Guardian Born

by S. A. Moss

  I rested my head in my hands. “I tried, Sada. I really did. I used all the tricks Owen taught me. Maybe I’m just not cut out for this.”

  She rested a hand on my shoulder, and I squeezed my eyes against the tears that threatened.

  “What are you talking about?” Her commanding voice was soft. “You did very well. There were no human casualties.”

  “Yeah, but—” I looked up. Oh man, I did not want to talk about this. “But I… lost.”

  She shrugged. “Win. Lose. Those are only two ways of looking at it. There are many other ways. And one way is that you did the best you could in a bad situation.” She hesitated. “This job is not usually so difficult, Cam. Please don’t think we intentionally threw you to the wolves with so little preparation. Most Guardians are more like—what do the humans call them—animal control? The Fallen that slip through to the Shroud might be somewhat dangerous, but no more so than a mountain lion that comes down from the foothills in search of food in the city. They might attack, but it’s always easy to identify why they attacked—for food, for pleasure, or out of fear when cornered.”

  “The guy who attacked me wasn’t cornered. And I don’t think he was hungry.” I shivered at the memory.

  “No, I don’t think he was. Can you tell me what exactly happened?”

  I took a deep breath and told her all about the attack. I mentioned that the demon had referenced a “master” that he served, but left out the fact that I’d seen Boss Man before. I was more terrified than ever that my parents were somehow entangled with that monster, and I was afraid if the Council knew about it, they’d be even more suspicious of me.

  When I finished speaking, Sada pursed her lips. “There have been a few other attacks like this in the past few weeks. Systematic, intentional attacks.”

  I swallowed hard. “What does that mean?”

  “We don’t know. We’re looking for answers, but we truly don’t know yet. When we have more information, we’ll get the word out to all Guardians. The Fallen vastly outnumber Guardians. We’ve been able to keep them in check because so many of them, particularly the most powerful, aren’t able to cross from the Shroud to earth. The few strays that get through, we round up and send back. But… something is changing.”

  The troubled look in her eyes made my jaw clench. I sure hoped she wasn’t trying to reassure me, because if she was, it wasn’t working at all.

  “So, what do we do?” I asked anxiously.

  She smiled at me. “You keep doing exactly what you’re doing. Keep Alex safe. The Council will continue to search for answers. Arcadius has visited the Seer, but she’s unable or unwilling to tell us more about why Alex is so important. The Seer is the oldest Guardian in existence, and while she is wise and powerful, her directives can be… difficult to interpret from time to time.”

  I remembered my meeting with the Seer, and shook my head ruefully. “Yeah, I believe that.”

  “In the meantime, we’ve put almost all Guardians on active duty. Only a few remain at the Haven.”

  I bit my lip, debating whether to ask my next question. “Um, Sada? I heard from—someone—that the Council thinks these demon attacks are somehow connected to me. Is that true?”

  Her gaze darkened. “Not everyone thinks that. Adele is very wise, and she is a quick thinker. Sometimes too quick for her own good. Your arrival coincided with the beginning of these attacks. But connection is not causation, and Adele would do well to remember that.”

  “Er… right.” I nodded slowly. At least not everyone on the Council thought I was to blame—but I wondered if anyone else besides Adele had suspicions about me. Owen? I sure hoped not. Arcadius? It was hard to get a read on him, but he had let me stay on as Alex’s Guardian. He wouldn’t have done that if he thought I wasn’t trustworthy.

  Sada gave my shoulder a gentle squeeze, then stood. “All will be well, Camille. Just stay alert.” She smiled playfully. “Owen wants to come back and spar with you again soon. He said you’re a natural. He pushed you hard and was very impressed with how quickly you picked up his lessons.”

  Pride swelled in me, and I grinned. “Any time. Tell him I look forward to kicking his butt.”

  She barked a laugh, which seemed to surprise her as much as it did me. Smiling, she nodded. “I will deliver your message.”

  21

  Once she was gone, I collapsed back on the couch. My mind was reeling from an overload of information and leftover adrenaline—or whatever the undead equivalent was—from the fight.

