The Deception Dance (40 page)

“Do not worry, Raven, after I open the
gates, I will probably get the five million souls I need to bring you
back in a month. Those Tapper brothers ruined everything I wanted for
us, we need a fresh start.”

Of course it would end this way.
For
a demon, the ends always justify the means.
Stephen knew, knew the moment he was thrown beside me, that Andras
would murder me to get his 'ends'. He wasn’t signaling for me
to stop Chauncey, he was telling me to escape.

For every two steps I take backward he takes
one forward but he’s keeping pace with me, his bloody sword
drips at his side.

“I confessed my sins, I’ve been
absolved,” I lie. “I’ll go to heaven!”

He shakes his head and says almost tenderly,
“That is not true, and even if it were, it would not matter,
Raven. You have been marked: you promised me that if I went to Hell,
you would follow me; and I’m going to Hell, now.”

The dream, I said that in my dream. I touch the
back of my neck, “That...that was just a dream.”

“It was not a dream. You said it,
promised it to me...”

“Not in this lifetime!”

“That does not matter, it was binding for
eternity. You are marked, you are mine, for eternity.” His arm
reaches out to my neck but I dodge him.

“I dreamt it...” I inhale, “…we
were lying together, and you had a different face. We spoke Swedish.
I told you I’d challenge the devil for you...”

My back hits a wall.

Something,
everything
clicks, like a key fitting into its lock. “I dreamt it while I
was in Leijonskjöld Slot...”

He swings the sword up.

“Where you couldn’t influence
me...”

Andras hesitates, his black blade stabbing the
air, while glaring down.

“Those dreams, those memories, they came
from
me
.
I remembered our past lives in my dreams;
you
didn’t give me those memories.”

He is surrounding me, the wall at my back, his
wings at my sides and his sword above me, but it doesn’t
matter; he’s no longer leading this dance.

I know, now; I know exactly what to say, how to
take the lead. “I remembered you with love, so much love...”

His sword lowers, not at me, to his side.

“It was your eyes; I remembered your
sparkling eyes. That’s why, in this life, I thought to trust
you; that’s why I wanted to love you, because of my dreams...
my love dreams.”

Andras takes a step back. A smile flickers
across his face.

“You’re right, Andras, we do need a
fresh start.” I step forward. “You do it; you bring your
blade down.”

He shakes his head, he’s walking backward
now, losing ground, and I match his steps.

I demand, “Give me a new life, Andras.
Give me a new life!”

He sheathes his sword back into nonexistence.

“And I’ll have new dreams... dreams
of hate!” I bite the word at him.

He halts, the tip of his nose singeing while
his body moves up and down with heavy panting.

“And when I see your emerald eyes again
I’ll only think one thing...I’ll think:
run
!”

His sparkling eyes open wide.

I smile a cruel unforgiving smile. “And
then, finally, I’ll be free of you!”

Andras’s giant black wings burst into
flame; each feather igniting white-hot, popping into flame one after
the other. Andras’s head thrusts forward elongating and
morphing. The bird features and feathers bubbling out. He looks like
the fearsome gargoyle masthead of a boat with sails out and flaming.
Where his face had been a giant black beak opens.

I only get my hands up in time to muffle the
screech he directs at my face. I can feel the floor shake underfoot.
His rage is palpable, emitting from him hotter than the fire. A
pillar crashes down from the colonnade smashing down and spaying
marble behind Andras. It is followed by three more.

His caw is deafening, even muffled by my hands
on my ears.

I’ve had enough. I scream right back into
his face. This scream, the scream that’s been lodged in me
since Andras came crashing into my life, rips out of me.

We stand there, screaming into each other’s
faces. Our rage, our frustration, burns like the fire in Andras’s
skin.

How I hate him.

How I’ve loved him.

How I want him destroyed.

Destroyed like this building, Copenhagen City
Hall, which is crashing down around us. Hell might have swallowed up
Chauncey and father Dixon and Denmark and Sweden and millions of
innocent lives but I’m not letting it take me.

When Andras’s features snap back to
human, he slumps down to the floor.

I don’t stop screaming. I let my hands
curl into fists and drop to my sides, I scream until the sound
disintegrates in my mouth. It feels fantastic.

Andras pushes back to his feet.
The burns have crept up to his eyes, down to his fingernails and have
encircled his toes. The little bit left of his once giant wings still
flicker with flames.

He coughs out, “You told
me, you would make a deal.”

“Yeah,” my voice is
also choked and croaky, “That was before you stabbed Stephen.”

He slumps farther, almost
toppling toward me, “You will, or you will not?”

I don’t have a choice,
really. I nod, “I will. But these are my terms: you can’t
kill me and you have to not open the gates of Hell!”

His eyes, the only part of him
beside his hair not blackened, fix on me, “And for that, if I
do what you say, you will not fall in...” He coughs, “Fall
in...”

“Fall in...
love
,”
I supply.

“...with anyone, until I
return.” His voice, movements, everything about him seems
unsteady; he probably doesn’t have a minute left until he will
burn out entirely.

“Alright!” I nod, “If
you leave me alive, do not open the gates of Hell, break the seals of
Solomon, or ascend in your demonic form I will not fall in love with
anyone until you have returned to earth.”

“And you will give me
another chance. When I have a new body you will spend a month with
me...”

“No.” I say,
pleading, “Maybe, a week...”

“A month. You will spend a
month with me, I will not negotiate.” His eyes blaze into me
but his body teeters from side to side.

I bite my lip and inhale, “Okay,
it’s a deal.”

