Faith (Soul Savers Book 7) (34 page)

“Everybody will
want to fight,” she said.

“Not yet,”
I said firmly. “Tristan and I will go first, and find out what
Lucas is doing. Nobody moves until you hear from us. Got it?”

She gave a sharp nod. I
turned to face my council who stood behind me.

“Any objections
this time?” I asked. “Or do we agree the time has come to
move?”

“I still don’t
like it,” Char said as she stepped up to me and put her hands
on my shoulders. “You’re like a daughter to me, Alexis.
Those babies are family, too.”

“And if we want
them to have any hope for a future,” I started, and she nodded,
not needing me to finish.

“You two find out
what you can,” she said. “We’ll worry about
preparing the Amadis.”

“Nobody does
anything until we say,” I repeated. “If we get lucky,
maybe the Amadis can take Lucas down, and we can avoid going to Hades
to fight the rest of the Daemoni.”

“Wishful
thinking,” Vanessa muttered under her breath. Probably, but I
ignored her.

Robin took off to begin
alerting the rest of the Amadis, while Tristan and I hurried to our
room to change into our fighting leathers. Then we headed to the
Armory where Char and Brogan met us. I had my trusty dagger on my hip
and my knife in my boot, but I didn’t hesitate to grab a
silver-bladed sword and two handguns. Brogan fitted straps over my
chest and back to hold the sword, gun holsters, and ammo clips.
Tristan also strapped on a sword and a couple of guns, although he
contained the deadliest power in his hand. We loaded up on as much
silver-coated ammo as we could hold.

“Weren’t
you the one who taught me guns were pretty useless in our world?”
I asked Char as she made sure my leather straps were tightened.

“They are if you
don’t want to kill, which has always been our way,” she
answered as she pulled the guns out of the holsters and inspected
them. “But weren’t you the one who started this war
saying we’ll do whatever it takes, even if it means slaying
Daemoni?”

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
damned.

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 Hell 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
passed 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!

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 pricked 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 Hell.

“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 Hellfire, his ice-blue gaze
sent prickles 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 shit
. 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.