Two Sides of The Moon - Chapter 44: Chapter 44

-Oliver-
'Hades?' I called in the middle of the night, unable to sleep.
Nothing. I still couldn't feel the god's presence, and it worried me. How could the enemy destroy my connection to him that easily? Was it even possible to restore the connection? Was Hades all right? I had so many questions, and as always, no one was there to answer me. No one knew the answers.
But it wasn't Hades that worried me the most. The enemy was now inside my head. He was able to see and hear through me, and I had no idea if I could cast him out.
I let out a slow breath and focused on listening to the sleeping sounds in the house. I shouldn't be anywhere near them. I wasn't sure if anyone else had thought of that, but they should be thinking about it. As long as the enemy was able to use me as his eyes and ears, I should stay away from this place.
Maybe I really should leave.
'That is exactly what he wants, you know," Cameron said.
'I miss the time when I could think in private...' I told him and sighed.
'Boohoo.'
'How are you holding up?'
'I'll rip your throat out from inside if you ask me that again.'
'Fair enough.'
I didn't try to talk to him again. Instead, I focused on my problem with the enemy. I knew he wanted me to get away from my friends and family, especially Jaden, who was able to keep me from going completely mad. But if I stayed, I could be leaking our plans to the enemy.
Which was worse?
'Hmm, let's see...' Cameron muttered, and I did not miss the sarcasm in his inner voice. 'To let the enemy see your pathetic little plans, or to release a crazed mass murderer upon this land?'
I rolled my eyes.
'Yeah, I'm sure it's much more important to keep your plans hidden from him. You know, the plans you don't even fucking have,' he added.
'You're such a sunshine, you know that?' I asked with a snort.
'I'd be in a much better mood if you all weren't such idiots...'
'Tell me then, champion, what would you do in our shoes?'
'Roll over and die.'
I had to laugh a little. There was nothing to laugh about, but there was something about his hateful spark that amused me.
'Can I ask you something?' I asked.
'Fine.'
'What did he want you to do when you first invaded our land and possessed Ryder?'
'He wanted me to spy on you,' he answered.
'That's all?'
'That, and he wanted the Howl.'
I nodded slowly. 'I'm surprised he used such a strong fighter as a mere spy.'
Oh, he liked my choice of words. I could feel his hostility fading a little.
'I was the only one who could get past the barriers,' he explained. 'It was a stupid job, especially after I found out that you guys are just a bunch of...'
The way he trailed off made me open my eyes and check my surroundings. I sensed nothing.
'Cameron?'
'He wanted me to get the Howl... But the Vision was more important to him. He sent another minion to get it, but he failed,' Cameron muttered almost absentmindedly. 'You have a memory of that name. A recent one.'
'What name?'
'Raoul.'
'I'm not sure if I remember that,' I said, and suddenly that exact memory flashed through my head.
I saw us sitting in the Great Hall right after Cameron had stolen the Howl from Jaden and left a memory behind. Jaden had told me about it as images, and I told the rest about it.
'The peacekeeper knew that name,' Cameron muttered.
'It may have been a coincidence,' I pointed out. 'The Raoul Aadhil mentioned was a vampire and their kind don't have spirits.'
'No. That is not a coincidence. That is the same Raoul. My master confirmed it,' Cameron said grimly.
'But... He was a vampire?'
'Child... There are ways to bring back their human spirits. Vampires do have an essence that can be united with the human spirit,' Cameron muttered, clearly trying his hardest not to mock me.
'So... What does it mean? Who is Raoul? What did he do?'
'That you must ask the Peacekeepers. I was asleep when the battle of Arlona happened,' Cameron said.
'But he was the one who attacked Arch?'
'Yes.'
'He was strong.'
'Yes. Not a lesser minion, no, but not anywhere near as strong as me. But...'
'But what?'
Cameron stayed silent, and I let him be. He was not ignoring me. He was putting pieces together.
'I think you should call the peacekeepers. Now,' he finally said, his voice now so sinister I had shivers running down my spine.
'Why?' I whispered, fearing to hear his reply.
'I think our enemy was behind the battle of Arlona.'
I closed my eyes, took in a deep breath, and let it out slowly. 'Do they have to know now?'
'I can go inform them,' Cedric suddenly offered, nearly freaking me out – too many voices in my head... 'What do I need to tell them?'
'Let them know that Raoul, who led the attack against their fortress, is working with our enemy. I don't have any proof, but I strongly believe Raoul was already working for my ex-master during the battle.'
