Chapter 22
22
TLALLI
T lalli was awoken by violence, transmitted telepathically and tearing her apart from the inside, a shrill, unyielding thing that scraped along her insides and sent her falling out of bed screaming. A bed Elias was notably missing from, although she knew for sure she hadn’t dreamed him falling asleep beside her. She had been nestled between him and Cahuani all night. Yet the sheets were cold and her body felt as though it were on fire.
It was him. It was his signal terrorizing her. Elias was sending an SOS.
She still only came into full consciousness when Cahuani managed to get his hands on her and push cleansing magic through her body in hopes it would purge her of whatever force was causing her harm. It did no good.
She could feel his magic coursing through her blood, but the alarm continued. She could take the agony no longer, and she could not find the words to explain it to Cahuani, so she did the only thing she could think to do. She took herself and Cahuani to the source.
The pain stopped abruptly as they hit the ground in a disoriented tangle of limbs. Shouting echoed around them just as water hit her face from above. Rain . They were outside again, and it was pouring again.
They were on the lakeshore just shy of the tree line, the mansion quiet behind them and the sky still dark, although the horizon was a milky gray. At the very least, the rain and fog concealed them from view of the house, but she had no clue how long that would last.
Tlalli managed to get herself up, then pulled Cahuani to his feet once she was able. He was still in his boxers, which were already plastered against his thighs. Unfortunately, she could not spare the image any admiration, because from one moment to the next, he was running, and his skin was disappearing beneath a thick layer of black fur.
Down the slope, illuminated by a long web of lightning, was Elias, battered and bloody amidst a shower of loosed white feathers and locked in combat with a massive bear. Not quite as big as the bear running toward them now but a big one nonetheless. Anthony .
“I have to get Anthony away from here.” Cahuani’s voice pushed through the chaos of her thoughts, setting some of them to rights.
“Go,” she urged. “We’ll follow . ”
Tlalli was still trying to process the scene when Acheron and Xaphan appeared from nowhere and followed Cahuani. He must have summoned them the moment she awoke screaming.
And they were all running straight into the fray. Exactly what Anthony must have wanted.
She would’ve liked nothing more than to take her divine form but knew that could endanger Cahuani. Even in his second form, he was still mortal, and mortals couldn’t handle being fully exposed to an angel’s “true” form. Besides, as far as she could see, Anthony was on his own in his fight, and he was only mortal.
Cahuani reached Anthony first, despite the demons using their wings, and tackled him to the ground with a roar that shook the forest around them. Then the two massive predators and Xaphan disappeared into thin air, though she could still feel Cahuani in her bones. She would find him. As soon as she took care of Elias. And he and Xaphan could certainly handle Anthony.
So long as Michael doesn’t show up . . .
“Fuck,” she muttered. They had to go.
Tlalli caught Elias just before he collapsed to the ground, his hands gripping her arms in desperation. There was so much blood, and she could not pinpoint a single wound, gashes marking his skin every few inches. Anthony should not have been able to kill an angel. Even if Michael had made an exception and let him use his Nahualli magic, which seemed to be the case, a single mortal could not take an angel down on their own. Not unless they had the means—very specific means—means that were locked away in Heaven under Michael’s own eye.
Yet the poison Tlalli sensed beneath Elias’s skin could not be mistaken. It was a poison that could only be found at the tip of a specific blade. And only another angel, more specifically an archangel, could’ve given Anthony such a blade.
The anger that shot through her felt like a cold blade itself. She wanted nothing more than to make that bastard bleed too.
“Hey, come on, stay with me,” she breathed against Elias’s hair before cupping his face.
Shutting her eyes, she focused on healing him. A shadow fell over her, but nothing touched her, and she soon sensed the other demon, Acheron, beside her. He was acting as a shield.
“Come on, Elias.”
Elias coughed and gagged against her chest, but soon, his hands were tightening around her biceps, growing stronger with every second, and she knew it was working. But it was taking so much more than it should have, and she was growing weak.
Acheron must have seen that because he put his hand on her shoulder. When she met his gaze, he nodded.
