Jonah Read online

  And Malachi had been right.

  When I ended the Pureblood Emery, I was able to catch a glimpse of the form he once took—that of an Arch Angel—thus confirming what Malachi had said. I believed Malachi was also correct about the third dimension. Cold, dark matter might well be the makeup of this world, but whenever and however it had happened, a being created organically from the light of the crystal in Styclar-Plena—an Arch Angel—had ended up here and become the first Pureblood: Zherneboh.

  After the Arch Angel arrived, this place that had once been a void wasn’t one anymore.

  As the rifts continued to form, the ground beneath my feet vibrated and then cracked. From over my shoulder, a rattle grew into a roar. Overhead, a round object flew out of the nothingness, tumbling over three times until finally it stopped midflight high above me. The creature’s bulging throat weighed down its head, causing it to use care as it uncurled each bony limb. It rocked backward as though it were gaining momentum to catapult forward, but then stopped. The creature could smell me. It angled its face and then turned in my direction.

  I would have met its eyes, if it had any.

  A scavenger.

  I had seen one before, and I knew the contents of what it was carrying—the dark energy released in death from a human in the second dimension. But for what purpose Zherneboh wanted it brought here to the third, I didn’t know. I tried to focus on the space from which I’d heard the rumble of a rift opening, from where the scavenger had emerged, but I couldn’t discern one in the darkness.

  My instinct was to remain deathly still, but I had evolved beyond simple instinct.

  I was no longer afraid.

  I had given my life in exchange for Jonah’s, balancing the universe’s scales and equalizing out the equation. I hadn’t come here expecting to be able to escape.

  And with that thought in mind, as the scavenger plummeted and scuttled across the barren land heading for the tower, I followed. I looked to the moat, willing myself beside it, and with ease I traveled there by thought. I was perched next to its banks when, like a ball shooting out of a cannon, another scavenger whipped past my shoulder. It was moving so fast I expected it to collide with the tower, but an invisible force caught it midflight above the moat. The scavenger stopped and, curled tightly, began to ascend. As far as I knew, scavengers could not fly, but something was causing the creature to levitate.

  As I searched for an answer, I realized that with every passing second that I was here—that I was accepting that here was in fact a place—the clearer my surroundings were becoming. Much like a photograph being developed in a darkroom, the image at the center was being exposed, allowing me to process the picture.

  There wasn’t just one lone scavenger being dragged up toward the thick cloud at the top of the tower, there were many. So many that I lost sight of the one I had been observing. The creatures were like magnets, each one being pulled in and up, narrowly missing the others that were dropping out of the cloud.

  Next to me, a scavenger smashed into the freezing rock, causing a huge crater in the ground. It clawed its way back up to the surface, finally stretching out on all fours. This creature’s throat was not hanging heavy, and it darted with superspeed across the land, sniffing the air in search of another rift.

  I didn’t understand what I was seeing. Why were the scavengers levitating up toward the cloud? And why was rain falling into a contained river?

  It struck me then. I was thinking about this all wrong.

  This wasn’t Earth—this was the third dimension.

  That was no ordinary cloud, rain, or river.

  The scavengers collected the dark energy released in death from a human, and that dark matter left the human form in a plume of smoke. The scavenger’s throat was no longer bulging because it was now empty; it had just deposited that very smoke into the cloud.

  And now that gas cloud was releasing tarlike raindrops into the moat. Why? My train of thought was interrupted as my skin rippled with a sharp, scratching sensation. My hands were beginning to freeze from the cold. The cold … the cold … this world existed in a state of cold, dark matter.…

  Just like my hands, the smoke was cooling in the freezing climate. Only it was a gas, and so it was turning into liquid form—into the tarlike rain. And the rain was pooling into the moat, running into the river, but where did the tributaries go? What purpose did they serve?

