Soul Savers: Faith Part 14

He unfolded his arms and held his hands up.

"No judging here. I understand." One side of his mouth lifted in a crooked smile. "But your tantrums are ... endearing."

I narrowed my eyes at him, half-tempted to shoot a bolt of lightning at him, but that would be endearing.

He shrugged. "What can I say? I've always had a thing for your hotheadedness."

He walked closer to me, hiding his wings as he did. I made mine disappear right before he snaked his arms around me.

"Are we doing this their way?" he asked as he pulled me close against him.

I leaned my head onto his chest. "What do you think?"

"It's probably what we should do. They're right. They have a broader perspective."

I growled. "I hate it when they're right."

I especially hated what else Mom had to say. I had been begging them to tell me what to do before, but my pleas had gone unanswered. They'd claimed I hadn't needed them then, when I'd felt completely alone and abandoned, facing a war I didn't know how to fight. But now, when I knew what to do because there was nothing else left but my son to fight for, I did need them? I sighed as Rina's words echoed in my mind: We only interfere when we need to.

"I guess we do it their way," I said with a sigh. "The sooner we prove there's n.o.body left for our army, the sooner we can move on to saving our son."

He leaned down and kissed my forehead. "Maybe they're right, Lex. Maybe there's still hope for this world."

I didn't answer him. The chances for rebuilding this world were about the same as the odds of me spitting out a bunch of babies: pretty much nil. As long as I had the family I knew was still alive, though, I was okay with that.

"Do you really think there's any chance Owen and Vanessa and everyone are still ... around?" I asked as I lifted my head to look up at him.

"I don't know why Rina and your mom would lie to us."

"It wouldn't be the first time." I gnawed on my bottom lip. "Satan showed me their bodies. Made sure I knew I was to blame for their deaths."

"And he would have every reason to lie."

"Would he? What ulterior motive would that serve?"

He lifted a brow as he looked down at me. "Are you really asking me if I know all of Satan's ulterior motives?"

"He was the only one who told me the straight-up truth about Dorian's purpose. Maybe he's the only one who's been honest about everything."

"Or maybe he was trying to make your Demons as big and powerful as possible so you'd believe you couldn't slay them." His hazel eyes caught mine and pierced into me, driving his point home. "Who do you think you should believe, Lex? Your mother? Or the Devil?"

I averted my eyes and pressed my lips together, hoping he didn't see in me what I truly felt. Because although the answer should have been clear and easy, I honestly didn't know whom to believe. Sure, Satan had all kinds of reasons to lie to me, and he was the king of deception, but he'd also told me many truths. And I loved my mom and grandmother, and I knew they loved me. But I also knew they'd do almost anything for the cause, including lifting my hopes so I'd obey their demands. After all, they were at war, too, and war required deceit.

On the other hand, why would they lie about my extended family? They loved Owen and Charlotte as much as I did, if not more. And they may have been confined to the Otherworld now, but weren't all of the Amadis still their family? They would be mourning their annihilation, not encouraging me to go on a wild goose chase looking for them. I wanted to believe them so badly, but their previous betrayals made it difficult.

Ultimately, I could only trust myself, and Tristan, and the strength of our love.

"The only way to know for sure is to search for them ourselves," I said. "So where do we start?"

"Since we're this far, we may as well check on Jelani's village, but I'd say we need to make our way back to D.C., since that's the last place we saw our group."

Jelani had been one of my council members I'd inherited from Rina. The last we'd known, he'd been in Kenya, so we took off and flew southeast. What pa.s.sed on the ground below us sickened me. Besides the gray dunes of the desert, dried up lakes and rivers, and dead trees and gra.s.slands, indigenous tribes who'd had no part in any of the world's politics had been obliterated with corpses and skeletons scattered around the remains of their villages. And the animals. The poor animals. Lions, tigers, hippos, hyenas, birds of all kinds ... and the extraordinary elephants and giraffes. So beautiful at one time, but now barely recognizable as rotting remains. What had Lucas done? Why the animals? Why wipe out every centimeter of Earth and the life on it?

To make Satan feel at home.

