The Triad of Finity (21 page)

Emalie dropped to the ground, landing on one knee, breathing hard. The vampires had barely moved.

Illisius was just watching her, a bemused look on his face.

“Your turn,” said Emalie, and she thrust her hand out again, this time firing the energy at Illisius. He casually raised his hand, meeting the burst. It slammed against his palm and sprayed in all directions. Yet despite Illisius’s calm face, Oliver could see his body shuddering against the force of the Orani attack.

We can wear him down
, Emalie thought to Oliver.
I think. Just need enough time.

Maybe we can help.
A new voice had arrived in their minds.

Dean!
Emalie cried.

Oliver heard an uproar from the vampires. They’d barely had a chance to comprehend the arrival of the Orani and the destruction of Désirée, and now they were whirling toward some chaos behind them. Many began rushing back toward the staircase, summoning weapons into their hands.

Oliver peered over the edge of the plateau. For a moment he flinched at the sheer cliff just beyond his toes, dropping hundreds of feet to the rocky ground. He looked down toward the stairs and saw The Forsaken Legion pouring forth from the Transmitter through a curtain of red light, wielding weapons, lunging into combat with the Half-Light vampires.

Oliver spied Dean among them, near the front with Phlox and Sebastian, their battle axes whirling. Oliver didn’t see Lythia, or Braiden, but the battle was raucous. For his part, Dean seemed to be doing pretty well with an axe of his own. As Oliver watched, Dean turned one vampire to ash.

Dean, get up here!
Oliver heard Emalie call. She still had Illisius at bay. Now was their chance.
We need you! You’re part of the Triad!

Below, Oliver saw Dean momentarily pause.
What? I am? Really? That’s kinda cool.

Yeah, now hurry!
Oliver chimed in.
Tell my parents to get you up here.

Got it!

Oliver whirled back around. He closed his eyes and concentrated.
Tachesss …
He summoned the rattan sticks into his hands. Ahead, Illisius was still locked against the Orani energy. Emalie still on one knee, her free hand holding the wrist of the other, aiming the blast.

Two black jets of smoke slithered onto the plateau beside him, holding Dean by each arm. He landed beside Oliver, and the smoke reformed as Phlox and Sebastian.

“Are you okay?” Phlox asked, axe raised before her.

“Yeah,” said Oliver.

Dean nodded to him. “Okay, now what?”

“We join Emalie and form the Triad.” Oliver nodded toward her.

“We’ll cover you,” said Sebastian.

Oliver started toward Emalie.

“How exactly do we form this Triad?” Dean asked, hurrying up beside him.

“Not sure.” That was still a troubling question, and they had only seconds to figure it out.

“Heads up!” called Phlox. She and Sebastian whirled to face a mass of vampires racing toward them.

Oliver and Dean reached Emalie.
Emalie, I got him!
Oliver thought to her.

Okay
, Emalie thought, sounding tense with the effort of aiming the light blast.

“What do you think we do now?” Dean shouted.

Um
… said Emalie. She glanced over toward her mom, who was busy feeding her energy from her Architect’s mirror. She looked back, brow furrowed.

Maybe if we join hands
, Oliver began—

A flash of light caught his eye. By the time he turned to Dean, whatever that light had been was gone, but Dean was clutching at his chest with his free hand. A thin trail of black smoke was curling through his fingers.

“What happened?” Oliver shouted. He scanned the melee out beyond the line of glowing Orani but couldn’t see any sign of what had just occurred.

“Nnn …” said Dean, wincing, hand still at his chest. He stepped away from Oliver, half stumbling, around to the opposite side of Emalie.

“Dean, what?” Oliver shouted.

Dean shook his head back and forth. “I—No … I won’t … I …” He pulled away his hand and Oliver saw a dripping melted mass cupped in it, swirls of magenta—maybe blood?—but also silver flecks. … There was a tattered hole in his t-shirt, and through that, Oliver could see a black burn on Dean’s chest.

“Cannnnnn’t …” Dean moaned, but he shook the substance off his hand, gripped his axe with both hands, and began raising it with trembling arms.

Something was missing. In Dean’s shirt. Wait … the Hindrian charm …

Oh no. …

What?
Emalie called in his mind.

“DEAN NO!” Oliver shouted.

