Eyes tracking the Apostle, Kari tried to aim, but she never stood still, and
Jonathan kept jumping in. She couldn’t get a clear shot at anywhere vital or crippling.
Growing deeply, she swiped sweat from her brow.
“Stop this,” Jonathan yelled. “You’re gonna bleed to death. Just give yourself up. I promise you won’t be hurt.”
“Never,” the Apostle hissed.
Growling in frustration, Jonathan lunged forward again, his attacks obviously
meant to disarm rather than kill. At least he had half a brain in his head when it mattered.
They needed to question the Apostle about where she’d come from, how she
communicated with Cain, and how she even knew of him in the first place. They could find some way to send her to their father, and he could deal with her. Teach him to say the matter was dealt with just because they left home and happened across the Apostle!
Joining the fight, Michael flipped over the Apostle and came down on her injured right side. She barely managed to dodge his slash, and his blade sliced through her black cloak, cleaving a large piece of it away, revealing her bushy wolflike tail with chestnut fur. She snarled and redoubled her efforts against Jonathan, practically ignoring the threat of Michael.
Drifting on heat currents the piece of her cloak sailed away, but not before
something that sparkled in the light dropped and tumbled down the slope to land at Kari’s feet. It was a purple crystal on a leather cord, the Apostle’s shard of the Gate! Without it she would be unable to escape. Scooping up the crystal, Kari dropped it into her quiver for safekeeping before returning to her search for a clear shot.
Extremely skilled and blindingly fast, the Apostle held her own against her two opponents for a time. Seeming to have eyes on the back of her head, she blocked attacks that she could not possibly have seen coming. In the end the blood loss and pain of her wound began to wear her down. Her movements slowed, and a few attacks made it through her defenses. Most of them slid off her armor, but one or two slashes struck flesh, drawing blood.
Not daring to blink lest she miss a chance for a shot, Kari kept her bow drawn.
Sweat rolled down her face and began to soak through her clothes. Gritting her teeth against the heat, she did not allow the drops of sweat sliding down her body distract her.
At last she saw an opening when the Apostle raised her sword above her head.
Kari let her arrow fly, but at the exact moment she did, the ground beneath her shook, throwing her aim off. Catching her balance, she looked up just in time to see her arrow graze the Apostle’s gloved hand and fly off into the murky smoke rising from the volcano beyond.
Cursing, she pulled another arrow from her quiver, and drew it back, waiting for another chance.
The ground shook again, this time more violently. Kari lost her grip on the arrow, loosing it with an ominous twang. Jonathan barely ducked in time to keep from having his head skewered on it.
“Hey! Watch where you’re shooting that thing!”
“Sorry.”
Drawing a third arrow, Kari widened her stance to keep her balance in the event of another tremor. She drew the bowstring back and immediately saw an opening.
Loosing her arrow, she held her breath, willing it to fly true. It did, striking the Apostle in the left hip with enough force to spin her around and knock her off of her feet.
Rolling to the edge of the crater, the Apostle teetered for a second before
dropping into the dark depths below.
“No,” Jonathan cried, tossing his massive sword aside and sprinting up the slope.
Reaching the edge a second too late, he threw a hand down to grab onto the
Apostle. Sliding forward, he must have caught her, stopped from going over the edge himself by Michael diving across his legs.
Kari set her bow down and rushed up the slope to help. Reaching past Jonathan, she grasped the Apostle’s left wrist just above where he had hold of her, but it was slick with blood and Kari’s hand slipped away. The Apostle was unresponsive, seemingly unconscious. Searing wind blasted upward with a strong stench of sulfur, and there was an ominous red glow from below.
Trying again, to similar effect, Kari noticed that the Apostle still held her sword in her other hand.
“Drop the sword and give me your hand,” she shouted. “I can’t get a good grip.”
The Apostle remained unresponsive. A tremor ran through her body, like every
muscle seizing up for just a second and then relaxing.
“Not good,” Jonathan muttered. “I think the sickness is coming on her. I don’t think I can keep hold of her if she starts thrashing around.”
“Apostle,” Kari shouted. “Or whatever your name is! Listen to me! Drop your sword and give me your other hand or you’re going to die!”
“Cora,” Jonathan said calmly but firmly. “Cora. Listen to me.”
At the sound of her name, the Apostle seemed to jerk back to herself.
“So much pain,” she muttered, voice mechanically distorted by her mask. “What is happening to me?”
“Listen closely,” Jonathan said. “As Heretics, our Demon halves feed off of our human halves, and the only way to stay alive is to drink human blood every century or two. If you don’t, your body is gonna tear itself apart. Drop your sword and give me your other hand so I can pull you up. Let us help you.”
Another shudder shook through the Apostle’s body and she slipped an inch
downward in Jonathan’s grasp, shrieking in pain.
“Give me your other hand. I don’t know how much longer I can hold you!”
The Apostle raised her sword and turned her head to consider it.
“Never,” she drove the blade into Jonathan’s forearm.
Jonathan made a valiant effort to hold on, but his hand spasmed open and the
Apostle fell away into the murky belly of the volcano.
“No,” Jonathan shouted as she disappeared into the smoke below. There was a
purple flash and then nothing.
Rolling over, he sighed with relief. “She jumped to another world.”
Kari grimaced and reached into her quiver, removing the shard of the Gate and
holding it out to him.
“I don’t think she did. She dropped this in the fight.”
“Excellent,” Jonathan snatched the crystal and looped it over his head. “That’s not hers, it’s mine. She took it while I was her prisoner.”
Plopping down beside him, Kari put her arm around him. “I’m glad you’re safe.”
“She really flipped out when you were caught,” Michael grinned. “It was like she was a crying little baby all over again.”
Kari glared at him.
“How did you two get here anyway,” Jonathan asked.
“You should have seen her! She was so completely awesome, drawing huge
complicated symbols all over the floor in the Apostle’s blood.”
“I wonder if we’ll ever see her again,” Jonathan looked back into the volcano.
“She’ll die if she ends up somewhere without people. She needs blood.”
“Why do you care about her so much all of a sudden,” Michael asked. “She is the servant of the most evil being in the universe after all.”
“Not only is she completely beautiful,” Jonathan allowed Kari to help him to his feet, “but she’s being used. It’s almost like she’s got the mind of a child and doesn’t really seem to understand that what she’s doing is wrong.”