Biting Cold (38 page)

I swallowed down fear and let the rush of adrenaline fill me with something closer to courage. Not quite bravery, but something that would suffice.

I looked back at him with silvered eyes.

“Well,” he said, a bit amused. “That was even more effective than I thought it would be.”

I humphed, and followed his glance to Mallory and Catcher, who stood chatting quietly a few feet away.

“You can do your part, as well,” I said.

“I know I can. It’s her I wonder about.”

I looked back at Ethan. “She’s asked for a chance to redeem herself. She only gets one. If this goes bad, if there’s any threat to you at all, I will take her out.”

Neither the words nor the sentiment scared me. I’d given Mallory chances she hadn’t earned; Ethan had earned chances to spare.

“God willing that it won’t come to that,” he muttered.

“But be prepared if it does,” I said. “That’s a lesson I learned from a certain Master vampire.”

Their conversation apparently done, Mallory and Catcher walked toward us. Her hands were balled into fists, and I wondered if they were shaking.

“Are you ready?”

Ethan nodded warily. “As ready as I’ll ever be to turn control over my body to someone else.”

“It will only last a few minutes,” Mallory said. “And then he’ll be Merit’s problem.”

“How does this work?”

“I’ll establish a full connection with you. Once he appears in
the sigil, you only need to touch him. It doesn’t matter where. Hand. Shoulder. Wing.”

“How long do I have to maintain my grip?”

“Until you feel the magic recede. You’ll know it when you feel it. It shouldn’t take more than a few seconds.”

“He’s probably going to realize what’s happening during those few seconds,” I pointed out.

“You have your sword,” Catcher said. “I have magic. Our job is to distract him. Ethan’s job is to hang on.”

“And, hey,” Mallory said, with a little too much cheerfulness. “There is an upside to this.”

“What’s that?” Ethan asked.

“I’m going to pull Dominic’s magic through you, and with it, my own connection. You should come out the other side with no connection to me at all.”

I squeezed Ethan’s hand and hoped to God she was right.

“As long as you can stay out of Dominic’s grasp while we’re triggering the spell, you’ll be fine.”

Ethan nodded.

I walked a few feet away, unsheathed my sword, and tossed the scabbard away. The steel rang like a clear bell through the darkness as it freed the scabbard, and I gripped my hands around the ray skin and felt it bite comfortably into my skin. I held the sword; it held me.

“I’m ready for the last sigil,” Seth announced.

I looked at Ethan and smiled a little.

“I love you,” he mouthed.

It was the first time he’d spoken those words to me, and I wished I had time to scream out my excitement and share the news with my girlfriends. But this was neither the time nor the place, so I gave him the only response I could.

“I love you, too,” I mouthed back.

“And I’m nauseous,” Catcher grumbled. “Let’s get on with this. I am seriously in need of a beer and a Lifetime movie.”

“Drinks on me if we survive this,” I said, then winked at Ethan, blew out a breath, and let my eyes silver again.

Catcher, Jeff, and Paige backed away from the circle. I took point in front of it, body bladed, sword at the ready. Ethan and Mallory stood at my right.

“I’m starting now,” she said, then extended a hand toward him.

Ethan clutched his head, then screamed out and went down to his knees.

“Ethan!”

“Hold your position, Merit!” Seth called out. “Do not move!”

“What did you do?” I screamed at her.

Eyes wide, she shook her head. “Nothing. I’m just trying to get it to work. I can stop.”

Weakly, Ethan put his weight on one foot, then the other, and struggled to his feet. “Do not stop. This ends tonight. Now.
Finish it
.”

Mallory looked, in a panic, between me and Ethan. “But I—”

“Finish it!” he demanded.

She didn’t stop to think about it. With the kind of determination I’d seen on her face before only when she was trying to hurt me and mine, she closed her eyes and chanted something to herself. Her body began to shake, and the ground began to rumble beneath us.

