THE JOURNEY back to Paradose Valley, where the Circle waited, was taking too long. Not longer than ordinary, but far too long to relieve Chelise’s growing desperation.
Thomas had vanished, for the love of Elyon, just vanished! She couldn’t shake the image of his and her father’s sudden disappearance. And she had no word of Samuel except Thomas’s plea, echoing through her mind: Save the Circle, Chelise! Save them from Samuel!
But she felt powerless to save herself, much less the Circle. To say she was despondent understated the sickness now eating away at her soul. Tears brought no relief.
She whipped her horse and drove it through the dark forest, ducking branches that crowded her passage. Elyon, please, if you’re there . . . She hardly knew what to say any longer. The Circle had been crying at the skies for so many years and had what to show for it? More death. More running. And now this, betrayal of the most unnerving kind.
Maybe Samuel was right.
She caught herself and cursed her own weakness. How could she, who’d drowned and found new life, question the reality of Elyon now just because the world was dark?
Because it is dark, she thought. All hope seems lost! My lover Thomas is gone. And my lover Elyon is quiet.
Where was the light now? Where was even a hint of hope? How could Elyon allow them to enter such a wasteland? She was alone on this steed, blind in a world sinking into despair.
Chelise broke into a clearing and urged the horse to run faster through the grass. Tall dark trees loomed ahead, reaching for a black— She started. A bundle of white sat perched high upon one of the trees. A living bundle of fur. With wings.
In her shock, Chelise failed to pull the horse to a halt. This was a Roush, one of the legendary creatures. It had been ten years since she’d seen one, so long she’d given up hope of ever seeing one again in the flesh. Yet here was one!
She yanked back on the reins, brought the horse to a heaving standstill, and stared. The creature stared back, unaffected. Its green eyes were bright despite the darkness. Resolute. Absolute.
It’s true. They’ve been here the whole time, she thought, and hope flamed deep in her chest.
She tried to speak, to say something, anything, but emotion stopped her up, and she had to swallow to keep from crying out with relief.
The Roush dropped from the branch, spread its wings, and swept around, gliding west just above the treetops. Toward the desert.
Toward the Gathering.
“Wait!” She cried out, afraid it might be leaving, and spurred her horse after the furry creature. But it wasn’t leaving her; it was circling back. Then it faced west again, satisfied she was following.
She was not alone. The light was there, begging her to follow.
JANAE PULLED her horse to a halt next to Billy’s and stared at the massive canyon. The sun was hot, and sweat exacerbated the rash that now covered the skin around her joints—the crooks of her elbows and knees, her neck, armpits, and groin. The growth had slowed after an initial outbreak, and in the last twenty-four hours it hadn’t progressed at all.
She swatted at a fly that buzzed by her ear. “I don’t see anything but more rocks and sand. This isn’t right.”
Billy was studying the journal again. Always the journal, as if it was his new lover. “Yes . . .” He glanced up at the stars, then consulted the page again. “Yes, this is it.”
“Where?”
He motioned to the dark canyon below them. “There.”
“Fantastic,” she said bitterly. “I’ve crossed the desert with a redhead from Colorado who’s so twisted up that he’s seeing black bats in the shadows. If they’re there, why can’t I smell them?”
He dismissed her with a turn of his head and urged his horse forward. That was Billy: forward, always forward, into the desert, as if following a bright star to the birthplace of some new king. It was a book that guided him, though, and even more, some inner homing device seemed to keep him trudging forward. Always forward.
He had the rash as well. They decided it was from the air. The atmosphere was filled with microscopic Shataiki, and the two of them were reacting to it. Clearly, their skin didn’t react to the disease like the Horde’s skin, or they would be covered in the sores by now. Or perhaps Thomas’s blood was in them still, fighting against the virus.
They’d escaped the city, taking four horses from the temple stables for the hard journey north. Billy had cut loose the two mounts they’d exhausted after a day, and Janae was certain the two they now rode would give out before the end of the night.
“Billy!” She got her mount moving again and plunged down the slope after him. He didn’t turn back. He didn’t even acknowledge her presence. She was following her own internal guide, sniffing out the scent of something that pushed her inexorably toward her destiny, whatever that might be. But Billy . . .
Billy was on autopilot. He was so lost, so completely swallowed by his mission that he could no longer articulate exactly what he had in mind.
“Billy!” She kicked her horse, and it bolted forward with a snort of protest. “Tell me why I can’t smell their blood. Stop. Just stop this idiocy!” She pulled her horse across the nose of his to force sense into him. “Don’t ignore me!”
Billy’s glazed eyes studied her. “What?”
“What? What’s your problem? We’ve been running for two days straight, and we haven’t seen a hint of Shataiki. Or Horde or albino, for that matter.”
“I know where I’m going.”
“Maybe you do. But I can’t do this anymore!”
His jaw muscles bunched with impatience. “You think we have options here?”
That was just it: they didn’t. The sum of her own predicament swelled in her mind, and the world spun. Less than a week ago she’d been in a position of power at Raison Pharmaceutical, tolerating a deep-seated knowledge that she didn’t belong, at odds with her mother and the rest, but at least stable. She’d learned how to cope with her dreaded desire to smash everything around her.
