Twisted Sister of Mine (Overworld Chronicles) (38 page)

"Have they already taken the Alabaster Arch?" I asked.

He shook his head. "Too many Seraphim husks in the way, not to mention several Flark husks."

I shuddered at the thought of the infantile cherubs, all that remained of angels caught in the blast of the Grand Nexus when the Cyrinthian Rune was removed from it. "Flark husks?" I said.

Sager's lip curled with disgust. "The things look like animated oil."

I flashed back to the cold water beneath Thunder Rock. To swimming for escape until a black tentacle took me into the underground caverns filled with husks. Had that thing been a Flark husk? I shook my head clean of the disturbing memory. "Can't Daelissa get rid of the husks?"

"Ah, but she can't." A slow smile spread across his face. "If she gets anywhere close to one of those things, she can hardly stand up. They don't even have to touch her."

Maximus had kept a captive husk in his Colombian hideout. I wondered if it was to keep Daelissa away, or for some other nefarious purpose. "She has a weakness," I said, feeling suddenly confident. "But why does it affect her and not—" I almost said "me" before stopping myself. I was part angel, but the husks hadn't affected me in the same way. Was it thanks to my Daemos side, or something else?

"And not what?" Sager asked.

"Never mind." Questioning Shelton's father for hours on end was a temptation we couldn't afford.

"Son." Sager turned to Shelton, a hint of pain in his voice. "You need to get out of here. Daelissa will find out I've told you this. It's impossible to hide things from her. You don't know the torment she's put me through over the years. But I want you to know that I—" He broke off, voice overcome with emotion. "I failed Martin. I was arrogant. I thought I could bluster my way out of any situation. When Daelissa told me she would kill someone I cared about if I didn't do as she said, I thought I would call her bluff." Pain flashed through his face, and a single tear gathered in his eye. He pounded the desk with both fists, eyes filled with torment and rage.

At least I knew where the Shelton temper came from.

Sager sagged. "I tried so hard," he said in a weak, tired voice. "God knows I tried." His defeated eyes met Shelton's. "Whatever happens, I want you to know I tried to keep you safe. They made me use you. But the queen bitch from hell always knew I'd do whatever it took to protect you."

"I'm just your adopted son," Shelton said in a low voice. "You used me to lure my real parents. Don't even pretend you care about me."

"It wasn't me who used you to capture them," Sager said. "Someone on the council found out who you really were, and betrayed your secret. I didn't know until it was too late."

"Stop trying to cover your ass," Shelton growled.

"I'm not." The pain in Sager's eyes looked genuine. "No matter what you think, Harry, you're my son. You're family. I wish I'd had the strength to fight Daelissa, but I didn't. I did what I could to protect you. Martin loved you as only a brother could. I wish I could have been more of a father, but Daelissa took the choice from me."

A war seemed to rage behind Shelton's disbelieving eyes. His lips compressed to thin white lines, and I couldn't tell if he was suppressing anger or some other emotion. He finally spoke. "Did you have anything to do with Meghan Andretti's father or Adam Nosti's parents?"

Sager shook his head. "Daelissa tried to make them work for her, but they wouldn't. She had them killed." He opened a desk drawer and, after fiddling around with something, popped open a hidden compartment, and removed an ASE. "Take this. It's the least I can do."

"What is it?" Shelton asked.

Sager winced. "My confession."

Shelton pocketed it. "And you're trusting me with this? What makes you think I won't ruin your career over this?"

His father looked down. "If you do, I probably deserve it."

"Why are the Conroys helping Daelissa?" I asked. "Don't they realize what will happen if the Seraphim return?"

"I have no idea." Sager's eyebrows pinched. "Jeremiah Conroy has never cared about political office or power, so far as I know. But he is absolutely obsessed with helping Daelissa."

Shelton heaved a great sigh, and came around the desk to his father's side. He placed a hand on the man's shoulder, face grim. "For what it's worth, I believe you." The tension eased in his body, shoulders loosening. "And—" he paused for a long moment, the next words obviously very hard for him to say. "I forgive you."

Sager's face tightened for an instant before smoothing. He stood, and held out his hand. Shelton took it. "I'm proud to be your father, Harry."

The double doors to the office burst open, and a lone figure stood in the richly appointed hallway, his hands coming together in a very slow clap. "How lovely," Bigglesworth said. "Nothing like a family reunion to bring a tear to me eye."

