The Sentinels of Eden, Books 1-4

Chapter 49

Chapter 44

As I stepped under the rocky overhang Bane yanked me to a halt.

‘What’s wrong?’ My body was quivering with the need to keep moving.

‘I can’t let you go in there.’ He pulled me behind him as if to shield me from whatever was inside the cave. ‘It’s too dangerous. I have no idea why but this is stronger than anything I’ve ever felt before. I just can’t let you go in.’ Turning towards me, he tried to push me back.

‘Bane,’ I said, standing my ground, ‘I understand exactly what you mean because I feel it too. It’s so strong. I need to go. You said you would help me to do my job. I need you to let me do this.’

He clenched his jaw. ‘I have no choice, Lainie!’ The sopping wet hair that fell across his face did nothing to quench the fire in his eyes.

‘Yes you do. There is always a choice.’

Fear and frustration warred in his expression as he remembered our pact to always allow each other our freedom, and he reluctantly released his hold. As soon as he let go I fled into the darkness of the cave.

As I stumbled out of the twisting tunnel I felt the heat of the sword even before I saw its light. Rounding the last corner, I was blinded by the contrast of the bright flame against the blackness beyond. Noah and Sarah were about to cross over.

‘Noah, wait! Something’s not right!’ I shouted. ‘Sarah, please, just wait a minute. Hold on!’ Sarah tried to keep moving but Noah held her back with a tortured look in his bright eyes. ‘Noah!’ I panted, tripping over the uneven floor of the cavern. ‘You can’t let her cross. She’s not one of us!’

With a painful mental slap I had finally worked out what had been bothering me since I’d seen Harry at the hospital. His hands had not shown a trace of the wounds he’d sustained from the knife fight, but my mother had never touched them with the Fruit juice. Also, Noah’s dad was nowhere to be seen, nor had he ever said even one word to any of us about a place that was such a significant part of all our lives. Mr Ashbree had nothing to do with Eden.

In the Bible there were two Cherubim appointed to secure the entrance. And now I knew what that meant. Two in each generation. My mother, Harry, Noah and myself.

And each of us had our own Guardian. We had been lied to, and even I had missed it, passing off the hints of deceit I had felt from Sarah as something else because I hadn’t wanted to mistrust her.

‘She’s right, Noah,’ Bane gasped as he ducked beneath the last stalactite. ‘Your mother is a Guardian like me and Tess. She’s not a Cherub.’

He tried to catch my hand but I evaded his grasp.

‘It explains why she was so dizzy this morning at the hospital,’ he continued. ‘She tried to heal Harry but couldn’t. She’s suffering because there’s nothing she can do to heal him from the cancer.’

I thought back to when I had overheard Sarah talking to Harry in his cottage. ‘You tried to heal him before he even left for Eden, didn’t you? Why didn’t it work?’

She seemed to deflate, and once again I saw that self-condemnation that should never exist. That taint that had exiled countless generations from their true home. ‘Harry said my gift had weakened because I resisted the bond for too many years. I wanted to be free from it more than anything, but not at the cost of his life!’

Free from it? So I’d been right all along.

‘Don’t you see?’ she cried. ‘I did this to him!’ She gripped Noah’s wrist and began to drag him towards the sword like he was a reluctant toddler. ‘But it’s not too late. There’s more than one way to heal someone.’

Eden. Sarah had been trying to get into Eden to gain access to the Living Fruit. She intended to use it to heal Harry. I leaped quickly to block her path to the sword.

‘Nicole never even came anywhere near here, did she?’ I accused. How had she been planning to get past the sword? Of course. If Noah took her across willingly, the sword wouldn’t protest. Maybe. But Noah looked as horrified as I felt, and I doubted he could have let her get much further even if we hadn’t worked out the truth.

It was time to speak out a new solution.

