Total Eclipse (36 page)

There was a kind of a path on the downslope that intersected with the stairs, and I led the way down it to the concrete steps.

This was how I’d always come here, up these steps.

This was where I’d seen my daughter die, and the memory still burned, both here and on the aetheric. My heart pounded harder as we ascended, heading for the entrance to the chapel at the top.

Venna stopped. “I have to wait here,” she said. “I can feel it. You three have to go on.”

I cast an uncertain look at David, who was holding my hand. He nodded. “She’s right,” he said. “We have to go alone.”

As we climbed the steps, Lewis said, “There was something you were going to tell me, back at the Luxor. Something about Jonathan.”

“It’s about how he died,” David said. “I told you he died in battle, and that’s true. What I didn’t tell you is that we were losing. Our forces were being slaughtered; the plains were heaped with our dead and dying. Jonathan and his guards—I was one—were the only ones left.”

We reached the top landing. The unnaturally occluded sun seemed to cast a shadow over all of us. Below, Venna stood watching with her glimmering blue eyes, and I realized she’d stopped in exactly the place where Imara’s body had come to rest, broken, when she’d died.

“Jonathan reached out to the Mother,” David said. “In fury, and rage, and desperation. He woke her up. That’s why so many more died. He wanted to destroy everything, including himself. But instead, she . . . took him. Made him Djinn. That’s how he died. I was already wounded, probably dying. He held on to me and dragged me through with him. But she consumed him, Lewis. Body and soul. She can’t do anything else when she’s drawn to a human. If you do this—”

Lewis was very still, listening to this, and I wished I understood what he was thinking. He was usually much easier to read, but now . . . now I didn’t know. My skin was cold, and even though the air was still, I felt phantom winds blowing in this place. The aetheric was unsettled, on the verge of explosion.

“Before we go in,” said Lewis, “I want to say something to both of you.”

David cast a quick glance at me, frowning. “What is it?”

Lewis smiled. “I wanted to tell you that the best man won,” he said. “I would have loved her, but you adore her. You make her better. You protect her, and honor her, and that makes me glad, David. Jealous as hell, but glad.”

David said nothing. I didn’t think he really knew what to say to that.

Lewis shifted his attention to me. “You were the only woman who ever really touched me,” he said. “But I wouldn’t have been good for you. And now we can leave all that behind.”

It was good-bye, and it was final, and I felt the changes in him, in me, even in David.

David silently offered his hand. Lewis took it and shook. I stepped forward, and he kissed my cheek. With his lips close to my ear, he whispered, “You’re pregnant, Jo. Tell me that doesn’t make you happy.”

I gasped and pulled back, staring into his face, suddenly overcome with shock. “I would know—,” I said, and stopped, because I
did
know. I did. I felt it now, that tiny seed of life, still just a cluster of undifferentiated cells. David’s baby, conceived on the ship.
Our
baby.

I looked at David, and I saw the knowledge in his face, too. The wonder. And a little bit of fear. I reached for his hand, and he almost broke mine with the force and fierceness of his grip.

I felt shaky and on the verge of tears, and I didn’t even know why, really, except that there was a sense to all of this of endings. Maybe endings without new beginnings.

“Are we done?” I finally said, and forced a cocky smile. “Because there’s world-saving to be done.”

“Right,” Lewis said. “There always is, isn’t there? That part never changes. Hey, if it’s a boy, name him after me, will you?”

“You don’t have to do this,” I said. “I could try—”

“No. There comes a time when you have to realize that you can’t save the world alone, Jo. You have to let someone else take a shot. And it’s my turn.”

I took a deep breath, forced a smile, took one last look at the blackened sun in the red sky, and opened the door of the chapel. We got on with it.

Imara was standing at the front of the chapel, silhouetted by the giant sweep of windows that displayed the eclipsed sun, the red sky, the dramatic drop of the canyons. It was the kind of view that would make anyone religious, I’d always thought, but right now, all I could see was my daughter, standing motionless in front of all that glory, with sand whipping around her like a tornado. Her black hair was lifting on an invisible wind, and her eyes were just as dark, lid to lid, like a night sky flecked with exploding stars. She was . . . terrifying.