Still, she paused for a moment. She had never pulled power from a demon. She had never had to. Nor could she use her angel magic to do so. She would have to use her Nahualli magic, the magic of her mother.
Oh, what would Mecati think of all this trouble?
After closing her eyes again, Tlalli focused on the point of contact and homed in on the dark current of Acheron’s power. Slowly, she threaded it through her own until the two were fully entwined, and then she used this power like a bucket in a well, emptying the poison from Elias’s veins. This worked much more quickly, and within minutes, Elias was able to speak.
“What happened?” she asked.
“I—Something felt off when I woke up this morning, and I couldn’t go back to sleep, so I was gonna go looking for Anthony. But he was at the door. I think he was trying to get in. He grabbed me. I don’t think he knew it was me. I think he thought it was his—Cahuani.”
“And he brought you out here?”
“Naw, I—I projected us out. I didn’t—I was trying to get him away from you, but I—I couldn’t... He has one of the blades, Tlalli.”
The confirmation robbed Tlalli of her breath. She stared back at him in both fear and disbelief. He could only mean an Ashen Blade. It was a blade infused with the kind of poison that a mortal could use to kill an angel, a blade that was supposed to be under lock and key in Heaven with the others of its kind. Tlalli had never seen one before, and for the longest time, she’d assumed they were nothing more than a myth. After all, why would the angels invent something that could kill them? Now she understood why. And if Anthony had one, it meant she and Elias were right. They had been set up from the jump, and Michael was in on it.
“I’m sorry,” Elias croaked. “For—calling you. I—I couldn’t handle it.”
She gave him a stern look. “You realize if you hadn’t called me, I would’ve killed you myself?”
He rolled his eyes, a good sign somehow. “He wasn’t—He shouldn’t have been able to kill me.”
“And he shouldn’t have been able to kill the two of us if you’d let him in that room, so?—”
“But he could’ve killed Cahuani.” Suddenly, his voice was quieter. He dropped his gaze.
Tlalli had no response for that because she knew he was right, which only reminded her of the fact Cahuani was now somewhere grappling with Anthony and they had no idea what other tricks Michael had sent Anthony with. Or whether Michael was somewhere lying in wait.
“We have to go,” she said.
She and Acheron helped Elias to his feet before she reached out for Cahuani, finding him with relative ease as his emotions erupted inside her like a shaken bottle of soda. They filled her so suddenly that she went rigid against Elias, and he had to adjust swiftly in order to support her weight. Before he could ask, however, she was projecting the three of them away from the mansion, toward Cahuani.
When the world came into focus again, it seemed as though nothing much had changed, though the lake that spread out before them was slightly smaller and undisturbed by rain. The sky was darker, though, and the house that rose atop the hill was the color of adobe. She knew this place well, but the memories of it were tarnished. They were at the Reyes Estate.
The calamity halfway between the house and the lake drew her attention. Two bears rolled around on the slope, fighting for dominance. For survival. At the moment, the larger bear had the advantage, but the pendulum continued to swing as roars colored the early morning air in sorrow.
Xaphan hovered above the bears but made no move to interrupt. Again, Tlalli reached for Cahuani, though deeper this time, trying to understand what was happening. But she already knew the answer, and it nearly brought her to her knees.
Cahuani had accepted the reality. He knew it had to be him to take Anthony from the world just as it had been him who brought Anthony into it. Who had the actual chalice had never mattered. This outcome was inevitable.
She looked down at Elias just as he looked up at her, and before she could even ask, he nodded. His smile was rueful and apologetic as his eyes glossed over and the bruises around them shrunk. He knew it, too, same as her—this had always been the plan, but it wasn’t Anthony’s plan. It was Michael’s.
And they had been expendable pawns all along.
“I should’ve let you kill him on day one,” Elias managed, sitting up.
With that, she could not argue. However, she knew without a shadow of a doubt that it was fated to end like this. Cahuani was always going to have to defeat his son. It had to be him. Anything less was not justice.
Once Tlalli pulled Elias to his feet, they stood beside Acheron doing the only thing any of them could do—watch. Watch and wait.
Watch and wait and hope.