CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Layla had never felt fury so cold before. The world came to a standstill around her. Time halted her endless trek forward, the wind and snow in a standstill as if pictured in a photo. The whole earth seemed to go silent. All she could hear was her own rushing blood. Even the angel’s words had been lost to her. The sight of her daughter lying in the snow seemed unreal, the blood overly bright against the snow with the sun shining down on it. It was surreal that the second worst moment of her life should be under sunny skies. All around her the ground felt on fire, the trees pulsed with life, each beat of her heart matching the rhythm of the earth.
Her eyes went down to Tanus. She could see his life force. He was desperately fighting against the pull of his own Sin. Despite everything the angel said. The demon had built a thin barrier around his soul, but bit by bit Wrath was eating away at him. He had but moments before he was consumed, and she knew he would be lost to her forever this time.
She didn’t need to call the Source this time, it was already in her, saturating her cells, her very breath. She was Layla but not Layla, she was more. Lifting her hand, she called to him—her Wolfman, her hound, her demon of Wrath.
“Come to me, Wrath, son of Hades…” Somewhere deep inside, she was vaguely aware she was talking, but it was not her voice. The sorrow of loss swamped her so powerfully, Layla withdrew. Let the power have its way, it didn’t matter. “Hound, I call you. You are mine, I have claimed you, it is done.”
The ground moved, a shaft of brilliant light piercing right through his body from the earth, spearing through his heart. Veins of white threaded from the light covering his convulsing body, spreading faster until they marbled perfectly with the royal blue of his demon hide. The radiance vanished. Tanus sucked in a breath, the veining sinking under his skin, glowing the whole time. With a roar, he arched his body, emitting that same glow. It grew brighter until his whole form was bathed in it. The light encompassed the air around him, then retreated back under his skin. But now his form was that of a huge phosphorescent blue and white hound. Flames of azure blue and pearlescent white flickered over its body as it panted, nudging its huge head under the outstretched hand of its mistress.
Time began to move again. The leaves on the trees began to rustle in the wind. It whipped around her body, caressing her cheek. Soon it began to lift the snow around their forms as she stroked over the head of her beast. Sparks of power jumped in the air around her. Slowly, the Seer of Nature straightened. Time for Michael to die.
Michael blinked. Time-slip? That was impossible. He could not get stuck in time manipulation. It was he who controlled time. He turned, quickly coming face-to-face with Layla, but, wait, that couldn’t be her. He looked around for the demon. What the fuck? Beside this woman stood a huge hound wrapped in flame. How had she broken through the madness?
“Well, you’re just full of surprises, aren’t you?” Michael was not stupid, this was not some simple power trip. He backed up a step. Layla lifted her gaze to him.
Her eyes looked like crystal blue glass. His heart stuttered. Grabbing it, he winced, a low growl emanating from his chest. Not now, you little bastard, I’m not done with you yet. He slammed the door closed on his heart, summoning his wings. His eyes focused on the Seer, trying to avoid looking directly at those eerie eyes of hers.
“That was unexpected. So, what now, Se—” He was cut short by an arc of light straight out of the sky. The boom of thunder that followed it shook the very mountain. It threw Michael from his feet, leaving his body smoking on the ground, the snow melting around him. He lay unmoving for a moment before groaning and rolling to his front, sliding to his knees.
He coughed out a laugh and shook himself all over before getting to his feet and turning to face her. “I grossly underestimated you, didn’t I, Layla? Foolish of me. You are truly magnificent.” He could not believe how lucky he was. Before him stood a Seer with the power to control the aspects of nature. He could not even describe the tingle down his spine when he thought about the things he could do with someone like her. The fact she carried the first of a new Seer bloodline in her womb—Hell, he was willing to wait until those little demon-kin were born to open the box.
“I don’t wish to hurt you, Seer. But I will do so. I will, of course, try to prevent as little damage to your stomach area as possible.” He flicked out his wing. Oh, he was going to enjoy this. All he had to do was strike down that demon and knock her off her feet, open a doorway, and he would be home free. Once she was in his realm she would have no access to the power she was tapping into right now.
He watched her eyes narrow on him. The slowly rotating snow began to speed up around her body. A bolt of light struck out at him. Michael rolled to the side, just managing to miss being hit again. By the time he righted himself, the wind was raging around her. Mixed with ice and flashing light— the female within looked more like the goddess, Hera of the Earth, than a mortal Seer. Her eyes shone, glowing from within, her hair lifting around her. The hound stood beside her, his flames mingling with the ice and wind.
Michael felt more than a bit of trepidation, and a hint of fear tightened his heart. For just a second he wondered if he might actually lose to this woman and her blasted demon hound.
