Destiny Be Damned by Rebecca Royce
I was so glad they were back. I didn’t think I’d ever known as much peace as I did right then. “Why should you have had to battle? You didn’t know, you couldn’t say. You didn’t have to lie. You looked as shocked as they did. That was the idea. Did you say you collected people?”
Wayne rubbed my leg from where he lay at the end of the bed. “My father. Gordon’s father. Your mother. They’re going to stay here and follow us in a bit. We thought about Lennon’s parents but decided against grabbing them immediately. They know where we’re going. If they want to come, they can follow on their own. We didn’t have Lennon to ask. That was the best we could do.”
I wiped the tears from my eyes. They’d brought my mother. In all of the commotion, I’d hardly thought of her, or not let myself, because first and foremost I had to be a Sister; I had to fight the demons. But I was so relieved. Truly, deeply grateful. And I was so glad that Gordon and Wayne’s fathers were with us, too. Where would they live? What would they do? Anne’s mother came and went from the Sisterhood. It was amazing. We were supposed to be family-less, but like the woman I encouraged to bring her baby to the Sisterhood, we could be stronger if we weren’t so alone. I choked back my emotions even though I knew they could feel it. “Close your eyes, guys. I’ll take care of you.”
We’d been on the carriage—all of us on top of it—for four hours when the first demon hit my powers, turning them on. I groaned, and a second later so did my charges.
“Stop?” Neil turned around to ask me, and I nodded. I would not leave a demon to roam, not if I could stop it. He hit the lever, and the steam powered down the carriage.
I took a deep breath. I had no idea what I was about to face, but I looked at the three girls next to me. I was their teacher.
“Clara come with me.” She was the oldest of the group. At some point, we all faced our first demon. Mine had been in the basement of the old Sisterhood with a class watching me almost fail. If Clara faltered, I would catch her.
Devyn and Jayne both cried out, distress making them grip onto each other, but Clara stayed still, her gaze on my own. She nodded, no argument at all. She was going to be fourteen. It was time.
The guys watched, glances passing between them, but they otherwise didn’t comment. Neil scooted back. I guessed he was staying with Devyn and Jayne. That was interesting. Sometime I’d have to ask him why he’d chosen that spot. Wayne caught up to me, standing right behind Clara and myself. Gordon and Lennon spread out left and right. Ren jumped down and stayed next to the carriage.
Their alignment was different than I’d expected. It looked dissimilar to what other guards did. I’d not had my sight to see what they’d done the last time I encountered a demon, so I didn’t know if this was typical for them or not. I knew Neil hadn’t stayed in the carriage so that was different.
No matter.
Up ahead, the demon stepped in front of the carriage. I sighed. It was a level four demon. A big one. “Wayne can you see it?”
“I can,” he answered. “Big. Ugly. Not as scary as that chaos thing.”
That was a fairly good description of the demon in front of me. He was huge, greenish-brownish, and he had horns on his head. He wasn’t the strongest demon I’d faced. That didn’t mean we didn’t need to use an abundance of caution. Sisters died when they got careless and lazy. I would be neither. He was the perfect one to start Clara on her path.
I hoped Daniella didn’t kill me for this. It was one thing when she was never going to see Clara again, but now that we were breaking destiny, they would be reunited. Her mother might not like this.
That was fine.
She was my student.
Right at this moment, I trumped Mom.
“Clara, this is a stage four demon.” The beast roared, and I rolled my eyes. “They don’t like their categories. It’s an ego thing.”
He snickered. “Filthy Sister, I will eat your student’s brains.”
My hands itched. I’d done something new when I’d squished the last demon during my blindness. It was never too late to learn new things. I yearned to do it now, which was funny. I’d never given a thought to how hard it was for my teachers to not kill the demons during lessons.
“Clara, can you understand it when it speaks?”
She nodded. “I haven’t studied the old tongues yet, but for some reason I can.”
