Good Side of Sin (41 page)

The two men stared each other down, ready for the other to make the next move.

“Melina…” I whispered, and Thoros broke eye contact first, to look at me.

“What?”

There was a loud cackling of laughter, and I looked to see Isaiah staring, open-mouthed at Melina. “Melina, please tell me that you are not the cause of this atrocious act against Josselyn.”

“Now, you don’t really think I would do something like that, do you, brother dear?”

My blood was boiling in my veins, but I knew there was no sense in starting a fight with her. Not only would she win, but it would waste valuable time we didn’t have.

“You only have twenty-one hours and sixteen minutes left to spend with your soulmate, Melina. I suggest you stop wasting your time.”

Her expression turned somber. “The time does not begin until I leave the gates of my world,” Melina said matter-of-factly.

“Wrong. Maybe if you hadn’t been so busy trying to screw me over, you might have paid better attention. Your time started the moment you agreed to the deal.” I huffed, and then started walking toward Duchess.

My hands shot to my open mouth, and I screamed when I spotted the heavily-breathing black beauty lying in a tangled mess of broken legs and blood. I ran to her, sure that I could do something to ease her suffering.

Tears streamed from my eyes, blurring my vision, but I knew where the animal was, and I knew what I had to do to heal her. I placed my hands gently over the first bad wound I came to and… nothing happened. Then I remembered Omega saying our powers didn’t work in Limbo. I raised my face to the opaque sky and screamed in frustration, and then turned my fury on Melina.

“You did this! This beautiful animal is suffering because you are a selfish person, Melina. Give me access to my gift so I can heal her!”

Her eyes grew wide in shock, but she snickered lightly. “I cannot give you something I never took away, you silly girl. Only natural powers an individual was born with will work in Limbo. That’s why the seer can still feel her energy. She was born with hers, but she is no healer, neither am I or Isaiah. If your worthless alflight wasn’t so ignorant, he would be able to heal her or make her fly, if that’s what you so wished for him to do.” She rolled her eyes when I just continued to glare at her. “Oh, for Christ’s sake, it’s only a horse! I have thousands more where she came from. Omega will fetch you another.”

I jumped to my feet, ready to claw her eyes out or rip her black heart from her chest, or maybe both, if I had time before someone grabbed me. I stopped short when I caught movement out of the corner of my eye, and then noticed Ethan climbing down from his saddle. He had one of his palms out, facing me, and was looking at me cautiously as if I had murder in my eyes.

He pointed to the fallen horse at my back. “Do you mind if I take a look at her? I won’t hurt her; I swear it, Josselyn. I just want to see if I can help her, that’s all.”

Help her? What could he do? His powers were still dormant. What could a human do besides knock her in the head to put her out of her misery?

He kept walking toward us, but I didn’t move from my protective stance. I could hear Duchess’ heavy, garbled breathing behind me and knew her lungs were quickly filling with blood. She was drowning. “What are you going to do to her, Ethan?”

He shook his head, keeping careful eye contact with me. “I don’t know, but my whole body is tingling. I feel a strong pull from that animal. I have no idea what will happen if I try to help her, but I do know what will happen if I don’t. Please…”

I took in a deep breath and moved aside. He then rushed to the horse and dropped to his knees by her neck. His hands thrust forward and, before he even touched her, a blinding gold light shot from his palms. Both Ethan and the horse’s bodies jerked violently under the immediate power of the magic shooting from his palms. Ethan’s face was crimson and strained, thick veins were raised at his neck and temples, and a glistening sheen of sweat was lightly beaded across his brow.

Everyone watched in awe as the human mortal transformed into a walking, talking miracle.

Almost as quickly as it came, the light went away and Ethan slumped to the dirt-packed ground.

“Ethan!” Emma shouted, and fell to his side in hysterics, slapping his face and putting her ear down close to his mouth to see if he was still breathing.

I knew he was alive—passed out from overexertion, but alive nonetheless. Oh my goodness, what a week! I felt relieved in a way. I mean, Isaiah had been right about Ethan and his powers, so it made me a little more confident that we could win this thing—if we could get out of Limbo before Melina succeeded in killing me.

