DARK SOULS (Dark Souls Series) (39 page)

“You monster!” she said, howling. “You disgusting monster!”

“You’re going to have to find new words to describe me,” I said as I turned my head to the side to spit out her blood, “The monster crap is getting old.”

With that, I used the immobile chains on my wrists to help my body lift my legs up high, fighting hard against the pain that lashed through me as the symbols reacted to my every movement, and clamped them around Gwyn’s waist, using the muscles in my upper torso and the stability of my shackled wrists to raise my body up further and slam her into the wall above me before bringing her back down hard upon the ground, one leg pressed firmly against her neck and the other held firm behind her head. The symbols glowed harshly, reacting to my physical efforts by scorching their own power through my body in a blinding attempt to stop me. I bit down on my cheeks hard, refusing to scream in agony in front of them. My legs trembled as I forced them to continue pressing down on Gwyn’s neck, but I wouldn’t let them see. I would fight against my weakness. I would fight against them.

Liam and Asher reacted quickly. They were already positioned to fire something back at me, Liam probably preparing to call upon his ice-wind and Asher... I wasn’t sure what he could do. Yet. Regardless, my voice halted them both.

“Release me,” I said, feeling a little piece of my soul drifting away. “Or I’ll snap her neck.”

“You don’t mean that.”

I tried not to react to his voice. Asher was coiled like a predator, ready to leap forward like a snake, but his eyes had softened when I looked over at him. I wept inside at seeing the Asher I knew look back at me.

“Emily. You don’t mean that,” he said again.

“I don’t want to,” I admitted, my voice shaking. “But you’re leaving me with no other choice.”

I sensed movement to my left and tightened my hold on Gwyn’s neck. She cried out, causing Liam to stop in his tracks.

“If something happens to one of you, you all lose,” I continued, my voice tremulous. “Don’t make me do it. I don’t want to do it.”

This caused Asher to look at me with confusion, conflicting emotions flickering across his face as he tried to understand my words. I jumped at his hesitation and continued with my desperate attempt to persuade him. “I’m telling you the
truth
, Asher. I don’t want to do this.” A sob escaped my throat. “But if I’m forced to, I will. Let me go.”

I saw Liam look over to Asher, who kept his gaze on me, steady and in control. I latched onto his gaze, trying to convey to him my internal conflict.

“Please,” I said hoarsely, never taking my eyes off of Asher.

He gave an imperceptible nod over to Liam. It was enough for Liam to release his stiff, defensive posture and walk over to me, laying his hands across the iron cuffs at my wrists. The pain went away immediately when the symbols faded, though I still remained bound against the wall.

“Back up,” I said to him as soon as he finished.

Liam hesitated, as if daring me. For a few short seconds I had to try to come to terms with myself that I might have to kill two of them, but he eventually relented and moved back to his position beside Asher.

In one fluid motion, I untangled my legs from Gwyn and broke through the now plain iron cuffs and chains, sending them clattering across the floor and landing at Asher’s feet. I gave him one last, longing look filled with heartache before I slammed through the cracked concrete wall behind me, rising up from the ground and into the night.

In those last final seconds of looking at Asher, I knew, without a doubt, that he was just as tortured as I was, that he felt just as connected to me as I did to him.

I didn’t for one second believe, as I flew through the night with tears sliding off my face and dissolving into the wind, that he would follow me into my dark abyss.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

I was wrong.

I felt Asher slam into me from behind, sending us sprawling and rolling hard over the deserted street. It must have been those rare few hours before dawn, when the city streets actually emptied and the sounds of cars became even more faint. The streetlights flowed over my body as I hit the curb with a thud, my left shoulder cracking under the impact, but healing just as quickly now that those symbols weren’t affecting me. I flew upright, facing him before he could attack me again.

There he was, my light, standing across from me, his breath coming out in short bursts as he regarded me with his head lowered, his arms out to his sides and his hands clenched into fists.

“You know I can’t let you go, Emily,” he said, his eyes once again flashing silver.

“You know I can’t let you kill me,” I replied. “Not yet. Nobody,
no one
knows who I am anymore. My kind no longer exists. What you know of me could be wrong. Maybe I am
good. Maybe I can beat this.”

“I can’t take that chance with you. You know that.”

“You don’t even know what I
am
.”  

“But you know what I am.”

His voice, so flat yet filled with so much emotion, as if he were, before my very eyes, accepting the conflict within himself and finally choosing a side.

“You’re the Hunter,” I whispered, my voice strangely calm as I said it, my dulcet tones rising with his true name on my tongue. “It’s your voice I’ve been hearing in my head. Every time...every time I confront a demon.”

“Yes.” He paused, and I saw him wrestle within himself before finally saying, “And therefore your enemy.”

“I’m not just a demon,” I replied, still strangely determined to convince him that I was not evil. That I was not becoming my darkness.

She seethed within me, twisting and writhing. She wanted out, and soon. I wasn’t sure, with the Hunter in such threatening proximity to me, how much longer I could hold her. My heart tore at the thought of hurting him.

“You’re a demon,” he said. “I can’t ignore it.”

“You know me, Asher. You’ve seen me as I am. I’m not my darkness. I’m me, I’m Emily. You’ve got to trust that I can fight this.”

He shook his head, and I sensed the sorrow in it. “It’s not my choice. You can no longer live, Emily.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. I
am
meant to live.”

I said it with such conviction that my heart rose up with my words and began to harden, creating its own protective shell in preparation for what was going to be a long, hard journey to find myself and ultimately, to cure myself.

With everything that had happened in this one short day, I had finally found the answer to the most important question: I was going to live, and I was going to fight. I would prove to everyone that I wasn’t a monster.

Our exchange of words was over. I could tell by the rigid set of his shoulders that my pleas weren’t going to break through his convictions. I stood at the ready, prepared to fight him but never to kill him. I would do what I had to, but I would stop short of killing him.

The dark flame pushed against me in defiant fury.

Asher stood frozen, and I remained in my position, confused. Trepidation crept down my neck, Derek’s teachings of the Hunter’s invincibility coming into the forefront of my mind as I eyed Asher warily.

He stared hard at me, his silver eyes beginning to glow an unnatural sterling as the ground began to rumble beneath our feet.

My eyes widened in shock when I felt a pull within me, almost like a magnet as my tendons began to stretch like accordions, reforming themselves into taught strings under my skin as they were forced to move forward by Asher’s silent command.

I wouldn’t let him see me cry out in pain as my body fought within itself. I stumbled forward, my feet betraying me as they pressed toward him.

And then, just as suddenly, it stopped. My tendons snapped back into place and I had control of my limbs once more. I looked up at him in suspicion, unsure why he gave me my control back, and it was then that I knew.

Staring back at me, with glowing silver eyes and an elongated mouth filled with sharp rows of deadly teeth, stood Asher. His skin blazed with an effervescent light that I had come to know all too well.

He had absorbed my power. He had mirrored my demon.

That was his weapon.

Asher became a blur as he flew towards me and grabbed me by the neck in one swift movement, his arm lifting me high in the air as his hand dug into my throat and began to cut off my air supply. 

My body instinctively fought for survival as I tried to ignore the spikes of burning pain from his hand on my skin. My legs clamped around his waist and forced him off-balance, sending both of us toppling to the ground and rolling sideways. I threw my hands up in defense, attempting to push his fangs away from my neck at the same time that I tried to twist away from him. I grimaced as my body and mind were torn in two. My body was expending copious amounts of energy trying to escape Asher while my mind fought to hold my darkness at bay.

She battled against me, ricocheting through my head and screaming to be released. My focus was forced to turn to her. She used that to her advantage, coming to the surface in quick bursts, my eyes flashing with her power and then receding as I tore between battling him and holding her back. She was becoming stronger and her black smoke was beginning to cloud my weakening mind. My body slackened only momentarily as I used all my energy to send her spiraling backwards in one giant surge of white flame.

In that instant, Asher could have seen his chance. But instead of bracing myself against a vicious strike as he took advantage of my distraction, I was suddenly clutching at the empty air around me.

