CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
WE DIDN’T GO back to the Aula Palatina. After part of the ceiling had fallen out and three of the guards had been flattened by a gargoyle disguised as a seagull, it would invite too much chaos to return. To avoid dealing with hiding inside a church, mosque or synagogue and risk being caught and kicked out, Adrian had chosen a cemetery as our hallowed ground for the night. We got there with ten minutes to spare before sundown, and it was large enough that I wasn’t concerned about being spotted by the living. As for the dead, they didn’t care that we were there, and right now, I appreciated the peace and quiet.
“How did you know about this place?” I asked as Adrian and I walked through what looked like the military burial section. I couldn’t be sure because I couldn’t read the German signs or inscriptions, but the headstones were all the same size and shape, plus they were laid out with grid-like precision.
He glanced at me. “I went here after I set fire to the Aula Palatina. I didn’t want to go back to my realm, religious houses felt too foreign and I couldn’t stay where I was.”
I sighed. “I can only imagine how hard it must have been for you. It must have felt like everything you loved and believed in had shattered when you saw this world. No wonder you flipped out and tried to burn that place down. Aside from your demon side subconsciously reacting to the pilum being there, it must have also felt cathartic to try to destroy something that conflicted with what you were taught.”
“Some days,” he said pensively. “But not that one. I came here in the 1940s.” He led me to another section of the cemetery. This one had a brick-and-stone monument showing a man bent down on one knee, his upper body slumped forward as if in weary, helpless agony. The inscription on the base was in German again, so I couldn’t read it.
“It’s to mark the victims of Nazi tyranny.” Adrian’s tone held a grim note of remembrance. “You can bet Demetrius took me to see this world during the Holocaust. That indescribable cruelty, all those merciless slaughters...back then, it was easy to keep believing that demons were far better than humans.”
I said nothing. During that period of time, it had been more true than not. It didn’t excuse what demons were or everything they’d done before or afterward, but forgetting the depths of depravity that humanity could sink to only meant that we were more likely to sink to those depths again.
I gave a longer look at the statue of the broken, kneeling man that represented millions of oppressed, imprisoned and slaughtered Jews. With my Davidian lineage, if my biological mother’s side of the family had been in Germany during that time, they might have been slaughtered, too. Instead, due to my Latina makeup, at some point, they must have migrated to Mexico or South America. They had survived, so I had survived, yet far too many had not.
I squared my shoulders as I continued to stare at the statue. I now had a chance to fight for others who were without hope because they were being oppressed and slaughtered. I might not be able to save all the ones trapped in the demon realms, but if I could save some, half or—dare I be so optimistic?—most, it would be more than worth it.
It was ironic; now that I’d reconciled myself to dying in this fight, I wasn’t afraid of it or angry about it anymore. Instead, I only wanted to make sure that my death struck the blow to demons that I hoped it would.
But first, we had to find that spearhead and put the weapon back together. Only then would I have my best chance to blast a humans-only doorway into all the demon realms. Yet we still had five places left on our list to search, and the demons had managed to find us at the last two almost as soon as we arrived. For all I knew, they’d been tracking me this whole time, just like Adrian had been secretly tracking me when I went to Sweden. Blinky had even taunted us over how the demons now had a foolproof way to find us. They were probably letting us do all the hard work of finding it, then planned to rip it away and transform it into a weapon of unimaginable evil.
I couldn’t let that happen. No more pauses for last kisses, goodbyes or regrets. As much as I loved Adrian, if we found that spearhead, I had to grab it and slam it onto the pilum as soon as I laid eyes on it. That was my best chance to make sure the demons couldn’t use it for themselves. That statue represented the millions who’d died without having a chance to save the ones they loved, or strike a crushing blow against their enemies. I had those chances. They were slim, yes, but slim was still something, and I didn’t intend to waste them.
Speaking of making the most of every remaining chance... “Is there anywhere a little more private in this cemetery that we can go to?”
Adrian gave me a startled look, as if that was the last question he’d expected from me. Yeah, our surroundings hardly lent themselves to romance, but we couldn’t leave the cemetery, since it was after dark, and I wasn’t about to waste one of our last remaining nights together.
To lighten the mood, I winked and said, “Don’t look so shocked. They do call me Easy Ivy, remember?”
He laughed, and hearing it was like a balm on my soul. “No one’s ever called you that except you.”
“Then come here, and I’ll give you a reason to call me it, too,” I said in my most seductive voice.
His sapphire eyes glinted, but then he looked at the shadows cascading around him like a dark waterfall, and his expression clouded. “Ivy...I can’t seem to make these go away.”
“I don’t care,” I said, enunciating each word. “They’re part of you, so that makes them beautiful to me.”
A harsh sound escaped him. “I wish that were true, but they’re his. Even now, I feel like they mean he’s here, too.”
I set the pilum down and came toward him. With every step, I slowly drew off my sweater, until I was clad only in my bra and pants when I stood before him.
“Demetrius is not here, and you might have inherited those shadows from him, but they are not his. They’re yours, and you proved that today by using them against him and other demons.”
His gaze raked over me, but he made no move to touch me, and that wasn’t like him.
I stared at him. “What’s really bothering you?”
“I think I’m turning more demon than human,” he whispered. “Earlier, I wanted to get close to you to protect you, but I couldn’t because of these shadows. They burned and then exploded as soon as Zach’s light touched them, and when that happened...I felt like I might explode, too.”
