The Hierophant (Book 1 in The Arcana Series) (28 page)

— 60 —

We meet them at the waterfront, sun fully set and streets dead silent but for the distant hum of traffic and the present murmuring of the Zee. My feet fall flat against the wooden slats along the boardwalk. I can hear the water tossing, persistent, against the concrete support struts beneath us.

There are about ten Zee gathered here, men and women clad in both bohemian garb and old suit pants and waistcoats, hair bound up in scarves and shimmering with bangles, or gelled back like slick businessmen. A woman with black curls and ruby lips is holding a rope tied around Kyla’s neck, sizing her up like a horse at a market. She touches one of Kyla’s dreadlocks, and then her face, her lips.

Kyla’s upper lip curls into a snarl. She stares dead-eyed into the night, eyes no longer black but dark brown. She sees me, and frowns, brow creasing, shaking her head.

“Ana, no!” She shouts. “Get away, don’t—”

The red-lipped woman yanks on the rope, choking Kyla and yanking her back. Andy laughs.

“Don’t hurt her!” I yell, moving to rush forward.

Trebor holds me back. “Ana,” he whispers, mouth close to my ear. “Please. You don’t have to martyr yourself.”

“I’m not,” I try to convince him, though I haven’t yet convinced myself my barely-a-plan-at-all will work.

“I can’t let you make this trade. As much as I love you and as much as I care about Kyla, if the skinwalker has your living body, the danger to us all would be too great.”

I squeeze his hand, but don’t take my eyes off of Kyla. “You have to trust me, Trebor. Please.”

I can’t see his expression as he considers my words, but after a moment he squeezes my hand back. He holds on for several seconds, before I feel him nod and let go.

“Little Ouros,” the old woman—Madam Cevaux—calls to me, milky eyes faintly glowing as they stare past my shoulder. “It looks like we shall be completing this transaction after all.” She looks like a heap of rags as she hauls herself to her feet, leaning heavily on her staff. “Oh, you brought a
friend
.” She snickers. “The
Irin
.” Her snicker becomes a cackle. “Oh, little Irin, little Ouros. I wonder if you truly appreciate the irony of your situation? Hmm.” She smiles. “No matter. It will all be over soon.”

I frown. She’s a liar. She must be a liar. My mother was
not
Zee. She was not Sura. She was human. She was good.

“
Any
way,” Andy says impatiently, spreading his arms. “Shall we trade? A dreadlocked Indian princess for a rather tall red-headed witch?”

“Sounds like a fair trade to me,” Madam Cevaux purrs.

Andy shakes his finger at Trebor. “No interference now, Trebor the Troublemaker. My companions will be watching.” He grins, and three hellhounds slink out from behind the gathered Zee.

I turn back, only for a moment, barely able to focus on Trebor’s face as I whisper “
Believe in me
,” and kiss him swiftly on the cheek. Then I turn away and move forward, not waiting to see his expression before I go. I hear him follow a few feet behind, footsteps heavy.

Kyla stares at me as I move towards her, as the red-lipped woman holding her leash leads her forward. I hold lace my fingers together, hold them in front of my stomach as if carrying something, and try to tell Kyla with my eyes what my true intentions are, but I’m not certain she understands. I see a flicker across her face—a solemnity falls over her, replacing fear. She nods, ever so slightly.

The red lipped woman offers her hand to me, the rope to Trebor, and we both take what we are given. He falls back, tugging off the rope from around Kyla’s neck. I swallow as much fear and feelings as possible and let the woman lead me away from them, over to the skinwalker and Madam Cevaux.

“Since I don’t want to risk killing you again, Madam Cevaux is going to help us instead,” Andy says, brandishing a dagger—the dagger I used to kill Ishmael.

Without ceremony, he takes my hand, holds the cold blade against my wrist—already rust-brown with my own dried blood. I press my lips together as it bites through my skin, a short slip along a bulging vein. My heart shivers; my knees tremble.

My mouth begins to move in prayer.

Andy holds tight to my hand. Madam Cevaux’s papery fingers wrap around the part of my other hand not guarded by my bloodstained cast. She presses her other palm to Andy’s chest, over his heart.