The axe flung back high over Dean’s head. Dean looked at Oliver with wide, terrified eyes. “It’s Lythia! She’s ordering me to—
Nooo!
” But Dean couldn’t resist. The axe blade arced overhead, plummeting down with lethal speed. Toward Emalie’s skull. “Oliver, STOP ME!” Dean screamed.

The truth of what was happening hit Oliver in a flash. Had to react, now!
Emalie, DUCK!
he shouted and he thrust his arms, sending his rattan sticks hurtling forward, whizzing just over Emalie’s head—

And impaling Dean.

The impact punched him backward. The axe swung off course, and Emalie caught a glimpse of the steel just in time to throw herself into a forward roll. The light from her hand extinguished. The axe flew free of Dean’s hands and clanged off the gold floor.

Emalie sprang to a crouch and spun around. She glanced at Oliver.
I’m okay.

Oliver just kept staring at her. He didn’t want to move his eyes from her, didn’t want to see what he’d done.

But Emalie looked. “Dean!” she cried and dove, landing on her knees beside him, dragging Oliver’s gaze with her. Dean lay on the metal ground. One stick had caught him in the right shoulder, by his neck. The other had sunk right into the center of his chest.

“Ga—” Dean gagged and coughed. Black fluid spilled out of his mouth. He rolled weakly onto his side, and now Oliver could see both sticks protruding out of his back. And he could see the black flowing from the wounds, a pool spreading around him.

“Dean,” Oliver moaned.
I had to
, he thought to Emalie.

I know
, she thought back. “It’s okay, Dean. …”

Oliver scanned the battle. Past Phlox and Sebastian, past the Orani …

There. Crouched atop the amethyst temple: Lythia and Braiden, Lythia holding some kind of small, glowing crystal, no doubt part of the spell she’d just used to destroy Dean’s protective charm.

“LYTHIA!” Oliver screamed. She’d said they were going to go to the Gate and kill the demon, but there was an easier target than the powerful Illisius. There was the demon Orani. Kill her and the prophecy ended as well. She’d planned on Dean getting close enough to do it. …

Oliver couldn’t believe it. He felt rage brimming inside him. After they’d worked together, after he’d finally trusted her … If he could somehow have crossed the battle to her, Oliver felt like he would have slain Lythia with his bare hands.

But someone else had a similar feeling. “Now that wasn’t very nice.” Oliver turned to see Illisius standing tall in the pause in the Orani attack and brushing at his coat. He peered out toward Lythia and Braiden and raised his hand. A fireball formed around it. Illisius shook his head. “That was
mine
,” he scolded. The red energy fired from his hand, searing through the air.

Lythia, her reflexes still quick, leapt from the temple. Braiden had barely moved when the fireball arrived, consuming him in a flash. Oliver cursed to himself, and hoped Illisius might throw another after her.

“Emalie!” The scream tore Oliver from his thoughts. He whirled. It was Margaret, her eyes wide, looking past Emalie.

Emalie started to spin around but Oliver saw it first. Illisius wasn’t aiming for the fleeing Lythia. Instead, he was striding forward, a column of smoke forming in his hand. He glanced at Oliver. “It’s time, Oliver!” The smoke became a long, straight steel stiletto, like the one that Sebastian had used to try to kill Selene, on Mt. Morta.

“NO!” Margaret leapt to her feet, mirror igniting—

Emalie was just turning and getting to her feet when Illisius grabbed her shoulder and turned her back to him.

Oliver couldn’t move, it was happening too fast, or he was too slow, or—

Illisius thrust. The stiletto plunged into Emalie’s back, emerging on the other side of her heart.

“
Ahhhh
!” she screamed and the scream was in Oliver’s ears and mind too and it seared white hot and made him double over and stagger.

Illisius yanked the stiletto back out. Emalie’s body quivered, her eyes rolling back in her head, and she fell face-first across the center of the gold disc, her arms out, unmoving.

Chapter 17

Light, Dark, Choice

She was just an intruder.

Just a silly human.

She’d even tried to kill him once.

But—

Quiet. Not yet …

She’d left him for two years, and never said she was sorry. Never even seemed to notice that it bothered him.