'I will,' Cedric said and left my body. 'Anything else?'
'I want to talk to them first thing in the morning,' Cameron said.
'All right,' Cedric said, and left.
Silence fell inside my head, but I could feel Cameron's inner turmoil. It was not caused by our enemy, however.
'He does still love you,' I said quietly.
'Sure...'
He did not believe me. I could feel his sadness and his yearning. I could also feel Cedric's confusion. My guardian spirit did not know what to do.
'He does," I tried again, but Cameron ignored me. 'I think he just needs more time. How things ended between you two, and what happened to you after... He blames himself. He carries a lot of guilt inside him.'
'As he should.'
Cameron's words hurt even me, but I hoped it was the corruption in him speaking, not himself. I feared I would make things worse if I tried to push the topic. I couldn't afford to make him angry since that would give the corruption a chance to strike.
'Harbinger...'
'Yes?'
'I don't care about this world,' he muttered. 'You can all burn in hell for what I care.'
'I'm sensing a but.'
He stayed silent for a very long time, but again, not because he was ignoring me.
'It's hard... to hold on to... reality,' he finally said slowly, taking breaks like he was in agony. 'My mind... I don't even know... what is the reality anymore...'
I heard the sincerity and confusion in his soft voice. This had to be the real Cameron speaking.
'He does love you,' I repeated, hoping my words would reach him.
'I can't see that,' he whispered. 'My Starling... He can't stand my presence now. He doesn't... talk to me... He is... afraid of me...'
I could not see his spirit, but I could feel it in me so clearly it was almost as if I could actually see it. Behind all that darkness, I could sense him, the mutilated soul who was barely staying together. His wounds were old and massive, oozing darkness like sticky blood that climbed back up through another gash. While Jack's soul had been small and purple, Cameron's was large, but unrecognizable, like pure deformed horror from the darkest corners of hell, and so dark even the color black wasn't good enough to describe it.
I tried to shine my light at him, but the darkness hardly even flinched. It was so old... So powerful...
How could we heal something so utterly destroyed?
'He loves you. But he is confused. He is horrified. He is having so many emotions right now. But you have to believe me,' I said.
I saw a flash of a memory in front of me, but it was not mine. I saw a beautiful young man lying next to me with no clothes on, only a blanket hiding his body. He had a relaxed smile on his face as he reached to touch mine.
The picture vanished, and the pain in Cameron grew worse.
'Starling...'
'He loved you very much,' I said.
'You should kill me... Harbinger...'
I did not know I was crying silently. 'You have to hold on. We will find a way to heal you. You will have your life back. You will be happy with your Starling once again.'
That name finally pushed the darkness back just enough so Cameron could regain most of his consciousness.
'I... I will try... I'd be damned if I let... them have me again,' he promised.
'Yes, we can make it. Together,' I told him.
He fell unconscious only a moment after that. I sniffed hard and wiped my face dry, then spent the rest of the night staring at the ceiling, thinking...
The peacekeepers came to see me the next morning, their expressions grim. They hoped to hear more about Cameron's theory, but he didn't have more answers to them. He insisted he was right, and the peacekeepers were smart enough to take his words seriously.
Natalie was the next person to visit us, and I could tell she did her absolute best not to show how freaked out she was about everything. She spent a lot of time apologizing for not being able to come see me sooner, and I spent that same amount of time trying to convince her I wanted her to focus on her job as a Spirit Walker instead of coming to see me. Their small group was working hard to protect our land, after all, and I was fine with Aurora. Every minute counted.
After she left to continue with her job – I had to practically kick her out of the house – and we had a quiet breakfast, Aurora let us go spend some time outside.
As we walked around the territory, staying away from the new barricades and walls surrounding the houses, I kept peering up at the sky. The wards were coming back up after our enemy had destroyed them, but feeling them around us didn't give much comfort. He could just come back and break them again...
"I'll protect you," Jaden murmured right next to me.
I smiled at him, not only because of his words, but because I was so happy to hear his voice again.
"You are my knight in shiny... fur?" I joked, and he chuckled, wrapping his arm around my shoulders. "I'm so happy you got your voice back."
"Me too," he said with a smirk. "You have no idea how annoying it is to live with my thoughts and not be able to blurt them out so everyone else can be annoyed with me."
I laughed at his words, and I wasn't the only one. That kind of spooked me. We hadn't had much to laugh about lately. These past few weeks had been so stressful and exhausting it felt like it had been years since the last time I laughed.
