Wilder (25 page)

Chapter 47

“W
e’re almost there.” Charisma’s voice sounded in Aleksandr’s ear.

“Stay with me,” he said.

“I am trying, Aleksandr. You know if I could stay, I would never leave you, don’t you?”

“Yes. I know,” he said softly.

So this was the final challenge of their trip? He had to face the fact that just as he found Charisma, he would lose her? That a few gleaming golden moments together were all they would ever have?

Now that Aleksandr’s amnesia was vanquished, he remembered every challenge he’d ever faced in his whole life.

Nothing compared to this trek into the bowels of the earth. He fought demons. He jumped a river of fire. He crossed an icy lake. Bats flooded toward him, tangled in his hair, flapped in his face. The farther they went, the more he was aware . . . that none of this was true. Or rather, it was true, but it did not exist in the real world. The challenges were picked for him, playing to his fears, past and present.

But although he expected to see Iskra and Smith Bernhard, not even their phantoms would descend into the bowels of the earth to challenge his resolve.

No, it wasn’t Iskra and the doctor that made him wonder if he could go on . . . it was Charisma’s weight, growing ever lighter as they traveled. At first she had been a solid mass of muscle, a burden he was glad to carry, but a burden nonetheless.

Now, she was almost nonexistent, a feather on his back.

“How long have we been traveling?” she whispered. “Weeks? Months?” Time didn’t seem to exist down here.

“I don’t know.” He only knew that the farther they went into the depths, the lighter she became, as if her spirit were lifting from her body, preparing itself to soar.

“Almost there,” she promised again, her voice hoarse and drowsy. “I hate to ask . . . but can you carry me inside the cave?”

“I intend to.”

“Thank you. I had hoped to spare you the final trial . . . but I don’t have the strength to walk.”

He stumbled.

“Aleksandr.” She stroked his hair. “You have brought me so far. You can do this.”

Lose her? No. No, he couldn’t.

With Charisma on his back, he stepped through the arched entry.

The cave softly gleamed: the walls, the floor, the stalagmites and stalactites . . . the broad raised stone, smoothed into a shallow hollow.

“There,” Charisma said. “Put me there on the altar.”

When had she discarded her blindfold?

But when he placed her on the upraised stone, he saw she still wore it.

“It’s beautiful. We are in the earth’s living heart.” Her voice was worshipful.

He looked around. They were in a cavern. Vast, colorful, with lofty stone formations. A spring bubbled forth from the wall, splashed down the stones, babbled across the cave. Yet the cave was barren and, except for the fire pit in the middle, stripped of all signs of humanity. In his opinion, the Guardian cave was larger and more impressive.

How did she know about the altar? What did she see without her eyes? What would this sacrifice demand of her?

He placed his hand on her forehead.

The heat of her fever burned like a fire. He glanced around. He needed to get her out of here, take her somewhere she could get medical attention.

“No.” As if she heard him, she caught his wrist. “It’s okay. I am dying, Aleksandr, but before you volunteered to bring me here, I thought I was going to die alone. You’re here with me, and for that, I thank you.”

“I don’t want your thanks. I want you to live!”

“I want that, too.” She shook her head. “I don’t see it happening. Now . . . go sit by the fire, and keep warm in the chill of this winter day.”

“It’s not winter.” Far above, in New York City, the sun shone for long hours of the day, and the heat penetrated even into the Guardian cave. He wanted her to remember that—to remember real life existed, that the two of them now lived in an alternate reality.

She seemed to hear his thoughts. “I know the city is there. But it’s not more real than this. Let me rest. I promise to call you before I go.”

Flames sprang to life in the pit.

He knew he had to leave her alone to do what she had to do.

He went and sat beside the pit.

Charisma lay prone on the flat, smooth stone and sighed with pleasure. The surface supported her. The rock gave her strength. Here, even with her eyes closed, even with Davidov’s blindfold in place, she could see the energy of the earth, glowing, pulsing, alive and violent, soft and warm, sharp and frigid.

Was this cave a dream? An illusion? Did it exist only in her mind, or was it a location in the earth? She didn’t know. She knew only one thing. . . . “It is a good place to die.”

Then a whisper of a promise slid through her mind. She could hear the earth’s song again.

You don’t have to die.

The earth could work its magic for her. The earth could cure her.

She almost leaped at the chance. But some caution held her back.

What’s the price?

Not a price, but a choice.

She could drink from the stream, and she would live a long life.

Or . . . she could have the second feather.

The second feather . . .
The words skimmed her mind. One of the two surviving feathers from Lucifer’s wing . . .

Osgood had obtained one feather and placed it into the foundation of his building, weighing it down with tons of concrete, trapping it and putting it forever beyond the reach of the Chosen Ones . . . or so he had thought.

