Текст книги "The Fallen King"

Автор книги: T. A. Grey

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Текущая страница: 16 (всего у книги 17 страниц)

Chapter Twenty-two

Pandemonium erupted.

Alrik fought the spell controlling him and lurched after the idummi. Horrible screams of death ripped through the air. The stale, bitter scent of blood filled Abby’s nostrils like copper.

Abby had her target—the queen—and didn’t let her out of her sight. Their gazes collided, ice versus fire.

Abby acted first.

Thrusting all of her power into it, she unleashed a fiery spell meant to burn and immobilize the queen simultaneously.

The queen swiped her hands in the air deflecting the spell. Abby tried again moving faster and pushing all of her power into it. The queen dodged it. She tried again and again only to have her spells deflected with ease.

The queen laughed as if this was all a game while sweat poured down Abby’s face.

The idummi were dropping like dead flies around them from Alrik and his bare hands. But, there were still too many of them. Too much happened all at once. She just needed it to slow down for a minute so she could think.

The queen whispered in demonic calling forth dark powers so evil they made Alrik’s icy magic look downright hot. Black smoke swirled out of the ground like tendrils of flame. Only this wasn’t smoke.

Abby stepped back but the tendrils came for her, snapping at her like hands then they snaked around her ankles and wound up her legs. The tendrils squeezed tight like lengths of heavy rope. They solidified before her very eyes into something with mass, something heavy and strong like a hose. It latched on and yanked her sprawling forward.

Abby pitched to the ground. The tendrils were trying to squirm their way up to her hips. They’d encase her whole body if she didn’t stop them.

Abby blasted the tendrils with a deteriorating spell and the tendrils withered away like dying flowers.

The queen glared at her, then looked around at her demons, most of which were dead, and raced back through the forest.

“Damn!” She really was a coward.

Abby ran after her with only one final glance at Alrik. He kept killing more and more idummi as they swarmed him. She trusted him to be well. She knew in her heart he’d overcome whatever they dished out. After all, she’d seen him fight against a band of rogue demons and those were trained fighters.

The queen raced back towards her swampy camp, her red gown a blur of bloody color in the green hued marsh.

Abby’s heart drummed a thumping beat in her ears. Her breathing sawed from her throat and her neck hurt like a SOB. Each time she swallowed, heck, even just breathed with her mouth open it created aching sensations in her neck like the worst-case scenario of strep throat.

Abby reached the top of the slope that lead down into the marshy swamp and paused.

The queen was screaming in hysterics.

Idummi were leaving by the scores. What had been probably hundreds of demons had dwindled down to less than one hundred, if that.

Abby slowly made her way down the slope. This would end one way or another. Just between her and the queen.

The queen screamed in frustration. “AAGH! You won’t leave me,” she said darkly.

Her arms thrust out from her body, hands curling into fists she turned them as if she was ripping someone’s heart out of their chest. The large crowd in front of her screeched in pain, their bodies jerking, and chests thrusting forward as if they were having their hearts torn from them. They collapsed to the ground shuddering. Dark green blood trickled from their mouths.

Abby could barely stand to watch.

The rest of the idummi stood watching the show with increased apprehension and fear. Several of them had curved knives at their waist and some even had swords at their hips or across their backs. Several started to step towards the queen’s back. Abby stilled to watch. She cheered in her head.

Yes! Kill her! KILL HER!

The demons on the ground finally stopped screaming. Their bodies shuddered in the aftermath of death before freezing in the last position they’d ever be in.

The queen sucked in ragged breaths. Her hair no longer held the immaculate design it’d been in. The colored threads had come loose. The braid, if one could still call it that, was frazzled and fuzzy around her shoulders as if she’d been rolling around the ground. Her dress had torn at the sleeves probably from running through the forest with those low hanging branches snagging her. Green blood had splattered over the very bottom of her dress, ruining the fur trim.

Abby waited. The rest of the demons around her paced agitated, snarling. She could see their visible indecision. She prayed quickly to whoever might listen to her.

Let them kill her. Please let them kill her!

