Soul Savers: Faith Part 22

I'd said it, but that was before I'd actually done it. I still had nightmares about giving the Daemoni vampires in London their final deaths, as well as Kali, Jeana, and Merrick, even when I knew their souls were d.a.m.ned.

The image of Molita's dark eyes pleading with me about the others sent a stab in my heart.

"I'm hoping it won't come to that," I muttered.

"Me, too, Alexis, me, too." She shoved the guns back in their holsters, and then grabbed my face between her hands and tilted my head to look up at her. "But if it's your life or theirs, don't you hesitate. Do you understand me?"

"Don't worry. I don't enjoy it as much as some people think I would, but that doesn't mean I won't kill if necessary."

"That's my girl."

My entire council walked Tristan and me to the front door of The Loft, where a group of hunters guarded. They let us out into the night, but closed the door behind us to seal out any radiation in the air. Although Normans were probably safe with brief exposure, as many of the hunters experienced when they went on search and recovery trips, we weren't taking the chances of letting the air inside.

"Two days to Hades, one day scoping, and two days back?" Owen clarified.

"It shouldn't take us longer than that," Tristan confirmed. "Maybe less time, depending on how far this way Lucas has already moved and where we intercept him."

"Don't do anything stupid," Charlotte said, eyeing me specifically. "You wait for the rest of us if you see him. Recon only."

"And if you're not back in five days, we're coming," Owen said.

Vanessa nodded. "And ready to fight, because that's the only way in h.e.l.l you'll get me back to Hades."

"Don't worry, sister, I have a feeling you'll have that chance soon enough."

Tristan and I jogged down the gravel driveway, revealed our wings, and spread them out wide before launching into the evening sky. Although the Daemoni had supernatural hearing and sight, we hoped our black clothes and dark wings would make us little more than shadows against the night as we followed the sliver of moon over the land. We flew northwest, hoping to be far enough north into Alaska before morning, because up there, sunrise would come late in the day this time of year.

We'd barely pa.s.sed Seattle and crossed into Canada when my mind, always open as I searched for mind signatures, stumbled across one that felt very familiar, but also different from what I remembered. I mentally yelled at Tristan.

Dorian!

Chapter 21.

Up ahead, about seven miles, I told Tristan as I took the lead.

We circled the area where I found Dorian's mind signature in a small cabin hidden deep in the woods. I sensed no other minds nearby, but worried there might have been Daemoni hiding under a cloak. If that were the case, then Dorian served as bait to bring us into their trap.

Dorian, I called out to him.

"Mom?" His mental voice sounded deeper than it had before, just as his mind signature no longer felt childlike.

Are you alone?

"For now. Where are you?"

I gave Tristan the signal, and we dropped to the snow-covered ground in front of the cabin. The front door opened, and a man came running out. I gasped, and my hand flew to my mouth. At first, my mind saw Tristan come to a halt at the top of the steps to the front porch, but my husband stood next to me. With the same hair and the same beautiful facial features, this man was still a little shorter than Tristan and not quite as broad. Yet. It was only a matter of time, and by the looks of it, not much time at all.

"You shouldn't have come," Dorian greeted from the porch.

"We're your parents," I said. "We've been looking everywhere for you."

"I told you not to. I told you to leave me alone."

"Dorian, you need to know-" I began, but he cut me off.

"I know everything I need to know. I know what I'm doing, Mom. You need to leave me alone and just let me do it."

"Dorian, please." I wasn't beyond begging. "You're making a big mistake."

He suddenly stood right in front of us, a growl rumbling in his throat.

"Dorian," Tristan said in warning.

Dorian's hazel eyes flew to his father's face and then back to mine. "I said to leave me alone!"

"Problems, Dorian?" The icy cold voice p.r.i.c.ked our ears before its owner showed himself. Lucas appeared out of nowhere right behind Dorian.

"No," Dorian said curtly as his eyes narrowed at us. "They were just leaving."

