Exalted (17 page)

“This is for Julia, you sick bastard.”

Beneath his hands, he could feel Methuselah's dry skin stretching,
could feel his throat collapsing.

Heat pulsed from Cayne's chest, spreading over all of him,
engulfing both he and Methuselah in hellfire. Cayne released him, and the deity
stumbled back, screaming.

The scream lasted only a second before his body glowed blue
and he struggled to his full height, one arm over his face like he was staring
at the sun.

“He gave you so much
,” the Celestial gasped.

“No,” Cayne said. “I took it.”

Cayne blasted Methuselah, and then he kept his fist out,
blasting the rest of the room, too.

Methuselah curled down to his knees, murmuring something
nonsensical, and Cayne felt the sweetness of revenge as Methuselah panted and
wheezed.

“I have been betrayed,” Methuselah croaked, gasping now,
grasping at his throat.

Cayne grabbed the Celestial by his brittle, rust-colored
hair, pressing his hands against the once-beautiful face, now wrinkled and
scared. He smashed his palm over Methuselah's dry mouth, enjoying the contact,
enjoying the way his arms burned with simple, human-like strain.

He flooded Methuselah with hellfire, focusing not on the
primal rush of extinguishing a life, but instead on Julia, how much he loved
her, how this was something that needed to be done

When he finished, he felt emptied. Satiated. There was nothing
left but ash.

He stood in the huge, dark, silent room, alone with the
three empty thrones and his wild heartbeat. His body blazed with what at first
he thought was hellfire. A second later, he realized it was simply heat.
Emotion. Odd but...good. Maybe good.

I did it.
Samyaza
was dead. Methuselah was dead. The Stained would bother them no more. And no
Nephilim would dare. They were free.

I did it, Julia.

Suddenly the room shook, and Cayne braced himself.
Is the whole place coming down?

Light spilled down from the top of the pyramid, landing in
a blinding square in the center of the room. Descending in the beam of light,
with dark wings, was a being Cayne recognized as The Authority from the ski
lift. The one who had first warned Cayne of his involvement in Methuselah’s
plan.

Cayne's knees shook, and because the Authority's presence
filled the room. He wondered if this could be The Alpha. But the being came
closer, and Cayne recognized the feel of him.

Hell
.

He felt like Hell, and his great, dark wings were crimson.

A heartbeat later, and there was no denying it: The
Adversary. This was The Adversary, slinking forward, his hand held out.

Cayne's head buzzed so loudly he could hardly hear, and his
father's flawless face bent into a flawless, merciless smile.

“Nicely done, son.” The Adversary looked down at the pile
of ash that had been Methuselah. He chuckled, rubbing one boot in the mess.

“Methuselah was always a fool. And you...” The Adversary
shook his head and made a tsking sound. “So easy to manipulate.”

Cayne shook his head, a large weight in his stomach. “You
warned me on the ski lift…" Methuselah's gasps echoed in his head.
I have been betrayed.

The Adversary grinned. “You wouldn't have taken it
seriously if the devil was the first to tell you you would kill your lover.”

“No! I escaped Hell. This is—”

“Part of
my
plan.
You killed
my
Adversary. Oh, and guess who just arrived?”

Cayne drew on every ounce of power he could find and sent
it streaming toward his father. The Adversary laughed, and Cayne could feel the
molten power flowing from his grasp, leaving him hollow, cold inside. The
Adversary twisted the energy back on Cayne, causing it to burn inside him, a
brutal heat that left him moaning on the ground.

“What’s the expression,” The Adversary jeered. “
Pride cometh before a fall
?”

Chapter Twenty-Four

Julia was clutching Carlin and Drew's hands, with Meredith
and Nathan running up the hall behind them, when she felt it: a horrible bolt
of pain in her head, so striking that her body lost all context, and for a long
second she thought she'd had a stroke.

When she got her senses back, she was leaning against
Carlin. Drew was beside her, helping to hold both girls up, and Meredith and
Nathan were beside them, looking dazed and supporting themselves against the
wall.

“What just happened?” Meredith whispered.