I clench my jaw and close my eyes to keep my mouth from moving too much, air barely brushing my lips, my tongue, just enough to give the slightest sound to the words, summoning ancient power inside of me. The dark magic in Madam Cevaux crawls into me, burrows like maggots under my skin while I breathe deep, sucking in the light and life of the living world around me, focusing tightly on the brilliance in my bones. I harness my magic—
human
magic—and implore it with the prayer I’ve prayed a thousand times, before I knew that magic was real.

“
Shama Irin,
” I mutter
. “Shama Iritz. Shama Naghim. Shama Irin. Shama Iritz. Shama Naghim. Shama Irin…
”

There is a pause, an inhalation—and then magic flies out from me in all directions, invisible but felt, like a sonic boom.

The skinwalker’s grip tightens on my hand. I open my eyes to see Madam Cevaux’s face strained, her milky eyes rolling back into her head. Andy’s eyes are squeezed shut, the knuckles of his free hand pressing against his skull.

“
No
,” he growls.

The hellhounds whine, and the Zee begin to murmur and move about around us. Then, I hear Kyla chanting also, the fierce whisper of her words meeting mine across the distance.

Fingers of darkness reach farther into my skin as my blood drains from me, but my breath remains pointed, sharp, and quick. “
Shama Irin. Shama Iritz. Shama Naghim…
”

“Damn you, girl,” Madam Cevaux hisses. “Enough of your prayers! Enough!”

“
Shama Irin
,” I say more loudly, looking her in the eye, even as the world tilts around me. “
Shama Iritz. Shama Naghim. Shama Irin
!”

Andy cries out as a blue-white surge passes from me, through him, like an electric current. He lets go of my hand, falls back, drops the dagger. I try to yank away from the old woman, but she holds fast to my hand with a bone-crushing grip.

“No!” Madam Cevaux reaches for the knife, calls it to her hand with an unseen power. “You will pay for what you did to my grandson!” She pulls her arm back, swings it forward towards my heart, blade shining.

Despite the weight of my guilt and the life draining from my veins, my body reacts swiftly, survival instincts stronger than my exhaustion. I catch her attacking arm, turn my other arm out to twist from her grip and grab onto her wrist. I squeeze hard, magic simmering in my fingers, forcing the darkness from my bones as I draw from my own world—my own kind.

“You’re right,” I say to her in a low voice, staring into the milky, radiant whites of her eyes as tiny black pinholes begin to form, opening ever so slowly, like two small mouths preparing to swallow me alive. “I will pay. I will pay for his death every day, for the rest of my life.”

She sneers at me. “
That’s not good enough.
”

I frown, and let the threads of my magic slither out from my fingertips, streaming across her body, to weave a pale blue cocoon, wrapping her from head to toe.

“It’s going to have to be enough,” I tell her as the cocoon closes around her face, flashes, implodes as it sends her back to Sheol, leaving nothing but the faint smell of cinders in her wake. I stare at the gold-hilted knife clattering in the place where she disappeared, and I mutter, “Because I’m not a goddamn martyr.”

The gathered Zee stare at me, appraising me with eyes both bright and dark. I try to see my mother in them, but I cannot. Surely Madam Cevaux was lying.

A shadow passes over us. And another. And another.

I look up.

The Irin have finally come.

They dive down, casting nets, throwing their firepower into the Zee even as they scatter and flee. Their wings are spread wide, too colorful for the night, too majestic for battle. I move to run away, back to Trebor, but Andy calls out to me.

“Ana?” He blinks up at me, holding his head, coughing. “Ana, what’s going on? What’s happening?” He casts a wild glance over his shoulder at the Zee. “Who are these people?” He coughs again, and spits out something thick and black.

I shake my head, grab his hand and yank him to his feet.

“Oh my god, you’re covered in blood—”

“Shut up, Andy,” I try to snarl, but the world spins, and my knees give out.

Trebor catches me, again. “I got you, damsel.”

“No,” I insist. “You need to get out of here.”

