Dominion: Zoë Martinique Investigation, Book 6 (26 page)

I shot him a bird and continued
hovering just over the lake until I'd moved a ways from them. I
couldn't tell someone exactly where it was—I just knew where it
was. And abruptly, it was beside me. A fixed state between the
worlds. I thought about the jewelry box again. A box within a
box.

After a few deep breaths, I held out
my hands and concentrated on the slight blurring in the air in
front of me. Sort of like a field distortion. Wow. That sounded
smart, too. Maybe this Wraith gig was increasing my IQ?

A few seconds passed before the box
became a dull shadow floating in front of me. In the center of that
box rested the blue stone, still attached to the silver
chain.

"Zoë!"

I heard the clang of metal just after
Joe's warning. Risking a glance back at them was probably
dangerous. I could hear and sense from the scuffling noises and the
cussing that Joe and Daniel were under attack by what I hoped were
just Powers. Powers they could handle. Dominions? That took a whole
different kind of weapon.

Mine. And Dags.

I reached my hand inside the gray box
and grabbed the Eidolon. More clanging, and I realized they were
gonna draw attention to themselves with all that sword fighting. I
also wondered where Joe had gotten a sword.

Once I had the Eidolon, the box faded
away. I didn't know if it'd still be there later or, since it
wasn't holding anything, if it would just collapse in on itself. I
flew up, hoping it would get the Eidolon out of danger and distract
the Powers so Joe and Daniel could escape.

I glanced down and my jaw
dropped.
Ten
Powers? Holy shit! I watched Daniel for a few seconds,
marveling in his swordsmanship. It was something I'd seen in
Montreal, and knew it wasn't really his ability, but Inanna's. Or
one of her hosts.

When I looked back to where the box
had been, something else was in its place.

I don't think I'd ever
really seen this sort of thing before. The huge,
football-field-long wings were a dead giveaway that it was
Ethereal. The fact that it had six of them was a bit more
confusing. It had the face of a twelve-year-old girl. In fact, it
had
my
twelve-year-old face. The rest of her body was pretty much
hidden by the plethora of wings and feathers.

I didn't know what it was, but I knew
what it wasn't. It wasn't something from the Second Choir.
Abruptly, she was in my face.

"Give that to me," the little winged
girl said in a voice that would have made James Earl Jones
happy.

This just wasn't right.

"No," I said, and backed up a few
feet. "I don't know who the hell or what the hell you are. This
isn't yours, it's mine." I felt something else creeping up over my
shoulders from behind and realized it was fear.

Nah, scratch that.

Terror. The same kind of terror I
remembered when I battled the Horror. That thing had had my face as
well.

Wait, was this a Horror? Was that it?
Was this the one Innana was talking about? The other Irin that was
changed?

The thing sneered at me. "How dare you
compare me to something so base as a Horror? Pathetic magic for a
race of beings that should be kissing the Seraphim's
feet."

Okay. Got it. I knew what this was
now. I was a Catholic, although a non-practicing one. Six wings? Oh
yeah…I knew what this was. I nearly peed my pants.

This was a Cherubim.

It'd chosen to take its legendary
form. The one all the angel books talked about. My Dad's words came
back to me. "You never want to face a Cherubim, Zoë. They are
ruthless and will sacrifice whatever is needed to protect and
provide for the Seraphim. Even kill."

Time to haul ass.

I spread my own wings and prepared to
shoot straight up, but something—later I surmised it was the tip of
one of the wings—struck me from behind and knocked me into the
water like a flyswatter smacking a fly. I went down and into the
cold depths.

Luckily, I didn't feel that, but what
I did feel was a jarring against my jaw, and I was dizzy, as well
as a bit weak. I shook my head and looked up through the water. The
thing was just hovering there, waiting on me to emerge.

Get away from it! You
can't win against one of those!

Inanna!
I get the picture. But I don't know how to evade
it.

They can't enter a
physical body—and that means a physical body of anything. You're in
a body of water. Follow that out of here!

Good plan!

I dove as deep as I dared and ignored
all the nasty-ass schmutz that was in this lake. Geez, did most of
Atlanta piss in this place? They sure as shit dumped their garbage
in it. And as I swam, I turned and looked up….

Shit, the thing was following me.
Keeping up with me.

I still had the Eidolon in my hand. I
didn't have time or energy to focus building a new box, and if the
Cherubim couldn't go into the water, then I'd just leave the thing
down here. I dove down deeper, to where it'd be pretty hard to see
me, and found an old rusted coffee can. I buried it in the muck,
put the coffee can on top of it, and then moved on. I checked, and
she was still following me, just above the water's
surface.

I was also reaching the end of the
lake—or the end of the open space. I faced the exit pipe ahead of
me. It was bad enough being in that dark nasty-ass water near the
surface, but I sure as shit wasn't going to purposefully dive into
a pipe that I couldn't see the end of. I built up speed and pulled
away from the bottom's edge, and then exploded upward and out of
the lake—and she was right on my tail.

But at least she wasn't going to get
the Eidolon.

When I turned to head back to the
fight, one of her wings came at me again. I ducked it, barely, but
was knocked back by another one. And then another one. The third
one that struck knocked the wind out of me, and I fell. I was
amazed at how weak I felt. Why was I so weak?

What the hell was wrong with me?
Usually I had all kinds of power at my disposal because I could
draw from the Abysmal Plane. But I was tired, just like I normally
would be as a human.

I did manage to stop my descent and
glide away from the Cherubim. But she was coming at me. I took in a
deep breath, getting ready to Scream at her, when something grabbed
me from behind and clamped a hand over my mouth. Another arm went
around my arms, and something pulled my hair back.