I looked around in surprise, unsure where Asher went or if I had somehow unintentionally evaporated him. I stood up unsteadily, my body poised to fight this new, unseen threat. The silence of the night blanketed over me, broken only by my heavy breathing as I shakily scanned my surroundings.

The silence was shattered when I heard a rush of air above me. I looked up and saw Asher barreling towards me, his eyes flashing like lightning as he thundered out of the sky.

I twisted my body and shot sideways, just barely escaping the impact as he crashed into the asphalt and sent chunks of hardened tar flying across the roadway and into the cars that were parked on either side. Car alarms wailed, lights turned on in apartments. I had to end this before we were discovered.

I used my heightened abilities to burst forward, becoming a blur as I shot upwards into the sky in an attempt to escape him.

I couldn’t keep fighting him. If I did, I would probably kill him.  

I heard him behind me and tried to veer left when my ears pricked up at his oncoming presence to my right.

I really should have known better than to think I could outmaneuver him.

He sensed my movements at the same time, and was able to preempt me. I was unable to evade him in time and he crashed into me, sending both of us sprawling onto a high-rise rooftop.

I writhed away from him and into a standing position, stumbling over the divot we created and the cracked concrete around it as I tried to leap forward and into the night again.

My only choice was to run. I couldn’t fight him in this weakened state—as Emily Chaucer. I couldn’t fight his dark demon without my own darkness, but I wouldn’t set her free. I couldn’t watch as she killed him.

All she wanted to do was kill him.

I clenched my teeth at the pain she shot fire through me, and I buckled. Her flames became too much for me and I began to topple to the ground. I braced myself against a stone wall as I fell, crying out in agony and defeat.

He was upon me in seconds, his body shrouding mine as his hands sunk more fire into my neck, his fangs mere inches from my face.

“I’m...I’m sorry...Asher,” I fought to say through my struggle for air, my eyes sheening over with terror and anguish as he clenched tighter around my throat, the burn of his skin on mine shooting straight into my heart.

Through the pain, I lifted my hand and cupped it around his face, this time expecting the blaze of agony at touching his skin, but none came. Astonished, I let my hand remain, trembling and cold against his soft, curved cheekbone.

As my last breath escaped me, my eyes softened on his.

He faltered.

The darkness shot forward.

She took me over as fast as a crack of thunder, my muscles hardening, my mouth reshaping into a lethal weapon. She tore away my hand that was cupping his face and sent my elbow crashing down onto his forearm, loosening his vise-like grip on my neck. He pitched forward and she caught him by his neck before lifting him up and throwing him over me, sending him flying to the very edge of the building, his feet sliding over and dangling in the air for a few, frightening seconds. My heart ached as I watched him pull himself back onto the roof, struggling to stand, scattering broken shards of concrete as he staggered out of the debris.

My body pulsed, the last three demons fueling my darkness to such an extent that her power reached new heights. I battled to regain control, but her strength was unparalleled.

Before Asher was able to right himself, she cupped my hands in front of me and I watched as black smoke started to unfurl between my fingers. I felt the air around me thicken as the black smoke formed into a swirling dark cloud above.  Before I could even fathom the true nature of her growing powers, she hurled the black storm cloud into Asher, sending him crashing back to the edge of the roof. This time, his whole body flew over, his hands clutching the edge as he dangled fifty-stories over the city.  

Don’t kill him!
I cried.

The darkness barely listened as I felt my body make its way towards him. As my body peered down at him, my feet so close to his trembling fingers, he looked up at me, and my stomach twisted painfully at seeing him so broken.

But I didn’t have to worry for long.

Once my body was close enough, he shot up and slammed into my mid-section. We flew backwards, blasting back onto the roof, creating another deep gash as we landed.

When he touched me, once again lacing his fingers around my neck, his skin furiously burned through me. I gasped at the pain as the darkness reached my hand up to touch him in return, forcing my hand around his neck and feeling his Adam’s apple give way beneath my palm. This time, it burned him just as badly. All three of us trembled in pain, yet we didn’t release each other.