Revelations (Bloodline Series) (22 page)

“What’s
going on?” I cried.

“She
is a traitor! She’s against us all! She
has
been working with
Ballantine!”

I
turned to look at Eligos; his face was now full of sadness and panic.

“No,
get it right
Lucifer
,” Keira mocked, her eyes also glowing. “I
will
be working with him. I haven’t done anything...
yet!”

“This
can’t be,” Eligos said in a low voice.

“Keira,
why are you doing this?” I pleaded.

“Because
Ballantine is right! I understand him, and I
agree
with him!”

“Whether
you agree or not, you cannot betray us like this.”

“I
will follow my heart.”

“Then
you will die!” Lucifer shouted at her.

“I’m
not afraid of
you
,” Keira laughed.

That
pushed Lucifer over the limit. He bombarded her with energy balls, but
miraculously she managed to dodge every one of them. Eligos attempted to run
over, but Lucifer raised his hand and Eligos stopped dead in his tracks. He
tried to move, but it seemed his feet were glued to the ground. Lucifer turned
quickly to look at me.

“Lilith,
do
not
make me do the same to you,” he roared.

While
his attention was on me, Keira used the opportunity to attack. She threw
electrically charged plasma at him; it seeped into his skin and he winced with
the pain.

“See,
you’re not impervious to harm. You may be all big and powerful...but so am I.”
She laughed. “Allow me to demonstrate!”

She
threw more plasma at him, but this time he evaded it all. His temper was
growing. At first you could tell he hadn’t
really
wanted to hurt her; he
was hoping to talk her out of it all. But his attempts were useless; her mind
was set. I wanted to intervene, but Lucifer would find a way to stop me. In this
I was powerless.

Lucifer
raised his hand, and she rose with it, unable to free herself. He shot energy
at her, causing her to cry out in pain. My stomach sank. Eligos was shouting
like mad, all sorts of profanity escaping his lips. I could hear the people
close by shouting and screaming at the horror of it all. The king and the
princess of Hell locked in battle…this could never have been foreseen.

Once
he’d attacked he threw her against the palace wall. He didn’t intend on giving
her any time to recover; lightning struck, but she rolled out of the way before
it hit her. As another bolt charged toward her she disappeared, only to
reappear in front of Lucifer. She slammed her hand against his chest, sending
him flying across the courtyard. He quickly gathered himself and glared at
Keira. The ground began to shake violently, so much that the walls of the
palace cracked in places and bits of stone and dust began to fall.

“Oh,
so scary,” Keira laughed. “We can all do
that.
”

The
ground was now shaking so violently that it began to crack and split. People
screamed and tried to run before they fell into the open voids. A large crack
began to appear underneath Keira; she noticed it and raised herself from the
ground. Eligos was freed, and we managed to get further away from them.

“Lilith,
we need to do something!” Eligos shouted to me.

“I
don’t know what
to
do!”

“You
can’t do anything,” Keira said, turning her attention to us. “This is what I
want.”

Just
as we were about to speak to try and reason with her, Lucifer attacked her
again. He shot towards her, rage in his eyes, moving so fast that he turned
into a blur. As soon as he was in front of her he reached inside her, his hand
disappearing into her chest. She screamed out in agony.

“No
Lucifer...STOP!” I screamed. I knew what he was doing; he was reaching into her
soul. He was going to rip it straight out of her and destroy it. “Please stop!”

“Lucifer,
no!” Eligos pleaded.

He
didn’t listen, and Keira’s screams grew louder, until all of a sudden a
brilliant white light surrounded her skin and Lucifer was sent flying
backwards. The angel inside her was now free.

“Do
you think you can get rid of me so easily?” She shouted to him. “Did you really
think it would be
that
easy? You seem to have forgotten about this side
of me!”

Lucifer
went to attack her again, this time with an energy blast, but it didn’t even
get close to her. She stood there laughing at him for a moment before raising
her arms up on either side of her. White flames shot up in front of her. She
looked over the flames towards Lucifer, an evil smirk appearing on her face.
Even though what was happening was horrific, she looked amazing, so powerful.

“Ha-ha!
Keira, it seems it’s not only I who is forgetful,” he began.

“Oh
no!” I gasped.

“You
seem to forget what I truly
am.” As soon as he’d finished speaking his
eyes turned from rich, ruby red to electric blue.

“Oh
my....” I couldn’t even finish my sentence.

Keira
eyes went wide, and for a split second I thought I saw panic on her face. She
threw her hand out in front of her, sending the holy flames soaring towards
Lucifer. He laughed out loud as they travelled towards him, then put his hands
out in front of himself to create a barrier. The flames hit but couldn’t
penetrate it. She stopped the fire and readied herself for her next attack, but
Lucifer sent orbs of light, pure ultimate raw energy, one after another
straight at her. She was able to dodge and block some of them at first, but as
soon as one hit her she fell to the ground.

“You
see Keira, anything you can do, I can do...only better!” Lucifer snarled.

“Yeah?
Well, I can do one thing you
can’t
do!”

“And
what is that, exactly?”

“This!”

A
second later she was gone. She was right…the only thing she could do that
Lucifer couldn’t was leave the realm. I breathed a sigh of relief; she was free,
and he couldn’t go after her no matter how much he wanted to. That made me feel
a little happier. I knew she had betrayed us, but she was my daughter and I
still loved her. I didn’t want to lose her.

Needless
to say, Lucifer was furious, and Eligos disappeared straight after Keira. I
tried to approach Lucifer, but it was a stupid thing to do. He vanished before
my eyes. I looked around…there were a lot of upset people staring at me.