“I’m going to tell you a secret. Well, it’s not a secret. For some of us the tongues are natural. Like we already know them. Not everyone. Teagan had to study them. Don’t tell her I told you.” I was trying to keep her calm. “You’re like me. We just know them. That’s good.”
He charged us. If he hit us, I suspected it would burn. I didn’t know for sure. Every demon encounter was different. Horns usually meant burn.
I jolted him back a step, hitting him with energy yet resisting the urge to kill. “Foul creature, you will be dead soon enough. Don’t rush to your end. We have things we can teach her together. You by being you, and me by using you as an example. So you see the stupid thing you did today by getting in our way will make your death not so worthless. Thanks for that. Clara, raise your hand.”
She did. I noticed it shook just a little. That was normal. Nobody with a brain in their head could do this and not be nervous about it. My hands trembled all the time.
The demon charged again, and I pushed him back. If I could hold him still, that would be more useful.
“Can you feel your powers in the tips of your fingers?”
She nodded, and I touched her shoulder. “Let them out.”
It didn’t happen that very second. It was one thing for me to tell her to do it and another for it to actually happen. One second she wasn’t a demon-killing Sister and the next she was. The demon fell backward. Clara’s energy was different than my own. I squashed and assaulted, she drained. The demon started to fade. His eyes widened as he realized what was happening. I’d wanted to make him be still—Clara actually did. Caught in the web of her energy, he wasn’t going anywhere.
I took my hand off her just to watch. Her lips quivered, and her face was pale. This was taking a toll on her, which was to be expected. Nothing about what she did was easy nor should it be.
The horned creature shrank. He was practically nothing. I’d never seen this kind of reduction before. I didn’t know what was going to happen next. Clara opened her mouth, the words coming out in the old tongue that she and I could understand perfectly. “Foul creature, leave this place. I forgive you.”
Pop. The small demon exploded into a million pieces and drifted away, like dust in the wind.
Clara stumbled, and I caught her a second before Wayne had his hand on both our backs. “You okay, Sisters?”
He’d used the plural on purpose. Clara smiled then stared at me with huge, brown eyes. “Sister Mika, I did it.”
“Sister Clara”—I took a page from Wayne’s book—“you sure did.”
“I’m a little shaky.”
I put my arm around her. “That’s normal. Come sit on the carriage. You’ll feel better.”
She might pass out, but I didn’t want to put that idea in her head if she wasn’t going to. My powers still buzzed. I hadn’t really gotten to use them, and I expected to feel sort of disgruntled for a while until they calmed, but this was different. They’d start to cool without the presence of the demon. Neil extended his hand, and Clara took it to climb to the top of the carriage.
Goosebumps stood up on the back of my neck, and I whirled around. Standing on a hill looking down at us was a creature without form. Total darkness. A shadow that both was and wasn’t there.
“Mika?” Wayne was still behind me. “You okay?”
I shook my head. “Can you see what’s on the hill?”
Neil answered from on top of the carriage. “I don’t see anything, Mika.”
I always had to check. Sisters could view lots of things guards couldn’t see. The sky was empty. No ravens or spirits to guide me. “Girls?”
Jayne spoke for them this time. “No, Sister Mika.”
Then it was just me. We were alone on a road in the middle of nowhere, and we’d been attacked by an idiotic demon who hadn’t really known how to fight back. Why would he have done that? Well, because that thing on the hill had told it to.
I stepped toward it. My calling was to fight evil, even the things that frightened me. Fear rolled through my body, leaving goosebumps in its wake.
You should be afraid of me, Mika.
The shadow’s voice was like the wind, barely there, a whisper in my ear. “What are you?”
I asked, but I knew. What was worse was it knew that I knew.
What am I? There was laughter in its response.
“Mika?” Gordon called to me, but I held up my hand to stop him. I had to do this. They couldn’t see it or hear it. That didn’t make what was on that hill any less real.