“Jesus,” Jeff said, arms out to keep his balance.

Sweat popped across Ethan’s forehead, even in the chill. His teeth were gritted together against the pain, but he wouldn’t let her stop. “We are nearly there; I can feel it. Keep going, Mallory.”

Her lips curled wickedly. “As if you could stop me.”

“Oh, crap,” Paige muttered, no doubt seeing the same thing in her eyes that I did.

The enjoyment of this bit of dark magic.

“Mallory, hold it together!” I called out, nearly yelling over the suddenly rising wind. A light rain began to fall, clouds suddenly swirling overhead.

The four elements reacting to this disturbance in the balance between good and evil.

“Almost there,” Ethan said.

“The sigil is nearly drawn,” Seth called out.

I regripped my fingers around the sword.

Mallory wet her lips, her nails cutting into her palm, trails of blood beginning to trickle down her forearm.

“One bit left,” Seth warned. “Finishing it…now!”

T
he sigil burst into blue flames, pushing all of us backward except Ethan and Mallory, who maintained their positions at the edge of it.

Jeff and Paige hit the ground a few feet away. Falls like that were going to take time to recover from.

“Mallory!” Catcher called out. “Stay strong!”

If she heard him, she didn’t react. Mallory still looked oblivious to everything but the connection between her and Ethan…and the pain it was putting her through. She hit her knees, too, tears streaming down her face as she held open the connection.

With the sigil alight, Seth looked at me. I nodded, and it began.

“Dominic!” he called out. “I will and summon you to appear!”

The sigil brightened, the flame rising, but no angel appeared in the middle of it.

“Seth?”

“Low-grade materials,” he said. “We had to make do. We’re trying.”

I blinked rain from my eyes, my breath steaming in the chill.
“Try harder! Mallory can’t keep this up much longer!” She was already, I figured, seconds away from writhing on the ground and taking Ethan back to dark magic town with her.

Seth pulled off his shirt, flexed, and unhinged his wings. They released into the night, sending that sugar cookie smell through the park. My stomach picked the wrong time to grumble.

“Dominic! I will and summon you to appear! Bear witness to my command!”

The sigil flashed and flickered again, and then completely extinguished.

“Is it the rain?” Jeff called out from the other side of the sigil. “Do we have to start over?”

For a moment, there was silence. As if fearful of what we’d wrought, the earth trembled beneath us.

And then, suddenly, the earth inside the smoking circle burst open, and Dominic shot through the air, wings extended.

He roared with impressive gusto, then locked eyes with Seth and flapped his wings back to earth again, stalking toward him with obviously malicious intent.

“You dare call me? You, who cower behind the words and deeds of humans?”

With what little strength he had, Ethan reached out to grab him, but Dominic stepped beyond the bounds of the sigil and out of Ethan’s grasp.

Seth caught the miss and rotated around, luring Dominic back toward the sigil and Ethan.

“Unlike you, I have been working, dear brother. Trying to rid the world of the pestilence you and yours seem so eager to forget.”

Seth’s lip curled. “Humans are not a pestilence on the world. Protecting them is our sole obligation. Our sole responsibility.”

“They are a plague!” Dominic leapt toward Seth, who maneuvered
away from him but didn’t manage to get him any closer to Ethan.

Who had said this part was going to be easy? Just grab the monster, she’d said, and pull away his power. I muttered a curse. And tried my own tactic. If Seth couldn’t lure him closer, maybe I could.

“Dominic!” I called out, spinning the sword in my hand, hoping a distraction might be enough. “Fight like a man!”

“I am
more
than man.” But he was too preoccupied with Seth to bother with me. He pushed Seth like a school bully and, when Seth jumped into the air, followed suit, his wings flapping slowly behind him.

“Every being with power has its purpose,” Dominic said. “I have served mine, and I was punished regardless. My wings bear witness to that.”

