“So, I bet…” she started but did not finish. Watched by all, she turned and stretched out for the ball of light. “If we break the sun…”
Mika dashed from his position by Andrew and pushed Carly away from the globes. “Carly, no! It’ll burn you.”
“And it’ll kill you! That light up there isn’t a representation of the sun. It’s pure sunlight in there.” If they so much as touched the orb, it might kill them. “You kept me alive for a reason, even if you didn’t know it.”
“I’m not letting that thing burn you to death.”
“Likewise!” she shot back. “What other option have we got?”
“Oh, Andrew?” sang Robyn, in the soft sing-song voice that no man had ever been able to say no to. “Come here, sweetie. You know you really shouldn’t have asked that. I think we may have found a use for you.”
Carly read the look of fear on his ace and stopped Robyn just as she was about to thrust him forward. “Wait,” she commanded and held up a hand. “I know he’s done some really, really bad things but- “
“He’s still your friend and he doesn’t deserve this to happen,” Mika finished for her. Beside them, Robyn grabbed Andrew by the throat and tossed him across the room to either cower in terror or hit his head and fall unconscious.
“No. I think he should rot in Hell for what he’s done. That was unforgivable. But I don’t want to see another person die today. I can’t deal with that.”
“So what are you saying?” He absently scratched the back of his hand, where it had been burnt. “Maybe our friendly neighbourhood shaman can survive it.” Except the shaman was not feeling very co-operative at the moment.
Suddenly the room filled with a bright light and, if they squinted, they could just about make out Robyn holding the mini sun in front of her. “We were here when the human race began. We’ll be here when it finishes.” Of course! Why hadn’t they thought of it before. It was so obvious! Robyn was wearing Annie’s necklace, the pendant with untold power within. She began to squeal and her hands began to shake, her body to convulse. She refused to let go of the orb because the room would explode with the blast if she dropped it. Did saving the world mean that she wouldn’t be left here to see it?
At the edges of the room, the other four looked on. Andrew sat curled up in a corner, using the least space possible, scrunching his eyes up in the blinding light. The shaman looked on calmly, as if everything was going to plan, then clasped his hands over his tight stomach and began to laugh. Mika just stood watching his one and only love go through the pain of sacrifice, and wondered why the sunlight wasn’t burning him up. He actually had tears in his eyes as he looked on. Carly dropped to her knees, then all fours and closed her eyes against the brightness that was stinging her eyes.
Robyn could feel it. Though the necklace was never meant for her, she could feel the power it held coursing through her veins and electrifying all the nerve endings in her body. She felt strong.
TWENTY ONE
Alone, at dusk, Mika sat at a table outside Robyn’s favourite French restaurant fingering her silver and crystal necklace. Nothing was going to be the same again. People in red jackets buzzed around the town on Vespas, trying to get things back to normal – or as normal as things could ever be. They called themselves the Red Angels and he noticed that one of them was the dreadlocked young woman who tried to help him when he got shot. On sight, he touched the old BB hole that hadn’t even left a scar, just remembering that it had happened. He’d been shot with real bullets too. He’d sired some-one, had a hand in saving the world, been haunted by memories of what he’d once done and dealt death to more demons and humans than he cared to think about. He still relished the kill, that was in his genes, but it would never be quite the same again.
He saw Carly walk up the street and skid the necklace onto the table. She was clean, wearing clothes that fit her properly, and had her arm in a sling. The doctors had said that she had very nearly dislocated it as well as having it burnt through. She still had a few cuts and bruises on her face, but the worst of it had washed away in the shower. “Hey.”
“Did they sort you out at the hospital?”
She gestured with her arm that she was wearing a sling. “They gave me painkillers. Robyn was amazing. The whole thing blew me away.”
“How did you manage to keep going?”
Carly shrugged with one shoulder and picked up the pendant, letting it dangle from her index finger. “I had to. I was so tired but I just felt this thing. Inside. Like I just had to keep going.”
“That’s what the end of the world looks like, I suppose. Never looked like that before.”
“They said we couldn’t stop it, that the Earth was beyond rescue.” Why was the Earth still here then? Why was it so populated? It was easy to jump to the conclusion that time had simply rewound but there were Red Angels here who weren’t helping before. They might never know what had really happened out here while they were at the
heart of the action, but Carly thought time had made the appropriate adjustments and had been reset. “But, we did it – Robyn did it.”
Mika looked at her and touched the cut above her eyes. It wasn’t painful to the touch, but she could feel it. It suddenly reminded him how easy it was to hurt a mortal being, how easy to scar them forever. He should want to kill Carly, draw her blood, but he just didn’t. He wanted to protect her still. She was a member of his little family, and family came above all else. “You did it in the sewers. I should’ve been there.”
“It’s nothing. It’s healing already. Everything heals eventually.” She wasn’t sure if she were telling him or herself that. “She’s coming.”
“Yeah. How did you know?”
Carly closed her fingers around the chain and stared up at the stars in the ink-blue sky. “I belong to the night.”
END
About the author
Wendy Maddocks lives in Birmingham, England, with her slightly crazy family. She blames them for her twisted imagination. Sanity is not her friend. She enjoys reading and studying, working out and eating cake, which makes her fat and in need of yet another gym session. (Yes, I’m a masochist!) After graduating from university, Wendy began publishing her own work online and is always working on new writing projects. What will happen when she runs out of ideas?
Connect with her on Facebook, Tumblr or on Twitter @writerwenz84
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