Into The Light (The Fallen Shadows) Page 24

  Why is everyone engaged in combat when the doorway is in here, somewhere? Katharine began to wonder if this dancing battle was all just a distraction from the bigger picture. She thought to alert Ash and find a way to tell him what she had just begun to realize but as she stood to make her move something latched onto her arm and began dragging her out of the room.

  Whatever had a grip on her was pulling so hard and so fast she couldn’t make heads or tails of her surroundings or what or who took her. She heard the fading sounds of the snarling Descended and the clanging sounds of the Guides weapons landing on their targets. She screamed an ear piercing shriek that echoed through the pathway and bounced off the walls just outside the room where she had been only seconds ago.

  As she went to open her mouth again to release another blood curdling scream, sure that Ash would hear and come to her rescue, something hard and heavy slammed into her head and once again her world turned into darkness.

  Ash shoved his sword into the Descended’s throat and watched with joy as the yellow ooze began to pour out like water falling down the sides of a waterfall. Davon had just completed taking out the last of the Descended that Serena had compiled as her weapon against them. The Guides felt satisfied in their victory, considering it another win for the Garrison and another blow to the hope the Descended had about finding the doorway and re-entering into Heaven.

  Ash turned to the spot where he had last seen Katharine huddled in the corner safely away from all of the chaos and found she was no longer there. The joy that had been soaring through him was pushed aside by the fear that something terrible had happened to her.

  He glanced searched the room for Angelina and Serena only to find they were gone as well. All that was left were the dead bodies of the Descended and the fading flames of the blue fire burning beside them.

  “She’s gone!” Ash shouted running about the room looking under the bodies in the hopes that somehow he’d just missed something that Katharine was still there.

  Davon wiped the yellow ooze off his blade and placed it back in his weapon’s belt. He swiftly walked across the floor that was now decorated with dead Descended and made his way over to an extremely frantic Ash. It was already clear to him that no matter how frantically Ash looked he would not find Katharine. Angelina and Serena had disappeared and they had taken the Tracker. The battle with the Descended was a distraction so they could take what they were there to take, Katharine.

  Ash was flipping the bodies of a group of Descended on their backs as though Katharine might be hiding underneath them. Davon placed his hand gently on Ash’s forearm and shook his head motioning for him to stop. “She’s not here Ash and you know as well as I do who took her.”

  Ash flipped the sword in his hand and headed for the door expecting Davon to follow him. He was halfway out the door before he realized his partner hadn’t moved. “What are you doing? Let’s go we have to go after them, we have to get Katharine back.”

  Davon strode calmly toward Ash with a flat look upon his face. He recognized a familiar situation, one he had been in with Ash before. His partner was ready to run off on a blind mission to rescue a girl he had fallen for without so much as a plan or map by which to go by. It was a mistake Davon allowed to happen once and would not allow it again.

  “Do you know where they are? Do you have any idea where they are going?” Davon asked placing his hand atop Ash’s shoulder. Ash shook him off without saying a word.

  Ash met Davon’s words with a terrifying glare. He wanted nothing more than to run out of the room and hunt Serena and Angelina down. He would go alone and would risk the elder’s punishment or worse, death by angel blade, if it meant Katharine’s safety. He grabbed a blade from Davon’s belt and started out of the room but before he got halfway down the pathway Angelina’s voice echoed through the walls.

  “I do,” she said calmly.

  Ash spun around to find Angelina standing beside Davon with her hands folded across her chest. Ash’s partner stood at her side as though they were old friends. Unaware of what it was Angelina wanted to say Ash rushed her leading with his sword. He pressed the cold steel against Angelina’s neck and pushed it tightly into her skin. Dark red blood began to drip from beneath where the blade sat against her skin. She began to gasp for air as Davon pushed Ash aggressively. “Just listen to her.”

  Ash was bewildered by his partner’s behavior and glared at him as if he’d never seen him before in his life. He felt the stings of a thousand knives from their betrayal. He looked into the eyes of the woman he once loved and the man who had been his partner for so long and felt nothing but cold anger toward them.

  Nothing Angelina had to say held any value to him and therefore he didn’t want to hear any of it. She had remembered him long before their confrontation that evening and she did nothing to try to find him when for many months Ash could do nothing but ache for her. He had wished to see her face so many times before and now standing there in front of her he wished never to have met her.

  “I know where Serena is taking the Tracker,” Angelina said calmly.

  “Her name is Katharine,” Ash said bitterly. Angelina rolled her eyes; she could care less what her name was. Everything about Katharine aggravated her because she was everything Angelina was not.

  The Tracker had a piece of Ash’s heart that she once had and now she was being replaced. Angelina thought seriously for a moment about not saying another word, about letting Serena do as she had planned with Katharine; in fact she welcomed the idea but the moment was fleeting.

  “You have been working with Serena, how do you expect us to believe a word you say?” Ash asked firmly.

  “Because despite what you might think,” Angelina’s voice became shaky and unstable. She choked on the lump in her throat that had formed as the sadness crept over her. She tried to fight the pain from overcoming him but seeing Ash look at her with blankness in his eyes she could no longer hide her emotions. “I still do love you.” She reached behind her and revealed the steel shimmer of the angel blade. Slowly she handed the only weapon that could kill the Guides to Davon. “I made so many mistakes since I met Serena and if I can set them right by helping you find your Tracker, well then so be it.”

  Ash stood baffled by what he was witnessing. He searched inside his memories and tried to figure out when it was that Angelina could have taken the blade, but his memories were flooded with the yellow ooze of the Descended’s blood and sting of realizing that Katharine was gone.

  Looking at his partner, Ash knew that in for Davon, Angelina taking the blade from Serena and giving it to him was enough to convince him that she was telling the truth. Ash however, was not so easily convinced, but with no other leads to go on he no other choice but to put his faith in her.

  After losing Angelina, Ash always imagined what it would be like if he could see Angelina again, what it would feel like to hear her tell him she loved him. He always thought the sound of her voice; the touch of her skin and the green in her eyes would send his heart soaring. He couldn’t imagine feeling anything but pure joy that she remembered him and still cared for him but even with her standing a few inches in front of him he could think of nothing else than finding Katharine. She was what mattered to him now and Angelina was nothing more than a glimpse of a past he wanted to forget.

  So with a mental breath and after gritting his teeth, Ash turned to Angelina and said with a growl, “Then tell me where to find her.”