Part 3 (1/2)

Austin opens his eyes. ”And Juliet is the sun.”

I jerk my hand away from his forehead. ”You need some new lines.”

He rubs his temples. ”Best I can do with this vise on my skull. Does pain always feel so bad?”

”It's called pain for a reason.”

Austin lifts his head, his crooked smile in place despite the obvious effort it takes him. ”Says the girl with a death wish.”

I back up until I'm pressed against the boulder. ”Are you threatening me?” He doesn't look like he's in any condition to threaten anyone.

”Course not. I would never threaten you.” Austin grunts as he pushes himself up into a sitting position.

”Oh that's right, you prefer to threaten the people I love.”

”For your own good.”

”I'm the only one who gets to decide what's good for me.” I take a step forward, flames simmering under my skin. ”You shouldn't be here.”

He watches the blue flames arc between my fingers. ”Right. I've made quite a mess of things, haven't I?”

”How did you get here?” The spell I used to trap him in the underworld had worked. I know it. ”You shouldn't be able to cross over.”

”Perhaps fate has other plans for me.”

A ball of flame appears in my hand. ”A fireball to the head?”

He laughs and then stops himself, rubbing his forehead. ”I hope not.”

The sky darkens as more clouds roll in. Everything is wrong. I am a half a world away from my parents, my friends. Blake. For what? To postpone a war that will come for me anyway? To spend my last days alone, or worse, in the company of the very G.o.d who made me kill Blake.

The fire burns hot, my blood searing my skin from the inside. Austin watches the flames dance in my hand, and I swear there is something that looks a lot like fear in his eyes. Good. He should be afraid of me. But since when is Austin afraid of anything? He may be weak, but he's still immortal.

”Go on,” he says. ”It's about time you acted like a bandia.”

No.

I am not a killer. I may have killed Blake, but only because I tried to save him. And I brought him back. That has to count for something.

I turn and throw the fire ball as hard as I can at the water. It sails for fifty feet before it hits a wave with a bright blue blast and dies out.

Austin sighs and falls back against the rocks. ”Perhaps there's hope for us yet.”

I reach for the wind, gathering it with such strength that I have to wrap my arms around the boulder to keep from getting swept up in strong gust, and send it flying at Austin. He flies into the air, his back slamming against the wall of rock behind him. I keep the wind on him, pinning him there, five feet above the ground.

I have to shout to be heard. ”There is no us. There will never be any us. And if you come anywhere near me or anyone I care about, I will find a way to kill you.” I stop the wind as quickly as I called it, and Austin drops like a stone, landing hard on his side.

”That's my girl,” he says as he rolls to his back and closes his eyes.

SEVEN.

Mick watches me maneuver my roller bag down the winding staircase. He doesn't offer to help me. ”You're leaving?” ”I've already booked a room over the pub in Cath.” Tomorrow I'll head back to Dublin. And from there, anywhere but here.

”I'll get the car.”

Mick doesn't lecture me about safety or keeping my power in check as he drives me into town. I don't know if he knows that Austin is back, but it hardly matters to me now. I just need to get out of here.

He hands me a cell phone as I step out of the car in front of the pub. ”I'm the first number on speed dial.”

I pocket the phone without looking at it. ”Thanks, Mick.”

”Mikel,” he corrects. ”I know there's no point arguing, but you should stay at Lorcan. The Sons will be here soon.”

”The Sons are coming here?” How does he know the Sons are on their way? Did Joe contact him?

”The call of the gateway is strong. They won't be able to ignore it.”

”The gateway? It's in Del Mar.” It was why the Sons and bandia were all in San Diego County. But the gateway had been sealed when Austin was banished, and Austin wasn't banished anymore.

If the gateway is here, I've managed to come to the one place where the Sons are certain to be. ”Do they know I'm here?”

Mick shakes his head. ”Doubt it. The power will draw them. Just as it draws you.”

”I'm not staying.”

”We'll see.” He does that thing with the corner of his mouth where he almost smiles.

My room over the pub is tiny, with barely room for a twin bed and small night stand. Apparently, it's the height of luxury in Cath, because it has its own bathroom, although the shower consists of nothing more than a handheld sprayer next to the sink and a drain in the floor. I wrap a threadbare blanket around my shoulders and curl up in the corner of the bed, flipping through the train schedule on the phone Mick left me. In the morning, I'll take a taxi to the station in Tralee and catch a train to Dublin. By this time tomorrow, I'll be in London. Or Paris. Tuscany. Maybe Berlin.

Anywhere but here.

Some sick part of me wants to stay. My twisted heart clings to a small tendril of hope, an undeniable spark of longing at the thought of the Sons coming here.

Blake.

I stomp on the thought and crush it into a billion microscopic shards. I will rip this little wish to shreds until there is absolutely nothing left. Screw infinite smallness. My heart is a vacuum, as dark and empty as a black hole. As lethal. I can't afford to indulge a stupid crush on a boy who doesn't even want me.

Not after what happened.

The explosions of blue flame at Mallory's party seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere, bright flashes of heat and fire. The back windows near the living room shattered. Acrid smoke choked my breaths as people ran in every direction at once. I tried to stop it, but it was like the fire had a mind of its own, arcing and shooting back at me in rebellion.

Water.

I could feel water. I sent water at the flames in large waves. It was too little, too late. The fire simply danced away, evading my efforts to tame it.

Blake appeared next to me in a flash of silver. He grabbed my hand and spun me toward him. ”What did you do?”

”It's not me.” Panic laced my words, but I believed what I said. The fire wasn't mine. I couldn't control it.

”Like h.e.l.l,” Blake said. Silver sparks lit up his green eyes. I'd seen Blake in his demiG.o.d form before, his perfect body clad in a swath of plaid fabric and illuminated in silver light that seemed to come from within, but his face was harder than I'd ever seen it. There was nothing beautiful about the pure hatred in his expression. ”I saw you with my sister.”