And angry.

“Imara,” David said, and walked down the aisle toward her. “I’m sorry, but we had to come. You know this place won’t last much longer. You’ll fall, and when you do, you’ll destroy. We can stop it, if you’ll help us.”

She laughed. It was a wretched, despairing sound, and it lashed at our faces like slaps. I winced and wanted to turn away; I hated seeing her like this, so alien and far from the child I’d known.
All grown up
, some part of my brain contributed helpfully.
Parents never do understand their children.

“You’re fools,” she said. “I tried to stop you. I tried to tell you, it’s
useless.
I don’t want to see you hurt, don’t you understand? I can’t protect you!”

“We’re not asking you to, sweetheart,” I said. “Please. I know you can hear her. Open yourself up, and let us talk through you. I’m begging you, for the sake of the half of you that was once like me.
Please
.”

“Mom, it won’t
help
, don’t you get it? You think she doesn’t know about humanity? About what it is, what it’s done? This is the reckoning. We all told you it would come.” Imara was crying, black tears like oil that marred her perfect, pale face. “If I open the connection, I can’t shut it off. I’ll be lost. We’ll all be lost.”

Out there, canyons trembled, and rocks shifted, and I saw part of the cliff face opposite shear away and fall to the rocks below. Her perfect sanctuary couldn’t hold.
She
couldn’t hold.

None of us could.

“Please,” Lewis said, and stepped forward. Imara’s black eyes focused on him, and I saw him falter, just a little, before he continued moving toward her. “Please let her see me.”

“She’ll destroy you,” Imara said. “Don’t you know that?”

“Yes,” he said. “I know. It’s the only chance we have. I’m willing to take that risk.”

“It’s not a risk. It’s a certainty.”

I took in a sharp breath, and David’s grip on my hand tightened, warning me not to interfere. We’d done what we could, and now, Lewis had shouldered the burden.

As I’d known he would, from the beginning. This was what Lewis had been saving himself for all along—not his survival, but to be sure that his death counted for something important.

I’d thought, more than once, that he was a cold, manipulative bastard, and that was all true . . . but
this
was true, too. He’d sacrificed others, but he’d done it because he knew, eventually, that he’d stand here, in this place, and be the only one who could change the world.

My heart was breaking to pieces, but I understood.

Imara took in a deep breath and closed her eyes. Behind her, the eclipsed sun exploded back into fiery, full life, burning brighter, brighter, until I had to shut my eyes and turn away from it.

When the light receded, I looked back, and met the eyes of Mother Earth.

They weren’t white. They were all the colors of the sea swirling together, deep blue and warm turquoise and milky jade green. They were so beautiful. So peaceful.

So utterly merciless.

Her gaze held me, and I felt drowned in a vast, astonishing warmth. But it wasn’t acceptance. Everything in me was being emptied out, examined, and found wanting.

The warmth abruptly cut off, and I sank down to my knees, sobbing with longing to feel that again,
be
that again. I thought I’d touched her consciousness before, but it had been nothing like this, this—
power.
I’d never felt anything like it, and I knew that, like the screams of the Djinn, I’d never be able to
not
feel it, on some level. She had taken me, marked me, and discarded me.

Next to me, David slowly, gracefully, bent one knee, and I saw him stare fearlessly into her eyes. Imara’s face took on a hint of a smile, and I felt the echoes of the warmth that cascaded into him, through him, waves of ecstasy that burned even as removed as I was from the experience. Only a Djinn could have withstood that, and even David finally bowed his head, trembling and shaking.

She fastened that deadly, warm, perfect gaze on Lewis, and I heard him let out a sound that was something between a sigh and a moan. His body went rigid, head thrown back, and light streamed from him in golden flickers and flows, cascading into Imara.

Into the Earth.

“No,” he said hoarsely, and with a huge effort, he
stopped.
He denied her.

I couldn’t imagine how that was possible, but he
did it.
He advanced toward her, until they were no more than a foot apart, and Lewis said, “You can’t have me. Not like this. Not if you destroy my people.”

