“Azrael—” Gabriel gripped him by the collar urgently.
“When the demon dies, she will just be left with the two sides of her very nature—a hybrid of Angel Descendant and Second Generation Vampire. Zherneboh’s venom will still run through her blood, the darkness fighting inside her against the light. The difference now is that she knows they both exist: the light and the dark. She won’t be able to hide from it anymore, and in her inability to accept both parts of what she is, she will lose her immortality and that frail human body that she was born into will break and she will be ended.…”
I coughed, choking, and Gabriel flashed to my side. Still holding tightly to Azrael, he shouted, “How do you know all this?”
“She was not the first, but she is the last.”
Gabriel’s attention locked on me, and Azrael took the opportunity to break away. As he fled, Ruadhan made chase.
Consumed in such evil, I couldn’t feel my body. Gabriel perched next to me.
“It’s okay, Lai. You will be all right.”
My head throbbed; images of memories I didn’t know I had invaded my mind. Ripping Frederic apart, limb by limb; torturing the Vampires in Hedgerley; and then Bradley’s face conjured in front of me. The image repeated on a loop, until I finally focused in, unable to stop, and watched as I grabbed Jonah from behind, tossing him into a tree, rendering him unconscious while I set about tearing Bradley to pieces. Flecks of black curls blurred across my sight; images of feasting on his blood and remains, before finally turning to the wall; and then the memory dissolved.
I felt my body convulse, her evil coursing through every inch of me.
My eyelids fluttered as I began to remember all the dark acts that I had committed and denied as my own, filling the black spots in my mind.
She was weak now, though she clung to me, her shrieks echoing insanely around my head. I had to push her out, but she was strong and fighting for survival, despite the blade in my chest.
I could taste the ash that invaded my lungs, and I clung to the smell. Then the scene around me distorted. Time fractured. I reached behind my shoulder and gripped the hilt of the sword. Using her supernatural strength against her and squeezing my eyes tightly, I wrenched the blade from my chest, flinging it across the snow.
My blood splattered, forming a red carpet against the white.
I drifted backward, resting on the ground beneath me, staring up at the white flakes that were descending and cooling my face.
As I lay in the cold, the blizzard calmed so that it felt as though I was in a glass snow globe. Time tipped the magical lake and forest upside down, leaving the symmetrical shapes to sway delicately across my vision.
The sword skimmed the surface of the icy lake, and finally the castle with its swans fell into its freezing center.
The monster of my fairy tale was slain and time resumed once more.
Gabriel was reaching for me, but he was too late. He couldn’t compete with fractured time; it made me so much quicker.
When she left, so too did her anesthesia, rendering me paralyzed with pain.
“No!” Jonah’s urgent voice cut through the now still air.
I flicked my eyes open to see Gabriel kneeling over me. A brilliant light balanced gently on the tip of his lips.
“Gabriel, you’ll end her!”
“I need to dispel the demon! I can’t feel Lailah, I have to save her!” he shot back.
“The demon is gone, look at her, look!” Jonah was shaking Gabriel away from me.
“The marks have left her. You’re seeing her the way I do, the part of her that is like me. If you fill her with your light now you might kill her.”
Jonah’s hand was tugging Gabriel desperately away from me. I watched him fall to his knees. He looked lost.
My body convulsed, now agonized. I clutched my chest as a volcano of pain erupted inside me. Tugging off his jacket, Jonah pressed the leather down forcefully against my chest and I let out a scream as he applied pressure.
“If we let her darkness take over, let her stay like me, maybe … if she drinks from me, she might have a chance.…”
“You’ll eclipse her light.” Gabriel’s reply was short and hollow.
“Maybe, but she might go on.…” Jonah said.
“Like this? There must be another way! If she can find her light, if she can somehow accept both sides of what she is, she will survive this!”
I listened in, unsure of what light he was referring to. With every passing second, the part of me that seemed to know Gabriel only drifted further away.
Reaching for the smallest pocket of air that sat in my lungs, I whimpered. My body was shutting down and my mind fell over itself, bewildered and confused.
“I heard Azrael. He said she would never be able to accept. If you love her, let her go. Please let me try.”
I didn’t hear Gabriel protest any further and his silhouette disappeared from the corner of my vision, clearly unable to bring himself to watch.
Jonah was staring at me now, bloodied and bruised. Despite my incoherent senses, I tasted his scent as it rode the breeze.
Jonah pierced the skin around his wrist and laid himself on his side next to me. He didn’t hesitate to raise his bloodied hand to my lips.
As I stretched my neck toward him, I caught his dark pupils gazing down at me and I was distracted for a moment by them. I paused as they grew bigger, anticipating me. I managed to push my nose toward him, a burning rising in my throat but, as I snatched his wrist and pulled it close, something caused me to stop, going against every fiber in my body.
How do you see light against light?
My hand shook, flinching in trepidation.
It was only as the darkness crept forward that for a few moments in time, the faint crack of a bright, shimmering silver contrasted against the void.
I remembered those words and I battled to recall when I had heard them. They were spoken with such softness.…
As my eyes met Jonah’s once more, I gasped as, in the black of his pupils, I caught a glimpse of my reflection shining back at me. Lasting for only the briefest of moments, a miracle of silvers glowed back.
It was in his darkness that I found my light.
I remembered the image in the lake. Lailah.
Suddenly his cinnamon scent was not so appealing. I pushed his hand away from me, remembering who I was. I would not be consumed by the darkness; I would not let half of me become trapped forever.
“No.” I struggled.