Sacrifice (The Venus Chronicles #1)

Chapter 40

Forty

Eve lay prone on the floor, just as Lucien’s memory had shown him. Multicolored beams of light played across her naked body, refracting in the prism that hung above her. Lucien had re-constructed an ancient ritual, using the power of the sun. Ribbons of blood ran from her chest to her groin and around her torso to the wooden floor, shrouding her in a halo of scarlet.

Michaels staggered. In the flesh, the scene was otherworldly. She was more beautiful, and the damage to her more horrific, than he had imagined. Eve’s unconscious body lay still and Michaels fell to his knees by her side to touch the pale skin of her hand.

“No.” The word came out in a rasp that grated his throat. It was true – the reaver had used her as the conduit. Lucien had defiled her, abused her. Was he too late? Rage roiled inside him, searching for a release. Blue flames licked at the tips of his fingers and around his hands.

Lucien had made her believe it was worth sacrificing herself to set him free.

“No,” he said again, and his anger turned toward the daggers that surrounded her body. He ripped each one from its point on the star and cast them aside, breaking the connections and destroying the web of dancing light.

She gasped as the last was wrenched from the floor. Michaels’ desperate gaze snapped to her face, and he reached out to touch her with gentle fingertips. Could any of the quintessence remain? He closed his eyes and searched her body for a trace. Faintly, at the very edge of his perception, life force stuttered.

“Eve! Eve? Can you hear me?” Michaels leaned in to gaze directly at her face. He placed his hands on her body and allowed the healing energy from his core to flow freely.

Her eyelids did not flutter.

This was no earthly wound. The agony of loss and desperate hope clashed within him. He threw back his head in despair. The reaver could not win.

The sun was high in the sky now and its warmth bore down upon them through the window. Golden light glinted on the crown Eve still wore and Michaels’ gaze fell to the eight-pointed star affixed to its center, and then to the rune scored into Eve’s bloodied chest.

Venus was still in transit across the sun. He was not a child of Venus, but he was still a celestial being. He realized with a jolt that Eve’s life could yet be in his hands.

He plucked the star from the crown and laid it gently against the wound over Eve’s heart and pressed it down to make full contact. Blood oozed between his fingers and Michaels shuddered. The cold aura of death was creeping around her, trying to take hold.

Not on my watch.

Hand on the star, he lifted his face towards the sun. He would make himself the conduit for her and use the quintessence to reach out to the Shamash. If Eve had already done it the lines of communication were still there in the viscous rays that burst through the sky from their location.

“ Effunde ex sole remedium tuum,

Effunde ex sole potentiam tuam,

Nam indiget robora hodie,

Ut mortem certam avertat.”

Bring forth from the sun your healing light,

Bring forth from the sun your power and might,

For I have need of strength today,

To save this suffering one from certain death.

Heat seared his throat as he spoke the words. He had no right to ask Shamash for power. He was not of the House of the Sun. He was not built to channel its energy, but he might manage just enough to snatch Eve back from the brink of death before his body was incinerated.

A ray of light fell on his face and sank into his flesh. Heat and power flowed through him as the connection was made. More of him needed to be exposed to the sun; more surface area meant more transmission. He tore off his shirt to reveal more skin and extended a hand towards the gods.

Power surged within him. The heat on his skin intensified, and the celestial energy welled up in the core of his being. Light enveloped him. He opened his mouth and drank it in, picturing the Akkadian throne room where the Sun God, Shamash, sat in judgement, scepter in hand. He called out to him and begged for her life in the only way he knew how.

“Oh solis gloria maxima,

Hanc vulneratam doloribus sanabis,

Lux tua et calor illi circumdabit,

Eam ad vitam rediges iterum.”

Oh sun in all its glory,

Heal this one of her wounds and pain,

Let your light and warmth surround her,

Bring her back to life again.

Heat built beneath his palm, the star of Ishtar hot with the power of the sun to sear his skin. Every instinct told him to release it, but this was a sacrifice he had to make. He must not let go.

Michaels growled his treatise to the Sun again, every word scorching his throat.

“Effunde ex sole remedium tuum,

Effunde ex sole potentiam tuam,u as

Nam indiget robora hodie,

Ut mortem certam avertat.”

When he thought he could bear no more, the taste of nectar filled his mouth. Honey sweet and soothing, the fire in his throat abated and he knew that this was sustenance for Eve. A gift from Shamash, to give her the energy she needed to fight. Michaels leaned forward to transfer the nectar from his mouth to hers, and when their lips touched, light exploded between them.

Power unlike anything Michaels had ever known surged through him. The quintessence engulfed him, consuming every fiber of his being, drawing with it every joule of his life force to pour it into Eve.

The lives of every being Michaels had ever saved flashed before his eyes: thousands of years of abused mothers, cancer-stricken children, and tortured souls. Each of them deserving of a second chance to live. Each one rescued from the oblivion of the underworld.

And she was no different.

The beam of the Sun held them both in its glow and Michael’s wings unfurled. White and shimmering with iridescent rainbows, he stretched them to their fullest, capturing every last glimmer to channel it into Eve. She would not be imprisoned in the underworld. She would not take Lucien’s place while he roamed free on Earth. He would not allow it.

With a monumental effort, he wrapped his free arm around Eve’s back and pulled the two of them up with a sweep of his wings, to bring them both into the sun’s full glare. His skin blistered with the effort of transmission. Unbearable agony racked his body. Eve arched against him in a spasm. Michaels withdrew his lips from hers, scarcely able to believe his own senses.

Golden light radiated from her skin, brighter and brighter until the intensity was blinding. Then Michaels felt the shift.

They had left the Earthly plane.