Fated (25 page)

Chaos hurled Moros into the air. He collided with the side of a building a block away, glass windows shattering on impact as he fell to the ground two stories below. His head slammed into the sidewalk, and he gulped at the air, trying to gather the energy to rise, but his arms and legs wouldn’t obey. Blood trickled along the side of his head; the wound was already healing, but his mind was still a frenzy of scattered images and plans. Gritting his teeth, he focused on pulling himself back together, thought by thought. He wasn’t beaten yet.

But as he began to push himself unsteadily to his hands and knees, he heard a familiar laugh.

Eris and Apate stood only ten feet away, looking gleeful. “I don’t know how you survived the destruction of the fabric when none of the Fates did,” Eris said, twirling one finger in her long hair.

Apate leaned against the wall that separated the sidewalk from the canal. “I’m glad you did.” The malice in his gray eyes suggested the opposite, but Moros would have expected no less.

Eris gave Apate an affectionate slap. “I actually
am
glad.” Her hand disappeared behind her back, and she drew forth a thin glowing blade. “Because that means I get to shove this right through your chest.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

A
islin opened her eyes and saw a face above hers, too blurry to make out. “Am I dead?” she asked.

“Extremely,” said a deep voice she recognized as belonging to the Keeper of Hell.

Fear sliced along Aislin’s spine as the Keeper took her hand and guided her to her feet. She looked down at herself, still clad in her torn, bloody suit, her ashen skin a maze of black veins. Swallowing back nausea, she reminded herself why she had done this. “Did you keep your promise?” she asked, wishing her voice weren’t so unsteady.

“The Lord of the Kere is fighting the battle even as we speak,” said the Keeper of Heaven, moving gracefully to Aislin’s other side. The glowing ball she held in her hand pulsed, going dim before lighting up bright once more. “The odds are against him.” Her diamond eyes rose to Aislin’s face. “But he is very determined.”

Aislin smiled, even as her silent heart ached for him. “He fights for all of us.”

The Keeper of Hell grunted. “He fights for himself. He always has.”

“Not true,” said the Keeper of Heaven, her voice like a bell.

The Keeper of Hell rolled his eyes. “You can’t stop me from punishing him. If it weren’t for his rebellion all those centuries ago, none of this would have happened. He sowed the seeds of this disaster.”

“Because he demanded payment for the work he and his Kere were doing,” Aislin said.

“Work he was created to do,” snapped the Keeper, his black eyes narrowing.

“And how long had he existed before he rebelled?” she asked.

“Thousands of years!” The Keeper of Hell threw his arms up. “But then all of a sudden, it wasn’t enough for him.”

“How many Kere did he have in the thousands of years before he rebelled?” Aislin was careful to keep her voice even.

The Keeper of Heaven nodded knowingly. “He built the numbers slowly over the years. By that time, he had nearly a hundred.”

Aislin looked up at the Keeper of Hell. “Is it possible he did it for them?”

His mouth tightened, and he didn’t answer.

“He certainly never did it for us,” said a voice from the dais. Aislin’s gaze shifted to the women chained there. One was blonde and thin, and the other curvier, with thick brown hair. Both were glaring at her. “His rebellion weakened the fabric, so he has no right to fault us for doing the same,” the blonde one continued. “He wanted to be free, and so did we.”

“You did a little more than weaken the fabric,” said the Keeper of Heaven.

“You’re his sisters,” Aislin said.

“Lachesis,” the Keeper of Heaven murmured, pointing at the blonde. She moved her finger to the brunette. “And Clotho.”

Aislin blew out a breath as cold fury pulsed inside her. “He didn’t want to believe you’d betray him.”

“He deserves everything he’s getting,” said Lachesis, her smile sharp as a knife despite the fact that her arms and neck were shackled to the wall. “It’s worth whatever we have to go through to see him suffer.” Her malevolent gaze was riveted to Aislin. “And you are a huge part of that.”

Aislin’s brow furrowed. “I would never be a part of his suffering.” She pushed the heartbreaking image of his face from her mind, how he had looked as she died right in front of him.

“You’re the dagger between his ribs,” Clotho said quietly. “You’re the twist of the blade.”

“Explain,” said the Keeper of Heaven.

“Her fate was to be with him,” Lachesis replied. “Clotho and I knew it as soon as we first touched the thread of her life. Neither of us could believe it at first, but as the years went on, the sense only became stronger.”