The queen turned around in a slow whirl with her shoulders held so rigidly that the muscles in her neck flexed to reveal a stark collarbone. She bared her teeth in a snarl as if ready to bite. With her arms held out straight from her body, she looked as if one little thing might set her off...only Abby didn’t want to find out what she’d do once that happened.

“Kill him! Kill the girl! Kill them all!” ordered the queen.

Damn. Abby moved fast and ducked behind a boulder jutting out from the slope. Plastering her back against it, she waited straining to hear any footsteps. There was no time to waste. The idummi stormed back up the slope just a few paces behind the rock. Abby squeezed her eyes shut at the sound of the demon’s howling war cry. They were revving themselves up for battle. The thought made her shake. Flattened her back up against the rock, she ignored the sharp points of it jabbing into her spine and back and hoped like hell they didn’t spot her.

She had to act now. There were too many of them. Not even Alrik could take on that many demons.

She had no idea what she was doing. She shook down to her bones with a heavy cold as if she wore clothes that had been snowed on. Standing, she saw the demons had left and started for the queen.

The queen muttered to herself in soft Demonic whispers that Abby couldn’t understand. She hovered near the black cauldron that hung over the fire then snatched a leather satchel off the ground and tossed chucks of herbs into it.

Abby didn’t give her any sign that she crept up behind her. She just acted. Keeping her steps light she ran up on the queen.

Then with a hard jerk, Abby slammed her hands out in front of her using every fiery cell of magic inside her as if shoving someone. And she was in a way.

Abby’s magic propelled the queen headfirst in a horrifying scene. With a bloodcurdling scream, the queen flew into the mighty fire. Abby’s heart roared in her ears. The queen’s terrible screams pierced something inside her, shocking her so all she could do was stand there and watch.

The red gown went up in flames. Her body rolled and jerked in the white-hot logs as if she fought to get away but couldn’t. Flames licked at her hair and skin burning it away in sizzling, burning clumps.

Abby fell to her knees. She’d been shaking before but now she really shook. Her teeth chattered, arms trembled, and her stomach bobbed. It took everything in her not to keel over and vomit at that very moment.

Her stomach gave a vicious roll again, this one even harder as the smell of burning flesh filled her nose, and Abby couldn’t hold it any longer. She doubled over and wretched as her entire body convulsed. Burning acid coated her tongue and stung her throat. After three heaves, she simply knelt there gasping like a fish out of water.

She’d done it. She’d done something so appallingly immoral. She’d really killed another person. Her stomach lurched again, but she tightened her throat to keep any more bile from rising. The action might have kept her stomach slightly in control but it did nothing to ease the pain around her neck from where she’d been choked.

Slowly she caught her breath and sat back.

Several things seemed to happen all at once.

What she saw sent an all new wave of fear through her while in the distance she heard mighty roars. Not a roar she’d heard before, but a different one. She heard not just Alrik’s voice but also others.

Had Aidan and his men come? She could almost sigh with relief at the thought. They could help him fight back the horde of idummi. Yes, that had to be what she heard. Those were not the war cries of the idummi and certainly not of her Alrik. The rogues had come to help.

Then none of those sounds of war taking place atop and beyond the slope really registered in her mind. They were all thoughts rushed to the back of her mind.

She couldn’t think of it any more.

Because in that moment, the queen was climbing out of the fire pit on her stomach. Her body moved at a twitchy, irregular pace. Her skin was charred black, her clothes burnt to ashen tatters across her enflamed body. Her hair...had been burnt off leaving a bloodied and darkened scalp where the flames had destroyed it. Yet she moved placing one elbow into the grass and tugging her body along as her legs dragged behind her as if she couldn’t move them.

She alternated elbows until her entire body was out of the pit. Smoke clung to her body and drifted up from her like a smoking corpse. Yet she wasn’t a corpse.

“Siradu shika gh’daburem!”

The demonic words registered in her mind. Abby didn’t have time to try to understand the words because just then the demonic spell entered her body like a bomb and tore her insides to shreds.

“AAAH!” Her piercing screams tore through the night.

The spell...whatever it was...the queen had put something evil inside her. Agony engulfed her. She clenched her gut as she fell to the side curling into the fetal position. Right before she squeezed her eyes shut she saw the queen ever so slowly crawling towards her, one unsteady tug at a time.

