Fall From Grace, page 28
part #9 of the Preternatural Chronicles Series
The incredible bolt of lightning that shot out blinded me in an instant as the crack deafened me. All I could do was hold the hammer up, willing all of the energy I had collected to rush in a steady stream toward the portal and the monster trying to enter through it.
My ears were attempting to repair themselves when my bones started reverberating inside the prison of my flesh. Teeth chattered, and my sternum brutally vibrated, making me think my entire skeleton was going to explode. I knew, then, that the monster was screaming in pain. And that was just fine with me.
The soft orbs of my eyes finished healing, as did my ears, and I looked up to see my impossibly thick bolt of lightning pushing the writhing mass back through the portal. Arcs were breaking off to latch onto the gateway itself, dancing across the surface and making it glow a reddish-orange where it burned.
Sucking in another breath, I dared to give even more of myself into the attack, and sent a shock wave of power rushing up the lingering bolt of lightning.
It smashed into the monster, and the last of the tentacles were sucked back in as the writhing mass was pushed away from the portal, roaring in rage as it did.
Seeing the doorway was empty now, I focused on breaking off the singular bolt into thousands of smaller arcs with another deafening crack of thunder, willing the energy to latch onto the steadily weakening gateway.
The portal shimmered as sections of the circular doorway were burned with elemental electricity infused with my own angelic power.
With another scream that bulged the cords in my neck, I sent heavenflame up each arc of electricity, catching the entire gateway on fire. Oh, how it burned!
The heavenflame took over where the lightning had started, and hungrily ate at the portal with merciless vigor.
“Looks like my God wins! HAHAHAAAA,” I bellowed as the portal flickered before collapsing with a pop that sent a shock wave racing downward.
“Oh…shi—” I started to say before a wall of air that felt like bricks smashed into me and sent me careening straight down.
Unfortunately for me, this time, I was strong enough to feel when I impacted the ground, my face staring up at the clouds as they slowly began to dissipate, letting the sun shine through.
I was vaguely aware of a humming sound that ended abruptly, and I was able to roll my eyes enough to the side to see Locke dropping his protective spell.
Magni rushed over to me, followed by Locke. Ulric stood his ground, clasping his hands behind him once more as he regarded the sky.
“John! John, are you okay?” Magni asked, taking off his mask and setting it on the ground next to me. His time dilation crystal hung from around his neck, tapping my arm as he crouched down and laid a hand on my chest. I also saw that the silver necklace was still around his neck.
“I…I think I landed on my keys…” I groaned as I somehow managed to lift my head from the crater I had made and looked down to see my knee was bent in the wrong direction. “Oh, never mind,” I exhaled, dropping my head back against the broken ground.
Magni threw his arms around me, tight, and was shaking with shuddering breaths.
“Hey, it’s okay, buddy. You’re okay,” I told him as I tried to stroke his hair with an arm that apparently now had two elbows.
“Let me help you with that,” Locke said, still holding his wand as he walked around to the side of me that now had bones made of soft rubber.
Pulling my arm straight with a crunch that made me gasp, Locke ran his wand up the length of my forearm, concentrating as he mumbled words of healing. I could feel the bones starting to knit together, but it wasn’t to the degree I was accustomed to in regard to healing prowess.
“Trying to get better,” Locke admitted with a tinge of pain in his voice as he moved to my knee. I wanted to ask him about it, but decided that could wait until later.
I opted to stare at the clouds as I heard and felt the crunch of bones being repositioned.
“Boy…that just feels lovely.”
“Did you really yell out ‘John On’?” Locke asked with a smile he didn’t try to hide.
“Hell yeah I did. It’s what you say in the face of advertisements.”
“You mean adversity.”
“That’s what I said, abdominals.”
“Thank Merlin your brain isn’t affected,” Locke said, his smile growing wider.
“It is done, then?” Ulric interjected tensely, sucking all the fun out of the air like some sort of, like, fun-sucking monster.
