"Don't take another step, either of you." Melanie Wallace appeared, guns in both of her hands, and stretched out her arms in either direction, pointing them at Kyan and the girl. "If you do, I'll shoot."
The girl lowered her arms. "This is between us," she told her, never looking away from Kyan. "Move away before you get hurt."
Melanie turned her head. "Boys? A little help would be nice."
Two men in dark clothing came out of the shadows behind Melanie. They both held automatic weapons, one pointed at Liling, the other at Kyan.
One shouted a prayer in Latin as he raised the machine gun and began shooting at Valentin and the others standing behind the seawall.
Liling flung a hand toward one of the torches, pulling the flames from it and sending them in a concentrated, blue-white stream between the assassin and the Kyn. Bullets, partially melted, began dropping onto the rocks.
The other man fired directly at her, but Kyan sent a column of water from the lake, blasting the weapon and the bullets he had fired away. It slammed into the assassin, driving him into the concrete side of the seawall, where he fell to lie soaked and unconscious over the edge.
The girl regarded Kyan with surprise. "You defend me now?"
"Your life is mine," he snarled. "No one else takes it."
Melanie made an exasperated sound. "Men, always like dogs in the manger." She fired at him.
Before the bullet reached him, Kyan dissolved his form into a pillar of water. He saw Melanie fire her other weapon at the girl, who cloaked herself in a column of flames.
Kyan shifted back into his human body, and sent two streams of water to blast the guns out of the American girl's hands. "Melanie, leave us alone."
"Liling." The maledicti was running toward the flames.
The girl stepped out of the flames and smiled at the demon before she shook her head. Kyan saw two more of the Darkyn grab the golden-haired man and pull him back.
Kyan summoned the storm, and turned once more to face his sister.
* * *
Chapter 22
Liling knew from the growing violence of the rain and the rising wind that she was running out of time. The lightning went wild, striking the water and the land all around the three of them.
The bright white flashes illuminated Kyan's face in snatches, like a strobe. His black hair, as long as hers had been before the fire at the cabin, seethed in the wind around his stern face. She was not surprised to see he had grown into a tall, strong man. Even when they were little, Kyan had been bigger and broader than she. No one would ever imagine the two of them had once shared the same womb.
Looking into his eyes, however, was the same as looking at herself. Except there, too, was a distinct difference. Tiny sparks of wild energy crackled in Kyan's black eyes, making them look as blue as the swan tattoo on the inside of his right forearm.
This was her brother, her twin. The keeper of her childish secrets and the mirror of her lonely soul. The angry boy she had loved with all her heart, and the deranged man she had feared more than any other. If she couldn't drive him away, she would have to break her promise to Mrs. Chen. She would have to give pain, not take it away.
She would have to kill him.
The lightning danced, splitting around them into a glittering, moving web of light. One thin tendril of electricity shot into the center of the space between Kyan and Liling, striking Melanie on the arm, making her scream with pain.
Kyan reached out to her at the same time Liling did, trying to draw the lightning away from the girl. The web collapsed around Melanie and formed a strange, dark current that leaped between Kyan's and Liling's hands, impaling Melanie in the center.
The next thing Liling saw was a corridor of light around her. She realized at once that she did not occupy the place physically, but her thoughts were so strong and focused it was the same as being embodied. She could feel Kyan there as well, near the other end. He seemed as bewildered as she was.
As soon as her brother became aware of her presence, hatred turned his thoughts turn cold and unyielding. What have you done to her? Where is this place?
Melanie is all right. Liling could feel the girl acting as a sort of conduit, but the energy pouring through her was not harming her. We must have created this place together with our abilities and our minds. The way we did with dreams when we were children. She reached out to him with her thoughts, feeling the light intensify as she drew closer to the essence of his soul. Kyan, I will not allow you to kill again. You can have my life, but you will not harm the one I love.
How can you love him? Bitterness darkened his rage, feeding the twisted snarl of his emotions. He is a demon.
No, Valentin is a good, kind man. She withstood the violent backlash of his angry, wordless reaction to those words until it subsided. The priests lied about so many things. These Darkyn, they are like us. They have abilities like us.
He blasted her with a new wave of anger, this time cold with contempt. No one is like us.
Why are you so angry with me? she demanded. Why do you want me dead? I know they brainwashed you, but you must remember something of us. I was never your enemy.