The pain was the most intense feeling she’d ever felt. Like hot acid being poured inside of her. It kept filling her chest cavity and when that wasn’t enough, she felt the molten-hot sensation pour into one leg then another. She just knew that if she sliced open her thigh right now some awful black tar substance would pour out.

Something was happening to her. She couldn’t control herself anymore. Her body shook in violent seizures. No matter how many times she told herself to keep her eyes open and do something—she couldn’t. Pain overtook her. She couldn’t move, not even to save her life.

That rib-crushing, skin-squeezing pain covered her everywhere spreading like lava until it enveloped her in darkness.

She stopped being aware of much of anything then.

She could no longer hear the sounds of war taking place with Alrik. Was he dead? Were they all dead? Maybe that’s why she couldn’t hear anything.

No, that couldn’t be right because she couldn’t hear the crackling of the fire either or her own breathing. As she strained to hear, a soft high-pitched ringing started in her left ear. Her head twitched at the sound or at least she thought it did.

Were her eyes open? All she saw was black. Black nothingness.

Maybe this was death. Maybe she’d finally died.

No!

Her body jolted, this time she knew she’d actually jerked because she felt her heart jump too.

She needed to find Alrik. He needed her help. She had to finish this.

She struggled to become aware, to come back to consciousness. She felt her body swimming as if floating listlessly beneath the surface. She swam towards that surface, each swipe of her arm through the murky area around her like trying to move through molasses. Finally something gave. Like a bubble bursting. She broke through.

Then, her eyes opened.

A gnarled creature glared in her face.

No, not a creature. The queen. Or, what was left of her.

Her face, colored in black ash and rosy burns grinned like a wild beast above her. Only the whites of her eyes and teeth could be seen among the fleshy red welts of the burns. In some places along her skull where there’d once been glorious hair, skin had melted to reveal the hot red layers of fresh skin beneath.

The queen held Abby by her shirt.

Abby screamed at the sight. Then she reacted and sent her fist fly up. She caught the queen’s chin with a satisfying crunch of bone.

The queen fell off her and Abby moved. The spell the queen had casted on her hadn’t lingered any longer. The intense pain had faded but she still felt weak as a kitten and feeble. Each motion felt sloppy. Even her punch felt like she couldn’t have hurt a baby. Nevertheless, this was her last chance and Abby wouldn’t fail. Not for her Alrik.

She and the queen rolled. Abby landed another punch square across her jaw. The queen’s skin was still hot and the warm, gooey texture of her flesh made her skin crawl.

The queen’s hand, now nothing more than skeletal bones and raw tendons, climbed over Abby’s face. The warm sticky feeling nearly made her vomit but she held her gut in check.

Still the queen managed to grab a fistful of her hair and pull—hard. Abby grunted through the hair-tearing pain as she reached up to dislodge the hand.

She grabbed hold of the queen’s burned, gnarled hand and yanked her fingers backward, hard. The queen exhaled a garbled shout of pain.

Abby heard a sound so lovely then she could have wept tears of joy.

“Abbigail!”

Never would she have thought that hearing him yell her name could make her smile.

She looked to the side and saw such a beautiful sight she lost sight of what she was doing.

Alrik came rapidly down the slope, Aidan and the rogue demons following behind him. He looked battle worn, but so strong and stunning.

I love you, she thought.

She made a mistake. One she didn’t realize for all of the three seconds it’d taken her to turn her head and look up at him. That’s okay it was worth it.

A blade slid into her chest so near to her heart. Her eyes, still locked on Alrik’s face, flared in surprise. His dark eyes flashed then he roared and charged forward.

Abby looked down to see a knife sticking out from her chest. Blood oozed from the wound. Why was she so slow to act? She should be moving, acting now. Doing something. But what?

The queen’s distorted face smiled up at her. “I win,” she hissed.

Abby jerked at her words. Pain started numbing her like icy water filling her veins. “No you don’t.”

Abby pulled the blade from her own chest. It took her two tries for her strength was fading fast, and the skin of her chest caught the blade as if it didn’t want to let it go. Finally, it came free. She palmed it in two blood-covered hands and stared into the evil eyes of the person who’d started this all.

