Torn (24 page)

That wouldn’t be enough to kill him, though, and she knew it. But she rushed forward with her blade, all set to take him out. To claim this kill as her own.

“No!” I screamed, racing forward, because
I
needed to take him out. I needed his essence, or this whole thing was for nothing.

She turned, baffled, then pissed as I knocked her out of the way. Clarvek roared, and as Kiera landed a hard kick to his groin, I leaped up and thrust my knife hard and firm through his eye and deep into his brain.

He collapsed, his huge bulk melting into goo and revealing a car racing toward us.

I, however, was in no position to worry about what the locals might think. I was too busy doubling over in the street, unable to move because of the force of the essence of a demon like Clarvek.

It was there. All of it.
And now I could see it. Now I could
use
it.

“Get in!” The car screeched to a halt, and I looked up to see Deacon looking out from the driver’s-side window.

Kiera’s eyes went wide, and she shook her head. “No. No way. What the fuck are you doing with him?”

But I had no time to explain. Deacon was already accelerating away, and I yanked open the passenger door and leaped in, barely dodging the knife that Kiera whipped through the air toward my head.

“Where the hell are Rachel and Rose?”

“My home.” He turned to me, his expression fierce. “You didn’t think I’d leave you alone with him?”

I hadn’t thought at all, but now the idea that he’d come to protect me felt nice.

“Did it work?” he asked.

I nodded. “I think so.”

“Then do it.”

I licked my lips, sliding into my head, searching for Clarvek, for his skill, for his essence. It was there, a knowledge. A trait, and I knew that he’d been given the skill when the prophecy was forged. He’d been made to train the warriors and to bring the champion into the fold. And now I’d screwed all of that up.

I couldn’t have been happier.

“Got it,” I said, my head overflowing with the strange words. I sliced my palm, then muttered the incantation that was in my head. A series of words I didn’t understand but which seemed to be doing the trick, because as I smeared the blood down my arm, a new pattern arose, one I hadn’t seen before. One that, if all went well, would lead to the Vessel of the Keeper.

The rising pattern burned, and I drew another swath of blood to soothe it, then turned to look at Deacon, who had pulled into an alley near the entrance to Zane’s basement.

“Go ahead,” he said. “We need to know for certain that we’re right.”

I drew in a breath, then let it out slowly. “Cross your fingers,” I said. “And hold on to me.” I pressed my other palm down on the mark and immediately felt that hard tug.

The journey was fast and wild, and I landed hard in what appeared to be a strange, glass temple with one wall of water. Behind the waterfall I could see the distorted image of some sort of clay pot, about the size of a coffee can. Other than the glass and the water, it was the only thing in the room.

Having already had some experience with water in these strange templelike places, I pulled a quarter from my pocket and tossed it into the flow. Nothing happened, other than me losing twenty-five cents. Everything seemed safe enough, and I thrust my hand into the flow.

The disembodied voice filled the chamber.

“I’m sorry?”

I turned, trying to find who I was talking to, but there was nobody. “I’m sorry. I don’t understand.”

“If I take the vessel, I die?”

“Oh.” I considered that for only a moment, because, like the water, I’d faced death in these challenges before as well. “I can do that.”

“Agree only if you speak true,”
the voice said.
“For death is the condition to retrieve the Vessel of the Keeper. Even you, Lily Carlyle, with the blood of eternity flowing in your veins. If you draw forth the vessel, your life will end.”

TWENTY-FIVE

“It’s a goddamned suicide mission,” I said to Deacon, as soon as I was back in his car. I was breathing hard, exhausted, and frustrated.

And, yeah, I was scared of what I had to do, but I knew I had no choice.

I had to go back.

I had to keep my promise to take care of my sister. And right now, getting the vessel was the only way I saw to do that.

“Are you insane?” Deacon asked, after I’d explained all of that to him. “You can’t die. I need you. The world needs you.” He reached over and grabbed my arm. “We need you to lock the gate and stop the fucking Apocalypse.”

