surprised at myself, realizing that I didn't want revenge. She totally screwed me. She made Eric think that I was the one who killed him. Technically, my demon kiss did kill him, but the girl who looked like me and doused him with Brimstone dust was the true murder.
And that was Shannon. Confident, carefree Shannon.
It was unbelievable. But when she spewed words of hatred at me outside the Lorren, I believed it. She changed. Shannon and I no longer saw eye to eye on anything. And up until this point, I thought I'd want to wring her scrawny neck. I thought nothing would give me more pleasure than gouging out her eyes with a piece of Brimstone. But now that the moment was here, now that I might have the opportunity - I was filled with dread. It felt like I swallowed glass and the shards were ripping through me. Collin made it very clear not to hesitate if she was there. I had to kill her first, or we would die - both of us. We had the element of surprise. She might know we'd escape through a catacomb, but she wouldn't know when or which one. If my previous best friend was there, it would be luck. And the way things usually go for me, it would have been my kind of luck too.
Collin had taken me to a different portal than the one we entered through. Shannon, Eric, and I went into the Underworld through the catacombs in Rome, but this time, when Collin and I emerged we were in the catacombs under Paris. Apparently the Valefar used the graves of the deceased to leave the Underworld. And most of the Valefar never returned to Hell. Collin was an exception; he threw himself into that pit portal last fall and fell into Hell, and directly into Kreturus' clutches. No, most creatures that made their way out of Hell didn't want to go back. And I couldn't blame them.
When we surfaced in the tombs, every muscle in my body relaxed. No one was there. No Martis. No Shannon. I smiled at Collin, grateful that we caught a break for once. When we made it out of the tombs without incident, the night air washed over me. I breathed it in greedily, as if I couldn't get enough. The air had such a different quality to it than the air in the Underworld, where it felt, tasted, and smelled of death, decay, and hopelessness. But the air up here wasn't like that. It smelled of hope.
And freedom.
After we were certain no one was around, I wrapped my arms around Collin and smiled up into his face. "Are you ready?"
"Since when do you ask?" he laughed pushing a curl behind my ear. I felt fine. The weakness seemed to fade from the time I left the Lorren and I was ready to take us out of this place.
Smiling up at him, I started the effonation. Heat licked through my stomach and climbed my throat the way it usually does. I fixated on Al and St. Bart's church in New York. This was the longest distance I'd ever tried to effonate two people. It was slightly insane but we both agreed that it was much safer to move around up here this way. I was public enemy number one and the Martis would kill me on sight. The best way to avoid them was to avoid being seen. As for the other Martis that were in the church, we'd have to deal with that when we got there.
If I'd known how the sapphire serum affected my abilities I wouldn't have tried to transport both of us. But, I wasn't aware of what crystalizing the poison had done to me, and now it was too late.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The sapphire serum turned to ice in my chest as we effonated. It seemed to swell and the normal pain of effonation was compounded. I screamed in silence and I clung to Collin. As the boiling blood coursed through my veins, I locked my fingers tightly around him. Losing him before we touched ground at St. Bart's would be disastrous. Collin told me that if I effonated incorrectly, I could peel the skin off my body. There were some things that sounded painful no matter how powerful you are. I didn't care to find out what splicing myself felt like, so I focused on Al and the church as fiercely as possible. My nails dug