“He wins,” Abby said.

Then she slammed the blade into the queen’s neck. The amount of blood that spurted from the wound almost seemed fake like something you’d seen in a horror movie. But this wasn’t a movie and she’d really just shoved a dagger into another person’s neck. Well, she’d also nearly burned the demon bitch too, so. Whatever.

Abby fell off the queen. She hadn’t meant to but she had no control over her body. With each breath she took, more blood seemed to gurgle from her chest with a wet plopping sound.

Alrik’s face swam before her. She smiled and reached for him. He grabbed her bloodied hand and ran a calming hand over her hair. A sigh escaped her it felt so nice. Whatever spell the queen had made him drink was gone. He had returned to his normal self.

“What have you done?” he asked in a hoarse voice.

She started to speak but was surprised to find she had to swallow a few times first. Her tongue felt heavy and dry. She needed some water. “I beat her. I killed her. Right?” God, she’d better be dead. Abby didn’t know how many more times she could kill her.

Alrik leaned over her. It wasn’t until that moment that she realized how cold she was. A shiver passed over her. His cheek pressed against hers, and then he kissed her. Even his cheek felt burning hot. She tried to purse her lips to kiss him back but couldn’t.

“Yes, you killed her.” Why did he sound so funny?

“What’s...wrong?” She had to swallow again. Damn, her throat really hurt. After she felt better, she was going to really live in to him for choking her.

Her head rolled to the side but she didn’t remember doing so.

Something was wrong.

It didn’t dawn on her until then.

It really hadn’t. She’d been so overjoyed to see him again—alive and strong.

So what the seer said was true. She would die. She actually was going to die now. Tears filled her eyes and spilled down her temples.

I don’t want to die.

A sob climbed up her throat but she held it back.

Both of his hands covered her cheeks as he kissed her again. “I love you so much,” he said, his eyes closed and his voice breaking.

He repositioned her so she lay in his lap. She sighed. This new position felt nice—much warmer and she got to be closer to him. His hand slid over her wound and she winced. Yeah, it hurt. He pressed hard to it.

“Why did you do it?” he croaked.

She hadn’t been sure the first time she heard it, but yes, they were both crying. Abby tilted her face so she could see his eyes. She had to smile even though she could see his heart breaking in his eyes, could see the tears sliding down his face. She’d done that. She’d inadvertently hurt him when all she wanted to do was save him.

“Because,” she gulped, her air supply growing shorter and the heavy feeling growing in her limbs getting worse, “I love you so much.”

He pressed his forehead against hers. “You shouldn’t have done it. You shouldn’t have.” He kept saying it over and over again.

It was the last thing she ever heard.

Chapter Twenty-three

He felt the life leave her body.

He could actually feel it as if her soul just walked out.

“Abbigail.”

He shook her. Her eyes stared somewhere off the point of his shoulder.

“Sweetheart wake up.” His voice broke. “Wake up, dammit!”

She didn’t blink. Her chest refused to rise and fall again.

No, no, no. This couldn’t be happening again. This couldn’t happen again. NO!

“Somebody help me!” he shouted.

He set her body on the grass. His eyes caught sight of the dead carcass of his mother, and he shoved out his arm to push her away from his beloved.

He covered her wound with his hand and searched his memory for something. This couldn’t be the end. There had to be a way.

Footsteps neared.

It was Aidan and his men. They looked solemn, their eyes heavy with sorrow. “Where’s your healer?” demanded Alrik.

A man came forward to kneel beside her. He checked the wound and pressed his fingers to her neck but said as he’d expected.

“She’s already passed on, my king.”

The last of the words he ignored. He didn’t give a shit if they respected him now. “You have to do something. Anything. Any spell any amount of power, name it and I’ll do it.”

He kept hold of her hand, kept squeezing it, but she wouldn’t squeeze it back. His chest squeezed so hard it was a wonder his heart didn’t start bleeding from the pressure. Tears kept coming. Why did she have to look so pale?

“My king, there is nothing you can do. She has gone from us. Let us bury her.”