The thought made sense ... sort of. Except, if Satan and his Demons liked h.e.l.l so much, why bother taking over Earth? If he had all the human souls anyway, why was he so anxious to come topside if it was just like h.e.l.l itself? Was it the destruction that he loved so much? If so, wouldn't he have wanted to be a part of that himself? Or did Lucas need to prove his worthiness or something?

Why am I spending so much time contemplating Satan, h.e.l.l, and Lucas's motives?

I tried to clear my mind of such darkness, but that was difficult to do when I saw nothing else before me.

We found no evidence of Jelani's survival or the Amadis village where he lived. In fact, as I'd expected, we found no sign of anyone's survival. No mind signatures, no animals, no life at all. Everything grayed out and dead. Not even Daemoni were-animals roamed the land-because there was nothing there for them to hunt.

My heart felt like a two-ton anvil by the time we stopped for the night.

"Maybe we'll find things better in the States," Tristan suggested as he curled his body around mine on the gray sand beach we lay on. I suppressed a snort. If no part of Africa, with its spa.r.s.e population, had escaped unscathed, I hardly expected America to have been any better.

"Do you think we can fly across the ocean?" I asked as I stared out at the waves crashing onto the beach, the moon's reflection off the crests making the water sparkle. It was the first thing of real beauty I'd seen on this Earth since my trip to the Otherworld. Besides my husband's face, of course.

"I don't know. We've been flying pretty far stretches, but we're over land. The winds over the ocean will be tougher to navigate, and if we get tired, there aren't too many places to rest if we go straight across."

I rolled onto my back to look up into his face. "I know you have a plan."

His full lips curled into a half-smile and the gold in his eyes sparkled confidently, confirming my guess. "We'll go back north, all the way up to Iceland. Check out the parts of Europe we haven't hit yet on our way, and then turn to the west. We'll hug Greenland and then Canada, so if we get tired, we'll always have land nearby for a stop."

"Sounds like a plan."

Although we were too close to the equator for it to be cold, I snuggled closer to him as I gazed up at the sky. With no light pollution anywhere on this Earth to obliterate their glow, the stars shone like billions of little pinp.r.i.c.ks in the fabric of the sky. This world was but a dust mote in the universe, and the stars made me feel so tiny and insignificant. And so lonely. Based on what we'd seen so far, Tristan and I were the only ones left in the world to appreciate the magnificent beauty above us. Not a single other soul gazed at these same stars from this planet. Of course, there were the Daemoni and the Demons, but they were too narcissistic and uncaring to notice.

Just Tristan and me.

And maybe Dorian? Tears p.r.i.c.ked my eyes as my mind wandered back to him-where he was, who he was with, what he was doing. I'd gone through all of this before for six months and had only had him back for a couple more before he left. And here I was again, a mother whose son had disappeared. But this time felt different. More final. There was no one to be angry at but myself. I couldn't even blame him. He thought he was doing the right thing. He was no longer my little boy, but a young man on a mission. Tears burned my eyes at the thought of his bravery.

I blinked them away and focused on the sky, pretending that my son lay on the ground somewhere in this world, gazing at the same stars and wondering if his parents saw them, too.

Chapter 15.

We took a few weeks to search for life in Africa and Europe before we followed Tristan's flight plan north, scouting the ground below as we flew several hundred feet over the ground. The scenery should have changed with different vegetation and architecture as the miles pa.s.sed under us, but the trees were nothing but bare sticks pointing like accusing fingers at the sky and any buildings were in ruins. I supposed there was some variation to the view, but the grayness of it all camouflaged the differences. The only way we knew exactly where we were was when we landed for the night, taking refuge in the remains of hotels or people's homes.

Any humanity that survived remained elusive. For the most part, the only mind signatures I found or creatures we saw were Daemoni or Demons. The few pockets of Normans were like the ones we'd found in Germany-servants to the Daemoni. We hadn't even found any Norman farms, and I began to wonder if those people who'd been in the camps had voluntarily turned to the Daemoni when they realized there was nothing else left in this world. Hadn't that been Lucas's plan, to become the Normans' saving grace?