Whatever had hold of me tumbled with
me in midair until we struck solid ground. I rolled for a bit, and
whatever had me rolled off of me. I tried to get back up on my
feet, my wings beating furiously, but my knees were skinned all to
hell, I was bruised, and it felt like my head was going to come off
my neck. I hadn't taken a physical beating like this in a
while.

"Zoë!" Joe called out to
me.

I turned to see him inside of a
pretty-good-sized blue-white dome. He had his hands out, holding
the shield in place. Daniel was inside with him, and they both
looked a little worse than usual. Joe, just out of the hospital,
looked like he was heading right back into it, with a bloody lip,
bruised face, and ripped clothing. Daniel looked just as bad. His
trench coat was gone and he was holding his left arm at an odd
angle. I got the feeling the only thing protecting them at that
moment was Joe's magic.

They were surrounded by
Powers.

I wasn't paying attention—and that was
stupid of me. Something kicked me, and I flew up and then down
against the stone railing of the bridge over Lake Clara Meer. I
cracked my head against it and saw stars.

This shouldn't be
happening!

The Cherubim stood in front of me
then, no longer quite the spectacle, but still impressive. She
still had my face, but her hair was completely white, as were her
jeans, boots, and long suit jacket. Her eyes were crystal blue. I
felt as if I'd been used as a punching bag, and she
looked…radiant.

She leaned over me.

"Zoë!" Daniel called out to
me.

Zoë, you have to escape.
We can't fight a Cherubim.

Now
they tell me.

But this one was close to my face now,
nose to nose, and she reached out and took hold of the white streak
in my hair. That's when I realized I wasn't Wraith anymore. I was
just plain old human me. And I was in some freakin'-ass
pain.

"This is all there is?" she said in
that deep, graveled voice. "This is the touch of Ethereal? No…I see
it now." She dropped my hair and touched my dad's coat. "Ah…so very
clever, that little Virtue. To place an Ethereal mantel over you.
You do realize this is what sapped your power, don't you? This is
Ethereal, and if you become an Abysmal being, it works as a sieve
where all your strength and power flow out. So tell me…did your
father tell you about his plan?"

Oh…God…geez…no…not again.

"It seems Adiran wishes the Seraphim
to win, so he made it easier for us to take you—"

That's when Daniel came out of nowhere
and actually knocked the Cherubim off its booted heels. I could
have cheered, if I wasn't in so much pain. She fell on her ass, and
the Powers came forward to charge him. But she held up her hand,
and they stopped. Joe remained behind them, inside of his shield,
and I hoped like hell he stayed there.

"This Revenant is mine." She was
instantly on her feet. I didn't see her get up—she was just…there,
facing Daniel, who was standing in front of me.

I could hear Inanna screaming at him
to get away. But he wasn't listening to her.

"Daniel…"

"No. I am not going to abandon you,
Zoë. They can't always have what they want."

"Shut up," the Cherubim said as she
flicked her finger. A chunk of Daniel's arm flew off and with it a
splattering of blood struck my chest. Daniel grabbed his arm but
didn't cry out.

I gasped. "No…"

"You think you can go up against me,
Inanna? Do you recognize me? Do you?"

"Yes," Inanna said through Daniel's
voice. She'd taken over. Good, maybe she'll get the fucking hell
out of there. "I recognize you, Gabriel."

Gabriel?

Wait…
the
Gabriel?

Yes. Zoë, you must shift
to Wraith and vanish. Please. I'm expendable. You are
not.

Like hell I'll just vanish
and leave them all like this. Instead, I started the painful and
tortuous act of removing my dad's coat, cursing him…again. He
played me…
he played me! He'd lured me into
a false sense of trust so he could do this to me!

Gabriel flicked her fingers again. And
another chunk of flesh flew off of Daniel's neck. It landed on the
concrete beside me with a splat. The chunk was the size of my fist.
"It is better if you just run along, Inanna. And take your little
Witch with you. We have a more serious problem on our
hands—"

The wound began a slow process of
healing—but I knew if Daniel didn't drink soon, the hunger that
came with that kind of regeneration was going to drive Inanna back.
But at the moment she was in control—so why didn't she make him
run? "You mean the Dominion who took the Guardian. You want the
Eidolons before they can find them so they can't manipulate the
book."

The Cherubim looked angry. I made a
mental note not to make that face, 'cause it looked evil. "How did
you know that?"

"Because we have friends in the
Ethereal Plane, Gabriel," Inanna/Daniel said. "The Seraphim is
panicking, isn't he? He needs that book to stop her from taking
back what was stolen!"

"Silence!" Gabriel made a much larger
gesture, and this time Daniel's head snapped to the right, and then
the left, and then the right, and then his whole body flew into the
railing at my left.

That's when I saw someone climbing
over the railing a few feet away, coming in from the lake. As he
ambled over to us, his face caught my attention, and I
froze.

OH DEAR GOD.

The man coming toward us was Karl
Gibbons. In the flesh.

He didn't stop when he saw me.
Instead, he went straight to Gabriel. She held her hand out while
she stared at Daniel. Gibbons put an all-too-familiar blue stone in
her hand.

The Cherubim couldn't go in the water,
but a dead man could.

He'd gone in and retrieved
it while she kept us busy.
Sonofafuckingbitch
. But if Gabriel,
not Zacharel, controlled Karl, did that mean a Cherubim was
responsible for the orphaned Powers, rather than the
Dominion?

Gabriel had ordered Karl to kill and
rape?

Daniel struggled to get up, but he'd
lost a lot of blood from those wounds. His face was swollen where
she'd struck him, but he gave me a smile. "Please…try and
survive…no matter what happens."

What did he mean by that?

Gabriel moved past me to Daniel and
knelt down in front of him. Before I, or Joe, or even Daniel could
react, she'd slipped the Eidolon over his neck. "I banish you,
Inanna. Leave this body, never to return."