The Secret (46 page)

“What if I can’t reach them?” she said, eyes darting to the fighting below.

“We try. That’s all we can do,” Leo said. “Now, Ava.”

“Aim the spell at me,” Kyra said. “Leo, stay close. They’re fighting close to each other.”

Leo stood behind Kyra, one arm around her waist. “Now.”

Ava took a deep breath and focused on Kyra. She stared at her, felt the power grow in her belly.

“
Zi yada
.”

Leo caught Kyra when she fell.

“Did you feel it?”

“I felt it, but it didn’t hit me. I just… felt it.” Leo carefully placed Kyra on the floor, then ran to the window.
 

He yanked the drapes down, and Ava saw his thumb circle his left wrist. The power coursed over his skin as his
talesm
glowed for a moment. He held the drape up to the window, then with one powerful punch, the glass blew outward.

“Try now, Ava. The children are getting closer. You have to try.”

Chapter Twenty-seven

MALACHI HEARD SARI SHOUT as he cut through another small body. He’d already vomited everything in his stomach as he defended the Irina from the children’s attacks. The Grigori boys darted around and under the blades of the scribes, and none of the Irina spells seemed to work.

He had slain hundreds in his long life. Felt his enemies’ blood stain his face. Felt their death rattles under his hands and watched the life drain from their eyes before their bodies turned to dust.
 

But Malachi had never faced a fight like this.

His enemy carried the face of the innocent. He had to battle every instinct to protect as he beat them back. One singer lay unconscious in the arms of a scribe, her leg hacked off by one of the children. Other singers had wrapped their robes around their throats, trying to guard their voices from the relentless assault. He felt the blood drip where they’d jabbed their knives at his face and chest. Malachi was certain he’d lost part of an ear, trying to disable them without killing.

He’d knocked as many unconscious as he could, but there had been some who’d left him no option. The beautiful children knew their advantage and took it as their elder brothers attacked the Irin front line.

Struggling through the attack on the Irina, the scribes had been pushed to the gates of the cathedral, their focus now on keeping the Grigori back as long as possible, hoping that more Irin would come. Hoping that Kostas’s men would be able to kill Grimold. Without the angel’s direction, the Grigori soldiers would lose their focus.

“Sari?” he called over his right shoulder. “What do you see?”

He threw two unconscious Grigori children away from the circle of Irina and turned. Sari was standing, her hands held up and her mouth hanging open. Two Grigori children lay at her feet, eyes open and bodies frozen.

“What is this?” she asked, pushing them with her foot. “They’re not dead, but…”

“I don’t know.”

He looked up. Ava was hanging out a window, Leo holding her as she stared at the gates of Stephansdom. Her eyes were narrowed and he could see her lips moving. He felt their magic rise.

Another child dropped at his feet.

“Ava,” he said. “She’s using Fallen magic.”

“It works on the children?” Sari said. “Do you know how—”

“I know the word, but not how to write it!” he said, flinging a child from his waist. “I can’t write it, Sari, not even with my blood.”

“Tell me!”

Tears were running down Malachi’s face as he struck the arm of a Grigori boy who’d latched on to the singer at his left.
 

Mercy.

He was so small.

The boy’s warm blood spurted on Malachi’s face, but he would not let go of the Irina’s throat. Another scribe’s blade reached the child’s neck as he bared his teeth. The Grigori froze; his eyes went wide. His mouth, soft with youth, hung open as Malachi fell to his knees, catching the child’s body before it hit the ground. It shouldn’t hit the dirty cobblestones. It wasn’t right. None of this was right.
 

The child’s unearthly gaze met Malachi’s as he caught him. They stared for a moment, Irin and Grigori. Then the bright life drained out of his eyes just before the small body dissolved to dust.

“I can’t,” he groaned. “Ava, forgive me. I can’t.”

Mercy.

“Malachi!” Sari was at his shoulder. “Tell me the spell!”

The spell?

“
Zi yada
,” he whispered. “Make it stop.”

Make them stop.

Sari rose and flung her staff to the side. “
Zi yada!
”

A child froze mid-jump, then fell to the cobblestones at their feet. He did not move.

Other Irina heard and took up the spell, and the air rang with the shouts of Fallen magic as the Grigori children froze in their attacks.

Malachi looked up, searching for her, his cheeks wet with blood and tears. She hung over the window, her attention directed at the Grigori fighting the Irin scribes.

One by one, they began to fall, writhing in pain as their dust filled the air.
 

The scribes in the square rallied as their enemy began to fall back. Some of the children looked confused. A few followed their elders, though most continued trying for the Irina, even as their small bodies fell.

Malachi began to pick up the bodies of the fallen children, carrying them to the side of the cathedral so they wouldn’t be trampled. He heard a shout and looked up. Walking down the Rotenturmstraße from the direction of the river and running behind the cathedral came a large group of the Irin. Led by a scribe in Rafaene robes, they walked with grim purpose and more than a few frightened expressions. Some of the men wore business suits that covered their
talesm
. Some wore scholar’s robes. All carried weapons.

He heard the Grigori hiss and fall back from the edges of the plaza.

The Irin had awoken.

BARAK and Kostas followed the rail tracks north from the Zentralfriedhof, fanning out as the tracks spread west of the freeway.

“He’s here,” Barak said.

Kostas motioned to Sirius, then the commander and six of his men spread their Grigori out in teams of three to five men, searching the rail yard which was empty of humans but teeming with Grigori assassins.

“Where?” Kostas asked.

“Quiet.”

