Part 29 (1/2)

Which I might have found a bit amusing, except I was too busy fighting for my life. The guardian chose that moment to launch herself at me. She rammed the full force of her s.h.i.+eld against my body, knocking me to the floor. Inside, I heard an evil chuckle. The muscles of my throat seemed to constrict on their own. I gasped for breath.

The guardian, meanwhile, moved to stand over Sebastian where he'd fallen.

Your death, Lilith hissed in my internal ear.Is a sacrifice I will savor .

I clawed at my own throat desperately, trying to pry loose hands that weren't there. The harder I pushed, it seemed, the stronger she became. I gasped for air as her grip tightened. I glanced over at Sebastian, hoping for a knight-in-s.h.i.+ning-armor Hollywood hero moment from him. But he didn't stir. He looked as dead as I was about to become.

The guardian reached to pick up the knife I/Lilith had dropped when I took back control of my body.

With Lilith s voice, the guardian said, ”His death will give me the power to manifest; yours will be my release.”

No! I wouldn't let that happen. I tore and kicked at her like a madwoman.

The next thing I knew, an arrow came sailing within an inch of my head. ”How could you possibly miss?”

Matyas shouted. ”They're three feet in front of you.”

”It's like shooting through water. I'll have to adjust my aim.”

”This is our last arrow dipped in holy water,” Rosa said, handing it reverently to the archer. ”We must pray that the sanct.i.ty of our righteousness will conquer their wicked magic.”

Aim for the Guardian, I tried to say, but it came out more like ”Ah.”

A dark curtain formed at the edges of my vision. My magical eyes could see the circle imprisoning Lilith beginning to fade.

This was it. I was going to die.

As it happened, just then, the arrow hit me right in the calf. It missed bone but tore through muscle with a shock. In the pain, my anger and desperation slipped away. I forgot, for a split second, about Lilith's invisible death grip on my throat. I stopped fighting her. Her grip loosened, or rather, the ethereal fingers that had been digging into my throat were no longer quite as solid as they had been.

When I stopped pus.h.i.+ng, she lost power. The guardian, alerted to the s.h.i.+ft in power, pierced me with a menacing glare, but the jig was up. Lilith had been feeding on my anger and fear.

So I stopped giving it to her.

I took a deep breath and, despite the pain in my leg, I willed myself to be calm. It was like taking the air away from a fire. The guardian slumped limply, like a marionette released from its strings. The spooky glowing red eyes in the south, which had watched the whole battle, winked and then extinguished. I took in another slow, calming breath, and the east guardian began to flicker. Her physical form dissipated into mist and returned to its place on the circle. I released the tension in my shoulders. I trusted myself to have the power, the strength I needed. Just me. Not any G.o.ddess, other than the one I was.

A moment of twinkle, and then, with a pop, the guardian was gone. I could feel Lilith resuming her place deep inside me. Contained, for now.

This was the time to cast the spell of illusion on the Vatican agents.

I looked over at Sebastian, who, to my surprise, was looking back at me. I thought he was a goner after all the power Lilith had taken from him. I reached my hand out. If we were going to die, we should at least be together.

When he took my hand in his, something happened.

I felt stronger. Strong enough to control Lilith to use Her power as my own. Her power had become mine. I could feel it rippling through my aura. I put my hand on my stomach and pushed with our combined power. White-hot fire poured from my fingers, encircling her in a flaming prison. Her frustrated screams shook my belly, but the spell held.

The strength of the circle worked to my advantage. Lilith and Sebastian had made the interior almost invisible to those on the outside. They could barely see us. Thus, it was a matter of projecting the image of the arrow hitting home, stabbing me through the heart. Thanks to Lilith, Sebastian already looked dead, but I added the image of the previous arrow sticking out of his chest. To complete the illusion, I visualized the circle collapsing in on itself with a bang.

”Are they dead?” I heard Rosa ask.

”They look dead,” the bowman said.

”Something's not right,” Matyas said as he approached the edge of the circle. ”There's still something here. Some kind of power.”

”It's residue,” Rosa said.

”Grab the book and let's go,” the bowman said.

