Fallen Angel of Mine (17 page)

Could the sentence possibly be
referencing Elyssa? I fought back the desire to smash my fist on
the table as frustration and panic took turns twisting my guts. I
had to get back to the States. Had her father actually meant what
he'd said about erasing her memories? Thomas Borathen didn't seem
like the kind of guy to make jokes.

Lina rose from her side of the table
and took a seat next to me, her brown eyes brimming with curiosity.
"What is the matter?"

I really didn't want to discuss my love
life with strangers so I concentrated on the rest of the stuff on
the page. "This foreseeance sounds virtually identical to what I've
heard before. It always boils down to the 'unmaking' or 'remaking'.
Whatever it's referring to, you can bet it's going to be
bad."

"I wonder who the old masters are," she
said. "Could they be the same people who built places like the dead
city?"

That was a really good question. The
engraving of the blonde woman had looked so much like Nightliss,
and Kassallandra had claimed she was an angel. Nightliss—the human
form of her—didn't have wings, but what did I know? Heck, if she
could turn into a cute little black cat, what prevented her from
sprouting wings? And what about Mr. Gray? The mere thought of his
amused face sent a chill through my heart.

I shrugged. "There are huge mosaics in
El Dorado. I think the beings depicted there might be the old
masters."

Alejandro leaned forward. "There has
been a lot of speculation about those murals. The magic used to
seal them from damage is older than the Roman Empire."

I gave a low whistle and folded my
arms. "Everything I've read up until now always mentions the light
and the dark. But this is the first time I've seen anything about
the gray."

"The city council has had many
discussions about this foreseeance," Alejandro said. "They think
the gray is a metaphor for those who disagree with both the light
and the dark and wish to find a middle way."

"But I told them I think the gray is
something created when light and dark fight each other," Lina
added. "And I also told them I think the 'gloom' is not a—how you
say—a description word?"

"An adjective?" I said.

She nodded. "Yes. I think it is a noun.
The Gloom. The place between planes."

"Lina thinks a little differently," her
brother said with a smile.

She crossed her arms and pursed her
lips at him. "I think smart."

When I looked over the words again,
though, something clicked this time. "It says the old masters will
return through gloom. What if they'll somehow use the Gloom as a
path? Maybe they're locked up in another plane right now, but since
the Gloom consists of cracks in reality, it allows them to slip
through?" I only knew the little Elyssa had told me about the
archways, but the Gloom part stuck out, since falling into one of
those cracks could mean you'd be lost forever.

"And the Gloom is gray," Lina said. "At
least from what I have read."

Alejandro stared at his copy. "If this
is true, then the shadow city is full of such rifts in our reality.
It's one reason the city was interdicted. Some believe the rifts
are the reason the builders abandoned the site, while others argue
they are the result of some great battle or
catastrophe."

"Does Thunder Rock have cracks in
reality too?" I asked.

"Definitely, although they are deep
under water. Arcane researchers claim the membrane between planes
is very delicate there, making it a dangerous place to build
arches. They said the power draw from an arch could rip the barrier
between planes wide open and let terrible things into
ours."

"Let me get this straight," I said,
feeling the excitement of a nergasm building to epic proportions
what with all the inter-dimensional and alternate realities
discussion. "El Dorado was once a stable place, whereas Thunder
Rock was abandoned before completion because it was too
unstable?"

He nodded. "Or so the theory goes. Some
beings require a great deal of power and effort to cross through
the barrier between planes and enter ours. But in places like
Thunder Rock it might be relatively effortless. Like breaking
through wet tissue paper as opposed to diamond fiber
walls."

"It is because of the ley lines," Lina
said. "They are usually light and dark in balance. Too much of one
can cause rips in reality."

Their mini-course in dimensional
physics stretched another strand of yarn to the Vadaemos thumbtack
in the corkboard of my mind. It now made perfect sense why he'd
chosen Thunder Rock for his ambush. The creatures he'd used were
from the demon plane. What better place was there to bring across
an army of dark minions than where the planar membrane was
weak?

Although my mom had blurred certain
childhood memories from my mind, a few had returned, namely one
where gray men unleashed a true demon to kill both Mom and Meghan
Andretti's mother. The attackers had used a simple slab of plywood
studded with nails and copper wire woven into an intricate pattern.
A large portable generator had energized it with a torrent of
electricity. Somehow—maybe with the assistance of a spell—it had
torn open a portal to the demon plane and nearly sucked me in like
a trans-dimensional vacuum cleaner. Obviously, I knew next to
nothing about the preparations involved with such a thing, but if
it took that much power to pull across one demon, it might be a
heck of a lot harder to pull across a horde large enough to kill a
squad of Templars and two teams of spawn without perfect
conditions.

"What about the Grotto?"

Alejandro shrugged. "The
Grotto is very stable. Gloom cracks appear only when someone uses
an Obsidian Arch, but if any appear at all, they are temporary and
short-lived. Bogota has a stable place we call
La Casona
—The Big House. But we have
also uncovered other unstable relics like Thunder Rock and El
Dorado."

"Hundreds of them all over the world,"
Lina said.

All those stars on the
map—hundreds of them.
Holy crap.
It didn't take long for my brain to process
that
tidbit of
information. "And if your interpretation of this is right, each one
is a potential portal for the old masters."

We were so screwed.

Elyssa

Nightliss smiled at Elyssa.
At least she
looked
like Nightliss. Except for her golden hair, blue eyes, and
fair skin, she could have been a carbon copy of the other woman.
Her face, height, and build matched, as did the slant of her eyes.
But something in Elyssa's gut told her this woman was not the same
person who turned into a little black cat.

