~ Pandora ~
“So, is this really about a dress?” Pavia asked as soon as the door closed behind the boys.
“Of course not, what do you take me for?” Kira responded, tone slightly offended. “Although…my wedding dress did arrive yesterday, so we could pull a kill-two-birds-with-one-stone sort of thing. I’m just saying.”
Pandora watched the car disappear around the bend, and only when it was completely out of sight did she drop the hand clutched around a red dish towel and turn to face her friends. “Why not?” she asked, overly lightly. “I wouldn’t want a little thing like the possible end of the world to get in the way of your wedding planning.”
“Please,” Kira retorted. “It wouldn’t be my wedding without some catastrophic event happening ten days before. I’m shocked, really, that I didn’t see this coming. My Spidey senses must be off or something.”
“End of the world?” Naya asked softly, tossing a worried glance out the window to where Mateo was sitting on the porch with one of Luke’s vintage comic books in hand.
“All right,” Pavia cut in. “What the hell’s going on?”
“Sam is alive,” Pandora said.
No intro.
No easing them in.
Nothing but blunt truth.
“Come again?” Pavia muttered, jaw dropping.
Pandora released a heavy sigh. “I can’t believe I was so stupid. I can’t believe I didn’t see. After I killed him, or thought I killed him, I was surrounded in his shadows. It was so obvious, so—”
“Breathe,” Naya interrupted and put a hand on her friend’s shoulder, helping to ground Pandora back into the real world. “Breathe and tell us what happened. Do you know where he is? Did you see him? Why did the boys have to— No. No…”
Naya’s eyes popped wide open, staring at Pandora, a mix of horror and sympathy churning in those amber pools. Because she was the one who’d come to Pandora the day before, concerned about Jax, concerned about his soul.
Naya knew.
In an instant, she understood.
And it made it all more real.
“What? What am I missing?” Pavia asked.
Kira was silent beside her, a guess of the truth written across her features, but she wanted Pandora to confirm the suspicions she’d put in her head.
“Jax,” she murmured, barely able to find her voice. “Jax is Sam.”
Her knees gave out, and she stumbled to the table, practically falling into a chair. Kira poured her another cup of coffee and set it gently before her on the table while the other two girls took seats.
“Are you sure?” Kira asked.
Pandora nodded silently, swallowing the lump in her throat.
“How? When?” the conduit prodded. And though normally Pandora was annoyed by the pushing, now she needed it, needed someone else to force her to face the truth.
“I did this,” Pandora confessed softly and clenched her palms together on the tabletop, muscles clasped so tight her entire body began to tremble. “It was me.”
“Whatever you might have done, you didn’t mean it,” Naya said as she squeezed Pandora’s forearm, stopping the quiver. “Tell us what you know. We’ll find a way to fix this, just like we’ve done with everything else.”
Pandora nodded, soaking in the words, trying to believe them. “The shadows…” She forced the words out. “The shadows were never my power. I’m a weaver. I’ve told you guys that before. I told you how Sam gave me a piece of his darkness before I locked him in the prison and made myself the key. I always thought he’d given me that bit of shadow as a way to contact me, a way to continue to seduce me throughout my many lifetimes, a way to help keep me safe. For thousands of years, I never thought anything different. But now I realize what his gift really was—not only a way to tie himself to me, but a way to tie himself to the world.”
“How do you mean?” Naya asked, voice soothing, as though she were talking to one of her lost souls. After all, that was exactly what Pandora was. What she’d always been. Lost.
“The shadows are a different plane of reality, a different realm entirely. And when Sam was an angel, his body kept him tied to the heavens and the earth, tied to this world. But his soul has always belonged to the darkness, and I think he knew that. I think he knew that if I ever found the courage to use my weapon of fire to destroy him, that he’d be lost in his own power, consumed by it, without a way to return to this place. So he gave me a bit of his power as a guide, or maybe as his anchor through the void, so his soul could find a way back. After I killed him, I was surrounded by an ebony sea, drowning in it, and I used my connection with Jax as a rope to climb my way out. Sam must have used his connection to me the same way. And when he emerged back into the world, an ethereal phantom, he must have clung to Jax and stolen his body for himself. I can’t think of any other explanation. I brought him back from the dead. I led him straight to Jax.”
“There’s no way you could have known,” Kira reasoned.
But Pandora shook her head, a bitter edge coming to her voice. “Of course I could have. There were so many signs, if I’d bothered to question my plan even once, if I’d considered all the consequences, if I hadn’t been so stupid, so selfish. I wanted to live. I didn’t want to die. So I chose to believe everything that helped me, and I ignored anything that didn’t make sense. Why would Samael, the devil himself, go so willingly to the grave? Why did he help me figure out how to kill him? Why did I trust him when he said all those things? Why did I believe him? Because he said he loved me? Something so evil couldn’t possibly know how to love. I just wanted to live, and now…now…” Pandora paused as a shaky breath worked its way up her throat, and her voice wobbled. “And now, Jax is going to die.”
“No, he’s not,” Naya urged.
“We’ll save him,” Kira reinforced.
