Dark Calling (39 page)

The Heavens fall.

Hell rises.

The realms break apart like
shattered glass
.

Earth is stuck
somewhere in the chaos.

No sky above.  No ground below.
  One boundless abyss.  The stars are no more.  Beneath, there is only a rolling pool of gray.

The Demon King rises from the murky bottom of the nothingness.
  Demons slither out behind him, already seeking their pray.
 
People
scream
endlessly
.  T
hey t
ry to run, but fall into the nothing.  Get ripped apart by Demons. 
In his arms,
t
he
Demon King
carries the girl.  He stands tall.  Proud.  He hugs the girl to him as he gazes around at what she has done.  She has joined Heaven and Hell with the Earth.  Opened everything in between
.
  His child.  His beautiful.

Keely cannot look at the innocent people’s panicked and terror-stricken faces any longer.  She tears her eyes away from the words.
  Aw
ay from what she has done.

Twenty-Four
:

“Just say it already, man
,” Bryon says.
 
“
It can’t possibly be that bad.  Besides, I think I have a pretty good i
dea of what
you want to tell me
.
”
  He absorbs Nick’s tight movements.  Observes his discomfort.

Nick searches Bryon’s face.  He’s pretty sure he does
n’t have a clue as to what this is about
.  Of course, now Nick wonders w
hat Bryon thought he was going to say
.  He holds out his hand, gesturing for Bryon to go on.

“I already know about you and Keely.  Who doesn’t at this point?”

Nick tries to keep his expression neutral
.  He’s pretty sure it slips
.  “That’s not…  Why would you think I’d come here to tell you about Keel
y?  That’s private between me and her.
”

Bryon laughs.  It’s thick with sarcasm.  “
Yeah,
not private when you kiss her in front of everyone.”
  He crosses his arms over his chest and scrutinizes Nick.  “What’s going on?”

“U
h.”  Nick rubs his eyes.  “I knew there was someone leaking information about Keely to Apophis.”  He sits down on the edge of the couch cushion.  “I knew it wasn’t Lila.  And then you went missing.”  He meets Bryon’s gaze evenly.  Watches it turn
in
to a grima
ce, followed by a scowl
.

“So you assumed it was me?”  No longer able to look at his supposed friend, Bryon turns and paces the room. 

“Not at first, but when we couldn’t get a hold of you, it just made sense.”

Bryon stops pacing.  Turns slowly to face Nick again.  “Only thing wrong with that is I am your friend.  I have always had your back.  Always!  Even when you were wrong, I still stood by you, man.  You should have known I would never do that.  And to Keely?  How could you believe for a second I would ever do
anything
to hurt that girl?  That’s seriously messed up, Nick.”

“I didn’t want to believe it.  So much was going on.  I screwed up.  I’m sorry.”

Bryon squeezes
his
hand into a
fist.  “I want to hit you right now.  Did you even try to look for me?”

Ashamed, Nick
stands and
looks at his feet.  “Keely tr
i
e
d.”

“Did you?”

“No.  I didn’t,
”
he admits.

That’s what their ye
ars of friendship are worth.  Bryon
nods his head.  “I would have looked for you.  I never would have belie
ved you were a filthy traitor,” he says calmly.

“I know
.
I can’t take it back.  I can just tell you how sorry I am.  I will never doubt you again.”

“And I am supposed
to take that and get over it?  That’s bull shit.  You let me rot in that cell.  In the dark.  While you made your move on Keely.”

“I didn’t know you were
locked
in a cell.  And I didn’t make a move on Keely, it just happened.  Why is that even an issue?  Why do you care who she’s with?”

Without warning, Bryon’s fist connects with Nick’s jaw.  Well, he actually
did
warn him, didn’t he?  Stunned, Nick rubs his chin.  Works his jaw back and forth
.

“Come on,” Bryon
goad
s
.

“I deserve that
.
  I’m not going to hit you back,
”
Nick says slowly.

Bryon strikes out and hits him again.  This time on the o
ther side.

“I probably deserve that too, but if you hit me again, I will hit you back.”

With a shrug, Bryon hits Nick in the eye.  Nick tackles him to the floor.  Bryon kicks up his leg and flips Nick over him.  He lands on his back, knocking the wind out of him.  Taking advantage, Bryon presses his knee into Nick’s chest.

“I loved her long before you did.”

This isn’t necessarily true.  Nick can’t pin-point the exact
moment he fell in love with Keely
, but he knows it was before this week.  He just hadn’t realized it. 
Finding his bearings quickly, Nick knocks Bryon back and crushes his forearm into his windpipe.  He lifts his hand to punch him, but can’t bring himself to do it.  Their eyes lock, and in them, they both see the other’s
turmoil
.

“I didn’t know,” Nick says and pushes himself off of Bryon.

They lie beside each other
,
their breathing heavy as they
stare at the ceiling.  After a moment, Bryon sits up and hits Nick in the stomach. 
Nick grunts and r
ubs his hand over his abdomen
.  And that’s it.  The altercation is over.  All is forgiven.  What just
happened
,
never happened.

***

Her room is unbearable.  Keely slams the Demon Grimoire shut.  Shoves it away from her.  Wet hair sticks to her face
, clothes cling to her body
adding to the claustrophobia she is currently experiencing. 
She needs out of this room.  Away from this book.  There is no way her mom is about to let her out of the house. 

