They hadn’t mourned the creature in question; they hadn’t liked him any better than John had, for the beast had been foul even by their standards. But his death had made them worry. About how easily a senior demon had gone down. About the strange fey magic John had evidenced in battle. About what else he might be able to do.
About which of them was next.
John could have told them the answer to that: no one. He didn’t want to exterminate the demon high council, even if he could have. As bad as they were, chaos would be worse, without the restrictions the council put on who was allowed to come to earth and what they could do there. Chaos would mean a lot of dead humans. Chaos might mean all dead humans. So, no, John was no threat to them.
But, of course, they hadn’t believed that. And even if they had, why take a chance? It wasn’t the demon way.
As a result, John had seen himself change from a bright eyed, curious young man into an angry, resentful, more-than-slightly paranoid one, character traits he'd never fully managed to excise, even after all these years. But Cassie . . . she hadn’t been brought up in hell, no, but could a vampire's court—especially that vampire's—have been much better?
Somehow, he doubted it.
Just a few of the things she'd said at times, casually, as if describing normal behavior, had painted a picture that was frankly appalling. Brutal, vicious, conniving, and dangerous: the creatures she'd rubbed shoulders with growing up had deserved those terms every bit as much as the demons he'd known. Yet how different their reactions had been!
John didn’t understand her, even after spending the last four months almost glued to her side. How she’d remained so sane, so caring, so . . . different, both from them and from his own bitter, world weariness, was nothing less than amazing. And now—
Gods, he didn’t want to see her hurt now! Didn’t want to see her follow in his footsteps, that bright optimism fading into his own savage cynicism, that strange light that she carried within her dimmed or extinguished. He didn’t want to see any of it.
Not that he would.
He was going to die.
The demon high council had been looking for an excuse to kill him for centuries, and now they had one. They weren’t going to give that up. But he wasn’t dead yet, John thought, and wiped a thumb across her greasy lower lip, because life was beautiful, she was beautiful, and he wanted her to know that before the end.
Five minute later, they were being called away to hear the verdict, and John felt his feet rushing instead of dragging, the stupid hope bubbling up in his veins strangely euphoric. This day had been a day of wonders, of revelations, of wildly improbable events, the greatest of which was the expression he’d seen shining out of her eyes. Five minutes had changed his world; five minutes had done the impossible. Maybe, just maybe, it could happen again.
Or maybe not.
The verdict came in a blaze of spell light so bright that it all but blinded him. Only one thought had been in his mind, in the split second he’d had to think anything, and that was to knock Cassie to the side, to make sure that it didn’t hit her, too. In that he’d succeeded, but there had been no way to evade it himself.
It landed like a freight train, knocking his soul out of his body and back through his life, shedding years like seconds as they flew by in the wrong direction. The shock and pain had made thinking almost impossible, leaving him rushing through a kaleidoscoping tunnel of his past, one changing so quickly that he could barely make anything out. It had felt like being caught in a raging river, hitting stones and obstacles occasionally along the way, but mostly drowning under the whitewater rush.
But despite his panic and horror, there were brief moments of lucidity when he’d known what was happening to him. When he’d realized that the demon council hadn’t been content just to kill him. No, he’d made them afraid, something that no one had managed in millennia, and for that he had to pay. And perhaps they had thought it fitting that the man once known in legend for aging backwards should die that way.
And he should have.
The spell they’d used was ancient and terrible, sending the soul speeding back through time to its birth, and then beyond. He wouldn’t simply die; he would be written out of existence. Vanishing, in a puff of magic, as if he’d never existed at all.
It was the worst fate they could imagine, to know the end was coming, yet be unable to stop it. And they’d been right—it had been absolutely terrifying, his mind surfacing only long enough, here or there, to cry out for help that no one could give him. And by the time the spell finally started to slow down, he was too far back in his past for even the stubbornest time-traveler to reach him.
Only, somehow, she had.
He remembered her catching up twice: once in what had looked like Amsterdam, on a frozen canal with snow in her hair. Everything had been a blur around him, everything but her. He’d been desperate, confused, almost out of his mind, but for a split second, he’d seen her—he knew he had.
But a moment later, he’d been snatched away again, and she was gone. And that had been it, the farthest back she could possibly have reached, for he hadn’t been to Amsterdam in centuries. And before that had been a lengthy sojourn at his father’s court in hell, where her magic didn’t work. By the time he’d emerged back into the cool greens and deep blues of earth, back into sunshine and clear skies and a beauty the hells had never known . . .
It was almost over.
In my beginning is my end, John had thought. He’d read that somewhere, along with its codicil: in my end is my beginning. But the latter wouldn’t be true for him. He was fifteen hundred years away from where he’d started, and she couldn’t reach him.
The spell had finally slowed down, being almost out of energy, but it didn’t need to travel much farther. The next moment would be his last, or the one after that; it didn’t matter anymore. But at least it was jumping now, in fits and starts, less an unbroken reel of film and more a glitching video cassette, allowing him a final glimpse of the world he’d known. Wales was beautiful all year round, but John had always liked the summer best. And summer it was—
When he saw her again.
He’d opened his eyes on one of the brief respites between jumps, not on the fine sunny day he’d expected, but on a flaming night. A tent flap was beating back and forth in a high wind, like a bird trying to take off. And she was sitting beside him, watching the sky burn and sparks fly past the tent’s opening, thick as rain, while armies clashed in the distance and the skies above them cracked open like all the fires of hell were descending. The unimaginable spectacle should have caught the eye.
It didn’t.
All he could see was her.
He’d tried to form words, tried so hard, realizing that he didn’t have much time, but wanting to know: how she’d found him, how she’d traveled so far, why she’d risked it. But he couldn’t seem to speak. All he could do was stare at her dumbly, the strange light from outside staining her blonde hair pink, her dress blowing against her body, the sparks reflected in her eyes.
And her name . . . what was her name? His scrambled brain had searched and searched for the answer, like it was a lifeline, like it was the most important thing in the world. And to him, right then, it had been.
But he couldn’t remember, not until she started to cry, silently, almost stoically, tears slipping down her exhausted, dirty face as she stared at the carnage outside. And, suddenly, he knew. “Cassie,” he’d said hoarsely. “Your name is Cassie.”