“Dammit, Deacon, don’t you get it? There is no lock. There is no key. I screwed up big-time. I screwed up the whole goddamned world, but I am
not
going to screw up my sister.”

“No lock?” he repeated. “How the hell do you know? Have you tried, Lily? Have you tried looking for it?”

I hadn’t, of course. And I realized then that I could. I was the one person in all the world who could find out if the lock existed.

A tiny ray of hope flared inside me. Because the truth was, I didn’t want to die. Didn’t want that blackness. That nothingness.

Didn’t want to be lost forever in the void because I hadn’t yet overcome the weight of my sins.

I shook my head, realizing I’d let my mind get carried away. “No. Even if there is a lock, it doesn’t help Rose.”

“Just look,” he said, his voice plaintive. “I need to know.”

I took in his face, the fierce determination and the blatant need. “All right,” I said. “But no matter what we find, I’m going to save my sister.”

A muscle in his cheek twitched, but he didn’t argue. Right then, I figured that was the best I could hope for.

I drew inside myself, calling upon this new power over which I had scant control. “Please,” I whispered, then drew the blood and recited the words as the incantation filled my head, a musical chorus that filled me up and spilled over into the world.

When I was finished, I thrust my arm out, and we both peered at it. But nothing changed. My flesh didn’t rise. It didn’t burn. It didn’t even sting slightly.

“There is no lock,” I said.

“Bullshit,” Deacon countered. “You knew the incantation. There wouldn’t be an incantation if there wasn’t a lock.”

He had a point. “But the arm, Deacon,” I said, thrusting it toward him. “My arm finds things. If it’s a thing, and it’s in this dimension, then I’m the go-to girl. And there’s nothing there,” I added, shaking my arm for emphasis.

“It’s hidden, then. Trapped in another dimension. But it exists, Lily. You know damn well that it exists.”

I shook my head, images of Rose filling my mind. Rose in pigtails. Rose at Christmas. Rose with my mother.

And then my mom, asking me to watch after the sweet little girl.

“I have to,” I said, hating the way that my voice hitched behind the tears that filled my throat. “She’s my priority.”

“You save her, and she’s still dead,” Deacon said flatly. “Do you think the demon hordes will spare her? Do you think Johnson will? She’s on his radar, Lily. It’ll all start up again. You won’t have saved her. You’ll have abandoned her.”

I winced. “No.” I shook my head, not wanting to hear his words, not wanting to believe I could have lost so badly again. “No, no, no.”

He pressed his hands to my face, then gently kissed my forehead. “Don’t,” he said, his voice soft, tender. “It’s not about the gate, Lily. You’re mine. I’ve said so all along.”

“Deacon . . .” I wanted him, too. Wanted him desperately. I wanted to win. I wanted to save Rose.

And I damn sure didn’t want to die.

I gasped, my body stiffening with a sudden realization.

“What?” he asked.

“I don’t want to die,” I said, the excitement in my voice undoubtedly mystifying him.

“And I don’t want you to.”

I squeezed his hand tight. “Go get Rose. Tell Johnson I’m on to the third key. Act incredibly pissed, and tell him you’re only telling him so because I insisted, but that you’re not going to let him get away with taking the
Oris Clef
. That you’re coming, too, and that you’ll kill him. Or whatever. Just make it look good. He has to believe I really know where the third relic is.”

“And?”

“And get Rose to Zane’s. Get her there fast.”

TWENTY-SIX

“Chérie,”
Zane said as I burst into his spartan bedroom. He was sitting on his cot, shirtless, the thin material of his sweatpants hugging the tight muscles of his legs. He stood immediately, his hand out to draw me in. “
Ma petite
, you are a mess.”

I had to laugh. As understatements went, that one was a doozy. “I need to ask you something,” I said. “I need to ask, and if I’m wrong . . .” I trailed off, because if I was wrong, I was screwed, and there really wasn’t anywhere to go from there.

“Lily,” he said, the accent disappearing as he cupped my chin. “Speak.”

“I’ve killed Clarence,” I said. “I’ve killed him, I’ve absorbed him, and I’m going to fight them. The demons. The ones who did this to me.”

