Sinister Seraphim of Mine (Overworld Chronicles Book 8) (45 page)

"Jeremiah, we need you," I said. "Don't do this! We can escape together. We need you." I gripped his shoulder. "I need you."

He shook his head. "You were right. I'm the reason it has come to this. If I'd done what needed doing—if I'd killed Daelissa instead of seeking revenge against all Seraphim, none of this would have happened." His eyes narrowed. "Let me do what I must. Trust your instinct. You are far more clever than you realize." He snorted. "Than any of us realized."

How could I possibly defeat Daelissa without his help? I had so much power, but nothing I did seemed to put a dent in her. Neither Brilliance, nor Murk seemed to work and she just hammered away with raw destruction.
Narrow the problem to the barest of essentials.
Jeremiah's words hit me like a sledgehammer. Destruction is change. Creation is change. I knew more than just those two forces.

I thought back to the dream where I'd finally made the choice. There was something more I could use.

"Moses!" Daelissa screamed. White death like a foaming ocean wave roared toward us. I threw up a shield as heat baked the side of the house. The magic-resistant windows to either side of the balcony warped, sagged, and melted. The stone cracked and baked. Qualan and Qualas joined hands and raked the house with rippling beams. The opposite wing of the house crumbled and gave way, falling with a loud crash.

My shield faltered. I had to gamble everything if we were to withstand this. Using my right hand, I channeled Brilliance into my shield. With a force of effort, I equalized the forces and pushed with everything I had. A bank of translucent gray fog blanketed the air in front of us. The beams of white destruction crackled, solidified, and hung suspended. The world seemed to go absolutely silent and for the briefest of moments, time seemed to stand still.

The three Brightlings stared at me in utter astonishment.

With a great roar, the sound of battle resumed. The fog dissipated and the frozen energy shattered like ice, falling to the ground with a loud crackle.

Crump's jaw dropped.

"What sorcery is this?" Hsu said.

Jeremiah—Moses chuckled. "You're starting to get it, boy. You're finally using that noggin. Now, go home to your Elyssa." He leapt from the balcony. His glowing staff spun in one hand and he levitated to the ground. Without pause, he roared a word and the sky lit with blazing streaks of fire. A glowing red meteor plowed to earth in the Synod ranks. Soldiers screamed and died. Dirt exploded into the air, bodies flew, and scores of enemies fell like mown grass as flaming rocks and boulders showered the earth.

The first Arcane spun his staff and a wave of energy crackled like a shockwave, sending Daelissa and the others spinning backward.

"Moses!" I tried to get over the balcony.

Crump grabbed me. "You heard the man! You're the one we have to save. Don't let him die in vain."

I shook free and roared with fury as Qualan and Qualas flew at Moses. Using everything I had, I slammed the heels of my hands together. A torrent of white engulfed Qualas. Her scream rose to a pitch so high it hurt my ears. My strength abandoned me and I dropped to a knee.

A pile of ashes floated to the ground where the Brightling had been.

"Qualas!" Her brother cried out in agony. "Sister!"

A shock of regret bit into my heart despite knowing she deserved it.

Daelissa's eyes burned bright with fury, but I also sensed fear in her gaze as she regarded me and then Moses.

Moses swung his staff and one of the blazing meteors struck the Seraphim bitch right in the head.

Crump and Hsu grabbed me by either arm and dragged me backward into the mansion, or what remained of it. Where the east wing once stood I saw broken timber, crushed stone, and open air.

"Put up your armor," Crump said.

I touched the Nightingale armor at the neckline and it grew to cover my face. The other two men did the same. We leapt from the back window and into an inferno. The woods were fully ablaze but the armor gave us some protection.

We ran into a small blackened clearing where all the wood had been consumed. Crump knelt and took red pendants from three dead Synod Templars. He took off his black pendant and put the red one in its place. I followed his example.

"These are their communicators," he said. "They also identify each soldier to help avoid friendly fire incidents."

Hsu tossed his old pendant to the ground. "They'll think we're Synod." he said. "At least until they talk to us and find out we're not who these friendly fire indicators say we are."

My heads up display showed Crump as Janna Winslow. Hsu was Sven Ferguson.