The sea-blue eyes slowly blinked. “Your people chose this,” she said, and her voice was vast and bell-like, and the windows behind Imara shattered in a hail of glittering shards that fell away into the canyon. Wind whipped in, and I saw storms forming, black and furious. More of the canyon cliffs opposite fell away as the land rocked and shifted. The wooden pews in the chapel burst into white-hot flame and burned to ashes in seconds. “They were warned.”

Lewis was shaking now, and he fell to his knees in front of her, but his fists were clenched. “No,” he gritted out. “Let them live. Let us live. You owe me this.”

She laughed, and it was the harsh, ripping sound of claws, the whisper of feathers, the roar of lions. I was terrified, and so small, so very small before the power in this room.

The power that Lewis still resisted.

“I owe you
nothing
,” the Mother said. “You owe me everything. And I will have it in payment for pain.”

“That’s what you want!” Lewis shouted, and somehow his voice rang louder here, in this place, than hers. “But I know what you need!”

I had no idea how he could be doing this,
talking
to her—Imara was the only one who could have made that connection, amplified his voice to a level where it could be heard and understood by something as enormous as Mother Earth. Only Imara could have enough humanity left in her to bridge that gap. The other Oracles couldn’t; even the Djinn couldn’t, without being destroyed.

My daughter’s birth, her death, her raising as an Oracle—all of it was a plan. A plan so vast, so complex and I could only now see glimmers of it, and the beauty and tragedy of it choked me with tears. This wasn’t the Mother’s plan.

This was something greater, and more astonishing, and just for a moment, I glimpsed the hand of God.

“Then what do I need?” the Mother hissed, and I heard a multitude of snakes, felt the burn of venom in my arm again.

Lewis didn’t hesitate, and I have no idea how much courage it took, how much fear he had to overcome.

He stepped
into
her, kissing-close, and said, “You need me.”

For the first time, I felt Lewis unleash the full range of his Earth powers, and my
God
, it was like nothing I’d ever felt before, from any Warden. It was pure, animal seduction, and it came from a place in him that I’d never known existed. He wasn’t surrendering to her. He was
seducing
her. I felt the overwhelming heat of it wash over me as a reflection, an echo, and I swayed on my knees and almost went down.

This was what made Lewis unique among Wardens. This was why he’d been born in this age, so that he could stand here at this time, and do something no other human on Earth could do.

Remind the Earth that nature was more than tooth and claw, death and pain.

“Hear me,” Lewis said, his lips hovering just a fraction above hers, his body radiating that passion. “We are part of you. Part of everything. Hear me.”

He was swaying a little, side to side, and she swayed with him. It was a slow, hypnotic dance, and the sand whirling around my daughter’s body slowed its angry rotation, slipping and falling in a red rain to pool around her bare feet.

“I hear you,” she said, and it was Imara’s voice, my voice, the Mother’s voice, the echo of millions. And there was a kind of drugged wonder in it. “
I hear you.
”

“Then feel me,” Lewis said, and kissed her.

The light that exploded from them should have burned us alive, it was so purely white. Even with my eyes shut, my arms blocking the glare, I could see the two of them standing there together, swaying, merging, dancing.

David let out a sharp cry and got to his feet—not a cry of alarm, but one of triumph, of joy, of absolute
relief.
And all around him formed Djinn, the Djinn I had known, the ones I had never known, the ones who’d been my mortal enemies. Venna came, and Rahel, dozens more, and more, and more until the chapel was full. Their eyes were burning not with white, but with a pure gold.

The light slowly died at the front of the chapel, and Imara and Lewis collapsed to the floor. She lay in a pale heap, hair covering her face, and as I watched the sand slip back over her in a whispering blanket, I knew she was still alive. Still an Oracle.

She opened her eyes, and sat up, staring down at herself—and at Lewis.

He wasn’t moving.

I saw the grief move over her face, and she reached down and put her fingers on his cheek, very gently. She looked up at me, and I knew instantly that Lewis . . . Lewis was gone. The flesh that lay there was empty, the soul taken.