“Not before you’re healed.” He holds my wrist in his hand, looks into my eyes, and whispers in the language of his people.

I feel the wound close, and the world stop spinning. When my eyes focus, I see Kyla standing behind Trebor, beside Lykos, looking scared. I hate it when she looks scared. It makes me feel so helpless.

She looks up, as I notice the panic behind us has gone quiet. “Trebor,” she says.

And I understand.

“Trebor,
run
,” I push him off of me and jump to my feet, only to see him snatched and restrained by a much smaller Irin—by Faye.

Kyla runs to my side, grabs my arm. We stand as tall as we can between Trebor and Faye, and the other five Irin. Andy has no idea what to do, but mostly he’s staring at Lykos.

Raven saunters out from her entourage, coming to stand before us, surveying the mess with her hands on her hips as her wings fold down and dissolve into her skin. “All this trouble because of one
irritating
human girl,” she muses. “I lost good Irin soldiers tonight because of you. And the world almost came to know an evil more powerful than the prince of darkness himself.” She scowls, snaps her fingers, and two Irin rush forward, faster than I can process, taking me by the arms.

“Raven, no!” Trebor roars behind me, and I hear him struggling in the grip of Faye’s binding magic.

“So you’re going to kill me?” I ask, frowning.

Raven rolls her eyes. “No. I’m not going to kill you. I may severely dislike you, but
I’m
not a cold-blooded killer.” She sneers, as if she knows what I’ve done. “I’m just going to solve a problem. And if your friend Trebor had actually cared about you at all, he would have done it a long time ago.”

I expect someone to try and stop her, but when I look over my shoulder at Trebor and see Faye whispering into his ear—when I see that he’s no longer restrained—when I see the hard expression on his face—I know there’s nothing that can stop Raven. Whatever she’s going to do to me, she’s going to do it. They’re going to let her.

That’s it.

“I would say you can thank me later for solving all your problems,” Raven says, standing straight ahead of me. “But after tonight you’ll never see another creature from Shemayiim or Sheol, ever again.” She smirks. “So long, Anastasia Flynn.” She glares at Kyla. “So long, rude dreadlocked friend.” She rolls her eyes at Andy, raises her hands, and turns her eyes to mine.

In a heartbeat, I feel something core—something
essential
—ripped away from the bones of my bones, the building blocks of my spirit, the nature of who and what I am. There is only a cold wind where the vibrancy of magic once thrummed—a hollow chamber where I used to be connected to my world.

I blink, and when I look around us, Lykos and the Irin are gone.

Gone
.

But are they?

“Where did they go?” Andy gasps. “What the hell is going on?”

“Shut the hell up, Andy!” Kyla shouts at him. “Your goddamn deal with a demon is what made such a flipping mess in the first place.”

He turns red. “How do you know—?”

“Because demons love to talk about how stupid their human pets are,” she snaps. “How gullible, naive, and predictable. Just like you were.” She frowns. “You almost killed Ana.”

“What? Oh my god, Ana, I’m so sorry—”

“Stop,” I breathe, clenching my fists at my sides, closing my eyes to slits. “Just…don’t.” My voice catches in my throat, and tears quickly fill the narrow spaces between my eyelids.

“Oh, Ana,” Kyla says, reaching to comfort me.

I fall to my knees instead, feeling my heart pound, wondering what’s happening to him, whose heart is doing what, if he can see me, if he can feel me, if he’s escaping at this very moment, or if they’re taking him home for trial and judgment. Kyla kneels beside me, encloses me in her arms and holds me tight against her shoulder while I try hard not to cry, and fail.

“He’s gone,” I tell her, tears streaming down my face, into the fabric of her shirt. “It’s gone. Everything. Just…gone.”

“I know. I’m sorry, A. I’m so sorry.” Her voice quavers when she speaks.

“It’s over,” I realize, understanding the hard expression on Trebor’s face, understanding why he didn’t even try to stop Raven from blinding me—from taking my magic. “We’re safe now. We’re safe. I can’t hurt anyone, and no one can hurt us.”