Or maybe she—

No. Wait …

She’d as much as said that they had no future together, when she pointed out how much faster she’d age. And she was right. She’d be dead, stupid human dead, before he was even old, so really who cared? What was the point?

But …

But.

She was the girl with the camera.

The splash of color in an otherwise gray world.

The hand on the back of his sweatshirt.

The secret notes beneath his desk.

Who hid in coffins, and tried strange vampire foods.

Who lit up with dangerous power.

Who sensed too much, who hurt for the loss and pain of the world.

Who helped him find the truth when no one else would.

She was the kiss goodbye.

The one who made jokes out of fairy tales.

The girl who crossed worlds with him. Faced demons.

Who died one time, to help him.

Who’d held his hand even as they marched toward their end.

Fearless.

Brave.

Emalie …

Lying still on the gold ground, the light of the Gate muted by her seeping blood.

“
NO!
” Oliver screamed.

It was too much. Emalie. Dean. His friends. Strewn across the ground. Fallen. Just like Bane …

“Emalie!” Margaret wailed. Oliver heard it like it was miles away. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Selene grab Margaret, and strangely, the two of them winked out of sight in a flash of light. The other six Orani aimed their mirrors and fired light at Illisius directly.

He extended a hand and blocked the energy, sending it spraying harmlessly away.

Oliver just kept staring. Emalie. Dean.
No.

Emalie.

He couldn’t … anything. Think. Move. Fight. But he did tear himself from his frozen spot and fall to his knees beside her. The smell of her blood was overwhelming, like being hit with a tidal wave, crushing his senses with terrible sweetness. He shivered against it—
she would think that was awful
, he reminded himself as he so often had—and put two fingers to her neck.

Searching for her pulse …

But didn’t he already know? Because normally he could hear that thumping, rushing sound, the heart pumping liquid, life, from across the room. So noisy compared to him, or anyone else he knew, that he had to fight to ignore it.

His fingers found her artery.

It was still.

“You see now, Oliver?” Illisius called to him over the clangs of battle and the humming of light. “It’s all death. That’s what Finity really is. A brief burst of life followed by endless death. Little candles in the eternal dark. That’s all it will ever be.”

Oliver lurched to his feet, stumbling back a step.
No no no no!
This was too horrible. Too terrible to have to know, to have to feel. He felt a sinking inside, his grief, already heavy from taking Jenette’s, plunging lower … but he wanted even more. He couldn’t feel this
enough
, wanted this pain to be as terrible and consuming as possible, like the end of the world, like relief would never come. Curse his hollow body! He needed help.

“Revelethh … lucenthh … persechhh …”
he whispered.

Nathan shimmered into existence across from him, holding his own rattan sticks. He was such a small light compared to the blinding Gate, but still, even just his presence gave Oliver a meager warmth, and yet that only made the pain seep in deeper, made his gut start to quiver, his eyes squint and teeth clench.

Oliver! I was waiting for—
He saw the fallen friends.
Oh no!

Oliver looked down again. Emalie and Dean forming odd angles. No order to their arms and legs. Like some weird geometric design. He yanked his gaze toward Illisius. “YOU KILLED HER!”

“Yes,” said Illisius, “but that doesn’t change the fact that she would’ve died anyway. Just like you knew she would. Given her love for danger, probably sooner than later. But even if she had a long, full human life, what would that be … sixty more years? Seventy? Then gone forever.”

“Shut up!” Oliver shouted.

“Look at her, Oliver.” Illisius spoke calmly, an almost parent-like tone to his voice. “That’s what
life
is. Right there. So, you can wallow in its pain and suffering … or you can end it, and be free.”

Oliver did look at Emalie, but only for a moment—too much too terrible
no no no
—then at Dean—
no no no
—and thought of grabbing his fighting sticks and running at Illisius, but …

What was the point?

Not just because Illisius was so strong, standing there calmly deflecting the most powerful forces left in this fight with one hand …

But also because he was right. Wasn’t he right? It all ended in death. Everything he’d come to love about the world.

Oliver, no. He’s wrong
, said Nathan.

Oliver just shook his head. Really, who cared if he was? It didn’t even matter if Illisius was right or wrong. All this business of Finity and worlds and all of it really was nothing, nothing,
nothing
compared to the one reality, the one unchangeable truth: