Page 80 of Caelum

TWENTY-ONE

FRAZER

I swallowed at her words, sensing the change that had overtaken Eve and disturbed us all. She was no longer the girl who relied upon her mates to understand the most basic of human interactions in the modern world. No longer a woman who had no idea what a credit card was and how something as simple as a parking meter worked.

No, the Jannah was here. I felt it. Felt her . And though it excited the Sin Eater deep inside me, it scared the man because the man wanted Eve. Not the part of her that was other.

At her words, though, Eve’s mates cast each other a wary glance before inhaling and, on a silent, one, two, three, declared:

“We wish…”

“...for…”

“…the souls…”

“…of the…”

“…Fallen…”

“to protect…”

“…the living.”

For a second, nothing seemed to happen, and then, the light on Eve’s belly began to pulse. She released a cry that had us jerking in surprise. Just as Reed stepped toward her, she fell to her knees and the light streamed out of her as though she were a lighthouse. If night had fallen, she’d be a beacon for anyone to find their way home, and that was exactly what she was…

We just didn’t realize it.

As she glowed, from her position on her knees and at the center of the four soldiers, they all seemed to be caught in the light she emitted.

If I hadn’t seen it with my eyes, I’d never have believed it, but the lines that made up the carvings on the Toltec warriors began to ooze with a glow of their own.

It was like each thin cavity was a vein, and just as she sagged, the light streaming from her no more, the warriors took on that power, glowing so brightly that it stung my eyes.

For a second, there was silence, and the pulsation of light seemed to run in time to the beat of my heart. As I stared, the veins in the warriors seemed to gleam, turning red like blood, and as we gaped, all of us with our mouths open wide, the soldiers began to move.

Motherfucking move.

The groan of stone grinding against stone was eerie in the silence, and one leg seemed to bend, the knee creaking as it moved to hip-height, before the boot collided with the temple’s roof.

Eve, still on her knees on the floor, began to crawl over to us, her energy spent as we stood there gawking at the miracle or nightmare that was going down before our eyes.

Reed and Stefan rushed forward to haul her up onto her feet and draw her toward us, just as they did it again.

Boom.

Boom.

Boom.

Three loud cracks and around us, the temple began to shake. The single bricks that made up the edifice, almost like a brick-built house on a grander scale, seemed to exude dust as the warriors rattled the entirety of the temple.

Boom.

Boom.

Boom.

In beats of three, they made their silent anger known.

The sudden sound of wings whooshing free hit our ears, and as we turned to the side, a large crow appeared, seemingly from out of nowhere, but evidently from a secret door hidden within the chambers.

As it stared at us, its black feathers gleaming like night itself under the sun’s heavy rays, the beast seemed to take us all in. The seven of us and Eve, who was sagging against my brothers, then the soldiers, who’d turned to glower at the demon in their presence.

The Ghoul wasn’t stupid .

As it saw us, its wings spread wide and it began to soar, riding on the wind as it moved out, heading away from the temple.

“The next wish!” Eve gasped.

And her words were the trigger. We’d all been stunned speechless at what was going down before us, but we spoke as one after her prompt.

“We wish…

“…for the…”

“…Fallen to…”

“…act as…”

“…God’s hand…”

“…and mete out…”

“…his holy punishment.”

The wind surged as our wish was granted. It appeared from out of nowhere. Beyond us, the plains had been still. The breeze would have been a welcome respite from the heat of the day, in fact, but there’d been no movement. None at all.

The second our wish fell upon the Jannah ’s ears, however, that all changed.

The wind buffeted the crow, so even as it swooped away from the temple, soaring toward the city of Hidalgo itself, it brought it back toward us. Like a magnet.

The crow was tossed and turned in the wind’s buffeting strength, and as the bird returned to us, we heard them.

Footsteps.

Ghouls soared out of each of the openings in the temple. Whether they were secret or just known to them, we’d never have the answers to that, but as thousands of them appeared from out of nowhere, I felt my Sin Eater surge to the fore.

Our training kicked into gear then, making it so we assessed the threat and worked as one unit even though, until this point in our lives, we’d always been two.

We shuffled toward the center of the plateau. Although it was always our intent to hurt as many of the scourge as we physically could, that simply wasn’t possible with the numbers or with Eve to protect.

She had to survive this.

Hell, we all did.

Without her, our wishes couldn’t be granted.

Without us, there was no one to make the wish.

For the first time in a long while, fear truly hit me. It exacerbated the Sin Eater’s rage at being hemmed in, and as the Ghouls stormed toward us, running up the short staircase to reach us, the crow finally hit the airspace above Tula.

Like the soldiers knew it, the grating sounds appeared once more. This time, we were closer, and the stone creaking against stone was reminiscent of nails on a chalkboard. Enough for all of us to cringe.

I knew we were fighting the desire to leap into the fray, to head off the Ghouls and kill as many as we could, but that wasn’t our purpose here today.

We weren’t warriors.

We were a Jannah ’s mates.

She needed us. As we needed her.

The soldiers moved, their great boots stomping as they began to shift into a circle. The Ghouls, spying this phenomenon, paused to take in the sight of ancient monoliths moving like they’d been born for this purpose.

Perhaps they had.

