Everlost (The Night Watchmen Series Book 3) (35 page)

EVERYTHING IS SPINNING INSIDE THIS vortex of pain, swimming in an inky darkness, but I swallow it down and put it into the magic I use to compel the shadowblade forward.

He isn’t expecting it. The blade pierces through his chest, the force propelling him backwards until he slams into a tree. His black eyes are wide, but only for a moment. A cold, cruel smile climbs across his face as he looks down at the blade impaling him to the tree. Tar-like blood trickles down from his nose and the corner of his mouth.

“A shadowblade?” he says, amusement dancing circles in his voice. He tries to grab the hilt of the blade, but every time he touches it, his skin sears and the smell of rotting flesh permeates the air.

Doubt prickles at the back of my neck. It didn’t kill him. Only wounded.

That’s good enough for me.

“Be careful, Faye,” Jaxen says, watching through my eyes. “Weldon’s almost there.”

“I’m not sure how long this will hold,” I say back.

I see him and the others rushing from the armory, heading for the woods, and release a pent-up breath I didn’t know I was holding. They’re coming. This is going to work. We’ll have not only Clara, but Bael too.

I walk over to him, stopping just at the wall of demon fire I can’t cross with confidence lining my lips. “You shouldn’t have come here,” I say venomously.

His lips pout. “Why? Was I interrupting something? Something like your silly training with the defected wolves? Or maybe it was your plots and schemes against Clara and the Coven? Or your childish daydreams that you could actual destroy a machine such as the Exanimator? Or the touch-and-go relationship between the irrational Gramm brothers and their heretic mother who took my gift and spat on it.”

My stomach rolls in on itself as I realize this isn’t the first night he’s been here. He’s been watching. Gathering information.

Plotting.

The symbols that formed from the spell Katie, Jezi, and I performed to protect the house, the dark spell that came from Katie’s Grimoire, they flash in front of my eyes, controlled by Bael. A reminder of why dark magic is always a bad idea. Evidence that Cassie was right about everything. We led him here.

I
… led him here.

He bares his teeth with a smile. “Yes,” he says, watching my every horrified expression as the truth unravels itself. “Those symbols you girls used in that spell... that’s my language. You called, and I came. I’m always watching. Waiting. Always close by, Faye.”

I shake my head.

“And I must admit, I did enjoy watching you flourish. You’ve come a long way since we last met, wouldn’t you agree?” He locks eyes with me, all signs of amusement disappearing. Grabs hold of the hilt as the magic in the blade sears his skin, and then pulls it out. “But, still, not far enough.”

The blade drops to the ground.

“Jaxen!”

I gather enough energy around me, using my magic to help, and put up a solid barrier between the fire and me.

Bael stops. Touches it with his finger. “You can’t hold this forever.”

“Doubt only fuels me,” I say fiercely, unwilling to let him break me. I keep pulling, tugging on anything and everything I can, and then I feel a certain dark energy entering me. A dark energy I’ve only felt a few times before.

Darkyns are nearby.

Bael slams his fists against my barrier, and the force behind his power feels like blows to my stomach. But still, I hold strong. I won’t let him get the best of me. Not again.

“Enough of these games!” he shouts as he tries to claw his way through my magic. “I’ll burn this whole forest down. Kill every living thing in a fifty-mile radius, until your magic fails you and you have nothing to pull from. Is that what you want? Death for many more innocents?”

I try not to smile… to let on that he has no idea about me. None at all.

“Remove your shield, and I’ll remove mine.”

Anger flares across his face.

“Were you not paying attention to my training? My reach is further than you can even begin to understand,” I say, never backing down. “I’m not the same girl you encountered in the cave. I’m stronger, and I’m going to kill you, Bael.”

At least, I hope,
I think to myself.

“You can take him, Faye,”
Weldon says through my mind.
“I’m close, but you can take him. His magic isn’t as strong in this plane. Push hard and you can take him.”

Beal’s laughter forms a circle around me as Weldon’s words fill me up with much-needed hope. A cruel smile twists at the corners of his lips. “You really think you can kill me?” he repeats, sounding like I just spoke a language he’s never heard before. “Really, Faye? The king of hell can’t be killed by silly fluxes, shadowblades, or sparkling stigmas. I thought we’ve already been over that, back when—” He points to my leg and fire licks up my skin, searing the scream lodged in my throat. “Back when I taught you the first of many lessons to come. Lessons that I suppose, once again, I’m going to have to spell out for you.”

I bite the inside of my cheek. Dig my fingers into the palms of my hands. Anything to redirect the crippling pain he’s putting me through as I continue to absorb as much Darkyn energy as I can. I feel body after Darkyn body dropping somewhere within the forest as I take every last breath they have.

“Faye, you’re pulling too much! Don’t do this! Wait for Weldon. We’re right behind him!”
Jaxen says, and I feel him trying to break my connection, but I’m too strong. Too absorbed with the need to put an end to this. To show Bael that I’m not someone he can trample over.

“You seem to forget,” I shove out through chattering teeth, ignoring Jaxen’s pleas, “that I was the one who got away. I was the one who took the Dagger from you. I bested you, Bael. And now I’ll do it again.”

I close my eyes, feeling like a balloon that’s one breath too full, and then let it all go.

The energy I’ve absorbed pushes against the wall of demon fire as if it were nothing more than a breeze. The flames turn blue, and then sizzle out, leaving nothing between us but the chilled night air.

Bael is fully aware now of just who he’s dealing with.