Foolish man. A feather that had survived the descent from heaven would not be contained. It worked down through the tons of concrete, down into the earth. It had moved, slid, glided through the ground.

Charisma had searched underground for that feather.

Now she turned her head and there it hung, pure and white, encased in a crystal-clear stalactite, waiting for the right person to free it.

Even with the blindfold on, she could see it, sense it . . .

A choice.

Charisma had a choice.

She could live.

Or she could take the feather to the Chosen Ones and save the world before her death.

I can’t take the feather to the surface. I’m too weak. I’m dying.

The earth answered her.

One taste from the stream would restore her enough to retrieve the feather, use it, and finish her time with the Chosen Ones.

To drink from the stream would give her life—and strengthen the stalactite, encasing the feather forever.

A choice. One or the other.

A weight descended on her chest. She could hardly breathe.

She remembered her dream. The mountain. The dark. The hopeless search for a way out.

She wanted to pick life. So desperately.

Again she looked at the feather.

The crystal in the cave sparkled like diamonds and jewels, but nothing could compare to the beauty of that long, slender, perfectly formed wing feather. It hung suspended, waiting to be freed. And she was the only one who could free it.

She had to do her duty. She had to free it.
This
was why she had been summoned down into the depths of the earth.

She strengthened her resolve.

Then another temptation whispered through her mind.

If Aleksandr drinks from the stream, he will be returned to his true form.

She looked at Aleksandr, seated beside the fire pit, staring sadly into the flames.

If you choose life, he’ll take human form again. He can live in the sunlight, at your side. You’ll be part of a family—his family, the Wilders, loving and supportive. You can have children, grandchildren.

If you die . . . he is condemned to life as a beast.

You said if he drank from the stream, he would return to his human form, Charisma thought.

Only if you drink, too. If you don’t choose life, he will remain in his current form. They’ll hunt and hurt him forever. He’ll go mad with loneliness. You will have condemned him.

The earth cajoled,
Choose life.

She tried to remember what Mother Catherine had said to her about doing the right thing. She tried to remember what Davidov had said to her about listening to her instincts.

But weren’t her instincts telling her to grab life at all costs? Wasn’t life all that mattered?

Yes. Life was all that mattered.

She swallowed a sob.

Just not necessarily
her
life.

What mattered were the millions of lives she could save by retrieving the feather.

This wasn’t a choice. Charisma had lived her life trying not to be her mother, selfish and shallow. If she did this now, took the temptation the earth offered, every effort she had ever made, every vow she had ever spoken, every belief she had ever held . . . would be betrayed.

And with that, Charisma had made her decision.

She sat up, took off her blindfold.

She could see perfectly well, and in this reality the cave looked like a cavern, large and colorful. But not the diamond-encrusted cavern she had seen before.

It was just a cave.

The fire in the fire pit died.

Guardian looked up. He was still long-armed, long-legged, barrel-chested, and hairy, and yet . . . for her, his blue eyes lit with concern and love, and if they had a long life to live together, and he remained more beast than man, she would be the happiest woman in the world.

If they had a long life together . . .

It was possible. . . .

She slid off the altar. “We’re going to take the feather to the Chosen Ones.”

He hurried to her side. “The feather? What feather?”

“It’s here.” Slowly, with his help, she walked to a long, slender stalactite, no longer clear and glittering, but dull and gray. “It’s trapped in here.”

He stared as if he didn’t know whether she was quite sane.

“Trust me.” She tapped on the rock, then tried to fracture it with her fist. “But I can’t get it out alone.”

“Let me try.” Unwavering in his dedication to her, he tried his best to break the rock apart.

He could not.

She leaned wearily against the unyielding stone. The earth was not done testing her. “We have to take a taste from the stream.”

Clearly he didn’t understand her tragic tone. “All right. It’s not a big deal. We’ll get some water. We’ll rest for a minute. Then we’ll come and, um, free the feather.” Which he obviously could not see, and possibly didn’t believe was there.

“Yes. That’s what we’ll do.”

They went to the stream and knelt. They cupped their hands and tasted just a few drops.

That sip was better than anything Charisma had ever tasted. Of course. Her fatigue vanished like a drop of water on a hot griddle. Energy filled her. In a life spent in study, in researching, in working too hard and fighting too often, she had never felt so good.

She knew if she drank a little more, she would live.

And if he drank a little more, he would be Aleksandr Wilder again.

It would take only a small amount. . . .

Temptation.

If they drank, yes, they would be healthy, but they would also live in a world corrupted by such wickedness, filth, death, and degradation, they would be miserable all their days.

She caught his hand. “One taste! No more.”

Once again he wore that wary, concerned expression, as if the state of her sanity worried him. “What happens if we drink too much?”

“I’ll be condemned to a lifetime of knowing I did the wrong thing.” She shook her hands dry. “Let’s get the feather.”

They returned to the stalactite. They put their hands on it, ready to break the stone.

