Eddie Lancaster Box Set 2, page 74
part #4 of Eddie Lancaster Series
The zombies formed a circle around the symbols and Malek stepped inside the ritual circle. He beckoned for Lydia and me to join him which we did, albeit begrudgingly.
‘Watch her,’ Malek told Anya, pointing at Katelyn.
‘Hello again, sweetheart,’ Anya said as she moved over to Katelyn’s side. Katelyn said nothing.
‘The symbols are for the angels,’ Malek explained. ‘Just in case they try to intervene before the ritual is completed. The sigils will keep them out of the circle.’
I looked down at the symbols on the floor as the necromancers finished drawing them. An idea occurred to me and if I was right then our plan was going to be at least a little easier when the time came to enact it.
‘What if Lucifer wins?’ I asked him out of genuine curiosity.
‘What?’
‘You’re hoping they’ll mistake all this for an attack from Lucifer. Well, if he’s here with all the exiled angels and all the demons and the angels come down from Heaven and they have a big fight… I mean there’s a chance Lucifer will win, isn’t there?’
Malek stared at me flatly before chuckling quietly. ‘Lucifer will be in too much shock to lead a battle charge. The archangels will not hesitate to attack him. Especially if Michael leads them. And if Lucifer by some miracle does win, then I will convince him that I wanted that all along and he will leave me the Dead Realm when he ascends the throne of Heaven.’
‘You’re so sure he’ll lose, aren’t you?’ I said in disbelief. How could he have such little faith in his supposed best friend?
‘He has grown too soft to win. That was evidenced when he agreed to allow you to bypass judgement. Something I will never do in my rule.’ And there it was, the Freudian slip. The truth he didn’t want to reveal. He had no intention of honouring our deal which meant that the deals he’d promised everybody else were invalid too. His word could not be trusted.
I said nothing. I looked him straight in the eyes and lifted my eyebrows to convey my point perfectly. His mouth opened slightly as he realised his mistake.
‘After you of course. I am an angel of my word and I will honour all deals I have agreed to,’ he said loudly so all could hear. It was too late, though, they’d already heard what he’d said before.
The necromancers finished their work and stood up slowly. I heard a few bones creak and crack and I shuddered. Then the necromancers stepped into the circle with us.
I looked around at the hundreds of zombies surrounding us. There were so many that they simply disappeared into the darkness and I could not see where their numbers ended. I had no idea how I was going to get Katelyn through all of them.
‘When Nickolas performed this ritual he did so in a graveyard to be closer to death where the divide would be weaker. I brought death to the ritual,’ Malek said smugly. I really wanted to watch his flesh burn from his angelic body. ‘Let’s begin.’ He nodded to Lydia.
‘Lay down, Eddie,’ she said forcefully. I turned to her and she nodded. The Ambrotos Dagger was in her hands. I complied with her instructions, trusting that she was going to help me when the time came.
She knelt down beside me and pushed up my sleeves. ‘This will hurt but Lucifer’s grace will keep you alive,’ she said. It was the first time I’d heard her speak gently. She was like a nurse comforting her patient.
‘Aren’t you going to take his grace?’ I asked.
‘Some. Whilst you have blood in your veins it will contain his grace,’ she said. ‘It’s magic like that,’ she added with a playful smile. I was going to miss her when I was dead.
‘You better not take it all then,’ I warned.
‘A deal’s a deal,’ she said. Then she sliced my arm open from elbow to wrist. She did it so suddenly that I couldn’t stop myself from screaming. Her hand was on my chest holding me down before I could attempt to rise. I commanded my magic to heal my wound but it did nothing at all. I couldn’t even diminish the pain.
‘I’m sorry, ‘ Lydia said, her voice pained. Then she cut open my other arm. I lay on the floor, tears streaming down my face almost as fast as the blood ran from my veins all over the concrete. Malek’s grinning face only added to my pain and torment. As my blood flowed the pain faded and soon my arms were completely numb. My whole body was numb in fact. The world was rotating slowly around me. Lydia offered up the dagger to her father who took it by the hilt and moved away from me. She leaned down and whispered in my ear.