Dorian, please, I pleaded again, silently to Lucas's ears. You don't need to do this. He's only going to use you to open the Gates of h.e.l.l.

"I said I know what I'm doing. Now go!"

"Dorian, you belong with us, not with them," Tristan said.

"I said to GO!" Dorian bellowed, and his hand suddenly shot up, his palm facing us. A strong gust of wind whooshed out of it, blowing Tristan and me backwards several yards. We landed in the snow and sprang to our feet. "I'm ready, Grandfather."

"No!" I blurred toward them and latched on to Dorian. "Don't do this. It's a mistake. You've been told lies, Dorian. All lies."

He tossed me away with one easy shake of his arm. I turned on Lucas.

"Take me," I said. "Please, Lucas. Spare him. Take me instead. Use me."

"Alexis, no!" Tristan barked from behind me.

A wicked grin spread over Lucas's face. "Are you begging?"

Ignoring Tristan, I nodded vehemently. Even dropped to my knees at his feet. "Please, please take me instead. I know what you're doing. Use me."

My neck craned backwards to look up at him, and like h.e.l.lfire, his ice-blue gaze sent p.r.i.c.kles of cold into my skin as he seemed to appraise me. Maybe even considered the trade.

A bar of an arm enclosed around my waist and jerked me backward, up to my feet. Tristan held me against his body as Lucas watched on. Now he seemed to be appraising both of us. His nose and one side of his upper lip curled upwards when his gaze landed on our wings.

"I have no use for you anymore," he snarled. "Let us go, Dorian."

"NO!" I screamed as I lunged for them, but I landed face down in the snow. They were already gone. "No, no, no!"

I pounded the snowy ground as tears streamed down my cheeks and a scream ripped out of my throat. Out of my soul.

"Follow their trail!" Tristan grabbed my hand and flashed before Lucas's trail disappeared.

We appeared in another snow-covered area, but no trees surrounded us this time. No flash trail lingered, either. We'd taken too long to follow the first one. Or, Lucas had wizened up and ensured he didn't leave a second one.

"We have to go to Hades," I said.

"Shh," Tristan replied. "Listen."

Voices tumbled over the air, and I opened my mind to find the owners. Lucas and Dorian were nowhere in my reach, but many, many Daemoni were. Hundreds of them. They didn't even try to cloak themselves as they traveled, all of them nearby headed in the same direction-west and slightly north.

Where are we? I asked Tristan.

"Middle of Siberia. Between Alaska and Hades."

We flashed that far? Our normal range had been about a hundred miles, give or take, but that had been before we'd been given the wings and who knew what other powers.

"Or Lucas did, and we were simply able to follow."

Of course, we weren't the only ones who'd gained in power. Lucas had, exponentially.

We need to find him. We have to figure out how to stop him.

"Come on."

He shot into the air, and I followed before anybody saw us. We trailed the Daemoni, and I'd been wrong about the number of them. Thousands of them headed in the general direction of Hades like a march of ants. Except ... they didn't go as far as Hades. As we flew over a snow-covered mountain range still to the southeast of the Taymyr Peninsula, we had to turn back, because they all stopped and gathered in a wide valley, still hundreds of miles from the Daemoni's main underground city. Camps were spread across the expanse surrounded by mountains, with fires dotting the landscape. The deep thump of drums echoed across the valley. For as far as we could see, Daemoni came from all directions as though following the sound-tens of thousands of them. Mages flashed, vampires blurred over the mountains, and Weres sprinted through the forests of pine trees that looked like looming monsters, their branches naked of needles but dripping with icicles and covered in snow.

Holy s.h.i.+t. I knew the Daemoni severely outnumbered us, but seeing this many in one place provided an entirely new perspective-a reality check that felt like a slap in the face.

"We need to get out of here," Tristan said as a horde of Demons flew through the sky straight for us.

Of course. We couldn't forget the Demons. They'd apparently been hiding in the cover of the night sky like we had been. And thankfully, they ignored us, too focused on their destination, I supposed, because they flew on past us.