At their touch, the stalactite crumbled into dust.

The three-foot-long feather, pure white and faintly glittering, floated into Charisma’s arms.

It weighed almost nothing, a piece of heaven displaced to earth.

In awe, Aleksandr whispered, “I didn’t know whether I believed the feathers existed before. I didn’t know whether I believed we could win this battle. Now . . . at least I have hope.”

“Yes. This is hope given form.” Taking off her cream-colored Chanel wool jacket, Charisma wrapped the feather as tenderly as a baby and carried it out of the cave.

As she crossed the threshold into the real world, she felt a jolt of approval, a pat on the head.

You are a worthy servant, Charisma Fangorn.

And the stones on her wrist sprang to life once more.

The earth song was as beautiful as she had remembered in her dreams.

Chapter 48

T
he journey back from the center of the earth went all too quickly. It was as if the challenges that had assaulted them on the way down had disappeared into the mists of their minds. It probably also helped that Charisma’s strength had returned, and, with the help of a change from her Ferragamo pumps to her athletic shoes, she was able to walk next to Aleksandr all the way back.

Now, at the end of the long, dark tunnel, the door of Davidov’s brew pub glowed softly. Behind it, Aleksandr knew, was duty, civilization, the real world.

If he was going to speak, he had to speak now.

He stopped her with a hand on her arm. “Charisma.” Her name was a treasure against his lips. “When we go through that door, if Davidov has done his job, the Chosen Ones will be there and we’ll go to war.”

“We’ll do battle,” she agreed, cradling the Chanel-wrapped feather in her arms. “Some of us won’t return.”
She
wouldn’t return.

That was a knowledge that tore at him like a raven’s claws. And that was the reason he said, “Before we go in there . . . I want to say . . . I have to tell you . . . I lost my mind for a while. For twenty months, I didn’t remember my life before I was Guardian. And since, it’s all been demon fighting, and blood and gore, sweat and pain, and, at the end, certain death. There’s no escape in sleep, either; that’s all terror while nightmares fight their way out of my brain.” The recollection of Smith Bernhard and his abhorrent surgeries shattered him yet again, and for a moment he trembled.

She moved closer, her green eyes filling with tears.

But now was not the time for terror. Now was the time for Charisma, and him, and saying what needed to be said. He shook off the memories and continued. “Every minute with you has been golden, filled with laughter and sex and love.”

“And you and me fighting,” she reminded him.

“And you and me fighting. Good times.” He turned her face up to his. “No one can ever take this time away from me. I have jewels to remember; the joy of realizing you were going to live and see, the way you attacked me the first time, when you were blindfolded—”

She cringed. “Yes, that was one of my better moments.”

“It was, because you didn’t recoil when you realized I was a monster.”

Irritated, she said, “You’re not a monster! Stop calling yourself that.”

“The tone of your voice when you scold me.” He smiled at her. “Your voice in every way, especially hearing you hum and realizing your singing
would
attract demons.”

She shoved at him, and wavered between tears and laughter.

“How understanding you are of Taurean,” he said.

“She’s a nice lady.”

“Not many think so. I love your two-tone hair.” He ran his fingers over her head. “I loved seeing you in the waterfall the first time, naked and glorious. The sun shone in the cave—”

“It was night.”

“The sun shone, because you were the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.” He cupped her cheek. “No matter what happens, you’ve given me memories. Good memories. On the day I die, today or tomorrow or fifty years from now, your name will be on my lips, and I’ll remember . . . you.”

Tears welled in her eyes. “I’ll remember you, too. Wherever you are, that’s where I want to be. Wherever you are, that’s paradise.”

There was nothing else to say. There was nothing else to do.

Charisma stood looking up at him, tiny, defiant, courageous, with tears in her green eyes, dirt on her face, her cream suit smudged, and her feet shod in her black-and-pink athletic shoes.

He had never seen anything more beautiful in his life.

Standing on tiptoe, she lifted her head.

He leaned down.

With the feather cradled in her arms between them, they kissed, a kiss of passion, love . . . and good-bye.

Stepping away from each other, they nodded. They clasped hands.

“All right, then,” Charisma said. “Let’s go.”

Aleksandr opened the door to Davidov’s brew pub.

She stepped over the threshold.

He followed.

She stopped.

He stopped.

Davidov had kept his promise. He’d assembled an army to fight Osgood and his evil. The place was full: the Chosen Ones and their spouses, Taurean, Moises, Amber, the Belows, people from the street, people from the mansions, police officers, former Chosen Ones. Davidov was putting out plates of food and drink.

And in front of them all, the Wilders. Aleksandr’s family. His mother, Firebird, smiling with tears in her eyes. His father, Douglas, looking fierce and glad. His uncles and their wives. A
bunch
of the cousins. And his grandparents, Konstantine and Zorana, so much older than the last time he’d seen them.