There were a thousand words I could use to repel Sarah from the Event Horizon. I wanted to do it gently, so I took a deep breath and tried to think, but then she made a sudden lunge towards me at exactly the same time as Bane tried to grab her. From nowhere came the s***h of a knife as Sarah sliced ferociously at his arm. It was the same blade that Alex Beckinsale had used against Tessa and Harry. She must have found it while she was waiting for us. He snatched his hand away and lunged for her again. It was too late. She had already grabbed me and had the knife against my throat. I didn’t even get a chance to flinch. Guardians were seriously quick. Her arm pinned both of mine painfully behind my back, but all I really felt was the cold metal against my skin. How had she learnt to do that? She had moved so nimbly. Like a trained fighter—or a supernatural bodyguard.

‘Guardians have no problem killing people to keep their charge safe,’ she reminded us. ‘You won’t come any closer, Bane. If she takes me across, she’ll be just fine.’

Noah held him back, looking completely torn. This was not a situation his soft heart could reconcile. Bane’s wrist and hand were bleeding profusely, splashing sanguine drips onto the flowstone floor.

Sarah started to back us away towards the sword. It was still revolving slowly.

‘Please, Sarah! You know I can’t let you cross!’ I begged her to understand. This was Noah’s mum. The woman who had cleaned and dressed my skinned knees and helped me kidnap my Barbies back from the twins when they’d held them for ransom. Her current actions seemed incomprehensible, and yet entirely predictable given what I now knew about her. ‘I won’t be able to help it,’ I pleaded. ‘I’ll have to stop you no matter the cost.’ All too quickly we were level with the sword and I could feel its heat like sunburn on my skin.

‘No,’ she declared, her voice cracking. ‘After everything I’ve done to Harry, I can’t just let him die. I don’t understand why he didn’t eat from the Tree when he was in Eden, and frankly I don’t care what self-sacrificing reason he might have given you. Someone needs to protect him from himself because he deserves so much better than dying in some stupid hospital!’

‘It’s his choice,’ I croaked, but it sounded weak, even to me.

‘Well sometimes we don’t make the right choices, do we?’ she cried, and with her words came a flash of insight. A memory of a night and a day spent locked away from the rest of the world. Two people losing themselves in something that was bigger than both of them. Something that should have been pure and beautiful but was tainted with the weight of a choice to be made. And she had thrown it away and chosen to marry the wrong man for all the right reasons.

I caught Noah’s eye, and told him with silent words, in our long-practised language that felt entirely natural. It wasn’t a complex language. All I said was, ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Noah is Harry’s son,’ I whispered, still staring at him, and the knife at my throat nicked my skin as her hand shook in reply.

Her voice sounded utterly defeated. ‘There’s nothing you can do to stop me, Lainie. You told me yourself when I arrived at the hospital yesterday. Cherubim can’t kill. You don’t have a choice. You’ll have to let me through.’

I took one last look at Bane’s bleeding hand. I would not let him get hurt again. Then my eyes locked onto Noah’s shocked face and my tears begged his forgiveness for what I was about to do.

‘You’re right. In this there is no choice,’ I said to the woman who had once taught me how to flip a skateboard.

Even though it was deliberate, when I thrust myself forward I was still astonished by the sheer level of pain I felt as the sharp blade sliced into my throat. And yet I kept pushing against it with all the strength I could find. Hot blood sprayed, filling my vision and my mouth. As I choked, I tried desperately to yank Sarah away from the boundary, my fingers scrabbling to hold on, but I knew it was pointless. She dropped the knife to pull away from me and it skittered away across the floor and then my fingers could no longer grip anything.

The second our skin no longer touched, the sword flared to life, spinning so bright and fast that it looked like an exploding sun. I wanted to do something. I wanted … but I was locked. My body wouldn’t move and my thoughts refused to exist in the same space as that pain …

A full-throated scream erupted from Sarah as the flames engulfed her, and like an extended flash of lightning, the unnaturally hot fire burned away her tainted flesh within the space of about ten fading heartbeats.

The sword had no trouble killing people either.

As I collapsed into blackness, I could hear Bane shrieking my name.