What are they doing? I asked as we sped away.

"Dorian's made his move. Lucas has what he needs to drop the veil."

Dread quivered through my chest and into my stomach. We can't stop this. There's no way!

Something unseen, warm and too strong for me to fight, suddenly gripped my wrist and stopped me in midair. Tristan jolted to a halt, too. The warm goodness flowing into my arm subdued any desire to try to escape as we flew toward the face of a mountain at the south edge of the valley. The force pulled me downward to the top of one of the pine trees that looked like an alien creature with multiple thick, white arms dangling with icy tentacles. My feet landed on a branch, and a cascade of snow dropped through the limbs below. Tristan settled next to me, and when I reached up to grab an overhead branch to balance myself, I found Mom and Rina sitting above us.

"You must stop Lucas," they said at once.

"It's good to see you, too," I mumbled.

"Alexis, you are out of time," Mom said.

"You must gather your army. The final battle is coming," Rina added.

Balancing on the branch, I turned to face the valley below. From here, the campfires looked like fireflies flickering in the darkness. The rhythmic beat of the Shaman drums sounded as though they were right below us rather than a few miles in the distance as the snow and mountain faces threw all sounds into sharp relief. My heart pounded along with them. The air should have smelled crisp and clean, but instead left an acrid aftertaste in my nose and throat that must have come from the concentration of Daemoni and Demons.

"Look at all of them," I said to Mom and Rina. "And there are tens of thousands more coming. Hundreds of thousands of them, not including the Demons. There's no way we can stand up to them."

"Gather your Amadis. Your Norman armies, too," Rina said.

"What? You can't expect me to bring the Normans into this. That's a death sentence for them." For all of us, really.

"The Norman militaries want to fight," Mom replied, "and they deserve the opportunity to go to war as they're trained to do. They've watched the Daemoni slaughter their loved ones, their friends, and neighbors. They've lost their communities. The very people they've sworn to protect. As a warrior, you know what that means."

"But we're supposed to protect them."

"You are to protect their souls, darling," Rina clarified.

"So sending them to their graves is okay as long as their souls are safeguarded from evil?" The question was rhetorical. I already knew their answer-they'd told me before that was exactly how it was. "It's not their war, though!"

"You're wrong, honey. It's always been their war."

Rina nodded. "More than their lives are at stake if Lucas brings Satan to the surface-their very souls are."

"They're right." Tristan shrugged when I looked at him. "The Daemoni were always after the Normans' souls, long before the Amadis even existed."

"Yes," Rina said. "The Angels only interfere in the Norman world when necessary. They started the Amadis because they needed an army on Earth to a.s.sist and protect the Normans."

"But that's all we've ever been," Mom concluded. "The Amadis may be the Angels' army, but we are the Normans' soldiers, fighting in their war on Earth while the Angels fight for their souls in the Otherworld. Things have changed and will continue to change until this battle is over. But what hasn't changed is that this is the Normans' war just as much as-or more than-it is ours."

Holding on to the branch above me, I leaned back and stared at the thick, dark clouds growing in the night sky as I contemplated their point. What they said made sense and the truth rang through me, but ...

"I can't do it," I told them. "I'm sorry, but I can't in good conscience lead them into this battle. I don't even want to bring the Amadis into it."

"You can, and you will," Rina said. "How do you say? The wheels are already moving?"

Tristan straightened up. "What do you mean?"

"It is time," Rina replied simply.

"The Amadis and the Norman armies are already coming together under your leaders.h.i.+p," Mom said, and she pointed to a snow-covered meadow at the backside of the mountain perpendicular to us. A clearing the Daemoni wouldn't be able to see from the valley-but Demons and were-birds could see fine from the sky. "You will gather them right there."

I waited for her to continue, but she didn't. "And then what?"

"You will know," Rina said.

I turned back toward them and stared with my mouth half-open. Their dark eyes were full of an unfathomable depth of wisdom, s.h.i.+ning on me with a.s.surance.