Needing is One Thing

Chapter 27. Even though I'm the sacrifice

Delial answered his summons. Andrew was surprised but grateful that there was no corresponding pull of energy, no flush of taint with it. The Devils were rapidly thinning in numbers, the demons taking them out in an almost methodical manner. He had thought he was prepared, but now he knew he was wrong. As he traded attacks with Erik, Andrew contemplated his next steps. A part of him wanted to let go, just let Erik's magic rip him apart or let James put a bullet through his brain; but the threat of hell, the knowledge of what waited for him on the other side, kept him going. Instead, once Delial had Erik distracted, Andrew ran for it.

He went down the back hallway before turning and quickly heading for the door. Slamming through it, Andrew ran up into the stairway, taking them two at a time. He paused at one of the windows, snatched at the locks to flip them and threw it wide, giving him access to the roof of the adjacent building below. Andrew set a ward to land safely and dropped down the two floors into the cool night air.

"Andrew, wait." He heard Mika call out to him. Andrew looked back up at her, surprised, as she leaned out. She was the last person he expected to see following him.

"And get slaughtered by demons?" He spat the words at her. "No, thank you." James and his brothers were unstoppable; Andrew saw enough of the fight to know that. He couldn't defeat them, not now. Mika was his death sentence. James would never let her go and she would never leave James. Andrew's dreams were bitter ash in his throat. He had only one thing left: to survive and try to fight another day.

Andrew turned to go, but Mika tried to crawl out after him. "Andrew!" She lowered herself the best she could to drop the twenty feet, hanging from the sill. She was too new to magic to even think of using it.

"What are you doing?" Andrew felt a stab of anger, sadness that he wouldn't be there to teach her. Still, he wouldn't let her hurt herself. He still couldn't let her go.

Mika felt herself drop. She felt the brush of Andrew's magic slow her fall, felt him catch her. His arms held her as he lowered her to stand, both of them looking at each other until she quickly stepped away. Andrew looked down for a moment before turning away, himself.

"Andrew," Mika backed away out of arm's reach, moved out into the moonlight on the roof. He sighed as she moved in front of him, blocked his retreat, determined. "Is it true?" She asked, demanded an answer. He looked at her warily. She had run from him. Why was she stopping him now? "Did you really?" Mika had trouble saying it, it was too big, but she made herself ask. Andrew was dangerous, but she had to know. The devil's eyes, Andrew's declarations, her own ignorant words in the apartment: she had to know. "Did you really kill your father to protect me? Did you give your soul, for me? Is this," She choked on the words, waved a forlorn hand between them, swung it back behind her towards the fight. "Is all of this my fault?" If it was, if there was any chance, Mika had to try to fix it.

She knows.

She knew Andrew was hell bound; the devils that circled him had made that obvious. Now Mika knew why, what he did, what he had done for her. Somehow, she had learned of his sacrifice.

Shit. She was standing there, blaming herself. Andrew's control over his own emotions had been tenuous. He turned away, felt his feelings come crashing down on him again, more painful than ever before. He should be running, but he was trapped. Mika's words...If she had to know, then so be it.

"It wasn't supposed to be like this." Andrew's anguished voice scared Mika. "It was supposed to be you and I. Together." He looked at her, sorrow and desperation warring in him. "Harold was going to free me of the pact. I was going to be free..." His voice quieted, cracked, before he pulled himself back together, faced her square on.

"My father gave me to them." Andrew's face was haunted; thoughts of the darkness that laid claim on him, that dogged him throughout his life, raced behind his words. "Before I was even born, their taint lived in me. He took everything he could from me, any chance he had. He tried to take everything." Andrew gave a wry grin, shook his head. "But not you, I wouldn't let him take you." The words were dark on his lips with a sharp edge of irony and a cut of madness that Mika recognized from his apartment.

"He wanted your grandfather's power. He already had Delial's." Mika realized Andrew was talking about the devil that had freed Sam and was up there fighting the brothers, practically on his own.

"No," Andrew spoke the word with deadly intent. "I sent him down to the devils he loved so dearly. Hell is not for an angel like you." Andrew lowered his head, shook it once more before raising it back up towards her, his features softening again. "I feel like I've known you forever from Harold's stories. I knew I wanted to be with you the moment I set eyes on you. Mika, I've been living in the shadows my whole life. Looking at you, it's like looking at the sun." It was a plea.

Mika remembered her grandfather's journal. Some of the notes hadn't made sense before, but now, "Maybe the angels..."

"Angels?" Andrew's bitter laughter rang out over the roof. "Angels aren't benevolent to the damned, Mika! I'm beyond their reach, even if they cared. I'm tainted. Owned. You heard Sam, I'm hell's bitch. The pact is bound to my soul. The angels won't raise a finger to help me. No one will. Only your grandfather... and he's dead."

Mika's anger returned when she heard Sam's name. "What about Sam? What were you doing to Sam? What, were you going to trade? A demon for your own soul?"

"No! I would never... You don't understand! I would never put anyone through the hell I'm in." Not even James? The thought crossed Andrew's mind. It was his own voice in his head and nothing could have scared Andrew more. It made him feel the darkness of the taint burrowing into him. "Please Mika, help me." He could feel the shadows closing in, but she could save him. Like Erik, Mika now had the power needed to fight the darkness, to help him destroy Delial and his claim on Andrew's soul.

"You're right, I don't understand." Mika pulled back from him further. "We could have helped you. You don't know them: James, Erik. We would have helped you!"

We would have helped you. Andrew's stomach dropped, her refusal chilling him to the bone.

"Instead, you lied to me." Mika couldn't believe him, couldn't believe what she was hearing. The world didn't work like this. Not the world she knew, the world she wanted to live in.

"No. I would never lie to you. I just didn't tell you, didn't show you everything about me." Andrew held his hands out, imploring her to understand.

"You manipulated me." Mika accused him, thinking of how she had forgotten James. How she had almost fallen for Andrew, this same night. She refused to let the feelings sway her. Refused them. Denied him.

"You tried to..." Her voice cracked.

"Yes." Andrew interrupted her, not wanting to hear her say the word. He nodded solemnly, admitting his guilt. It had been a mistake. He had made so many, but he still could not stop himself. "I thought...You liked me before. You said so. Before James had you." Andrew's voice was rough. "I saw him take you with his magic; I saw you with him, together, in his bed. But now, now I can do that too." Andrew let his eyes flash gold for a second, not to enthrall, but to prove it.

Mika gasped, flushed at his words. She finally recognized the golden magic in his eyes. Her first kiss. Sam... Guilt tore at her as she stared at Andrew in shock.

"I'm still the same man, Mika. The one who held your hand in the cemetery while we visited Harold's grave. The guy in the coffee shop, who celebrated your future with you. The one who asked for, and you gave, a kiss at your door. The man you comforted in your garden when he had done something so, so terrible. When he felt so lost..." Andrew's voice choked off. He cleared his throat, looked away. "The one who was and is terrified of losing you."

"Andrew," Mika's voice pulled him back to her.

Andrew searched her eyes and saw the one thing he never wanted to see. The love he had once thought he saw, the tenderness he had felt on a moonlit night, were gone. Her eyes held only pity; her words were cold, distant, final.

"You never had me, and you never will."