Total Eclipse

Chapter Twelve

Imara was standing at the front of the chapel, silhouetted by the giant sweep of windows that displayed the eclipsed sun, the red sky, the dramatic drop of the canyons. It was the kind of view that would make anyone religious, I’d always thought, but right now, all I could see was my daughter, standing motionless in front of all that glory, with sand whipping around her like a tornado. Her black hair was lifting on an invisible wind, and her eyes were just as dark, lid to lid, like a night sky flecked with exploding stars. She was . . . terrifying.

And angry.

“Imara,” David said, and walked down the aisle toward her. “I’m sorry, but we had to come. You know this place won’t last much longer. You’ll fall, and when you do, you’ll destroy. We can stop it, if you’ll help us.”

She laughed. It was a wretched, despairing sound, and it lashed at our faces like slaps. I winced and wanted to turn away; I hated seeing her like this, so alien and far from the child I’d known. All grown up, some part of my brain contributed helpfully. Parents never do understand their children.

“You’re fools,” she said. “I tried to stop you. I tried to tell you, it’s useless. I don’t want to see you hurt, don’t you understand? I can’t protect you!”

“We’re not asking you to, sweetheart,” I said. “Please. I know you can hear her. Open yourself up, and let us talk through you. I’m begging you, for the sake of the half of you that was once like me. Please.”

“Mom, it won’t help, don’t you get it? You think she doesn’t know about humanity? About what it is, what it’s done? This is the reckoning. We all told you it would come.” Imara was crying, black tears like oil that marred her perfect, pale face. “If I open the connection, I can’t shut it off. I’ll be lost. We’ll all be lost.”

Out there, canyons trembled, and rocks shifted, and I saw part of the cliff face opposite shear away and fall to the rocks below. Her perfect sanctuary couldn’t hold. She couldn’t hold.

None of us could.

“Please,” Lewis said, and stepped forward. Imara’s black eyes focused on him, and I saw him falter, just a little, before he continued moving toward her. “Please let her see me.”

“She’ll destroy you,” Imara said. “Don’t you know that?”

“Yes,” he said. “I know. It’s the only chance we have. I’m willing to take that risk.”

“It’s not a risk. It’s a certainty.”

I took in a sharp breath, and David’s grip on my hand tightened, warning me not to interfere. We’d done what we could, and now, Lewis had shouldered the burden.

As I’d known he would, from the beginning. This was what Lewis had been saving himself for all along—not his survival, but to be sure that his death counted for something important.

I’d thought, more than once, that he was a cold, manipulative bastard, and that was all true . . . but this was true, too. He’d sacrificed others, but he’d done it because he knew, eventually, that he’d stand here, in this place, and be the only one who could change the world.

My heart was breaking to pieces, but I understood.

Imara took in a deep breath and closed her eyes. Behind her, the eclipsed sun exploded back into fiery, full life, burning brighter, brighter, until I had to shut my eyes and turn away from it.

When the light receded, I looked back, and met the eyes of Mother Earth.

They weren’t white. They were all the colors of the sea swirling together, deep blue and warm turquoise and milky jade green. They were so beautiful. So peaceful.

So utterly merciless.

Her gaze held me, and I felt drowned in a vast, astonishing warmth. But it wasn’t acceptance. Everything in me was being emptied out, examined, and found wanting.

The warmth abruptly cut off, and I sank down to my knees, sobbing with longing to feel that again, be that again. I thought I’d touched her consciousness before, but it had been nothing like this, this—power. I’d never felt anything like it, and I knew that, like the screams of the Djinn, I’d never be able to not feel it, on some level. She had taken me, marked me, and discarded me.

Next to me, David slowly, gracefully, bent one knee, and I saw him stare fearlessly into her eyes. Imara’s face took on a hint of a smile, and I felt the echoes of the warmth that cascaded into him, through him, waves of ecstasy that burned even as removed as I was from the experience. Only a Djinn could have withstood that, and even David finally bowed his head, trembling and shaking.

She fastened that deadly, warm, perfect gaze on Lewis, and I heard him let out a sound that was something between a sigh and a moan. His body went rigid, head thrown back, and light streamed from him in golden flickers and flows, cascading into Imara.

Into the Earth.

“No,” he said hoarsely, and with a huge effort, he stopped. He denied her.