Pandora dropped her head to the table, overwhelmed. “I don’t know if we can. What if we can’t? What are we going to do? My father was right. The titans were right. I should have done what I did in a hundred other lives. I should have sacrificed myself. I should have just given up, given in. I should have—”
“That’s enough,” Pavia interjected, tone harsh and demanding. “That’s enough with the pity party. Snap out of it. You’re stronger than this. We all know you are. So stop feeling sorry for yourself. Forget what happened in the past, because there’s nothing we can do to change it, and start thinking about how we’re going to fix this.”
And then she flicked her.
Directly in the center of the forehead.
One solid smack with the tip of her pointer finger.
And it freaking stung.
“Hey!” Pandora snapped as she popped her head up, spot throbbing. “That hurt.”
Pavia raised her brows, completely unconcerned. “Good.”
“Not sure tough love was really the way to go there…” Kira trailed off, lips pursing as she took in the tension mounting in the room.
But Pandora sighed, still rubbing her forehead. “No, she’s right. I needed that. This isn’t me. And this isn’t helping Jax. We need a plan. We need to do something, anything. But I don’t know where to begin.”
“Why don’t we start with you telling us how you found out?” Kira said. “What did he do? What did he say? What did you see?”
“He’d been acting a little off, but I thought it was just the titans and my dad and everything that was going on, so I didn’t take much notice. But then, yesterday morning, I woke up and there was a message scrawled on my palm. Choose me. I didn’t know what it meant, I didn’t understand, but it got me thinking. Got me questioning. And then later that afternoon, one of the titans told me why they were so sure Sam was still alive. He said the head oracle read my fate in the stars on the day I was born, that she said I would unleash the greatest evil the world had ever known. And then right after, Naya came up to me, saying she’d seen something different about Jax’s soul, and I knew. All the signs suddenly became clear. So this morning, I touched the shadows. I wrapped them around me, and I disappeared. I was invisible. But when Jax woke up, he didn’t notice. He saw right through the darkness. He saw me immediately. And I saw Sam. For the first time, I saw what he’d done.”
“So you’re still just as connected to the shadows as ever?” Kira asked.
Pandora nodded, swallowing a gulp.
Kira glanced at the other girls, gaze calculating. “Well, I think that’s where we need to start. Because if you think that’s how he got back to the world, no matter what we do, he’ll keep returning as long as you have that bond.”
“What do you have in mind?” Pandora asked, eyes narrowing, not quite sure about the conduit’s tone.
A wicked grin passed over Kira’s lips as she lifted her hand. Fire exploded from her palm.
Scratch that. I’m one hundred percent sure I don’t like where this is going.
“Stay away from me, you human blowtorch.”
Kira rolled her eyes, dialing the flames back a bit. “Please, you and I both know that conduit fire can only hurt vampires. I’m a protector, which means you created me to burn the darkness from human souls, remember? So, voilà, give me a few minutes to see if I can burn the shadows from yours.”
“But we already cured her,” Pavia commented, brows furrowed.
Kira cocked her hip. “All I’m saying is it couldn’t hurt, right?”
Pandora sighed.
The conduit had a point.
And she was desperate.
“Okay, broil me.”
Kira stepped forward, and Pandora used her fingers to grip the table, wincing as the heat warmed her skin. But it shouldn’t hurt… Shouldn’t being the operative word, since, well, those flames looked angry and spewing. But when Kira pressed her palm against Pandora’s chest and shot the heat down into her core, Pandora felt something she hadn’t anticipated.
Her own blue fire burst to life.
There was no pain.
No hurt.
Hardly even a twinge.
Instead, there was energy and enthusiasm and the welcome sensation of her own power surging forward to meet the conduit flames head-on. Pandora blinked, and when her eyes reopened, she was surrounded by strands of cerulean no one else could see. The pulsating blue cords wrapped around Kira’s flames, surging around the conduit’s palm, disappearing beneath Pandora’s skin, mixing and molding and joining with its sister fire.
Of course!
She gasped, suddenly realizing the obvious truth staring her in the face.
Of course! The conduits were angels. The titans were angels. I created them both. I created them to work together. And while I stole the immortal fire from the titans, leaving them with their powers, I did the opposite with the conduits. I stole their immortality and their power but left the fire to burn beneath their skin.
Conduit fire was immortal fire. They were one and the same. The conduit version was just a little, well, muted. Which was why Pandora’s power burned sapphire hot, but Kira’s emerged from her palm with the lesser golden-tinted flames.
“Grr!” Kira growled, yanking her hand back in frustration. “Damn, I thought for sure that would work, and I’d come in out of nowhere to save the day. But I can’t find a friggin’ thing. You’re annoyingly pure of spirit.”
“Thank you…?” Pandora murmured. Then she coughed. “Well, the shadows are most definitely still hanging at the edge of my awareness, but I might have discovered something else. Kira, bring your flames up again.”
She did.
Pandora blinked, bringing her power-filled vision back to life. While the others couldn’t see, she prodded at Kira’s flames with her mind, trying to tug on them, to move them. At first, nothing happened. But after a minute—
“Hey, what was that?” Kira closed her fist in shock, snuffing the power out.