  Distracted once again by the bitter sting on my skin, I tried in vain to shift my weight. My hands were weighed down at my sides, and I had to concentrate to bring them to my face. I flexed my fingers, and one by one, they broke. Wanting to devour me whole, the frost was not satisfied with just a bite and quickly spread through my veins. I had to think quicker. Gabriel had always been able to control his temperature, and now I knew that the Angels commanded their gifts simply by using the power of thought. And so I closed my eyes and imagined the ancient fireplace in the derelict house in Creigiau. I recalled the stifling heat as the logs burned next to me, scorching my skin. I willed the warmth to move out from my chest and down my body, until my hands grew hotter and my palms sticky.

  My bones healed, and I was able to move my limbs once more.

  Now I had to make good on a promise. I’d made a deal with the universe to turn back the clock, to exchange my existence for Jonah’s, and it was time to pay up. But if I was doomed to die here, then I would take this world and the Purebloods that inhabited it with me.

  Speak of the Devil, and he shall appear.

  “Zherneboh,” I called.

  On the ground, the scavengers stopped in their tracks. Every last one of them cricked their necks toward the sound of my voice.

  But Zherneboh did not come.

  I spoke his name again.

  Still, he did not emerge.

  I considered the moat of dark matter. It fueled the Purebloods and their Second Generation Vampires. It even fueled me. This might be the third dimension, but on Earth, fuel was flammable, so maybe, just maybe …

  Rubbing my hands together, I created some friction, generating the smallest amount of heat. The scavengers remained still, and as I regarded the hundreds of them before me, through the crowd one moved forward. Uncurling its spine, it stood upright, and though its shape was deformed, oddly, it resembled a person.

  The scavenger had no eyes, but I was sure that it could see me. Maybe it was going to try to stop me? And then a strange thing happened. The creature tilted its head and, as though it were willing me on, nodded. I’d assumed that the scavengers had somehow been created here in the third, that they belonged to the darkness and knew nothing else. If they had been born here, then this was their home. Their task of moving the souls of mortals here would be their purpose. So why was this scavenger asking for death? Unlike me, he had a choice, and he was choosing to die.

  Over the lone scavenger’s shoulder, in the distance, the frantic flap of a raven’s wings came into view. The scavengers dispersed, but the one in front of me stood tall and absolute. It yawned, dropping its jaw low and allowing the skin that covered its orifices to tear. Fleshy, slimy tentacles spat from the hole, but this time the scavenger was not trying to suck up dark energy, it was trying to speak.

  I stepped forward. Reaching up, I put my hand behind the scavenger’s head and brought its face down toward my ear just as the raven swooped in a vengeful descent. The moment my skin met the scavenger’s, the raven stopped. I hadn’t intended to, but my will to hear the scavenger’s message had been strong enough to distort time. The scavenger’s slimy hand slid over the top of mine, and now its voice was crystal clear as it simply said, “Please.”

  The scavenger’s appearance may have been one born of children’s nightmares, but its sweet plea was entirely Angelic. I remembered something else Malachi had said to me then: “Things are seldom ever what they seem.”

  My eyes shone, and I was able to see through the scavenger’s translucent skin, beyond the darkness that had consumed him, to the face of a yo
ung and beautiful being.

  I knew then what the scavenger was. Sadly for him—for all of them—who they had once been was surely gone, lost forever.

  I considered his request.

  The scavengers did not take human life as the Purebloods did, they merely mopped up the remains, and the fact that this one was asking for death told me that this existence had not been its choice.

  I would honor his now.

  So to the fallen Angel Descendant, I replied in a whisper, “Be free.”

  TWO

  THE FALLEN ANGEL LINGERED in the gray area between the past of what he was and the present of what he had become, and it was in that suspended state that I saw his smile. Having heard his plea to free him from this world, I let my hand fall from his and began to summon a glow from within me to fulfill his request.

  But the moment my skin left his, time resumed.

