Soul Savers: Faith Part 10

"Who? Satan?" I shook my head. "Are you going to believe him, or are you going to believe me? Your wife, your love, your soul mate? You're always telling me to have faith, Tristan. So tell me, where does yours lie?"

His brows pushed together. A spark lit up his eyes. After blinking a few times, his eyes, his mind, his whole self seemed to clear. He straightened up, breaking the hold I had on his gaze, and rose to his full height, pulling his shoulders back and nodding. Now this was my man.

"Ready to fight our way out of here?" I asked as two Demons came soaring at us.

"d.a.m.n straight."

I swung the sword at the first Demon, expecting to decapitate it immediately. This time, however, the blade went through the Demon, but had no effect, as though it only sliced through air. I tried again, and the same thing.

"Throw it here," Tristan said, holding one hand out as his other fist slammed into the second Demon's temple, making it recoil.

They both attacked him, ignoring me. I tried to use my powers, but they were ineffective on the Demons, so I punched and kicked. My fists and feet went right through them. Meanwhile, Tristan landed blow after blow, while they did the same to him. At the same time, screams and wails ripped out of their throats, full of despair and guilt. One's voice sounded like mine. And I realized: these were his Demons to slay. n.o.body else could do it for him.

So I flew out of the way, silently cheering him on while I could only watch the battle in the glow of the fiery weapons. I didn't even realize as the darkness started to fall over me, until it was nearly blinding. Cries for help sounded distant at first, but then everywhere around me, on top of me, within me. My head filled with the sobs, my vision with nightmarish images, and my soul with a heavy grief that weighed me down. To the floor, into the ground. At the last moment, when I thought I was going to fall through, my eyes locked with Tristan's, and I knew I had to fight this. He'd come here for me, and he'd stay for me if I didn't battle my way out of here.

I heaved myself up to my hands and knees and struggled against the invisible weight that tried to push me down as I rose to my feet. Tristan had defeated one of his Demons, but still fought fiercely with the other one. When we'd locked gazes, though, the Demon had noticed. Its black, inky eyes had flown to me, before returning to Tristan. Now, as I barely regained my balance, still struggling to breathe, it swung around with its fiery sword arcing around and down. And I remembered what Tristan had said so many years ago: You are my weakness.

I also recalled Bree's words: If you die here, n.o.body can save you.

My hand flew to my chest, the pain as the blade cut from my right shoulder to barely missing my heart searing at first, and then blossoming into full-on burn that seemed to explode like the bombs on Earth. My lungs expelled the air they held and refused to pull any more in. I wanted to scream with the pain, but my throat was too tight to let any sound pa.s.s. Gray crept in on the edges of my vision, and I stumbled forward. My hand dropped down to catch me, landing on a rock. No, not a rock. A head. The Demon's head.

"Let's get out of here," Tristan said, wrapping his arm around my waist.

I tried to answer, but only gasps came out. I ... can't. I didn't know if he could hear my mind-talk.

"Where's your faith, Lex?"

Unlike the other times I'd been asked, his question didn't infuriate me. Because at this moment, I knew exactly where my faith lay. In us. In our love. Together we could conquer anything, and today, that would be h.e.l.l.

Although I could barely breathe, I bit back the pain and wrapped my arms around Tristan's neck. Then my wings lifted us into the air, and we flew through the tunnel, out to the fiery lake. A whole swarm of Demons greeted us with an enormous, lava-dripping snake behind them. I beat against the air harder, pushing us upward. Every move of my wings pulled at the wound in my chest, tearing it open further, but I pressed on.

The Demons attacked, and Tristan fought them one-armed with the sword blazing in h.e.l.lfire while I struggled to lift us higher. The snake rose in front of me and breathed out fire. I dipped us down, barely missing the flames, and then swerved us around its head before it tried again. Tristan must have severed a Demon arm because a sword came flying at me. I caught it, just in time as the snake's head lifted to meet my gaze. I swung out, slicing through its liquid eye as I gave my wings a hard push against the air.

