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She would not give in to fear.
Anna looked toward them again, forced herself to meet the eyes of several on the front line, including the tall one who had chained her, the giant behind him.
You may take me, and yet you will get nothing. I will poison you with faith and love even as you tear the flesh from my bones. I belong to an angel. He said so from the beginning, and you can't poison that.
Then her focus was yanked away as a hand curled around her bicep. She drew in a painful breath as Jonah pulled her to her feet, the sword still lifted in one hand.
"Jonah," she sang it softly, but infused it with all the magic she could. It brought confusion to his face and protesting howls to the Dark Ones. A flash of light coursed through the heart sphere, just a flicker at the corner of her eye, but that was gone as he released her. Then pain exploded behind her eyes, as he hit her in the face with his fist.
It was a solid blow to the mouth that snapped her head back, such a solid-sounding crack that for a harrowing moment she feared he'd broken her neck. She skidded back on the platform of rock, her head going over the edge, and only fear of that drop galvanized her past the pain to roll, struggle back to her feet. She made it to her knees, her head spinning, and swayed there.
He was back in the center again, staring at her, impassive, those crimson eyes like raw wounds.
Taking a breath to steady herself, she crawled toward him, knowing that standing without help wasn't going to be possible. She made it just between his toes, which were covered in hard black boots, and sat back on her heels, trying to push down nausea. Tilting back her head, she held that unholy gaze, seeking Jonah. Laying her hand on his hip bone, she curled her fingers into the waistband of the black breeches and started to lift herself onto unsteady feet, leaning into him, bracing her elbow against his thigh.
She'd almost made it to her feet when he closed his hand on her wrist, turned it, yanking her sideways, and broke her arm. It dropped her to the ground again as she screamed. The Dark Ones roared their approval.
BACK on the other side of the ledge, David was at Lucifer's side. "We have to help her."
"No," Lucifer said, his dark gaze transfixed on the terrible scenario. "Wait. See to the witch. Her protection is weakening. The wind is slackening around them."
David's gaze snapped downward, to the ledge where Mina had crash-landed. He had gone to her immediately, only to have her snarl and drive him and his angels back as she focused her energy on her primary task, which was apparently keeping as much protection around Anna as she could in the form of that tornado of wind. Hoping it was what Jonah was doing to Anna that was disrupting the witch's field, and not the injuries she'd sustained, he dove down to join her. But his heart caught in his throat as he descended, for he saw the witch was casting her faltering spell in an ever-widening pool of her own blood.
Twenty-four
Look well, for I am a form difficult to discern, I am a
new moon, I am an image in the heart. When an
image enters your heart and establishes itself, you flee in
vain. The image will remain within you, unless it is a
vain fancy without substance, sinking and vanishing like
a false dawn. But I am like the true dawn;
I am the light of your lord.
--RUMI
"JONAH." Anna managed to get his name past her bloody lips once again. Despite the din, the flashing light and horrible darkness, the oppressive weight of Dark Ones so terrifyingly close and Jonah's own overpowering energy. "My lord."
His head was tilted, as if listening to something beyond her, but now he slowly canted his head the other way, his gaze turning, click by click toward her, like the macabre hands of a ticking bomb. His hand gripped the sword, so easy and comfortable, and she thought of how many countless times that flared guard had caught blood running down the blade so it didn't make his grasp slippery as he wielded it. How often he'd been showered, bathed, drenched in the life fluids of others.
"Jonah," she repeated, just a whisper. The wind was dying, and a Dark One dove at their platform. Before she could try to evade its approach, it struck a wall of light that appeared several feet from her. The Dark One crashed into it, his body briefly illuminated by electrical current. Screaming, he fell into the chasm.
Was Mina still protecting her? Or channeling energy from the angels?
She was guessing the latter, for Jonah's gaze fired. That ominous sense of energy leaped, the energy she now knew was the power signature from an angel preparing for battle. Jonah lifted the sword, the tip moving in a harrowing arc over her. She thought for a moment it was over, braced herself for the blow, but then he stopped, head tilting, eyes studying the opposing army, who had not moved forward.
His instinct will be to defend against any show of aggression from us . . .
The blade's end came to rest in his opposite hand, a barrier between them. She got to her feet, took a shaky step forward.
"You remember when you held me in your hand, as a fairy?" She asked it in a voice laden with pain, sorrow. "So gentle. I wasn't the least bit afraid you'd hold me too tightly. When I tumbled from the air, I knew you'd catch me. You're an angel, Jonah. You protect. You love. You are love."
"I am death. Destruction. The end of everything. Despair. Darkness."
His voice sent chills down her spine, for it was not Jonah's voice. Sibilant, sonorous, it reverberated across the canyon and back, and ruptured her eardrums. Even as she cried out from the new torment, the voice sapped vital energy from her.
They had his heart, after all. There was no hope.
But he'd said it was the shell. That she had the true substance of it in herself, beating inside her own heart.
Anna was on her knees again, breathing heavily, her eyes streaming. It took four or five precious moments before she could get her body to do what she wanted it to do, but then she started to sing once more.
With her mouth bleeding, and her arm hanging uselessly at her side, the notes were plaintive, not rich and strong, but the magic was there, even though she could only hear it in her head. She wove it into the song, called out to him.
She remembered then how she'd used it with the grieving dolphin. The creature could not bear the higher, stronger notes of her magic, so she'd made them soft, soothing, healing, giving him visions of his brother and the many things that had given him joy.
Jonah had given her those images that first night in her cottage. Allowed her to make a lullaby of them . . .
Like Ronin's laughter . . . the bonding with his angels . . . fighting to protect the Lady, seeing with each sunrise and each passage of season that he'd been successful, that life had gone on . . .
Now she added in other things. Her love, which she would never take away from him. She would always belong to him, be only his . . .
Anna could feel Mina still helping. Her life force was ebbing . . . Mina, no . . . but still, it was there. Friendship, love. Those were the constants. The simple truths, unclouded by motives . . .
Meaning and action. Jonah's heart had gotten lost somewhere between the two. At some point he'd continued to act, hoping the meaning would come back into it, somewhat like watching the wind arrange the clouds and hoping they'd take a shape he'd recognize.
That was it. It had niggled at the back of her mind from the beginning, what it was that had caused Jonah to go with her on their odd quest, the way his eyes would rivet on her and he actually made her believe he wanted her, cared for her.
By some strange twist of Fate that had elevated a simple mermaid into the key to the universe, in her was the embodiment of everything that gave his fight meaning.
In Gabe she had seen the despairing detachment, the way he could no longer feel anything. He'd been imprisoned inside his own soul, unable to escape the nightmare it had become. But in the way his eyes followed his daughter-in-law and grandson, he knew that somehow they were the key, if he could only get across the chasm his heart had beco
