A Beautiful Evil

Page 16

Henri turned just as the creature collided with him. He rolled onto his back, using the momentum to flip the revenant over him, sending it flying.
The brief flash I got of the thing—ragged clothes; sallow, sunken skin; matted hair; sharp teeth—was terrifying.
“Shit,” Sebastian cursed.
“Hurry!” Henri ran toward the tower.
I pulled my gun, cradling it in my hand. A wolf dropped down in front of me, a snarling, rangy thing. I fired. It yelped and went back a few steps as I tossed the gun to my left hand and pulled the blade out with my right, swinging it in an arc as the wolf charged again.
The wolf came so close I could smell its rotten breath. The blade cut through skin and muscle. It all happened so fast. I didn’t think, just reacted.
We moved in a pack of three, constantly turning and watching. The entrance to the tower was only steps away. “I thought you said the Novem keeps the numbers down and these things hunt alone,” I whispered fiercely to Sebastian.
“They do. Normally. They must be hungry.” A large black panther darted from the rubble pile, bounded across the street, leaped onto the top of a hollowed-out car, and pushed off toward us.
“Got it!” Sebastian lifted his hands and made a big sweeping motion, turning his body in a circle. Wind picked up. Nearby, a car without doors or windows lifted as if caught in the swirl of Sebastian’s movement. The car spun toward the cat, enveloping the animal inside the frame, and then crashed into the side of a nearby building.
“Inside!” Henri held the door open and we raced into the building and up the stairwell. By the fourth floor we heard a bang from below as something or somethings gave chase.
Great. Just fourteen more floors to go.
By the time we hit the tenth, my legs and my lungs were burning and I was using the railing to pull some of my weight. Still we pushed on. From the sounds below us I knew the creatures were closing in, and I had no idea what would happen when we made it to the eighteenth floor. All I cared about was beating them to the doorway.
We finally made it. Sebastian ushered us through and then grabbed an old metal chair and stuck one of its legs through the door handle. It wouldn’t hold them for long, but maybe long enough. . . .
“Where’s the doorway?” I asked Henri.
“This way.”
We ran down the hallway to the sound of the wind moaning through the building. Fear slid into my psyche. I was not a fan of heights. The idea that we were in a structure this high and the outer walls were completely gone . . . I shuddered just thinking about it.
After a few turns down a hallway, we came into a large office. Wind blew in hard—easy since the entire far wall was gone. In the distance the lights of the French Quarter shone and sparkled with life. A piece of rebar was shoved between the metal handles of a closet that was currently taking a massive pounding. The hinges on one door were separating from the wall. Athena’s minion would be out soon.
“It’s in this wall, I think, the gateway. See the four symbols?” Henri said, out of breath.
I edged closer to the wall on my left to see four symbols marked in dried blood, which if connected made a large rectangle.
I turned my attention back to the closet. I needed that creature in order to find out where the doorway led and what awaited us on the other side. “Once we let it out, can you guys hold it?”
Blue light appeared over Sebastian’s hands as he and Henri faced the closet. They both nodded. At least they appeared confident. I, on the other hand, not so much. Hell, the thing might not even be able to communicate with us.
“Shit,” Henri said suddenly, turning around to face the missing wall.
A head, upside down, looked in with feverish eyes. The revenant from the roof had scurried down the side of the tower. It crawled inside and across the ceiling before dropping down in front of us.
We backed up, moving slowly toward the wall with the symbols. The minion continued to pound on the closet door, about to blow it clean off the wall. Another revenant burst into the room, and even though I knew my weapon wouldn’t stop it, I pulled my gun and fired on instinct.
The revenants rushed us just as Athena’s minion broke through the closet door, charged behind us, and disappeared into the wall with the symbols.
Henri jumped in front of us, throwing his arms wide and running right at the revenants. “I got this!” he shouted. He slammed into the creatures, digging in his heels and pushing them back.
Oh God, they were headed toward the missing wall! I screamed as Henri shoved them, himself included, out of the office and into midair.
“Henri!” I ran forward, my fear of heights dropping me to my belly. I shimmied toward the edge. Oh God, oh God, oh God . . .
Wind roared and blasted against me, sending my loose hair flying straight up. I watched them fall in a tumble of limbs, grappling each other, trying to hold on and take Henri down with them. My fingers curled around the edges of the floor. Glass punctured my palms.
End over end they tumbled. The momentum finally broke one of the revenants off, but the other one held on to Henri like glue.