“What’s wrong?” I say with a smile. “Not as strong as you think you are?”

He constructs another wall of fire, and I push the energy I now control against it. He’s pushing back. It’s a match that I’m determined to win. That I’m sure I’ll win, because the energy around the forest is coming in steady waves. He made a mistake bringing Darkyns with him, but I won’t say otherwise. I close my eyes. Give one final shove against the flames, and then watch in relief as they falter until there’s nothing left again.

With invisible fists of energy, I wrap them around his neck and lift him up into the air, and then, I squeeze. Alarm widens his eyes. Forces his hands to reach out for something he won’t be able to grab a hold of, and it fills me up with a crazed happiness I’ve only ever felt with Clara before.

Satisfaction. Dark satisfaction.

As everything except killing him fades away from me, I feel his power growing dimmer from misuse in this plane of living. “You’re weak,” I say.

“Tempor…arily,” he sputters out.

I reach out for more energy, ready to make good on my promise, when I feel something sharp pierce my shoulder. I stumble back a step, but I keep pulling. Keep my focus on killing Bael, when another sharp pain pierces the side of my stomach. This time, when I stumble back from it, I trip over a root and lose the connection I had on Bael.

“Faye!” Weldon calls out as my senses slowly begin to return to me.

Blood. It’s everywhere.

“Damn it, Faye! Did you not hear the first gunshot? Let alone the second?” Weldon yells as he drags me behind a large tree and palms the wound on my side. Blood gurgles up from in between his fingers, and I think I’m going to vomit pain and horror.

“I-I’m shot? Who?”

He’s shaking as he presses harder against my stomach. “One of the fifty or so Darkyns piling up behind him. I swear you have a death wish. Either that, or some insane urge to put yourself in positions you shouldn’t be in. Especially not alone.”

My heart drags its feet as my brain desperately scrambles to catch up.

“Heal yourself. Quickly,” he says. “We have to get out of here before he gets back up.”

I risk a glance in Bael’s direction. He’s trying as hard as I am to catch up with what just happened. To place the pieces where he needs them so he can regain control again.

“Faye!” Weldon yells harshly at me. “Snap the hell out of it! Heal yourself, damn it!”

“If you’d stop cursing at me,” I say back as I focus on healing my stomach wound. Inch by agonizing inch, my flesh binds itself back together.

“Jaxen’s going to kill you, you know.”

“He’ll have his turn when Bael’s done trying,” I say hotly as the hole in my shoulder seals shut.

Weldon snickers under his breath. “You know, I admire your total commitment to being a badass chick. It’s kind of hot.”

I turn on him. “Are you hitting on me?”

He flinches back. “Don’t flatter yourself, mouse. You couldn’t handle all of this,” he says, running his hands down his body as if he’s on display.

I shake my head. Turn at the sound of leaves crunching.

“Ahh… Weldon,” Bael says, his hands rested on the openings of his suit jacket. He’s feet away from us now, with only the blood from the gaping wound in his midsection as evidence of his near-death experience. “How kind of you to join us on this lovely night. I was trying to explain what a pickle Faye has put you all in and offer that we settle things in a more compliant way, but you know females,” he says with an eye roll. “They never listen.”

“What are you talking about?” Weldon asks as we make our way to our feet.

Pleasure forms wings on the corners of his lips, lifting them higher and higher. “That nifty little spell the Coccia girl did… the one that called for blood and demon sigils… it led me here to you. All because of her incestuous need for her Grimoire.” He looks at me. “I don’t understand the emotional ties you humans make to material things. Your parents aren’t in that.”

A smile glints in his eyes as he gives his words time to settle between us.

“But I know something you don’t know,” he sings, enjoying the pain creasing my forehead.

I swallow a heartbeat as my stomach cramps. One question burns its way up my throat. Sears against my tongue as it presses against my lips for release. I’m fighting against it, trying with all my might to refrain from asking, because if I do… if I’m given the answer I’ve longed to know, then there will be no more hoping. There will be no more guessing.

Because knowing the truth is a double-edged sword waiting to stab you in the back. It’s a blessing and a curse. A relief and a heartache all wrapped up in a pretty little package that we, as humans, can’t help but unwrap.

So I force my eyes to open, to harden, and ask. “My parents…are they…are they alive?” I hate that my trembling voice is sadly unrecognizable. Heat rushes in a multitude of waves over my body as flames rise up in front of him and begin to swirl. I’m forced back a step, using my forearms to shield my face as forms take shape within the flames.

I swear the world stops on its axis and everything—gravity, nature, reality—all of it collides against me as the forms of the two people I’ve longed to see again finally appear when the flames die down. I gag on terror when I realize it’s my parents… burning, burning, burning… with no end in sight. I just wanted to see them once more… but not like this.

All rationality is shoved out the window.

“Noooooooo!” I yell out as I lunge for them, feeling my own skin on fire. Feeling like I could plow my way through anything, even Bael, just to get to them.

But Weldon snatches me back, clutching me firmly by the crook of my arm. “It isn’t real, Faye. They aren’t real,” he’s saying in my ear, but all I can think about is how the earth should be shattering right now, splitting open from the fiery depths, ready to swallow me whole. And I’d go willingly if it would pull them from their hell.

I force myself to look up and regret it as soon as I do. Their screams. Their blood. The horror in their eyes. It sticks to me like tar on my soul. It’s gutted me from the inside out. Trapped me inside a coffin filled with tiny creatures in the shape of each one of my nightmares, picking and tearing at my skin.