“You are what always was. The shadow that tempted that first girl. You took her. You used her and then you took another and another until you got to now. You have Katrina, and you mean to destroy us all. You are unseen. And I can’t defeat you. Not here, not now, probably not ever. My gifts are many, but they do not touch you.”
You see me. Now I know that you do.
He vanished, and I still couldn’t move. I stood on that road, staring at the empty hill long after the shadow left.
Lennon touched my cheek, and Ren took my hand. It was the former who spoke. “It’s bad, isn’t it?”
“Well”—I cleared my dry throat—“there are lots of things that are bad. The demon Clara took down qualifies as that. What I just saw on the hill goes beyond my ability to understand. What I just saw on the hill is why we live in the end of days, why we are spending our lives trying to battle back an apocalypse. Is it possible that one creature could cause all of this? Yes it is. And he just spoke to me.”
I was back by the fire. My guards behind me. These waking dreams I was pulled into did nothing to help me get any real rest. In the back of my head, I knew I was really asleep in an inn. Neil and Gordon next to me. Ren watching the girls, Lennon and Wayne in the room next door. None of that mattered. We were all together around this fire, which meant every one of us had fallen asleep. I hoped the girls were okay.
“As you pointed out today by teaching Clara, they are stronger than they seem. They have to be.”
The True Sister Superior appeared before me, her voice coming first.
I nodded at her. “Sister.”
This shouldn’t be surprising to me, I supposed. One did not simply encounter the root of the apocalypse and not expect to have a conversation with the divine.
“You have seen it.”
The guys were still, silent. I turned to look at them before I answered her. They were fine, just unmoving, more like statues, as though they were there but not really present.
“I did.”
She waited. “And?”
“And what? There is no beating that thing. Not as it is. I couldn’t touch it. Even with my powers on, I understood the battle would be futile. That is a creature that has for so long taken over people like me, used us against the world, and destroyed all in its path that I cannot begin to fathom what to do about it. I have to get back. I have to explain to Teagan why her visions can’t be used to dictate our lives, which I think she already knows deep inside. I have to tell Anne that Katrina is possessed. I have to… I have to…”
There were other things I had to do. They were all on the tip of my brain like I couldn’t quite reach them. “I have to be the Oracle. I have to find the Sisters. I have to teach.”
She waited again. The woman was endlessly patient. It was probably why she was who she was. “And?”
I didn’t want to speak this truth, but hiding from it didn’t make it go away. “That shadow. It’s not just a demon.”
“None of them are just demons.” She pointed at the sky where the ravens danced. I stared at them for a moment. There was a reason my guys weren’t moving. They were here but also not. Right at that moment, they were the birds, watching.
“Like none of my guards are really just guards. Like none of you are really just women.”
She pointed at me. “Like you are not really just a woman. To that matter, no one is just a woman. They can’t always fight demons, but every woman has magic.”
“That shadow used to be human. It takes many forms.” I knew this like I knew how to breathe. “That’s how it wins. No one sees it for what it is. In fact, not everyone can see it at all. Were all demons once humans?”
Sister Superior sighed. “Go back to the Sisterhood and see, Sister Mika. That is your gift. You can see what others can’t. The Oracle always can. Even when she’s blind. And you are like no Oracle I’ve ever known. I don’t know what will happen, Mika. Everything is changed. I never imagined the shadow would come to you. He is in play now, but I fear that while you are strong enough—maybe the only one right now capable of beating him—he is not yours to beat. With all that has changed, I just don’t know anymore.”
I didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing. I wasn’t going to ask.
24
See what is…
I woke to Neil’s mouth on mine. He tugged me against him tighter. He was hard and needy. His hands were everywhere. “Mika,” he whispered against my lips, “fly with me.”