He let the profound noise fill him. Thousands of souls, tormented and peaceful, full of joy or sorrow. They surrounded him. Spread over him. Filled his mind and body until he could not separate himself from the voices of heaven. Then he reached out, looking for a single thread among many.
 

Gravel scraped along his senses.

There.

His eyes still closed, he drifted toward it, calling his children with him.

“Father, no.”

A plea tugged at the edges of his mind. He opened his eyes to see Kostas before him, holding a black, heaven-forged blade to his throat. “Where did you get that?”

“Do not command us,” he said through gritted teeth. “We will follow you, but do not take our will.”

The fine blood vessels in Kostas’s eyes had burst, and the Grigori’s gaze was red and angry.

“Put it down, child—”

“Father—”

“—and follow me.”

Barak strode over the rail yard, his form growing with each step. He reached into his body, pulling out the flaming sword of the guardians.

He had once been a protector of heaven, his purest joy in guarding the Creator and those who dwelt at his side. Then he fell into darkness, and the darkness had overcome him.

Do not fear the darkness.

He felt the sword draw from his flesh and gasped with the agony and ecstasy of it, for no angel carried a guardian’s sword without pain. It fed on the blood of heaven’s sons. Mortal hands could not touch it. And no angel would survive its strike.

“Grimold,” he whispered. “It is time.”

The angel met Barak with a hail of bullets shot from the hands of his children. Kostas’s men sprang forward, attacking them as the angel fell on the archangel, his face flaming with rage.

“You will not do this!” Grimold screamed. “He has seen our victory!”

“He lied.”

JARON landed on the roof of the opera house, the building rattling under his feet as chips of stone went flying. Volund crashed into him, his blade arching through the air and glancing off Jaron’s shoulder before he spun away.

“Where is she?”

“Grimold’s sons are dying,” Jaron said, ignoring Volund’s question. “You are going to lose.”

Volund laughed. “Svarog’s men have not even arrived to join the fun! This battle is not over.”

“No,” Jaron said with a slow smile. “Svarog’s children have not arrived. How curious.”

Volund’s smile fell, then he sneered again, rushing Jaron in a rage.

Jaron accepted the slashing blow to his arm, reveling in the pain as he felt his right hand turn to dust under the guardian’s blade.

“What do you see now, you fool?” Volund shouted. “What vision did our Master send you? Did you see this, Jaron? Did you see your brother take you apart, piece by piece?”

He felt. For the first time in his millennia of existence, Jaron reveled in anguish. He fell to his knees laughing and shouting. Volund cocked his head, no doubt wondering where the solemn advisor of heaven had gone.

But Jaron saw.
 

He had seen the truth in his daughter’s eyes, and it had made him yearn. Made him want.

Made him rage.

He had planned for decades, only to have his own machinations turned upside down by something as simple—as profound—as love.

Do not fear the darkness—
his Creator had whispered to him once—
for it is only a shadow of the sun.

Then Jaron, son of heaven, raised his eyes as his Master showed him the blade that would bring him home.

He jumped to his feet and ran at Volund, grinning when the guardian’s sword pierced his belly. He wrapped his good arm around Volund’s waist and jumped from the top of the Opera house, leaping into the storm as icy rain began to fall on empty streets.

“AVA, come back inside.”

“I can’t.” She could hear them, curling on the ground in utter pain. She could hear their screams.
 

And she loved it.

Ba dahaa.

She felt their suffering in her bones, but she would not relent. Ava fed the black void and felt her power grow. The hollow Malachi had drawn from was full, not with his own bright magic, but the black power that grew and flourished in her.

“Ava, come back.”

“No.”

She felt the glass cutting into her stomach, felt the sharp, icy rain at her back, and the tearing pain in her abdomen and legs.
 

Ava didn’t care.
 

Ba dahaa.

Zi yada.

She could taste it. The sweet satisfaction of her enemies’ cries. They screamed, their voices echoing down the city streets as the Irin cut them back.

“Ava!” Leo pulled her into the building and she spun, tearing at his face with clawed hands.

“Let me go!”

“They’re winning!” He pointed to the streets below where Irin scribes and even a few singers had flooded the plaza, overwhelming the Grigori forces, many of whom were in retreat. “They’re beating them back. You have to stop.”

“I don’t want to.”

“You must!”

“No!”

“You are hurting Kyra,” he shouted. “You have to stop.”

She turned to the corner where the
kareshta
lay, no longer frozen but curled in agonized silence, her body twitching in the wake of Ava’s magic.

Ava took a deep breath and pulled her power in. “No.”

Leo knelt next to her. “I don’t know what happened. But every time you hit one of the Grigori outside, she feels it.”

“She can’t filter them out,” Ava said. “She’s not strong enough yet. Hold her, Leo.”

“I need to protect you too!”
 

“I’ve got it!” She glanced out the window. “And I think they have it too. Something is happening to the Grigori.”

BARAK and Grimold wrestled, and the ground shook below them. Iron tracks buckled and popped, tossing railcars into the air as the sky let loose the hail that had gathered in the clouds. A great rumbling shook the earth as the train cars cracked together, drawn to Grimold’s elemental power.

Barak felt his sons fighting around him, and for the first time in millennium he felt… pride. His child had resisted his draw. Once Barak was gone, they would be strong. Safe. They would not bring shame to his line. He wanted to pretend it did not matter, but he was a creature of brutal honesty, if nothing else.

He cared.

Grimold had no such pride. He drew his children to his side, throwing them at Barak like so much fodder. The guardian’s sword sprayed dust as it slew them.