Chapter 23
Broken Worlds
The night stalker who has been chasing after me doesn't look so intimidating when he's bound by Chaz's restraints. After the fourth slash Kane delivers to his body, he hisses out with pain, squirming uselessly.
"Tell us who the fuck is running this!" Kane blares, gearing up for another shot of power.
Imagine being hit by thirty whips at once. That's what I can only think each one of his lashings feels like. It's starting to make me sick to my stomach.
"You're not strong enough," he says grinning, though his voice is strained and his teeth are coated with his own blood.
Kane hits him with a fifth strike, one that forces the night stalker to scream and cry out when it cuts deep inside him, spilling his blood with a generous flow.
That's all I can watch.
I turn around, keeping my back to the torture session, and grip Thad's necklace around my neck for some sort of solace. I know this has to be done, but it's brutal—more so than I'm fully prepared to see. I'm glad Drackus isn't here. The night stalker would be in disassembled pieces, but still alive. I hope Mom brings him down without any problems.
"You're too late. Even if you could stop them," he chokes out, breaking under the pain, "you'll never get there in time."
"Who, damn it?" Kane says, probably threatening another strike.
"Damon and Dragona's daughter and some others. It's starting. Just before dawn, she'll open the gates. She has the two gate keepers."
My stomach rolls at the sound of those two names. I turn around, wide-eyed and terrified. Everyone else looks paler than me because they know the true weight of those names. I've only scratched the surface.
"The gates of hell?" Chaz asks warily.
The night stalker laughs, but winces and coughs as more blood spills from his wounds and gurgles in his mouth.
"The gates of hell only need one gate keeper. And the worst demons can cross over any time they want. These people have been waiting and searching for the second gate keeper for centuries. They've groomed her, making her strong enough to endure the opening. If she died before the gates were opened, all would be lost. Now she's ready."
"The little girl?" Kane prompts, demanding an answer.
"She's one of them. They needed Freya's spawned bitch creature out of their way. She's the only one who was foretold to stop it. But it's too late now. The gates will open, and Dragona and Damon will walk amongst us once again."
The faces I already thought were ashen turn even paler. "Purgatory. They're opening the gates of purgatory?" Chaz asks in a register lower than a whisper, speaking as though it's blasphemous.
"They'll release everyone from there," Kane says softly, cursing louder after he lets it sink in. "You can't open the gates for just two people."
The night stalker looks up, smiling. "I know. This world is about to go up in flames. Burn, bitch. Burn."
A lash of power bursts out of Kane before he can stop himself, and the night stalker screams out until his screams turn into silence and his head drops in defeat, leaving only his garbled final breaths to taint the air.
"Fuck," Deke gripes while running his hands through his hair. "Now we don't know where the damn gate is!"
Kane shakes his head as he walks toward the counter, grabbing his keys.
"I do know."
"How the hell do you know?" Dice asks as we all start hurrying outside.
"Because we lived on top of it. It draws in the immortals like nothing I've ever seen before."
"Fucking where?" Dice prompts as we make our way outside, following Kane to the vehicles.
"Pine Shore."
If I didn't know for a fact that this was Pine Shore, I'd never believe it. The apocalypse from hell is what it looks like. People are screaming and running as we come into the town that is literally burning. The lake is even on fire. How is that possible?
Fire and brimstone would be an understatement.
Kane barrels through the chaotic streets, barely missing the frenzied people rushing away. The dark blue light shines like a beacon from the ground to the sky, guiding us to the center of the war zone.
Kane swerves and misses—something.
"Spirits are everywhere," he hisses, shaking his head. "They'll have to let everything out before Dragona and Damon can climb to the surface. They're bound at the back—pushed as deep as they could get them centuries ago."
I've learned it's a painful process to go through to be sentenced to purgatory. Tossing them in there is easier than breaking them out. It's supposed to be a one-way street. I didn't realize there was a gate to open.
Red eyes of forced possessions shine through many of the people wandering the streets, and we dodge shots of power coming from their human hands.
"This is worse than I imagined," I murmur in a hushed whisper, letting Kane obliterate the mass of debris in front of us, and knock innocent humans out of the way—using his power—before we run over them.
We're the lead car, and the convoy behind us is working just as hard to keep people safe.
"Dray can handle some of the possessed, Deke and Zee can fight their way through anything, and I'm pretty sure Chaz can hold his own," Kane says. "Frankie is a skilled and seasoned warlock. I'm fucking glad he's here. Dice will do what he can where he can, but he's not as powerful as us. You need to stay close to me at all times. I don't even want you here."
