I couldn’t reach her; she was already moving toward the Pureblood, whose attention was now firmly placed on her.
I tried to find Gabriel, but it was as though he had blocked me—I couldn’t hear him and he couldn’t hear me. I watched helplessly as he fought with the smoke, his body glowing as he tried to overcome it.
I shouted for her, but she didn’t listen to me as she glided toward Zherneboh. The edge of his top lip rose and he snarled, finally turning.
She stopped about forty feet away from him as he revolved back to the now shrinking black smudge that levitated in the distance. He stretched out his clawed hand in front of him as he grew the gateway.
The smoke began to evaporate as Gabriel’s light won the struggle; he coughed and spluttered, but he was okay.
I called to him, but he didn’t even look at me. He was desperately scrambling to his feet, falling as he tried to get up.
The air shifted behind me. Azrael had appeared. He was with Ruadhan. My lovely Ruadhan. I tried to shout to him to leave, but the words didn’t leave my lips. I couldn’t let him be ended. And as the fondness I felt toward Ruadhan filled my consciousness, I remembered Gabriel’s light and his love.
I was on my feet. I didn’t know who to go to first, and I stood rooted to the spot, my attention swerving to the scene behind me.
Through the battering of the blizzard, I observed Azrael heave Ethan’s discarded sword from the ground, tilting his head from side to side as he considered it. He drew a small gold box from his pocket. Whatever was inside glowed as he smothered the tip of the sword with the substance.
I twisted my body back to the girl; though the backdrop was a perfect white, she was still shrouded in shadow. I flew across the snow as she began gliding forward. I lined myself up with her body as I reached her and we stood side by side. I had to know who she was and I had to convince her to help us.
“Please!” I cried.
But she just continued forward as if I didn’t exist.
I grabbed for her shoulder, but my hand moved through her as if she were made of air. I stopped as short, sharp memories of her flashed across my mind.
She came to a halt before Zherneboh, whose attention was now embroiled in harnessing the diminishing gateway to the third dimension. I watched him ooze black ink from out of his palms, which floated toward the smudge, cascading into its center. It began enlarging in size. Then the realization of what he was doing hit me. He was going to take her through with him. But why?
Inhaling quickly, I turned to find Gabriel.
As I did, the girl in the shadow reflected my action and turned to meet me.
I froze.
Glowering back at me was me. She wore my face, only she had sharp canines resting slightly over her lower lip and her eyes were enormous black holes, boring into my own.
I bounced backward, in shock, as did she. I moved my hand in the air and she did the same. Confused, a thousand questions ran through my mind. Why was she mirroring me?
As my thoughts whirled, a forceful cracking disturbed the stillness and my attention became transfixed on the sword that struck from behind, fissuring its way through her shoulder blade, piercing straight into her heart. The blade broke through the sternum and punctured the front of her form.
Zherneboh let out a harrowing screech.
I lunged forward to the girl and as I did, she seemed to melt into me. My eyes fixed on the sword that was now perforating my own chest. Shaking, I brought my hands to clutch either side of the blade; it was then that I saw the tattooed markings covering my arms and the loose curls cascading down my face, coal black.
The truth was undeniable. The girl in the shadow wasn’t mimicking my face.…
She had always been me.
There was no other explanation. She was an extreme darkness that had been hiding inside me all this time, patiently waiting to take over.
I jolted forward as an explosion of light soared from behind me. I felt Zherneboh’s presence in me disperse as he left this plane; Gabriel had pushed Zherneboh back through to his own dimension, sealing the gateway.
As he faded away, the tattoos running the length of my arms began to shrink, disappearing slowly. The sharp daggers boring through my knuckles began fading away, until my skin was white and clean once more.
She was dying.
I turned around and lifted my face to find Ruadhan, his hand still held in midair where he had gripped the hilt of the sword, and Azrael positioned several feet behind him.
“Cessie?” Ruadhan’s voice quaked. “No, love! No!”
He reached to wipe a tear from my cheek, and pulled away, his hand covered in blood. “You said it was a Pureblood!” Ruadhan screamed. “You said she was safe!”
Azrael smirked triumphantly behind him.
I tried to speak. I ran my tongue along the razor points of my teeth and felt them as they became blunt once more. I dropped to my knees.
Gabriel was at my side first, but he flinched, withdrawing from me as he took in the blade lodged through my chest.
“What did you do to her?” Gabriel shouted, turning to Azrael.
Gabriel’s words surrounded me, but he wasn’t with me; there was no sense of his connection. All that existed now was a void.
“I didn’t do anything. You can all see what she was harboring inside her now. You couldn’t do your job, so I had to do it for you. Albeit by Ruadhan’s hand.”
“I didn’t know…” Ruadhan’s voice was empty, his arms hanging low at his sides; he seemed to sway.
“You created her, how could you…!” Gabriel stuttered.
“Two hundred years I have wandered this disgusting world searching for her mother. I struck a deal with the Arch Angels—I find Aingeal, I find the Descendant. I find the Descendant, I end her existence. Then we could both return home. I’ll settle for my own return, I don’t need Aingeal. I will have the light of Styclar-Plena.”
He spat on the ground where I perched, numb.
“You think they’ll let you return when you are so tainted?” Gabriel said. “You’ve been corrupted by this world, and now you will fall.”
Azrael staggered backward as Gabriel lunged for him. He reached for the back of his neck, and when nothing happened, he seemed to panic.
“How can I save her?” Gabriel yelled as he grabbed him.
“You can’t. The demon inside her is already dying. Look, see for yourself,” he said, gesturing to me. “The demon strikes when Lailah goes beyond her dark Vampire side. Likely her Pureblood lineage morphs through her skin in extreme situations, or of course when there happens to be a Pureblood in near proximity.”