Aislin felt like the floor had dropped out from under her. “I was fated to be with him?” she asked, her voice breaking as she realized the absolute truth of it—and that she’d sensed it herself, vaguely, so many times before. It was the feeling of rightness when he was inside her, the sense of inevitability between them. “Does he know?”

Clotho shook her head, then winced as the metal cuff around her neck rubbed beneath her chin. “He is blind to those whose fates are entwined with his Kere—or with his own. He’s never sensed it. And when he first touched you, he assumed his lack of future-sight was because of your impending doom.”

Aislin gestured at her body. “Was he wrong?”

Lachesis nodded. “He was
always
able to touch you. He could have done it at any time, and the result would have been the same.” She grinned. “You doomed yourself because you believed your death was a foregone conclusion, but you were wrong. It was perfect.”

“I would have done it anyway,” Aislin murmured.

The Keeper of Heaven made a soft, surprised noise as her fingers tightened around the glowing orb in her palm. “Even the Lord of Death was subject to the threads of fate, as it turns out.”

“And the manipulation of his sisters,” Aislin added bitterly.

“Ask me if I was ever fated to love someone,” Lachesis blurted out, her smile gone. “Ask me if I ever even had a chance.”

“Ask me the same,” snapped Clotho.

Aislin tilted her head. “I can guess the answer. And I can tell that you’re not happy with it.”

Clotho’s eyes were wide. “So why did
he
have the chance to fall in love, when we were denied such things?”

“It was the last straw,” Lachesis said in a low voice. “It was then we decided to bring him down.”

“You didn’t think he should have happiness after thousands of years of being alone?” Aislin asked, stepping toward them on unsteady feet. “After millennia of being unable to touch another person without hurting them? This was the reason you chose to destroy him?” Her breath rasped as she mounted the first step on the dais. She wasn’t sure if she had the strength to get up the stairs, but, God, how she wanted to. “You begrudge your own brother the right to love and be loved?”

“Why did he get it when we didn’t?” shrieked Lachesis.

Aislin stared at her. “Can you see the entire future?”

“Only what the threads tell us,” Clotho said.

“Then how do you know it never would have happened? How do you know you weren’t a decade, a year, a
day
away from a love of your own?”

Clotho’s mouth opened and closed, then clamped shut. Lachesis’s eyes were bulging. Disgusted, Aislin turned to find the Keeper of Hell stifling a smile. “I’m trying not to like this Charon,” he said to the Keeper of Heaven.

The Keeper of Heaven chuckled. “But you’re failing.”

He grunted as he started up the steps toward Clotho and Lachesis, his black robe billowing. As he moved to stand in front of them, his large hands rose from his sides. “Since you were so eager to shed your responsibilities, ladies, I think it’s time to hand over your divine mandates.”

He plunged his fists into Clotho and Lachesis, whose mouths dropped open in agony as he yanked a glowing ball from each of their chests. He opened his fingers to reveal the one he’d pulled from Clotho. “Birth and Mortality.” He did the same with the globe he’d wrenched from Lachesis. “Destiny.”

He strolled down the stairs and handed them to the Keeper of Heaven, who cooed to the three globes in her hands as if they were infants. “In addition to Moros, who carries Doom inside him, this is the totality of fate,” she said. “We have the means to build it again.”

Lachesis and Clotho had both gone ashen as the gaping holes in their chests slowly knitted together again. “But only if Moros wins,” croaked Lachesis. “And he won’t.”

“Moros will lose!” Clotho said in a shrill voice. “He’s fighting a battle he can’t win. I’m certain of it.”

Aislin looked up at the women, hope stirring weakly inside her as she pictured Jason, his fangs bared and his claws out, tearing through his enemies with fire in his eyes. “You destroyed the fabric of fate and what was meant to be. Right now, certainty seems like a rather foolish notion.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

E
ris stalked toward Moros as he got his legs underneath himself. He was still woozy and unsteady, but if he didn’t challenge her, that cursed blade would be between his ribs in a matter of seconds.

“Hold him, Apate,” she said, her breaths coming quickly as the roar of destruction in the city rose to new levels, making it hard to hear. Her excitement was sickening.

And stupid. “Yes,” hissed Moros, spreading his fingers on the concrete. Pain rocketed up his spine, but his defiance held him together. “Come here, brother. Try to put your hands on me.”