“NO!” he shouted. He wouldn’t give up. He would figure out a way. His eyes swept over her face. “Give me a wet rag someone. Now!”

Within a few seconds, a demon pushed one at his face. He grabbed it started cleaning her face. She was so beautiful even in death, but blood marred her skin. He cleaned every spec of dirt and filth from her face and then started on her neck as his mind worked slowly, numbly. He couldn’t contain his flinch at the horrible bruises covering her neck. From him!

Aidan stepped forward as he set to cleaning her hands. Dirt and blood had caked under her nails. That pain in his chest intensified. He’d done this to her. He’d taken her from her home and gotten her killed. And for what? His mother wasn’t worth her life. She wasn’t even worth a single hair off Abbigail’s head.

“What have I done?” he whispered, squeezing her hand. He pressed it to his lips and kissed them as his eyes clamped shut. “Oh God, what have I done?”

Aidan stepped near him but didn’t touch him. A good thing, he didn’t know what he might do if someone laid a hand on him right now. Alrik kissed the palm of her hand and started cleaning the other.

“None of us have any spells to fix her. There are no herbs to push away death. Very few have such a white power to bring back the dead,” Aidan said. He was speaking slowly. He’d cared for his Abbigail even in the short amount of time he’d spent with her. Alrik couldn’t even blame him; she had that effect on people. He’d learned that first hand. “I’ve known very few who had that power... One is dead at my feet.” He kicked the dead queen. “The other is alive before me.”

Alrik nearly stopped breathing.

“But I can’t heal anymore. The curse took that away from me before.” Besides, he’d never actually done it. He knew it could be done in his bloodline. He knew his brother could do it, had even seen him do it. His mother and even seen his father had the healing powers in their blood. But the curse had taken his white magic from him. “Look at me. I can’t. Don’t you think I’d save her if I could?”

A small smile lifted the corner of Aidan’s mouth. “I think you need to look at yourself one last time. You might just be surprised.”

A low tremble started in his gut then worked its way out. He knew what his words meant, but could it really be possible?

“Bring him a mirror,” said Aidan.

The men talked amongst themselves and realized they didn’t have one. So, someone brought forth his double-bladed axe. The steel was sharp and the fire reflected off it.

“Are you ready?” the demon asked.

No, he wasn’t. He couldn’t nod, couldn’t even shake his head. He just sat there holding Abbigail’s steadily cooling hand.

The demon shrugged then lifted his axe to face Alrik.

Alrik looked at his oblong reflection marked with specs of drying blood and at a face he hadn’t seen in a thousand years.

Gold skin covered his face and neck. Bright violet eyes stared back at him as if he was looking into the face of a stranger. Brown hair with a good dose of red fell around his face in a wild array.

He kept hold of her hand but used his free on to touch his cheeks as if to make sure the reflection he saw matched up with him.

“It’s real,” he breathed.

“Yes, it is. You are cured,” Aidan said.

He looked away. He was cured, but what for? What did it matter now? He’d lost the love of his life. He had no one to share this with. A hollow shell sat inside him as if he’d been carved out into a shell. He was nothing without her.

“Just because I look as I did before doesn’t mean I’ll have the powers as I did before.”

Before...before he’d changed. When his powers hadn’t been of rage and ice but of good things too.

“True,” Aidan agreed. “But you could still try.”

Yes, yes he would. Of course he would because if she died then he’d die with her.

Alrik tried to remember how to call forth healing magic.

He set his hands over her chest and closed his eyes.

He thought of closing her wound, of seeing her eyes blink, and hearing her heart beat. He let the thoughts course through him like blood until it was all he thought or felt. His hands started to warm and he focused harder and put all of his energy into it.

Hope sprung. He could do this.

Breathing ragged, sweat poured from his brow and still nothing happened. He sat back and wiped the sweat away. The demons and vampire watched him with a various mixture of grimaces on their faces.

“What?” Alrik asked at their strange looks.

Aidan looked uncomfortable. “It’s been nearly half an hour and nothing’s happened, Alrik. Why don’t we just bury her and let us mourn?”

Thirty minutes? Impossible. It hadn’t felt that long at all. Yet his muscles felt strained and tired in a way they hadn’t before.

