Martyr (16 page)

He pushed himself out of bed and wrapped a fallen quilt around his shoulders, padding over to the window as silently as possible. Moonlight peeked out from the clouds, illuminating the small town and forested fields that spread out around them. Everything glowed silver in those patches of moonlight, gently covered with snow. Straight out of a fairytale.

He readjusted the quilt and began to turn from the window when something shifted in the corner of his vision.

A shadow darted between the trees.

Tenn opened to Earth. Blood thundered in his ears as he searched…and found it. He'd hoped it was an animal—maybe a deer or a raccoon.

It wasn't.

It was humanoid. Broken and bent.

“Kravens!” he yelled.

Jarrett woke in an instant. Tenn leaped over to the bed and threw on his clothes. Jarrett was right behind him.

“How many?” Dreya asked.

They stood on a balcony at the top of the roof, one of those stargazing platforms no one ever really used. The air was frozen and made their breath come out in tiny clouds. All four of them were open to their Spheres. Tenn knew perfectly well that she could sense that they were surrounded. She was just trying to make conversation while they waited for the enemy to attack. The fact that the beasts were just out there, biding their time, made Tenn's hair stand on end.

“Hundreds,” Jarrett said.

“Wild?” she asked.

“No way,” Jarrett replied though gritted teeth. Howls didn't just wait for their food to present itself. “We were followed. It's Matthias. It has to be.”

Tenn's dream from the other night filtered into his thoughts, a terrible déjà vu.
It's almost like you want to be found…
Matthias's warning chilled its way up Tenn's already frozen spine, sending a new wave of shivers across his skin.

“Then where is he?” Dreya asked. “Why aren't they attacking?”

“Because it's not an attack,” Tenn said. “It's a safeguard.”

In the field below them, hundreds of kravens watched them in the moonlight, staring up at the rooftop like grotesque marble statues. He could smell the rot of their flesh from here.

“Safeguard?” Dreya asked. She peered at him. “What are you talking about?”

“He doesn't want us to flee,” Tenn said. His voice didn't shake, which surprised him. A small part of him had resigned to dying, to giving himself up. He wouldn't let the others die for him. Not anymore. “He's coming back for me.”

As if to accentuate the point, the kravens below them began to part. Someone else was moving out there, a darker shadow in the slivered landscaped.

“And so we meet again,” called a voice. It echoed through the air, amplified by magic. Tenn could see the Spheres burning in the man's body, glowing brighter the closer he got. Other flickers of power manifested around them. The Spheres of the encroaching necromancers burned like gaslights in the shadows.

“As you can see,” Matthias said, “we have you completely surrounded. There will be no easy escape like last time.”

His feet crunched up the snowy drive, until he was only a few yards away from the SUV.

“Stop right there,” Jarrett said. He pushed a bit of power into the ether, and a gust of snow kicked up around Matthias, sending him back a few steps. Matthias chuckled. The laugh was colder than ice.

“You have guts,” the man said. Tenn could see him clearly now. Still in his pinstripe suit, still with his cane. “I admire that. Though it will only make it more sweet when my minions dine on your entrails.”

“What do you want?” Jarrett asked, clearly trying to buy time and figure out an escape.

“I think you know what I want,” Matthias said. He stood there regally, both hands on the cane stuck in the snow before him. “Hand the boy over and I'll make sure they kill you quickly. You've already defied me once when I was prepared to let the rest of you live. I do not like being defied. This is my final mercy.”

“I don't care about your mercy,” Jarrett hissed. “You aren't getting him.”

Tenn put a hand on Jarrett's shoulder. His stomach was twisting double-time. “Jarrett, don't. I'm going. This ends tonight.”

Jarrett turned his fury on him and pushed off his hand.

“Like hell you will. I'm not letting you go. Not without a fight.”

There was a light in Jarrett's eyes, a power that verged on madness. Air was a vicious swirl in his throat. Tenn took a step back.

“If you two are done with your lovers' quarrel,” Matthias said. “I believe Tenn and I have some unfinished business.”

Tenn opened his mouth. Resolve settled itself into his bones. If he went down there, peacefully, maybe the others could escape. Maybe he could distract Matthias long enough to leave that window open. He looked at Jarrett and felt tears burn in the back of his eyes. He wouldn't let Jarrett die for him. Not today.

Jarrett took his hand.

“We fight together,” he whispered. He wasn't looking at Tenn. He was looking at the twins.

“I wouldn't recommend that—” Matthias began, but the scream of a storm cut him short.

The world erupted in white.

Power swirled from the twins, snow raging in an instantaneous blizzard, the moon blacked out in a breath.

“We have to get out of here,” Jarrett yelled through the roar of snow. The house stood in the eye of the storm, the sky above them clear of clouds. It was only a matter of seconds before the necromancers would launch a counterattack, before Matthias regained his bearings and brought Hell raining down on them.

“There's no way,” Tenn said. “He'll follow us. He'll always follow us. I have to give myself up.”

“This is all very touching,” came Matthias's voice. Light flared in the heart of the blizzard, a strobe that floated up into the air. Matthias was silhouetted inside it, the storm raging around him. “But if that is the best you can do, I'm afraid you are wasting your time.”

Snow turned to flame.

Dreya and Devon gasped as the magic was wrenched from their grasp, converted and bastardized as the necromancers around them took control. The world was red, red and hot and screaming, burning like the Devil's beating heart.

“I have to end this,” Tenn said.

“No,” Jarrett said. He glanced to the twins. “I do.”

He leaned in close and kissed Tenn on the lips.

“I love you,” he whispered.