One of Jeremiah's meteors whooshed overhead and plowed into the back of the mansion. The remaining wing groaned and toppled.

Goodbye, home. Goodbye, Moses.

I would miss her. I would regret never getting to have another conversation with Moses.

We turned tail and ran.

The ground turned into a steep slope. We saw scattered remnants of Synod forces, some of them battling the few remaining gargoyles. Thankfully, they were all too far away to stop us. We reached the university. The place looked deserted. I motioned the two men to follow me, and we ran inside a building with a giant glass dome overhead.

The library was as empty as the rest of the place except for a few golems filing books and scrolls. At the end of the first row of shelves, there was a bin of flying carpets. I grabbed one.

"Get your own," I said. "These things are slow, so we're not escaping on them."

Hsu and Crump each unfurled one and got on. The library was ginormous. Giant chandeliers in the shape of animals floated beneath the glass canopy. Stairs ran up the sides of the domed area to platforms far above. I ordered my carpet toward one I remembered rather well. It was where I'd chased MacLean. It took me a moment to find the correct bookshelves, but a floating lantern in the shape of platypus with a unicorn horn caught my eye. Directing my carpet beneath it, I located a symbol shaped like a triangle with an eye in the middle. I poked the eye with my finger. A bookshelf beneath me slid back into the wall and to the side. I landed the flying carpet and bundled it under one arm just in case. The three of us went inside the secret passage. The bookshelf closed behind us.

We ran down the curving hall until we reached another door. A wall of steel sprang up behind us.

"What the hell?" Crump slammed a fist against the wall. "Where are we?"

The door in front of me bore a slab of metal cast into the Illuminati symbol, but this time, the eye was closed. I traced a finger around the triangle, knocked three times, paused, knocked twice, and slammed a fist against the closed eye.

The door grated open. We went inside a small stone room and closed the door behind us.

"What is this place?" Hsu asked. He lowered his mask and looked around.

"Top secret Illuminati hideout," I said, touching my neckline to remove my mask as well. "MacLean likes to come here and smoke since it's not allowed on campus."

Crump snorted. "A man after my own heart."

I found MacLean's arctablet on the table. After I'd shown him how to stream live nom movies on it, he'd fallen in love with the gadget. Since Arcane University frowned on such mixtures of tech and magic, he'd kept it here.

"Follow me." I led them to one of my favorite places. We climbed a set of spiral stairs and exited a door. The giant glass dome of the library stretched before us. I ran up the gentle slope and reached the top.

The rain of meteors had all but stopped and the mansion was nearly flattened. The woods around it were gray with ash. I spotted distant figures combing the woods. Crump handed me a pair of brass binoculars.

"You probably shouldn't look," he said in a grim voice.

"I have to." I couldn't bear thinking about what Moses had done. About what might have been. "He could still be alive."

Looking through the lenses, I saw the ruined mansion in clear focus. A lone remaining wall collapsed and gave me a clear view of what had been a wooded hillock in the front yard. Now, it was as blackened and burnt as everything else. I spotted a figure and magnified the view.

Even from this distance, the dark hair and olive skin identified Moses. Daelissa towered over him. Her face was filthy with soot, her white dress in tatters. Qualan stood beside her, his dirty face streaked with tears, his eyes blazing with pure hatred.

Daelissa's lips moved. Moses looked into her face. He threw his head back. In a voice amplified by force of magic, he boomed, "Thesha, I am coming!"

Daelissa's scream of outrage traveled the distance between us. As one, she and Qualan hit Moses with Brilliance. His skin glowed and seemed to resist the heat. He gritted his teeth for a time, but the pain apparently became too much. A scream tore from his throat. My own throat went so tight I could hardly breathe.

"I'm here," I said in a quiet voice. "You are not dying alone."

Moses's scream cut off. Daelissa and Qualan stopped and stared at the statue of ash, all that remained of their greatest nemesis. A ray of light broke through the shell, sending the Brightlings jumping back. More beams of light yellow as the sun pierced through the remains. The ash sloughed away, leaving a shimmering figure of light.

Daelissa threw up her hand and blasted it with destruction, but the force simply went through it.

