Baleful Betrayal (37 page)

"Great job!" I caught up to the snared usurper and dropped to a knee. I wanted to gloat so bad it literally hurt. But I had no time. "How do I turn off the arch, Cephus?"

He smiled calmly at me. "I'll never tell you."

I jerked him off the ground by his super cape and let him choke for a few seconds in front of the infernal flames burning in my demon eyes. "Tell me, or I'll eat your soul."

"Never," he croaked. "Your new master comes."

I slung his bound form over a shoulder and raced toward the crimson arch. "We'll let you be the first to meet your new master."

"No!" He bucked and writhed.

"What, are you too good to meet the Beast?" I roared.

I found the others fending off loyalists near the arch while Elyssa and Flava worked on a dais with several gems embedded in it.

"We can't figure it out," Elyssa said.

Flava pounded the top. "There must be a pattern to the gems."

I set Cephus down in front of the arch. "Tell me how to stop it or you'll be the first thing the Beast sees when he comes through."

The seraph stared at me, calm smoothing his features. "I will gladly welcome him."

That wasn't the answer I'd hoped for.

"We have to destroy the arch," Flava said.

I waved my hands imploringly. "No, we can't do that. This arch can open a portal to any realm. It might be our only way back to Eden."

The thrumming in the arch reached a fever pitch. "Oh, Christ," Shelton said. "Do something and hurry!"

Elyssa gripped my arm. "We have no choice, Justin."

A loud boom rocked the air and a portal split the air between the columns. There was no world to be seen on the other side, just pitch black emptiness. A wail of intense sadness and longing echoed from the other side. There was no telling how close or far the source of that sound was. Distance might not even be a thing in the Void.

Cephus struggled to turn. "I'm here, master! Your servant beckons you to take this broken world!"

A long note of despair sang out from the void, this time noticeably closer. It was like listening to a depressed whale in a karaoke bar, except whatever was making those sounds was definitely not a friendly denizen of the deep.

I looked at the arch and over at the control pedestal.
Without the Alabaster Arch, this is our only way home.

If we didn't shut this thing off, none of us would have a chance of getting home.

The wailing changed to a roaring bellow. A gust of foul-smelling air blew from within the portal and we were out of time. "Destroy the arch!"

Lanaeia, Flava, Joss, Otaleon, Nailan, Philas and I took aim at the base of the arch and opened up with everything we had. Shelton and Adam aimed their staffs and fired gouts of destructive energy. The stony material began to glow, but it was so thick, our attacks weren't doing enough.

"Farting fairies on a pogo stick," Shelton yelled. "We're not doing squat."

"We need more firepower." Adam took out his phone and tapped on the screen. Battle bots raced to the scene and unloaded their lasers on the thick arch column. The shield dome flickered and vanished as the Daemos completed their task of disabling the aether wells powering it.

Thomas's voice sounded through my comm pendant. "What's coming through the arch?"

"Master, come for me!" Cephus shouted. "Come for me!"

"The Beast," I told Thomas. "We've got to destroy the arch, but it's made from the same stuff as the Obsidian Arches, and we can't put a dent in it."

The battle had all but stopped. The bodies of mutant fliers and loyalists mingled with those of vampires and Templars. An unnatural silence fell as a heavy breathing and the sound of flesh dragging across a rough surface emanated from the portal within the arch. The base of the arch glowed cherry red where we'd attacked it, but we'd barely scratched it.

Cephus's face lit with joy. "Your loyal servant is here." He unsteadily rose to his feet. "Save me from the religious zealots, master."

A swarm of pure black swept out of the portal and engulfed Cephus. His scream cut off almost instantly and where he'd once stood was nothing except a wailing black presence.

Shelton's face blanched and he backed away as did the rest of us. More of the dark swarm crept through, a shrieking sound slicing through the still air and causing my heart to skip several beats. I tried to make out the individual forms making up the swarm but it was like staring into oblivion. My eyes couldn't focus on the shimmering darkness.

Stretching like a tentacle, the swarm came for me. I threw up a shield and the darkness splashed against it, rebounding against itself and reforming.