Keely turns on the radio and adjusts the volume.  Loud enough so her parents will assume she’s still here, but not so loud they come to complain about it.  She flips on the light in her bathroom and shuts the door.  It may offer her a little extra
time if they come in
and think she’
s bathing
.

Automatically reachi
ng for her cell phone that isn’
t there, Keely swears under her breath.  Instead, she slips her shoes on and goes to the window.  Pulls back the curtain and tries to measure the distance.  If she lets herself hang
before she drops, it will be less of a distance.  Why couldn’t she
have
a tree or a trellis outside her window like girls always do in the movies?

With a self pitying sigh, Keely opens the window and begins lowering herself out.  As she perches on the sill, she realizes all her preparation to hide that she is gone doesn’t matter if the window is left open. 
Oh
,
well, too late now
.  She flips to her belly, grips the frame and let’s her legs dangle before she drops.  Lands it like a pro. 

Keely stares up at her window wondrously.  It was so easy.  She looks around her, making sure she hasn’t been caught.  Satisfied, she walks away from the house, heading for the field at the end of the street
.  It will take less time to get anywhere she wants to go i
f she
cuts through the old corn field.  Of course, now she needs to decide where exactly it is she wants to go.  Her first instinct is Nick’
s.  But she i
sn’t ready to discuss their relationship yet.  Or
possibly ending it.  And she is
n’t in the mood for him to yell at her for sneaking out either.  Lila was most likely at the h
ospital with Dustin
and she does
n’t really feel like dealing with him either.  That leaves Bryon.  He never judges her.  Never yells at her.  Never pushes
her
.  She’s pretty sure she can show up at his door with wet hair and clothes and he won’t say a word about it.

The field
.  It’s been awhile since she’s been
out here.  It once was her sanctuary.  She would come here and draw.  The
way the sun looked over the dried
, yellowed stalks as they lay flat across the dirt
would captivate Keely’s attention for hours.  It’s how she learned to draw shadow.

She stops walking and looks up at the sky.  Let’s the sun touch her face
.  She looks back out across the
field and sadness fills her.  This could all be gone.  At her own hands. 

“Would you like some company?”

Keely barley jumps at the sound of Asmoday’s voice because though she was distracted by her feelings of hopelessness and dre
ad, she also felt a tug on the
invisible cord that binds them.  She doesn’t tur
n to face him.  Doesn’t want
him to see the tears.  Doesn’t want him to witness the shame.

“Why are you so sad?”

Her body
,
so desperate to feel something else, she turns to anger.  “Why do you know what I feel?”
 
As her angers shifts, morphs into hurt confusion, Keely understands these are not her feelings.
  She twists now so she can see his face
.  “How do I know what you feel?”

His coffee br
own eyes meet hers
steadily.  He shakes his head slowly.  “I truly do not know.”  He closes the distance between them, h
is stride slower than usual.  In
the seconds it takes him to stand before her, Keely flies through more confusion, happiness, sadness, anger.  Lands on content
ment
just as he
settles his feet at hers.  “It i
s very strange.  To feel so strongly
.  To feel certain emotions.  Why are you sad?”

“I read the Prophecy, Asmoday.  I know what I’m going to do.  Why did you give Nick the Grimoire?  You had to know I would find it.”

“I
had
hoped you would, yes.”

Keely tries to find deception in his face.  Tries to feel it in
his emotions
.  Tries so desperately because she doesn’
t want to like him.
  “Why?”  He
r voice is shaky and barely above
a whisper, but he understands
her
perfectly.

“I
was given tole
rance growing up
. 
And
I am drastically stretching the definition to make it applicable.  I learned to do as I was told.  I learned that if I obeyed him, I would not be the recipient of his animosity.  At times, I was even rewarded.”  Keely feels something flutter in her stomach, but it leaves her quickly.  “I never new kindness, or empathy, or happine
ss.  Those are very new to me
.  It’s very overwhelming, but in a pleasant way.”  He bends at the knees so he is eye level with her.  Keely feels frozen in place as he continues.

“I ha
ve always understood feelings of fear,
and
hatr
ed, loneliness, and anger
.  I ha
ve experienced lust
and want.  But I did no
t know I was capable of these other feelings.  I hardly recognized them.  And
they were no
t all yours, you see?  Because you were scared, I was scared.  But because you were scared, I also felt
for your pain.  I felt empathy
and it was all mine.  When you are sad, I feel sad, but I worry for you.  When you feel happy, I am happy for you.  When I get angered, I inst
antly feel regret because I do no
t want you to feel angry.

“The fact that I am capable of feeling anything for anybody else outside of lust or hatred is a miracle.
It brings me joy and peace.  I ha
ve never known this.

“Just from feeling what you feel I now know love.  That one was hard.  I felt it strongest when we found the human you refer to as your dad.  It was so
substantial.  It filled me.  I thought I may burst.  I had never
felt anything like it.  I did not
realize w
hat it was at the time or why
it was happening.  Then, when I left the realm to return your parents…”  He shakes his head.  Puts his large cool hands on Keely’s arms.  “I thought I was dying.  I thought you were dying.  I was never so scared in my life.  The way you felt, it hurt me.  It hurt me inside.  I never want you to feel like that again.