‘Don’t pass out or it’ll all be over.’
I forced my eyes to stay open and tried desperately to focus on something. Anything. I had to stay awake. I needed to get Katelyn to safety before I left this realm. I owed it to Shirley.
Despite not wanting to I turned my head and watched Malek. He knelt on the floor to my side. Delicately, like it was a baby, he lowered the dagger into the pool of my blood and rested it there. Then he placed the palm of his hand next to it, getting the sticky red substance all over himself. My loathing for him was so great that I didn’t even want him touching the blood that had left my body.
He channeled his magic into my blood and once again his hand glowed red, then his body did. This time the effect was reversed and he poured the magic out of him and into the blood. The Ambrotos Dagger shined hotly, taken by the spell, and it began to rise of its own accord. It hovered blade down above the ground, my blood dripping from its glowing point as it rotated in the air. My blood was glowing with the power too. Even in my current state, I took a moment to appreciate how majestic it looked. Malek was muttering something under his breath, his face twisted in concentration. I could feel the air growing stuffy and full as the magic rose up all around us. Then the final ebbs of the Blackwood magic left him and a shockwave blasted outwards from him and the dagger. The twelve necromancers dropped like sacks of rocks, their spirits leaving their bodies yet again. Like a ray of sunshine, most of the zombies that filled the area around us began to fall too. With the necromancers who’d raised them gone, they were gone too. Only those raised by Anya remained which was still in triple digits, but there was now plenty of gaps to run through.
‘Ah,’ Malek said with satisfaction, his eyes focusing on something to my left. I rolled my head over to see what it was. A tiny purple spec was floating in the air, like a spark or a firefly.
‘The gateway,’ he explained. That will grow into a portal soon enough and when it does…’ he didn’t need to finish. We all knew what was going to happen. The portal was about a hundred feet outside the ritual circle.
Lydia who was still kneeling by my side took my hand. She looked down at me and mouthed a single word. Siphon. I furrowed my brow, asking if she was sure. She nodded.
‘Just a bit,’ she clarified. She knew I was too weak to move. The only way I was going to be able to get up was if I stole a bit of her strength. Lucifer’s grace had healed my wounds but the blood loss had weakened me too much. If only I were a vampire I could just tuck into… Actually, most of the people around me were dead so there weren’t many I could tuck into.
I gripped Lydia’s hand as much as I was able and began to siphon. I’d barely started sucking power from the Nephilim when I felt back at full strength. Sensing this she snatched her hand away before it drew Malek’s attention. I wondered how energetic and powerful I’d feel if I siphoned all of her power.
‘So, you’re back to being powerless now, right?’ I asked as I struggled to my feet. When I say struggled I mean I pretended to still be too weak to manage much movement. I had to keep the pretense going.
‘Not for long,’ Malek said, looking down his nose at me.
‘Long enough,’ I replied. Then I unleashed bolts of lightning that struck his defenceless body and carried him right off the ground. He was thrown back until he hit the edge of the circle. The symbols on the floor which were designed to stop angels from passing through, glowed gold as he hit the edge of the circle. As I suspected they also stopped him, an angel, from getting out.
Everyone stood in dumb shock, too surprised to do anything. I pulled back my magic and Malek crashed to the ground, his clothing smouldering from my attack. His groan of anguish was the most satisfying sound I’d heard since my resurrection.
Katelyn shook off the shock first. She turned and blasted some vicious spikey ball of magic into Anya that sent the necromancer crashing into a pile of her own zombies.
‘Go,’ Lydia said absently, her eyes were on her father. ‘I’ll keep him.’
‘Thank you,’ I said and then ran.
I ran out of the circle blasting fire at the zombies and forcing them to clear a path. Those who didn’t move were incinerated. If there’s one thing that always works on the undead it’s fire. Katelyn followed me as we charged through the ranks of Anya’s undead. I glanced over my shoulder and saw Lydia and Anya fighting whilst Malek screamed in frustrated rage from the ritual prison of his own making.