"There must be somebody left in their right mind," Tristan said when I'd told him this theory while he made us a fire.

We'd found an ice cave in Greenland to spend the night. I hated it here. Winter this close to the North Pole sucked. There were no nearby towns to scavenge for food, and we hadn't eaten since leaving Iceland this morning. My stomach growled, but it was drowned out by the wind howling outside that sounded like an eerie whistle. And I'd had enough of the freezing cold that reminded me of h.e.l.l-the real thing and the time on the rock island when Tristan was only a sh.e.l.l and my mind floundered in my own private h.e.l.l. The ice on the air and in my veins brought back the memories and the visions and made the scar across my chest ache.

"T-t-tell m-me how," I replied through chattering teeth as a tear froze to my cheek. "B-b-because I have n-no hope."

He sat down behind me with his legs around me and wiggled us closer to the fire. Then he draped his arms over my shoulders, curved his body around mine, pressing his chest against my back. His breath came warm near my ear.

"Do you love me?" he asked.

"Of c-course," I answered automatically.

"Do you love Dorian?"

"T-tristan ..."

"Where there's love, there's hope, ma lykita. And we have enough of that between the two of us to blanket the world with hope."

"B-b-but if there's n-no one else to f-feel it ..."

He tightened his arms around me. "There is, though. There must be. Why else would they insist we look for life? Since you're so skeptical about their motives, think about it this way, Lex. If the war is that heated in the Otherworld, why would they send us here if there's no benefit? Why wouldn't they have kept us there to fight? You said they told you the Angels needed all the help they could get. So if they were only worried about their own souls and not about Earth's, why would they leave us here? Why give us wings and more powers, only to send us back here for no reason?"

I frowned. "Because we don't belong in Heaven or h.e.l.l."

"We belong here. For a reason."

"Yeah, because there's no other place for us to go. We don't belong in true h.e.l.l, so we're in this place-because it's the next best thing."

"Or maybe because this world is not as hopeless as you think."

I stared at the fire for a long moment. "I don't understand how you have so much hope, after all you've been through. You were in h.e.l.l longer than I was."

"How many times do I have to tell you? I have you. I've been fighting my demons my entire life, but only because of you have I finally slayed them. I have faith, Alexis. Faith in us, in humanity, in the Angels ... most of all, in G.o.d's plan. We're right where He wants us to be. We only have to believe that He knows best."

"Hmph. If that's the case, then He must think the best thing for Earth and humanity is to let Satan have it, because that's where we're headed. But I honestly have a hard time believing G.o.d cares one iota about us anymore."

Tristan sighed, his breath heating my cheek. "As long as you believe that, you will always live in the dark, ma lykita."

The defeat and despair in his voice made my heart hurt. But after all we'd been through and all we'd seen of the world so far, I couldn't help my feelings. If G.o.d hadn't abandoned us, then where was He? Why had He let the world come to such destruction? I used to believe in Him. I used to think that in the end, good would win, just like Owen always said. I doubted even Owen would believe that now, if he were still alive.

My chest tightened at this thought. If G.o.d really cared, how could He take souls like Owen's, Sheree's, and Char's out of this world? And Blossom and Jax, and even Vanessa, who'd never lost her hope for a better life. Why take them and their faith, while leaving me and all of my failures? Because He wanted them in His realm. Where they belonged. And probably the only reason Tristan was here with me was because he followed me here, just like he'd followed me to h.e.l.l. For that reason alone, I should have tried to believe, for his sake. But as much as I wanted to, I couldn't find it in me.

As we lay on the hard ground by the fire to go to sleep, Tristan prayed out loud for me to see the light. My soul cracked. I'd failed everyone else, including my son, and now I was failing Tristan, too.

Two days later, we flew over New York City. What remained of New York City, anyway. Many of the skysc.r.a.pers had been mowed down with their rubble in mountains on the streets. No bright signs flashed on Times Square, and the thought that the ball would never again drop there on New Year's Eve felt like a sinking weight. We swooped over 34th Street, where a banner advertising the upcoming Christmas season half-clung to the Macy's building as it flapped in the wind. Christmas had long pa.s.sed, but there had been no holiday season. My throat tightened as I recalled all of the Thanksgiving Day parades I'd watched on TV, knowing there would never be another. The crowds would never fill these streets again.

