Page 18 (1/2)

Languin, Guateod&039;s eyes to stone It started with pain, as his ribs began to crack in its grip The death god raised hiround, and studied hi the wings off of insects Octavian couldn&039;t breathe and he felt a couple of ribs give way, and as the pain roared through hiic erupted from him like a scream One of his arms was pinned beside him but the other reht lanced froht to the spell but sood jerked backward, trying to twist his face away fro struck its eyes

The death god&039;s eyes went dry and dark for a ray stone Its head drooped, dragged down by the neeight of its eyes, and it used its free hand to reach up and scrape at its eyes like an ani had obscured its vision instead of taken it away coer and confusion, nostrils flaring Short of breath, black spots in his vision froen deprivation, Octavian tried tofor any spell that ic - so Monsters this ancient and powerful were not as affected by sihts raced and focus eluded him The black spots were not just on his eyes but in his mind Pain burned in his chest and back and he could hear his own internal voice screaod would put two and two together and realize that the tiny, fragile thing in its grasp was the one who had rip

&039;Peter, strike now!&039; a voice cried

His vision fading, he looked up to see Allison; she dropped through the air, shifting frood&039;s throat Moonlight glinted off of the long talons that her hands had becoh its flesh and began to slice and tear

Its grip loosened a fraction, giving Octavian rooht of Hell and the icks he had learned there, in its deepest pits Dragging his other arether and held theht dive upward out of the antlered god&039;s grip

The h hi ball of silver-black energy around his joined hands It felt as if he were tethered somewhere, like some umbilical still connected him to Hell, and theup through hie known only to the first beasts of Hell

The death god reached its free hand to drag Allison fro flap of flesh Thick, dark ichor spilled frood clenched its fist in reflex and Octavian felt his broken ribs stabbing hirunt the final syllables of that spell and a shaft of silver-black light erupted froht lasted only a ash in the flesh of reality, a rip that showed a gli punched a hole through the death god&039;s cheek, up through its head and out the top of its skull, right between the antlers Octavian&039;s arms dropped and he had aback into the breach, and then the death god began to collapse He saw Allison leap into the air and shift back into a falcon even as the god&039;s hand fell open, releasing hiround He breathed evenly, forcing away panic and pain, and contorted his fingers to suently and then ceased co a dozen feet above the circle of varasp of his ownin hiswith hatred Exhaling, he suolden round he could feel his ribs knitting back together A pleasant heat replaced his pain When he alighted, he was hi the shadows around the vampire statues

&039;You bastard!&039; Octavian snarled &039;Where are you?&039;

The flap of wings made hiht sky, but it was not Cortez attacking The falcon cried out and spread its wings, its flesh expanding and reconfiguring, and Allison landed on her feet beside hi a statue to their right

He gave her a sth of the bond between theht well be the best friend he still had in the world Along with Kuro he had to family

Side by side, they storhting array A horrible screeching calanced up to see a devil-bat swooping toward theround shook and a thick vine thrust from the earth, whipped into the sky to coil around thepatch of darkness, which closed up again the round continued to shake and Octavian glanced back to see vines wrapping around the corpse of the antlered god and drawing it down into a shiround A root shot skyward, twined around a giant serpent, which flailed as the root twisted ed it back down

&039;What the hell is going on here?&039; Allison demanded as they raced around the stone vampire

Octavian did not need to reply The ansaited for theered to a halt

&039;Holy shit,&039; she h bubbled up from within her &039;Keo ahead of thehtness of the arleaed but she had passed the point of caring Cortez did not so ht position by the vines and roots that bound him and wound around hih him had not yet healed, as if pieces of hiht that ht be precisely what had happened

Keomany stood with the and yet strangely beautiful As Octavian and Allison raced up toward them, Keomany turned and he saw the pale, translucent phantom that hovered behind her

&039;Is that a-&039; Allison began

&039;Ghost, yes,&039; Octavian replied

Then they were all together Once upon a time Charlotte would have hurled herself at Octavian in celebration of their survival Now she only glanced at hih she thought he round rumbled and roots tore devil-bats from the air Several hundred yards away, a forest of vines and roots see the breach together as if it were a torn seae and flow, and it all see the ical shield around their perimeter did from Octavian

He stood before the elenoring Cortez Octavian stared into her eyes They were not human eyes and yet he felt sure he could see her essence there

&039;It&039;s really you,&039; he said

Her srotesque &039;It&039;sauturass

&039;I told her e&039;re facing,&039; Charlotte announced, still staring at Cortez

Octavian studied Cortez, this va Then he turned and reached out to Charlotte, touched her ar for?&039; he asked

Charlotte blinked and turned to stare at hiain?&039;

&039;Why haven&039;t you already killed hi with elanced at Allison as if the other Shadow ht co away fro for you He killed Nikki&039;

&039;Nikki was my friend,&039; Keomany said, as if this fact had been lost to her and now bubbled up frolanced at Cortez With Medusa toxin coursing through him, there would be no escape for hi with bitter hatred and a tinge of madness in his eyes, and listened to them speak of his execution with imperious disdain Octavian believed his presence tainted the very air around them, that he was a stain on the world that needed to be removed The desire to burn him, to eviscerate him, to break his bones and make him suffer, ic swirl around his fingers

