The Soul Collector

Chapter SEVENTEEN

The daemon shall rise against the power of the angel�

Lucien enveloped her in his arms, his heartbeat painful.

Julian's voice flowed from the depths of the cavern, the tone filled with unmistakable foreboding and he glided toward them, his feet never touching the ground. Eva twisted about, and sickening dread coiled in her stomach.

She feared the power he had not yet revealed.

He remained, as he had been when she’d seen him last, attired in ragged clothes. In the eerie white light emitting from her brother's spirit, his features appeared contorted, the scars and furrows seeping into deeper and more unforgiving lines.

…run!

Julian chuckled at Reese's whispery comment. He waved a twisted hand, dismissing the spirit's fervently uttered word. A slow smile contorted his face as he came closer.

“Foolish boy, she can't escape.” He murmured in seductive condemnation. “She couldn't escape me in New York, nor can she escape me in my domain.”

Forcefully, Lucien pushed her behind him, and stood in the path of his brother. He pulled himself upright, although he was slighter. His shoulders straightened, tensing, and he threw his head back in defiant disregard.

Eva was shadowed by his height, her view of the approaching daemon obscured. He intended to distract his brother, keeping her safe from the unspoken madness obvious in the thickness of the chamber's air.

It was too late to seek sanctuary elsewhere. Even if it meant his demise, Lucien would battle his brother. He would do anything to prevent Julian from contaminating the one he held so precious.

Defiantly, he faced the image of the daemon he feared most.

…bastard!

A blur of light, Reese shot across the chamber. Eva was uncertain what he hoped to accomplish, despite his fury, for his body was nothing more than mist.

As she predicted, Julian remained where he stood. He neither flinched, nor moved aside, as the ethereal image rushed through him. The contact caused more damage to the spirit, and his agonized groan echoed before he vanished into the stagnant air.

“What a commendable performance.” He laughed, shaking his head and lifting his arms. “You’re actions are foolhardy, spirit. Do you suppose a single soul could inflict damage on one with my power?”

"He doesn’t understand.” Lucien moved away from her. He shifted across the room, the darkness of his clothes blending into the shadows. He was attempting to draw Julian's attention, hoping his brother would forget her.

“I'm the all-powerful ruler of St. Lorraine!” Julian's boast was loud and prideful. “A single spirit is not a worthy waste of my time!”

In the glowing embers of light radiating from Lucien, she saw the change overtaking the hovering figure. Julian's eyes shifted and the gray orbs transformed. As she watched, his gaze became an intense shade of flaming crimson, the color akin to freshly flowing blood.

“A single spirit doesn’t hold power over me. I don’t suffer the same as you, my weak little brother.” He taunted mercilessly. “I’ve never been one to welcome a lost soul with open arms.”

Lucien remained silent, and refused to rise to the bait thrown as cruelly as a steel gauntlet. His inaction appeared to infuriate his brother and Julian shot across the room, his swift movements a virtually invisible blur.

He wasn't prepared for the unforeseen attack, and flew backwards.

A low grunt erupted from Lucien and he tumbled to the floor. He remained where he had fallen, the impact tearing the breath from him. Dazed, his ears rang, and his lungs nearly burst while he strove to regain his breath. The dungeon was silent, save for Julian's high-pitched wail of laughter.

“Ah, do get up.” Julian’s plea was taunting and he swayed while humming a wordless tune. He danced to the macabre pace of an ancient minuet, each artful move precisely measured, and bowing to an unseen partner before turning back to his brother.

Lucien dragged his aching body across the stones, realizing Julian was far more powerful than expected. He stifled a grunt of pain and rose to his feet, expecting the next blow.

He hit the floor harder this time, Julian's mad laughter filling his ears. His head ached, the throb accentuated by the impact of a heavy stone. Brilliant stars danced behind his closed lids, and he tasted blood.

Stubbornly, he rose again, defying his twin. He would fight this daemon of the otherworld in his human form, and knew he would die, all for Evangeline.

“You would risk all, dear brother, for this woman?”

The words were low and strangely seductive as they flowed about him. Lucien flinched, not expecting Julian to have such insight into his private thoughts. Fear welled in his throat as his brother turned toward Eva's kneeling body, waving a dismissive hand.

“I would risk all!” His response caused his brother to pause.

“This woman,” Julian threw his head back, laughing with cruel pleasure. “Does she mean that much?”

“Yes!”

“Only she boasts the ability to bring you to this place of horrors?”

“Yes!”

“You would risk your existence for this mortal?”

“Yes and, again, yes!” Lucien shouted. He approached his brother, each step slow and filled with pain.

