Faith (Soul Savers Book 7) (22 page)

My ears pricked at the
use of the past tense. “What do you mean
had
?”

With four long strides,
he crossed the cavern and stood at the entrance, making us turn to
see him, a silhouette against the light outside. “He should
have been there by now. So either he never made it, or he didn’t
break the curse.”

“What do you
mean? How do you know?”

He turned and glared at
me with narrowed, red eyes, his nostrils flaring and his hands
fisting. “Because everything inside me is fighting to kill
you.”

The look in his eyes
was far more frightening than Tristan’s had ever been. Tristan
had been resisting the monster inside him for years before he came
near me, and he’d already been converted. Noah had nothing but
whatever self-control he might have possessed. Which probably wasn’t
much.

Tristan stepped in
front of me, his arm out protectively. “What makes
you
think he could break the curse?”

“What difference
does it make? I was obviously wrong. Kali lied.”

“Of course she
did,” I muttered. “And now because of you, my son is in
Hades.”

“We need to know
what she told him,” Tristan persisted.

Noah growled. “She
told him about how Eris cursed all of Cassandra’s male
descendants, so that they would all bow down to Jordan’s direct
line. Since Dorian descends from them both, Kali surmised that the
curse can stop with him, but only if he gives himself willingly. At
least, that’s what she told Dorian and he told me. It must have
been her lure to reel him in to the Daemoni.”

Now I understood why
Dorian had been so broody during his last months with us. He’d
carried the weight of the world on his young shoulders. My heart
broke with what he must have felt every time we were attacked, every
time we saw a Norman die, every time one of our own was injured or
killed. He’d been led to believe he could stop it all, and the
sense of responsibility must have crushed him. He had to have been
working up the courage to make his move from the moment he watched
Lucas kill his Mimi, but his love for his father and me had held him
back. His worry for us and the sister I’d been pregnant with
had been the catalyst for him to make his move. And all that time I
hadn’t known. I hadn’t been able to help him. I could
have stopped him if I’d had any idea.

My blood boiled at the
turmoil he’d been suffering. At what he was going through now.
He was so young.
Too
young! How dare that fucking bitch plant
lies in his head! I almost wished she’d come back to life so I
could kill her again.

Especially because
Dorian’s sacrifice would all be for nothing.

He hadn’t broken
the curse. The Summoned wouldn’t help us win any war. There was
no sister of his to do this for. No Amadis. No humanity.

“It’s time
for you to leave,” Noah said. “I can’t—”

His words were lost as
two Demons swooped into the cave’s entrance, grabbed him in
their claws, and carried him away. Tristan and I ran to the edge of
the opening.

“Noah!” I
yelled, opening my wings to take off after them.

“You can’t
follow them.”

The female voice came
from below us, where a dark-haired woman dressed in a bikini with a
sarong wrapped around her waist stood on the beach. She disappeared
and reappeared on the ledge right before us, only her toes hanging
on. Tristan and I both stepped backward, and I had to control the
urge to wrinkle my nose at the sight of her. Her skin was a sickly
pale gray with blisters and boils oozing yellow pus on her arms and
chest. Her face might have been pretty with better coloring, except
for the irregularly shaped, yellowish-orange irises of her eyes. She
made the disgusted face I’d been holding back from making
myself.

“I know. I’m
atrocious,” she admitted. “But if you think this is bad,
you should have seen what I looked like when I first took this body.
I’ll get her back to normal soon enough.”

For the briefest moment
while she spoke, I caught a glimpse of her true self—with oily,
mottled skin, horns, and a tail. Her eyes changed, too, from the
weird, spiky irises to none at all. No whites or pupils, only fire.
Another zombie possessed by a Demon.

“Where are they
taking Noah?” Tristan demanded.

The whites of the
Demon-woman’s eyes bled back in, and the fires returned to the
freaky irises. “To Hell, where he belongs. And you’ve
overstayed your welcome down there … for now.”

I shook my head. “No.”

I didn’t believe
that. I still held hope for Noah. He’d promised Dorian he’d
fight for us, which meant he wanted to convert.

“Or maybe they
took him to Lucas. I don’t know, and I don’t care,”
she said. “I’m just glad it’s all almost over. My
lord and master will be here soon, and you will die. The boy is all
Lucas needs.”

“
What?
”
I gasped.

Tristan’s huge
wings came out as he advanced on her.

“What does that
mean?” he growled.

Her ugly eyes filled
with fear as his wings curved in toward her, but her full mouth
curved into a smirk. “That boy is all Lucas needs to drop the
veil and open the Gates to Hell. Everything else is done and ready
for my lord Satan.”

Tristan
shoved the Demon-woman against the cave wall, and his wing curved
around, the feathers pressed against her throat. But the feathers
weren’t soft and light, giving at the pressure. Their edges had
become hard and razor-sharp, drawing a thin line of black blood.

“Where’s
our son?” he demanded, his voice frightening even me.

“Almost home,”
she sneered.

“Is he with
Lucas?”

She didn’t
answer. Tristan pressed his feathers harder into her skin. The line
of blood grew thicker, dripping downward in several places.

“Where. Are.
They?” he roared.

“I don’t
know. On their way to Hades? Maybe in Hell by now, talking to our
lord. Making preparations.” She gurgled out a laugh. “It
doesn’t matter. You can’t stop it. But it’s not too
late to change your minds about who the true god is.”

Tristan’s wing
swished outward, slicing across the Demon’s neck. The body
slumped against the wall and slid down to the floor, while a black
smoke emerged from it. The Demon gathered into its natural shape and
flew out of the cave, then disappeared.