He leaned backward, his expression unreadable. He wasn’t, however, lashing forward to lop off my head. Considering the way my luck had been running, that was a mark in the plus column.

“And you come now to me for what purpose? Do you seek to kill me, too?”

I licked my lips. “Not the way you mean.”

His eyes narrowed, his confusion clear. “Tell me,” he said. “Tell me everything.”

I swallowed, then I started at the beginning, my whole story, including the parts he already knew. Rose. Lucas Johnson. Deacon. The
Oris Clef
.

And, most important, the vessel that could house Rose’s soul. “We’ll come back here once we have Rose inside the vessel,” I said. “Then I’ll find a demon I can kill, only not with an owned blade.” Kill a demon with a blade that hadn’t drawn its owner’s blood, and the demon’s body remained. Only an owned kill reduced the demon to goo. “Deacon knows how to get the soul from the vessel into the body.” I licked my lips. “Someone like that goth demon you had me kill,” I said, referring to the demon I’d killed my very first day of training. She’d had Rose’s eyes, and I’d shown her mercy. And I’d almost died because of it.

“And to do this,” Zane said. “To save your sister, you must obtain the vessel. The Vessel of the Keeper.”

“That’s pretty much the score.”

“And to do that,” he said, “you must die.”

I nodded. “If I die—if I step up to the plate to save my sister—then any chance of locking the gates to hell dies with me.”

He took my arm, lifted it, and gently traced his fingers over my marked skin. “You do not seek the
Oris Clef
.”

“Only to the extent it helps me get Rose,” I said. “I’m interested in a different key. One that locks. One that seals.”

“You are correct,
ma chérie
. You are the only one with the power to find such a key.”

He stood, then walked across the room. He stood in the doorway, his back to me, the training room spread out in front of him.

He said nothing, and I waited, wishing he would nod. Would whisper. Would do something so that I didn’t have to actually make the request. He wasn’t, however, making it easy for me.

I closed my eyes and breathed in deep. Then I stood and went to him, and pressed my hands to his shoulders. “Zane,” I said. “I need you.”

He turned, his mouth curved in a wry grin. He traced a finger over my lips, making me shiver. “And yet it is another man that you truly need.” He leaned forward, then gently brushed his lips over mine. The kiss was sweet and sad, and when he pulled away, I realized I was crying.

“What you ask,
chérie
, I long for it. And yet I dread it.”

“I know,” I whispered, remembering when he’d told me he was immortal. Remembering how he’d described the terror that now warred with longing, a desperate craving for the end juxtaposed against a horrible fear of the unknown. “I understand.”

He cupped my cheek. “I will do this. And I thank you,
ma chérie
, for setting me free.”

My heart squeezed, and I forced myself to stop crying. Instead, I drew him close and rested my head upon his shoulder. “Thank you,” I whispered.

Deacon found us that way, arm in arm in the doorway. I felt him before I saw him, and I pulled away from Zane to look at Deacon over his shoulder. He stalked forward and took my arm. It burned under his touch, a reaction that confused me, especially when I looked down and saw nothing new happening with the tats on my arm.

He pulled me toward him as Rose stood in the background, and when I saw her—when I saw
Johnson
—I forgot about my arm.

“Why the
fuck
are we here?” Rose said, only it wasn’t Rose, of course.

“The third relic,” I said. “We need Zane to get it.”

“That a fact?” Johnson said, jutting out Rose’s hip and giving me all sorts of attitude.

“Yeah,” I said, forcing myself to remember that this was not my sister. “It is.”

I realized that without the mouthless Johnson body joining our party, our plan wouldn’t actually destroy Lucas Johnson. Considering we hadn’t seen the creature, though, we didn’t have much choice in the matter. And right then, I honestly didn’t care. So long as Rose was free of him, I’d be happy. At least for a moment. And the prospect of hunting him down and killing him at least gave me something to look forward to.

Right then, though, I needed to just concentrate on making this plan work.

Behind us, the elevator doors slid open, and Kiera stepped out, her crossbow aimed straight at me. “Talk,” she said. “Now.”