Devil Inside (67 page)

“Meh,” he shrugged.  “I bounced back pretty quickly.”  He didn’t meet her eye when he answered the question.

“But…?”  Castor didn’t answer.

Levi sniggered as he leaned back in his chair.

“What?” Harley asked, looking from him to Castor.

“Apparently, you would only have been able to do something like that if you two had…um…been close.  And, apparently, neither Randall nor Alice knew that for sure until that moment.  They got a little pissed,” Levi was trying not to smile and Harley was surprisingly relieved that he didn’t seem mad about it.

Harley’s stomach dropped as she looked at Castor.  “What’s going to happen?”

He shrugged and brushed off her concern.  “It’s nothing.  It will all blow over eventually.”  Harley looked at Levi—he looked as doubtful as she felt.

“OK,” Harley said letting that subject drop.  “What happened after you got me out of there?”  Levi and Castor shared a look and it gave Harley a bad feeling.

Levi hesitated again.  “Cutter and Raven got away.  As usual.”  Harley felt the anger boil inside her. 
One day at a time right now.  I’ll deal with that soon enough.
  “The Praesidio and the Ignis fought and the ones that we didn’t kill ran with Cutter and Raven.”

Harley hesitated to ask. “What about everyone else?”

Levi studied her carefully before answering.  She didn’t think he had more bad news really—he was just making sure that she was handling everything OK.  “There were injuries.  But they have all healed.  Nya, Evie and two of the local Nocte are here with us.”

Harley nodded. 

Castor was studying her carefully.

“What?” she asked him, working really hard to not sound as annoyed as she was starting to feel.

Castor put his words together carefully before speaking.  “What happened when you took the life force of the Rogue?”

Harley looked at him evenly.  She slowly let out a breath and answered his question.  “His energy is still with me.  If that’s what you are asking.”  Again, neither Levi nor Cas looked surprised.  Instead, they looked at each other before looking back to Harley. “What?” she asked.

“We…kind of suspected that,” Cas answered.

“Why did you suspect that?”

“Well—when you let go of the Rogue—after he was dead…your eyes were different,” Levi explained.

“Different how?”  Harley’s blood felt cold.

“Well, they were black and white,” Levi answered.

“What does that mean?”  Harley wrinkled her brow.

“Well, your whole eye was Nocte black—except for the part that would have been green.  That part was Lux white.  Like Castor’s eyes.”

Harley’s jaw dropped open.  “Seriously?”

“Yep,” Cas answered.  “They stayed that way until you woke up.  Now they are your normal green.”

Harley didn’t know how to respond to that.  She wasn’t really surprised but she hadn’t really been expecting it either.  “I bet that looked pretty weird—huh?”

Levi gave his half smile and Castor chuckled.  “A little,” Cas answered.

“Well, OK.  I guess that just makes me stranger than usual,” Harley shrugged.  Castor and Levi looked at each other again.  “You both are going to have to stop doing that,” Harley snapped.  “What?”

Castor shifted uneasily.  “Well, the Vigilum has been calling trying to find out what happened.  Randall and Alice didn’t leave after they drug me out of the building.  They saw you when Levi brought you out.  They saw your eyes.”

“So?”

“Well…they are concerned about your power.”  Harley looked at Castor bewildered.  He sighed before going on.  “Well, they know how strong you were before.  They are concerned that you are even stronger now.  They are worried about the balance.”

“So they say,” Levi cut in looking angry.  Cas didn’t argue with him.

“What do you mean?”

“I think they are just worried about a Nocte being so much stronger than them.”

“That’s absurd,” Harley argued.

“Hey,” Cas held up his hands in surrender.  “We agree with you.”  Everyone was silent for a moment.  “Are you stronger than before?” he asked her.  Harley glared at him and Levi rolled his eyes.

Harley chose not to answer the question.  Harley flopped back against the bed.  She had taken in a lot of information in the last few minutes and she was feeling overloaded.  She heard Levi stand up from his chair.

“Castor, let’s get out of here and let Harley rest.  I think she’s dealt with a lot today.”

Cas looked like he was going to protest then thought better of it.  Harley didn’t sit up when she called to them just before they left the room.  “You know,” she said without looking at either of them.  “Just so that it has been said.  I’m not going to choose between you.  If either of you are uncomfortable with the way things are—you should just back out now.”

Levi’s answer was immediate.  “I have no problems.”

“Good,” she said.

Castor took a moment longer to answer.  Long enough that her stomach had begun to sink.  Annoyed or not—she cared about Castor and didn’t want to stop spending time with him.  “I’m fine,” he said finally.

“Good,” she responded.  “We are partners.  Teammates.  This is who we are,” she said with a finality that didn’t leave room for them to argue even if they wanted to.  The door shut softly behind them as they left the room.

Harley rolled to her side and concentrated on keeping all thoughts out of her head.  She couldn’t deal with friends’ deaths, increased power, becoming the enemy of the Vigilum and regret and anger and still not having taken her revenge on Cutter all at one time.  Harley knew that even worse trouble than the Rogue was coming. Harley took a deep breath and forced it from her mind.  There was no way she could prepare for what was to come until she got rest and healed and adjusted to the change that she had undergone—she still didn’t even know what changes had taken place.  She just knew that inside her, she now contained both Nocte and Lux—light and dark.  As the two forces came together she felt stronger than ever before.  She didn’t know what that meant for her long term but she knew that it had made her a target of both the Lux and the Sol Invictus.

Harley looked around the room and spotted her machete on top of the dresser.  It was encased in its leather holder and it looked like someone had cleaned the blood off of it.  She was surprised by how relieved she was to see that someone had brought it back for her. 
Well
, she thought to herself,
I may be screwed—but at least I have a machete.

The end…