He turned to Charlotte &039;I loved her In azed at hi his pain &039;I know&039;

&039;But Nikki&039;s pain is not my pain What he did to her was done to her, and she is dead But you&039;re still alive, Charlotte, and I want you to be able to live, now If destroying Cortez will help you do that&039;

Her grim expression cracked and he saw the pain and heartbreak of the teenage girl she had been showing through the hard veneer she had adopted

Another devil-bat screaed fro vines and pulled into a portal in the earth, which vanished after sing the round still shook, but there were fewer and fewer of the dehost of Miles Varick drifted toward hihts, he would have looked almost solid

&039;That&039;s not the only reason aited for you,&039; the specter said

Octavian glanced at Keomany

The elemental nodded &039;Miles reached into the vampire-&039;

&039;He what?&039; Allison asked

Octavian glanced at her &039;I explained this to you The darksoul in vampires, the part of you that&039;s demonhe can rip it out&039;

&039;He eats it,&039; Charlotte said, her tone al at Miles warily now

&039;It&039;s not any different frohost said, his phantoh,&039; Octavian said, turning to the ghost &039;What made you stop?&039;

Miles drifted nearer to Cortez Octavian saw the ghost run out his spectral tongue and lick his lips He pushed his hand through Cortez&039;s chest, the ghostly substance of hied out a fistful of squir, oily black uish

The ghost turned to look at the rest of the on Octavian &039;There&039;s more than one of him&039;

&039;More than one darksoul?&039; Allison asked

&039;Yes,&039; Miles replied &039;One is his, but the other is an intruder&039;

&039;How is that even-&039; Charlotte began

&039;Would you like to see it?&039; the ghost asked

Octavian took a step closer, staring at Cortez &039;Absolutely&039;

Thrusting both hands into their captive va and tearing at soain as Miles drew out one hand, forcing the separation of Cortez&039;s darksoul and the intruder, the parasite that had taken up residence there

Octavian stood riveted by the sight He had only ever seen a vampire darksoul up close once before, and it had been his own The thousand years in Hell had aged hie cocoon, within which he underwent a process no other Shadow had ever undergone, his flesh separating itself from the two external forces that had so deeply altered him The sliver of divine spirit that had been inside him had ascended into some kind of Heaven and the deainst hied the darksoul out of Cortez, the last thing Octavian expected was to recognize it

&039;No way,&039; Allison breathed

Keomany turned to stare at her, then seemed to notice the look on Octavian&039;s face

&039;You know this creature?&039; she asked

Charlotte spoke, asking as going on, but Octavian barely heard anything his companions said As far as he knew, he had been the first Shadow to be io the metamorphosis which divided the three elements of a vampire&039;s existence into individual entities But he knew of at least one other Shadoho had been lost in Hellwho had been a part of the effort to rescue Octavian from the inferno and had been lost there and, out of necessity, left behind with The Gospel of Shadows

&039;Lazarus,&039; Octavian whispered

&039;No fucking way,&039; Allison said

The darksoul hissed and lunged at Octavian, twisting its insubstantial forhost It snapped and hissed again, lashing out with long, rabbed the darksoul by its wrist, opened his mouth impossibly, inhumanly wide, and bit the hand off halfway up the forear its mouth in a silent screalare upon Octavian Savage as it was, there was intelligence there, and it was consuhost and the darksoul, Cortez still hung froled there now like a brokensoftly

&039;What&039; Octavian began, but he went silent as he recognized the foolishness of any question that ht follow

Lazarus had sacrificed himself for Octavian, traded his own freedoood of huer than Octavian had been Of course he had undergone the same metamorphosis But if the darksoul was here, where was the divine part of Lazarusand where the human?

Was the flesh and blood man trapped in Hell? The question horrified Octavian more than any other he had ever considered As a Shadow he had barely survived there As a man

No He must be dead

&039;Is Lazarus still alive?&039; he asked, knowing it was ian to laugh, twisting and lunging to escape the grasp of the ghost It snapped its jaws like a mindless beast, but Octavian knew that it was not mindless If it did not speak, it chose not to speak

&039;I don&039;t understand,&039; Charlotte said &039;Was this thing inside of Cortez all the ti the sa,&039; Allison replied &039;Did Cortez kill Nikki, or was it thiswhatever ant to call it?&039;

Octavian re at the smooth red apple-skin that created the illusion of flesh on soh her arhtly woven leaves and branches and husks that looked like corded muscle over bone, but with the skin stripped away Keohtly in the breeze

&039;What do you-&039; he began

The eleround still treround in the distance, pulling de patches of earth that could only be doorways into a parallel realer, her avatar, and perhaps her warrior, and Keoun to rid the world of thethem out of this reality entirely, perhaps back to where they had begun Through Keoun to heal and cleanse the world by force

But part of Keomany was still just the woman from Vermont who sold hands Part of her remained human, and Octavian felt sure it was that part of her that could not meet his eyes