  Not as it should. It did not simply “play” but began to fast-forward, moving at rapid speed, while I was held on pause. The raven returned, spreading its wings wide over the once-fallen Angel’s shoulders and sinking its jagged claws into his back. The raven retracted its talons, and liquid from the Angel’s perforated form spewed onto the ground, merging with the black ice. As the last drop of dark matter drained from the fallen Angel, he froze and turned into sparkling stone. The raven rose high in the air and then darted forward, smashing through the statue, obliterating what remained of the fallen Angel, including his smile, which fell away only when he had turned to dust.

  The raven beat its wings one last time before it shape-shifted into a form I was familiar with: that of a Pureblood.

  The glow I had been summoning rose to my surface, and as it electrified through to my fingertips, I was brought back into sync with the speed of this world.

  My gaze fixed on the Pureblood and the protruding lesion above his eye that marked him as one particular Pureblood: the Devil, Zherneboh.

  With everyone I cared about safe in the second dimension, I didn’t hesitate in preparing to destroy all Zherneboh had created, myself included.

  I wouldn’t even pause to take a breath; I had already given my last for Jonah.

  I was ready.

  In the second dimension, embracing my gray being had made me untouchable, but here in the third, I would need to divide if I were to conquer.

  The only way I knew how to rid a room of darkness was to turn on a light. And so I called on my Angel abilities and flipped my inner switch. Bolts of lightning left my fingertips, joining together and amassing into a single sheet. But Zherneboh anticipated my action. As my light rushed forth, his almighty force met it. Like an elastic band, my light snapped back and propelled me away. I stopped speeding through the air only when my back hit the invisible shield above the moat of dark matter.

  Then I knew what had levitated the scavengers. I knew because I felt it. A pulley system began to drag me up, and no matter how hard I struggled against it, still I rose to the gas cloud above. Scavengers plummeted past my face, dropping one by one to the ground far below me, on the “down” side of the pulley that I was now riding up. As they met the black ice, they scurried away from Zherneboh, who towered above them. He followed my assent with his steadfast stare, while I remained ensnared by silk strings I could feel but could not see—a fly caught in a spider’s web.

  Zherneboh lifted his arms, and his cloak billowed below as he began to levitate all of his own accord. I’d entered his house through the front door, but not as the girl in shadow. She was gone. I was in control of my own soul. He couldn’t command me to do his bidding, which would leave him with one choice. The same one that Orifiel had been working toward since the day I was born—killing me.

  He did not rush himself as he climbed higher to meet me, content perhaps that I was trapped. He reigned over this world; here, he held the home advantage.

  But as I neared the cloud, a prickle of heat danced across my hands. Zherneboh may have caused my sheet of light to recede, but he hadn’t snuffed it out completely. Like the yellow flame at the end of a sparkler, my glow, though reduced to a flicker, still crackled.

  You only need a spark to start a fire.…

  A smile twisted at the edge of my lips. Concentrating, I shot embers from the tips of my fingers. They hit the threads trapping me, sending an electric current through them.

  In the blink of an eye, Zherneboh was level with me. But my thoughts were faster than his flight.

  I added fuel to those embers and flames shot up, down, left, right. All around me, the web I was stuck within lit up, with me beaming in the middle.

  Zherneboh fixed his eyes on my own, but I would not be distracted. My entire body warmed, the blood in my veins beginning to bubble, and I fanned the flames with the power of thought.

  Rings of white light manifested one by one, starting at my ankles, encircling them like cuffs. More rings appeared in succession up my body—from my calves to my thighs to my waist and, finally, to my chest, where the halos spun with superspeed, multiplying and intensifying into blue blazes of heat. By the end, my torso and my every limb were surrounded by deadly rings that spun, waiting.

  Once again, I was the witch and this world was my pyre, but I needed it to burn out before I faded away.

  The pulley system continued to draw me up, but the invisible threads began to lose their integrity. My white and blue flaming rings whipped across and melted the silks, which began to drip. As the searing heat intensified, the threads began to snap, and bit by bit, they fell into the moat below.