I ran outside and leapt
to the beach below, where I spewed out a string of profanities while
pacing back and forth. Tristan landed on the beach, too, but he stood
perfectly still, his wings out wide, his arms crossed over his chest,
and his eyes staring out at the water as black waves crashed onto the
gray sand. The peculiarly shaped cliffs cast dark shadows over us.

“We have to go to
Hades,” I declared. He didn’t respond. “We have to
go to Hades, get our son back, and … and …”

I floundered for our
next step, not knowing what to do after that. There wasn’t much
left to life on this Earth, but it didn’t matter. As long as we
had Dorian back and the three of us were together, we’d figure
out the rest. Right now, all we had to focus on was getting to
Dorian.

“It might be too
late,” Tristan finally said through a clenched jaw.

I stopped pacing in
front of him and stared at him with lowered brows. “No, it’s
not! Don’t say that! As long as the veil hasn’t been
ripped down, we have time. We’re going to go to Hades and get
him back before it
is
too late.”

“We’ll be
severely outnumbered. It’s just the two of us.”

“And it will
always be just the two of us. We’re all we have now. He’s
our son, Tristan.”

He finally looked over
at me, the gold in his eyes glinting. “I know. I’m ready.
I just want to be sure you are.”

I spread my arms out
wide and turned side to side. “Look at our lives. At the world.
We have nothing more to lose, do we?”

“We could lose
each other.”

My arms dropped to my
sides, and my teeth gnashed at the thought of losing Tristan again. I
forced my tight throat to swallow.

“We just can’t
let that happen,” I said firmly.

He gave me a sharp nod.
“Then Hades it is.”

We were about to launch
when three winged women suddenly appeared in front of us. Although
our last encounter had been rocky, I should have been happy to see my
family again, but annoyance was all I felt.

“No,”
Cassandra ordered. “You cannot go to Hades.”

And that was why.

They’d obviously
been watching us through the veil and now felt the need to stick
their noses into our business. Why now, when nothing mattered? They
hadn’t done a thing before, when they could have made a
difference. They’d sat back and watched the world crumble
without so much as a word to give me some kind of guidance. And now
they suddenly had something to say? Orders to give?

“We have to stop
Dorian.” I placed my fists on my hips. “Make him see the
mistake he’s making.”

They disappeared.

“He is not making
a mistake.” Rina’s voice came from behind me, and I spun
around. She sat up on the ledge of what had been Noah’s cavern.
Her voice came softly, but easily heard. “Dorian is doing what
he needs to do.”

“He’s doing
what he
thinks
he needs to do because of Kali. But she lied to
him. This is
not
what he needs to do.”

“But it is,
honey.” Mom stood on the edge of one of the stone cliffs that
jutted out into the water. The sun behind her created a glow around
her body and wings.

“Why? Because his
soul means nothing compared to all of the Summoned sons?” I
threw my hands in the air and let out a growl of frustration. “Well,
guess what. He won’t be breaking the curse. He won’t be
saving the brothers. He won’t be doing anything except giving
himself to Lucas, who will then drop the veil and open the Gates to
Hell. Is that what you guys really want?”

Cassandra appeared to
my right, hovering inches above the water as the waves slid in under
her feet. “You cannot prevent Dorian from doing what he needs
to do. You must allow him to go. But you will stop Lucas.”

I turned and squinted
at her, confused. To stop Lucas, we had to stop Dorian.

“What do you
mean?” Tristan asked, his voice steady but with that steely
undertone that meant his patience ran thin.

“You must trust
us,” Cassandra said, turning her full gaze on him. “You
must believe in us, in the Angels, in your God. You must have faith
that He has a plan and make His will your way. Dorian is following
His will. You must not stop him.”

“So letting Lucas
rip down the veil is also God’s will?” I scoffed. They
were unbelievable. “You said this whole apocalypse wasn’t
God’s doing, but now it
is
His will? He wants Satan’s
chains to break so he can come to Earth? Because that’s what
Lucas is going to do.”

“You will not let
it come to that,” Rina said, now on the beach, standing behind
Tristan.

“Exactly,”
I said, “which is why we need to go to Hades. Now.”

“Not now,”
Cassandra said. “Not yet. You need your army.”

I fisted my hands in my
hair and dropped my head back to stare at the sky as a frustrated
chuckle escaped me. After exhaling a sharp breath, I lifted my head
to look at her.

“There is no
army,” I said, straining to keep my voice low and calm when all
I wanted to do was scream at her. “They’re gone. When are
you going to realize and accept it? The Amadis are gone. Any still
alive have given themselves over. Any humans left are serving the
Daemoni, too. We don’t have an army anymore, Cassandra. This is
it.” I waved my hands between Tristan and me. “This is
our army now.”

“Do you give up
on your people so easily?” Mom asked, still perched on the
cliff above us. “On Owen and Charlotte? Vanessa and Sheree?
Blossom and Jax?”

My stomach clenched as
though she’d just punched me, and I blinked against the tears
forming at the mention of their names. I’d been trying so hard
to block them out, to not think about them, to not wonder what
happened to them. I didn’t want the visuals that came to mind,
the ones I’d watched on repeat while in Hell—their
horrific deaths while they’d been trying to help the Normans.
And now the loss and despair all flooded over me, and I gasped at the
pain in my heart.

“They’re …
gone,” I whispered.

“Don’t give
up on them.” Mom’s voice was distant, muffled by the
pounding in my ears. “They’re still out there.”

I shook my head and
scrubbed at the tears on my cheeks. “I watched them die a
thousand times.”

“Then you
witnessed lies,” Cassandra said, still hovering above the
water. “They are out there. Other Amadis are out there. They
need you, Alexis. As does humanity. They will fight for you, with
you. Find them. Build your army. Then you will go to Hades.”