The Mesmerist(49)

It curls around Malachai’s neck.

Images immediately flood my mind. There is fire and smoke and pain and death. And rats. Always the rats. I am inside his head.

My breath is returning to me. Malachai’s smoke is faltering, drifting apart in drops that look like blood.

I hear a vicious snarl, and Darby leaps back into the fray, taking down a ghoul as she does so. The creatures scream and howl, bouncing from wall to wall with amazing speed.

My ribbon of smoke is pulsing now with lines of green and red curling around Malachai’s throat. Tighter! I shout inside my head. Tighter!

Every muscle in my body is strained with exertion, pushed to the limit. I feel it in my arms and legs, the back of my neck.

Gabriel breathes in, his chest heaves, and then a shadow ripples behind him. I see a shape, outstretched from either side of his small frame.

My mouth falls open.

He lifts his arms, and I see something that shouldn’t really exist. A great shadow appears behind him.

Wings.

“Seraph!” Malachai hisses, his hands grasping at my ghostly lash.

The ghouls cower in fear.

“Go back, demon,” Gabriel commands. The shadow wings flutter, the edges rippling with fire.

His voice is like rumbling boulders, like trees being wrenched from the very ground. He continues speaking—?the words coming faster, a torrent of sound that bears no resemblance to any human language.

The tunnel is now bright with flashing light. Emily is breathing hard, resting with her back to the wall, entranced by Gabriel. The ceiling cracks. Shards of wood and debris crash to the floor, leaving an open hole above. I tumble and roll off the tracks as a plank falls and barely misses my head. I stand up again. My lash of smoke is still tight around Malachai’s throat.

But then he is revealed for the devil he truly is.

A serpentine tongue shoots from his mouth. It does not wind its way to me, but to Emily. She falls to the ground, grasping it with her small hands, unable to breathe.

“No!” I scream.

“Release me,” he croaks. A slow trickle of black blood oozes from his lips. Red veins appear in his eyes. “Release me, or the girl will die.”

I look to Emily. The serpent tongue is curling tighter. Her hands are white-hot, but they do not seem to burn the long, slithering piece of flesh.

Gabriel is singing now. Or is it the bells? I can’t tell. All I can sense is a pull throughout my body. I feel it in my stomach, deep down, like the tide coming into shore. He is calming me.

The silver ship . . . in the faerie realm. Maybe I will go there and be at peace. I will hear Father’s song again.

Gabriel’s shadow wings begin to glow. A radiance burns around him. His hair blazes with a golden light.

I close my eyes and think of Mother—?not the mother with the polite smile and clear green eyes, but the one who lashed out with the whip at 17 Wadsworth Place. The one who battled the power of the dark for years. The one who died for me . . .

I scream.

At the same time, my lash burns a fiery red, and squeezes tighter around Malachai.

His terrible tongue recoils, and Emily lets out a gasping breath. She collapses.

Malachai falls to his knees. “The fire comes!” he wheezes. “The fire will still come!”

In the distance I see a light moving quickly toward us. Hot sparks fly in front of it, dancing in the dark. I feel rushing air on my skin. The tracks beneath my feet begin to hum. My hair floats away from my face. It is closer now, and the sound from my dreams—?a terrible screeching and grinding—?rings in my ears.

Only then do I realize what it is.

Malachai rises to his feet.

“Emily!” I cry. “Gabriel! Away from the tracks!”

They look to me, and Gabriel drags Emily by her arms toward the tunnel wall.

Malachai turns to look behind him.

The train comes hurtling through the darkness. There is one last scream, and a terrible thumping sound, and then silence.

I stand still. Struck.

I do not want to look at what is left of him. The ghouls are all dead too, their ragged garments still sizzling. Darby slinks off and licks her wounds.

I rush to Emily’s side. Her expression is calm, as if she is asleep. I take her by the shoulders. “Emily!” I cry. “Wake up!”

She doesn’t stir.

I brush the damp curls away from her face. “Emily, please! WAKE UP!”





CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE





Song of Sadness


Gabriel and I kneel by Emily’s body.

I look to him for a brief moment. Wings? It can’t have been.

He makes the sign of the cross on her forehead.

“Emily,” I whisper, taking her hand, cold now. “Emily, don’t die.” Tears brim in my eyes.

I will lose her, too. Like Mother. And Father.

Gabriel begins to sing softly, and the words—?if they are indeed words—?fill me with a sense of peace. I hear the rippling of water far away, and wind whistling through treetops. Gabriel sings high, then low. A chorus of voices surrounds him, and it seems so real, I look around for the singers, but it is only the two of us—?and Emily, lying asleep, as if she will never awaken.

Gabriel stops his song and leans close to her. He whispers in her ear.

She opens her eyes.

Without a second’s pause, I hug her to my chest. She feels as light as a child’s dolly.