  I willed my rings of fire to spread, and high above me, my electric flames soared, meeting with the peak of the tower hidden within the gas cloud. Pieces of the tower enshrouded in charged rings of light spiraled down, smashing into the frozen rock below.

  The tower must have housed the mechanism responsible for churning the liquid in the moat, for as the structure began to break apart, so too did the dark matter in the moat stop moving.

  Though the pulley began to disintegrate, I tried to hold on to the strings keeping me in place. I needed to stay here. It was only from this vantage point, high above all that existed in this plane, that I could destroy it. The energy to maintain my rings of light was exhausting me, but still I kept on.

  Both the moat and its two tributaries caught fire. The explosion blasted through the riverbanks, revealing what had been previously hidden.

  The river was actually flowing out in the shape of a star. A star now ablaze. At each of the five points stood smaller versions of the tower behind me. But as the dark matter boiled at each of their bases, halos of light rushed up the cylindrical structures, only disappearing from view when they met with the gas clouds that hung atop their peaks. One by one, they began to cascade like waterfalls of oil.

  The world around me was falling to its knees.

  The threads I was clinging to were about to give, but one final push was all it would take. I just had to find it in me to give it.

  The only motivation I needed was straight in front of me: Zherneboh.

  He must have known then that I had no intention of trying to escape. Despite the halos spiraling around my body, he came in close. Grabbing the back of my head, he squeezed his thumb against the corner of my eye, his skin meeting mine.

  My body stalled, and the halos became stationary. His negative energy was attracting the positive charge of my electric light, pulling it up toward him. The rings reabsorbed back into my skin, and my insides began to sizzle as Zherneboh’s touch drew them up through my veins.

  Like a lightning rod, he was pulling my strike to one single spot, preventing me from ejecting any more of the charged particles through the web.

  But just because he was drawing out my light, it didn’t mean I had to let it be smothered by his darkness when it reached him.

  It was my decision; I could still choose to burn.

  And burn I would—bright and brilliant.

  I would not falter.

  But then Zherneboh cried out. Only
it wasn’t the same cry I’d heard leave him on Earth. This cry did not belong to him. Never had I heard such a terrible sound. It surrounded and then engulfed us both, binding Zherneboh and me together with one single note. I spilled bloodied tears as I wheezed, but without knowing why. And as the note emanated from him, through me, I met Zherneboh’s eyes, which for the first time told me a story.

  The only story he had to tell.

  One of rocks, rivers, and revenge.

  The Devil was appealing to my duplicity.

  I realized then that he was attracting my light to him, to buy him time to persuade me—not command me—to do what he had created me for: to end Styclar-Plena and to deliver Orifiel to him in the second dimension.

  But then, from somewhere inside me, a tremendous thud hit my chest.

  It silenced the cry and released my gaze from Zherneboh’s.

  The explanation of where the cry originated would remain a mystery. I was left ignorant of its importance and the rest of the message Zherneboh was trying to share, the reason he was at war. Without it, my resolve would not be weakened.

  My rings of white light looped around one another like an atom, creating a bomb inside me.

  Zherneboh knew what was coming.

  The tangled threads frayed and disintegrated, but Zherneboh kept me suspended, struggling once again to imprison my gaze. Charged light rose within me, dragged toward Zherneboh’s opposing force like a magnet. Zherneboh shook me violently as though he was trying to make me see sense, but as my head bobbed back, what I saw instead was a change in the previously dark sky. Swirling ribbons of luminous oranges and greens twisted like streamers on a curtain of red, creating the most beautiful aurora.

  I was humbled that even here in the depths of Hell, I was gifted a glimpse of the heavens beneath which I would fall into my final sleep.…

  But just then, the thud that had hit my chest and silenced the cry returned, stronger and louder than ever.

  It came in bouts of three.

  Trump pump.

  Trump pump.

  Trump pump.