Tainted: Book Three - Enslaved

47. Inconsolable

Mira

Kerry took one look, fell to his knees, and pulled Lilas from my lap into his. Hinge hovered at his elbow, his bones clicking louder than usual as his agitation grew.

"What can we do?" I felt completely useless.

Rome crouched beside me and slid his arm over my shoulders. I reached up and grabbed his hand with both of mine.

"Should I call Josef?" he asked Kerry. "He could have a healer 'ported here, or close to here."

"If St. Pat's is warded, it means Valhalla is under attack." Kerry's scarred fingers stroked the little girl's hair out of her face. "He's in combat, and probably wouldn't have a healer to spare even if he answered his phone."

Then inspiration hit me.

"I'll use the teleport bracelet!" I held up my wrist.

"If Gina bounced off St. Pat's, you will, too. It'd be a waste of a charm."

"We could take her somewhere else."

"Where? The only way into the Sanctuary now is through an outpost."

"Enough!" Hinge said. "I'll use my power and heal her myself."

"No," Lilas gasped. "You'll die."

"That doesn't matter." He grabbed her hand. "That's our only choice if we're going to save you, and saving you is all that matters. Besides, I'm not tainted or corrupted. Death doesn't scare me."

"I don't want you to do this, Hinge," Kerry said, "but I'm outta ideas."

"You'll watch out for her, won't you?" Purple lights blinked up at him.

"All the rest of my days."

"Good enough."

What happened next was both terrible and poignant, and nothing I ever want to witness again.

Hinge's power left him in a slow drain of pearly white light and, as it trickled into Lilas, he fell apart. I mean, he literally fell apart. One by one, from the toes up, his bones dropped with sad little clunks before crumbling to dust. By the time his rib cage collapsed, color had crept back into Lilas' face and her eyes were no longer glazed over.

"Oh, Bertie." Tears slipped down her cheeks.

"Don't cry." He was little more than a skull and an arm now, and still he held her hand and tried to comfort her.

"But you're dying!"

"I died two centuries ago. All the years since then, I wrestled with regret and the shame of going against God and nature. Now, I realize I was allowed to endure for one reason: so that I could be here at this moment to save you."

He pressed his forehead against hers.

"I choose to do it gladly, too, for now I can go to my Maker with neither shame nor regret, and my final sight and thought will be precious ones."

I knotted my fingers into Rome's shirt, and his arm tightened around me as we watched Hinge's fingers crumble one by one. His hand went next, then his wrist, his arm, his shoulder. Finally, only his skull remained. Kerry held it against the little girl's cheek as the purple lights flickered in their dark eye sockets, then winked out for the last time.

"Lilassss..."

His jaw unhinged, his skull turned to powder, and Albert Grenville Chesterton laid down the burden of life.

#

Kerry

'Course it wasn't that easy. Nothing ever is.