Remembering the man I hated—and feared—was nearby, I found the strength within myself to push my healing body up to a sitting position.
I looked at him with a stony expression, doing my best to not project the hate I felt for him on my face. After all, it had been Ulric who had made it possible for me to save Magni from the Ether. If not for my maker’s newly revealed ability to enhance the powers of others, I knew I wouldn’t have been able to overcome the might of the Ether.
I wanted to say thank you, but I also yearned to say fuck you. As a compromise, I decided to keep my mouth shut, and only nodded in affirmation to his question about it being over.
“Good,” he said aggressively while taking a step closer to where Magni still clutched me tight. “Now, let us kill him.”
“What?!” Locke and I yelled at the same time.
“You saw the thing that almost broke through. The child will remain susceptible to being overtaken by the Ether, and must be destroyed to prevent that.”
“We killed the Ether. You saw it!” I exclaimed.
“You think there will not be others?” he asked while taking another step forward, eyes growing crimson as his staff grew in his closed fist.
“Stay back,” I hissed, standing on still healing legs. With a wave of my good arm, I forced Magni behind me and next to Locke, keeping my hand on his upper chest.
I winced in pain as the bones and joint in my leg popped, giving Ulric all the distraction he needed.
Because I knew Ulric, I had anticipated this and already begun preparing my body to act.
In the span of a fraction of a second, I pushed Magni away with my hand while snatching the silver necklace from around his neck, whipping it toward Ulric.
Ulric saw the attack coming and manifested his angelic armor, which covered him completely from head to toe, unlike his battle robes.
But I knew something he didn’t.
Alfred had shared with me a file that said the silver necklace, coated in various symbols, including celestial ones, had been meant to cancel the might of any angel below the rank of Arch.
As the weapon wrapped itself around Ulric’s neck, the ends snapped together, and something different happened.
There was a pop that wasn’t from any of my repairing bones. The noise took me by surprise, as nothing like that had happened when I used the necklace on the Ether.
Then Locke’s words about the Elders telling him the necklace would help save Magni came to mind.
I mentally palmed my forehead when I realized I had, once again, been played by those who knew more than me.
Ulric gasped, stumbled, and dropped to a knee as he reached for the weapon that hung loosely around his neck, his staff toppling to the ground as he dropped it.
“Nuh-uh,” I said like a mother catching their infant trying to eat a penny, stepping forward to grab both of Ulric’s forearms.
Locke rushed up behind me and snatched the staff that had the Spear of Destiny at the tip before returning to stand back with Magni.
“What…what is this?!” Ulric demanded with unsure gasps of breath.
With ease, I began slipping off his angelic gauntlets and tossed them on the ground behind me.
Ulric continued to breathe unsteadily as stunned, wide eyes searched all around for an answer that wasn’t there.
I further removed his helmet, boots, and finally, his chest plate with the pauldrons made from Joey’s and Dawson’s skulls. I was careful setting those down, intent on returning the bones to Depweg.
Ulric’s breathing steadied as he got the hang of it.
“What have you done to me?” he demanded between breaths. His hands moved up to his chest above where his beating heart pounded away inside a prison of flesh and bone.
“Made you human, bitch,” I asserted with a tone that was surprisingly flat. You would have thought I’d be ecstatic to the point of doing an Irish jig at capturing Ulric and bringing him to the weakest he had been in his long, long unlife.
But all I could think about was Lily.
I knew, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that Samael would force a trade; his general for my beloved.
Footsteps over shaky rocks, boulders, and pebbles caught my attention. I turned to see Greg being followed by the very naked Depweg and Meli walking toward us over the uneven debris. The only thing they wore were the identical necklaces, with Meli’s having been looped once or twice to hang at her chest. Depweg held the nine-inch nail in one fist, the static no longer dancing over the metal.
“Depweg!” I called out excitedly, wanting to rush toward him but unwilling to leave Ulric, even if he was only a human while in Faerie. That, and my leg wasn’t healed enough to run on just yet.
