the Darkest Edge Of Dawn (2010) (33 page)

Llyran's hands were still lifted skyward. Wind whipped around him as the darkness above him continued to part, spreading open in a wide circle to reveal a serene violet sky amid the sounds of fighting.

I sensed movement, but it was too late to block my attacker's next blow. Still I put my hands up to block, catching a brief glimpse of my opponent's open palm, head dipped as gray powder was blown into my face.

Honeysuckle blossomed in the air. I gasped, involuntarily.

Ash.

My hand flew to my mouth and nose, even though I'd already sucked it into my lungs. Immediately, the rapture began to run through my system. I raised my fist to take a swing, but my cloaked nemesis crouched low, swiped out a leg, and swept me off my feet. My skull cracked hard against the stone floor. Heat and pain exploded through the back of my head as I landed shoulders and head first. The pain didn't last long, though, quickly replaced by the wondrous effects of
ash
as the faint traces of dawn spread out above me.

My eyelids fluttered, body completely overtaken by pure bliss, a feeling so intense and consuming that there was no way to fight it, no
need
to fight it. It was heaven, and I could stay like this forever, my body sinking, growing roots into the stone, being enveloped in a warm cocoon of light and pure weightlessness. No aches and pains. No body. Nothing.

I didn't know how much time had passed, but the first fuzzy image to register in my mind was the massive hole in the darkness, revealing a sky streaked with purples, blues, grays, and just a hint of orange. No matter how hard I tried, my eyelids would only open halfway. The bliss was still there inside of me, but my mind had come out of the toughest fog--much like a drunkard who no longer had the capacity to stand, but could still slur and see and make attempts at
trying
to think rationally.

My chest rose with the deep breath I drew into my lungs as my head tipped to the side, seeing a blur in the distance. Fighting, though I couldn't tell who. On the other side of me was the sarcophagus, ringed with candles, an altar table sitting to the side with a large alabaster jar and a massive tome spread open.

Why couldn't I feel my limbs?

I blinked slowly, trying to find the right brain command to work the rest of my body, but all I could manage was sight, thought, and breathing.

Stay awake, I had to stay awake. This was important. And goddammit, where the hell were Hank and the others?

It took all my effort to tilt my chin up, to try and see through hooded eyes what lurked behind me. My searching gaze collided with the glowing green eyes of a predator. Orin's name immediately sprung into my mind, but, hell, what did I know? I was high as a kite. He crouched low among the foliage near the door, only a few feet from the table.
Open your fucking eyes, Charlie!
I yelled at myself, my consciousness banging around in my head and growing furious and desperate and mean.

The image of the wolf's face went from blurry to clear and back again. I blinked several times, urging my vision to stop being a fucking weakling and do what it was supposed to do. His image solidified. His gaze held mine for a second and then blended back into the darkness.

Sudden crazed laughter at the absurdity of it all bubbled inside, engaging my stomach muscles, forcing my torso up, and giving me the momentum I needed to turn to the side and push to a sitting position. Once upright, my gut executed an undulating roll and my vision went cloudy. It took several seconds of concentrating on
not
throwing up and regaining my center of balance before I could open my eyes again. This time they weren't so heavy.

My reaction to
ash
was, at first, very human--an instantaneous, blissful coma. And the only thing that saved me from being like all the other human victims was the fact that I was not entirely human anymore. My Elysian and Charbydon genes filtered the effects slowly out of my system, the drug having only a temporary high-like effect on off-worlders.

And what the hell was that sound, a baying echo that seemed to flow through the maze of downtown skyscrapers and empty streets below?

My gaze shifted to the place I'd last seen my partner. He wasn't there, but there was an object lying discarded by the corner. Hank's weapon. Denial hit me hard. No, Hank was fine. He'd simply dropped his weapon just like I had.

"Ah, right on time." Llyran sauntered up to me and grabbed me under the arm, yanking me up. My legs gave out, but he didn't stop--just dragged me to the sarcophagus until it felt like my arm was going to rip from the shoulder socket.

He released me. I fell to my knees, just catching myself with my hands before toppling over and going forehead first into the back legs of one of the jinn warriors who, once again, stood before the sarcophagus.

"I'm going to kill you, you know," I slurred, swaying slightly. "
Both
of you."

Llyran joined his companions at the tomb, his back to me for a long while--which pissed me off because it was a great opportunity to kill the bastard. If only I could stand and think straight.

Llyran pivoted and knelt down, grabbing my hand and shoving a heavy, tarnished gold ring onto my middle finger. Solomon's ring, no doubt. I laughed. It was too big and too wide. The center housed a large oval stone, black as pitch and polished to a mirror-like quality. Mesmerized, I blinked slowly as my hand dropped to my knee, seeing my own hazy reflection staring back at me in the stone. There were symbols carved around the stone. I squinted, swaying every time a breeze hit me. "Denasthr--" I managed to say, trying to read the script.

Llyran spun around. "Not yet, you idiot!"

Slowly I raised my heavy hand and flipped him the bird.

He slapped me hard; the force of his blow tipped me off balance and I fell to the side as searing pain shot over my face and rung in my ears.

"You are a waste of powers!" he shouted, jerking me upright, back into a sitting position. Then he grabbed my chin, fingers digging painfully into my skin and bringing tears to my eyes. "But you won't be for long. The
ash
will cling to your spirit, suppressing it, taking away your will to fight."

"To fight what? You?"

"No, you foolish woman. The king who is about to call your body home."

21

"That's what
ash
does to you humans." Llyran squeezed my face harder. "Makes you a vessel, prepares your soul and your annoying will to step aside. No struggle. No fight for control. And since you've turned out to be a huge disappointment, we have to do it this way."

I swallowed and lifted my hand, poking him in the chest and slurring, "You're a lunatic."

