Empower (37 page)

We strode across the room, stopping about five metres from them.

‘Spence,’ I said.

‘You’re earlier than I expected,’ Sammael mused, though clearly unperturbed.

‘Spence!’ I said again when he didn’t respond. He just stood beside Sammael, staring out through blank eyes.

He doesn’t see me.

‘He does not exist in this reality any more. Not entirely,’ Sammael said from beside him.

I turned my heated glare on the exile, my senses on high alert as they fought against the onslaught that was Sammael. Beyond powerful; unlike the last time we’d crossed paths he wasn’t holding back. He wanted me to know what I was up against.

He looked exactly the
same as he had that night at Lilith’s estate. Unassuming. Short, slim and bald with light grey eyes hidden behind wire-rimmed glasses. Again he wore an expensive-looking yet conservative suit with a blue tie. The only difference was that this time, his shoulders were back and his eyes proud – he expected to be noticed.

He gave nothing away, taking his time to study first Phoenix and then Lincoln, who were standing on either side of me.

‘Would you prefer something more like what you are used to?’ he asked, sarcasm leaking into his words as he suddenly morphed into a taller, considerably more handsome – and haired – appearance. ‘Humans are so predictable. They all dream of being surrounded by beautiful things.’ He smiled, returning to his former self. ‘Angels who exile automatically take on beautiful forms. Why would they not, when beauty is so often richly rewarded?’ He winked at me. ‘But I’ll let you in on a secret.
I
never wanted the beauty. You see,’ his tone dropped and became more intimate, ‘you can achieve so much more when no one is watching.’

‘Give him to me,’ I said, keeping my eyes on Sammael and making my threat clear.

‘Of course,’ Sammael continued as if I hadn’t spoken, ‘all those angels who abandoned their realm simply thought they could rule this world better.’ He chuckled lightly. ‘Not me. No, I never wanted to rule
this
world.’

‘Then perhaps you should consider leaving it,’ I sniped, losing patience.

He ignored me. ‘I am going to
make
a better world.’

‘A world based on fear?’ I asked.

He shrugged, holding
out his arms. ‘What do you think
this
world is built on? Do you not ever wonder why religion exists? The
point
of it all? Ask yourself: are humans more inclined to conform because they
hope
for Heaven or because they
fear
Hell?’

I didn’t respond. Instead I asked, ‘What have you done to Spence?’

‘How could I deny him? It was a beautiful dance of free will at its worst for him and best for me. Oh, Violet, he
wanted
to find me. He has hunted me for years. Of course, I could have taken him any time, but I needed to be sure everything was in place first.’

When I narrowed my gaze he rolled his, as if disappointed I wasn’t more impressed. ‘He is absent. Absent in mind, in conscious thought. Adrift, while his imagination has very likely delivered his mind to somewhere … unpleasant.’

‘Release him!’ I yelled, pulling out my dagger.

‘Violet,’ Phoenix – who had remained otherwise silent – warned quietly from behind, causing Sammael’s eyes to sparkle with glee.

‘Release him,’ I demanded, my voice now lowered, but no less intense.

Sammael watched me calmly.

Too calmly.

‘How have you been sleeping, Violet?’ At his taunt I took a menacing step towards him, but he merely chuckled and held his hands up in feigned surrender. ‘Agree to aid me and you may take him with you now. I will return him to his previous state as payment for your services once completed.’

‘What do you
want her to do?’ Lincoln asked, his tone even despite the raging protectiveness I could feel through our connection.

Sammael tilted his head, studying Lincoln. ‘It is intriguing that even as soulmates and with your powers entrenched within one another, her ultimate powers have been withheld.’ He turned his attention back to me, his eyes roaming up and down making my skin crawl. Lincoln took a threatening step forward as Sammael spoke again. ‘Why don’t you tell him, Keshet? I am sure by now, you know.’