"Justin!" Elyssa grabbed my shoulder.

The void swarm pummeled my shield relentlessly though it could have easily just flowed around it. Every attack drained energy from me, leaving brittle cold down to my very core. I dropped to a knee as my power waned and then the swarm swept in to consume its prey.

Chapter 34

More shields sprang up to protect me. Flava, Lanaeia and the other Seraphim overlapped their shields. The moment the swarm hit their barriers, however, they gasped in unison.

"It drains energy," I gasped. "Can't stop them long."

One by one the others staggered back as the energy-leeching things stole their power. Joss lost his shield first, followed by Philas and Nailan.

"Retreat!" I said. "Get out of here!"

Shelton gripped me under the arms and dragged me back. "You think I'm gonna just leave you here?" He grunted. "Man, your demon form needs to lose some weight."

My mother leapt to the fore and fired a withering blast of Brilliance at the swarm. Ashes drifted through the air, but there were always more of the swarm to take the other's place. The Beast, or whatever it was, consumed everything she fired at it.

Blue Cloaks swooped in on their carpets and unloaded on the monster, but nothing seemed to stop it. I realized then with horror what the Beast was—or at least it was the only thing that made sense. The Beast and the Void were one and the same. Wherever it existed, only it remained. If we let it loose here on Seraphina, it too would be nothing more than the Void Swarm.

"Nothing is hurting it!" Shelton shouted. "We've got to destroy that arch!"

But it was too late. More tentacles reached through, wailing, buzzing and roaring in my ears. We couldn't reach the arch through the sheer mass shoving its way free. And then I saw the massive bulk of the
Evadora
streaking our way, Seraphim crew members leaping off the sides and gliding to the ground on blazing wings.

"Holy farting fairies," Shelton gasped. "Run away!"

"Run for your lives!" Adam shouted.

By now, I'd recovered enough energy to follow his panicked instructions. Elyssa grabbed my arm and everyone scattered. With a tremendous boom, the
Evadora
slammed into the crimson arch. Wood groaned and stone rumbled as the titanic vessel demolished itself against the massive structure.

I stopped and looked back as the dust cleared and saw the arch still standing. "Oh god, we're doomed."

The portal crackled and flickered. With a brilliant flash and ear-bursting explosion, the gateway into the Void vanished. The swarm fell to the ground like flies. The hull of the
Evadora
lay in pieces against the crimson arch, its forest spilled out on the plaza. Vines writhed like dying snakes and tree branches flailed wildly.

Illaena ran to the remains screaming, "Cora!" over and over.

"Did she really fly that ship straight into the arch?" Shelton said.

Adam shook his head with wonder. "Dude, that was epic."

"Let's help them find Cora," Elyssa said. She snapped her fingers in front of my face and I jerked from my stupor. "Seraphina to Justin. Come in, Justin."

I nodded. "I don't see how she could've survived that impact."

We rushed over along with dozens of others and began combing through the wreckage. Arcs of energy crackled across the columns of the crimson arch causing people to jump in surprise. Bubbles with images of strange landscapes appeared and popped at random intervals making everyone nervous as the search operation moved closer to the damaged structure.

"It's creating interdimensional warp bubbles," Adam said. "Very unstable."

"Unstable as in it might blow up at any minute?" Shelton asked.

Adam shrugged. "I've never seen anything like this before."

"I have." I tossed aside a chunk of wood and looked beneath it. "Remember when I ended up in El Dorado by accident?"

"Yeah, you tried to use a broken arch to travel," Shelton said.

"I don't know if keeping this arch around is a good idea," Adam said.

Shelton gave him a disgusted look. "How else are we supposed get home, genius?"

"Look me in the eye and tell me that a malfunctioning arch that could open a portal back to the Void again is a good thing." Adam set his arms akimbo and stared at his friend. "Would you rather be alive, or devoured like Cephus?"

"Uh—" Before Shelton could answer, I spotted movement near the arch.

"Hang on." I ran toward a cluster of vines unbraiding and separating to reveal something inside.

Cora broke free of the vines. Face bruised and bloody, she looked like she'd gone nine rounds with a heavyweight boxer.