“Go
about your business!” I ordered.

All
of them scurried away quickly. I knew they were concerned and probably very
confused, but the last thing I wanted was to be explaining everything. I called
for one of the guards and asked him to round people up and start repairing the
damage done to the courtyard and palace walls. I was lost now, numb; I couldn’t
think straight. I just wanted to crawl into a corner and not come out.

Chapter 27

Come
With Me

Keira

I
reappeared in front of my house. My adrenalin was still pumping and I was
shaking from head to toe. Even though I’d acted like I wasn’t afraid of
Lucifer, the truth was, I was absolutely terrified. How could you not be? Then
things went from bad to worse; Eligos appeared in front of me. I’d never seen
such sadness on his face…on
anyone’s
face, for that matter. My heart
sank and tears filled my eyes. I tried to go closer to him, but he backed away
from me.

“Eligos,
baby, please just—” I tried to say.

“I
need you to tell me that none of this is real; that I’m just having a nightmare
and any minute now, I’m going to wake up.”

I
stood there, silent.

“Tell
me that, Keira,” he pleaded.

“I
wish...I wish I could.”

He
couldn’t talk; it was like he wanted to say something, but the words just
wouldn’t come out.

“Eligos,
please, you need to understand why this is happening. You need to hear me out.”

“So
talk.”

“This
isn’t full scale war like we thought it was—it’s being done out of love.
Ballantine lost someone he loved.” I briefly explained the reason behind the
attacks, and what would happen in the end. All the time I was talking he stood
perfectly still and silent.

“You
actually believe this?” he asked once I’d finished.

“I
have no reason not to. You haven’t spoken to him; you didn’t see him, the
sadness in his eyes. Even Lucifer told you half of this story. He’s a good man
Eligos…Lucifer said
that,
too. He just doesn’t ever want anyone to have
to go through the pain he did. He still hurts now, every minute of every day.”

“Everyone
experiences loss Keira; as terrible as it is, it’s part of life.”

“I
know that.
He
knows that...but what if we could stop it? Do you think if
people out there knew what he could do—if they knew they would never have to
lose someone forever like Ballantine did…like I have with my dad—don’t you
think they would want this to happen?”

“This
is how it has always been. You cannot mess around with this…loss, love,
happiness, and sadness are emotional responses, ones that everyone ever born
will feel, and have
every right
to feel. You cannot take that away from
them.”

“Do
you think people want to be sad? To be ripped away from the people they love? Or
get to Heaven and realize that, even though they had believed they would get to
see their loved ones again throughout the rest of their lives, actually they
won’t? Do you have any idea how hard it is to deal with the fact you will
never
be able to be with them, see them smile, hold them? I would give anything to be
able to be like that with my dad again, and my granddad. Ballantine can give me
that...he can give
everyone
that. How the hell can that be considered
wrong
?”

“Because
it is!” he snapped.

“I
disagree.”

“Keira,
since the dawn of time, this is how life has been. There are reasons why
everything works this way, and whether you agree with them or not...it’s how it
is. If you continue with this, you will lose everyone. Lucifer
will
send
people to kill you Keira, make no mistake about that...is that what you want?”

“He
can send whoever he wants; I’m not going to run from them, or hide; if they
want a fight they will get one. I’m sorry, but I can’t go against this. I feel
too strongly about it all, and I agree with it. I couldn’t kill Ballantine now
anyway, not now that I know the reasons behind why he’s doing it. Maybe Lucifer
shouldn’t have made me ask him. Maybe he should have just let me attack and get
this over and done with. If I hadn’t known Ballantine’s reasons, I couldn’t
have sided with him.”

“So
you’re saying this is Lucifer’s fault?”

“No,
not entirely, but he was the one—”

“How
dare you Keira? Seriously, I mean...oh come on!”

“Eligos,
you’re the last person I want to upset. I love you, you know I do. I’ve never
wanted to hurt you, and I certainly don’t want to lose you,” I said, getting
emotional. “So that’s why I’m going to ask you to come with me.”

“What?”

“Please,
come with me.”

“How
can you ask me to do that? How can you expect me to turn on everyone like that?”

“I
don’t want to lose you,” I told him, tears now escaping my eyes.

“And
I don’t ever want to lose you, I want you forever,” he said, taking my hands. “That’s
why I’m begging you not to do this. Please Keira...don’t leave me. I’d rather
die than lose you.”

“I
can’t—”

We
were interrupted by Lily and Beth. Both came over to us with smiles on their
faces. When they saw me in tears, their happy faces turned to ones of concern.

“What’s
going on?” Lily asked.

Neither
of us answered her. I was starting to get worried again now.

“Hello,
what’s going on?” she said again.

“I
need to tell you all something. I need—” I started

“Keira
no, please...don’t do this,” Eligos begged. “Please.”

“Okay,
you two are really starting to worry me,” Beth added. “Can one of you please
tell us what’s going on?”

“Is
everything okay?” Tyler asked as he walked out with Lucian and Jake. “What’s
going on?”

Their
changed personalities shocked me. My stomach sank; I knew telling them was
going to be hard, but I didn’t think it would feel
this
bad. None of
them had been particularly nice to me lately, even though I was hurting too. I’d
hoped that the ill feelings between us would have made this easier.

“Keira,
you look upset. What’s wrong?” Lucian asked as he got closer to me.

“Keira,
please don’t,” Eligos begged again.

“I
need to tell you all something—” I tried to say.

“Keira
no, no!”

“I’m
leaving.”