Except for Daemoni. Vampire nests, mage covens, and Were dens and packs roamed freely as though they owned the city. I supposed they did now. Their human pets gazed at them adoringly, practically bowing down and kissing their feet. When the mages shot spells at us as we flew by, the Normans laughed. We didn't bother fighting back, but flew off, headed farther south.

As we approached Washington, D.C., my breath became trapped in my lungs. Even from a distance, I could see that little remained. At some point after the faeries had rescued our bodies and Lucas must have evacuated his followers, someone had bombed the h.e.l.l out of the city. Or maybe other sorcerers, besides Jeana and Merrick, had been nearby, waiting on Lucas's orders to destroy the capitol and everything around it.

Not until we approached the university campus where we'd left Carlie, A.K.'s Angels, and the hunters did I realize I'd been holding on to a thin thread of hope. Because at the sight of its decimation, that final trickle drained away. Charlotte, Blossom, Jax, and Sheree had been here, too, and Owen and Vanessa were headed here when Lucas brought h.e.l.l to Earth. Or, at least, the first wave of Demons.

I thought I'd already accepted the loss of my friends, my extended family, but I'd never been so wrong.

Anger exploded in my chest as I circled the remains of the campus, knowing there was no way anybody survived what happened here. All emotions burst out in a guttural scream. My breaths came shallow as grief threatened to shut me down.

"Why?" I shouted at the world, at the Angels, at G.o.d as my circles became tighter and faster. "Why?"

Sobs tried to push up from my gut, but I shoved them away while grasping onto the anger. I flew off, soaring south, far away from this place of death and destruction.

"Alexis," Tristan mentally called out as he flew to catch up with me.

I ... I can't, Tristan. I can't take any more.

I pushed myself as hard as I could, soaring south fast enough for the land to become a blur under me because I couldn't stand the thought of seeing any more. The movies and TV shows about zombie apocalypses, nuclear wars, and alien invasions hadn't come close to depicting what it was truly like to see the world void of life. n.o.body could ever be prepared for the deafening silence left behind, the eerie stillness of the land, the overwhelming loss of billions of men, women, and children. No animals, no plant life, not even a spark of color except the blue of the sky. My eyes watered from the wind in them-or so I told myself, not wanting to admit to the tears streaming over my cheeks and flying off behind me.

"d.a.m.n it!" I screamed as loud as I could, my fists balled at my sides.

Something crashed into me, and I careened in the air. I thought it was Tristan at first, trying to stop me, and I was ready for the fight. I came to a halt and spun on him, my fists flying. They didn't meet Tristan's body, though. They thudded into the side of a Demon. It pounded a fist into my back, and I whirled and kicked, my foot slamming into its head with a satisfying thunk. As I spun and ducked under a swing at me, I caught a glimpse of Tristan fighting another Demon several yards away. I didn't know why the Demons had left us alone until now. Perhaps these guys had simply been bored when they sighted us. But they'd attacked at the wrong time. I took pleasure in beating my fists and feet into the Demon's thick flesh, even though I caused no damage, and I welcomed the physical pain it dished out on me because it smothered the emotional agony in my heart and soul.

"f.u.c.k you. f.u.c.k you. f.u.c.k. YOU!" I shouted with each blow that landed.

Its razor sharp claws sc.r.a.ped over my side, digging through my leather vest and into my skin. I palmed my dagger at my hip and brought it out, swiping it across the Demon's barrel of a chest. It soared away from me, and a putrid stink poured out of the gash along with an inky ooze. The Demon let out a long howl before flying headfirst at me. I swung the silver blade out and carved a new orifice into its face, and then I spun in the air, away from its outstretched claws, and arced my dagger around. The entire length of the blade sliced into the Demon's neck, all the way through, until my blade broke free at the other side. Its horned head rolled backwards and hung from the thick hide at the back of its neck for a moment before falling completely away. The Demon's wings formed a V behind it as the body shot down after its head.

