It was like being in the passages; it was all connected, she realized, the oculi, the dark roads, all part of the great network of space and time. Bliss stepped inside the abyss and sent out the message, seeing each hound in the light, their souls as dark stars in the firmament.
You shall not harm the Sabine women but take them as wives. The Dark Prince himself wishes this so.
One by one the light of each hound brightened in response. The message was being received and transmitted to the hive mind.
Bliss hesitated - she realized the oculus could help her in another way. "Show me the Watcher," she ordered.
The images whirred and flew, and finally she saw her aunt. Jane Murray was wearing a raincoat and walking purposefully through a gray, foggy city. She was alive and unharmed. Bliss called to her through the vortex of space and time.
When Bliss stepped out of the oculus, Ahramin was waiting. "We saw the light flash, it meant the message went out. You are one of them," the dark girl said. "Lucifer's kin."
Bliss did not argue. She looked at the boys, worried about their reaction. "I am sorry that I did not tell you sooner, but while I am my father's daughter, I am my own person. He is as much my enemy as yours."
"You don't need to explain," Malcolm said, and hugged her. "You saved the timeline."
"Where is Lawson? Does he know about you?" Ahramin asked.
She nodded. "Yes," she said, not wanting to share any more information for now.
They heard footsteps from the entrance to the temple. Ahramin turned to the boys. "Guard this place. Make sure no one else uses the oculus. Bliss and I will go to Lawson. Come," she said to Bliss, moving her away from the brothers.
"Look, Lawson doesn't want me around, I'll stay here," Bliss said.
Ahramin shook her head. "There is no time to be bashful. Listen, Lawson thinks he can kill Romulus with the archangel's sword."
Bliss nodded.
"He can't."
"Why not?"
"Because I stole it," Ahramin said, trembling. "When I shook his hand, when he released me." She showed Bliss the velvet pouch that contained Michael's sword. "I've had it ever since."
Bliss stared at her. "You sent him to his death! Romulus will destroy him! What were you thinking!" Then she realized. "You lied to us. You are still a Hound of Hell."
Ahramin's body was wracked with spasms. "I tried to fight it - Romulus left me in the house as bait - he hoped that somehow Lawson would find out - and come back for me. I was supposed to deliver them all to him - but I fought it, as long as I could."
Bliss stared at the shaking girl, seeing the broken patient from the hospital again. "Your cough. Your body was fighting your will."
"Yes."
"But hallowed ground - how did you manage it? I thought hounds weren't allowed to be in those places."
"St. Bernadette's was not holy. It was once run by an order, but it is a public hospital now. I made sure before they took me there."
"Why are you telling me this now?"
"I have fought the collar as much as I could, but it is killing me. With every step I take to help the wolves, it takes another piece of my soul. I am going to die now," Ahramin said. "But I don't want ... I don't want them to die." She motioned to the temple, where the boys were fighting the hounds. "Edon doesn't know. I don't want him to know I was ever false. Please, let him still love me, even when I am gone."
"Why should I believe anything you say?"
"Because you love Lawson and you want to help him. I love him too. Will you help me?"
Chapter Thirty-Five
In human form, Romulus was an enormous man, nearly seven feet in height. His shadow covered Lawson, his blinding red robe fluttering in an iridescent halo around him. No simple togas for him, silk or otherwise; he was arrayed in full golden battle armor, with the sweeping robe flowing from his shoulders. In one hand he carried the golden staff Lawson had seen from the window, a weapon as heavy as a pair of Roman soldiers. A red fire roared in his black eyes as he smiled at Lawson, a strange, eerie smile.
"Where is she?" Lawson asked. "Where's Tala?"
Romulus laughed. "Where do you think she is? She's dead, of course."
"You're lying." Lawson tapped his pocket, looking for the sword he had stolen from the underworld, the sword of the angels, but it was nowhere to be found.
Romulus smiled as he smacked him down with his golden staff, felling him as easily as if he were a child or a small animal. An annoyance, nothing more. Lawson fell backward on the hard stone. He heard his skull crack, blood trailing from the wound.