The shadows of the cabin receded, allowing the forms of Asmodeus and Lexi to step from within. Lexi did not have time to think about the fact that she had just passed through shadows and emerged back at her home. With Asmodeus’ shirt wrapped around her waist like a skirt, she took off at a run, the cold snow numbing her bare feet. She ignored everything but getting to her sister.
Skidding to a halt, her eyes went wide. Her sister was surrounded by a swirling tornado of wind and lightning, and Michael was attempting to dodge the strikes.
“Oh god, Layla…” Lexi covered her mouth. That wasn’t her sister, that thing was the damn power that always hovered just on the edge of her sister’s control. The power that her sister hated to tap into because of how strong it was. Something had happened, something terrible, or Layla would never have allowed it to take over.
Deus stopped beside her, his mouth open. “Holy crap. That’s your sister?”
“No, not entirely. That’s something else. It’s complicated. I’m assuming by the fact he is beside her, that hound is your brother. Something awful has happened, no way could this happen otherwise.”
Lexi looked around frantically. Where was Annabelle? Layla would never freak out like this with Ann—Lexi felt all the blood drain from her body. The last hour of her life meant nothing in that second. The bright pink snow jacket of her niece stood out like a beacon in the snow. No, it couldn’t. She couldn’t be…
Lexi broke into a run, leaving the demon far behind. She felt like she was in a nightmare. The faster she ran, the farther away that little pink jacket seemed to be. Her niece wasn’t moving, she wasn’t making a sound, nothing. Lexi didn’t pray, she didn’t believe in God, or any of that crap. But in that moment, she prayed to whatever god would listen to a fucked-up person like her.
The numbness in her legs was long forgotten as she skidded down in the snow by her niece. Rolling her over, Lexi looked frantically for a wound. Annabelle’s eyes were closed, her face and lips blue. Her pink jacket was torn on the shoulder, and she had a hole in her upper chest that had stopped bleeding. She was breathing, but they were small breaths, barely registering.
“Belle? Come on, sweetie.” Lexi rubbed her chest roughly, her eyes moving to the battle ensuing between her twin and the angel. The hound was circling around, but Michael was too quick, and spun with his wings out, the feathers glinting in the sunlight as if made of metal. The yelp of a beast and the flash of red blood over snow indicated that, yes, they were some kind of weapon.
“Lexi?” Deus jogged up beside her, his eyes moving from the fight to her and the child. “Is she alive?”
“Barely, I’m going to heal her. You need to wake your brother out of whatever trance Layla has him under. If we don’t pull her back from this thing, I don’t know what will happen to her. Deus, I can’t lose her.”
“I don’t know if I will be able to get through to him. He doesn’t look like himself—in any form I have ever seen him in. I will do what I can. Heal your niece, leave Tanus and the angel to me. I might act like a buffoon, but I can hold my own.” He winked at her, flashing her one of his bright smiles. Lexi shook her head, rolling her eyes. He was such a fool. She opened her mouth to tell him she didn’t think he was a buffoon, but stopped as he moved toward the battle. She had more important things to worry about right now than his ego.
Cradling Annabelle in her arms, Lexi ran toward the woods. Her breath was misting on the air, her own skin turning blue now. Maybe clothing would have been a good idea. Laying Annabelle down, Lexi knelt beside her, brushing the child’s damp hair back. She closed her eyes and called on that pulsing well of scorching light that rotated inside her. To her the wellspring of her power always looked like the sun sending out flares blasting from its writhing surface. Grabbing one of those flares, she sent it down her arms into the cool body laying before her.
She could see the wound light up in Annabelle’s tiny body, and she sent all her energy to try and repair it. Lexi reached for the ravaged hole, soothing the pain, a soft whimper coming from her throat. Lexi put her hand to her own chest, feeling her own skin splitting open, the blood spilling between her fingers. The wound on her niece’s chest sealed, the skin smoothing out, her face beginning to color, and her lips turning pink. Her eyes fluttered, and slowly they opened, bright light blue staring up at her.
Lexi swallowed back the bile rising in her throat as she fell forward, the blood rolling down her chest into the snow. Her body would soon pick up on the healing. She had already healed from the wounds Richard had inflicted on her earlier. This would be gone within the hour. It still hurt like a sonofabitch though. She just had to remember to breath.
“Auntie Lexi? Where’s Mommy? Is she okay? Are the babies okay?” Annabelle’s little voice was filled with worry, her eyes glittering with unshed tears.
Babies? Oh geez, could this get any worse? “I’m going to get her now. Stay here, Belle. I mean it. If you move from this spot I swear I will tan your butt black and blue, missy, get me?” Of course she wouldn’t do it, and she was pretty sure Annabelle knew it, but the little girl nodded quickly.