Tristan had already decommissioned the Demon he'd been fighting, and I'd felt the weight of his gaze on me. I barely glanced at him before flying off, back on course going south. I didn't think I knew where I headed until the Gulf of Mexico came into view, and I was nearly at my destination. For some reason, my subconscious must have thought going to the Captiva safe house would have made me feel better. Or perhaps returning to our house a few miles away on Sanibel Island. But both were destroyed. Nothing remained of the structures or anything else on the islands. They were no different than the rest of the world.

The adrenaline from the fight leaked away, and emotional and physical exhaustion began to set in. But I pushed on, afraid that if I stopped flying, the gravity of reality would pull me completely under. I flew until I ran out of land at the tip of Florida. And finally I landed.

In front of the house Tristan had built for me in the Keys.

I stared at the structure with a mixture of awe and confusion. Beams from the setting sun bounced off the gray, metal roof of the three-bedroom beach house that held so many memories for me. For us. The second-story screened-in porch remained intact across this side of the house that faced the water, and hurricane shutters covered the windows, seemingly unharmed.

"It's still standing," I mused aloud when Tristan dropped to the ground beside me.

The house still stood, indeed, but the paint had faded to a dull gray and it curled away from the walls in many places as though it had blistered up and popped. The yard had been overgrown so there was no longer delineation between it and the brush that used to only line the edges of the property. All of it was dead now. Dead and gray, like the rest of the world.

I flashed inside to the island kitchen with the granite countertop that was no longer cracked, fixed by Owen before we'd left the house for the last time after my Ang'dora. With a mere swish of my hand, I opened the hurricane shutters over the sliding gla.s.s doors to allow some light in, and then I opened the doors themselves for much needed fresh air. The inside of the house was dank, having been closed up with no power to run the air conditioning for months. Although the shutters had enclosed the interior, the same ashy-dust coated everything, sapping away from the decor what had been pretty colors of the ocean and the beach.

After one of the longest and more miserable days of my life, I strode into the Caribbean room that should have been renamed the room of blech because all of the pretty jewel tones on the curtains and accessories were washed out to grays and whites. I collapsed onto the dusty bed, wishing I could fall into unconsciousness. But my stupid brain wouldn't allow me, forcing me to relive all of the atrocities of my life since the first time I'd walked into this house on my honeymoon. Losing Stefan, Tristan's disappearance, living without him for seven long years, my first real fight with Vanessa, the Ang'dora, battling the monster inside Tristan ... the trial, Lilith, Martin and Kali, Owen's abandonment, Rina's months-long coma ... skirmishes with the Daemoni, the trunks with Vanessa's chopped-up body, going to Hades, escaping Hades, finding Dorian missing and our mages slaughtered ... hunting Dorian, Rina's and Mom's deaths ... and the war that started shortly after. When I tried to revert my train of thought and focus on all of the good parts of life, I only felt worse. Except for Tristan, none of those people I shared the good times with lived anymore.

Well, hopefully Dorian did, but he was almost as lost to me as the dead.

Silent tears fell over my nose and down to the comforter, soaking it under my face. The other side of the bed creaked and sagged as Tristan settled in next to me. I was thankful when he curled around me but remained silent. There was nothing I wanted to talk about. Eventually, I fell into a deep sleep full of nightmares.

When I awoke, the sun shone brightly from the other side of the house, meaning it was still morning. That had been the longest night of sleep I'd had in months, and although nightmares haunted me throughout the night, I hadn't felt so rested in a long time. After finding a can of tuna in the cupboard, I flashed outside to the tiny sliver of beach, sat down in the sand, peeled the lid off and ate with my fingers while staring at the murky water.

We'd gone snorkeling several times on our honeymoon, and then later, Tristan, Owen, and I had swum the depths of these waters when I was learning my new abilities from the Ang'dora. Although there had been more fish out by the reef, the water here had supported a decent amount of life at the time. Now there was none. Too bad, because half a can of tuna wasn't enough to satisfy my hunger. If I didn't love Tristan as much as I did, I probably would have devoured it all.