His lips split into a sneer, and his arctic gaze narrowed, grabbing my hand and shoving the gold ring into my line of sight. "And once he is inside of you, he will use his knowledge to raise the star with this." He dropped my hand. He leaned closer and whispered in my ear, lips brushing the skin. "Then I'm going to take her power for my own, and kill the both of you." He cast his glance to the alabaster spirit jar on the altar table. "Say goodbye to your will and hello to Solomon. He'll be pulling all your strings from now on."

I shook my head as a blanket of sickness rolled through me. "But ... that's not ..." No, it wasn't supposed to be Solomon inside of that jar, it was supposed to be his servant, his demon, a jinn.

"Oh, yes," Llyran continued with glee, "his soul is housed inside of that jar, but not for long. Not for long ..."

Llyran turned back to the altar and began placing candles around the jar. His slap had woken me up, had stirred my anger and my power. Once it was engaged, it went to work, slowly destroying the effects of the
ash
. At least, the physical effects. If what Llyran said about
ash
suppressing my will and my soul was true, making me a willing vessel, I wasn't sure if my off-world genes would fight that or not.

I stayed on my knees, eyes closed, letting them think I was still heavily under the influence. Solomon's ring was on my finger. Aaron's life force was inside of the stone.

I had what I needed. Now I just had to get free and get the ring to Pendaran.

Llyran returned to the sarcophagus and raised his arms, calling out loudly to the darkness. The breeze picked up as a shaft slithered down toward him, wrapping itself around the tomb. An energetic tingle vibrated beneath my skin.

Slowly, the lid began to slide off until it fell onto the other side of the tomb, with a thud that vibrated the stones beneath me.

The darkness receded. Llyran and his companion leaned over to gaze inside of the sarcophagus. "Incredible," he breathed.

As soon as the lid was off, the atmosphere changed as though the entire rooftop had just become one gigantic lightning conductor and there was an electrical storm brewing. The hum already inside of me from the darkness amplified until my teeth were vibrating. The agate no longer suppressed the power signature in that tomb. It was out. And, holy hell, it was so strong and low and pulsating that my eardrums rang.

Voices poured into my mind. Faint. Confusing. A clatter of noise and broken words. I shook my head. It didn't help. I tried to block it, imagining the usual heavy curtain coming down, but the voices were already inside, the
ash,
maybe, making me weak or susceptible. Whatever the reason, they were desperate, scared, and angry. It was as though I'd gotten a firsthand listen into the depths of hell and human suffering.

I grabbed both sides of my head and bent over.

Charlie!

My name. Familiar. Inside of my own screwed-up mind. Aaron's voice called to me, and I knew I must be losing it. Then a strong female voice. No language I could understand, but welcome and soothing, not at all horrifying like the others. I latched onto that tone, bringing it to the forefront of my mind and shoving all the others back.

Llyran and the hooded figure finally turned from their ogling of the tomb's contents. The smug look on the Adonai's face went completely blank, slowly turning pale. His lips thinned and his irises bled to black. "The Old Lore!"

I followed his murderous gaze to see that the tome was gone.
Orin,
I thought. It had to be. He'd been so near before ... That tome was the Old Lore? Now it made sense. Hank had said that Llyran stole something big from the Hall of Records. This had to be it. No wonder the Elysian Council had attempted to execute Llyran. No wonder they never revealed what he'd taken from the Hall of Records.

It was their most prized possession. How could they admit they'd lost it?

I laughed. It started small, but grew. "What? Did you need that?"

"What did you do?!" He backhanded me hard, my hair whipping across my face as I flew to the side with a grunt. Slowly, I righted myself, my expression conveying my humor but also my extreme hate. "Fuck. You."

"Go find it." The hooded figure nodded at Llyran's command and blurred down the terrace, the ends of the cloak flying out and making it look like she floated over the ground.

Good. That left me and Llyran.

He had a brief look on his face, like he wasn't sure now how to proceed. I used that to my advantage and punched him in the groin since it was pretty much eye-level with me. He doubled over, cursing as I jumped to my feet, still a little wobbly, and then gave him a hard right uppercut to the jaw. He flew backward, and I turned and bolted for the terrace railing where I flung the ring over the edge as hard as I could.

I glanced over my shoulder, as Llyran pushed to his feet, feeling a rush of victory. He hadn't seen me toss the ring. This might actually work. Energized, I went for Hank's discarded gun, swiped it up, and ran like hell into the arboretum, luring Llyran away from the terrace.

The foliage was so thick I couldn't see beyond my own path or what might lie on either side of me beyond the plants and trees. It was truly a labyrinth, a dark, humid place perfect to evade and hide.

A booming crack made me slide to a stop. Like the breaking of an Arctic ice shelf, several cracks resonated through the arboretum, so sharp and deep I felt it in my chest as they grew, splitting until finally the glass dome shattered, a thousand pieces hurtling toward the stone floor and slicing anything in their path.

I dove into a wide swath of plants, crawling on my hands and knees in the soft, wet dirt as small pieces of glass sliced my shoulders, legs, and stuck into my back and scalp. I burned all over. There! A banana tree. I lurched beneath it, cradling myself beneath its leaning trunk and waiting, calming my pulse, and directing the adrenaline and energy into shielding myself and pulling that heavy curtain down, imagining myself sinking into the soft soil and becoming nothing but a plant with a faint signature of life.

The side of my face ached. Dozens of small cuts stung and bled. The smell of leaves and soil held a whiff of honeysuckle, but I knew that was me.
Ash
had a purpose that went far beyond simple narcotics trade. My new genes may have protected me from becoming a coma victim, but Llyran seemed to think that it still had the ability to suppress my will and soul completely. I hoped to hell he wasn't right. This nasty shit needed to get out of my system pronto.