Then he pushed Tenn away in a gust of power and rose into the air. Devon grabbed Tenn's hands as he screamed, but Jarrett wasn't listening. He shot forward, his Sphere blazing bright, wreathing him in power that burned like a comet. Straight toward Matthias.

“No!” Tenn screamed. He struggled against Devon, reached deep into Earth and made the whole world shudder. Water howled inside of him. He saw the two figures meet in the haze of fire, Jarrett glowing brighter than the sun, Matthias burning with equal fervor. They met in the space of a heartbeat. When they collided, the world flashed white.

“We have to—” Dreya began, but whatever she was about to say was cut off by a great shift of power beside them.

The world seemed to ripple, the air carving itself in a twist.

And then they weren't alone on the balcony. A figure in black robes stood beside them. A girl.

Tenn didn't have time to react to her appearance. She grabbed onto his arm, and the world churned around him, faded to black.

The battle melted from sight.

One moment, they were surrounded by fire.

The next, a dark room, cold and candlelit.

Four of them.

Devon. Dreya. Himself.

The girl.

“Where is he?” Tenn asked. His head was swimming, and he struggled, tried to pull himself away. But where? Where?

“Who?” the stranger asked.

“Jarrett!” he screamed. His voice echoed but didn't make a dent on the screams in his head. He saw him, saw him flying toward Matthias, saw that last look in Jarrett's eyes.

“I only brought back you three,” said the robed girl. “I thought you were all that was left.”

“Take me back,” Tenn growled. Things weren't clicking. Things
were
clicking. “Take me back now.”

“I can't,” she said.

Things clicked.

Tenn dropped to his knees. Fell to the floor. Jarrett was gone.

Jarrett was gone.

PART

TWO

THE DEVIL'S MINIONS

“We have turned our backs on the gods
and the gods
as one
have turned their backs on us.”
– Rhiannon's Diary
1 P.R
.

16

Tenn
woke to flames flickering in the darkness.

For a moment, he lay there, wondering if Jarrett had lit more candles along the mantel, thinking it had to be closer to dawn. Every part of him ached with nightmare. He rolled over and reached out. The room was warm, almost uncomfortably so, but the urge to be closer to Jarrett was reflexive now.

His hand found nothing but empty sheets.

He opened his eyes fully and stared into the corners of the room, panic seeping through the morning calm. Was he still dreaming?

Then he caught sight of Dreya and Devon, sitting on a plush velvet settee along the wall. They leaned against each other, Dreya's head resting in the nook of Devon's neck, both sound asleep.

His eyes focused more—on the smooth black walls, on the fire flickering from wrought-iron candelabras, on the porcelain jars of long-stemmed roses and twining orchids. And on the girl, standing in the shadows, her hands clasped before her and the hood of her long black robe pulled back.

Reality snapped in two.

Jarrett leaping to his death at Matthias's hands. The girl appearing, pulling them away, taking them… somewhere. Taking them here.

He shot up in bed with a cry.

“Where is he?” he yelled. He jumped from bed and ran over to her. He didn't make it two steps before a pair of hands pulled him back. The twins flanked him, hands clutching his arms, but his focus was on the brown-haired girl who looked at him with impassive eyes. Red tinged everything.

“I am sorry, Tenn,” the girl said. “I truly am.”

He struggled; the twins didn't budge. He was so close to the girl he could see every curve of her smooth face, every faint freckle in her brown eyes. She looked to the twins. Those freckled eyes flicked purple.

That's when he realized what she was. She was a Priest of Maya. Well, Priest
ess
.

“What did you do?” he seethed, his teeth clamped together.

The girl nodded to the twins, who released Tenn on cue. Every part of him wanted to reach out and punch her, to open to the Spheres and force every agony he could into her tiny body. But that would be suicide. If the rumors were true, the Priests of Maya had access to the fifth Sphere, the one that remained elusive to everyone else in existence. They called Maya the God Sphere, and with it, they could change the very fabric of the world. Angry as he was, he knew she could kill him in a heartbeat if she so wished it.

The girl didn't lower her head when she spoke. She looked him right in the eye. If anything, that diffused his anger even more than the terrible power she could wield.

“I saved you,” she said. “The Prophets began screaming your name, saying you were in danger. I was sent to bring you back here and keep you from harm's way.”

“Then you can take me back,” Tenn hissed. The rage boiled up anew at the thought that they'd just been sitting here while Jarrett was out there fighting to stay alive—
if
he was alive… A new sensation washed over Tenn, one that quenched the rage: defeat. The world seemed to sink. “You could have saved him.”

“It doesn't work like that,” the girl said. “I don't expect you to understand. Not yet.” She paused. “I had the Prophets check the area. After we left.”

He didn't want to hear what she was about to say.

“There's nothing left, Tenn. The entire town is in flames.”

“You're lying,” Tenn said. “Jarrett's still out there. He has to be.”

“There was a body.” The girl's admission sliced through his heart. “On the ground. Just outside the house where you and the necromancer fought. It was burned beyond recognition, but it had a sword. We believe it was Jarrett's.”

Tenn buckled. He fell to his knees as the room swam around his head. His fingers clenched the warm stone floor, tried to find something, anything to hold on to. The dregs of last night's meal rose in his throat.

Dreya knelt by his side. She put her hand on his shoulder.

“We are sorry, Tenn,” she said. “We truly are. We know what it means to lose—”

“Shut up,” he said. “Get the hell out. All of you.”

“I understand if you—”

“I said leave!” he shouted. He turned to her, turned all of his pain and hate into those light-blue eyes. He wasn't so enraged he'd use magic against her, but she still flinched back. She nodded and stood.