The newcomer stepped across the room
and Elyssa realized the statue itself was still in place. Was it
some sort of portal? The black pedestals to either side of it must
somehow create a gateway. She'd never seen anything like
it.

Elyssa finally found her voice. "Who
are you?"

"Is it not clear, child?"

"You're the Divinity?" No written
record describing the Divinity existed as far as she knew. The most
anyone remembered was a flash of light. Elyssa had always imagined
it to be a glowing ball or something funky like the Flying
Spaghetti Monster, not a woman who popped out of statues.
Kassallandra had called Nightliss an angel, a notion Elyssa found
absolutely ridiculous at the time. But if that was true, could it
mean this woman was an angel as well?

Golden blonde hair spilled down the
other woman's shoulders as she held a hand to Elyssa's forehead. "I
do not often see the White, but it has recorded the ritual words
and here I am. Fear not, child, for it will take only—ah!" She
jerked her hand back and held it against her body as if she were in
pain. Her kind blue eyes turned hard. "So. You are the
one."

"One what?" Though the woman was petite
like Nightliss, Elyssa had learned the hard way size rarely
mattered when it came to supernaturals, and the Divinity looked
pissed.

"How problematic this is," the blonde
woman mused, putting a finger to her chin as she sank into thought.
"We had hoped to possess the other, but the White will suit you
nicely."

"What are you talking about?" Elyssa
said, struggling futilely against the diamond straps holding her
fast. "I don't want my memories erased."

"Yes, yes, it will work out better than
expected," the Divinity said, as if she hadn't heard a word. "She
will forget him. He will go mad trying to win her favor once again,
and the factions will be thrown into even greater disarray. Oh, why
can't my mind work like it did before the Scattering? The pieces
fit together but not like they should. Scattered like my children.
The four corners of Eden. My poor little ones."

The woman sounded absolutely mental.
And this was the entity at the core of Templar power? Did Father
know about this? Did anyone? Elyssa had to figure a way out of this
mess. Convince the Divinity to leave her alone. So she played the
only card in her deck and hoped it wasn't a joker.

"Do you know Nightliss?"

The Divinity stopped her rambling
mid-sentence and looked with wide eyes at Elyssa. In a split
second, she was leaning over her, blue eyes blazing. "How do you
know this accursed name?"

"Wow, you two don't get
along?"

"Tell me how you know this name,
child."

"I've met her. She looks just like you
only a little more tanned."

Shock exploded in her eyes and she
backed away from the chair. "No, this can't be true. A Darkling,
here? They're gone. All gone. We made certain."

Elyssa wanted to scream and
hope someone might hear her. But she knew it would be futile. The
acoustics of the stone kept any sounds from escaping, according to
her Templar History class, and no one would come to her aid anyway.
But she had to let someone know the Divinity was a stark raving
lunatic. How had the Templar order lasted this long? More
importantly,
what
was this woman and why was she helping the Templars? Provoking
her to further hysteria might not help, but Elyssa didn't know what
else to do.

"Is she your twin?" When the other
woman took no notice of the question, Elyssa tried a different
approach. "Is Nightliss your twin?"

The name drew the woman’s attention
like a slap to the face. The Divinity anchored her gaze into
Elyssa's. "We all have our dark sides, child. But not us, not my
people. We purged the darkness from ourselves long ago. We are
pure. But the dark ones continue to haunt us. They want what is
ours but can never have it." She sliced the air with a hand,
leaving a blazing trail of pure white energy in its
wake.

Elyssa felt the warmth as the brilliant
arc faded and hoped the other woman didn't accidentally roast her.
"And Nightliss is a dark one, a Darkling?"

"I must feed," the woman said. "This is
too much." She glanced at Elyssa. Reached a hand toward her and
spread her fingers.

A tingling sensation started in
Elyssa's heart and worked its way down her arms, leaving a trail of
warmth all the way to her fingertips. Pressure built like water in
a clogged hose within each finger until white energy burst from the
pores and whorled into the outstretched palms of the Divinity.
Rather than pain, Elyssa felt the lethargic embrace of peace settle
over her. Her mind fought back with every Templar trick she knew to
prevent a leecher from feeding, but none of them worked, not
against the gravity of this woman's will.

Taking the White meant nothing compared
to this. Instead of a mind-wiped daughter, her parents would find a
withered corpse. Or something even worse.

Justin, I love
you.

Something black and smoky drifted from
her fingertips, mixing with and fouling the pure white energy. The
Divinity shrieked and leapt back, severing the connection and
brushing her hands against her simple white dress as if spiders
were racing up it.

"You are filled with darkness, child.
Corrupt and filthy. My sister has ruined you."

"Aha! So Nightliss
is
your
sister."

The madness in the other woman's eyes
seemed to have faded, because she contemplated Elyssa with narrowed
eyes and focus, something not present in the woman's demeanor
before she'd tried to drain the energy from Elyssa’s
body.

"In a manner of speaking. We are all
related and have been since far before Eden had anything of value
to offer."

It was the second time this woman had
used that name. "Eden? Like the garden of Eden?"

"It is the name of your realm." Her
tone indicated it as a simple state of fact.

The certainty in her voice filled
Elyssa with both dread and awe. How old was this woman—this being?
"How did you become the Divinity?"

"This realm required a beacon of light
and order. I required protection from my enemies during my long,
lonely time here."