…Evie?

“Oh, Reese,” her brother's name left her in a quivering breath. Coldness, far more intense than the chill filling the dungeon, moved close. Eva lifted pained eyes to her brother, feeling hopeless. “There must be something we can do. Lucien is human, because of me, and Julian intends to kill him.”

…want to save him?

“How?” She wanted to cry at the futility of his question, lacking any semblance of supernatural power.

…angel's fire, Evie�

She grunted with exasperation. “You’re speaking the same stupid riddles!”

…not riddles, not nonsense�

“This Angel’s Fire bit is absolute nonsense!” She hissed.

…love him?

The question was not issued in the disjointed and sarcastic tones he commonly adopted. Eva closed her eyes, tears slipping free. In the silence, she heard the bone jarring impact of Lucien's body striking the floor, again.

“Yes, I love him,” she responded candidly, opening her eyes. Malicious words flowed about her, rising from the mist shrouding the floor as they spewed from Julian's contorted mouth.

“You would die for her, brother?”

“Yes!” Lucien rose, staggering and wiping the thin line of blood from his mouth with his hand. The crimson color was apparent on the paleness of his flesh, a bright beacon that drew intense and maniacal laughter from the hovering figure.

“You’ve fallen, Lucien!” Julian’s statement was filled with awe when he spied the slow trickle. His blanched, envious, before he narrowed crimson eyes.

“She has made me human.” Lucien smiled, averting his eyes from Eva's kneeling form. “I have found my angel.”

Julian threw his head back, his laughter increasing, causing the mist to swirl about him.

“You babble of demons and angels, brother. Only in your world do such things exist, but not in mine.” Julian’s laughter stilled. “Join me and let us be as we should, brothers eternally.”

“You were not as a brother to me!” Lucien wiped the ever-flowing trickle from his mouth, his jaw angrily set.

“Ah, but think of the power,” Julian cajoled silkily while he glided about his brother. “Imagine the power we could savor, if we were to join forces.”

“Our power is evil!”

“Not entirely,”�Julian soothed. “The world is evil. People are evil.”

“I don't hunger for your corrupted power!”

Lucien flew back, hit by unseen hands as soon as the statement left him. He grunted with pain as his body struck the firm stones of a supporting buttress. He wavered for a moment, before sliding to the floor.

“Imagine all we could have, brother.” Julian’s tempting words filled the dungeon, echoing from the crumbling walls, and ceiling. “I’ll allow you to keep your woman.”

…save him

“How, Reese?” Eva whispered. She looked toward her brother's shadowy image, her desperation clear.

…trust me�

“Do it!” She snarled fiercely.

…hurts�

“Please, Reese, for Lucien.”

Her breath escaped her in a gasping sigh as Reese melded into her living form. She felt the startling wealth of intense cold just as her thoughts vanished from her mind.

Immediately, she was filled with memories not her own. There was Reese staring down at her, his expression filled with awe while he whispered his love for his newborn sister. There was Reese with her body snuggled close to his side, regaling her with wondrous stories of knights and princes. There was Reese, wiping the tears from her eyes as she sobbed uncontrollably. He had a duffel bag strung over his shoulder and his words meant for her alone, his fervent vow to return home, to her, his beloved youngest sibling.

“Reese.”

His name quivered past her lips, filled with the tears she tried to restrain. She heard her brother's voice flowing through her, firm and urgent, lacking the formerly disjointed phrases.

…don't be afraid, Evie. Call the bastard! Get his attention! We’ve to get him away from Lucien.

Filled with a fierce determination, she rose to her frozen feet. Her fear evaporated, vanishing as swiftly as the mist filling the dungeon. A blinding brilliance of intense light flooded the chamber, illuminating the towering walls and arched ceiling.

“Look at me, Julian!”

She shouted, and drew the crimson eyes to her. Awe and a dawning comprehension filled the scarred and distorted features. Julian drifted back to the ground, his feet landing heavily. Eva lifted her chin, staring at him unflinchingly while he approached, his hands outstretched.

“I'm the Angel's Fire!” She realized the glow illuminating the chamber came from her. She lifted her hands, palms upright, and bright ribbon-like streaks of light shot from her fingers. “I'm the angel of prophecy!”

She ignored Lucien's muffled cry as Julian walked toward her. Purposely, she stepped further back, the vividness of her flesh dancing in wild glee over the crumbled rocks littering the floor.

“You are the Angel's Fire.” Confusion was rampant in the gleaming depths of Julian's eyes, coupled with a dawning sense of joy.

Absently, he repeated the age-old whisper of the curse forever damning the D'Angel blood.

“Evangeline, no!”

She refused to flinch at Lucien's cry of dismay. Instead, she smiled as sweetly as a temptress at Julian, the expression in her warm eyes urging him onwards.

“For your salvation, offer me power,” she whispered huskily.

“I offer you all the power you desire.” Julian vowed fervently, each step bringing him nearer.

“Offer me fortune.”

“I promise.”

She smelled the stench rising from him when he stretched his arms toward her, intending to gather her close and envelop her in his embrace. Her lids lowered over her eyes, hiding her disgust, while she continued to whisper her seductive plea.

“Offer me fame, Julian.”

“All you shall ever want,” he responded throatily, his expression ecstatic.

“Offer me eternity.”

“Forever.”

He released the vow on a long sigh and his arms slid about her. She felt the burning intensity of his flesh but smiled enchantingly up at him. She forced herself to stay calm, listening to the ever-present hum of Reese's voice in her mind.

Eva placed her lips to the stinking flesh of Julian's jaw before she turned about in his arms. Lucien stared at her with pain-filled eyes, unable to comprehend her actions.

“Please don’t.” He whispered and rose to his feet, blood seeping copiously from his mouth and forehead.

“Offer me everything I crave, Julian,” she continued loudly, ignoring the horror in Lucien's eyes.

“I will grant you everything you wish, my Queen of Fire.” He breathed fervently into her tumbled hair.

She sighed long and deep. “Allow me to say my farewells to your brother, before I join you.”

“It is as he so deserves.” He chuckled wickedly. “I will still his woman, then his life.”

Her pleading eyes searched Lucien's torment gaze. In her mind, Reese's voice fell conspicuously silent. Her thoughts slowed, and she watched unshed tears fill the obsidian depths of the eyes of the man she loved.

“I don't wish to be a single spirit.” She remarked with firm determination. Her words rang as loud and clear in the cavernous dungeon. The comment had the desired effect as his arms tightened about her.

“I shall be at your side and we shall rule for all eternity.” His voice was eager with anticipation and unspoken glory. “Bid my brother farewell, Fire of the Angels.”

“I shall know my enemies, Lucien.”

Eva repeated the very words that haunted the man. She prayed the meaning would remain lost on the man holding her and hoped the words branding Lucien for all eternity would come to his aide.

Breathlessly, she continued, “I shall not be a spirit alone, unable to perform what needs to be done. I shall know my enemies as I know my friends.”

A deep frown furrowed Lucien's brow before a dawning comprehension filled his face. He pulled himself upright, despite the pain flooding his now human body, and graced her with the smallest nod of his head.

“I shall know my enemies…”

His repetition of the tormenting phrase was loud and firm as he lifted his bare hands. At first, it appeared he was pushing an unseen force aside. He closed his eyes and clenched his teeth, knowing the unspoken agony that would soon flow from the depths of his battered body.

The pale flesh of his palms remained upright, one smooth, and the other horribly disfigured. Eva willed her eyes to stay open as the fiery imprint rose, spinning and rotating, growing with each passing second. The cavorting figures brightened, radiating with intense redness as they began their garish dance of madness. The angels rose past the daemons, pulling the images after them just as bright bolts of unnatural flames filled the dungeon's stagnant air.

A long howl of unbearable pain erupted. The sound rose from the depths of Lucien's palms, the echo of the anguished cries of a million spirits rising hungrily into the air. A great ray of shimmering light radiated from his flesh and the wails of despair increased to a deafening tempo.

Eva's eyes widened at the images rose from Lucien's tortured palm, her horror clear. From the distorted flesh of his hand, while his cry of agony echoed those he gathered, flew the trapped souls he had held for centuries.

Garish and anguished features, pleading sepia images with sad and dark eyes, shot from his hand. More obscure clouds of daemons huddled in darker corners. They swirled about her, tugging at the folds of her coat, their chilled hands caressing her face. Eva held her breath, unable to think, feeling herself torn from Julian's suffocating clutches.

She fell hard on the ground, her palms scraping the rocks, the air knocked from her. She rolled on her back, gasping. She watched in horror as the spirits, the images of millions of unredeemed phantoms, spun about Julian's raggedly clad figure. He screeched, loud and deafening, a sound filled with abject terror.

…daemon's blood!

Julian swatted wildly at the air. His efforts were useless as his twisted hands shot through the gossamer forms dancing about him, plucking, and pulling at the rags he wore. Fear contorted his face, a terror so intense a high-pitched scream rose from his fetid mouth.

At that moment, the sepia, gray and black images sought entry.