His voice was exactly like and unlike Seth’s. The timbre was the same, but the cant of the words was different. Seth spoke plainly; Dominic pronounced.

“You weren’t punished,” Seth said. “You did dark things and your body changed as a result of it.”

They wrestled in the air, the twins of light and darkness, just as in the picture the librarian had showed me. It occurred to me that I was seeing a battle that was primeval, fundamental in nature. Creatures of the beginning of the human world, fighting over whether humans should be allowed to rule themselves.

“Catcher!” I called out. “Throw some magic!”

“I might hit Seth!” he called back. I guess, given what we were battling against, I had to appreciate his concern for the collateral victims of his magic.

They pushed each other away, separating midair before battling again. “I made decisions no one else would make!”

“You destroyed people and cities.”

“They deserved it.”

“It wasn’t your call to make!” Seth raised his voice, his words booming across the park. I expected CPD patrol cars and picture-snapping residents any minute, so I acted.

I got a running start, held my sword upright, and leapt into the air toward the flying dervishes. The edge of my blade caught the webbing of Dominic’s left wing. He screamed out his pain and the wing flapped backward with enough force to propel me through the air, just as he’d done with Jonah.

I hit the ground with a dull thud that pushed the air from my lungs.

The rain had soaked the ground and made the playground muddy, washing away the remnants of the sigil. But Ethan and Mallory waited, magic at the ready, both of them all but humming with the energy of it.

Seth and Dominic rolled through the mud, which put the top of Dominic’s wing within a hand’s length of Ethan.

“Ethan, Mallory, now!” I yelled out.

Ethan grabbed the edge of Dominic’s wing. It took a second, and then Mallory screamed out as the connection burst open between them. There was no pleasure in her scream.

Dominic roared out again, flipping his wing in an effort to dislodge Ethan. He put his palms together, and with a crackle of light, the giant broadsword appeared in his hands. He swiped at Ethan, but Ethan, helped by his vampire strength, dodged the blade and wouldn’t let go, and Mallory wouldn’t break the connection between them.

“Nearly there,” Mallory said, pain in her expression.

Dominic arched back, roaring again like an injured lion. Catcher didn’t miss this opportunity. He wound up two bright blue orbs and tossed them in Dominic’s direction.

They exploded against his chest in a burst of blue sparks. Dominic fell back, hitting the ground with a thud.

But so did Ethan and Mallory.

The dark magic had stopped, and so did the rain.

I knew any reprieve would be temporary. Body aching, I pulled myself off the ground and limped toward them again.

“Mallory! Ethan!”

Ethan’s grip was still on Dominic, but the magic seemed to have knocked him out, too. Catcher dragged Mallory away, her palms red and chafed from the magic she’d pulled out of Dominic. I did the same with Ethan, ignoring the bleeding gash on his arm and the intoxicating scent of blood.

“Watch him!” I demanded of Seth, but Dominic was up and roaring again before I could even pull my sword. Seth took point this time.

I patted Ethan’s face. “Ethan! Wake up.”

He suddenly sat up, coughing and sputtering for breath as if Mallory had sucked out the rest of his oxygen. “I’m okay. I’m fine.”

Tears bloomed at my lashes. “Thank God. Did it work?”

“I think so. I felt so much magic. If he’s not cleaned out, he has a hella large tank.”

I couldn’t help the sarcasm. “Who says ‘hella large’?”

But Ethan’s focus was better than mine. “Sentinel,” he weakly said, pointing back to the fray.

Dominic had Seth pinned in the mud and was whaling, older brother–style, on his twin. I made it to my feet again, my sword now filthy with mud, and wiped it on my leather pants.

I was just about to launch my attack, hopeful Ethan was right about Dominic, when I caught a new trouble blooming.

Mallory was standing again, her hair spread out around her like a static halo, and a gleam of dark magic in her eyes.

I sighed, my stomach curling with the fear that she’d never be able to come back from her addiction. Not if a little demonic filtering took her out.