A piercing screech followed us up. Heat engulfed us as the snake exhaled another breath. I beat my hardened wings frantically while swinging the sword at the Demons who came near. One caught my blade with its mace and jerked it out of my hand. At the same time, another knocked Tristan's sword free, too. Without weapons, our only hope was to escape. By the time we reached the bridge where I'd lost Tristan last time, though, I could barely force myself to go on. The wound, the flying, and the fighting had drained my energy. The slash in my chest not only burned from heat, but sharp icicles filled my lungs and heart. The souls of h.e.l.l were like anchors chained to my chest and pulling me down.

"Tristan," I croaked.

"You can do this, ma lykita."

I gave him a weak nod. "For us."

But the harder I tried to lift us up into the blackness that led to the Otherworld, the more h.e.l.l dragged me down. The hotter and colder the wound in my chest burned. As much as my wings fought to fly us upward, we went nowhere. With a deep, feral growl, I gave my wings every bit of energy I had to push us up and away. But we only hung in the air, like a kite losing its uplift and about to dive for the ground. I looked Tristan in his eyes with the gold around the pupil and the outside of the irises a deep emerald green reflecting the glow of fire around us. They were void of any fire within them, though. Instead, they were filled with complete trust and confidence in me.

"I'm ... sorry," I said as we began to fall.

The defeat, the loss, the acceptance of yet another failure of mine was so much worse than the pain. I closed my eyes, unable to look him in the face a second longer. I'd tried so hard to save him, to save us both, but as usual, I wasn't enough.

"Believe in love."

The whisper was so quiet in my mind, I almost missed it. But it was enough to give me one last surge of strength. With only sheer will and perseverance-and the love of my soul in my arms-to power me, we shot upwards, into the blackness, toward the Otherworld.

Chapter 11.

A thousand pound weight sat on my chest. At least, that's what it felt like, especially when I tried to breathe. I rolled to the side on the hard ground, hoping that would help. The smell of leather with the mouth-watering scent of mangos, papayas, lime, sage, and a hint of man filled my nose. I tried to inhale my favorite scent in the world, but air wheezed through my throat, making me cough, which made my chest feel worse. Was I sick? Why wasn't I healing? My eyelids felt glued shut, and I had to force them to separate. They felt like sandpaper over my eyeb.a.l.l.s as they slowly peeled apart.

All pain was forgotten when I saw the sight in front of me.

"Tristan!" I tried to say with excitement, but it came out as an underwhelming grunt.

He sat next to me, lighting some twigs on fire from a flame cupped in his palm. He twisted toward me and smiled. I wanted to jump up and into his arms, but my body failed to cooperate, remaining anch.o.r.ed to the stone floor with my head pillowed by his coat.

"Shh." He brushed his fingers across my cheek. He leaned down and kissed my forehead. I wanted more than that, d.a.m.n it. "You're hurt, and you're healing very slowly. I did what I could to help, but-"

"Bree said it would be lasting," I muttered as I gingerly felt my chest with my fingertips.

My bustier had been cut open, and a long line of scar tissue stretched from my right shoulder to the valley between my b.r.e.a.s.t.s. I didn't dare look at it-the feeling alone told me it was raw and ugly. I did my best to close the leather over it.

"At least you are healing," Tristan said. "Not as fast as I'd like, but you're making progress. Here. Drink."

He held a water bottle to my lips, and I drank the cool liquid greedily, reveling in the feeling as it slid down my throat and pooled in my stomach. I couldn't remember the last time I'd had any water. I'd been parched on the rock island, and the heat of h.e.l.l had dehydrated me further. I drained half the bottle before Tristan pulled it away, my mouth following after it.

"I don't want you to get sick. Let that settle for a moment. I have food, too."

My stomach growled in response.

"Where are we?" I asked as I glanced around. The dim, square room, lit only by Tristan's fire, seemed vaguely familiar with its aged stone walls, and its musky odor. "Amadis Island? Why aren't we in the mansion then?"

His face darkened, and he looked away from me, towards the fire. I supposed that meant I didn't want to know about the mansion ... which only made me want to know even more.

"What's wrong?"

His jaw muscle twitched, then he finally replied, "We're safe and hidden here in the dungeons."