A loud screech of unrestrained pleasure echoed loudly as each spiraling soul employed the advantage of the open orifice, burrowing deep into his ancient body. Julian shot high into the air, hovering beneath the buttresses, and the flow of tormented spirits continued to emerge from Lucien's hand.

She scurried backwards, attempting to reach Lucien as agonized cries filled the air.

Far swifter than she realized, Eva reached him when he fell to his knees. She knelt beside him, her face pressed to his shoulder and her arms encircling his waist. Lucien's skin twitched and trembled as the endless issuance of souls shot from him, seeking Julian.

Julian remained suspended in the air, his screams as agonized as the spirits about him. The ghostly images twisted him about in a semblance of his own garish dance of pleasure. The howls of agony increased and Eva pressed her ears to Lucien's chest, wishing the moment would end.

Suddenly, there was silence.

She lifted her head, her eyes flying to Lucien's brother. He remained suspended in air by the unseen force of many. Lucien's hands fell and he gasped for breath, his arms embracing her shivering, but ever-glowing body.

Light illuminated the chamber. This brightness whisked the breath from Eva as she slipped further into the comfort of Lucien's embrace. The glow reflected varying shades of darkness, filled with crimsons and blacks, greens and umbers. Julian's body twisted about, appearing attached to tangled cords, as the colors intensified. His red eyes, staring in horror at the two figures far below his feet, were brilliant.

Julian opened his mouth. A single gasp, resembling an undignified belch, erupted from him. Eva shielded her eyes, just as he exploded into a million flaming fragments of ash.

“Don’t ever risk for your life for me, Evangeline.” Lucien words were uttered close to her ear while he carried her from the crumbling castle. She couldn't control her laugh and pressed her lips to his vibrant flesh, causing him to scowl. She looked up at him, her eyes wide and trusting, enveloping him in warmth he experienced only with her touch.

“Lucien,” she murmured his name caressingly, pressing a hand to his cheek. “I would do it all again for you, without regret.”

“Why?”

“I’ll always be at your side,” she uttered the declaration with surprising firmness, her expression serious. In the distance, she heard the overjoyed shouts of Lucien's team, loud and raucous as they spied them on the snow-covered hill. She blinked, attempting to focus on his beloved features. His skin was warm, blissfully and humanly, and he pressed his cheek to the curve of her palm. His breath quivered against her flesh and he nuzzled her sensitive skin.

“I thought I would lose you,” the admission was difficult, her throat aching with unshed tears. She stared into his flushed features, his coloring vibrant, snowflakes melting as they landed on his skin

“Impossible, Evangeline,” he smiled as he uttered the denial.

“I didn't want Julian to take you from me.” She stroked his face, feeling the dampness seeping from the corners of his steely colored eyes. “I couldn't live if I had lost you.”

“Yet, I'm here, my angel,” his words broke.

“I love you, Lucien.”

"Not nearly as much as you, my angel." His kiss was long, poignant, and sweet. She arched upwards, pulling his head closer. Joy flooded her heart and warmed her.

“Are you still cursed?” She pulled away and pressed her head to his shoulder, inhaling the unmistakably fragrant scent of his flesh.

His response was a short bark of laughter, ironic albeit lacking in the bitterness she presumed would be evident.

“I don’t imagine the spirits shall leave me,” he admitted, reluctantly. “However, at this moment, there's nothing filling this landscape.”

“Is it too early to tell?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“I'm sorry.”

“I'm not.” He smiled, not viewing his sight as the curse previously thought. “I’ve spent nearly four hundred years looking at the otherworld through these eyes. I may not know how to function if my power vanished.”

He began the slow trek to the awaiting sedan, whispered words of love with each step he took. He cradled her close, feeling his heartbeat and the exhalations of burning breaths escape his lungs.

“Lucien,” Eva began, her hand pressed to his heart, the steady thrum of the organ obvious. “Do you regret your power?”

“In the past, I regretted every moment. Now, I accept all it encompasses. When I consider the curse that condemned me to wait for my angel’s fire, I have to count every second as a blessing,” he responded, interrupting her by brushing the lightest pressure of his lips across her brow, all without losing stride. “We are alive, my love. By the grace of my angel's fire, I'm alive, and with the one I love.”

She smiled against his shoulder, her face pressed close to his warmth. Yes, he was alive. She felt the blood coursing freely through his veins, the thudding of his heart, and the soft rise and fall of his chest with every breath he took.

This time, his humanity had nothing to do with her nearness. He had returned to the world of the living and he was human, again. She pressed her lips to his jaw, savoring the warmth exuding from his skin, a contented sigh escaping her.

…you're making me sick