I couldn’t imagine how that was possible, but he did it. He advanced toward her, until they were no more than a foot apart, and Lewis said, “You can’t have me. Not like this. Not if you destroy my people.”

The sea-blue eyes slowly blinked. “Your people chose this,” she said, and her voice was vast and bell-like, and the windows behind Imara shattered in a hail of glittering shards that fell away into the canyon. Wind whipped in, and I saw storms forming, black and furious. More of the canyon cliffs opposite fell away as the land rocked and shifted. The wooden pews in the chapel burst into white-hot flame and burned to ashes in seconds. “They were warned.”

Lewis was shaking now, and he fell to his knees in front of her, but his fists were clenched. “No,” he gritted out. “Let them live. Let us live. You owe me this.”

She laughed, and it was the harsh, ripping sound of claws, the whisper of feathers, the roar of lions. I was terrified, and so small, so very small before the power in this room.

The power that Lewis still resisted.

“I owe you nothing,” the Mother said. “You owe me everything. And I will have it in payment for pain.”

“That’s what you want!” Lewis shouted, and somehow his voice rang louder here, in this place, than hers. “But I know what you need!”

I had no idea how he could be doing this, talking to her—Imara was the only one who could have made that connection, amplified his voice to a level where it could be heard and understood by something as enormous as Mother Earth. Only Imara could have enough humanity left in her to bridge that gap. The other Oracles couldn’t; even the Djinn couldn’t, without being destroyed.

My daughter’s birth, her death, her raising as an Oracle—all of it was a plan. A plan so vast, so complex and I could only now see glimmers of it, and the beauty and tragedy of it choked me with tears. This wasn’t the Mother’s plan.

This was something greater, and more astonishing, and just for a moment, I glimpsed the hand of God.

“Then what do I need?” the Mother hissed, and I heard a multitude of snakes, felt the burn of venom in my arm again.

Lewis didn’t hesitate, and I have no idea how much courage it took, how much fear he had to overcome.

He stepped into her, kissing-close, and said, “You need me.”

For the first time, I felt Lewis unleash the full range of his Earth powers, and my God, it was like nothing I’d ever felt before, from any Warden. It was pure, animal seduction, and it came from a place in him that I’d never known existed. He wasn’t surrendering to her. He was seducing her. I felt the overwhelming heat of it wash over me as a reflection, an echo, and I swayed on my knees and almost went down.

This was what made Lewis unique among Wardens. This was why he’d been born in this age, so that he could stand here at this time, and do something no other human on Earth could do.

Remind the Earth that nature was more than tooth and claw, death and pain.

“Hear me,” Lewis said, his lips hovering just a fraction above hers, his body radiating that passion. “We are part of you. Part of everything. Hear me.”

He was swaying a little, side to side, and she swayed with him. It was a slow, hypnotic dance, and the sand whirling around my daughter’s body slowed its angry rotation, slipping and falling in a red rain to pool around her bare feet.

“I hear you,” she said, and it was Imara’s voice, my voice, the Mother’s voice, the echo of millions. And there was a kind of drugged wonder in it. “I hear you.”

“Then feel me,” Lewis said, and kissed her.

The light that exploded from them should have burned us alive, it was so purely white. Even with my eyes shut, my arms blocking the glare, I could see the two of them standing there together, swaying, merging, dancing.

David let out a sharp cry and got to his feet—not a cry of alarm, but one of triumph, of joy, of absolute relief. And all around him formed Djinn, the Djinn I had known, the ones I had never known, the ones who’d been my mortal enemies. Venna came, and Rahel, dozens more, and more, and more until the chapel was full. Their eyes were burning not with white, but with a pure gold.

The light slowly died at the front of the chapel, and Imara and Lewis collapsed to the floor. She lay in a pale heap, hair covering her face, and as I watched the sand slip back over her in a whispering blanket, I knew she was still alive. Still an Oracle.

She opened her eyes, and sat up, staring down at herself—and at Lewis.

He wasn’t moving.

I saw the grief move over her face, and she reached down and put her fingers on his cheek, very gently. She looked up at me, and I knew instantly that Lewis . . . Lewis was gone. The flesh that lay there was empty, the soul taken.