The dungeons-what I'd called the prison cells under the council hall where they'd kept Tristan when he'd been on trial, and where we'd taken refuge during the bombings when the world began falling apart.

"But the council hall was destroyed."

"Up top, yes. We're completely buried here and can only flash in and out."

"How did we get here? Did you-"

"I woke up here, too."

"Ah," I said after a moment of thought. "Bree. She must have brought your body here before she took me to h.e.l.l. Oh, no! Tristan-"

My jaw snapped shut. Tears burned my eyes. I couldn't bear to tell him ... but I had to.

"I think Satan has Bree," I said, and I told him the full story.

Well, sort of. I didn't tell him about the mishaps with flying. He'd seen the wings in h.e.l.l, but they were hidden now, and I didn't want to bring them up. I'd have to deal with his reaction eventually, of course, but I didn't have the energy to right now. He handled weird much better than I did-he'd grown up and lived hundreds of years with weird-but I still didn't know what the wings meant about me. They were feathery, but also dark and not like Angels' or even Mom's and Rina's. I could only a.s.sume I wasn't good enough for their colors of light and purity, but what else it all meant, I didn't know.

And they didn't matter at the moment. Bree and the rest of the faerie folk did.

He rubbed his hand over his face when I finished telling him what Stacey had said and what happened with Bree. "We'll find a way to save her. Them. Everyone. But right now, you need to build your strength back."

He finally gave me the rest of the water, and then carefully lifted me and leaned me against the wall before feeding me soup from a can.

"Where'd you get the food and water?"

"There's plenty of it scattered across the island."

"And none of it's contaminated?"

One corner of his mouth lifted in a half-smile. "The Amadis know how to safeguard their goods. You wouldn't believe what some of the mages had hidden-most of it useless or magically protected, and the majority of it ... bizarre. Even for us."

I chuckled before he fed me another spoonful. I peered at him closely.

"How are you so okay?" I'd been a mess when I escaped h.e.l.l, unable to tell the difference between now and then half the time. I thought my little bit of time at Heaven's Gates before returning to Earth had helped-that the Angels had been holding me there for that very reason-but Tristan hadn't been granted that relief.

His eyes cut sideways at me, the light of the flames flickering in them. "My physical body was here. I felt the pain down there, but it didn't actually hurt me."

"No. I mean, you. Your soul. How are you doing so well after so much time down there?"

He set the can down, dropped the spoon in it, and lifted a hand to my cheek, his eyes soft and appraising. He brushed away the hair that was matted to my skin, and then grasped my chin between his thumb and forefinger.

"Because of you, ma lykita. You're here, alive, talking to me. That alone makes me okay. Makes everything right in my world."

I gave him a brief smile, but then let out a harrumph. "Everything in the world is far from right."

Although I wasn't intentionally listening to his mind, I sensed what he was about to say-that I would make it all right-but then he changed his mind in mid-thought.

He said instead, "I saw Dorian through the veil, when I dove down after you."

I opened my mouth to yell at him for that, but he held a finger to my lips.

"I follow you, my love. Don't argue with me about that. Just don't plan on any more trips to h.e.l.l, and we'll both be okay."

"Never again," I promised.

He took my hand in between his and folded his fingers over. His words came quietly. "So, I saw what Dorian's doing."

"We need to stop him."

He frowned, and I hated seeing him so sad. "If what I saw while in h.e.l.l is true, it's too late."

I clapped my free hand over my mouth and shook my head slowly. "No. It can't be. We can still save him."

He placed his palm over my heart, settling its chaotic rhythm. "We will. We'll do whatever we possibly can. But we do nothing until you're strong enough."

With no light in the dungeons, I didn't know how much time pa.s.sed while I concentrated on resting and regenerating my body-a few hours, maybe a day. My growing restlessness was a good sign I was ready, and the dark cell was making me stir crazy. In fact, it reminded me too much of h.e.l.l and the horrible days on the rock island. I was so tired of being underground. Finally, Tristan let me flash outside, and I went straight to the mansion on the other end of the island.

