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No one should be loved no matter what. Nobody deserved that, particularly her. She'd never loved anyone. And not only had she never been loved, she'd never been loved unconditionally. He'd given her both without requiring anything from her. She wasn't strong enough for it.
At the base of the tower, she was lifted under the arms, almost respectfully, by two of the winged Dark Ones. Lifted up, higher and higher, headed toward the top. Her fear of heights didn't touch her. Being dropped and all her bones crushed by impact might be a welcome mercy, after all.
As they lowered her on the flat expanse of the keep, littered with rubble from the spires that surrounded it like rotting fingers pointing at the sky, she saw the Resurrection Trumpet.
The gleaming gold and silver instrument had a long and slender throat, a red silken cord and white sash of silk wrapped around the handle. They had placed it on a stone tablet, surrounded by a circle of thirty or so higher-echelon Dark Ones. Higher echelon because they were taller, with eyes that narrowed with a far greater intelligence. She identified the one standing directly behind the Trumpet as the most powerful, for energy pulsed from him, and the containment spell, buffering them from the emanations of the complex spells the angels had on the Trumpet already, bore his signature. He was likely the one responsible for figuring out how to circumvent her cave wards and enter the portal from the ocean side. She narrowed her focus to him. He was what she had to defeat.
All she had to do was touch the instrument with a bloodied hand, and it would be gone, in Jonah's hands. She would die. Perhaps after being tortured as long as they could make it last.
David would be destroyed as well, for the binding spell on him would destroy him if she were killed. But the Dark One she was staring at would figure that out before he killed either of them. He would keep her alive long enough to use David's Dark Blood to make him truly one of them and unravel her binding. Then Jonah would one day face his young lieutenant and be forced to strike him from the sky, incinerate his putrid, monstrous body.
No. There had to be another way. Gods, she'd spent her life in study of magical systems, historical conflicts and survival strategies among various species. She should be able to think of something different than this pointless martyrdom for a tin horn. But she knew all the other ways were too risky.
We only get one shot at this. We have to choose the best way.
Thirty pairs of red eyes followed her as she approached. David had been brought up as well, for the flock of bloodthirsty Dark Ones dropped him to the surface on the rough ground behind her. She could hear his panting breath, knew from a brief glimpse out of the corner of her eye he was on his side, struggling to lift himself on one arm. The other one appeared to be broken, useless, a wet gleam of white bone poking through his upper arm and at his wrist. Someone stepped on it as she watched and he screamed. A rock was shoved into his mouth, wrapped in a filthy cloth. It was too large and it was forced in, hard enough she heard the snap of his teeth.
An oyster shell, leaving wounds that took nearly two years to heal well enough for her to be able to comfortably eat...
She yanked her attention away.
"Who is he?" The tallest one's voice shrieked along her nerves, but she could not deny her sire's blood also responded to it, such that it perversely helped steady her.
"An experiment." She cocked her head. "You know they have been guarding me from you, thinking you intend me harm. He is young, and I was able to get him alone, tricked him into drinking our blood, and bound him to me with an enslavement charm. It is part of why I have come. The experiment was successful, but I could not stay there without invoking the wrath of the Legion."
"You stole an angel for us."
"I stole an angel for me," she corrected coldly. "I brought him to you so that the Legion could not take him away from me." She tilted her head, allowed a feral smile to stretch across her face, reveal her fangs. "But I might be coaxed to do it to other angels. Slaves that serve you all. And your children, the humans."
"How do we know if you lie? How do we know he is fully under your power?"
She arched a brow. "Look at him. He cannot fight them off. Though he continues to struggle, his powers are hampered. He can only strike out in my defense, not his own. You know angels cannot bear the stink of your kind. If he could kill all of you, he would."
There was muttering in the circle around the Trumpet, hissing, suspicious looks. She lifted a shoulder. "You've been hovering over me in my dreams since I was born, and you don't feel why I'm here? I am tired of being neither one thing nor the other, of running. Of being cold and wet. If I have a place here, then that ends."
"You helped them."
"Yes. In the past. Unlike your pathetic Dante, I choose my allegiances for my own reasons, but it allowed me to get close to them, to learn to do this." She jerked her head toward David. Still didn't look at him. "But you've never cared about that. You knew the blood was calling me. The dreams enticing me to come have increased, even as you pretended to seek me for revenge. It was never about revenge. You want me to unravel the magic bindings on the Trumpet and play it." She gave the tallest one a derisive look. "Can't figure it out yourself, or can't play it if you did?"
His crimson eyes went to malevolent slits. "You should not taunt us."
Shrugging, she flicked her fingers, sent a zap of electrical power toward a small Dark One that had been creeping up on her ankle, probably to bite her. It retreated with a yelp.
"Chaos on the blue green place will give us more of what we want," one beside the tallest said.
"So what does that give me?"
The red eyes narrowed. "We will use the humans to help us procreate, make more Dark Spawn. Stronger than humans. Replace them. It will become your world, instead of theirs. You are powerful, but we think you have not truly embraced your power. You reject it because of your mortal mother." His gaze shifted behind her, to the scuffling sounds going on, the groans and thuds. "But we are encouraged by this."
The this was drawn out, sibilant, but she noted he cut it off. Trying to appear civilized, articulate? It was laughable, considering their surroundings.
She considered it. "It can be done. It'll take some destruction, some reworking of the firmament and terrain after you use the Trumpet, but it can be done."
"You will help us?"
"Perhaps."
"You think you have a choice?"
"Of course I have a choice." She took a deliberate step forward, until the nearest Dark One around the table was only several feet away from her. Meeting his gaze just long enough to get him to shift his, she swept the faces of the ones around him with a disdainful look. "If you make it not a choice, you won't get anything from me. I care nothing for pain or death. I've experienced both, and I wasn't impressed. And there is no one I care about."
"Even the daughter of Arianne? What if we brought her here, cut her babe out of her womb while she screamed, let her bleed and die before you?"
Jonah would tie you in a ball with your own intestines and kick your bony ass back here before you got within a hundred miles of Anna. And you know it. Else you wouldn't want a girl to do your fighting for you.
"You already know I am cursed to protect the daughter of Arianne, no matter my own wishes." She laughed, an extremely unpleasant sound, rough to her own ears. "It never occurred to you that was why I was in the Canyon? I never did one thing to protect the angels. Only her."
There was shifting, muttering, a consultation of sorts. Mina waited, maintaining a dispassionate mien, walling out everything. The gag must have fallen out, for another terrible scream came from behind her. The kind of scream that ripped from one's throat when one had an appendage torn off. She remembered her fingers, a small barracuda biting them as she tried to fend it off. Then there'd been several other fish, and she'd lost the fight.
She felt the close regard of the Dark One Council. Sighing, she gazed boredly out over the landscape. Gods, I will do this. Damn the whole world, but I will
do it. I will get that Trumpet back, for David. Then I will annihilate all of you. All my life I've repressed my Dark Blood. It's time to use it.
"You are right." The tall Dark One was looking at her with different eyes now. Not completely convinced, but far closer to it than a moment before. "It is something we had missed. The angels who have been following you around made us uncertain."
She lifted a shoulder. "Her mate feels that I did it out of regard for her. She is an innocent fool, a being of light. He thought I needed protection, and as I said, it gave me the opportunity to study the angels more closely. If you want to disembowel her, and can figure out a way to do it where the curse won't compel me to protect her, I would savor the watching."
"If all you have said is true, we will welcome you," the tall Dark One said. "I am Amal. The beginning for the Dark Ones." He looked down at the Trumpet. "Prove yourself to us. Unravel the spells on this so that we may use it. Can you do it?"