‘This has gone a lot better than it thought it would!’ I panted as I saw the guardhouse ahead. The remains of the chainlink fence were sagging uselessly into the road.
‘Don’t jinx it!’ Katelyn snapped.
As we reached the guardhouse I saw headlights further down the road. They were so far away that they were little more than pinpricks in the darkness. As they neared I saw there was more than one set. A lot more than one.
‘That can’t be good,’ Katelyn said and stopped running.
‘The trees,’ I said. It was our only option.
’Stop!’ Gabe yelled. I turned and saw him walking toward us slowly. He was wary of me now. wary of both of us. He might be almost unkillable but he was still facing two powerful sorcerers who could inflict a lot of damage on him.
‘Argh!’ I cried as a burning pain seized my wrist.
‘What is it?’ Katelyn asked, approaching me in concern.
I raised my wrist to see what the hell was going on and saw that my tattoo was now bathed entirely in purple light and was flashing like a warning signal. My time was up and I had failed to get Katelyn to safety.
‘Gabe,’ I said, struggling to get my words out through the pain. ‘Just let her go. Help her. Malek can’t—‘
The purple light vanished and I felt my energy fly out of me like a sheet in the wind. I fell to my knees, the world dancing around me. Darkness fluttered over my vision and once again I died. This time for good.
Chapter Forty-Three
I didn’t appear in the waiting room like I had all the other times I’d died. I arrived flat on my back on the cold floor of the throne room. I lifted my head and saw that the room was empty apart from Lucifer who was sitting on his throne of light staring down at me, his eyes were pure fire.
‘So the lift was just for show then,’ I said. I knew the lift thing was just a sham.
‘Tell. Me. Everything,’ he said, his voice felt like a thousand swords cutting into me. I climbed to my feet, no longer feeling any of the pain of my injuries, or of the burning tattoo. Looking at my wrist I saw that my tattoo was completely gone. That didn’t seem fair. I’d paid for that.
‘Well…’ I said as I approached the throne, and then I told him everything. By the time I was finished both his hands were balled into tight fists and his head was leaning on one heavily, contemplating how to respond.
‘Malek thinks I’ve gone soft? How wrong he is about to feel.’
‘So, you’re going to stop him?’ I asked. Lucifer seemed to be in no hurry to get moving. It was as if he hadn’t heard me when I’d told him that Malek had already completed the ritual and a portal was opening between the realms.
‘Stop him?’ he lifted his head and looked down at me in faux confusion. ‘Oh no. I can thwart his plan simply by doing nothing. The treaty with Heaven states that they can do nothing to me so long as I remain in this realm. If I pass through the breach to stop Malek I will be playing right into his hands. My brothers in Heaven will put a stop to this pathetic and misguided scheme.’
‘But he’ll just tell them you told him to do it!’ I protested a little too loudly. The lord of the dead raised his eyebrow at my insolence. ‘Sorry,’ I added quickly.
‘He can tell my brothers what he likes. They still cannot move against me whilst I remain here in this realm. Even if I had sent an army to the Living Realm I still would not be in breach of the treaty. Only by marching on Heaven would I be liable.’
‘Malek will tell them that was your intention,’ I argued as respectfully as I could.
‘Intentions warrant neither punishment nor reward. Only actions do,’ he said simply.
I had only one course left and it was a risky one. It would draw his ire onto me rather than Malek but if the plot wasn’t stopped, then people I cared about would die. Malek would go on a rampage through Kent until the angels came down to stop him. He might even go further than Kent. It depended on how long it took Heaven to step in.
‘This makes you look weak,’ I said. His burning eyes found me again and I gulped loudly. I’d started now and had to finish. ‘If one of your subordinates has gone against your wishes and launched an attack in your name how does that make you look? You’ll look even worse if you don’t stamp out this insubordination. You’ll be proving Malek’s point.’
Lucifer raised both his hands and I flinched into myself, expecting an attack. Instead, he brought his palms together and clapped in patronising slowness.