POP. Okay, never mind.
Depweg turned to Greg and returned the nail to him, now that it was no longer needed.
I looked at Greg and nodded my appreciation as he stuffed the nail in his satchel. He returned the gesture with the slightest downward tilt of his head.
Several more footsteps clattered over the loose rocks from behind the weres, and I leaned to the side to see a group of Fae following them.
Exposed skin of all colors was covered in dirt, or blood. Downtrodden faces peered at the ground, and I didn’t know if they were watching their steps or were just demoralized from losing even more of their kind.
When he was a few yards away, I mouthed to Depweg, “Is that it?”
He gave a single, somber nod of his dirty but uninjured face. Meli, on the other hand, had sustained several wounds, though she was still able to stand upright. Then I remembered the virus I had injected my friend with, and knew he had merely healed faster than those around him.
His human eyes peered at me, and I could feel the coldness they projected prickle the skin on my neck. It was like looking into a shark’s eyes. I could feel the rift between us behind his gaze, like he was looking at someone he could stand less and less to be around.
Looking down at Ulric, Depweg’s scowl furrowed even deeper, and he returned his gaze to me, asking a wordless question.
“He’s our prisoner, now. We can keep him at the church until we know what to do with him,” I explained.
I waited for Depweg to counter and point out that Ulric had already escaped once, so what would keep him from doing it a second time. But he didn’t. Instead, he went right for my heart and plunged the dagger of his words deep.
“We already know you’re going to give him up to save Lilith.”
I noted that he used her biblical name, which signified an empty chasm where an emotional connection should have been.
“I…” My words failed me, as I knew he was right. My subconscious had already decided and was now confirming the notion with my conscious mind; we were going to save Lily, by any means necessary.
From the ground in front of me came a throaty chuckle that made my fists clench until they popped.
With a look of rage and disgust on my face, I peered down at Ulric, who wore a shit-eating grin on his stupid face as he stared right back with green, human eyes. It took me by surprise, as I had never even bothered to consider what shade his eyes had been before accepting his dark gift.
“And I can’t let you give him back, John,” Depweg finished with a dark tone of finality that held absolutely no room for negotiations.
Without telling them to do so, my eyes flashed crimson as my furious gaze lifted from Ulric to Locke to Depweg.
“Fuck…you…” I rumbled with words that sounded like they came straight from Satan in his nightmarish, demonic form.
“John…” Locke urged softly from behind. Even with a single word, he managed to convey an entire novel’s worth of meaning by using only his pleading tone.
“Ha ha-ha-ha-ha-haaaa! What will you do, boy?” Ulric chided from where he sat on his knees. “Save Lily, but lose me? Or keep me hostage, knowing this was precisely what Samael wanted all along.”
My focus fell to him, and I could feel my face beginning to distort. A tightness pulled back on the tip of my nose while my ears grew warm and fangs elongated until they threatened to poke through the bottom of my jaw.
Resting the back of my open hand on his shoulder, right where his neck connected to his torso, I tilted my head and grumbled, “I’ll burn everything…to save her.”
Ulric, sensing the sincerity of my threat, let his face transform with a grin of delight.
“It would seem you and Samael have similar temperaments,” he said, loud enough for all to hear. “If you do not get what you want, you will burn it all to the ground.”
I continued to stare at him, face contorting into what I knew to be bat-like features.
“What are you going to do, John? Kill me? You will hand Samael the keys to jump-start the prophecy with my death. When the last vampire walks the Earth…”
The air around me grew tense as Depweg took an offensive stance with his hands open in preparation for the claws to burst through his skin.
From behind, Locke’s wand could be heard as the air sizzled around the tip.
The Fae looked at one another, silently asking if they should flee.
The ones that dared to gaze upon me held a look of barely restrained terror, as if I was the bad guy threatening to destroy them.
Which I was.
