Spires of Infinity (29 page)

At last she saw an opening when the Apostle raised her sword above her head.

Kari let her arrow fly, but at the exact moment she did, the ground beneath her shook, throwing her aim off. Catching her balance, she looked up just in time to see her arrow graze the Apostle’s gloved hand and fly off into the murky smoke rising from the volcano beyond.

Cursing, she pulled another arrow from her quiver, and drew it back, waiting for another chance.

The ground shook again, this time more violently. Kari lost her grip on the arrow, loosing it with an ominous twang. Jonathan barely ducked in time to keep from having his head skewered on it.

“Hey! Watch where you’re shooting that thing!”

“Sorry.”

Drawing a third arrow, Kari widened her stance to keep her balance in the event of another tremor. She drew the bowstring back and immediately saw an opening.

Loosing her arrow, she held her breath, willing it to fly true. It did, striking the Apostle in the left hip with enough force to spin her around and knock her off of her feet.

Rolling to the edge of the crater, the Apostle teetered for a second before

dropping into the dark depths below.

“No,” Jonathan cried, tossing his massive sword aside and sprinting up the slope.

Reaching the edge a second too late, he threw a hand down to grab onto the

Apostle. Sliding forward, he must have caught her, stopped from going over the edge himself by Michael diving across his legs.

Kari set her bow down and rushed up the slope to help. Reaching past Jonathan, she grasped the Apostle’s left wrist just above where he had hold of her, but it was slick with blood and Kari’s hand slipped away. The Apostle was unresponsive, seemingly unconscious. Searing wind blasted upward with a strong stench of sulfur, and there was an ominous red glow from below.

Trying again, to similar effect, Kari noticed that the Apostle still held her sword in her other hand.

“Drop the sword and give me your hand,” she shouted. “I can’t get a good grip.”

The Apostle remained unresponsive. A tremor ran through her body, like every

muscle seizing up for just a second and then relaxing.

“Not good,” Jonathan muttered. “I think the sickness is coming on her. I don’t think I can keep hold of her if she starts thrashing around.”

“Apostle,” Kari shouted. “Or whatever your name is! Listen to me! Drop your sword and give me your other hand or you’re going to die!”

“Cora,” Jonathan said calmly but firmly. “Cora. Listen to me.”

At the sound of her name, the Apostle seemed to jerk back to herself.

“So much pain,” she muttered, voice mechanically distorted by her mask. “What is happening to me?”

“Listen closely,” Jonathan said. “As Heretics, our Demon halves feed off of our human halves, and the only way to stay alive is to drink human blood every century or two. If you don’t, your body is gonna tear itself apart. Drop your sword and give me your other hand so I can pull you up. Let us help you.”

Another shudder shook through the Apostle’s body and she slipped an inch

downward in Jonathan’s grasp, shrieking in pain.

“Give me your other hand. I don’t know how much longer I can hold you!”

The Apostle raised her sword and turned her head to consider it.

“Never,” she drove the blade into Jonathan’s forearm.

Jonathan made a valiant effort to hold on, but his hand spasmed open and the

Apostle fell away into the murky belly of the volcano.

“No,” Jonathan shouted as she disappeared into the smoke below. There was a

purple flash and then nothing.

Rolling over, he sighed with relief. “She jumped to another world.”

Kari grimaced and reached into her quiver, removing the shard of the Gate and

holding it out to him.

“I don’t think she did. She dropped this in the fight.”

“
Excellent
,” Jonathan snatched the crystal and looped it over his head. “That’s not hers, it’s mine. She took it while I was her prisoner.”

Plopping down beside him, Kari put her arm around him. “I’m glad you’re safe.”

“She really flipped out when you were caught,” Michael grinned. “It was like she was a crying little baby all over again.”

Kari glared at him.

“How did you two get here anyway,” Jonathan asked.

“You should have seen her! She was so completely awesome, drawing huge

complicated symbols all over the floor in the Apostle’s blood.”

“I wonder if we’ll ever see her again,” Jonathan looked back into the volcano.