What I didn’t understand—and I wasn’t about to ask her now—was why Melina hadn’t tried to use Ethan for her own personal get-out-of-jail-free card, if he was capable of releasing Lucifer from the bowels of Hell. I deliberated with myself a moment. I was almost positive there would be more surprises thrown my way before all of this was over. I needed to pay extra attention and keep Ethan close by my side. I had let myself get distracted, of late, but I had a theory now why Lucifer wanted him, and Melina was acting like she couldn’t care less. She couldn’t use him, because no souls were allowed in Limbo. It was all about ownership of the alflight’s soul, and if Ethan would use his gift for good or evil. He had free will, and not even Lucifer could take that from him unless he owned his soul. But if Lucifer had Ethan’s soul, couldn’t he release Melina from Limbo? Yes—yes he could, and that was exactly why Melina agreed to go see Lucifer, not to help us, but to free herself. She had only demanded I give her Thoros to distract me, and I had fallen for it.

I tried to control—or at least hide—my expression as I looked over my shoulder at Thoros, hoping he would see the fear in my eyes and decipher what was going on in my mind without giving away the secret. We had all screwed up. Coming here was all part of the plan, but whose plan? I had a sinking feeling that we were preparing a war against the wrong opponent, that we had another enemy that had been acting as our ally all along.

“If you’ll get us out of here, I’ll do my damndest to save the world.”

I looked up at Isaiah, but he was talking with Aries and nodding toward the horse and Ethan. The voice in my mind hadn’t sounded like his anyway.

I looked down to Ethan’s brown eyes blinking up at me. “Did you just—”

He shook his head, warning me with his eyes not to say anything aloud.
“Shh. Don’t trust anyone.”

I met Emma’s confused expression, and then hurriedly thought of something different to say. “—heal her! Ethan, are you all right?” I quickly bent to help him to his feet, and Thoros seemed to sense a change in me, because he distracted the others by helping Duchess stand up.

I didn’t know where to start. If my theory was correct, I knew I couldn’t let Melina go to Hell once we got outside the gates. But her contract was already signed. It was a done deal.

“It was signed by Thoros, not the person that was making the deal with her: you.”
Ethan’s voice said through my mind.
“Is there an archangel named Alexandra?”

I placed the toe of my boot in the stirrup and pulled the rest of my weight up by the saddle horn. I was trying to avoid any kind of obvious contact with Ethan, so no one would suspect that we had possibly caught on to their plans. I had no idea who Ethan suspected was against us here in our little group, but if he thought that nobody should be trusted, then I wouldn’t trust anybody except for him. Alexandra? Yes, she was the first one to vote in favor of me coming here.

“Yes,”
I replied.

“She is the one that turned this magic in me on. She said you are right, and she never would have voted for you to come here if she had known.”

“Known what, Ethan?”

I heard him take a deep breath and had to look back at him. He held my stare for a moment before responding.
“That one of them is doing this.”

My brow furrowed in confusion.
“One of who?”

“An archangel.”

I gasped, and then immediately played it off like I had caught my finger on something on the saddle. I stuck it in my mouth and frowned around it.
“That is impossible, Ethan. You must have misunderstood her—”

“It’s what she said! She also said that you can’t let Melina leave Limbo.”

“How am I supposed to stop her? The contract is signed!”

“By Thoros! Not you!”

I sat there for a moment and contemplated his words. It was true. Thoros had made the deal with Melina. The Council hadn’t given
him
permission; they had given it to me. Their contract was void. She couldn’t leave, because I hadn’t signed the contract. I looked up at Ethan with weary eyes.
“But Thoros made a deal with her…”

Ethan let his head fall, and then he nodded.

“You’re telling me Melina can’t leave, and neither can Thoros?”

“Not unless you want to sign her contract. Alexandra advises against it.”

“Fuck Alexandra! I can’t just leave Thoros here!”

Ethan flinched.

“I’m sorry, Ethan.”
I forced calm over myself and breathed in deeply through my nose.
“I just don’t know what I’m going to do.”

