A Matter of Forever (25 page)

“It doesn’t make sense.” Jonah runs a hand through his messy hair. “Where could they have gone? We would have seen any movement.”

“Maybe Enlilkian breaking the windows and setting off an earthquake were diversions,” I say, joining them.

“No doubt,” Jonah agrees. “But even then, I wouldn’t have figured they could have made it past us.” He peers at the doorway, like the answer is standing right in front of us. “None of the elevators or staircases you built were near the clusters they kept to.”

A choked whimper sounds from behind us. Mac has angled Sophie to face us so he can listen, too. And here’s the thing: she’s gazing at Jonah like he’s the only person in the room, like another man’s arms aren’t around her.

I force in a deep breath. Count to ten. Remind myself about time and place although I wish oh so much it were time for me to just slap the crap out of her already.

“Did you know I was naked in his bed? And that I loved it when he put his hands on me?”

Time and mothereffing
place,
Chloe.

Words come out of me anyway. “How did you get up here?”

Her stunning blue eyes reluctantly leave Jonah to settle on me. “Huh?”

I can only make it to the count of five before I say, “You’re not on the Council. Why are you here?”

Mac is looking at me like I’m crazy. Fine. Let him.

But then Sophie quickly looks back over at Jonah and bites her lip. Hesitates before she answers. “I was visiting someone.”

And then she looks at him again. Meaningfully. Apologetically.

Son. Of. A. BITCH. I hate thinking I’m this kind of girl, but I’m totally going to claw her eyes out. And maybe rip out that damn shiny hair while I’m at it. Because Jonah’s back to staring at her, too, his face completely devoid of anything. His head is tilted and he’s staring at her and—

“Okay, time-out.” Mac lets go of Sophie long enough to form a tee with his hands. “If we have any hope of hunting Enlilkian down in here before he gets away, we better get moving.”

Jonah looks away from Sophie first; she blushes. She actually
blushes
. My fingers curl tight into fists. “You’re right,” my husband tells Mac. To Kofi, “Anyone in the main hallway?”

I’m still torn between ripping her gorgeous red hair out, clawing her face until it’s no longer beautiful, or curling into a small ball and sobbing until I pass out. But unfortunately, I don’t have time for such luxuries.

“No,” Kofi answers. “Looks like a clear path. Last time I saw them, they were clustered within Knolltempest’s office around the curve.”

Except, as we discover not a minute later, there’s no way they’re all still in Knolltempest’s office, because three of them are waiting for us two doors down.

“Hello, little Creator,” Enlilkian says, stepping into the hallway.

I think my heart stops. Because what’s in front of me is the epitome of a nightmare come to life: skin and muscle barely cling to Jens Belladonna’s bones anymore.

Oh. My.
Gods
.

He smiles, all teeth and bones and rotting putridness, and makes a soft clicking sound against what’s left of his tongue. Jonah immediately shoves me behind him, one of his arms outstretching to attack the monsters in front of us, but nothing and I mean nothing prepares us for what happens next because in one moment Mac takes a step toward us, electricity crackling and leaping from light bulbs down to his fingertips and in the next he is stumbling backward and right off the broken railing until he is no longer on the eighth floor with us.

And it’s because that bitch Sophie pushed him as hard as she could over the edge.

I scream his name, but Jonah refuses to let me chase after our friend. Kofi dashes toward the edge, winds whipping all around us in what I can only hope is a rescue attempt, but then he’s flying through the air, too, thanks to the last incorporeal Elder materializing out of a nearby office and rushing him like a linebacker charging a quarterback during the last desperate moments of a state championship, before disappearing once more.

No. No. No. No. No. NO.
This is not happening right now.

Sophie peers over the edge and says, “Oops.” And then, a delicate hand covering her mouth, she turns to me and Jonah, all of her face so charmingly sad for two forever long seconds before bursting into laughter.

WHAT. THE. HELL. IS GOING ON HERE?