C’mon, Henri . . .
Henri shifted from human to hawk, slipping from the revenant’s flailing grasp. His wings shot out, caught air, and he banked right, soaring out over the city below and leaving the revenant with a tail feather clutched between two outstretched fingers.
I turned away before it hit the ground, focusing on Henri as he glided toward the lights of the Quarter.
“Guess that’s one way to clear a room.”
I rose onto my elbows at Sebastian’s dry remark. He was shaking his head and wearing a lopsided smile.
“You’re insane. Henri is insane.” I scooted far back from the edge before getting to my feet. I trembled from head to toe.
“I would say ‘Welcome to New 2,’ but I think you’ve already heard that one. Here, let me see.” Sebastian stepped closer and grabbed my hand, turning it palm up.
The only sound now was the wind crying through the dark building. It blew around us, sending my hair flying in all directions as Sebastian pulled a shard of glass from my palm. Blood oozed from the wound, a shining ruby in a scene of black, gray, and white.
Sebastian’s hand tightened on mine.
We looked up in realization at the same time. His gray eyes flared to silver.
I didn’t breathe.
It was easy to forget sometimes that Sebastian was the child of a Bloodborn vampire. He’d once told me that blood was hard to resist for any of his kind. It didn’t mean he’d ever take it, but one thing I knew for sure: If he did, he’d become a blood-drinker from that day forward. An Arnaud, like Josephine, and that was something Sebastian never wanted.
He closed my hand, stepped back, and then walked around me to the wall with the blood symbols.
A long shaky exhale flowed between my lips.
“Ari, look.” I moved to stand next to him and drew up short. His hand was in the wall. “It works.”
I grabbed his arm and jerked his hand back. “We don’t know what’s on the other side.”
“Ari . . .”
“I . . . I don’t know what to do,” I confessed. “What should we—” Indecision gripped me. My father and Violet were probably beyond that doorway. The minion might be on its way to tell Athena.
“Ari.”
A chill slid down my spine at the warning tone in his voice. Sebastian faced away from the wall. His palm was up and a blue light was already forming.
Another revenant stood in the room.
It lunged just as a turnskin leaped through the office door. I stepped back, stumbling on debris as blue light filled the room. My arms pinwheeled as I fell backward. Oh God. Not backward! I screamed.
Sebastian spun and reached for me, but it was too late. I was falling through Athena’s doorway.
Fourteen
PANIC AND SHOCK ROLLED OVER ME. IT WAS TOO SOON. I WASN’T prepared, had yet to master my power. . . .
I landed hard on my back, my elbows taking the brunt of the fall and stinging with a painful vibration. Heat, voices, and music brushed past my senses, but before I could figure them out, Sebastian fell through the gate, tripping over me.
My gaze followed his path as he slid to a stop in front of an enormous hall filled with feasting people and creatures, all looking our way.
It felt like every bit of blood drained from my veins, leaving ice water in its place. I looked around the hall. No one got up or stopped eating, but the way they watched made my insides shrivel.
Massive Greek columns lined the long sides of the room. Beyond the right row of columns were steps leading to a garden. Fires burned in stone bowls around the outer edges of the room. Tables formed a large open-ended rectangle, and in the spacious center of the room was a small inground pool, its sides raised to the height of a low stone bench, low enough for me to see smooth, dark water and the flames of the fires reflecting off its surface.
The tables were piled high with everything you’d expect from an ancient feast, yet there were also plates full of French fries, chips, cookies, and pizza.
Servants filled glasses and replaced empty platters with more food.
I glanced behind me to see guards on either side of the doorway we’d come through. It was a plain marble wall with dried-blood symbols at four corners, and it had been carved to resemble an actual door. To the right of the wall was a large alcove containing a marble statue of a man—a huge, bearded man—with a shocked, angry expression and outstretched arms. His hands were missing, and the sight immediately made me think of the stone hands holding the infant in the library back at Presby.
Sebastian reached out and grabbed my hand. We stood together. The beings here were varied, and it was hard to tell just by looking who was human, witch, vampire, or demigod. But it was easy to pick out the nightmares, the grotesque witches, the leathery gray minions, a few harpies. . . .
But there was really only one person here who mattered.
Athena sat at the far end of the room, facing us. Her feet were propped up on the table. A small grin appeared at the corner of her mouth before she bit into the round piece of fruit she held in her hand. Behind her, set against the wall, was a raised platform with three thrones, the biggest in the middle.