  I heard the shower shut off, and a few minutes later Alex walked into the living room, wearing a pair of gym shorts and a white t-shirt. His hair was still damp, little water droplets collecting at the ends of the dark brown strands and dripping onto his shirt.

  He started toward the kitchen—then stopped suddenly, his back to me.

  “I know you’re there.”

  I froze.

  Oh crap.

  Pointlessly, I held my breath.

  Slowly, Alex turned around. His eyes swept the room, taking in every square inch of the space. When his gaze passed over me, I squirmed uncomfortably, but he continued on without pausing. I relaxed slightly. Okay, at least he couldn’t see me. He didn’t actually know I was here. But he sure as hell suspected something.

  Having found nothing in his perusal of the room, he sighed and scrubbed his hands over his face, then ran them through his hair. More water droplets hit his shirt.

  “Are you there? Who are you?” This time there was something else in his voice. Hope?

  I stayed stock still. I wasn’t quite sure what to do. I was positive he couldn’t see me, but I still felt a very strong urge to hide behind the couch.

  “I saw you outside the studio that day. With another girl. And it was you in the alley, wasn’t it? And at the hospital. And… today.”

  Ugh, I would make the worst superhero. This keeping my identity under wraps thing was not going well. I swallowed. It was actually incredibly difficult to hear someone talk directly to me and not respond. I’d never been good at handling awkward silences—I usually blurted out something stupid and turned them into awkward conversations.

  Alex stood stock still for several long moments. Just when I was on the verge of cracking, revealing myself, and confessing everything in a torrent of word vomit, his shoulders slumped. “Or… I’m just crazy. That is a very, very real possibility.”

  He shook his head and walked into the kitchen. I flopped back on the couch, boneless with relief. Closing my eyes and blowing out a breath, I listened to the soothing clatter of Alex fixing dinner for himself. He liked to cook, and he was actually really good at it.

  “When I was a kid, I had an imaginary friend named Rocky. I loved that movie growing up, so yeah, I stole the name for my invisible friend.”

  My eyes snapped open. I lifted my head slowly as his voice floated out of the kitchen. In all the time I’d spent with him, I’d never heard him talk to himself like this.

  So who was he talking to? Me?

  “I made my parents pretend he was real too—I even made my mom feed him. If she made me a sandwich for lunch, I’d refuse to eat until she made a second one for him. Then when she wasn’t looking, I’d eat his food. And mine too. He was my best friend for a whole summer. I’m lucky I wasn’t a little chunk by the end of the summer, eating for two like that.”

  Slowly, I crept toward the kitchen, drawn by Alex’s warm voice. He’d pulled a beer from the fridge and was cooking some pasta on the stove. He gave no indication he knew I was there, but he kept talking.

  “I knew he wasn’t real though. I just wanted him to be. Believe it or not, I was a pretty big nerd growing up.”

  I believe it. I stifled a grin, somehow afraid he’d hear even that.

  “Rocky only stuck around for one summer though. Then I got some real friends. The next summer my—real—friend Tim and I may or may not have learned the entire Luke Skywalker/Darth Vader fight scene from the end of Empire and pract
iced it for hours in my backyard. With full lightsaber sound effects, of course.”

  Leaning against the wall, I watched him cook and talk. If just a few key things were different, I could imagine we were hanging out together after a long day, cooking dinner and sharing stories about our childhoods. Of course, those things weren’t different. I was undead, he was alive, and he couldn’t see me.

  That thought made a lump form in my throat. Why did I have to find Alex after I died? Why couldn’t I have met him when I could just walk up and say “hello”? Then again, if I’d met him in real life, would I have had the guts to risk my heart and my safe little bubble like that?

  Alex chuckled, drawing me from my thoughts. “I think that’s how I got so into martial arts. What little boy doesn’t want to be a hero, right?”

  My chest warmed. I could picture him as a little kid, just like the ones in his class, practicing his favorite moves over and over. Maybe that was why he decided to teach. I wished I could ask him.