I wasn’t sure what he meant exactly, but then it didn’t matter because it was like his words dragged me back down into sleep, this time into his arms. We flew together. How was this possible? I looked up at him. He had wings, black ones, like the ravens. I wrapped my arms around him. I didn’t know how we were flying. Were we asleep?
I couldn’t tell.
“Stop overthinking it, my love, and fly with me.” The wind gushed against me, and I shrieked, joy filling me for the first time in a while.
Neil spun us in a circle. “Hate to lose you, but I have to share.”
What? Neil tossed me in the air and Wayne caught me. He had wings, too. I kissed his chin. “How is this happening? Is it a dream? A memory?”
He dropped down then soared us back up. “Does it matter?”
I supposed it didn’t. I decided just to enjoy the sense of being in the air, free and fast with no cares in the world. I wasn’t even surprised when Wayne tossed me to Gordon. He held me tight. He flew just a tad slower than Wayne, and I thought it might be because he gazed into my eyes so intensely he couldn’t concentrate on keeping up the speed.
“I love you, Mika. I’m so happy you could fly with us today.”
We spun in a circle, and then Gordon passed me to Ren. He shot straight up like an arrow flying into the sky, and I held on, enjoying the feeling of being out of control. I wasn’t in charge of this moment, he was, and I’d never been so happy to let someone lead. Drops of water hit my cheeks. The higher we flew, the more drops I encountered.
Ren stopped, hovering where we were. “Trust me?”
“Always.”
He nodded. “I’d never let anything happen to you.”
I knew he wouldn’t, which was why when he let me go, I was so shocked. I fell toward the ground fast for all of three seconds. I screamed, and Lennon’s arms were around me. Ren rushed down, pausing just next to us for one second. “I told you I’d never let anything happen to you.” He kissed my cheek before he burst back so high I couldn’t follow him anymore.
Lennon and I hovered, and I was glad for the moment to let my heart rate slow. “I can’t believe he dropped me.”
“Only so I could catch you. You wouldn’t have gotten anywhere near the ground.”
I loved the feel of the sun on my back and the way the wind bumped Lennon and me around gently. He must have had enough of staying still because he slowly flew left before he picked up speed, darting us around.
I was laughing so hard that I eventually ended up crying, tears of happiness flowing down my cheeks.
See what is…
I woke up to
Had that been a dream?
Did it matter?
We pulled into the Sisterhood in the middle of the next day. I didn’t know how everyone else was feeling, but I was short tempered and mentally done. I needed to stop traveling. It was time for me to stay where I was.
No one must have had a vision we’d be coming. There was no one waiting at the gate for us.
See what is…
I kept hearing the true Sister Superior in my head. I would love to know what I had to see. I’d gladly see it already. My bad mood was really out of hand.
Lennon jumped down and opened the gate for us, and we drove inside the Sisterhood. The door to the main house—flying buttresses and all—flung open, and everyone piled outside. I turned my focus from the Sisters I didn’t know to the group that I did. Anne, Daniella—who had covered her mouth with her hand—and Teagan.
If none of them had a vision, that meant divinity wanted this to be a surprise. Neil got off the carriage then helped me down.
Anne walked to me first. I braced myself. I’d broken the rules doing this, and I had no idea what kind of welcome I would get. This might be a fight to stay, but I intended to win. Even if the island wasn’t about to become dangerous, I wasn’t made for hiding in the fog.
She threw her arms around me, and I hugged her back even as I digested that it was happening. “Are you okay, Anne?”
“We missed you. And it’s felt so wrong that we basically sent you away blind. You can see right now, can’t you?”
I nodded, pulling back. “I missed all of you, too, and there’s a lot to say.”
Teagan was next. She didn’t hug me, but then she wasn’t as much a touchy person as Anne was. “How? You should be dead.”
I shook my head. “Teagan, you yourself know that every decision, every action, every thought we have determines our future. I decided that wasn’t going to work for me. I decided it was also not going to kill me. I’m strong. Too strong to hide, too strong not to fight. I belong here.”