I took in a deep breath but didn’t drop my gaze. “I don’t care if your demon side is outgrowing your humanity, Adrian. You could sprout horns next, and I still wouldn’t care. None of that changes who you are.” Then I shrugged even though I had never felt less flippant. “To me, it means that we can now fight demon with demon, and I say let’s give them hell, pun intended.”
He let out a strangled laugh, yet some of the stiffness left his frame. “How can you still believe in me so much?”
“Easy,” I said, putting my arms around him and bringing my body flush against his. “You keep proving you’re worth it.”
He kissed me then, his mouth hot, hard and hungry. I kissed him back with equal need and closed my eyes, giving myself up to sensations and emotions that didn’t hurt, for a change. At some point, he picked me up and carried me over to a tree-shaded grotto, where he used his clothes as a makeshift pallet. There, he made love to me with all the wildness of his demon side, followed by holding me with all the tenderness of his humanity as we lay panting in each other’s arms.
“You see?” I said when his shadows continued to curl around me as if, like his hands, they couldn’t stop caressing me. “Definitely more than one use for these.”
His laughter was low, sensual and oh so enticing. “Now I don’t mind them. You make everything better, Ivy.”
That wasn’t true, but to say I wasn’t in an argumentative mood was to put it mildly. I was, however, in desperate need of a shower, I realized as I glanced down at myself. In addition to all the dirt and grime I’d already had on me, all the blood and ashes on Adrian had somehow transferred to me, too.
“Do I remember passing a fountain in this place?” I asked.
His brow rose. “A little one, why?”
“I need to wash some of this dirt, ash and blood off me, and a little fountain is better than nothing.”
His mouth quirked. “Right now? What if I intend to get you dirty again very soon?”
“We need to get the pilum anyway,” I said, poking him. “Wash now, play more later.”
“Play more now,” he murmured, grabbing me and flipping me over until he was on top of me. I mock struggled, but that was only so I could keep rubbing against him.
“Want to make sure I’m really, really dirty before my bird bath?” I teased.
His mouth lowered until he breathed his response into me. “Oh, Ivy. You have no idea.”
We didn’t make it to the fountain until the moon was very high in the sky. I stopped by the memorial statue to grab the pilum first, wanting it close even though no demon could cross onto this ground to take it. Even minions, should they guess where we were, would have less than a needle-in-a-haystack chance of finding it in this large, multi-acre cemetery. I’d left the pilum in a pile of autumn leaves, where it looked to be just another branch shed by one of the many trees in the area.
After I retrieved it, I made sure it didn’t graze Adrian as we walked to the fountain. Once there, I set it down and used my hands to cup enough water to wash the many stains from my body. I did a decent enough job, but my clothes were another story. They’d need soap to get all the blood, ash and dirt out, and we didn’t have any. Even still, I debated washing my sweater to lessen the worst of the stains against whether it would be dry by morning. What would be worse: walking around in a red-and-black-splattered top that might draw unwanted attention, or shivering in a partially clean wet one?
“We’ll need to get new clothes tomorrow,” I remarked, deciding against washing the sweater. I’d probably need it for warmth tonight. The temperatures had dropped a lot, and while Adrian and I could snuggle, a covering would still be nice.
He shrugged. “No problem. I still have cash in my pants.”
I sat on the edge of the fountain, watching the ripples in the water diminish now that I wasn’t grabbing handfuls of it.
“Good, but we’ll need more for a plane ticket, and I hope you still have those slips of paper Zach gave us for ID.”
He rummaged in his pocket for a moment. “Yep, still do.”
Now we could fly to where we needed to go, since Brutus was no longer with us. I stifled the instant pang of grief that came with knowing I’d never see him again. No more regrets, I reminded myself firmly. There was only moving forward.
The water stilled, revealing my reflection when I glanced down. My hair was a tangled mess, no surprise, and I’d apparently missed a large spot of dirt on my cheek. I wet my hand again and cleaned that off, waiting until the water stilled once more to see if I’d gotten all of it. Eh, most of it. Either way, I’d have to remember how well the water displayed my reflection. Normally, I used shiny metal surfaces as faux mirrors, but they were hazy, and more than once, I’d ended up with very erratically drawn eyeliner or lipstick. The water actually worked much better. Hope that didn’t mean it was dangerous like mirrors were...
“Mirrors,” I said aloud, an idea bursting into my mind.
Adrian frowned, not getting it. “There are no mirrors here, Ivy. You’re safe. Even if there were, we’re on hallowed ground—”
I gave him an impatient wave. “That’s not what I mean. I’m saying that we should use them.”
Now he really looked confused. “How?”
“What if you’re right?” I said slowly. “What if your demon side is growing, or at least, getting much more powerful. Your shadows are proof of that, and maybe it also means you have other demon abilities lurking beneath the surface.”
He regarded me warily. “What do you mean?”
At my steady stare, he finally got it. “Oh,” he said simply. “I don’t know if that will work. I’ve never tried it.”
“You’ve never tried it because you didn’t know until a few months ago that you were half-demon,” I pointed out. “Since then, you’ve manifested new and ever increasing abilities, so if you think about it, there’s no reason you shouldn’t be able to travel through mirrors like demons do. And according to what you told me before, Demetrius could’ve yanked me into that bathroom mirror, so that means you should be able to pull me through with you, too.”
Adrian said nothing for several minutes. I didn’t break the silence. We were both mulling what this could mean.
“They wouldn’t expect that,” he said at last. “And if they are somehow able to track us, this might be the break we need to travel faster than they can catch up to.”
I stood up, giving the reflective image of the water a last flick while thinking, Thanks for the inspiration.