Page 66 of Samhain Savior

“Archer, let her go! I want to talk to her.”

“You do not know of what you speak,witch.”

“Go to hell, demon.”

Before he could stop me, I reached for the orb that Helena still held, my bloody fingers grasping the golden ball tightly.

But the second I touched it, the whole world exploded.

Chapter twenty-nine

Archer

The light was blinding, a flash so bright and pure that I would have thought it was the Holy Fire itself. As the pulse of light flared outward from the golden orb, it struck me square in the chest, sinking in and stealing my breath, nearly knocking me sideways.

As quickly as it came, it was gone again, leaving me panting as I fought to gather my wits.

The first thing I noticed was that we were no longer in the cemetery, the misty autumn afternoon in New England had been replaced with dry, parched air. The damp grass beneath our feet was now just packed, gray ash and the soothing sound of the distant bay was now nothing but endless, echoing silence.

Turning in a slow circle, I could see nothing but gently rolling hills of ash and soot, dead trees with skeletal arms reaching to a sky filled with churning black clouds. The otherworldly light that always seemed to justexistwith no real visible source was dim, everywhere and nowhere all at once.

There was a light breeze, but instead of being fresh, like the water off the Boston Harbor, it was rancid, with hints of decomposition and smoke that made me want to vomit.

I was home.

I knew it immediately, the familiar sensation of despair and hopelessness permeating down to my very bones.

But how in the fuck had we gotten here?

Blowing out a frustrated breath, I took a look around, trying to better gauge our surroundings. We were in Hell, obviously, but Hell was a very large place. There were any number of minor nobles who could be ruling this district, and not all of them were on good terms with the Brotherhood.

Shaking my head to help clear it, I noticed I still held Helena by the throat, her weight so light it was nearly inconsequential. But, rather than squalling and thrashing as she had been, she now hung limp, her face red and her eyes closed. She was breathing, but that was about it.

Weak.

For someone who thought she could take me on, it was pathetic how quickly her bravado had crumbled beneath my claws.

Grunting in disgust, I released her, ignoring the way her body thudded to the dusty ground, and instead looked for Delilah.

I found her not too far away, on her knees and crouched over what remained of the orb. The weathervane had fractured, the orb cracked open like an egg, the pieces lying in the dirt. Whatever magic had held them together was gone now, leaving behind only misshapen hunks of half-melted gold in the ash at Delilah’s feet.

Stalking toward her, I breathed out a sigh, my relief at seeing her alive palpable, and tucked the knife I still held into the waistband of what remained of my pants.

Delilah hunched forward as I approached, her body curling over the remains of the orb as though she was protecting it—protecting herself—from me.

“Go away,” she hissed, her body shaking beneath her filthy cloak.

“Are you alright, witch?” I asked urgently. I couldn’t see her, but I could hear the rapid beat of her heart, the way the air sawed raggedly in and out of her lungs.

And I could smell her blood where it trickled down her throat, causing a growl to build low in my chest.

“It’s mine! You’re just trying to take it from me.”

As her distress increased, so did her heart rate, the scent of iron and salt catching my attention as the blood continued to seep down her neck.

“She cut you,” I rasped, my anger palpable as I rested a hand on her shoulder, trying to turn her to face me. “Let me see it.”

“Leave me be!” she insisted, attempting to shake me off. Her focus was on the thing laying in the ash before her, the relic that all this bullshit had started over. From what I could see, it appeared to be a diamond, multifaceted and glimmering, it seemed to pulse soft inner light that beat like a heart.