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DAISY LAZARUS
Daisy leaped backward astwo holes opened up in the ground, one on each side of Julius. She felt the rip in the atmosphere as though it happened through her body.
Wrong.
Everything felt wrong.
It was as though she existed upside down but was still standing on her feet. The tunnel became a space that existed between time. The air thickened and sizzled with power. Wind buffeted her face. Light and shadow burst from the ruptures—tendrils from each fighting for supremacy.
Julius’s laugh turned into a cackle. “It’s happening! It’s finally happening.”
His voice warped between his own and that other deep monstrous side. This was beyond anything Daisy had ever trained for and she could only stand there stunned, watching it all unfurl before her eyes like a nightmare made flesh.
From the middle, Julius crouched and dipped his hands into the chasms beside him—one into each hole. He heaved and pulled something out, someone out. Deafening screams hit Daisy’s sensitive ears. She clamped her hands over them, trying to focus through the piercing sound. It wasn’t only the sound, it was the sense of despair clawing at her gut—it came from the dark hole. And the flutters of joy came from the light. The resulting turmoil inside her took long gulps of air to control.
Biting her lip, she knew she had to do something. Anything. She couldn’t stand there like a statue and freak out. She was better than this. So she pulled her katana from its sheath, braced herself against the wind, and stabbed in Julius’s direction. All she could think was that if she could get to him, then everything else would work itself out. He’d started it all. He would be the end. But her sword hit an invisible wall. Her wrist jarred painfully and she involuntarily dropped it. Metal clanked on the tunnel’s concrete floor.
“What the—?” she gasped.
She tested the air before her, with both her hands and her gift. Like a mime, she placed her palms about the space. It felt solid to the touch, despite being able to see through.
While Daisy stood helpless on one side of the barrier, Julius dragged a woman out of the light cavern. An echo of his action on the dark side oozed a shadow creature out. It was dark. Four legs. Monstrous with red eyes and a dripping maw.
Daisy couldn’t see it properly. Couldn’t decipher what it looked like beyond the shadow, but she felt it. Pure despicable evil. It was a thing of indiscriminate nightmares. Sin coming to life. While on the lighter side she sensed only joy and happiness. Comfort. Peace. It called to her most basic desires to belong.
She glanced down at her Yin-Yang wrist tattoo. Light and dark. Heaven and Hell.
It must be.
Panic like no other filled her to the brink. Goosebumps erupted over her flesh and she pushed every ounce of power from her body at the invisible wall, hammering it with her need to protect.
In her mind, all she could see were her loved ones. Her brothers and sisters outside fighting against beings of flesh and blood, winning when it might not even matter. Axel somewhere in the distance, rescuing those who needed it… Elena, freshly recovered and finally looking forward to a life. Mary. Flint. Daisy’s family.
The world could be ripping apart, right here.
“Focus on the barrier,” Raven shouted from behind Daisy. “Use your gift to find a weak spot. This might help.”
The Sinner limped up beside Daisy and tossed something wet at the the invisible boundary. Everywhere the water touched, it sizzled like acid. Daisy had no idea what Raven had tossed, but as soon as the droplets hit the ritual boundary, she sensed it weaken. The psychic must know what they were dealing with. Daisy had to trust her.
She shoved her gift into those tiny droplet spaces and expanded, hating that this was all she could do while watching Julius pull a second, smaller figure from the hole. She almost lost the contents of her stomach as another twisted creature emerged on the dark side—as though that hole was a horrific mirror reflecting the pure souls coming from the light.
“My loves, my loves,” Julius cried, tears in his manic eyes. He sounded more like himself now. Less like the thing occupying his body when Daisy had arrived.
Julius gathered the two stunned females into his arms. His wife—a dark skinned beauty. His pre-teen daughter—the perfect blend of both parents. They looked just as bewildered and afraid as Daisy.
“What have you done?” his wife murmured, tears streaming down her face.
Their daughter cried and grasped onto her mother’s ethereal dress as it solidified.
“I brought you back, my darlings. You’re safe here with me!”
“But we were happy,” his wife accused, her anguish crumpling her features. “We were happy!”
Julius blinked. Stunned. As though he’d never once imagined this would be her reaction. Then he hit his temple, and growled, “No. You will be happy now that you’re back with me.”
His jaw set as he tried to drag them to the side so they wouldn’t fall back into the hole, but they rejected him. His daughter’s cries worsened to a wail. His wife kept shouting and shoving Julius off her.
“No, no, no,” she cried. “Let us go back.”