Apate froze where he was. “Cut him first,” he said to Eris. “Make him bleed.”

With a feral snarl, Eris lunged, and Moros threw himself out of the way. She let out a frustrated shout. “Rylan, hold him!”

Rylan Ferry stepped from the Veil, and the mere sight of him made Moros’s thoughts turn red. The former Ferry looked cautious. “What happens if he touches me?” Rylan asked.

“Come and find out,” Moros said as he slowly got to his feet.

Rylan’s eyes met his. “Aislin wouldn’t want you to kill me.”

“You have no right to say her name,” Moros roared, diving for Rylan. He dodged, and the distraction was just enough to allow Eris to strike. The Blade of Life pierced Moros’s thigh, sending a bolt of searing pain through his leg. Apate laughed as Moros hit the sidewalk again, his blood smearing the concrete. He had to get ahold of the Blade—it was the one weapon that would give him a chance against Chaos, who was still pulling buildings down only blocks away. But his injured leg trembled uncontrollably as he tried to stand again, and he wasn’t fast enough to move out of the way when Apate kicked him in the chest, knocking him backward into Rylan’s waiting grasp. The Ker looped his arms under Moros’s, controlling the swipes of his hands. Still trying to heal from his hard collision with the building, Moros didn’t have the strength to will himself into the Veil.

Eris blew a few loose strands of her dark hair off her forehead and walked forward with Apate at her side. Moros arched and twisted, but Rylan held him fast as Eris looked him over and gave him a small smile. “I used to worship you. I would have done anything for you. Did you know that?”

“Not anything. You couldn’t allow the world to have peace. Your thirst for conflict was too strong.” He glanced around as she advanced, working to gather enough strength to summon one of his Kere, but Chaos was so near that Moros’s thoughts of them kept fluttering and fading.

Apate drew back and punched Moros in the side of the head. “When you got what you wanted, you tossed us away,” Apate said.

Moros spat blood on the pavement. “I couldn’t trust you. You would have ruined everything I’d fought for.”

Eris jabbed the Blade at him. “We fought at your side!”

“But I was fighting for freedom, for better treatment for my Kere—and you were fighting for the sake of fighting!” He was running out of time—he saw his end reflected in her eyes. “Look at what you’ve done, Eris. Do you think Chaos won’t destroy you, too?”

She laughed. “Do you have any idea how good this feels to me? I’ve never felt stronger.” She raised the hilt of the Blade of Life with both hands. Moros tried to maneuver out of the way, but Rylan wouldn’t yield.

“This is for Nemesis,” Apate hissed as he glared at Moros. “Revenge for revenge.”

Moros’s breaths burst from his throat in agonized wheezes as his sister tensed to strike. He watched helplessly as the Blade sliced toward his chest, the seconds like hours, all spent thinking of Aislin, how she would be trapped because he hadn’t been strong enough or fast enough.

It didn’t matter what the Keeper of Hell did to him—knowing he hadn’t been able to save her would be the ultimate torture.

But before the Blade could touch him, Eris’s mouth dropped open and her fingers spasmed. She arched back, and the weapon fell from her grip. Next to her, Apate cried out in pain and jerked forward—enough to reveal Eli standing right behind him. Then Rylan Ferry screamed and released Moros, sending him to the ground in a shocked heap.

“Sorry, Ry,” Declan said softly. He was standing over his fallen brother, a glowing knife in his hands. Rylan’s wide, empty eyes were riveted on Eris, but when Moros turned to look at her, he realized Cacia Ferry had just buried a different glowing blade in her back. Eris writhed on the ground next to Apate, who’d been stabbed by Eli with yet another blade.

Declan’s ice-blue eyes flicked over to Moros, and he held up his glowing knife, his brother’s blood dripping from its edge. “Aislin sent us on a little errand before she left.”

Cacia looked down at Eris, who was flailing in a growing pool of crimson. It streamed from her lips as she gasped for air. “The new Mother sends her regards,” Cacia said quietly.

“But . . . but Baheera refused to give us weapons,” Moros said as Eli stepped forward and helped him to his feet. His leg was unsteady beneath him, and his chest felt like it had been stuffed with broken glass, but he was able to stay upright.