"You," I said, hate boiling up from my stomach. I didn't waste a moment, uncaging my demon just enough to manifest to the point where I could barely keep control. My body swelled, clothes stretching and tearing. Tears of pain sizzled in my eyes as horns erupted from my forehead, curling upward until they brushed the chandeliers.

"My, my, look how big you've grown," Bigglesworth said. "Guess it means there's more for me." His stomach swelled grotesquely until it hung like a fleshy sac from his body. "I'm gonna have to let me belt out a notch."

Two streams of white-hot energy sizzled through the air, and splashed harmlessly off the Flark. I turned and saw Shelton and Sager both holding staffs out, confused looks on their faces.

"He's immune to direct magic," I said. "But you can hurt him indirectly."

"Good luck with that," Bigglesworth said with a derisive giggle. His body stretched and snapped like a rubber band. His swollen stomach detached, a glob flying and smacking onto Sager's face.

The Primus tripped backward, falling onto his desk, hands grappling with the fleshy substance, muffled screams coming from within.

"Dad!" Shelton yelled. He grabbed the suffocating mass, and cried out, jerking his hands away.

"His skin burns you," I told him, my voice unnaturally deep. I didn't know what else to do, and didn't have a chance to think before Bigglesworth flung himself at me like a slingshot. I dodged, and the Flark smacked against a bookshelf, sticking to it like a glob of wet toilet paper. A leering face formed in the spherical mass. It sprang with terrifying speed at my face again.

I reached up and jerked the chandeliers, tearing them from the ceiling in cloud of plaster dust and sparks. I swung them. Smacked Bigglesworth. His booger-like form splatted all over the light fixture. I turned to the huge fireplace on the far wall. Focusing my anger, I launched a fireball at the wood inside. The logs burst into flame, and I hurled the chandelier into the fire.

Horrific screeches came from the creature as it fought to disentangle itself from the baubles and gems of the chandeliers while fire roared around it.

I turned back to Shelton. A constant roar of pain ripped from his lungs as he tried vainly to free his father from the deadly mass on his face. Sager's eyes were wide and his face dark red. He grabbed Shelton's hands, and gave him a look full of regret, pleading, and so much more I couldn't identify all within a fleeting moment. He pulled his son's hands free of the blob, and shook his head.

I remembered MacLean's cattle prod, and wished I'd gotten one. My eyes locked on the wires dangling from the ceiling where the chandelier had been. I tugged on them, pulling more slack from the ceiling. "Hold him higher!" I yelled.

Shelton tilted his struggling father's torso higher. Wasting no time, I pressed the bare wires into the squirming white mass suffocating Sager. Nothing happened. My eyes flicked to the other chandelier in the office, and I saw with horror the light was off. I must have short-circuited the outlet. I remembered what Lina had told me about these places using aether—magic—to power the utilities. And magic didn't affect Flarks.

I roared with frustration. "I'm sorry," I said, my deep demonic voice sounding surprisingly sad.

Dark purple mottled Sager's face. His eyes flashed wide. A final spasm clenched his muscles, and he went limp.

Jarrod Sager, the Arcanus Primus and Shelton's father, was dead.

Chapter 39

"No!" Shelton roared, face suffused with absolute fury.

"Oh, is he dead? So sorry," said Bigglesworth, now free of the fire but slightly smaller than he had been before. He cavorted from one foot to the other. "Now it's your turn, boy."

Shelton whirled, grabbed his father's staff in his other hand, and slammed both of them against the floor at the same time, bellowing a word that ignited the ends of both staffs with seething orange light. He offered the Flark a smile that might have terrified any mortal. "Go to hell, you sorry sack of pus." He aimed the staffs at the creature.

"You can't hurt me, mate," Bigglesworth said, leering.

"Wanna bet?" Shelton flicked the aim of the staffs high and low, and shouted a word. Shafts of rippling light plowed into the ceiling and floor. The room exploded and a blast of heat slammed against me. The last thing I saw was a blue-tinged shield spring to life around Shelton before I felt my huge body smash through a window, fly through open air, and after a brief second of terror, smack into the earth outside. One of my horns caught in the dirt and flipped me hard onto my back.