I swallowed, keeping my eyes on Sammael as my grip on my dagger tightened and my free hand fisted even as my body shook with both fear and anger. ‘You want to cross the realms.’

Lincoln’s power caressed me, reminding me he was there.

Sammael smiled and then suddenly shoved Spence towards us. Phoenix caught him as he stumbled.

‘If you want the rest of him …’ He walked casually to the large portside windows and pointed to a tall decrepit building close to the riverbank. ‘You will be on that rooftop in the minutes before midnight tomorrow.’

‘Even if she decides to go, she’s not going up there without me,’ Lincoln said.

‘Understood,’ Sammael conceded. He took out a handkerchief and pulled off his spectacles, to clean them. ‘Did you ever wonder what might be odd about the rainbow being the sign of the covenant? Interesting, don’t you think, that the ultimate bow that can harness the arrow of destruction, Violet,
Keshet
, is pointing
up
?’

He’s talking about me. I’m the damn rainbow.

My mind spun with his words.

What the hell am I?

‘I’m a
weapon,’ I said absently.

He nodded. ‘But for all things in this world, there must be …’

‘Balance,’ I whispered, the gravity of this new understanding gripping at my insides like a determined claw.

‘Balance,’ Sammael echoed. ‘You may be the greatest and most powerful of all warriors for the angels, but in being that, you must also be their greatest and most powerful threat.’

The air
left my lungs.

And with that, he vanished.

Like magic.

‘Nature in her most dazzling aspects or stupendous parts, is but the background and theatre of the tragedy of man.’

John Morley

B
ack on the upper deck, Zoe and Carter had matters under control.

Phoenix carried Spence, who remained unaware of his surroundings, across the deck and then Lincoln helped to lower him onto one of the speedboats. A navy vessel pulled up on the other side of the steamboat, and a bridge was set up for the humans – who were either restrained or unconscious – to be carried over, overseen by the conductors.

The trip had been a broken success and we all felt the weight of what was still to come.

I jumped into the speedboat and Gray took off at a much slower pace. ‘What will happen to the humans?’ I asked Lincoln, who had been on and off his phone sending out orders.

‘One of the
boats is heading to the Jacksonville navy base. They’ll take the humans there and navy Grigori will take charge of them until we can figure out what to do. Best case, they’ll all come to their senses with some time,’ Lincoln explained.

‘Worst case?’ I knew I shouldn’t ask.

‘Almost all of them have broken human laws. If we can’t bring them to their senses and work out a way to help defend them, it’s likely they’ll go to jail.’

What is happening to this world?

I felt like screaming but I knew from too much experience that it did jack-all, so instead I considered what I now knew very likely lay ahead.

When we pulled up to the navy Destroyer, I took the hand of the officer who offered it and let him pull me aboard. Even if I hadn’t automatically known he wasn’t Grigori, his look of confusion as he watched what was no doubt a very unusual day unfold pegged him as pure human.

The young officer looked over his shoulder and then back at me as Lincoln and Phoenix grappled with Spence’s uncooperative body.

‘Who
are
you people?’ he asked quietly, obviously deciding I looked like the one most likely to explain it all. ‘You’re all, what – twenty, twenty-one?’

I kept my eyes on Spence, ready to jump in and help the guys. ‘Actually, I’m nineteen,’ I said.

‘I don’t get it. You’re all young, but you’ve got the resources of the whole US navy at your beck and call, and you lot have got moves I’ve never seen before.’

I noticed the pair of binoculars around his neck before I crouched down to keep the boarding ladder steady.

Someone’s been paying too much attention.

I don’t know
why, but I repeated what Griffin had said to me that first day I’d found out what I was: ‘We’re the gardeners. We clear the weeds.’

The guy snorted. ‘Well, if you’re the gardeners, what the hell are we?’

I looked up at him, squinting into the sun and smiled briefly. ‘You’re the wheelbarrow.’

He laughed. ‘Is that your way of calling us a taxi?’

