Page 57 of Sacrifice

Michaels took a step forward.

“No. Stay away from me.” She let out a scream of frustration and pushed him away with her mind. He buckled in the middle and flew backward, down the carriage, to slam into the door at the end of the train.

He found his feet. “Eve.” He kept his voice low and stepped slowly toward her again. Eyes initially trained on the ground, when he looked up to find hers, they were a fierce blue that pierced what was left of the protection she wore. It broke through the madness of the moment and took his voice inside her head. “Lucien wants to use you. I can help you.”

A hot, musty wind blew in from the cracked, open window behind Eve’s back to push her hair around her face. The air’s passage over her skin was soothing, like the soft caress of a lover, rippling goose-bumps across her skin. “No. We are meant to be together. He’s trying to find the way to fix things.”

“To fix things?” Michaels’ expression was benign, but to Eve, the derision was clear.

“Centuries of hurt. Lifetimes of denial.” She grasped at the moving air with her mind, the first sensation of relief she'd felt, and swirled it around herself, magnifying the effect and drawing it in like a blanket. Then, realizing she could control it, she pushed it at Michaels with a laugh.

It buffeted him sideways, then swirled around him at increasing speed. He pulled himself up to stand taller, closed his eyes and pressed the palms of his hands together as if in prayer.

Eve laughed again, giddy at this new ability to control the elements, to give the air a life that, without her, it would not possess. She spun it around and around Michaels and, with it, lifted him from his feet to hang unsupported mid-air.

“We are meant to be together. Lucien’s explained it all. The same souls in new bodies, finding each other again and again, but denied by you.”

He’s lying to you, Eve,Michael’s voice said in her head,Tell me about those past lives if it’s true. Surely you can remember your past?

Eve floundered. “It doesn’t work like that.”

It doesn’t work like that because it isn’t true. You must let me help you.

In the eye of the cyclone, the golden ribbons of Michaels’ energy swept to his back and coalesced, standing out from his body like the long petals of a flower. A parting formed above his head and suddenly Eve released he was undergoing some kind of transformation. Whatever he was trying to achieve, she could not allow him to complete it.

Electricity from the rails hummed beneath her feet and she knew she could harness it, just like she had the air. It was another element she could bend to her will. She threw her head back and pulled the energy up through the floor.

Bolts popped from their holes in the fabric of the train and static held dirt and the detritus of humanity an inch from the surfaces of the seats and floor.

Michaels muttered undiscernible Latin from the eye of the cyclone and Eve gathered all the electricity within the carriage toward her, then discharged it with the greatest force she could marshal. It hit Michaels squarely in the chest and pushed himdown the carriage to slam into the final door. This time, it burst open, and he was expelled into the darkness of the tunnel.

Hot air tore through the carriage at an even greater rate now that the rear door had been blasted open. Sparks of static lit the tunnel from beneath the carriage as it juddered on the rails, and Eve saw Michaels roll over and over on the tracks as the train left him behind. The train leaned into a curve and he was lost from view.

Eve plummeted into darkness. Left panting and alone, every hair on her body stood out on end.

Holy fucking shit!

She wobbled on her feet and collapsed onto a seat. The litter of the carriage pitter-pattered to the floor. The intense energy of a few moments before had dissipated and the overload of her senses stopped at last. The pain inside her head subsided. The pressure of the quintessence had been released and without it, she deflated like a punctured balloon. Her consciousness wavered and glitched.

The train slowed, approaching the next station, and when it finally drew to a halt, the doors of her carriage did not open, even though she heard the mechanical slide of others. She looked around. Now that there was light coming in from the platform, it was clear this carriage was a wreck. Handrails were distorted and seats had been twisted into weird positions. She dragged herself to her feet and fumbled to open the doors that connected her carriage with the next and stumbled through.

An announcement was apologizing for the delay in departure and sighting a possible electrical fault.No shit. She stumbled out onto the platform and headed for a different line.

Thirty-One

Eve was determinedto put as much distance as she could between herself and Michaels and rode the Northern Line south until claustrophobia demanded air. The tube doors hissed open, and she pushed her way through the grumbling crowd, up escalators and out into the blissfully cool night.

Instinctively, she knew that the river Thames ran nearby. She’d managed to lock down her own power, but still she could feel the natural energy of the water flowing close at hand. It spoke to her, drew her, and she stumbled toward it. Frustration, fear, and pain fought for supremacy. Her coat flapped around her and the skin on her hands and face stung like she’d been burned by fire.

The embankment hummed with single-minded people, striding for their destinations, the colors of their auras less pronounced out in the open air. Eve wove between them and collapsed against the railing by the river. Water. To be enveloped by it felt like a wonderful, soothing dream. She made to hoist herself over the railing but was too weak to even get one knee up. A hand closed on her shoulder, and she felt the familiar buzz of energy that could mean only one thing.

Lucien.

Relief took her legs from under her and Lucien caught her before she could hit the ground.

“Eve, what the hell has happened?” He lifted her into his arms. Strong and sure, his dark aura enveloping her like a blissful shield from the light.

“He found me, but I fought him off,” she sputtered. Her breath came in gasps and she started to cry, the tumult of emotion she’d been holding in finally breaking free.

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