam and Riley were nearby, staring at me in shock.

“What?” I asked.

“Remind me not to piss you off anymore,” Riley said.

I snorted.

“Proud of you,” Sam mouthed and I actually blushed under his pride. Apparently I could be a total badass but still fall prey to girlish tendencies when my boyfriend paid me a compliment.

The soul in the bag began to struggle, making me forget my “girlish tendencies.” I might have beat Beelzebub and trapped his soul, but this still wasn’t over.

I stared at the souls and their indestructible binds.

“How do we break the chains?” I wondered, reaching down to yank on one. It didn’t budge. Sam’s hand wrapped around the chain below mine and he gave a hard yank. The chain broke and the soul burst free. It shot high up in the colorless sky, so high it disappeared. But then it dropped back down and hovered nearby. It twitched and kind of paced back and forth like it was confused.

“It doesn’t know how to get out. It doesn’t know where to go,” I said.

This was something I hadn’t thought of at all. I thought once I found the souls and set them free, they would all float up to heaven and be at peace. I should have known nothing was that easy. Especially not in hell.

“I have to help them crossover,” I said, looking up at the guys.

“Don’t look at me. I don’t know what to do.” Riley shrugged.

“If only this job came with an owner’s manual,” I said wistfully.

Sam grinned. “How about we get them all free, then figure out what to do with them.”

I nodded and we all got to work trying to free the souls. Sam stopped in front of a black, twisted soul and frowned. “We shouldn’t release these. They’re already twisted. The minute we let them free, they’ll turn into demons that we’ll just have to kill.”

“Yeah, let’s only free the ones that look like they aren’t twisted.” I agreed and went back to work, trying to break the chains and failing miserably. After a few minutes I let out a frustrated yell. “I can’t break any of these. This is going to take forever.”

Sam and Riley stopped breaking the chains to stare at me.

“There has to be a better way.”

Then I remembered.

I reached into my pocket and pulled out the black velvet satchel filled with the last bit of dried flower petals Ana gave me. “Thank you, Ana,” I whispered.

I looked up at the guys. “I’ll use this.” But how to spread it out so it covered them all?

There was a noise above and I looked up. The Devourer soared down and landed a few feet away. He didn’t look nearly as weak as when we left him at Asmodeus’s land.

“Where’d you get your energy from?” I asked, running over to his side. He regarded me with a silent stare. “Not going to tell me, huh?”

When he did nothing else I climbed onto his back. “Since you’re here, can I have some help?”

The Devourer lifted off the ground, hovering above Sam and Riley, so I tossed down the bag containing Beelzebub. “Hold onto this,” I called as we rose higher into the sky. I loosened the drawstrings on the satchel that held the petal dust and poured some out onto my hand, preparing to sprinkle it over the souls.

“But what about the black souls, the ones we don’t want to free yet?” Sam called from the ground.

“This dust will only work on those souls that have hope, a little life in them that can still be saved. The magic in this dust will fail to work on something evil.” I don’t know how I knew, but I did, and I trusted myself.

I nudged the dragon toward the center of the graveyard. I held up my palm and began to blow gently on the dust. At first it didn’t seem to do anything, but then I began to notice this golden glow, this shimmering light that began to fall like gentle rain and spread over the souls. I kept blowing the dust as the Devourer gently flew in a wide arch over them all.

It was magical.

Everything began to shimmer and the ash falling from the sky stopped. The light began to grow brighter and more intense as the dragon touched back on the ground. Sam was there and reached out, lifting me off its back as we all watched in fascination at what was happening. It was a beautiful sight…

Then the screaming started.

It was tortured and loud. The wailing sounds that came out from the glittering gold cloud were nothing short of horrible.

“What’s happening?” Sam yelled.

“It’s the black souls. They’re upset because they’re not being allowed to go free,” I cried, hoping the horrible sounds would soon stop.

Just then the lighter souls began to burst into the sky. Hundreds of them were shooting up and out of the gold. It was a joyous sight and everything we’d been through to get here suddenly seemed small compared to what these souls had been through.

Soon, the gold dust began to thin out and the last of the souls shot into the sky. Golden glitter littered the ground and shimmered, a ray of sun in contrast to all the dead here in hell.

When the last of the souls were free, I turned from the glittering graveyard to see thousands of souls gathered around, almost like they were waiting for me to tell them what to do.

I looked up at the sky, wondering what to do next.

Behind me, Riley let out a low whistle.

“Heven,” Sam called, something strange in his voice.

I looked over my shoulder, out over the graveyard…

It was littered with dead bodies.

“If you’ll just excuse me for one minute,” I told the massive group of waiting souls (like I was some kind of hostess in a restaurant. How was I supposed to know what soul etiquette was?) and joined the guys who were looking out over the bodies.

“Must be the twisted souls that remained chained. Maybe the dust somehow gave them their form back.”

“They would’ve been better off as they were,” Riley said.

Sam snorted. “For once I agree with you.”

The bodies were demons, of course, and demons were never attractive, but these seemed more hideous than the others, probably because of everything they had to endure. I almost felt happy for them that they were now spared the agony of being captured.

“Body removal wasn’t really in my plans today,” Sam said.

It wasn’t in mine, either.

“Just leave them. It’s not like this place would be any prettier without them lying around cluttering up the place,” said Riley.

I wasn’t really sure that was the best thing, either, but it might be our only option. I needed to get the souls out of here and we needed to figure out how to chain Beelzebub.