I lunge toward her, but Jonah’s arms wrap around my waist, pulling me close to his chest. Even then, he shifts us so he’s facing the Elders and I’m protected between him and the wall. I crane my neck around so I can see her all the better. “I’m going to kill you, Sophie. Do you hear me? DO YOU HEAR ME?!”

“I’d like to see you try.”

Part of me wants to just wink her into oblivion, too, but ... gods, it’s so messed up, but I hesitate. Erasing her seems ... different than what I’ve done to the Elders. But hauling my hand back and slapping the living shit out of her? That I can do.

Jonah must know what I want to do because his hold on me tightens immediately. And then, impossibly even more when a pair of missing Elders appear in doorways behind us.

We’re completely surrounded.

Kellan’s ex-girlfriend skirts around us to where Enlilkian is standing, her slim fingers trailing across his jacketed arm. My stomach roils as she smirks. Oh gods, they’re ... they’re working
together?
Was—is this a trap?

“Tell me, Empath,” Enlilkian says softly as Jonah retreats another step back, dragging me with him toward an office inches away, “who do you think you’ll attack first?” He smiles again, like we are all old friends meeting up for a long anticipated reunion. “I’ve been studying you, you know. And I know you can’t take us all down if we’re not all in your line of vision.”

I throw up in my mouth a little when Sophie curves a hand around the crook of his elbow.

“I don’t need to take them all down when I can just get you,” Jonah says calmly.

Sophie leans her cheek against Enlilkian’s shoulder, like they’re close friends. I fear I’m going to vomit right here all over everyone.

The first Creator chuckles and opens one of his arms out wide. “By all means, Emotional. Give it your best. Just know that I can’t promise the little Creator won’t be harmed in the process.”

It’s almost like she’s snuggling with him, like she’s rubbing her godsdamn cheek up against his rotting, dirty coat.

“How do you know him?” I scream at her from behind Jonah. “Why are you doing this, after everything he’s done to our kind?”

She yawns and peers down at her nails, tsking over what must be a chip. “I swear, Jonah,” she says flatly, glancing up at him with cold fire in her eyes. “I just don’t get what you two see in this bitch.”

“I have to give you props, Sophie,” my husband says in return, completely ignoring what Enlilkian’s said to him. “How did you do it?”

A shiver runs down my arms. He’s so serious, all ice-cold fury running beneath the calm façade he’s projecting.

“We all have our secrets,” Enlilkian answers for her. “Also, don’t bother with that room. One of my associates is waiting within.”

I can practically feel Jonah’s frustration as we come to a halt. I wonder, though ... if I were to stretch my arm out just so, could I touch the Elder closest to us? Take it out?

“Tricia Basswood, right?” Jonah is saying, and I dig in my memory until I find ... Thierry Basswood. The Elemental whose body was stolen during my honeymoon when the Enlilkian killed his pregnant wife to suck out her baby’s powers. Except—

Enlilkian clasps his hands together and holds them close to his chest. “Bravo, Empath.”

“You are a sick asshole.” He’s struggling to stay calm. “You forced that poor woman to shield Sophie from me before you murdered her, didn’t you? You made it so I wouldn’t be able to read her clearly. That all I’d get from her is static.”

It all starts to click. Tricia Basswood must have been an Emotional. And Jonah must have focused on Sophie so much because he couldn’t
read
her.

“Aren’t you the clever one,” Enlilkian murmurs.

One of his minions, the one wearing Harou’s face, inches closer; Jonah immediately counters. Before I can even blink, it’s writhing on the ground, wailing. If this bothers Enlilkian, he doesn’t show it. In fact, his attention never waves from me.

I want to claw the rest of his decaying eyes out before I rip his existence apart.

“Don’t be like this, Jonah.” Sophie’s all false sweetness. “Not after everything we’ve meant to one another.”

I manage to lunge forward, but Jonah catches me before I can strike her.

This only makes Sophie laugh and laugh. “Gods, Chloe. You should have seen your face back in that office. He fucking puts a ring on your finger, gives up his brother for you, and you still think he’d cheat on you?” She tsks again. “Although, had he, you would have deserved it, you stupid cow. You did leave him behind, after all.”