“We’ll figure it out together. We don’t have another choice, because I refuse to give up.”

I forced a smile.
“That explains why they chose you and me for the job, then. I don’t give up, either.”

We were almost back to where the ferry waited to carry us across to the gates. My mind had gone totally blank. I couldn’t come up with a single solution to how I could get all my crew out of here safely and manage to leave Melina behind, too.

This had been a wasted trip, a trip that had cost us a lot more than we had gained. Yes, of course, we had retrieved the missing spirits, but securing them a place in Heaven had cost me a great deal. And from the looks of it, Heaven wasn’t a guarantee anymore.

My chest ached at the realization that I had only minutes left with Thoros; I would never see him again. Yet, I didn’t know what to say to him in the short time we had left. He thought he would be coming with me, that he would get to spend almost a full day with me, but it wouldn’t happen. And I had to be the one to tell him that.

I reached out to Isaiah with my mind and felt him there, on the edges. I could tell he was surprised; I hadn’t even made eye contact with him, much less spoken to him, since I relieved him of his duty as my guardian angel. I hadn’t been fair to him. I had been angry and said things that I now regretted, and I didn’t know how to make things right with him, either.

“I’m sorry, Isaiah. I understand if you never want to speak to me again, but I just wanted to apologize for my actions toward you earlier. I meant to hurt you and I was wrong. I shouldn’t have said—”

“Don’t, Josselyn. I am the one who has been in the wrong. I’ve underestimated you from the very beginning, and that is nobody’s fault except my own. Please, accept my sincere apologies.”

I turned my head to see that Isaiah was riding up beside me on a brown horse. My vision swam as moisture erupted from my tear ducts. I nodded my head as I held out my hand to him. He accepted it, squeezed my fingers gently, and raised them to his lips to brush a light kiss over my knuckles.

“It has been a pleasure knowing you, child. You were the best choice for this mission. Whatever happens after this, know that I will never forget that. I will never forget you.”

I pulled on the reins, stopping Duchess at the dock and dismounted before running to Isaiah and throwing my arms around his neck. He hugged me back fiercely. “We were all wrong,” I whispered by his ear. “It was a trap. I can’t let Melina leave Limbo. Thoros signed her contract. Please tell him that I am so sorry, and our memories will last me an eternity. Please…tell him that I love him.”

He was silent for a moment, and then he whispered through my mind,
“You are the strongest person I know, Josselyn.”

I pulled out of the embrace and looked into his grey eyes. “You’ll tell him, won’t you?”

He frowned, and then nodded once before turning so we could walk down the dock together.

I noticed Omega boarded the ferry first, but didn’t give it any further thought other than maybe they needed someone to bring the ferry back across the acid lake. Although I still believed the ferry was alive and had a mind of its own.

Omega offered his hand so I could step down from the dock onto the large platform. I raised an eyebrow. “What, we don’t have to give up a memory or anything?”

He smiled. “Not unless you’re offering—”

“She’s not offering,” Thoros suddenly cut in and stepped between us. He looked down at me and my heart shot up into my throat.

How was I supposed to say good bye to him?

He held out his hand and, after I took it, led me to a seat. I held on to it for dear life, but, instead of giving me a funny look, Thoros met the pressure with a solid grip of his own.

“We’re going to be okay, Josselyn.”

I nodded, even knowing that
we
wouldn’t be.

Everyone was quiet on the twenty minute journey across the lake, so I took the time to scan the crowd, trying to distract my mind of anything besides telling Thoros goodbye.

I groaned when my stomach tied itself in a knot. It was no use. Our last words, our last look at each other was
all
I could focus on!

“I look forward to meeting the others,” Omega said as he sat on the bench across from us.

Both Thoros and I turned our heads toward him in interest. “What others?” Thoros said after a moment.

“Well, the others waiting for us back in Las Vegas, the angels and the other half-souled immortals. I’m sure I will fit right in. I’m not sure what title would fit me best, though. I’m not an angel, and I will have a complete soul again before I leave Limbo. Hmmm… I don’t know. What would you call me?”