“Do it, John. Open the gates of Hell,” Ulric purred.
Slamming my eyes shut, I took in a deep breath and forced my hand off of Ulric’s shoulder.
Using much more focus and will than I thought should have been necessary, I finally wrangled my face back to neutrality.
Letting out the deep breath in a long hiss, I opened my purple eyes to see Depweg hadn’t relaxed his posture. Though I did notice that the air no longer sizzled from where Locke stood behind me.
Turning without a word, I dropped to one knee and manifested an ivory bag big enough to hold the entire set of angelic armor, intentionally showing Ulric my back to mock how helpless he was. It was a little win in the shadow of his words, which had cut deep.
Piece by piece, I aggressively shoved the armor belonging to Val inside the bag, pausing when only the torso with the skulls of the were twins remained. On each shoulder was the identical head of Joey and Dawson, each with their jaws open in a perpetual scream.
I wanted to show them to Depweg and let him decide what we should do with them, but after what he had just said to me, fuck him.
Shoving the chest plate into the bag, I cinched it closed, stood, and turned back to the man I had called friend for almost a century.
“Find your own way home, asshole,” I snarled as I grabbed the scene around me and prepared to shift.
Everyone appeared to relax instantly when they saw that I was about to leave, until Murphy’s Law reared its ugly head and spit in all of our faces.
49
The sound of warping and stretching caught my attention just as I was about to shift planes, and the entire group looked to a spot in the air about thirty feet up and fifty feet out from where I stood.
“The fu—” I started to mouth as Mjolnir flew from my hip, nearly ripping me in half as it burst toward a bubble in the sky. It was like watching someone trying to push their face and hands through a wall made of cellophane.
I recovered quickly, grabbing my side to make sure my pelvis hadn’t been ripped off, and watched as Mjolnir zipped toward the anomaly.
A hand ripped through the bulging bubble, and my hammer expertly positioned itself into the closing fist.
The woman finished tearing a hole through the literal fabric of reality, a scream of incoherent rage growing, like letting your fingers slip on the volume knob and blowing out your speakers.
“Hayley?” I asked with a dumbfounded expression as I watched her wild eyes lock onto Ulric.
“BASTARD! YOU TOOK THEM FROM ME!” she shrieked like a banshee as the now normal clouds above began to darken and rumble with impossible speed. “DIE!”
A fury-filled bolt of lightning fell from the sky to Mjolnir, which enhanced and redirected it at the mortal kneeling on the ground.
I stood completely frozen, like nothing more than a spineless statue, and watched as the lightning tore through the sky and toward Ulric.
“NO!” Depweg cried out as he shifted to his enormous were-pire form in less than the blink of an eye and dove forward, catching the attack directly, sparing the now human Ulric.
The lightning violently crashed into the giant wolf, filling the air with the noxious aroma of burning fur and singed flesh.
Ulric dove forward as the twelve-foot-tall Depweg tumbled end over end, tearing up the loose debris on the ground as if it was nothing more than varying sizes of cotton balls pretending to be rock and stone.
Something grabbed my ankles, and I looked down to see Ulric staring up at me, shouting, “Release me! Or Lily dies!” There was fear in his eyes now, and I took a mental screenshot to capture the moment.
My stomach plummeted as my surprised face dropped to a painful frown, knowing he was right. If Hayley—rightfully—killed Ulric…then Lily would be sacrificed to fulfill the prophecy.
“Release me!” he shouted again as Hayley dropped her attack, landed on the ground, and prepared for another.
The clouds grew dense enough to blot out the sun completely, just as effectively as the rock formations created by the Ether had done, and I knew her next attack would be even more powerful than the first.
Hayley’s hair, which normally went all the way to her waist, floated as if she were a vengeful spirit no longer tied to the rules of gravity. Her voice sounded like nails on a chalkboard.
“YOU KILLED MY HUSBAND! YOU KILLED MY BABY! DIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEE!”