‘Bravo, Eddie Lancaster. You truly are the grandson of Nickolas Blackwood if you think you can manipulate me. I invented the tactic.’ Surprisingly he actually smiled and shook his head. ‘But I have to admire your courage in trying. And, you do make a good point. Punishment must be metered out for this act of treason.’
I smiled, glad I’d gotten away with it. In my relief, I got a little too cocky. Story of my life. ‘It’s kind of ironic, isn’t it? You betrayed Yahweh when you were his right-hand man and now yours has done the same to you.’
His smile fell away like ashes from burning paper. Mine vanished in quick succession.
‘How. Dare. You?’ he growled, exposing every tooth in his mouth. ‘You impudent…’ he drew in a deep breath and closed his eyes as he struggled to calm himself down. When he opened his eyes again his anger had been replaced by a sinister kind of smugness. ‘Since you think it so important that Malek be stopped, you can stop him.’
‘What?’ I said nervously. I must have misheard him.
‘Yes. You. That way I have done something about this act of treason. I’ve sent one of my subjects to put an end to it. Meanwhile, I will watch how things play out and learn exactly who else crosses the divide to stand with Malek. Each and every traitor will answer for his or her actions.’
‘I’m not really equipped to kill an angel,’ I told him. He obviously already knew that.
He rose from his throne and began descending the steps of the dais as if he had all the time in the world. He sauntered over to me smiling like… well, the devil.
‘I didn’t tell you to kill him. I told you to stop him. You’ve always been resourceful, Eddie. And as you told Julia, you always overcome the odds. Do it one more time as if your immortal soul depended on it.’ He leaned in close and whispered, ‘Because it does. And besides, if you use that brain of yours, slow though it is, you’ll realise I equipped you with everything you would need when this all began.’
I had nothing to say back to him. There were no words to convince the devil to reconsider.
‘Now, what was it you’re used to? That signature gesture of yours?’ He raised his hand in front of my face and snapped his fingers together.
And just like that, the throne room was gone.
Chapter Forty-Four
I was right back where I’d died. I lifted my head off the road and looked around in the darkness. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust but then I saw Gabe lying on the ground, his eyes closed and a thin stream of what looked like blood flowing away from his head.
‘Gabe,’ I said softly. Traitor or not, I still cared for him.
‘He’s not dead. Yet.’ Katelyn said from behind me. I pulled myself onto my knees and turned to see the sorcerer leaning against the guardhouse. Her palm was glowing as she healed a wound on her neck.
‘What are you still doing here?’ I shouted at her lividly.
‘I don’t know if you’ve noticed but the forces of Hell are forming up just over there,’ she said, pointing in the direction of Malek and his army.
‘You were supposed to get to safety!’ I told her. The one good thing I’d wanted to do was make sure Shirley’s granddaughter was safe and now I wasn’t even going to achieve that.
‘Nobody is safe whilst Malek and his minions are here.’ She finished healing herself and stood up straight, raising her chin defiantly, at me.
‘What do you think Shirley would say about you being here?’
‘I cannot think of a better place for my granddaughter to be,’ said Shirley. My head snapped around and I saw Shirley striding out of the darkness. I could see more shapes moving in the darkness behind her and my heart picked up speed with excitement.
‘About time!’ A voice above us shouted. I looked up and saw a slender man with dark hair and delicate translucent wings that glowed with golden radiance. A fay. ‘We were starting to think we'd be fighting this battle alone.’
The trees to either side of us rustled and then swarms of fay flew out and cast golden light across the whole road. I saw Shirley’s face clearly, her jaw was in grim determination. Behind her stood all the sorcerers of Kent. Every sorcerer from every coven was standing with their Dynast. Hundreds had come to stand against Malek and force him back into the realm he’d come from. Maybe I would be able to complete the task Lucifer had set for me after all.
‘Oh my god,’ I said weakly. My legs were woozy with gratitude. I couldn’t have asked for better than this. I’d never expected even one of them to come.