  When the pasta was done, he grabbed a plate and brought his food and beer into the living room. I followed, settling onto the couch next to him. Otis jumped up on the arm of the couch to glare at me, but I hardly noticed.

  I expected Alex to turn on the TV, maybe put on one of those Tony Jaa movies he loved so much—I had found them pretty corny at first, but I had to admit they were growing on me. But instead, he kept talking. I learned that he’d broken his arm when he was fourteen, that he moved to Chicago with his first serious girlfriend, and that he was scared of heights after an incident on a state fair roller coaster.

  I devoured every word he spoke and greedily waited for more. I hadn’t realized how lonely I was, not having anyone to talk to. And Alex’s stories about his life—some funny, some bittersweet—were filling in a more complete picture of the man before me. I had liked him from the first moment I saw him pretending to be bowled over by an eight-year-old girl’s punch. But the more time I spent with him, the more that emotion was turning into something that felt a whole lot bigger than like. Watching his lips move as he spoke, I had the strongest urge to press my own against them.

  But… I couldn’t. As nice as it was to imagine for a moment that I was a regular human girl sitting here with a regular human man, that was just a fantasy. Instead, I was an invisible undead supernatural being creeping—and crushing—on a regular human man.

  Yeah, quite a future there.

  Alex lapsed into silence for a few moments, then looked over at Otis, whose baleful yellow eyes still watched me. “I’m crazy, right?”

  He tracked Otis’s gaze to the spot on the couch where I was sitting, his eyes tracing the path several times. He sat up straighter. “Are you there?”

  Slowly, he reached up a hand, palm out.

  My mouth went dry.

  My hand twitched, then tentatively rose toward his. I wanted to touch him, to feel the rough pads of his fingertips and the warmth of his skin against mine.

  I could do it. I could fade back in right now. My body burned with the urge to do just that, to become corporeal and wrap myself in Alex’s strong arms. To look into his brilliant green eyes and have him look back into mine.

  He bit his lip, watching his own hand intently, as if waiting for mine to appear pressed against it.

  Our fingertips were inches apart when I stopped.

  No. This is such a bad idea.

  It took all my self-restraint to wrench myself off the couch. As I stood, Otis’s eyes tracked me. Alex saw the cat’s movement, and his shoulders slumped.

  As I fled into the bathroom, I thought I heard Alex mutter behind me, “Stupid.”

  He said it to himself, but he might as well have been talking directly to me.

  22

  That night, after Alex had gone to bed, I paced the living room. Otis was curled up next to Alex’s head as he slept, so at least I could do my soul searching without angry feline eyes scorching a hole in my flesh.

  Despite Sada’s reassurances, I couldn’t shake the feeling that maybe Adele was right. Maybe this was all my fault. Poking into my parents’ disappearance had somehow brought unwanted Fallen attention on me—and by extension, Alex. I had failed to uncover the truth about what happened to my mom and dad, and I’d made a deal to give up the search. If I broke that promise, I’d be putting Alex at risk again.

  And as the final cherry on top of this shit-storm sundae, I had stupidly developed a crush on the man I was supposed to be protecting.

  So… pretty much killing it at this whole Guardian thing.

  Maybe the problem was that I was trying too hard at everything. I had kept searching for my parents, despite the Council’s warning to give up my old life. I’d gotten too invested in helping Alex, risking discovery by paying his hospital bill.

  I couldn’t leave Alex alone—there was a very real possibility he was still in danger—but I could put more distance between us. A part of me hated that idea, but if I was going to be stuck with him for the next fifty or sixty years, I needed to get a handle on this.

  Feeling a bit better now that I’d made a plan, I ran some drills in the basement, focusing particularly on building shields quickly. My body had mostly recovered from the demon’s blasts, but the pain was still a fresh memory and a good motivator. When I came back upstairs, Alex was getting dressed. He stood in the bathroom, shirtless, changing the bandage on his knife wound.

  Refusing to let my gaze linger, I veered into his bedroom.

  I kept my distance for the next three days. Wherever Alex was, I was close—but with preferably at least one wall between us. When he walked to and from work, I trailed a half-block behind him. He still occasionally talked to himself, but I made it a point not to listen.