“Baheera’s not in charge anymore,” said Declan. “Apparently a bunch of the Lucinae watched you risking your existence to protect hers, and they didn’t take well to her sending you away empty-handed. Aislin noticed and didn’t think it would take much to push them over the edge, so she put Cavan to work. Magda was crowned as the new Mother a few hours ago.” He wiped the blade of the knife on his pants and pointed toward the wreckage of Psychopomps. “She was pretty generous.”

Moros squinted up the block, where he could just make out the blur of glowing blades, wielded by at least twenty Ferrys who had joined the fight, along with several Lucinae. “All of the weapons have been dipped in the Spring?” he asked weakly as he watched Cavan plunge a dagger into the chest of a Shade-Ker, which fell to the ground instantly.

Eli offered Moros the dagger he had used to kill Apate, its blade curved and wickedly sharp. “This one’s for you.”

The hilt had been wrapped in leather to form a protective barrier between his hand and the metal. Moros took it with disbelief pulsing in his chest. Aislin was responsible for this. She wasn’t even with him, and yet she’d somehow managed to put the weapon he needed right in his hand. His fingers coiled around the hilt, and he raised his head. The noise of battle was rising to an incessant roar as the enemy closed in. Chaos was only a block away, bringing devastation in his wake.

Moros aimed the tip of his dagger toward the god who was coming for them all. “These blades are the only thing that can destroy him.”

Declan, Cacia, and Eli narrowed their eyes as they tried to see through the dust and destruction. “Is he a man?” Eli asked.

“I can’t tell what I’m looking at,” said Cacia, rubbing her eyes.

But just as she said it, Chaos walked from a cloud of debris, and she gasped.

He looked exactly like Patrick Ferry.

“Father?” Declan asked quietly. He gave Moros an uncertain look.

“It’s an illusion,” Moros said, limping forward as his old friend smiled and beckoned to him. “Go gather the others. If I fall, it will be up to you to destroy him.” Without waiting for them to obey, he pushed off, determined to bury the dagger in Chaos’s chest.

“Patrick Ferry” shook his head as he saw Moros coming for him. “Know your enemy,” he said in an eerily deep, wrong voice that carried easily over the crashes and screams and sirens. He spread his arms. Moros skidded to a stop as dark shapes peeled themselves off the being’s arms, spiraling to the ground and sprouting upward, growing instantly into thick-bodied, hunched creatures, each with four muscular arms. Their faces were covered with slitted eyes and a few gaping mouths. Within seconds, there were dozens of them, and Moros was surrounded. He lashed out with the blade, slicing off an arm, which turned to ash before it hit the ground. As one of the creatures grabbed for his wounded leg, he struck again. He stabbed it in the neck, and its eyes bulged before it exploded into dust. As he fought to keep the creatures off him, Moros glanced toward the Patrick Ferry version of Chaos, who stood with his arms outstretched, watching with amusement. The minions were still flying from his hands, and now some of them were running down the block toward Psychopomps, where all the Ferrys and their Lucinae allies were fighting.

Leaving Moros here, alone. He stabbed and slashed, afraid to stop moving or attacking lest they overcome him with their sheer numbers and weight. The air filled with the rotten-egg smell of brimstone as he cut through arms and legs and throats, ignoring the pain in his chest and leg. He’d fight until the absolute end.

But there were too many, and they began to land blows, their fingers tearing at his sleeves and raking down his back, their teeth snapping near his face. The distance between him and his enemy was growing—they were pushing him back, trying to hem him in against a building. Just as he felt his back hit a wall, though, some of the creatures shrieked and fell as Eli, Trevor, Hai, Parinda, and a horde of his Kere materialized around him. Reading his need, they grabbed creatures and held them so Moros could deliver the deathblow. “The others are coming this way,” Trevor shouted.

The Ferrys and the Lucinae. None of them were really warriors, but all of them were armed with deadly glowing blades that might easily destroy a Ker. “Help them kill these things,” Moros commanded. “But be careful of the blades.”

Trevor vanished as the fight continued, and Moros began to cut a path toward Chaos, whose appearance had begun to shift again. He undulated in the flashing lights of hovering drone cams that had begun to gather over the catastrophe, capturing images of unimaginable carnage. As one of them swooped low, Chaos looked up at it, then waved his hand through the air as if swatting a fly.