What had happened ...?
Where was the sword?
Bliss?
Had she ...?
The heavy staff came down again and again, and he collapsed against the force of more blows from Romulus. He held up his hands to shield his face, but a silver claw embedded at the top of the golden scepter cut deep into his chest.
Lawson tried to lift himself off the floor and Romulus clubbed him in the back with a blow so powerful it might have cleaved a normal man in half. The Great Beast of Hell hovered over him. "Silly boy," the general said. "You should have joined us when we still wanted you. Instead, you doomed her to her fate."
"You didn't need to kill her. What harm was she to you alive?"
"She was useful for a time," Romulus said, and Lawson didn't want to think what the flicker in the fire of his eyes meant. "A pity she wasn't any prettier, though. Otherwise I might have kept her around a bit longer."
Lawson groaned. He looked over at the bloody toga, just feet away from where he lay on the ground. Tala was here, but he had come too late.
Romulus laughed. "Oh, that thing? No, you're mistaken. That was not hers."
Lawson felt a surge of hope.
"When you left her to burn in that house, I killed her myself. Besides, why keep her alive when I could gain the same advantage by having Ahramin tell you a lie? Your mate has been dead for a very long time now. Truly, you should have listened to your brothers and kept moving. But when you showed yourself at the oculus, it was clear you still had hope, just like you had only a moment ago, when I told you the clothes weren't hers. It gives me great pleasure to watch that hope die, the hope that is your downfall."
Lawson writhed on the floor, holding his head. He was bleeding from his wounds - and the silver poison was working its way into his blood. He would die. But it didn't matter.
Tala was dead.
She'd been dead from the beginning.
She'd been dead since he'd left her. She was dead ...
Tala ...
It was all a dream, this idea that he could rescue her, a stupid dream. A fantasy. His guilt had prodded him on because he hadn't wanted to accept what had happened. He'd known she was as good as dead when he left her to the hounds, but he wouldn't accept it. He knew, but if he accepted it, he'd also have to accept that she'd been killed because of him, because of who he was, what he was.
Tala had pushed him away. She knew what was going to happen. She knew that if they left her behind, the hounds would come and tear her apart. But she loved him, so she had saved him.
Tala, I've failed you ... and now I've failed everyone ...
"Fenrir," Romulus sneered. "The great hope of the wolves. The man out of time, whom time cannot hold. The one who would save them all, who would free them from their chains. I gave you a choice back then to join me, and you chose unwisely. There will be no freedom for the wolves. After today, there will be no wolves at all."
Romulus moved to the balcony and gave the signal to commence the attack.
Chapter Thirty-Six
"Something's wrong," Romulus growled; he moved away from the balcony. Bleeding from his wounds on the floor, Lawson could hear the sounds of screaming and chaos, but if Romulus was not satisfied, then maybe, just maybe, his pack had succeeded in changing the orders. Maybe it meant the Sabines would survive, and so would the line of wolves.
The great general turned to him with a menacing glare. "This is your doing," he hissed. "There is no other way. The orders were clear."
Lawson managed a weak laugh; if this was all the victory he would taste, he would savor it before the end. "It is too late ... you will not be able to change it ..."
"No matter," Romulus said. "You were the gravest threat to the Dark Prince and you will die today." Once again, he struck Lawson with the staff, sending him skittering to the far wall.
Lawson was too debilitated by his injuries to protect himself but he did not care. He would die, but he had saved the wolves. Bliss was wrong; he was no Fenrir, but maybe Marrok would find a way to bring them out of the underworld.
Romulus raised his staff again, but a voice rang from the balcony.
"Don't touch him. You are nothing but my father's dog," Bliss said, entering the room. She must have climbed up from the back way to avoid being seen, Lawson thought. But what was she doing here? Why had she returned? Why did she care? Wasn't she the one who had stolen the angel's sword from him?
"Ah, Lucifer's bastard. He has been searching for you," Romulus said, smiling. "Why don't you return to him? Do not waste your time with this filth."