  Tonight was Seth’s birthday, and Alex had agreed to join him and some friends at a bar to celebrate. It was a weeknight, so the bar was crowded but not packed. Still, I didn’t feel like it was a smart idea to stay too far away from Alex in a setting like this. The demons had already shown they had no problems attacking innocent people to get to the one they wanted, so the crowd around Alex wouldn’t keep him safe. But I didn’t want to stand right by their table, particularly because Seth’s friend Jennifer kept scooting her stool closer and closer to Alex’s and finding reasons to lean over and speak in his ear. She wasn’t even being gross about it, which somehow made it worse. She seemed like a cool girl who was just genuinely interested in a cute guy. I had no reason to dislike her. But I still did.

  From my station by the door, I watched the table with one eye and the rest of the bar with the other.

  Suddenly, Pearl popped through the door.

  She glanced around wildly, her eyes settling on Alex without noticing me. She made a beeline toward him, and I called after her. “Pearl?”

  She whirled. “Cam! You’re here! Thank goodness.”

  “Of course I’m here. Why wouldn’t I be?” I took in her disheveled appearance. “Why are you here? How did you find us?”

  “I found the address scribbled on a piece of paper in Alex’s flat. I guessed.” She pulled me into a tight hug. Her body was shaking, and my nerves tightened.

  What the hell is going on?

  “I thought you were gone,” she whispered.

  I pulled back. “I wouldn’t leave Alex alone, Pearl. I know I did before, but I meant what I told Arcadius. I’m—”

  “No!” Her sharp voice cut me off. “Not like that.” She drew in a deep breath. “Guardians are disappearing from Earth. The Council doesn’t know what’s going on, but it looks like some kind of coordinated attack. They sent me to warn you.”

  My jaw dropped. “What? Are they being killed?”

  “I don’t think that’s possible. But they’re vanishing. Being taken somewhere.”

  “Where?”

  “We don’t know. But you have to get out of here. The Fallen will be coming.”

  “But Alex—” I glanced back at his table, suddenly terrified that he’d disappeared. He was talking and lau
ghing with his friends, and my chest unclenched a little. I turned back to Pearl. “What about Alex? I can’t just leave him.”

  “You have to, Cam! If the Fallen take you, he’ll be alone regardless. And if they’re targeting Guardians, maybe he’s safer on his own.”

  My mind raced. She had a point. “But he was attacked once already when I wasn’t there. What if this is all just a plan to get to the humans we’re supposed to be protecting?”

  “But—”

  “No! I won’t leave him, Pearl.”

  Her mouth opened again, then stayed open as her gaze shifted over my shoulder to the large window at the front of the bar.

  “Oh, bollocks,” she breathed. I’d never heard her curse before, and it would’ve been funny if the situation hadn’t felt so dire.

  My gaze followed hers, and I sucked in a breath. A demon was headed toward the bar. That alone was bad enough, but my skin chilled as I realized it was the pig-faced demon who’d kicked the crap out of me at the studio a few days ago. Bollocks was right.

  Pearl grabbed my shoulders, drawing my attention back to her. “I’ll hold him off. Go! Get out of here!”

  My eyes widened. I’d seen her throw a pretty powerful blast at a tree, but I’d never seen her fight. And I knew from experience this guy was both tough and mean. Before I could question her plan, she darted through the wall to intercept the demon in the street.

  Oh shit. Okay.

  I twisted the ends of my hair around my fingers, trying to formulate a plan. Very little came to me, but one thing was sure. I was not leaving without Alex.

  This is such a bad idea.

  With a silent prayer to—well, I wasn’t sure who—I ducked down behind a table and quickly faded in, hoping the general hubbub of the bar would disguise my sudden appearance. Standing up, I walked confidently toward the table where Alex sat with his friends. When I was about three feet away, they noticed me. Seth gave me an interested once-over, and the rest of the group followed his gaze, looking vaguely curious. But Alex’s face was a mask of shock. Nerves rocketed through my body.