What did Aleksandr feel?

A leap of joy.

A dollop of dismay.

He wasn’t ready for them to see him like this. He was a beast. He was the Wilder who had betrayed his family’s decision to turn away from any temptation to once again indulge in shape-shifting. Worse, he had done it to save his own life.

But it was too late. They were here, they had seen him, and he couldn’t hurt them again.

Arms outstretched, he walked toward Firebird.

His mother ran to him, sobbing.

His grandmother, Zorana, hurried over and wrapped her arms around them both. His father joined them, holding them and saying, “Thank God. Thank God.” His grandfather cried tears of joy.

As the rest of the family closed in, Aleksandr looked over the top of the smiling crowd to Charisma, who stood watching him with such tenderness, he knew he was the luckiest doomed man in the world.

While the Wilders embraced, shook hands, laughed, and scolded, the Chosen Ones surged to surround Charisma.

Jacqueline’s eyes gleamed at the bundle Charisma held. “You found it!”

Charisma nodded and carefully unwrapped the shining feather. “We could have had it a lot sooner if I hadn’t been such a coward.”

Even Samuel laughed at that. “You put us all to shame with your courage.”

Isabelle smiled at her. “For your reward . . . Show her, Sammy.”

Samuel’s eyes gleamed as he placed on the table a long object wrapped in blue cloth.

Charisma caught her breath. “Samuel! You figured out how to open the case without getting knocked on your rear?”

Her friends froze.

“What?” Charisma looked from one to another, at the guilt and grief etched on their faces. “What happened?”

“Irving freed the feather,” Aaron said.

Charisma sank down on the bench and hugged her own feather close to her chest. “How?”

“We think he simply tore the latch open,” Jacqueline said.

“He . . . Was he hurt?” But in her heart, Charisma already knew what they hesitated to tell her.

Genny hugged her. “He’s gone.”

“Gone,” Charisma repeated.

“Everything in his study is untouched.” For the merest wisp of a second, Rosamund looked relieved. Then her eyes filled with tears. “But there’s nothing of
him
left. Jacqueline thinks . . . That is, she’s pretty sure . . .”

“Martha’s gone, too,” Caleb informed her.

“Martha helped him?” Charisma asked. “I don’t know. She always supported us and cared for us, but I thought it was to honor the idea of the Chosen Ones. Honestly, I didn’t think she would ever have sacrificed herself for us.”

“We talked about it, and we agreed,” John said.

“In her case, I don’t think it was a willing sacrifice. There’re some pretty violent vibes in there,” Jacqueline said. “And the dust of three souls who went on in a wave of magic.”

“Three souls?” Charisma sprang to her feet. “Oh, no. Not McKenna!”

“No. Dina.” Samuel attentively unwrapped his feather. “I’m pretty sure it was Dina. I tried to find her in my mind, and she’s gone. So Irving and Dina died together, and Martha . . . I guess Martha came along for the ride.”

“But Irving was just there, in his library, talking to us, guiding us. What will we do without him? He was our link to the former Chosen Ones, our mentor, our friend.”

The exterior door to Davidov’s bar opened. McKenna slipped in.

Charisma smiled shakily at him.

He nodded at her.

A movement on the table focused Charisma’s attention.

In slow motion, Samuel’s feather lifted off the table.

As people noticed, the noise from Aleksandr’s reunion died.

The police, the wealthy from the mansions, people who had never witnessed anything magical stared with rapt attention as the feather rose as if on an invisible breeze. It swirled once in a full, graceful circle, as if celebrating its freedom from its long confinement. Then it floated toward Charisma and settled into her arms directly beside the other feather.

A moment of silence.

The room exploded in cheers.

John allowed the commotion for one moment; then he stepped up on a bench and flung out his arms.

The Chosen Ones quieted.

The civilians kept gasping, talking, marveling.

John shouted.

Still the babble went on.

Konstantine Wilder put his hand on John’s shoulder. “Let me,” he said in his accented English, and shouted, “It is time!”

Silence descended.

“No one exerts authority like the old wolf,” Aleksandr said in Charisma’s ear.

“So.” Konstantine turned to John and rubbed his hands together. “What’s the plan?”

“We’re going to Osgood’s building, and we’re going to destroy him,” John said simply.

“Easier said than done,” one of the older Chosen Ones said. “Have you seen what’s happening out there? It’s the apocalypse. Thunder, lightning, black clouds rolling in from all directions, all headed right for SoHo and the Osgood building.”

“That’s what we have to do,” John said.

The brew pub rattled as the earth shook.

“The building is miles away. We’ve got sixty-five people in here. How are we going to get there?” Davidov, Charisma saw, was packing up the pub.

The mysterious man was leaving them now.

McKenna cleared his throat and stepped forward. “I believe I have the answer to that.”