Chapter Twenty-Three #2
“It’s a hell of a nightmare, isn’t it?” I force a grin. I don’t want this to haunt her for the rest of her life. Because she will have a life left to live. “So funny seeing you here in my dreams.”
Her expression cracks in relief and she sinks into the seat. I close the door as Beliar’s voice echoes in a menacing hiss across the valley.
“You’re weak.”
I look back and choke on my gasp. At the bottom of the steps, Luke is struck down onto his hands and knees. His biceps quiver, barely holding his body up. He reaches for his dagger on the ground but Beliar kicks it out of reach with a cruel laugh.
“You’re weak!” the demon repeats. “And you always have been. It should have been me.”
Luke pushes himself up onto his knees. He spits a mouthful of blood at Beliar’s feet.
Beliar guffaws. “You think that’s an insult? What a gift to see all that red flow out of you like a river, as it should. Soon, it will be a flood.”
Beliar wraps both hands around his weapon. I’m slugged with the truth that Luke is about to die. He just kissed me like something out of a goddamn movie and he’s going to die. Beliar is going to kill him and I’m the only one left to do something about it.
I should leave. He told me to leave.
I open the driver’s door. Plopping his backpack on the seat, I find the small pocket with the two vials Hazaar gave me at the Night Market. Yellow for Vitality, green for Fatality. I grab the latter.
The bow Krystal and the third woman were using as a cane sits discarded in the sand, and a few feet from it, the arrow Luke pulled out. I retrace my steps to grab both. Slinging the bow over my shoulder, I pop the cork on the vial and dump it over the arrowhead.
There’s just enough liquid to coat it. Tossing the vial aside, I turn back to Beliar and Luke. Beliar’s axe is raised high in the air and Luke stares up at him defiantly.
I notch the arrow, taking aim. My years of archery lessons cosplaying as Katniss Everdeen swim in my mind. I used to be a decent shot. But that was with a bow I knew like my favorite sweater, gifted by my parents for my sixteenth birthday.
Beliar’s muscles strain as he starts to bring the axe down as though to split Luke’s head right in two. I let the arrow fly, praying it doesn’t miss. Or worse—hit Luke, whose mouth I can still feel against mine.
The bow is strung tighter than I’m used to, something only evident once it’s too late. The arrow soars past Beliar’s forehead and hits the steps behind him, bouncing off the stone with a pathetic tink.
Beliar’s cruel laugh cuts the night as he spins to take me in. “How heroic,” he mocks me. “Too bad you missed.”
I lower the bow. “Did I?”
He narrows his eyes, reaching up to brush his forehead. The motion smears the black ichor across his brow bone. He brings his fingers down to look at the wetness coating them.
“Barely a scratch, but you should find some pride in making me bleed at all. It’s no easy feat. Too bad it will be the last accomplishment of your living years.”
Beliar only makes it three steps toward me before he pauses. He drops his weapon to stare at his arms. His skin crackles, dark fissures forming like cracks in an eggshell.
His fury-filled eyes snap to me. “What have you done?”
“Ever heard of a poison called Fatality?” I ask.
From the guttural scream that pierces the air, it’s safe to assume he has. Fissures web across his face. His skin takes on a glassy quality, as if made from porcelain.
Though his movements are jerky, he rages toward me. “You vile abhorrent reckless bitch,” he seethes. “I will make your worst nightmare true. I will make sure your dreams die a pitiful slow death. That your hopes wither until all you are is a husk of a human.”
I should be scared. Should be petrified. Instead, I shrug. “All that stuff has happened already. What else you got?”
He opens his mouth, but I never get to hear it. Luke comes up behind him and slams the hilt of his dagger into Beliar’s shoulder. The demon explodes in a shower of glass-like particles, falling to Luke’s feet and blending with the dirt and sand.
Luke and I stare at each other. I smile victoriously. He starts to smile back.
Then he collapses.
“Luke!” I run to him, sliding in the loose soil and falling to my knees. He’s pale, deathly so. He’s lost so much blood. His shirt and jacket are soaked in it.
“You have to get up,” I beg. His head lolls. Glancing back at the van, I’m relieved to see Krystal and the others still inside. I turn back to Luke. “We have to get out of here.”
Unsure what else to do, I give him a couple pats on the cheek that turn into slaps, like how he roused Debra. His eyes spring open on the fifth and a gasp escapes.
“Come on,” I tell him, helping him to his feet. He tucks his dagger away and I loop his arm over my shoulders.
“You came back for me,” he accuses, but the words are weak and lack intensity. “You were supposed to leave. I told you to leave. You promised you would.”
“I lied. That makes two of us,” I tell him. “Besides, I only have to take orders from you between the hours of eight and four. If you want me to listen to you outside of that, you need to pay me overtime.”
A pained sound escapes him, too dire to be a laugh. We’re nearly to the van when I notice the hundreds of souls gathering around us, blocking our exit.
“What are they doing?” I whisper to Luke, fear squeezing my chest at their reflective eyes. But I won’t lose myself again. Not when we’re so close…
“You banished their master,” he rasps. “They respond to you now. They’re waiting for orders.”
I stare at the congregation of souls surrounding us. The phosphorus glow emanating from them is impossible to ignore in the darkness as the clouds thicken overhead. Unlike on the train, they’re completely quiet. Waiting.
“You’re free,” I tell them. Maybe I should have ordered them to protect us from whatever The Reckoning might unleash, but something tells me that would be crossing the line I can’t return from. Besides, the worst of it is already over.
I hope.
A sound surrounds us, like a collective exhale. Slowly, they blink out of existence in a wisp of light, one by one, until our path is clear.
I ease Luke into the passenger side of the van. He stares at me with half-lidded eyes as I lean over to buckle him in.
“You don’t need to do that,” he grunts.
“Don’t be too flattered. I do it for all my favorite takeout.”
Throwing out senseless jokes is the only way I can cling to a scrap of sanity in what is a completely insane situation. And that doesn’t even cover the kiss. If I really let myself think about that right now, we’ll never make it out.
I strip my crew neck sweatshirt off, pressing it to his wound. He hisses in pain.
“Hold that there,” I instruct him, hurrying to the driver’s side. “You’ve lost too much blood. We need to try and staunch it.”
He nods, eyes squeezed shut. I buckle my own seat belt and plug the key into the ignition with shaking hands.
The swirling clouds above tell me I can’t wait until morning to drive us out of here.
Beliar might be gone for the next one hundred years, but I don’t want to test Luke’s theory that he solely controls the archers. Panic can’t win again.
I shift the van into drive, but my fingers are glued to the gearshift. My chest tightens—
Luke’s warm, bloodstained hand covers mine.
“You can do this,” he reassures softly. Then his eyes flutter shut and his grip goes slack.
I drive into the dark.