‘Might be,’ I replied, helping Lincoln carefully heave Spence up the last step.

Once Phoenix and Lincoln were on deck and had Spence between them we started to walk towards our cabins – where we knew we were guaranteed privacy. Officer Wide Eyes chased after me a few steps and called out, ‘You have to get some fancy qualifications, or something?’

I looked over my shoulder and called back. ‘It’s more of a birthright kind of thing!’

‘Just my luck,’ he said, defeated.

I paused and turned around, letting Phoenix and Lincoln go on ahead. The officer was young and eager. He reminded me a bit of Spence. ‘It just might be,’ I said.

He watched me closely as I showed him just a touch of the truth, letting a little of the battle, the sacrifice, the loss, and the promise of death fill my eyes until finally he nodded. He saw enough in that moment to understand that this life was not something to be painted in pretty colours. After a small nod, the officer walked back to his post.

Just as I caught
up to Phoenix and Lincoln at the doors going inside, Sal and Zoe suddenly came barrelling towards us from the other side of the deck, pulling up quickly when they saw Spence, who was still looking entirely absent. I could see the moment they both registered that we had a serious problem.

Before they started with the questions, Lincoln took charge, handing Spence over to them. ‘Take him down to the infirmary. Tell Chloe to stand guard and Mia to sit with him. Maybe one of them can reach him. Then meet us in the war room.’

His final two words sent a shiver down my spine.

Sensing the gravity of the situation, Zoe and Salvatore were consummate professionals, reminding me that they too had grown over the past two years.

I had missed so much. Too much. And I knew that if I made it through this battle, I would make it up to my friends and family.

We collected Steph on our way and found the rest of our team, minus Milo and Taxi, waiting for us in the war room, which turned out to be a large boardroom with the addition of soundproofing.

‘I asked Milo and Taxi to watch over the humans, just in case,’ Carter told Lincoln, who nodded in both agreement and respect for Carter’s judgement.

Lincoln placed a call to the New York Academy and switched to speakerphone as he updated Josephine and Drenson, along with a few other key senior Grigori who were patched in from various locations around the world. A few minutes into the call a new voice came down the phone, and I smiled when I realised it was Griffin, who explained that he had just arrived in New York, and that Nyla was expected to wake up at any moment.

Steph discreetly
called Dapper on her mobile phone, and he and Onyx listened in at their end in case they had anything to offer.

The instant Lincoln finished relaying Sammael’s threats, Drenson spoke loudly. ‘So, Violet is the problem.’

‘Who’s this dick?’ Carter bellowed, causing a few smiles around the room, and a chuckle from Gray.

‘I’m the one who controls the resources of the Grigori Assembly and International Academy.’

‘I’d be careful with your choice of words, Drenson,’ Lincoln said. ‘You may be Principal but each Grigori is chosen by something much greater than you and is taught very early on the value of free will.’ As a number of faces watched him intently from around the room I realised I wasn’t the only one struck by how strong and controlled he was.

A leader. A general.

‘What do you suggest our ultimate situation is, Lincoln?’ Josephine asked, in a clear let’s-move-on voice.

Lincoln ran his hand through his hair. ‘Griff, she’s the key,’ he said, addressing Griffin in favour of Josephine. He was making a clear statement to any who could be bothered to read between the lines. His respect rested with Griffin.

Mine too.

‘Somehow he plans to use her to destroy the angels,’ Lincoln explained.

‘But what I don’t understand is: how? Violet, do you?’ Griffin asked.

My pulse raced. This was the moment. I couldn’t hide from what I was any longer. There were too many lives at stake and, besides, I was tired of all the secrets. Tired of hiding from what I am.

‘My blood,’ I
said. ‘My blood isn’t just his key, it’s more.’ I looked at Lincoln, seeing nothing but strength and support. Phoenix stood at the back of the room and when my eyes met his he nodded me on softly.