Bliss smiled. "I have a message you can send to my father ... Ahri, now!" she said as she tossed Michael's sword to Lawson. The archangel's blade glinted golden in the sunlight while Ahramin stepped out of the shadows. She was wearing thick black gloves and holding a heavy silver chain.
"Stay, hound. You are still one of mine. I can hear your thoughts as clearly as I hear my own. You are correct in believing you will die if you do not listen to me," Romulus said.
With a great scream, Ahramin leapt and wrapped the chain twice around Romulus's neck, climbing on his back as she pulled and tightened, and the Great Beast of Hell fell to his knees.
"Remove it! If you treasure your life, you will do as I say!" Romulus ordered as he struggled with the chain, which smoked around his skin. As powerful as he was, he was still a creature of Hell, and silver was poison to him as well.
The scars on Ahramin's neck began to throb, and a silver collar appeared against the skin as Romulus bent his will to hers. She wrestled and thrashed against it, howling in pain, but slowly, excruciatingly, she began to remove the silver chain around Romulus's neck. "I'm so sorry ..." She sobbed. "I'm so sorry, I can't fight him anymore ... "
They were losing time. "Lawson!" Bliss yelled. "Do it!"
With a roar, Romulus threw Ahramin off his back, and he turned to pick up his staff. Romulus snarled and readied to launch the final blow.
But Lawson had gotten up. If he could stand, he could fight, and if he could fight, he could hold a sword. He felt the weight of it in his palm, and he stood, uncertainly. He was broken and battered but he was resolute.
"For Tala," he whispered. "For all the wolves in the underworld." Then he lunged with the blade, which cut through the golden armor like butter, and he stuck it deep into Romulus's black heart.
The Great Beast of Hell howled in pain, and his whole body began to shift, from wolf to man and back, trembling and shaking and smoking, until finally only a small black wolf lay dead on the floor before it disappeared in dark smoke.
There was a clamor and the rest of the pack entered the room. Rafe and Malcolm ran to Lawson, Malcolm's eyes wide with fright, but Edon had eyes for only one person.
"Ahri!" Edon yelled, running to her side; she lay still on the ground next to Romulus. He knelt and cradled her in his arms. "Don't leave me. Don't leave me."
She was lifeless in his arms, and the silver collar was still around her neck, but when Romulus's heart exploded, the collar fell apart and broke in two.
Finally, she opened her eyes. "I told you, there is still wolf in me." She smiled, and Edon kissed her.
Lawson collapsed to the floor even as his wounds began to heal. The silver poison had disappeared with Romulus's death. He put his sword away as he turned to Bliss. "I'm sorry I doubted you,"he said as she knelt down to hear him.
"Never mind that now, did you find Tala?" she asked.
He shook his head to indicate no hope remained, but he had little time to dwell on that for now. "What about your aunt Jane?" he asked.
"She got away. I asked the oculus to show her to me, when I changed the orders. She told me she led the hounds through the passages but she was able to slip away at the very end. She went to London, she said. She told me to meet her there. The Blue Bloods need us there."
Lawson removed the postcard he kept in his pocket and turned it over to read the text: The Abduction of the Sabines. They had succeeded in keeping the timeline safe, in killing Romulus. The wolves would soon be free, and there was still hope for the hounds as well; Ahramin had shown that. Lawson should have felt joy, but all he felt was exhaustion.
"I'm sorry about Tala," Bliss said, and squeezed his hand. "I wish it had been otherwise."
He had won, and yet he had lost. Bliss, of all people, seemed to understand that victory and triumph were not the same.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
The chronolog took them back through time, and as they moved through the passages, Lawson could see places that looked familiar. The monastery, in Venice. France, with the enormous carved stones. He stopped in front of a house that looked more familiar than most.
"I'm sorry, I thought we were going back to the serpent mound," Bliss said. "But this thing seems to have a mind of its own."
Lawson looked at the structure in front of them. It was half-built, with only the foundation and the wood frame. He hadn't recognized it at first, but now he did. "Can you take us here, only closer to the present? A week before we met?"