“No,” I whispered, and all the barriers inside me broke. I’d witnessed something that had never been seen by any human before—none who’d ever lived—and it had been shocking and moving and terrifying, but in the end, all I could feel was that I’d lost him. I’d lost Lewis.

Imara straightened his body, folded his arms, and stood over him. She looked out at the Djinn and said, “You’re here to bear witness. Say his name.”

“Lewis,” said a thunderous chorus of Djinn voices. “Lewis. Lewis.”

And a shining being misted into existence, more beautiful than anything I’d ever imagined. Angels would weep to see him now, and it wasn’t for several long heartbeats that I recognized his face, his body. It was Lewis, perfected, the way David had been perfected.

But Djinn Lewis shone with so much power that it couldn’t be contained in him. The aetheric caught fire around him, and it was a white blaze of joy.

Every single Djinn—New Djinn, Old—all of them went to their knees.

I went, too, more because I didn’t want to be the only one standing. David’s face was blank, his eyes very bright, as he said, “He’s the Conduit. All of us, together again. One people, not two.”

Lewis had replaced Jonathan, in ways that David and Ashan could not.

I slowly stood up again, and Lewis’s attention fixed on me. His smile hadn’t changed at all, really.

“Hey,” I said. “So—about humanity—”

“Through me, she understands,” Lewis told me. His voice made me shiver, because it was like him and yet somehow . . . not. The seductive power he’d unleashed was still putting raw edges on him. “The human race will survive. Better get your act together, though. It’s a limited time offer.”

I nodded, not sure what to say to him anymore. David stood up next to me, and slowly, one by one, the Djinn rose.

“Right,” Lewis said. “The Djinn will help clear the damages, heal the sick and injured, rebuild alongside you. We’re partners now. The way we should have been.”

I cleared my throat. “And the Wardens?”

“Going to take a lot of work to bring them back,” Lewis said. His smile grew brighter. “I can’t think of anyone I trust more to make that happen, Jo. You, and your son.”

Son. I put a hand over my stomach as my lips parted.

Lewis waved his hand, and the glass windows of the chapel filled in again. The Djinn had to shuffle around as wooden pews replaced piles of ashes. Creation, at the snap of his fingers.

“Is she still awake?” I asked.

“For now,” he said. “She’ll sleep soon. But I think you’ll find things much easier now.”

The Djinn were disappearing now, heading off to their newly appointed tasks. Outside the window, the sky was a pure, perfect blue, with a few light clouds drifting high. A bald eagle swooped low, so close its wings almost brushed the glass, and I wondered if it was the same one we’d left wrapped in Cassiel’s coat in Las Vegas.

I watched it soar away. When I looked back down, Djinn Lewis was gone, and his silent, empty shell was all that was left.

David took my hand. “Time to go,” he said.

I took in a deep breath. “What about—”

Imara gave me a smile, and looked down. Lewis’s body sank into the floor, into the stone beneath. I saw the fading whisper of it moving deep, deep into the Earth.

Gone.

“Good journey, Mom,” Imara said, and whispered into shadows and sand.

Behind us, the door of the chapel opened, and the priest blinked at us in surprise. “Oh, hello,” he said. “The chapel isn’t officially open yet, but if you’d like to come back—”

“Yes,” David said. “We’ll come back. But we have things to do.”

We walked out, into bright sunlight, and descended the steps. I had no idea what we’d do when we got to the bottom—no car, no transportation of any kind. I didn’t really feel like taking a bus.

“Things to do,” I repeated. “We’ll go get the rebuilding started, round up the Wardens, recover the Djinn bottles and smash them. After that, though, it’s three days of spa, mud baths, and all-day massages. Anything I’m forgetting?”

“Shopping,” David said, straight-faced. “And a bedroom with a locked door.”

“Mmmm, I said. Joy gurgled up in me like bubbles, and I found I was poised on the edge of giggles. “Can we move that to first on the list?”

“Probably not.” He smiled, and stopped on the steps to kiss me with all the passion and sweetness I could ever want. “That’s an installment.”

“I’d like to give you something on credit, too, but it’s a public space. And a church.”

He laughed, and we skipped down the rest of the steps to the parking lot.

Sitting in the middle of the lot was a black 1970 Mustang Boss 429, gleaming like new. I stopped and threw David a questioning look. He tossed me the keys.

Next stop, Las Vegas.

And the world, beyond.