You left me. You left me to them.
Images of what had happened to him during the seven years they had been separated as children flooded through her mind. No wonder he hated her. He thought she had kept him away, had abandoned him deliberately. That was what they had told him, that she didn't want to be with him. They had made him believe that she despised him.
Now she would have to give pain, not take it from him. It was the only way to make him see the truth.
No, brother. The priests wouldn't let us be together. She opened her own memories of what had been done her, and how she had wept for her twin. The terrible loneliness she had endured. The punishments they had given her for begging to see him, for refusing to obey the bells, the priests, and the doctors, and then for the many attempts she had made to escape so that she could find him. One year, the first year after they took him from her, she had lived on almost nothing but rice and water, locked away from everyone in a small six-by-nine-foot room.
Liling showed him everything, every thought, every agony she had suffered. She poured her pain into him, forcing him to accept it as she had been made to accept their separation.
Kyan's thoughts became confused. But I came for you when I could. I resisted, the same as you did. I came to take you away from them, and you summoned the storm and tried to kill me.
It was not me. The storm came because of what they did to us while we were apart. The doctors went too far. She recalled all of the conversations she had overheard, the reports she had surreptitiously read. The treatments cause us to generate all this power when we are together. But we can't control it, and it makes the storms come. That is why we had to stay apart. Why we can't be together now.
The terrible loneliness inside her brother's soul became an abyss of anguish that yawned between them, but it was answered not by Liling, but by a third presence.
You've hurt him enough, Melanie said, coming to awareness between Liling and Kyan, creating a defensive barrier with her own thoughts. Leave him alone.
Liling reached out to her, and felt a terrible recognition as the girl's conflicted thoughts flooded back over her. Melanie had been raised like her and Kyan, at a Brethren facility in another part of the country. She had been born to a young mother, from whom she had been taken at birth. Moved from place to place, she had been subjected to the same treatments and punishments. She had not escaped, and like Kyan had been trained as an operative to use guns, blades, drugs, and even her own sexuality as weapons. For most of her life she had traveled the world on behalf of the Brethren, assuming different identities in order to carry out her missions.
Beneath all of the coldness and discipline and blunted emotions, Liling felt the remnants of a sad and silent little girl. It had been the little girl who, despite her orders, had not wanted to kill Kyan. But the Brethren had given her no margin for failure. If she had not killed him, she would have been executed herself.
Liling poured herself around Melanie's presence, using her ability to remove pain from her soul. As she removed the poisonous influences the Brethren had inflicted on the girl, she felt Melanie retreat into herself, as wounded and confused as Kyan was.
When she had removed the last of the girl's pain, Liling turned her attention back to her brother. Now do you see the truth of what they did to us?
It can't be undone, can it? Kyan thought, and then answered his own question. What they did changed what we are.
Only our bodies, our abilities. They can never take who we are away from us. Liling embraced his devastating sadness and deep sense of betrayal, and tried to remove it from him, but the connection between them was growing weaker. Kyan, the Darkyn are not evil, she thought while she could still reach him with her thoughts. The Brethren deceived us about them as well. You must get away from the order and never allow them to control you again. Take Melanie away, somewhere they can't find you. She used the last thread of the connection to pour her love for him through it. You will always be in my heart, brother.
Liling was pulled back into her human form as the violet current of energy disappeared. Melanie fell between her and Kyan, unconscious. Liling looked over at her brother, who nodded.
As Liling carefully retreated, Kyan came forward and picked up Melanie, carrying her out into the water. He stopped and turned back.
"I won't forget this," he said. "Or you."
"I am with you, Kyan." Liling said softly. "Even when we're not together."
Her brother took one last look at her, and then he dove under the surface of the lake, taking Melanie with him.
The rippling energy distorting the air gradually dissipated, and above her, the skies cleared. Liling turned to find Valentin standing behind her.
He searched her face. "He came to kill you, but you faced him alone, without me. Why did you not wake me?"
"He is my brother. I had to try to heal him first. I couldn't allow him to harm you or your people." Suddenly feeling more than a little ashamed, she looked down at her hands. "I didn't want you to know what I am, not this part. It's ugly and frightening. I thought if you knew what I can really do—how I give pain as easily as I can take it away—that you wouldn't want me anymore."