The light blinded me for a moment, and then the scene that greeted me made my stomach fall, my heart tumbling after it.

"Oh, no."

The grand marble mansion of the matriarchs, which had been protected by the Angels and hadn't been so much as scratched by the Norman bombs before, was flattened. Decimated. A pile of stone, wood, and broken furnishings among the surrounding sticks of dead cypress trees. Everything was coated in the same thick, white dust as the cabin in the woods, and all color was gone, as though the bombs had bleached the world, washing out all the hues from the gra.s.s, the trees, the ruined items under the marble rubble.

"H-how?" My voice shook. "I thought ... Ophelia said ..."

I couldn't form coherent sentences, my mind too shocked as I tried to take it all in.

"Apparently, it wasn't entirely indestructible."

I climbed up on a boulder-sized chunk of stone and surveyed the debris, my eyes burning with tears. So much history. Over two millennia of matriarchs had lived in this mansion and led the Amadis from here. The items inside were not only antiques ama.s.sed over recent centuries, but some of the furniture, the tapestries, and other items-the very walls-came from ancient times. A collection more valuable than those in many museums. And now it was all nothing but rock and shards.

Jumping from stone to stone, I tried to search for anything that might be at least somewhat salvageable. After poking around for a while, I found the family vine tapestry covered in dust, but still intact. It took some pushing around of stones and debris to free it completely, and after unsuccessfully trying to shake off the thick coating, I folded the fabric, although I didn't really know what I would do with it. The lineage of the Ames matriarchs no longer mattered. There was n.o.body left to care but me, so maybe I'd hang it up wherever we settled after retrieving Dorian.

I found another tapestry, and for some reason, I folded it, too, although I couldn't even tell through the dust which one it was. I placed it with the other one. All of the beautiful knickknacks Rina had left behind in her office were destroyed, as were Solomon's collection of souvenirs from his past. Just like their owners. Besides the tapestries, the only other item I found in one piece was one of my bustiers made with enchanted fighting leather. At least I could wear one now that hid the ugly scar on my chest. With my back turned to Tristan, I slid off the ruined one, unable to repair itself because the damage had been inflicted in h.e.l.l, and pulled on the vest.

"That wasn't very nice," Tristan said from behind me as I zipped up the front. "You couldn't let me watch?"

I ignored him, pretending like something had caught my attention, although when I hopped over to where I figured the Sacred Archives would be, I found nothing. What had happened to them? Had the Angels saved all of those books that had lined the shelves? Or were they gone forever like apparently everything else? Did those in Heaven even care about any of this? My theory that they didn't only strengthened at the sight in front of me, angering me and breaking my heart at the same time. They hadn't protected the mansion because it was no longer needed. Like the rest of the island.

There was no Amadis to occupy the village or to be ruled by a matriarch. With no matriarch, there was no need for the mansion or the goods inside. Or, apparently, to safeguard our history, because there was no future to appreciate or learn from it.

"I'm sorry, my love," Tristan said as he reached a hand up toward me once I'd gone back to where he stood.

I didn't need it, but I took it anyway before hopping down. I forced a smile.

"It's just stuff, right? Nothing compared to everyone who's been lost. I just can't believe they tried to con me into believing there's anything left here to fight for."

He bent over behind me to pick up the tapestries, and a ripping sound tore through the dead silence. I spun and stared at him with my mouth open, thinking it was his pants, but when he growled loudly, I stifled the laugh. I knew immediately something was wrong. The tone of that growl didn't indicate anger, but pain.

"What's-" I began to ask when Tristan fell to his hands and knees, and his back arched upward and then down, like a cat stretching. The frrrrp sound came again, and he snarled. "Tristan! What do I do?"

His muscles tensed and coiled, and his jaw clenched. The only time I'd seen so much pain etched into his features was when I'd hurt him. But that had been emotional pain he'd suffered then. This was the first time I could remember seeing him in real, physical agony.

"I ... I don't know," he said through his teeth before he let out another growl. "I don't know what's wrong. It's ... my back."

He'd no more than finished the sentence when his shirt and skin tore open further, and two big, dark shapes sprang out of his shoulder blades.