“She’ll die if she ends up somewhere without people. She needs blood.”

“Why do you care about her so much all of a sudden,” Michael asked. “She
is
the servant of the most evil being in the universe after all.”

“Not only is she completely beautiful,” Jonathan allowed Kari to help him to his feet, “but she’s being used. It’s almost like she’s got the mind of a child and doesn’t really seem to understand that what she’s doing is wrong.”

“That’s no excuse,” Kari said.

“No. But if we can show her how wrong she is, maybe she’ll break free of Cain.”

The ground shook more violently beneath their feet and there was a deep

rumbling from the crater.

Jonathan swayed with a groan. “Sorry, but I think I’m at my limit.”

He slumped against Kari, unconscious, pulling her down to the ground with him.

“What’s wrong with him,” Michael checked his twin for a pulse.

“I don’t know,” Kari climbed out from under her brother. “He doesn’t look hurt.

Maybe it’s from the shock he got when they captured him.”

“Whatever’s wrong with him we can’t stay here,” Michael nodded meaningfully

at the volcano. “We need to get out of here.”

Kari nodded.

Michael slung one of Jonathan’s arms around his shoulders, and Kari did the same on the other side. “Let’s hope that wherever we end up there’s a few beds we can sleep in for a year, and an all you can eat buffet.”

They hobbled down the slope to collect Kari’s bow and Jonathan’s sword before

using their crystals to jump from the side of the volcano to another world.

Chapter 25: Recovery

If the Apostle of Cain could take all of the pain that she’d felt in her entire life and compress it into a single moment, it would still pale in comparison to the pain she felt now. Every single cell—every single atom—in her entire body was being forcibly ripped to shreds. Curled into a fetal position, she tried to push the pain away, but it would not be pushed. Barely able to think straight, she had no idea what was happening to her. She’d never experienced anything like this before.

Was it true what Jonathan had told her? Could drinking human blood sate her

pain? She was not very good at reading truth or lies in the faces of others, but he seemed to have been sincere. There’d been something like concern in his face as she’d fallen away. Why would he show any concern for his enemy? Why should he risk his life to keep her from falling?

If Jonathan was telling the truth, this mysterious sickness should have struck her more than once throughout her life, but it never had. She’d lived two hundred years on the World Closest to Perdition, and another two hundred since leaving.

Had the Council fed human blood to the Subjects without their knowledge?

They’d received regular injections as well, which could have contained human blood.

She’d been injected just before her last duel with Subject 27. Giving them something they needed to survive in secret seemed exactly like the Council. If they ever managed to overthrow their masters, they’d die horribly without knowing how or why. Still, it was such a strange way to stave off illness.

Tremors wracked the Apostle’s body and the pain actually increased. Despite her reservations on the matter, drinking human blood seemed to be her only ray of hope. She was like a drowning woman reaching for a reed.

Prying herself out of the ball she’d curled into, the Apostle forced her eyes open.

Filmy red lines obscured her vision. Ripping away her mask, she thought it must be malfunctioning, but the problem appeared to be with her eyes.

Leaning against a short wall with a railing atop it, the Apostle clawed her way up it until she was on her feet, dropping the sword she’d forgotten she was holding. She thought that she might be atop a wall of some sort.

Yanking the thick arrow shaft from her hip with a shaking hand, she tossed that aside before pulling herself along the railing. She needed a human badly. With pain growing stronger at every beat of her heart, she did not know how much longer she could keep conscious.

“Hey,” someone shouted ahead of her. “Are you all right? How did you get up

here? This area is off limits to civilians.”

Even the act of rolling her eyes toward the voice seemed to drain what strength she had left. The shadow of a man stood before her. Using the rail to keep herself upright, she shuffled toward him, tripping over feet that did not want to obey her anymore. Dropping to her knees, she gasped for breath, fighting hard not to shriek in agony.

She was vaguely aware of the man rushing to her side and trying to help her up.

“Blood,” she wheezed.