Lexi took in a deep breath and got to her feet. She was starting to shake from exhaustion, losing control of her legs. The mix of using her powers and her body trying to heal all her wounds—mingled with the cold—was taking its toll on her. She forced it all back and moved to the edge of the forest. Her eyes went wide as she saw Deus and the hound fighting. Meanwhile, her sister was forcing Michael to his knees in a fiery barrage of light and flame. Go, Layla.
“Tanus, you bastard! It’s me, Asmodeus. I swear to Hades, if you bite me I’m going to shave you!” Deus knelt in the snow as the white and blue hound snarled at him with eyes that didn’t seem to see him at all. He didn’t understand what this Seer had done to him, but this being before him was not the brother he knew.
He had always been able to get through the rage before. But this was something new. Okay, time to try a new plan. He was going to get bitten for sure. The hound lowered his body, making sure to keep himself between his target and the person he was protecting, which happened to be the female Seer.
He charged and Deus turned himself to shadow. The hound passed right through him. At the last second, he turned solid, wrapping the shadows around the beast like tethers. He sent out branches of shadow to the tree-line, tying the hound down to the snow using the shadows as bonds.
The beast struggled against the tethers that held him. Deus hissed at the stabbing now ripping through his head. This was not a form of shadow manipulation he used very often. Abbadon was much more proficient with shadow control than he was.
“Okay, bro, we have been looking for you for months. I am not about to let you go now. We’ve got an angel ten feet away attacking your woman. You need to snap out of it, get me?” He locked eyes with his brother’s.
The hound growled, snapping his jaws together violently, pulling at the shadows. Deus felt his nose begin to bleed, then out of the corner of his eye Lexi walked past him. She was bleeding from her arm and panting hard. For a second his mind went black as if he passed out, then he was back. What the fuck? Blinking, he shook his head to clear his vision. He watched as she walked right up to the hound and grabbed his muzzle in her bloodied grip.
“Listen to me, you asshole. That’s my sister over there. Whatever that spirit power has done to you, get the fuck over it! Layla needs you now. Not this spirit beast she summoned. She needs the demon, you need to bring her back. Your daughter needs you! Your babies need you!”
Babies? Tanus was a father? This day was turning into a mind fuck of royal proportions. Deus would not let these shadows weaken now. Not when that hound, spirit, beast thing, was so close to Lexi. It didn’t matter that his brain felt like glass was bring ripped through it.
Babies, who had babies? He didn’t have babies! Tanus’ vision flashed, the white haze clearing for a second. He saw Lexi, and Asmodeus? He felt like he was pulling himself out of a thick fog that had wrapped itself around his mind. Someone said babies? Plural?
He tried to pull away from the blonde woman holding him, but her words broke through anyway. His daughter needed him. He could smell blood, Lexi’s blood, someone else’s, someone he knew. Brother, Asmodeus. Young girl’s blood, a scent that enraged him, his daughter’s blood. Annabelle!
He struggled against the bindings that held him. He needed to find her, something was wrong. He was desperate to reach her. Layla, she needed him. He needed hands, legs. To be a demon to find her. The moment his mind locked on what he wanted, the power that held him rushed off him like water.
In a blinding display of flame and light the power poured from his body back into the ground, leaving his human form kneeling on the ground, panting hard in the snow. He lifted his head, blinking back the black dots from his eyes.
“Where…” His throat was hoarse, he could barely form words. “Annabelle, where?”
“She’s safe, she’s fine. Bring my sister back to me, demon, now.” Lexi pointed behind him and he turned his head.
The woman he saw looked more like a goddess, the power pouring off her sinking into the earth then circling back into her body. It was a continuous cycle that would not stop. He needed to stop her, he could not see anything of the woman he loved before him right now.
“Tanus?” He turned his head. Asmodeus walked toward him slowly. He looked just like the man he had seen in his memory, his first form. He wondered if his brother even knew this was his original form?
“Brother, it is good to see you. We have much to catch up on. But I must see to my female.”
“Go get her, bro, I’m just gonna pass out right here.” Deus waved him off with a grin and put his hand to his temple, leaning forward.
“You do that. But don’t expect me carry your heavy ass inside later. Lexi, get Annabelle, and get his lazy butt inside. Stay there. I’ll be back.”
“Great, he is doing his Arnold Schwarzenegger. Ow, Lexi!” Deus rubbed his chest where she hit him. He scowled at her and she ignored him.
Tanus paid them no mind and headed toward where Layla and Michael traded bolts of deadly light. With Michael’s attention squarely on Layla, Tanus was able to move directly behind him. The irony was he felt totally calm, he gave off no emotional haze that would have usually given him away. He lifted his foot and kicked Michael hard on the back of his knees, causing the angel to collapse to the scorched earth. Tanus wrapped his arm around the angel’s throat, keeping his body flush to Michael’s back so he couldn’t use his wings as a weapon. He brought up his other arm, holding his head in a neck-snapping grip. If not for Layla, no way would he have been able to walk up and just calmly grab him. He tightened the grip. The angel hissed, struggling against him.