Then Billy had turned her world on end. In hindsight, she’d always known that she would eventually meet another like herself, a soul mate with the same insatiable longing for more, far beyond the limitations of flesh and blood. She didn’t understand her feeling of emptiness, but she’d known it couldn’t last forever.
The moment Janae had awakened in the body of Ba’al’s priestess, Jezreal, she knew she’d found herself. Almost. Her identity was entwined with the blood Ba’al loved. With the sacrifices to his master.
To Teeleh.
It was the beast’s blood more than his name that called to her.
And Billy was right. They had no options except to find Teeleh. An overwhelming desperation settled over Janae as she stared into Billy’s distant eyes. She swallowed past the tightness in her throat, but the emotion rose like a fist, and she felt despair strain her face.
“I need it, Billy!” she whispered. The longing for the blood swallowed her whole, and tears welled in her eyes. “I can’t wait for it.”
“You need what?” He maintained his hard edge.
She looked away and wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand. “I . . . I don’t know.” A long silence settled over them. “I’m scared.”
Billy uttered a harsh laugh. “Yeah, well it’s a bit late for that. You follow me across the universe into hell and now you decide you’re afraid?”
“No.” She faced him, furious at his insolence. But she depended on him even more now than before. So she closed her eyes and tried to compose herself. More to the point, she loved him—the way a drug addict might love the needle. She needed Billy.
Janae opened her eyes and watched him by moonlight. He couldn’t read minds in this reality, a small consolation that leveled the playing field somewhat. But Billy was no less extraordinary. Not because of what he did, although the fact that he’d been the first to write in the magical Books of History was no small feat.
Still, it was Billy’s identity that made him extraordinary, she thought. He was the one responsible for Thomas Hunter’s entry into this world. He was the one who’d given birth to evil in those books.
In a sense, Billy was all of humanity bundled into one boy who’d been besieged by evil. Unable to rid his mind of the evil, he embarked on a quest to face it. Only then could he embrace it fully, or reject it, never to return. He’d said as much, but looking at him now, she understood it.
Janae eased her horse next to his, facing the opposite direction. She rested her hand on his thigh and leaned forward slowly until her lips were an inch from his.
“I love you, Billy,” she whispered.
He didn’t move. She kissed him lightly on his mouth.
“I don’t know what’s happening to me.” The taste of his saliva made her head spin. “I can’t . . . I don’t know why I’m feeling like this.”
Billy returned the kiss, and she had to suppress the impulse to bite his lip as she had before. She moved her hand from his thigh to his back and pulled herself closer.
“I’m not afraid to be here with you, I’m afraid of this feeling.” Tears came again. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me, Billy. I need it.”
His breath was hot through his nostrils, and he pulled back so that their mouths were separated only by the moisture between them. “You need what?”
“The blood,” she breathed without thinking.
It was the first time she’d admitted it so plainly, even to herself, but doing so brought a flood of adrenaline. Her heartbeat surged, and she crushed his lips with her own.
Billy didn’t speak, not with words. He was breathing hard, and he returned the kiss with as much passion. They were locked in an embrace, eyes closed and lost to the world. Images of black trees and large black bats slid through her mind. But instead of being repulsed or frightened, she now felt a wholeness that only fueled her desire.
Billy was her Adam, and she was his Eve, embracing the forbidden world. His lips were fruit to her, the sweet nectar of an apple.
She groaned and bit down deeply, then felt warmth flood her mouth. Like a drug, the blood flooded her with desire and peace. Complete wellness and security. Billy wasn’t a mere man; he was a god. Her own to consume.
She knew that she’d regressed to a form of herself that knew only darkness. But there in the darkness of that womb she felt one with herself. She . . .
Her mount snorted and shifted under her. Billy’s hand was squeezing her shoulder like a vise. Pushing her away.
She opened her eyes, confused and hurt, but before she could speak she was stopped by darkness.
Not just darkness. Blackness, like ink. So black she could feel the night as if it were a living organism that meant to smother her.
Janae jerked her head away from Billy and saw the circle of red eyes peering at them from the edge of a blackened forest twenty feet away. Where had the trees come from? They surrounded Billy and Janae. She gasped and spun around.
The red eyes were attached to mangy black creatures standing several feet tall, loosely resembling the images she’d seen in the temple.
Shataiki.
Her heart bolted, and she turned to look in the direction that had captivated Billy. A beast twice the size of the others perched on an angular branch above and behind the ring of Shataiki. He watched them with piercing red eyes.
Not a sound. Not a movement. Janae’s heart pounded in her ears. The moon had been cut off by a thick tangle of leafless branches, draped in long strings of dark moss. Where only moments earlier sand and rocks had covered the canyon floor, now mud and shale lay on the ground. A single path tunneled into the dense foliage.
Their eyes had been opened to the Black Forest. The twelfth of twelve forests, Billy had said. The queen Marsuuv’s domain. And Janae had little doubt that the beast staring at them from his higher perch was none other than Marsuuv himself.