Julia knew: The small space Methuselah had made for himself
inside her head, inside her soul, had gotten a lot bigger. And the great mass
of energy coursing through her...It wasn’t his anymore. It was hers, and it was
in every cell. Awareness flowed through her, awareness of her own potential, of
the conflict her power brought—would bring.

And it was hers now. Only hers.

“Julia?” Meredith asked, anxiously.

“He did it,” she cried, and then she sprinted up the steep
hall, her pulse racing with excitement and anticipation and the heady rush of
Celestial power. Cayne had done it! He had really freakin' done it! Methuselah
was gone!

She was on the brink of shrieking with delight when the
hallway abruptly ended at a collapsed doorway, broken and charred. Julia paused
at the threshold, then stepped in.

Her heart pounded like a bass boom as she glanced around
the huge, dark area, her eyes coming to focus on one bright spot in the center
of the room. A square beam of blinding white light, illuminating...
CAYNE
.

When she saw him lying face down, charcoal wings collapsed
around him in what looked like dried up mud, the first thought she had was that
he'd killed Methuselah, so he
would
be tired.

But there was something in the way his limbs were splayed.
His legs seemed tossed out behind him, and his arms stuck out at weird angles.
His head lolled to one side, and his wings were crumpled in a way she'd never
seen.

Ohno ohno ohno ohno ohno.

He wasn't dead! No way could he be dead! Cayne had killed
Methuselah! She could tell he had!

Her eyes flew to the ceiling, the source of the light: a
hole where the tip of the pyramid should be. Chills spread over her body.
Chills upon chills upon chills, as she remembered all her visions, and the
death in them.

Julia's gaze flew back to Cayne, searching for his aura.
Her stomach bottomed out as her mind argued with itself. It couldn't be; it
was.
It was almost totally gone
.

The silvery light was pulsing weakly, clinging to his bones
as strands so thin Julia could barely make them out drifted up into the light;
if she strained her Sight, she could follow his siphoned aura up, up, up—out of
the pyramid, higher and higher, until it touched the heavens...

Higher and higher until it spread out like spilled water,
separating into strands that glowed with a brighter light:
the net.

There was no thought, no moment when she made a conscious
choice. Later, she would remember dashing forward, her eyes on those familiar
shoulders, those gorgeous wings. She would remember the beautiful-horrifying
second when she grabbed at that power inside of her.

ALL.

THAT.

POWER.

It felt like a bubble bursting open, and she struggled to
control it as she wove it protectively around him, trying to stop whatever was
sucking his aura out, directing his energy up to the net. But she couldn’t stop
it. His aura continued to flow upward, toward the net, and with every passing
second, the bright light of the net became more tangled inside him, a thousand
tendrils rooted in his very essence.
 

“Cayne,” she moaned. She sank beside him, clutching his
limp shoulders. His face was pale and slack. His aura was even fainter than
before, and his many wounds weren’t healing even though she was doing her usual
healing thing. Gasping for breath, she jostled his shoulders. “Cayne, you’ve
gotta wake up! You’ve gotta help me!”

His lips parted, a faint hiss escaped, and then, to her
horror, he stopped breathing. Julia responded in a frenzy. She threw her energy
into his lungs, forcing them to inhale, exhale, inhale. That was when she felt
it: a tug from his aura, soft at first, then stronger, pulling on hers, asking
for help. She gave it to him, pushing healing energy into his slowing heart,
pouring it into his head, all through his limbs; she kept the flow going, and
the room exploded in her healing light.

A sound like thunder clapped as her energy melded with
Cayne's, and she had the sense that someone, somewhere else was helping, was
twisting them together and...tugging. Pulling. TOO HARD. In the work of a
second she felt her aura shrink to almost nothing, and she realized that her
energy was being siphoned off, not
into
Cayne but
through
him—up,
up, up into the tangles of the net, and she couldn't make it stop. Oh, God!

It's happening…

She felt her body droop over Cayne's, her fingers curling,
no longer able to touch his face or hair.

From far away—so very far—she thought she heard her friends
screaming, but the sound was getting softer. She was...losing everything.

Almost...gone.

And then she wasn't. Purple and gold streaked across her
awareness, and a moment later, strong hands enclosed her wrists, hoisting her
body up, away from all that heat, and she heard Meredith's voice, somehow sweet
and lyrical, like she was singing.
“Julia...”

She felt herself tossed: for a moment free from all the
pushing, pulling.

Meredith had pulled Julia away from Cayne, but she wasn't
aware enough to stop pumping healing energy out of herself. As Meredith's hands
released her and someone else's grabbed her, her healing light trailed behind
her like the tail of a comet, filling the room, igniting the air, and pure
white fire was everywhere, burning out the hole at the top of the pyramid,
burning toward Heaven, burning up everything in sight.

It was the end of the world. The net was coming down—just
like all her visions had foretold.

Part Two

Chapter Twenty-Five

Good grief.

Someone was really freaking out.

It wasn't her—at least she didn't think it was.

The dark weight pressing Julia down began to ease; as her
heavy eyelids fluttered, she caught a glimpse of Carlin a few feet out in front
of her, hunched over and sobbing like the world had ended. She wondered hazily
what her friend was so upset about.

Lying on her back, Julia blinked up at the low, dirt-packed
ceiling, shifting her gaze to see the upper half of a small, mud room about the
size of a one-car garage. A bad feeling tugged at her. She felt frantic, like
she was clawing at the walls of a cage she couldn't get out of.

Where was she? What had happened?

Despite the achy, week feeling dragging on her body, Julia
lurched into a sitting position. It only took a second or two. A second or two
to see Carlin leaning over something. To see Nathan sitting cross-legged beside
her, hunched over, moaning and clutching at his short, brown hair. A second or
two to glance to her left, where Cayne lay, pale and dead still, on his back.

Only a second or two for her to remember: Cayne, the net,
Meredith.

Horror reared its hideous head as her mind spun out in
front of her, processing that somehow they'd been tricked. The net had... And
Meredith…

Julia noticed Drew, kneeling beside her. She grabbed for
his hand, capturing only his thumb in her clumsy fingers. “Drew...” Her voice
cracked. She swallowed. “Drew—” she kept her eyes on Drew. Just Drew. “What
happened to Meredith?”
 

His eyes, when they met hers, were blood-shot. His lips
pursed and, with a shake of his head, he scooted closer, blocking Julia's sight
of everything but him. “Something bad,” he choked.

Julia's heart froze, and she hated him for drawing it out.

Hurry up
.

His eyes widened. “Meredith's...Julia...she's dead.”

Julia’s mouth fell open, her follow-up—“How?”—lost in an
involuntary wail.

“Julia!” Carlin was there, throwing her arms around Julia,
burying her face in Julia's neck and sobbing. Drew moved to put his arm around
both of them—but Julia moved out of his reach.

"Nathan," she wailed, whirling on him with her
arms out, "what did she
do
?! I
thought you were going to keep her safe!"

His wet eyes flashed. "I tried," he said, his
voice raw. "She wanted to save you."

"Why didn't you stop her!"

"Don't blame me!" he fumed. "This is his
fault!" he snapped, pointing to Cayne.

Julia saw red. "This is your fault you prick! We
followed him back here, remember?"

"Yeah, because he wanted to protect ME! From
Methuselah! YOUR BFF! Who only had us in the first place because
you
kidnapped us!"

Carlin had stepped between the two of them now and was
slowly moving toward Julia.

"Julia… Nathan. I believe Meredith made her own
decision. This is The Adversary's fault. No one else's."

Nathan glared at her for a moment longer before turning
back to Meredith. Julia forced her tears away and knelt beside Cayne. "What's
wrong with him?"

 
“We don't know,”
Carlin said.

Julia touched his cheek, watching her hand as if someone
else was moving it. She shifted her focus to aura mode, and noted the many
places where he was hurt. Healing him was still automatic, but instead of
getting rid of his knots, her efforts did the opposite. His wounds
grew
,
their silver color deepening to sick dark green.