His gaze swept over Abbigail’s cooling body and something fierce and raw came over him—a steely resolve.

“No, I’m going to do this. I can do this.” Alrik leaned back over her as he placed his hands on her chest. He winced as he spotted the deep bruising on her neck. Disgust filled him. He didn’t deserve her, but if she forgave him after he brought her back, then he’d grovel to her for the rest of his life.

Closing his eyes, he concentrated. He focused on the healing powers that existed in his blood. He called it forth as if beckoning a small hurt animal. His skin warmed. His mind rested in a place where time didn’t exist. All that existed, all that mattered was Abbigail’s bloody wound beneath his hands.

The heat grew. His muscles flexed and twitched as he physically forced the healing magic up and out of him. Ragged breaths tore from his burning throat. His arms shook as if he was holding up a building to keep it from collapsing. Even his head felt about to burst as if too much air filled it.

I’ll bring her back. I’ll bring her back, he chanted.

His blood started to boil. So much heat filled him he swore he breathed steam.

Then a blinding light covered him like rays of sunlight on bare skin. It was so hot it hurt him from its burn but he gritted his teeth and pushed through it.

I will bring her back. I will bring her back!

The light shifted its beacon to shine on Abbigail. In his magical eye, he could see the beautiful white light encase her body. At the center of her chest where his hands were he saw a glowing orange light emit from his hands as if they were on fire.

That light swirled around his hands slowly at first, then moving faster and faster. Alrik shook above her like a weak little flower in a mighty storm. His muscles convulsed with pain. Burning agony filled him in every inch of his body. He just wanted it to end or for it to kill him. Anything for it to be over. He’d never felt anything so intense before.

Just as he was considering letting go, of quitting, the spiraling orange glow shot inside of Abbigail’s body.

His heart surged as if unchained from a heavy weight.

Her chest lurched up as if she’d been shocked by a great power. Then it snapped up again. And again.

A long ragged hiss of air sounded. He could almost see through her body to where her lungs expanded with air and then released it. His ears picked up on the most glorious sound of all.

Bum bum. Bum bum.

The beat grew faster and faster and then steadied out to a lovely cadence.

Her back arched deeply as her arms jerked and twitched.

“Huuuuuuungh!” she gasped as her lungs filled with air.

“Yes, my love. Come back to me please,” he begged raggedly.

Finally, she blinked. The blinding light started to fade as did the orange glow from his hands. Her chest rose and fell.

His arms still shook. He was terrified to lift his hands. What if it all stopped? What if when he took his hands away and she went back to that dead, spiritless woman she had been?

Her head moved and her gaze met his. Real shining eyes not glassy ones from death. His breath caught in his burning throat.

He let his hands move up to cup her face. Life didn’t leave her. She was really alive, breathing, and gazing up at him softly.

Her eyes searched over his face. A small smile turned up the corners of her lips.

“You’re beautiful,” she said. Her voice sounded torn and ragged.

It was the loveliest thing he’d ever heard. Something he thought he’d never hear again.

“I love you, Abbigail Krenshaw. I won’t let you go that easily.” He kissed her, this time feeling her kiss him back. Another dark chain released from around his heart, freeing him.

Pulling back from the kiss, he pressed his forehead to hers. “You are mine now. There is no going back.”

She tugged on a lock of his hair weakly and whispered, “As if I’d want to. Now why don’t you take me home?”

Gently he lifted her into his arms. When he turned he stopped because all the demons stared at him with wonder in their eyes. Even Aidan’s eyes held respect in them.

Slowly the vampire knelt on one knee and the others follow suit.

“Hail the fallen king!” Aidan said, his voice commanding.

His men followed suit. “All hail the fallen king!”

Alrik stood straighter. Another strange feeling came over him. One he hadn’t felt in a long time—respect. Respect that he’d earned. As any true king would, he held his chin up high and nodded once in thanks.

The demons grinned up at him, even Aidan smiled though his was somewhat sadder.

Abbigail curled an arm around his shoulders and waved back to the group. “Bye everyone.”

Alrik used the last of his strength and magic and ported them home.