I felt my jaw drop open.

"Are you seeing this?" Hsu said in amazement.

The spirit, soul, or whatever remained of the first Arcane drifted up toward the sky becoming less humanoid and more like a star as it rose. A gentle ray of sunlight shone through the smoky air and touched it. As if the sunshine were a guiding hand, the spirit followed it until it vanished into the evening sky.

"He waited so long for his reward," I said in a voice choked with grief. "Thesha, welcome him home."

I lowered the binoculars and wiped at the tears on my face.

Hsu took the arctablet from me. I heard him talking with someone, but my mind felt blank and it was hard to focus.
Moses is dead.
I couldn't believe it. I looked through the binoculars again and saw Daelissa staring at the ash heap. Tears poured down her face. All the anger was gone, replaced with naked grief. I wondered if it was because she had finally killed the man who'd bested her in the Seraphim War, or if it was because she had once loved the man she'd known as Ezzek Moore.

I would probably never know.

A portal shimmered into existence. I forced myself to stop watching and stepped through with the others.

Templars crowded around Hsu and Crump, slapping them on the back and welcoming them home. I noticed a number of them looking at me with expressions I didn't recognize.

Crump held out his hand to me. I shook it.

"I believe in you, Mr. Slade," he said and waved an arm around the group. "We all do. We're behind you to the end."

A cheer went up from the crowd of Templars. I took a deep breath and brought my mental faculties back online. "I believe in each and every one of you." I made eye contact as I looked around the group. "You are the reason we'll win this war."

The Templars pumped their fists and roared, "HUAH!"

Hsu chuckled. "What do we even call this war? Seraphim War Two?"

"The Second Seraphim War sounds better," Crump said.

I already knew the scale of this war was larger than that. "There are more than just Seraphim fighting us, and plenty of Seraphim fighting for us. This is the war for Eden itself." I looked around. We were in a control room in an aisle with a row of omniarches. "Where am I?"

"La Casona, sir," said one of the other Templars.

"Can you send me to El Dorado?"

"Right away." He turned to a nearby omniarch, consulted an image on a tablet, and activated the portal.

"This is our stop," Crump said. He saluted. The other Templars snapped to attention and saluted me. "We'll see you on the battlefield."

I returned the salute, turned, and went through the portal. I now stood in the El Dorado way station. I saw ranks of Templars lining up and heard officers shouting commands. I spotted a group near the giant dragons in the middle of the cavern and recognized Shelton, Bella, and several others. They all seemed to be crowded around someone. I raced over.

Shelton saw me first and whooped. "I don't believe it!"

Mom turned to face me. Ivy shrieked and nearly bowled me over with a fierce hug. Mom joined her, and before I knew it, I was being mobbed with hugs.

"It's damned good to see you," Shelton said, maintaining his manliness by standing outside the group hug.

"We feared the worst," Bella said. "What happened? How did you escape?"

I felt a huge grin split my face. I felt warm, safe, happy.

As my crowd of friends parted, the loveliest pair of violet eyes met my gaze. Tears pooled in those big eyes and trailed down skin the color of cream.

"Justin." Elyssa whispered my name as if she couldn't believe it was really me. She seemed frozen in place.

My throat tightened as tears of happiness threatened to overwhelm me. I ruffled Ivy's hair and disentangled myself from my friends before rushing to meet my true love.

Elyssa met me with a kiss so passionate it would go down in history as one of the most amazing kisses in recorded history.

"That is so gross," Ivy said.

Everyone burst into laughter.

"What's so funny?" My sister looked completely befuddled. "Boys are yucky."

Shelton shouted, "All right, you perverts. Give the couple some privacy."

I heard the shuffle of feet as they gave us some space.

When we finally stopped kissing, I looked into Elyssa's eyes and said, "Whatever happens, I want to be with you."

THE NEW ERA BEGINS
.

The voice boomed in my head. I jerked back and looked into the huge parietal eye of Altash. "Did you say that?"

The dragon made a low growling noise and turned to his purple mate. The two dragons bumped noses and coiled up.

"You heard that too, right?" Elyssa asked.

I thought of Moses, and a wave of sadness washed over me.