"Shay is with Mom, trying to bring down Drackus. Sierra and Amy can't come out before the sun, and Reese can't leave his pack before the sun. You need me."
"The sun will be up soon," he says, looking at the sky that might never brighten again.
"Kane," I murmur in disbelief, gasping at the sight I shouldn't be able to see.
"What?"
My eyes stay fixed on the red beauty high in the sky, taunting the world with the power they don't know exists.
"The red moon—I can see it. I shouldn't be able to see it," I mutter, still in awe and terror as I stare at the impossible, becoming oblivious to the destruction around me.
"The barrier between our magic and the human world is breaking. This bitch is going to destroy everything."
We screech to a halt when we reach the base of the woods, and Kane leaps out of the car. He's at my door before I can even get my hand on the handle, and he opens it, quickly enclosing my hand in his.
"Alyssa, I mean it, don't leave my side."
I continue staring at the moon, feeling it pulling at me, begging me to let my true self free. It's beautiful.
"Stop looking at it," he says while palming each side of my face and bringing my head down so that my eyes only see his night stalker blues. "Look at me."
I take several steadying breaths, and I feel the pull of the moon lessening, seeping out, and I regain some of my control.
"We need to go," Chaz says, stepping up behind us.
"Did you reach him?" Kane asks as we start moving quickly through the woods, ignoring the screams behind us. We can't do anything to save them until we stop her—whoever she is.
"He's still not answering," Chaz says.
"Who?"
Kane tightens his lips, and I realize who he's talking about when he tenses.
"Gage?"
"We need the Somage," Deke says as he curses a dusty spirit that tries to take his body. Thankfully, we're all sealed from them with our tattooed protection.
"I wish these bitches needed permission to take bodies," he growls.
"They only need permission if they're unable to fully cross the planes. Fucking purgatory is open. The spirits are free. They can take anyone who doesn't have protection."
My wrist starts burning fiercely, and I jerk free from Kane's hold, as I pull it up to see it. My mouth falls as the mark glows, promising me we're about to be met with some real evil.
"Castine's here," I whisper, looking at Kane who has already clenched his jaw shut.
"I'm stronger this time," he says softly, rubbing his thumb over the burning mark, forcing me to wince when the angry mark makes my flesh tender.
I hope all the blood he's been taking from me really does make him stronger. Maybe that's why my creature goddess craved his bite so badly.
We start moving briskly through the woods again, everyone on alert, but the sounds ripping through the air aren't comforting—too many spirits are free.
We all stumble to a halt when we reach the other side of the woods and see the fiery lake up close. I look to the middle where the water is parted, creating a land trail to where the beacon of blue light hums into the sky.
My breath leaves as dusty shadows flee from the dark hole of an opening, carrying ashes and fire with them as they escape. The dark lake almost looks black right now under the glow of the red moon.
Familiar faces litter the opening to where the water rises up to almost shield them, creating a circle for destruction to be evoked.
I don't know what shocks me the most. There are too many things.
First, there is the blond man who looks just like Thad, but it can't be—it just can't. He's bound, on his knees with his head lowered so that he only sees the ground, and he's beside a young girl in the same stance. A black, glistening, faceted gem rests between them, centering itself in front of the dark hole.
Next to them, I look into black eyes that shouldn't be on a night stalker. They draw me in as a hissing bitch notices our presence—Castine is here, making the mark on my wrist burn even hotter.
Then a deadly beauty with dark hair, red lips, and a devil's agenda looks our way. It's Amari, Gage's vicious mother.
Next to Gage’s mother, there’s a familiar monster, and a chilling tremor of fear spreads throughout me as a dark nightmare becomes reality. The scars on his face prove he's been hit by powerful magic—my mother's magic. It's him—the monster from my past, the monster in my worst dreams—the monster who marked me for life.
But not even that strikes as much horror as the next face I see, the one that answers many questions while leaving me with so many more. I gasp, cover my mouth, and shake my head as tears arise when the cold eyes fall on me.
"You're too late," she says, smiling as she revels in her chaos.
A body materializes beside me, and a hand grips mine as Mom joins me in the shock, staring with me at the woman we love.
She barely whispers the name, trying to make it less real. We never thought to look for the woman in white right beside us.
"Hilly."