I try to lunge at her again, but Jonah’s grip is viselike. And then Sophie is screaming dropping to the ground as she thrashes in pain while the Harou-Elder struggles to get up on its knees, what I can only assume as tears streaking its putrefying face.

“Don’t come an inch closer,” Jonah warns it.

Whatever he’s doing to Sophie slows to a stop, because she flattens her palms against the ground and shoves herself up. She wipes the tears from her face before hissing, “You have always been such an asshole, Jonah Whitecomb.”

Like he
cares
.

And then she bursts into laughter, like some kind of crazy person. “Bet you didn’t know Muses can occasionally manipulate emotions,” she sing-songs, pointing a finger at me. “Not as well as an Emotional, but well enough. Well enough to screw with somebody like you.”

I’m reminded of a time years back when Lizzie told me just such a thing.
“It’s a little known fact,”
she’d said,
“but some Muses can attune themselves to a tiny bit of emotions from those around them, if they’re strong enough. It allows us to feed off of those feelings to help create a bond.”

But Lizzie had only mentioned sensing emotions. Muses can manipulate them, too? Did she manipulate me earlier? Make me doubt Jonah?

It doesn’t matter, though. I’m taking this bitch down. Because by the time I get ahold of her—

Wait. Something’s wrong. Something is very, very wrong. It’s too quiet all of a sudden. Too still.

“Enough, little Creator,” Enlilkian is saying to me. “It’s time to go.”

And yet, time stands still again, or at least slows way down, but not by my choosing. Because Enlilkian is grabbing my arm when I didn’t even see him move toward us, yanking me forward at the same time the incorporeal Elder that killed Kofi reappears, twisting one of its arms into a whip that strikes my husband right across his arms that just split seconds before held me tight.

I am hysteria, screaming like a wild banshee until Enlilkian’s grip crushes the bones in my arm below his fingers to fine dust. All of the oxygen in the room disappears without a trace as I collapse; he kicks me then, shattering my kneecap.

Oh gods, oh gods, oh gods, nonononono.
Jonah
.

Another kick destroys my femur. I can hear it crack, and it’s weird, so weird, because I hear it, hear my bones shatter. How can they be so loud when everything else is so silent around us but my own earsplitting voice?

I try to counter him, words of oblivion on my tongue, destruction fighting to come out of my fingers, even just erect one of Kopano’s shields, but he shatters my fist. Shatters my cheekbone. Shatters my collarbone. I’m his punching bag and he’s preparing for the boxing match of his life. All the shields I’ve been working on for months are nothing but distant memories in my past.

All the pain Jonah had hidden so easily earlier comes at me like the tides he loves so much, all this and more as wave after crashing wave of debilitating agony consumes me. Enlilkian is dragging me backward while I’m helpless to do anything but watch, time speeding up just a little but not enough to match our own, as two Elders grab hold of Jonah from behind and I can’t—I can’t—they hold him and the one whose body is a weapon turns into a stake and stabs my love, my Connection, my husband right into the chest over and over again until I am, don’t even know how to scream anymore my pain is so blinding and total and complete and I want to die wish it were me not him never him and he’s falling slumping in slow motion his eyes closing, I’m trying to kick, to wrestle myself out of Enlilkian’s grasp but I’m a rag doll and oh gods oh gods there is so much blood everywhere and things are blowing up around me this old venerable building is falling apart now in my terror he hits me in the head nice and hard and my eyes roll back and he’s telling me it’s for good measure be a good girl he says be a good girl and Jonah isn’t moving and each stab into my beloved another death and he’s no longer moving on his own and and Karnach is falling apart and I’m blinking I want to see him save him words are so hard thoughts words and then they pick him up and throw him over the side just like Mac and Kofi like he’s a rag doll too and the stairs break apart and fall too all the walls crumbling my chest it feels like somebody punched through and stole my heart and