Pandora grinned. “Me.”
“What happened? What’d you do?” Pavia asked, still watching closely from the side.
Naya, however, was looking out the window, at her brother, staring into space. But Pandora knew better than to ever believe the werejaguar, goddess extraordinaire, would check out during such a dire situation. No, she was plotting something, uncovering something. And Pandora would give her time.
She turned back to the conduit. “I wove your fire.”
Kira’s jaw dropped. “How?”
“Conduit fire,” Pandora stated, as though it were obvious, even though she herself had only thought of it thirty seconds before. “It’s immortal fire. It’s the same thing the prison was made of. The source of my power. It’s all angel fire, but yours is just a little weaker.”
The corners of Kira’s lips perked up. “That is so cool!”
“It’s more than cool,” Pandora said, connecting the dots as she spoke. “It’s how we’re going to convince the titans to play nice. It’s how we’re going to convince them that they need the conduits as allies. The head weaver, the only reason he stayed is because he wanted to know how I was still able to weave the immortal flames, because all the other weavers had lost their connection to the fire. But if they know they can weave conduit fire, maybe we can figure out a way to work together, a way to save more people.”
“But how come they lost their power and you didn’t?” Kira asked.
“I don’t know…” Pandora chewed her lip, thinking back, skimming her memories, trying to see a clue that had to be obvious. And then, duh, she saw it. “Because I’m the original weaver. It’s always been my power, been in my blood. But it’s not like that for the other weavers. I never had kids in any of my lives. I never shared my blood. So while the other titans passed their power source down through children, mine was passed down through the connection to the jail, the connection to me. And when it went, so did their source of power. Until you.”
Kira nodded as if to say, Makes sense. And then she shook her head, an awed sort of expression passing over her features. “This could be a total game changer. I mean, if the titans can weave our power, who knows what that means for vamps. Could they weave it into bullets? Into knives? Something we could give to other supernaturals? I mean, they know how to weave their power into a tattoo meant for human flesh. Why not one meant for things, too? Why not—”
“Uh,” Pavia interrupted. “I hate to be the Debbie Downer, but how does that help us, like now? Against Samael?”
Oh, right, Pandora thought, sobered.
For a second, she’d forgotten about Sam.
And Jax.
And the imminent end of the world.
Dammit.
“It doesn’t,” she answered, entire body deflating.
“Okay, so we’re back to square one,” Pavia said, returning them to earth. “No clue how to separate Jax and Sam. No clue how to separate you from the shadows. No clue how to save the world. Let’s try to solve that problem first, shall we? Because if I’m not mistaken, there’s a psychopathic maniac with unstoppable power on the loose, and we need to figure out how to do the impossible and, well, stop him.”
“I hate it when you’re right,” Kira grumbled.
Pavia tossed her a grin. “I thought you’d be used to it by now.”
The conduit just wrinkled her nose at her friend.
A stilted silence filled the air.
For the first time, Pandora noticed that the kitchen faucet was leaky. Every other second there was a drip, then a drop, then a drip, then a drop, growing louder and louder.
Drip.
Then, drop.
Drip—How do I save Jax? How do I save Jax?
Then, drop—I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know!
Drip—What does Sam want? Why did he come back? What is he planning?
Then, drop—I don’t know! I have no freaking idea!
Drip—How do I kill him, for real this time? How do I end this?
Then—
“I have an idea,” Naya murmured, quiet yet loud enough to make Pandora jolt. “I’m not sure how to separate you from the shadows, but I might have an idea to at least let you talk to Jax.”
“What?” Pandora blurted, heart pounding.
“Well, I’m a necromancer,” Naya said with a shrug, but her eyes were shining bright. “And technically, Samael is dead. Maybe I can control him like I do with vampires. You said you woke up with a message on your hand yesterday, right? Choose me?”
Pandora nodded so hard she was worried she might get whiplash.
“And you think it was Jax?”
Same answer again, complete bobblehead mode since words had escaped her. They were cramming her throat, fighting each other to get out, but Pandora held them in—too afraid to speak, too afraid to hope that yet again, Naya might be the answer.
“So, Jax must be able to regain control of his body while Samael is sleeping. It’s the only explanation for why he waited until the middle of the night when no one was around to break through the hold. Maybe tonight, I do a test run to see if I can control Samael’s soul like he’s just another vampire. I’ll try to keep him asleep so you can talk to Jax, see if he has any ideas. And while I’m in Samael’s head, I’ll take a look around to see if there’s anything else I can do to help destroy him.”
Talk to Jax.
Pandora hardly heard anything after that.
Tonight, she would talk to Jax.
Tonight, she would hold him and kiss him and tell him she loved him and she was so sorry and that she would find a way to free him.
Tonight, they would figure it out. Together.
“Have I ever told you that you might be my favorite person?” Pandora asked. Her chest swelled with all the beautiful light she was too afraid to feel.
Naya arched a brow. “Not enough,” she responded, voice on the edge of gloating, despite the overwhelming odds still against them. “Definitely not enough.”
Pandora shut her up with an uncharacteristic hug because she just couldn’t hold it in any longer.