I pushed myself up, shaking my head, and saw Shelton on the ground nearby, unscathed from what I could tell. He still had both staffs in hand, and planted them into the ground. Two roiling suns of death the size of his head formed atop the staffs. He aimed the staffs at the house, roaring, and unleashed them. They dropped off the ends of the staffs, rolling like boulders, and charring everything in their path. Whatever they burned only seemed to fuel them, and each inferno grew larger. They plowed through the house like meteors, rolling through the structure and razing it to the ground.

"Shelton, there might be other people in there!" I said. Even as I shouted, I saw golems leaving the house, their clothes burning from brass bodies.

The house blazed like a funeral pyre, not only for Jarrod Sager, but also—or so I hoped—for Bigglesworth. I watched the house burn in amazed silence, stunned by the raw power exhibited by Shelton. The Arcane dropped to his knees, slumping forward until his forehead met the ground. I rushed to him. He moaned, eyes drooping like a man after a hard night of drinking. I could only imagine the amount of power he'd thrown into those spells of his. He had to be beyond exhausted.

I snapped the two staffs back to compact size, pocketed them, and slung Shelton over my back. My night vision flickered on, and I saw glowing eyes regarding me from the forest. A shudder ran down my spine at the sight, but I had to go back through the nightmare forest to leave this place. The brilliant fire from the house did little to illuminate whatever horrors waited inside that place.

"Murder!" someone shouted, and I turned to see the man and lady of the pond emerge from a pond on this side of the woods.

I looked around, as if they were talking to someone else, saw no one else to blame, and turned back to face them. "It wasn't us!" I shouted, my voice still demonic. "It was Bigglesworth."

"We saw the wizard destroy the house with our own eyes!" the woman said.

"But he tells the truth," the man replied.

"He is Daemos. They can hide the truth," the woman replied.

The man nodded. "Ever are you right, my love. Children, take them."

I looked around desperately, but the forest surrounded the house and its grassy lawn on all sides. Trees uprooted and lumbered toward us from all directions, scantily clad girls dancing by their sides.

I jumped back from one of the dryads as she tried to touch me. If they rooted me to the ground, Shelton and I were done for. "I'll burn you, I said. Just like the house. Stay away!"

"You can't burn all of them," the man said, eyes growing hard.

"We didn't kill Sager! It was a Flark."

The man shook his head. "You are good at forging the truth, Daemos. But there are no more Flarks. They died with their masters when the Grand Nexus was destroyed."

"Their masters? The angels?"

"They all came from that hinterland, demon, but they are all dead."

"I'm not lying," I said, backing away from the closest dryads.

A feminine giggle sounded, and a warm hand touched my arm. My feet planted themselves in the earth and wouldn't move. I turned to see a dryad behind me, a warm smile on her pretty face. Something in me snapped. I bellowed a demonic roar, and tried to lift a leg. Muscles bunched beneath my blue skin. The sound of ripping and tearing roots came from beneath my foot. A clod of earth the size of a small boulder tore free from the ground. I tried to shake it loose, but whatever magic the dryad wielded made it immovable.

The dryad cried out in surprise, and more of them rushed me, hands outstretched.

I roared and tore another chunk of earth free with my other foot. I took a wobbling step atop the thick clot of dirt and roots. It was like walking on platform shoes only a hooker could be proud of. On the upside, the dirt put me about three feet higher off the ground. The other dryads had to leap to reach me. I had another problem. Carrying around so much extra weight sucked my energy dry.

Icy tendrils spread up my leg, creeping into my stomach. The uncontrollable beast inside me raged in syncopation with the vampling curse. I was running out of strength. Running out of sanity. I tried to shake loose the dryad still touching my shoulder, but she was as rooted to me as the ground beneath my feet. She squealed with either delight or terror as I ran.

Just as I teetered on sanity's edge, instinct showed me the way. I needed energy, and what was I surrounded by? Women! I just hoped they were the right kind of women. I flicked into incubus mode. Glorious feminine halos glowed bright above the dryads, like welcoming beacons. Without thought, my essence lashed out in all directions, hooking into their energy, and drawing hard. The dryads sighed, their eyes glowing bright with lust and desire. One of them sprang atop the clod of dirt under my left foot, and ran her fingers up my back. This time, her touch didn't slow me, although it aroused another completely unwelcome awakening in my body. The other dryads tried to repeat the success of the first, hands groping.