The machines began to fall from the sky, crashing down onto the sidewalks, colliding with buildings, falling into the canals, some of them sparking and catching fire. Moros shielded his face as one shattered at his feet, and continued to slice his way toward Chaos. The Ferrys and Kere were fighting all around him, but with every second, the number of minions was growing. He had to get to the source, or they would be overwhelmed. Meanwhile, the buildings on either side of them swayed precariously, bowing to the disorienting, scattering vibrations emanating from the being who stood calmly on the corner, watching the mayhem with a pleased smile on his ever-shifting face.

As Moros fought his way forward, paying for inches with his own sweat and blood, the creature was hidden behind the wall of his minions. Pushing his growing exhaustion aside, Moros lunged through them, desperate not to lose sight of his foe. But when he managed to thin the group, he blinked in confusion and horror.

Patrick Ferry stood before him—holding Aislin by the throat. Moros froze in confusion as the battle raged behind him. Patrick had his struggling daughter against his chest, his other arm wrapped around her waist. Aislin’s feet were bare and bleeding, kicking frantically inches from the pavement.

“Is this what you’re fighting for?” Chaos asked, staring out at him through Patrick’s blue eyes. His fingers tightened over Aislin’s throat. She was staring at Moros, her expression pleading. “I’ve been informed that she’s important to you.”

Moros’s hand tightened on the hilt of his blade. “This is an illusion,” he muttered. But just as he raised his arm to attack, he was hit from behind. Declan and Cacia had fought their way to the front, aided by Trevor and Eli.

“Aislin!” shouted Cacia, her turquoise eyes full of horror as she watched her father jerk her sister back a few feet.

Moros tried to shove Cacia away, but Declan grabbed him as he charged forward. “He’ll break her neck if you don’t stop,” Declan yelled, and when Moros tried to shake him off, the Ferry raised the knife he’d been using to cut through the minions. “Don’t you fucking dare do anything to endanger my sister.”

Aislin’s arm rose from her side, reaching for Moros, and as her fingers grasped at the air, it felt like she’d closed them around his heart. She looked exactly as she had in those last moments of her life, as the Keeper of Hell had drained the vitality from her limbs and the spark from her eyes. “Moros,” she said in a choked voice.

Patrick smiled in triumph as he began to squeeze the life out of her. Declan and Cacia screamed her name and lunged forward. “Trevor and Eli, hold them back,” Moros shouted as he raised his blade. The two younger Ferrys cried out in horror as he plunged it into Aislin’s chest, twisting as Patrick fell backward, a look of shock on his face. Moros landed on top of Aislin as her body convulsed, blood streaming from her nose and mouth. He watched her, expecting her to change shape, to reveal the true face of Chaos, but she remained beautiful and dying beneath him.

Eli fell back, hissing in pain, his arm bleeding, as Cacia stalked forward with murder in her eyes. Moros barely had time to flip onto his back and catch her before she tried to plunge her blade through his chest. Her face was contorted with rage and grief as she screamed, “You bastard! You killed her!”

“It wasn’t her!” shouted Moros, but he could hear the choked gurgles as Aislin tried to draw breath, and it sent doubt and fear and confusion coursing through him. Had the Keepers betrayed him somehow? Had Chaos managed to get to her? As he wrestled with Cacia, the thoughts flew through his mind like a sandstorm, scraping the inside of his head raw, blurring his vision. With a forceful push, he threw Cacia to the side just in time to roll away as Declan attacked him, his arm arcing back and his blade flashing. Trevor, hard on his heels, managed to grab Declan just in time to prevent him from burying his blade in Moros’s gut, but the movements of both men were growing uncoordinated and jerky.

Moros swiped at a trickle of liquid on his upper lip and found his fingers smeared with blood. It felt like the storm in his mind was tearing his brain apart, and by the look of Cacia and Declan, it was doing the same to them. They’d all gotten close enough to stop Chaos, but his mere presence was going to kill them quickly at this rate. Dizzy and weakening, Moros spun around to where Patrick had been, only to find him shifting and growing, sprouting arms and eyes as he loomed over the battle. Scrambling away from the clumsy slash of Declan’s blade, Moros gripped his own dagger and lunged, but the creature kicked him in the chest, sending him flying. His panic grew as he watched Cacia and Declan collapse, twitching on the pavement. Aislin’s beloved siblings were suffering and dying because their love for her had been used against them. Moros summoned all his strength.