Chapter 60
Something had been yanked inside of him. He’d woken with a gasp on his lips and panic curled tight in his chest, his hand coming up to press over his heart as it pulsed and ached.
The panic had only grown worse when he realized that Leviathan was not lying beside him. Nor could he sense him anywhere in the palace.
Levi?
He sensed him in his mind, just as he always could–but the wall was up, blocking him. He called silently to him, but Leviathan continued to ignore him, that firm, icy wall between their minds. Cullen sprang out of the bed with a snarl, circling absently as he prodded against their bond.
Where are you? What’s happening?
There was another hard yank in his chest, making him gasp. Something…somewhere…was calling to him. And it wasn’t Levi.
The shield dropped–just for a heartbeat–and Leviathan ordered him not to come in a quick, harsh plea before the wall slammed up again.
“Leviathan!” The shriek tore out of him. He summoned clothes to his body, wincing as he was tugged by that invisible cord again. He called up his shadows, focused to try to create that same portal that had pulled him away from Walker during the Christmas festival.
They swirled and circled and swathed him in darkness–and then they took him.
Took him and followed that tug, though he hadn’t told them to.
Followed it through miles and miles of darkness, and he let them, because he could feel Leviathan not too far away from the spot it was pulling him to. But something felt off, felt dangerous–
The bond opened again. Leviathan shoved an image into his mind, a vision of Cullen bursting through the darkness before it reached its destination, escaping the involuntary pull of his shadows.
Cullen focused, holding his breath, and now he realized that, though it was dark in the shadows, he could see images here and there. Snippets of land and sky and buildings.
He focused, waiting until his shadows had nearly reached their destination–and then threw himself against the wall of them, smashing through it with a cry of pain. The shadows–his shadows–clawed at his back, trying to pull him with them, but he forced them away, forced them to throw him out–
He landed hard on unforgiving stones, shocks shooting through his hands and knees, and when he looked up he saw the familiar buildings of the academy. The courtyard, filled with people, Leviathan mere feet away.
Though he was turned away from him, his head bowed and his eyes shut tight, as if he were expecting pain. Cullen opened his mouth to call out to him, but broke off when he saw the shimmer of golden light around him. The light of the heavens.
A pentagram.
They had him trapped.
But how had they summoned him? They’d tried for months before Cullen had been taken, but without something that belonged to the demon being summoned, it was impossible…
He opened his mouth to ask, to demand to know what was going on–and a flash of light swept through the golden shimmer of the pentagram, a sliver of black inside of it. It hit Leviathan square in the chest–and he fell.
Something snapped in Cullen’s mind, in his chest, and he screamed.
Screamed because the bond was gone. As if somebody had reached into his skull with a knife and carved it out.
He stumbled forward, his body moving on its own.
His foot brushed through the blood that had been sprinkled on the ground, smearing it enough that the pentagram broke, that shimmer of light vanishing as Cullen passed through it.
He fell to Leviathan’s side, pulled him onto his back.
A soft whimper of horror left him when he saw the blade buried in his chest, the black blood that spurted slowly around it.
“Levi?”
He didn’t move.
“Hey…” He pressed his hands to his chest, but quickly moved them away again when he didn’t feel his strong heartbeat. “Levi!” He smacked him and pushed him before screaming his name again. “Wake up!” He cried. “Leviathan!”
Nothing. He waited another heartbeat, expecting him to sit up with a smirk and announce that this had all been some kind of cruel joke. But he was silent. Still. Everything was silent and still. Empty. He was empty, his chest hollow, his heart silent. The bond was gone and Leviathan…
“Cullen.”
He twitched, his eyes shooting to Leviathan’s face. But it was not him that had spoken.
“Cullen.” Walker whispered again, his voice gentle. “Look at me.”
Slowly, very slowly, as if he were moving through sludge, Cullen raised his head, his gaze falling on Walker, where he stood with a bandaged hand and a grief stricken face. Dom was just inches behind him, his lips pinched into a tight line, his face set in a determined way he recognized well.
Something began to grow tight in Cullen’s chest, a dull ache starting. His heart thumped–and then missed a beat, as if the pain had been too great for it to keep up its rhythm. He could hardly feel it, but he thought he knew what it meant.
Leviathan had said the soul bond would make it so if one of them died, then they both would die. But it hadn’t taken him when it should have. Not instantly, as he would have expected, but it seemed to be draining his soul, little by little. When the magic finally ran its course…
He sucked in a breath at the realization of what would happen, of what was happening. Leviathan may have already been gone, but Cullen, whether it was fate or some strange divine intervention, had been gifted a few more minutes of life.
He knew exactly how he meant to spend them.
“Why?” He whispered, forcing the word out through that horrible hollowness in his chest. “Why would you do this to him?”
“You know why, Cullen.” He whispered. Light flared and flickered around his fingers.
Cullen did not even glance at it. He stumbled slowly to his feet, his hand curling tight around the bone blade in Leviathan’s chest. It slid free with a shocking and disturbing ease.
He didn’t let himself think too hard about it as he turned and faced his old friends.
“Do you have any idea what I’m going to do to you?” He whispered.
Walker opened his mouth, but light had already flared from every direction, aiming straight for Cullen.
His rage burst out of him, his body shifting into that massive form with its scaly gray skin, his shadows launching out of him with a shriek of rage.