"Cora!" I turned and shouted at the others. "I found her!"

Cora staggered to her feet. "How is this arch still standing?"

"They're a lot tougher than they look," I said. Before I could close the remaining distance, an interdimensional bubble swelled in front of me. Hot arid air swept across my face from a desert plain. Another bubble blossomed right behind Cora. "Watch out!"

But it was too late. Still woozy from the crash, Cora staggered backward over her own vines. The bubble swallowed her and she fell into a field of brilliant flowers.

"Justin!" she shouted, her voice muted as if she were underwater.

Before I could shout back, the bubbles popped and a lightning storm of magical energy played back and forth along the arch columns. A loud groan and crumbling of rock were the only warnings we heard as the crimson arch began to topple slowly toward the remains of the
Evadora
.

"Run!" I shouted. "Everyone run!"

The search party scattered, people fleeing the massive crumbling arch. I grabbed Shelton and Adam as they struggled through the mountain of wreckage and dragged them after me. The arch slammed into the earth. The massive columns broke and rolled. The ground rippled beneath me and I fell, sending Adam and Shelton tumbling.

Dust and rubble scattered past, stinging my skin. When the air cleared, I turned and saw nothing but broken stone and the demolished remains of the
Evadora
.

"We ain't never getting home," Shelton said.

Adam got up and dusted off his clothes. "Never say never."

"Never," Shelton said again.

I hoped he was wrong.

Thomas gathered the war council in the lobby of the Ministry of Research so we could go over our next steps. "We confirmed that the Alabaster Arch on Kdosh is no longer working," was the first thing he shared.

Colin McCloud groaned loud enough for it to echo across the room. "Don't we have the great Alysea Slade, the woman who repaired the Grand Nexus, to fix it?"

"It's not that simple," my mother replied. "For all we know, Serena deployed portal-blocking statues in Eden, making it impossible to open a portal from here to there."

"Can we open portals to other realms?" McCloud asked.

"Right now the arch isn't working at all," Mom said. "Then again, I haven't been back out there to look at it."

"Our Arcane engineers are looking it over," Thomas said. "In the meantime, there's plenty to do here."

"A city to rebuild," Lanaeia murmured next to me.

"The Brightling army may attack if they discover how weakened the Darkling nation has become," Thomas continued. "To that end, we need to put the citizens of Tarissa back to work repairing the damage, and reconstructing the legion." He displayed a holographic map of Pjurna and indicated the blips where the other Darkling legions held the Brightling army at bay. "We need to contact the rest of the armed forces and rethink a long-term strategy. If we're to unite the Seraphim people, we have a lot of groundwork to do."

After the meeting, I took a levitation shaft up to the roof and followed the curve of the domed building to the peak. The building had been much lower than the towers all around it the first time I'd come here, but now it stood alone in the wasteland of the city center. The shattered remains of the
Evadora
looked like so much scrap amongst the red rubble of the crimson arch.

It made me think of Cora. I wondered where that interdimensional bubble had taken her and hoped she was safe wherever she was. Adam told me that the likely reason for so many dragon incursions from Draxadis were because of the crimson arch creating unstable dimensional bubbles. Just because the bubbles vanished from this area didn't mean they were gone, it simply meant they'd relocated.

It was a lot to soak in. How had Cephus and his allies managed to build an arch unlike any I'd seen? Had they found the blueprints or kidnapped a Siren? Thinking back to Kaelissa's stories about the Apocryphan, it made me wonder if the Abyssal demon I'd unleashed had anything to do with it.

I felt certain we'd only scratched the surface of Serena's deceit. We had to find out how they'd managed to create the crystoids and the sky portals if we stood a chance of ever going home.

The one person I couldn't stop thinking about was Ivy. For so many years, I hadn't even known she existed. Only after my eighteenth birthday had my father told me I had a sister. I'd spent so much time earning her love and trust, and now she was stranded all alone in Eden surrounded by backstabbers.

Unless I figured out a way back home, I couldn't do anything to help her.

"Need some alone time?"

Elyssa's voice made me start with surprise. "Why do you have to be so ninja silent when I'm deep in thought?"