"I sure missed hearing your voice," I said gently and gave him a smile.
"Don't worry, you'll regret that soon enough," he said with a chuckle, but then his expression turned more serious. "But most of all, I'm glad I got my gift back. I only had it for a few weeks, but I felt almost crippled without it."
"I hear you," Arch said right behind us. "It feels like you're whole again."
"Exactly," Jaden agreed, and stopped, looking back up at the sky. "Now we have our powers. We are... Damn near invincible."
"I can sense the enemy's attacks long before they actually strike, so we can protect ourselves," Arch said.
"And if they do get a hit in, my gift prevents us from getting hurt," Tilly said proudly.
"And if we still get hurt, I can just heal us," Jaden added with a smirk.
"Not to mention you can fight against physical enemies as wolves or as Cerberus, and against shadows with the bow," I concluded.
"Like I said," Jack said. "They should've killed you when they still had the chance."
I stopped and looked at my friends with a smile on my face. "Cameron is right. We are not weak, not anymore. We can fight him. We can protect ourselves. We have strong allies, and our army is growing bigger every day. And we have our own toys. We are not weak."
Jaden smiled and hugged me with one arm. "You are right. We will defeat him."
'Are you now?'
I heard the enemy's voice in my head a second before the wards above us came once again crashing down. Another second passed, and a big, dark figure appeared in the middle of us, his shape almost like a human, but much bigger.
He laughed, and we all jumped away from him, the werewolves already turning into wolves. Three more clouds of darkness surrounded us, but no one stepped through. I already knew those dark portals belonged to the three Shadow Walkers who had Hades' Echoes.
'I'm sorry about the delay, but my men are finally ready for you,' he spoke in his dark voice, and even though he had no face, I knew he was looking straight at me.
I could feel several peacekeepers creating their portals around us so they could come to our aid, but during that one little second, our enemy suddenly vanished, and his Shadow Walker companions joined us, giving us evil smiles.
The peacekeepers appeared a heartbeat later, ready to fight in their full armor, but something invisible blew up where our enemy had stood, sending everyone flying back, leaving only me and the closest people, Jaden, Tilly, and Arch, standing. I heard Aurora's muffled cry when she hit a tree several feet away, Jack landing at her feet.
Everything had happened so fast I hadn't had time to even open my mouth, but when the Shadow Walkers stepped closer, surrounding us four, I turned into a spirt, and my friends into wolves. I was about to blast these people out of our lands, but they gave me no time. Darkness surrounded us in a split second, and the last thing I saw was my friends, and Jack getting up on his feet behind them.
The ground below me vanished, and for a second, I felt like I was being stretched. My skin crawled and my stomach turned upside down. Then I fell.
I hit the snowy ground hard, and the darkness faded. I didn't recognize the place. We were in an open field with only a few trees here and there, but I couldn't see far since we were surrounded by mist. Jaden, Tilly, and Arch were right next to me as wolves, trying to get up on their shaky, wobbly feet. We were alone.
Well, not quite.
"Arch!"
I sat up when I heard Jack's voice somewhere very close. I saw him digging his way out of the snow where he had landed.
"Jack!" I shouted, and realized I was again human.
"What happened?" he asked as he crawled his way to us.
"I... I..." I hastily looked around. I couldn't feel a soul anywhere near us. "We got teleported, I guess."
"We need to get the fuck out of here," Jack said, resting his hand on Arch's neck. "You all right?"
Arch barked as a yes.
"He wants me," I said, the fear trying to suffocate me, but I had to stay calm. "I guess you got pulled with me..."
"No."
We sprung around when a tall, blond young man approached us. The enemy. His eyes were black, and a thin veil of darkness surrounded him. His face was pale, colorless, like a gray picture. His green clothes were old, not from our era.
He smiled and stopped ten feet away from us. We had frozen to our spots, the fear preventing us from even blinking. I heard their heartbeats racing just as fast as mine in the eerie silence that surrounded us.
"I also wanted Cerberus. It's easier to tame a beast than create one of our own," he said, snapping his fingers, and the Shadow Walkers returned. "I did not mean to bring the Valhalla's puppy, though."
Another snap revealed a small castle in the middle of the mist behind our enemies.
"Bring them," the enemy spoke, turning his back on us. "Get rid of the Champion. We can't use him."
I looked up. The closest Shadow Walker had a gun in his hand. It was the same kind of gun Henry had used against Arch.
"NO!"
None of us had any time to move before loud gunshots broke the silence.