They absorbed every burst of heaven’s light, absorbed it and stretched out, dozens of them racing off into the darkness until they met the bodies of the Diviners.
They slashed into their bodies, shredding skin and bone like paper.
The scent of blood burst through the air but, for the first time since he’d become a demon, it didn’t phase him in the least as he strode forward, his shadows whipping around him in a deadly frenzy.
Dom moved to face him, stepping closer and bracing his feet as a long trident of electricity formed in his hand.
And Walker…Walker stumbled away, his face pale with terror.
Cullen walked straight for both of them, letting his shadows take care of the others as they began to fight pointlessly against the attacks.
His heartbeat was loud in his ears, his head pounding with it. That painful pulse and skip kept up, growing more and more frequent as he moved forward. His life force ebbing away. It wouldn’t be long now.
Dom swung his trident with a cry of rage, no hesitation in his face as he swung at the boy he’d raised for all these years–and Cullen lashed out with sharp claws, tearing them across his throat.
Blood burst against his fingers and sprayed out over Dom’s clothes as he crumpled to the ground, his face still stuck in a mask of shock.
Behind his body, Walker began to scream.
Thunder cracked across the sky, cutting off the sound.
Cullen moved towards him, unable to draw up any amusement when Walker stumbled and fell to his ass.
He moved closer, stepping over him; seconds later a dark stain was spreading across Walker’s crotch.
“Coward.” Cullen scoffed, his hands trembling with his fury. His shadows swirled closer, edging up around him before moving forward, flowing around and under Walker’s body and the ground around him.
“Cullen…” He choked out through tears, his hands rising in front of him. “Hang on! Just a minute!”
“Why couldn’t you just leave us alone?” He whispered. His shadows loosened, becoming a deep, endless pool. Walker cried out as he began to sink down into them, as if he were being dragged underwater. “We just wanted to be happy.” He continued, feeling as if somebody had punched him in the chest.
Not long now. Not long at all.
“Cullen–”
“I hate you.” He whispered as Walker sank in up to his waist. Two shadows latched out, locking onto his arms and pulling them to the sides.
“I wish I had killed you that night he Turned me.” Tears welled and slipped down his cheeks at the memories.
“Wherever you go next,” he whispered. “I hope it is a horrible fate.”
He lashed out, his hand shooting forward to bury itself in his chest. Walker let out a shriek of pain, his eyes going wide as blood spurted over them both.
Cullen blinked slowly, his hand curling tight around his heart.
Walker opened his mouth–to beg him to stop, probably–and Cullen slammed his fist closed, crushing the throbbing organ.
Walker went still and silent. Cullen let go of him, watching numbly as his body sank into the shadows under his feet.
The silence became much more intense. Even as the rain began to fall in a steady beat against his body, against the ground. There was nothing. No sound. No light. No meaning.
Slowly, he turned and walked back to Leviathan, more tears falling to his cheeks when he smelled his sweet blood under all the human filth around him. He dropped to his knees again, his hands moving shakily over him. No pulse. No breath. That ache in his heart grew infinitely more unbearable.
A shriek of agony tore from him, his head tipping back to the dark sky before he threw himself down on him, his hands curling around his neck.
He stayed like that, pressed cheek to cheek, his tears mixing with the rain that pelted Leviathan’s corpse, until he felt a light hand come down on his shoulder.
He spun with a snarl, ready to use the last of his energy to slit the throat of whoever had dared interrupt this most terrible and private of moments.
A beautiful man smiled sadly down at him, his face tan and kind. His eyes burned like molten lava, a lovely gold color that flowed and moved, as if ichor flowed in his gaze. And power radiated off of him. Much more power than he had ever felt with Leviathan or his brothers.
“Who are you?” He demanded hoarsely. But it dawned on him as the man’s smile grew more unbearably gentle. “Are you the angel of death?”
“No.” His voice was smooth and deep. The voice he might have imagined god to have. “Not the angel of death, I promise.” His head tilted to the side. “I am Lucifer, young demon.”
He jolted, his hands tightening in Leviathan’s bloody robe. “Are you here to take him away?”
The demon–Lucifer, King of Hell, in all his strange, immortal beauty–hesitated.
“That is partly why I came, yes. I feel quite responsible for my brothers. And it’s so rare that one of them…
” His eyes moved to Leviathan’s face, and an ancient sadness bloomed there.
Cullen felt strangely jealous over it, as if he should be the only one to mourn.
“These are strange times.” Lucifer murmured, shaking his head. “This has not happened in…a very long time. And certainly not by any mortal hand.” He grimaced. And then his eyes narrowed on Cullen. “Your soul.”
“It is dying.” Cullen told him quietly. “It is bound to Leviathan’s. My time will be up any second now.”
Lucifer was quiet for a long moment. “Leviathan…bound his soul to you?”
He nodded, brushing gentle fingers along Leviathan’s cheek. It was still warm. Despite the cold night. Despite the rain.
“Cullen.” Lucifer murmured softly, touching his shoulder again. Cullen did not respond this time, that ache in his chest growing stronger and stronger. “Do you love each other?”
“More than all the souls in all the realms.” Cullen whispered, touching his cheek again. His tears burned against his skin in the icy night air.
Lucifer fell quiet for a long moment, and then slowly squeezed his shoulder. “I’ve always been a sucker for love.”
Cullen started to turn, a question growing on the tip of his tongue–but everything went black, shutting him away into the darkness. He hoped it would be quick now.