“I doubt this will kill you, and frankly, at this point, I don’t give a shit. I just want you gone from our lives. I have no doubt it will take you a while to heal, Michael. Either way, it is going to hurt like a sonofabitch. Goodnight, motherfucker.” With a sharp twist of his arm and the sound of snapping bone, Michael’s body went limp as his neck snapped.
Tanus was right, it took all of five seconds for the bastard to begin to twitch. A low rumbling came from the body. Tanus saw those copper eyes narrow on him, promising retribution. Then the angelic form glowed and he vanished into an explosion of tiny lights.
The mountain rumbled and Tanus lifted his eyes to his female. She glared at him. The thing he saw inside was not the woman he loved. He turned to fully face her, this spirit that had taken Layla’s body.
“Give her back. You have done what you needed. You used me, you came when she needed you. But you can go now.” The wind around Layla rose again. The hairs on his arms stood on end, and he knew the strike was coming. Jumping forward and rolling, he got to his feet and ran toward her. The Source, or Earth spirit, or whatever the hell it was that Layla usually kept at bay didn’t seem willing to let go of the body.
She called the flames again. White hot, they burned his flesh as he neared her. Fuck this crap. She could burn him alive for all he cared, he was getting his woman back in his arms. The flames from the Source blistered his skin. He hissed, calling on his own fire, bringing it to his flesh.
Tanus pushed the flames out, building them like a raging wall against her swirling maelstrom. It did not give him much protection, but it was some. Yet the closer he got the less effective his flames were against the twister that raged around her body. Screw this, he was done playing. Closing his eyes, he willingly opened himself to a small amount of his Sin. The anger and rage he felt for Michael, for what he had done to Annabelle, and driving Layla to this. The flames on his skin roared, pushing through the white haze to the center of the storm. He grabbed her arms.
“Give her back to me! I won’t let you keep her!” White fire snaked up his arms.
The voice that came from her mouth was haunting. “I summoned you, Sin of Wrath. You are mine to command.” He felt those tendrils of mastery trying to wind their way into his mind and he shook his head.
“Only one woman commands me, Source, and you are not her.” Tanus reached for Layla, pushing the burning of his skin to the back of his mind. He pulled her into his arms, covering her mouth with his. He was determined to consume her, make the woman he loved remember why she lost control around him.
The fire enveloped his body, swamping the blue of his own flame, trying to dowse it and regain control over him. He was not about to let anyone steal his mind from him again. The deeper he kissed, the harder the Source pushed back. It did not want to give control back—it had a form now, it held fast to Layla’s body.
Then he felt it, the timidest of responses. A soft flutter of her tongue against his. He growled into the kiss, sinking his fingers into her hair and pulling her hard against his body. He tilted her head to the side and plundered her mouth until she whimpered, trembled in his arms, and melted against him. The white flames began to recede into her body. Her arms moved around his neck and she began to kiss him back, tears spilling from her eyes and mingling in their joined lips.
Tanus pulled back. “Come back, Layla, don’t leave me to raise our daughter alone. You know I will fuck it up. I will end up teaching her hand-to-hand combat and how to shoot a gun or something.”
Layla began to sob in his arms, tears leaving her eyes in streams. “Where is she? Where is Annabelle?”
“She’s fine, Lexi is with her. I swear she’s fine. Look at me.” He lifted her face so he could see her eyes. “Lexi has her.”
Layla closed her eyes, her whole body giving out. Whatever power remained inside her rushed from her like a shockwave, sending the branches of the trees bending to breaking point, and the snow blasting away from them. Then she cried out to the mountain, the pain she couldn’t feel when she had seen her daughter struck down by Michael. It came rushing out. Tanus went down with her to her knees. Pulling her into his lap, he began to kiss her softly, over and over. He held her tightly and took in the scene around them—how had such a battle taken place? He could only remember a small amount of it. The macabre scene of two dead human bodies lay by a truck, and the burn mark where Richard’s charred body still smoldered stood out like a mark against a soul. It seemed so out of place with the pristine snow marred by splashes of dark red blood, and beautiful sunshine illuminating it all.
“Mommy!” Tanus looked over as Annabelle ran from the cabin, dressed in fresh clothes, Lexi and Deus following close behind. Layla lifted her head, seeing her daughter as the girl ran to them both. In a second the pair were crying in each other’s arms.
Tanus felt his heart tighten. This was his family, these two females. One second… he remembered something Lexi said earlier. Suddenly, all the color drained from his face. Wait, babies?