“If I do leave you here
alive and do not open the gates of Hell, do not fail me, Raven. If
you do, I will ascend in my true form and the first person I will
murder is the man you care for." He grins; his face is
completely charred and webbed with fissures. His green eyes stay
fixed on me. “Don't even dare to hope that you will ever escape
me."

"That's what you think,"
I say, lowering my head to glare at him, “We’ll see. I
will
never
love you.”

Andras eyes narrow on me, and
then he stumbles closer. He’s all but burnt out, even his halo
of blond curls smolder. He straightens his body to its full height.
“Now come. Would it not be fitting to seal our deal with a
kiss?”

Do I need to? I didn't need a
kiss to seal that deal before. I have no doubt that kissing him will
sear like hot coals on my lips. But … He probably only has a
few seconds left, at best. If I don’t kiss him will the deal be
off?

I close my eyes, lean forward and
kiss his broiling mouth.

Automatically, his fingers tangle
into my hair, pulling me into him. I beat at him, struggling to get
back.

I’m burning. My hair is on
fire. I smack at his arms, kick at his legs, trying to pull free…
to struggle out of his grasp. I scream. He either doesn’t
notice, or doesn’t care.

Large chunks of my hair burn off,
sizzling in the air.

Andras clasps me tight to his
flaking chest, he whispers, “If there is no chance to change
your mind, I don't want to leave you. No, I think I will take you
with me.”

Then he erupts into a blazing
column of fire.

All I see is a blazing white
light. Somehow, I don’t feel any pain, I’m beyond feeling
anything. I think I’m dying… again.

Then I see fire lick along my
skin like a thousand sharp tongues, yet, I feel nothing. Where I had
before smelled rot and ash, now, I smell nothing. I taste, and hear
nothing
.
The individual flames coalesce and all I can see is white, a blazing
light, all around me.

My senses extinguished, all I am
is individual thoughts in a column of Hell fire. But, my thoughts are
clear, loud in this inferno. I know I am in a blazing column of Hell
fire, strangely, I recognize Hell fire as easily as I recognize water
or ice or air. And, I know Andras is still here; even though I can’t
sense him by any of my five senses, but I know that he is still
present. Perhaps he has no corporeal body, but his malevolent spirit
still waits; waits for me to die, so he can drag me into Hell.

I feel another presence too, not
a conscious one, a vacuum nudging against my unfelt body, an
energetic hook.

I’m not afraid. Strangely
the vacuum feels comforting, familiar.

Andras’s spirit suddenly
beats against my consciousness, and I feel his hunger. No not just
hunger, a fathomless misery and emptiness that starved for me as if I
could fill it, save it. But the more his spirit hammers against me,
the more I see it, conceive it... his presence claws into me, wraps
around me.

His spirit clings on and drags my
soul toward that vacuum. But my body isn’t releasing my soul,
and suddenly I feel something. Air. I’m breathing. It fills a
chest I can now feel. And then there is a steady rhythm, a heartbeat,
in my chest.

Then, yet another presence
emerges, not Andras, not the vacuum, neither sentient nor devoid of
sentiency. Me, but not me. Alive, but not alive. Without my
permission, my mouth opens, and then stretches, larger and larger, so
impossibly large. The vacuum seeps inside me, and for whatever
reason, I let it. I feel the void, the emptiness within me; my eyes
are pits, my mouth a cavern.

I hear my voice (though I am not
speaking) say clear echoing words, “Silly demon, Hell fire
can’t burn me. I am the lies, the void, and the dark; you want
to find a way into Hell? You’ll find one through me.”

From Andras I feel a clear, pulse
of emotion, s
hock
;
right before I let the coils of his spirit sink into me. I consume
him, he doesn’t even resist.

The void pulses, pushing at the
confines of my body, making me aware of every inch of myself. I flex
my fingers, and then use them to scoop at my chin, which feels as
loose and boneless as a rubber sheet (if such a thing exists). I
gather the folds pulling them up to my upper lip. I close my eyelids
millimeter by millimeter over the pits where my eyes should be, until
my upper and lower lids connect.

“Let me out,” my
voice says; but, as I am literally holding my mouth closed, I know
I’m not speaking. It whispers, “Open me.”

No.
I think at it.

“Aren’t you curious?”

No, no, no, no, no…

“You are so weak, so
pathetic, your body fragile and aging. Any human can kill you. Don’t
you want to be strong?”

No, no, no, no…

“I will be unleashed, it is
written. If you are the one to unleash me, I can give you everything
you want.”

No!

My chin, that had been rubbery
folds in my fingers, merges together, bones solidifying under my
touch.

The presence, or more the
absence, that had filled every inch of my body snaps closed; it’s
existence, in me, extinguishing.

When I feel my eyeballs reform
completely, I open my eyes; they are weighed down with a chalky
powder.

At first, there is only the color
white; but colors emerge, surfacing as if they float up from the
bottom of an ivory pool. First I see the orange, red and blue of
fire, then the grey of ash. The ash piles on my eyelashes, I feel it
sliding off me. I am surrounded in it, like a perfect even circle of
snow, with me at its center.

I stand, feeling powder slide
down my back, chest, legs, and arms. I step through the circle,
leaving footprints in the soot. Without really understanding, I step
into something wet and look down to where powder is drifting off me
and settling into Stephen’s pool of blood.

When I look down to where
Andras’s fire had been, only a ring of soot remains, with my
foot prints leading from the center. There is nothing of Andras, not
even a surviving feather. Stephen and I are alone.

Stephen
,
the name wakes me like a punch to the cheek.