Into this maelstrom, Eve began to sing. Her Lorelei churned out a song that had the Ghouls freezing in place, all several thousand of them hovering in midair on their path to reach us. Startled out of his surprise, Eren joined in, humming along with her as the words she was singing were reminiscent of the language I’d heard her talk in back in London—back when she’d been slaying those Ghouls in a dark alley.

To her serenading song, stone arms shot out, each one gliding against the others as their rough hands clunked against the others’. The light in their veins seemed to pool in their palms until it shone so brightly, it had to be hotter than the sun itself.

From out of nowhere, there was a screeching sound. We dropped to our knees as a tail seemed to waft over us, almost hitting us and throwing us off the plateau—Reed was caught in the backdraft and he was tossed a few feet away.

As he scrambled back toward us, I stared up at the most bizarre sight I could imagine.

Gulping, I bit off, “Is that what I think it is?”

“A feathered serpent?” Samuel rasped, his eyes skyward as were ours.

Even the mesmerized Ghouls appeared fascinated by a display that belonged in some kind of Spielberg movie! Except this was real. This was happening. And we were a part of it.

The creature was massive. Its tail long enough to shroud the temple in its might if it coiled around the edifice. The feathers that crested its tail and head were like a rainbow, except this rainbow was so much more than anything I’d ever seen before.

There were colors there that didn’t exist. That were close to impossible to describe because I’d never seen them before and, truly believed, I’d never see again.

The snout was that of a giant lizard, something that was reminiscent of a dragon of old, and the wings that seemed to be too small for the giant form clung to shoulders that were hidden beneath the plume of feathers. Teeth and beady eyes peeked out of the feathers, making it one of the ugliest, most beautiful things I’d ever seen in my entire life.

As the tail wrapped itself to the temple, using it as an anchor, the Ghouls were knocked aside and decimated with an undulation of its massive body.

Meaning we were safe.

I wanted to drop to my knees in thanks but didn’t, because the war hadn’t even started yet, and for whatever reason, Eve was still singing.

A song that didn’t affect any of her mates.

With our attention skyward once we realized we were safe for the moment, we stared at the giant feathered serpent as it used its grip on the temple to launch itself into the air. The wings beat faster and faster, using the wind that kept the crow in its territory to gain momentum.

When it was airborne, we watched as the serpent circled the crow that was tiny in comparison. Its endless tail moved around and around in a manner that was so reminiscent of what had happened with Drekavac that we knew what was about to occur.

The wind disappeared as quickly as it had stormed into being, and as the serpent finally tightened its tail around the bird, there was a huge bang that seemed to shake the earth itself.

The serpent and the bird in its embrace exploded into flame. The fire was like the one that had consumed Drekavac, burning so hotly that the air itself seemed to heat up and the sweat on my body had nothing to do with the sun, but with the conflagration taking place over fifty feet above me.

Eve’s song finally faltered, and she whimpered as the fire consumed the serpent, but we weren’t surprised when what went up came down, and with another huge bang, both burned corpses sank to the ground.

This time, the earth quaked for real. The temple beneath us began to shudder as though it were being shaken from the inside out, and maybe it was.

As the wind appeared once more, separating the bones of the serpent from the bird’s ashes, the latter soared into the air, spinning in a wide circle .

From the remnants of the serpent—and the Toltec warriors who’d coalesced into the beast—the light that Eve had given it appeared once more, and it poured into a beam that shot forth. When it collided with Eve, she staggered back, her belly glowing once more as the amulet on her form began to pulse. But the light was too much, and as it combined with another quake from the earth, she stumbled backward.

Reed tried to grab her. Fuck, we all did. We rushed toward her, the gouille’s wings springing forth from Nestor’s back as he leaped for her, but she tumbled down the plateaus, the hard brick providing her with no cushion.

We ran after her, but we made it too late. The stairs almost tripped us up since they were so narrow, but we made it without injury. Around us, the world went to shit as the Ghouls that had been tossed aside when the feathered serpent had lashed them, flaying them into pieces, surged into flame, but our focus was on Eve who lay like a pile of broken bones on the ground.

There was no time for basic first aid, no time to process what the hell was happening. The earth quaked again, and this time, the temple began to groan as though it were about to shatter into a thousand pieces.

“I’ll carry her,” Dre called out amid the chilling sounds of an ancient building collapsing.

We had no time to reply as he shifted into his bear. The creature had seen far too few moments in the light and had no chance for further exploration. Instead, it hunkered down, hauled his mate into his arms, and took off at a run that would astonish any passing scientist that was an expert on bears.

We took off after them, running around the fires that burned so hotly that it was no wonder humans were terrified if all in Raum’s line were perishing in the fiery flames, which could only be this hot if they were a weapon from God himself.

The fifteen-minute walk took five minutes at a swift run, and all of us were feeling the tough pace as we sprinted back to the church where we’d parked the car in its lot. Not only was it so hot I felt like my skin was broiling, but the ground beneath us trembled and quivered, making the placement of each foot vital as we ran. If we weren’t careful, we’d fall. If we weren’t fast enough, we’d get caught in the chaos.

Behind us, it sounded like the world itself was coming to an end as the scent of fire hit our nostrils and the heat hit us like a blanket, even though we were a good mile away from it.

Was this fire and brimstone?

The scent was like nothing I’d ever smelled before, and though I wished it were the last time I’d ever experience it, I knew there was one more Original to go.

But, until that time, we had to get Eve the hell out of here.

She was, as always, our priority.