Billy dropped to the ground and went down on one knee, head bowed to the queen. Before Janae could decide what her reaction should be, the large beast sprang into the air with astonishing agility, shot above the canopy, and was gone from their sight in the direction of the path.
As one, the ring of Shataiki flapped noisily off the branches, squawking and hissing. Half flew after the queen, and the others swept in, jaws snapping. Janae crouched as a set of fangs clamped shut close enough for her to feel the creature’s hot, sulfuric breath on her neck.
Billy stood slowly, eyes on the path, ignoring the vicious cacophony of the beasts. He calmly mounted and turned his horse into the path. Satisfied, the Shataiki pulled up and fluttered about the canopy.
The air smelled like an open wound rotting with gangrene, but it was laced with another scent that drew Janae like the sweet smell of water drawing herds after a long, parched season.
“Billy . . .”
He pushed his snorting mount onto the path, then into the forest.
“Billy?”
He smacked his horse’s rump and it bolted. Janae ducked low and raced after him. The darkness made the path nearly invisible, but the horses followed their own guide, hauling Billy and her into the jungle at breakneck speed.
Two thoughts drummed through her mind. The first was that they were rushing toward their deaths. The second was that she didn’t care, because she could smell life in the air, and this was the life she needed as much as breath itself.
The scent grew stronger, and with it her certainty that she had to reach the end of this path, if for no other reason than to find the source of the smell.
She called out his name later, in a moment of unexpected fear. “Billy.” But her voice was weak, and even if Billy was listening, his silence seemed appropriate. The fear lifted, and she hugged her horse’s neck as she rode it into the night.
Into this hell.
How long they rode or where the twisting path went, she neither knew nor cared. She kept telling herself she was going home. All secrets would be laid bare with her queen.
My queen. She whispered it aloud. “My queen. My queen.”
Her horse stopped suddenly and she jerked up in her saddle, eyes peeled. They had come to the bank of a large black pond surrounded by a thick forest. The Shataiki covered the canopy, their millions of red eyes staring in silence, casting a dim glow over the waters.
Janae pulled up next to Billy and followed his gaze. A single wooden platform stood on pylons over the water like a pier. And on the platform, three thick inverted crosses, black against the night.
Crosses. Why crosses?
Janae saw that five or six Shataiki carcasses had been nailed to the crosses and hung like huge dead rats. “Upside-down crucifixions.”
Billy kept his eyes on the ancient symbols of execution.
“Where is Marsuuv?” Janae asked.
“In the grave.”
They were whispering, and even then, Janae wondered what did or did not offend Shataiki. She felt her skin quiver, like the flesh of the mount beneath her. Something was wrong here. All of it was wrong, terribly wrong. All except the scent. And now her body quivered with desire.
“Where’s the grave?”
“In hell,” he said. “Below the crosses.”
“Under the lake?”
Billy directed his horse to a rotting wooden door into a large mound beside the lake. Like a bunker or a root cellar. For long seconds he sat on his horse and stared in silence. The throng overhead watched like a jury, perfectly still, as if what they were witnessing had been anticipated for a very long time.
History was being written before their eyes. But it wasn’t her they were staring at, she realized. It was Billy.
She looked over at him and saw that he was crying. Streams of tears wet his cheeks, and his face was wrinkled in anguish.
“My lover . . .” His voice was raspy, barely more than a whisper. “I’ve made it. I’ve come back to you.”
A knot rose in Janae’s throat. In this moment, she felt such a solidarity with him that she couldn’t hold back her own sentiment. “I love you, Billy.”
But the moment she said it, she knew she meant Marsuuv. She, like Billy, had found her lover. Certainly not in a way humans found lovers. No, this was far more basic, like finding water in a desert. Or blood after being drained.
Life.
Billy slowly gathered himself, then turned to her. “Do you have the strength?”
“Yes.”
“He’ll take everything.”
And give me his power, she thought.
“He’ll take your soul.”
She looked at the door, a rudimentary door bound together with vines in a criss-crossing pattern. “He already has it.”
Billy dipped his head, then reached for her hand. His fingers were ice-cold, but the gesture filled her with a new warmth.
“Thank you, Janae,” he said. “Thank you for sharing this with me.”
“Of course.”
He looked up at the three crosses on their right. “You know, I once thought I had defeated the evil in my heart. I learned something: We can face our demons, burn them up, stomp them into the ground. I turned mine to ashes. But even if you destroy the evidence of evil, you can’t heal your heart. Not by yourself. Only he can do that.”
Billy was staring up at the crosses when he said it, and for a moment Janae thought he was capitulating.
He looked at her again. Smiled. “Call me Judas, Janae. We all have our roles to play. I love him too much.”
Even if she wanted to, there was no way to turn back now. The scent pulled at her like an airborne intoxicant that beckoned her to come and taste. “I want to love him too.”
“He’s waiting,” Billy said. “Marsuuv is waiting.”
Then Billy and Janae slid from their saddles, walked up to the door, and descended into hell.