“What happened? Did something from the Quarantine Zone attack you? What

were you doing down there?”

Clamping one hand to his throat, she dragged him down to her. Grabbing his

flailing arm with her free hand, she wrenched it behind him so he couldn’t get away.

Pulling him close, the Apostle bit into the pulsing vein in his neck with her fangs.

The hot, thick liquid gushed into her mouth in spurts. The moment it hit her throat something wondrous happened. The pain did not entirely cease, but it did begin to slowly lessen. Her strength began to return to her and the crippling thirst she had not noticed in her pain was being quenched. It appeared as though Jonathan had been telling the truth. It was one more thing to hold against the Council.

The man struggled against her but she did not let him move. A feeling of ecstasy had her in its grip. She had never felt so good before in her life. It was as if the pain in her body had been replaced with its completely indescribable opposite.

Her heart was beating so quickly and loudly in her ears that it seemed like a

single, unbroken roar. And she thought that her tail might actually be wagging like an excited dog.

It was not just blood that was draining into her from her victim, but everything there was about him. His thoughts, his memories, his feelings and emotions all flowed through her like they were her own.

She knew that his name was Kevin Moreley, and that he was an Imperial

Quarantine Guard, set to make sure none of the mutants escaped the radiation poisoned cesspit called the Quarantine Zone. She knew that he had a wife and three children, two girls and a boy. She knew exactly what his wife looked like and how his heart seemed to beat faster every time he saw her face. Most importantly, she knew about the Spires of Infinity. The Spires of Infinity were where the old ones had perfected travel through time and space, but killed the sun as a side effect.

As the Apostle drank more and more quickly, adding to the pleasure racing

through her entire being, her belly screamed with pain, filled beyond capacity, and yet she could not stop herself. She never wanted to stop. From Kevin’s mind she knew to call her pleasure orgasmic in nature. Her life had been nothing but hatred and pain, and this was the first time she had ever felt anything more than that.

She understood so much about humans now, things she’d never even suspected

before. All of the man’s memories were hers, and everything he knew about life and living. It filled in so many of the gaps in her own knowledge and it felt wonderful, as though she was becoming complete in a way heretofore unsuspected.

Abruptly the connection between them vanished, and with it went much of the

pleasure. The blood in her mouth was no longer a glorious elixir, but common blood, tasting strongly of salt and iron.

Shaking the man in her arms violently, she wanted to go back to the ecstasy of before, but it wouldn’t come. At last, she realized she’d drained enough of his blood to kill him. Reluctantly she pulled her fangs free and tossed his body off of the wall, down into the Quarantine Zone. She did not think she had ever felt so good in her life. Not only was she cured of the pain that was tearing her apart, she’d gained valuable information about this world, and about life in general.

Leaning back against the railing, she stared contentedly up at the spectacular sky for a time. The sun was huge and red, and there was a planet hanging equally huge across from it, with a scattering of moons between them, casting circular shadows on the planet.

Relishing in the feeling of contentment, the Apostle massaged her aching belly. It was far distended from normal and she could both feel and hear the blood sloshing around inside of her. It was a decidedly odd sensation, and she thought that she might actually burst with a single swallow more. Still, she wanted to drain another human, and another, and another. She didn’t care if she burst open from it. She didn’t care if it killed her. She just wanted to feel that pleasure again; the connection to another life so much more intimate than anything she’d ever experienced. She knew about males now, and she wanted to find a female to drain, so she could learn about them too.

After a very long time she forced herself to get up. Her balance seemed thrown off by the liquid sloshing around in her belly and she could feel a rapidly growing need to urinate. Retrieving her sword, she slid it into its scabbard, and replaced her mask on her face.

Looking to the west, she saw several pointed spires rising toward the sky on the horizon. The central spire was angled toward the sun and there was a barely perceptible beam of light that seemed to connect it to the giant red orb in the sky. Those were the Spires of Infinity, and they appeared to still be functioning. At long last she’d found what she’d been searching for. She’d found a way to travel through time.