I'd have to let Matyas inside. As he approached, I allowed a spiral to form in the circle. It popped open like a lens when his foot crossed the threshold. I snapped it shut behind him, confident the others couldn't see due to the opacity of the magic Lilith and Sebastian had woven into the circle's creation. Once inside, I couldn't maintain the illusion. Matyas scanned the scene. His father lay crumpled to one side of the altar. I sat on the floor beside him, holding his hand, with an arrow sticking out of my leg. We were both naked.

The bloodied knife lay within reach. As I moved toward it, Matyas's boot slapped down on the blade.

”This is an interesting situation,” he said with a slow, ugly smile.

”Take the book,” I told him.

”I could kill you both.” ”You could,” I observed, trying to sound casual. Meanwhile, Lilith raged inside me. Her talons jabbed against the wall of fire I had surrounded her with, slas.h.i.+ng along my intestines. All I'd have to do was let go. She'd rise and swallow Matyas whole. And probably kill me in the process.

Matyas knelt down and looked at his father's wan, gaunt face. Sebastian had pa.s.sed out again from the effort of joining our power for the spell. Matyas surprised me by smoothing a stray lock of hair back into place. It was a kind, almost loving gesture. ”Or I could let him die in his own way,” he said softly, almost to himself. Then he shook his head, as though trying to banish an unpleasant thought. ”Not that he deserves my sympathy. I offered my throat, and he nearly killed me. All I wanted was for us to be a family.”

”He wants that, too; I'm sure of it,” I said. ”He was sick, Matyas, from the sun. He couldn't stop himself. He felt terrible about it, he told me so.”

Matyas's mouth screwed into a painful, thin line. I could tell he wanted to believe me, but a century of hate stood in the way. ”Yet he left me lying in a pool of my own blood in the middle of the garage floor for the Vatican to find. Somehow that doesn't seem like the act of a loving father. I mean, for chrissake”-his voice broke with barely contained emotions-”he could have at least propped me up against a wall. How about a blanket in case I went into shock, eh?”

I winced. ”We didn't have time, Matyas. We thought the Vatican agents were hot on your heels. They would have killed us.”

Matyas raised his hand, forestalling any more argument from me. ”It doesn't matter. My father already gave me his answer. He doesn't want peace between us, except for the eternal kind. And he can have it.

Fortunately, without the spell, he won't last. It will be very painful and humiliating for him to know he was too impotent to save his own d.a.m.n life.

”And you,” he said turning to me, his eyes wild and gla.s.sy like an injured animal's. ”He'll kill you to try to save himself. It's all very poetic. I hate to ruin the beauty of it by stabbing you in the heart.”

Well, me, too.

He stood and picked up the grimoire from the coffee table. His finger reached out to snuff one of the candles on the altar. He contemplated the arrangement with a smirk, as though considering messing it up.

Like a child, he knocked a few things to the floor, crus.h.i.+ng the vial that had held the formula beneath his heel. ”Even if I've miscalculated and you two manage to survive somehow, I'll still get what I want once I hand this over. Mother will get her Papal exorcism.”

Standing in front of the circle's wall, he glanced at me. I obliged by opening the portal between the worlds. He stepped through. ”It's over,” he told the Vatican agents. ”They're as good as dead. I have the spell. Let's go.”

If the agents noticed Matyas's semantic lapse, they didn't say anything. I held onto the image of us lying dead until they walked out the door. Matyas paused, glancing back. His gaze lingered for a moment on the p.r.o.ne body of his father, and the door closed behind him with a click.

I squeezed Sebastian's hand but got no response. Giving me his reserves had finally exhausted him. He lay completely still, not breathing. His skin was as clammy and cold as death. Of course, he didn't have to breathe, and ever since the spell wore off, he'd lost his body heat, but it was still disconcerting. ”Areyou dead? I mean, more?”

”Ugh,” he murmured.

That sounded positive.

I felt even more encouraged when he lifted his head, but the look in his eyes was wild. He bared his fangs. ”You let him take the book,” he said. ”Matyas is right. I'm as good as dead.”